Business Commons^™

Predictors Of Covid-19 Vaccination Rate In Usa: A Machine Learning Approach, Syed M. I. Osman, Ahmed Sabit

WCBT Faculty Publications

In this study, we examine state-level features and policies that are most important in achieving a threshold level vaccination rate to curve the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. We employ CHAID, a decision tree algorithm, on three different model specifications to answer this question based on a dataset that includes all the states in the United States. Workplace travel emerges as the most important predictor; however, the governors’ political affiliation (PA) replaces it in a more conservative feature set that includes economic features and the growth rate of COVID-19 cases. We also employ several alternative algorithms as a robustness check. …

Forecasting Variance Swap Payoffs, Jonathan Dark, Xin Gao, Thijs Van Der Heijden, Federico Nardari

WCBT Faculty Publications

We investigate the predictability of payoffs from selling variance swaps on the S&P500, US 10-year treasuries, gold, and crude oil. In-sample analysis shows that structural breaks are an important feature when modeling payoffs, and hence the ex post variance risk premium. Out-of-sample tests, on the other hand, reveal that structural break models do not improve forecast performance relative to simpler linear (or state invariant) models. We show that a host of variables that had previously been shown to forecast excess returns for the four asset classes, contain predictive power for ex post realizations of the respective variance risk premia as …

Empirical Studies Of Esg Scores With Corporate Credit Spreads (Insights From Popularity-Based Pricing), Eugene Okyere-Yeboah

Doctoral Dissertations (DBA)

This study examines various factors or characteristics (risk and non-risk) that determine a firm’s credit risk premium, as measured by its credit default swap (CDS) spread, with a particular focus on the impact of environment, social, and governance (ESG) scores. The framework employed is a general equilibrium asset pricing model which integrates classical and behavioral finance elements, known as popularity-based asset pricing. It treats all attributes or characteristics of an asset as ”factors” to which investors assign a degree of popularity, which changes over time. Non-risk characteristics are classified as ”tastes” or ”disagreements”, Fama French (2007). Firms’ degree of adherence …

10 Good Reasons Why Llcs Should Not Elect To Be S Corporations, Paul N. Iannone, Danny A. Pannese

WCBT Faculty Publications

Since 2004, the IRS has administratively made S elections for limited liability companies (LLCs) very easy. An LLC that is otherwise eligible to be an S corporation that is classified as a partnership or a disregarded entity can simultaneously elect to be classified as both a corporation and an S corporation by timely filing Form 2553, Election by a Small Business Corporation, without the need to also file Form 8832, Entity Classification Election. The Treasury regulations treat the "one-stop-shop" rule as a "deemed election" under the entity classification regulations.

Securing Repo: Counterparty Risk And Collateral Supply Effects In The Tri-Party Repo Market, Stephen H. Frank

Doctoral Dissertations (DBA)

I examine the co-variance between tri-party repurchase agreement (repo) spreads and proxies for collateral values and counterparty risk. Since the Global Financial Crisis of 2008 (GFC), the Federal Reserve (Fed) has taken measures to mitigate repo market instability. These measures have collectively placed the Fed astride repo markets as ongoing borrower, lender and purchaser of US Treasury and Agency securities. By analyzing the relationships between repo spreads, the US 10-year yield and the TED spread, I assess the effectiveness of Fed measures to mitigate repo market instability. Using multiple breakpoint Bai-Perron regression and Markov Switching tests, I find that these …

National Culture And Attitudes’ Impact On Diffusion Of Sustainable New Technology-Based Products, Mayank Jaiswal, Lee Zane

New England Journal of Entrepreneurship

Purpose – Sustainability is increasingly becoming an essential aspect of technological innovations. In addition, the diffusion of sustainable new technology-based products appears to be uneven across the globe. The authors examine the effect of three country-level Hofstede measures of culture and two national-level innovation characteristics on the diffusion of Sustainable New Technology-based Products (SNTP).

Design/methodology/approach – Regression and Necessary Conditions Analysis were used to analyze a panel dataset of electric and hybrid vehicles sales from 2008 to 2017 across 89 countries.

Findings – Results suggest Long-Term Orientation (LTO) was correlated with SNTP diffusion, Indulgence (IVR) was partially correlated with SNTP …

Demystifying Entrepreneurial Name Choice: Insights From The Us Biotech Industry, Irina Stoyneva, Veselina Vracheva

New England Journal of Entrepreneurship

Purpose – Drawing from legitimacy entrepreneurship theory, this study assesses the naming patterns of entrepreneurial firms in the US biotechnology industry.

Design/methodology/approach - The authors use a mixed-methods design of content analysis and regression to analyze a sample of 441 entrepreneurial biotechnology firms, for which data were obtained from Net Advantage. The authors track changes to the proportion of firms with naming attributes, such as name length and type of name. The authors also examine variability in those characteristics during the industry’s evolution, comparing freestanding to acquired start-ups.

Findings - Start-ups select names that are longer, more descriptive, begin with …

Co-Jumps, Co-Jump Tests, And Volatility Forecasting: Monte Carlo And Empirical Evidence, Weijia Peng, Chun Yao

WCBT Faculty Publications

This study classifies jumps into idiosyncratic jumps and co-jumps to quantitatively identify systematic risk and idiosyncratic risk by utilizing high-frequency data. We found that systematic risk occurs more frequently and has larger magnitudes than the idiosyncratic risk in an individual asset, which indicates that volatilities from one sector are largely derived from the contagious effect of other sectors. We further investigated the importance of idiosyncratic jumps and co-jumps to predict the sector-level S&P500 exchange-traded fund (ETF) volatility. It was found that the predictive content of co-jumps is higher than that of idiosyncratic jumps, suggesting that systematic risk is more informative …

The New Accounting For Operating Leases: Unintended Consequences In The Airline Industry, Renata Bandeira, Bridget M. Lyons, Carolyn Trabuco

WCBT Faculty Publications

By 2020, new accounting rules for operating leases were applicable to publicly traded companies reporting under either the US Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) or International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). The accounting authorities under both standards noted that the new rules were developed to increase the transparency of lease transactions to provide more relevant and comparable information. We compare two Brazilian airlines reporting under IFRS, Azul and Gol, with an operationally similar US airline reporting under US GAAP, JetBlue, to determine whether the new standards improve the ability to understand, evaluate, and compare performance, managerial decision making and credit metrics. …

Valuation Challenges Arising From The New Leasing Standard Asc 842: A Teaching Note, Bridget M. Lyons

WCBT Faculty Publications

Accounting Standards Codification (ASC) Topic 842, the new accounting standard on leasing, aims to improve transparency related to leasing and to enable users of financial statements to more readily compare firms that lease with firms that borrow to buy assets. The standard is effective for 2020 and has had a significant impact on the balance sheets of many firms. This note provides an overview of the accounting changes and highlights key issues related to financial analysis and valuation with guidance on how to avoid common errors and accurately calculate and compare enterprise value, EBIT, EBITDA, valuation multiples and key valuation …

The Coronavirus Shopping Anxiety Scale: Initial Validation And Development, Ruchika Sachdeva

WCBT Faculty Publications

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to develop a scale to measure coronavirus shopping anxiety. Numerous studies have developed a scale for measuring coronavirus anxiety and fear, notably absent is a concerted effort to review and assess the impact of coronavirus on the shopping anxiety of consumers. This scale fulfills this gap.

Design/methodology/approach

The steps taken for checking the various psychometrics of the scale include item generation, followed by exploratory factor analysis (EFA) through SPSS and confirmatory factor analysis through AMOS. The data were collected from over 208 respondents.

Findings

This study resulted in the development of a nine-item …

Gender Differences In The Impact Of Worklife On Executives’ Psychological Health, Marcus B. Mueller

WCBT Faculty Publications

The Impact of Worklife on Executives’ Psychological Health Purpose: This is the first scientific research studying the impact of worklife factors on executives’ psychological health by gender. The study has a particular focus on the factors of ‘Community’ and ‘Work-life balance’.

Design: Survey data were collected from N=481 senior executives to measure seven worklife factors and psychological health. Standardized regression analysis was performed for each worklife in a regression model predicting psychological health by gender.

Findings: Results showed significant differences between female and male senior executives in the profiles of seven worklife factors in terms of their relationship with …

Quantifying The Evidential Value Of Celebrity Endorsement: A P-Curve Analysis, Shiyun Chloe Tian, Ruoyu Sun, Qian Huang, John Petit

WCBT Faculty Publications

Celebrity endorsements have long been used as a promotional tool in marketing communication. However, literature has documented inconsistent findings on the effects of celebrity endorsements compared to no endorsement or noncelebrity endorsements, suggesting a close examination about the reliability and robustness of celebrity endorsements is needed. This study conducted a p-curve analysis among two sets of published studies based on different comparison groups (celebrity endorsements vs. no celebrity endorsement; celebrity endorsements vs. noncelebrity endorsements) to investigate if both sets of studies contain an evidential value. The significantly right-skewed p curve suggests that both sets of published studies have some integrity. …

How Do Consumers In General Evaluate, Judge, And Act Toward Shoplifting? The Moderating Effects Of Personal Characteristics And Motives Shoplifting?, Juehui Shi, Ngoc (Cindy) Pham, Claudio Schapsis, Tofazzal Hossain, Arturo Z. Vasquez-Párraga

WCBT Faculty Publications

Despite the seriousness of shoplifting, consumers’ evaluations, judgements, and intentions toward shoplifting remain underexplored by scholars from business ethics, marketing, retailing, and consumer behavior. We propose a new shoplifting ethics model, which integrates Hunt and Vitell’s theory of ethics with Nadeau, Rochlen, and Tyminski’s typology of shoplifting, by incorporating the moderators of consumers’ personal characteristics (i.e., age, gender, marital status, income) and shoplifting motives (i.e., social, experiential, economic, emotional) onto the relationships among deontological evaluation, teleological evaluation, ethical judgment, and intention. Based on a two-by-two randomized experimental design, two shoplifting cases (i.e., swapping price tags, stealing products) are investigated in …

Pandemic, Perceived Risk, And Cognitive Dissonance As Antecedents To Need For Cognitive Closure, Ruchika Sachdeva

WCBT Faculty Publications

The purpose of this article is to examine the influence of the pandemic, perceived risk, and cognitive dissonance on the need for cognitive closure. A consumer today wants an aversion towards the ambiguity that is created due to this pandemic. The data is collected using Amazon’s Mechanical Turk panel. All of the filled questionnaires are analyzed using stepwise regression. The findings suggest that perceived risk, pandemic, and cognitive dissonance influence the need for cognitive closure, and perceived risk is the major predictor of cognitive closure. These results enrich our understandings with regards to the importance of designing the marketing strategies …

Architectural Dimensions Of Socially Driven Venture Capital Firms: Social Innovation In The Capital Markets, Raymond Jones, Manjula S. Salimath

New England Journal of Entrepreneurship

Purpose – Private equity and venture capital (VC) firms in the capital markets sector invest capital with the primary goal of delivering economic value. However, some firms in the capital markets sector have started to shift this focus to create (i.e. invest in) social value. More specifically, traditional VC firms are starting socially oriented funds, while other firms have emerged to focus solely on investments in social enterprises. These VC firms are contributing to an interesting paradox – performance metrics are not measured by profit alone but also by social innovation. From an architectural perspective, the authors examine the implications …

Problems Of Political Unrest: Women In Small Businesses In Bangladesh, Jasmine Jaim

New England Journal of Entrepreneurship

Purpose – Whereas the extant literature on women’s entrepreneurship is almost exclusively focused on developed nations, the effect of many context-specific issues of other countries on ventures of women has been overlooked. The study aims to reveal how political unrest, a common feature of the developing nation, can significantly affect the experiences of women in small businesses of that region.

Design/methodology/approach – This feminist research is conducted on Bangladesh, which is one of the most politically unstable countries in the world. The study conducts interviews with women to explore the adverse effect of political unrest on their small firms. Findings …

Impact Of College Education On Incorporated And Unincorporated Self-Employment: Variations Among African Americans And Hispanics, Xuguang Guo, Wei Chen, Denis Iurchenko

New England Journal of Entrepreneurship

Purpose – This study examines the impact of college education on incorporated and unincorporated selfemployments. It specifically compares the effects on African Americans and Hispanics with the effects on Whites.

Design/methodology/approach – The study sample was drawn from the US Current Population Survey between 1989 and 2018. Based on a sample size of 1,657,043 individuals, this study employed logit regression models to test the hypotheses. Racial variations were examined using African Americans and Hispanics as moderators.

Findings – The results suggest that college education increases incorporated self-employment and reduces unincorporated self-employment. The impact of college education on incorporated self-employment is …

Polychronicity, Decision-Making And Entrepreneurial Self-Efficacy Of Venture Team Founders: An Exploratory Study, Hsing-Er Lin, Rachel S. Shinnar, Yongchuan Shi, Dan Hsu

New England Journal of Entrepreneurship

Purpose - This study explores the role of polychronic temporal orientation and decision-making decentralization on founders' perceptions of entrepreneurial self-efficacy (ESE).

Design/methodology/approach - Longitudinal survey data were collected from 141 business founders in China.

Findings - Findings suggest that decision-making decentralization is positively associated with founders' ESE. In addition, a polychronic temporal orientation is positively related to ESE, and this relationship is mediated by decision-making decentralization.

Originality/value - This study adds to existing knowledge on ESE and temporal related issues by presenting empirical evidence that explains how and why the temporal orientation context and the practice of decision-making decentralization can …

An Examination Of How Personal Characteristics Moderate The Relationship Between Startup Intent And Entrepreneurship Education, Tyler Burch, Neil M. Tocher, Gregory Murphy

New England Journal of Entrepreneurship

Purpose - While research has identified a consistent link between startup intent and entrepreneurship education (EE) intentions, studies also indicate that many entrepreneurs lack the EE they need. However, research examining factors that explain why certain individuals with high startup intent pursue EE while others do not is rare.Given this, the purpose of this paper is to examine how individual characteristics moderate the startup intent EE intentions relationship.

Design/methodology/approach - Survey data were gathered on 199 US adults. Moderators examined include attitudes toward education, perceived entrepreneurial efficacy, propensity for risk taking and the Big Five personality traits. Linear regression models …

Thinking About Developing Business Leadership For The Post-Covid World, Stephen M. Brown, Martha J. Crawford

New England Journal of Entrepreneurship

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of a successful model on how to prepare business students to be successful in a new, post-pandemic world that faces enormous social challenges.

Design/methodology/approach– The article discusses the current business and social movements that suggest the relevance of social entrepreneurship and explain the pedagogical model developed at the Center for Nonprofits at Sacred Heart University.

Findings– The article suggests how this pedagogical model may provide students with the skills, attitudes and values required for successful social entrepreneurship processes.

Research limitations/implications– The article presents the current picture which will undoubtedly …

Guest Editorial : New Trends In Entrepreneurship: A Global Context, Jun Li, Irem Demirkan, Younggeun Lee, Andrés Felipe Cortés

New England Journal of Entrepreneurship

When management guru Peter Drucker wrote about entrepreneurship in 1984 (Drucker, 1984), entrepreneurial activities were primarily perceived as an American phenomenon. Today, entrepreneurship has spurred globally, from developed countries to emerging economies, thanks to accelerated globalization, integration of people and cultures, and rapid technological innovation. While Drucker’s focus on entrepreneurial decisions in the late 1980s was mainly about established corporations, millions of empowered individual entrepreneurs are increasingly recognized as the backbone of the global economy (Khanna, 2007). Thomas Friedman once described this stage of globalization as globalization 4.0, which features empowered entrepreneurial individuals (Friedman, 2005). New technology, especially information and …

Investigating The Mediating Role Of Market Orientation Between Internal Marketing And The Development Of Entrepreneurial Orientation Within Private Sports Clubs, Hossein Mansouri, Saeed S. Boroujerdi, Michael Polonsky, Maizaitulaidawati M. Husin, Mehdi Seydi

New England Journal of Entrepreneurship

Purpose–This studyexamines the role of market orientation in the relationship between internal marketing and entrepreneurial orientation within private sports clubs.

Design/methodology/approach–The research is a descriptive-correlational study based on private sports clubs employees within Iran (Sanandaj). A theoretical model was developed based on the literature and tested using SPSS and PLS-SEM software.

Findings– The findings indicate a positive relationship between internal marketing and employees’ entrepreneurial orientation. Market orientation has also played a positive mediating role in the relationship between internal marketing and entrepreneurial orientation.

Originality/value– The results suggest a higher level of market orientation in the organization can increase teamwork and, …