Business Commons^™

A Truly Magical Summer: My Experiential Learning Credit With The Walt Disney World Cultural Exchange Program, Sierra Joseph

SASAH 4th Year Capstone and Other Projects: Publications

For my SASAH experiential learning credit, I participated in the Culture Exchange Program (CEP) at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida. This program invites international post-secondary education students to work at Disney during their summer break. I worked as a Slide Operator at the Typhoon Lagoon Waterpark. Working in the “Most Magical Place on Earth” necessitates lots of training, structure, and specific procedures to follow in this safety-critical role. While working at the waterpark was a wonderful experience, my experiential learning also existed outside working hours such as connecting with other international students and being integrated into American culture. This …

Final Report: Marketing Internships With Connected, Hadi Kiani

SASAH 4th Year Capstone and Other Projects: Publications

Working as the Marketing Coordinator Intern for a tech start-up was an amazing experience. I conducted competitor research, ghostwrote blog posts, ran social media, and aided in a complete company rebrand. Connected is a software product development firm. They partner with ambitious organizations to deliver on the potential of software-powered products. Joining the company halfway through their rebrand, I was immediately thrown into the deep end. Fortunately, I was able to leverage the research and communication skills I had honed through SASAH and translate them into successful contributions. Nevertheless, I had to learn a lot about industry standards, tech jargon, …

Experiential Learning Final Report: Forest City Film Festival And Sasah Internships, Hanbi Lee

SASAH 4th Year Capstone and Other Projects: Publications

Experiential learning can be difficult to attain in a traditional classroom environment, where knowledge is transferred rather than experienced firsthand. Moreover, that challenge is especially amplified during a global pandemic; nevertheless, experiential learning is a critical component of a student’s education, and there are ways to achieve it. One solution is to extend the learning experience beyond the confines of the classroom, where students can get a taste of the real-world work environment and a clearer picture of what their future jobs might entail.

To achieve meaningful experiential learning, I completed two 4-month internships at Western University and Forest City …

Reflecting On My Adventures In Experiential Learning, Will Sharpe

SASAH 4th Year Capstone and Other Projects: Publications

This report analyzes and reflects on my experiential learning experiences with the Forest City Film Festival and Western Libraries. I look back at my initial feelings of bewilderment and imposter syndrome and then track my progress as I’m pushed out of my comfort zone and learn the skills I need to excel. My time with the Forest City Film Festival and Western Libraries, as well as my peers’ testimonies, taught me that at SASAH, we all have the skills needed to succeed in our fields — and the experiential learning program is an excellent place to nurture them.

Final Report: Brightspark And Alumni Relations Internship, Francesca Denoble

SASAH 4th Year Capstone and Other Projects: Publications

For the first half of my Experiential Learning Credit, I worked for Brightspark Canada as an Educational Tour Leader. Brightspark Canada is a renowned travel company that operates out of Toronto, Ontario, and specializes in educational tours for elementary and high school students. As I tour leader, I travelled with schools to destinations such as Ottawa, Quebec City, and Montreal for days at a time and was responsible for executing the itinerary, providing historical spiels about the places with visited, and seeing to the safety of everyone in my group.

The skills most integral to the success of my job …

Community Of Entrepreneurs In Coworking Space, Nam Kyoon Kim

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This dissertation studies the novel phenomenon related to the social context of entrepreneurship—coworking space. Coworking spaces are known for creating a social community of entrepreneurial workforce—entrepreneurs, freelancers, contractors, remote workers, and others. The three essays that form this dissertation collectively highlight the entrepreneurial community in coworking spaces by proposing a novel typology of coworking space based on community, discovering the community building process, and analyzing user reviews of coworking spaces.

The first essay contributes to the literature on coworking space by creating novel ideal types of coworking spaces. Based on interviews conducted and archival data from 16 coworking spaces, this …

Examination Of Institutional Investment In The United States Of America From 1999 To 2018, Martin R. Lefebvre

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis examines the evolution of spatial preference of institutional investors located in the United States of America for the time period of 1999 to 2018 using a mix of exploratory data analysis techniques and more sophisticated space-time and machine learning techniques such as ESRI Space-Time cube and Latent Dirichlet Allocation topic modeling. This thesis concludes that despite having the appearance of a footloose industry due to almost negligible fixed costs, institutional investors are attracted to highly dynamic urban centres and on the 20 year time horizon, appear surprisingly sticky in their location preference. This is consistent with the belief …

Optimal Policies On Managing Drug Supply And Patient Access To Drugs, Hongmei Sun

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Health care decision-makers face several uncertainties regarding pharmaceutical products. For new and expensive drugs, the performance outside of clinical trials could be uncertain. For old and low-profit pharmaceutical products, the supply could be uncertain, causing drug shortages. In three essays, I study mitigating strategies to deal with different types of uncertainties associated with pharmaceutical products.

In the first essay, I compare two types of pharmaceutical reimbursement contracts to mitigate the uncertainties associated with new and expensive drugs. I construct a game-theoretic model to analyze the interactions between a pharmaceutical manufacturer and a payer. The payer’s reimbursement of a drug is …

Making The World A Better Place: How Crowdfunding Increases Consumer Demand For Social-Good Products, Bonnie Simpson, Martin Schreier, Sally Bitterl, Katherine White

Management and Organizational Studies Publications

Crowdfunding has emerged as an alternative means of financing new ventures wherein a large number of individuals collectively back a project. This research specifically looks at reward based crowdfunding, where those who take part in the crowdfunding process receive the new product for which funding is sought in return for their financial support. This work illustrates that consumers make fundamentally different decisions when considering contributing their money to crowdfund versus purchase a product. Six studies demonstrate that compared to a traditional purchase, crowdfunding more strongly activates an interdependent mindset and, as a result, increases consumer demand for social-good products (i.e., …

Corporate Social Responsibility And Ceo Risk-Taking Incentives, Zhichuan Li

Business Publications

We examine how firms adjust CEO risk-taking incentives in response to risk environments associated with their corporate social responsibility (CSR) standing. We find strong evidence that as a firm's CSR status improves (declines), increasing (decreasing) its risk-taking capacity, the firm responds by adjusting compensation contracts to increase (decrease) CEO risk-taking incentives (Vega). One channel of the adjustment is through stock option grants. Further analyses indicate that the positive CSR-Vega association is stronger in firms with better corporate governance and in industries where riskiness is more important. Our evidence indicates that firms are not passive in response to changes in CSR …

Drivers Of Research Impact: Evidence From The Top Three Finance Journals, Zhichuan Li, Chongyu Dang

Business Publications

We study the characteristics of all published papers in the top three finance journals (JF, JFE, and RFS) and how these paper characteristics affect the number of citations in Google Scholar and the Web of Science database. First, we find the characteristics in the universalist perspective remain constant while the characteristics in the constructivist and presentation perspectives increase over time. Second, some characteristics are significantly different between the high impact and the low impact papers. Third, paper quality, research method, journal placement, and paper age are the most important drivers. Last, different drivers play different roles in different journals.

Is Responsible Leadership Possible? Exploring The Experiences Of Business Leaders, Educators, And Scholars, Kanina Blanchard

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This study addresses a simple yet complex question: How can leaders come to make more responsible decisions within today’s highly economized context? Using narrative inquiry, I explore the stories which leaders in academia, business, and education tell about their experiences at what I call the point of impingement—the point where, as leaders, they must make decisions while facing conflicting and opposing norms and values. Underpinning the inquiry is Kempster and Carroll’s (2016) conceptualization of responsibility in leadership, and their argument that transformation toward a future in which responsible leaders address societal, ecological, and humanitarian challenges requires exploration of lived experience. …

A Walkthrough Of The Canadian Video Game Industry: An Economic Geography Perspective On The Digital Entertainment Frontier, Grant L. Morin

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The video game industry has been examined since the 1970’s, yet individual country analysis from an economic geography perspective has been lacking. It is the contribution of this dissertation to utilize the agglomeration economy and location theory literature in its application to the Canadian video game industry.

To understand this industry, a mixed-method approach is used. Kernel density maps, standard deviational ellipses, and mapping processes were used to illustrate the dispersion and clustering patterns of studios in Canada. In addition, a Poisson regression was performed using count data of the number of video game firms in census metropolitan areas. The …

"At The Very Beginning, There's This Dream." The Role Of Utopia In The Workings Of Local And Cryptocurrencies, Diane-Laure Arjalies

Business Publications

Since the 2008 financial crisis, the number of alternative currencies aiming at transforming global financial institutions, such as local and complementary currencies (LCC) and cryptocurrencies, has exploded. Yet the motivations and workings of such monies are relatively unknown. This chapter aims to fill this gap by providing a framework that uncovers the ideals pursued by alternative currencies, and the effects of those ideals on the production of money. To do so, I present a comparative analysis of the valuation infrastructure – the processes through which value(s) is produced – of one LCC, Sol Violette, and three cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin, Ğ1 …

What Trees Taught Me About Covid-19: On Relational Accounting And Other Magic, Diane-Laure Arjalies

Business Publications

While the world was on lock down, human beings started craving for green spaces. As they walked amidst the trees, trees began to talk to them. The surprising truth then emerged: There were actually secrets to be shared by the forest. This essay reflects on the teachings offered by nature(s) during the pandemic. Based on a personal encounter with a river, it caresses the relationships that have connected humans to non-humans over time and that have led to make this confinement both a unique and universal experience. It suggests embracing relational accounting, the expression of our relationships with each other …

Barriers To Senior Leadership Positions For Women In Sport Management: Perceptions Of Undergraduate Students And Insights From Their Professors, Erika L. Gray

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

A number of researchers have investigated the barriers that women often face in attempting to reach the senior leadership levels in sport management organizations (Acosta & Carpenter, 2014; Burton, Grappendorf & Henderson, 2011; Forsyth, Jones, Duval, & Bambridge, 2019; Kane & LaVoi, 2018; LaVoi & Dutove, 2012). This research extended the work of Hancock, Darvin, and Walker (2018) and focused on aspiring sport leaders at a different stage in their careers, specifically when they were in the senior years of their undergraduate programs. The researcher used the Career Pathways Survey instrument (P. Smith, Crittenden, & Caputi, 2012) to produce interval …

A Study Of Job Satisfaction And Turnover Intention Among Acute Care Nurses Working In Rural And Urban Settings, Yasin Yasin

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

In Canada, a close look at the nursing workforce shows a decline due to limited supply and increasing demand resulting in a looming shortage in the near future. Retaining nurses’ is a key strategy to overcome the shortage by limiting nurses’ turnover. Nurses’ job dissatisfaction is the most significant predictor of turnover intention and is associated with undesired outcomes such as nurses’ absenteeism, burnout, low service quality, and patient dissatisfaction. The differences in factors affecting job satisfaction between rural and urban nurses have not been fully studied. This study aimed to identify the differences and similarities in the extrinsic and …

Generalized 4/2 Factor Model, Yuyang Cheng

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

We investigate portfolio optimization, risk management, and derivative pricing for a factor stochastic model that considers the 4/2 stochastic volatility on the common/systematic factor as well as on the intrinsic factor. This setting allows us to capture stochastic volatility and stochastic covariation among assets. The model is also a generalization of existing models in the literature as it includes the mean reverting property and spillover effect to capture wider types of financial assets. At a theoretical level we identify conditions for well-defined changes of measure. A quasi-closed form solution within a 4/2 structured model is obtained for a portfolio optimization …

Edge-Cloud Iot Data Analytics: Intelligence At The Edge With Deep Learning, Ananda Mohon M. Ghosh

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Rapid growth in numbers of connected devices, including sensors, mobile, wearable, and other Internet of Things (IoT) devices, is creating an explosion of data that are moving across the network. To carry out machine learning (ML), IoT data are typically transferred to the cloud or another centralized system for storage and processing; however, this causes latencies and increases network traffic. Edge computing has the potential to remedy those issues by moving computation closer to the network edge and data sources. On the other hand, edge computing is limited in terms of computational power and thus is not well suited for …

(Un)Filtered Females: Exploring The Changing Representation Of Women In Cigarette Advertising, 1920-1940, Sophia Belyk

SASAH 4th Year Capstone and Other Projects: Publications

Throughout the first half of twentieth century, the act of smoking transitioned from being an exclusively male to a predominantly female practice. Indeed, by the end of the twentieth century merely being female was considered a serious risk to developing a smoking habit. This cultural shift is reflected in contemporary cigarette advertising, in which women begin as attractive accessories to male smokers and gradually become depicted as smoking independently. These advertisements were actively engaged with the social worlds of the women they targeted, drawing upon their contemporary concerns and values, namely those of women’s liberation and an increased attention placed …

The Experiential Learning Connections Between University And Community: Recent Ontario Experience, Emmanuel Asafo-Adjei

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Experiential Learning (EL), including a range of pedagogical approaches such as co-ops and community service learning, connect the university and its external community. Universities are considering such approaches to meet a number of needs and priorities both on and off-campus. As it unfolds rapidly at the present time, EL becomes the connection between the university and the community beyond its gates, both locally and more extensively. However, university-community or so-called town-gown (TG) connections traditionally focus on research and/or science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). This thesis focuses on the teaching and learning connections, especially in Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences …

My Internship With Scrumgenius, Alexandra Wyatt

SASAH 4th Year Capstone and Other Projects: Presentations

In her presentation, Alexandra Wyatt details her tasks and different roles and the work she accomplished during her internship with ScrumGenius. She discusses what she learned during her internship, including copywriting, vector image creation, and SEO and keyword targeting tactics to help boost the online presence of ScrumGenius and how the internship allowed her to hone many pre-existing skills in writing and content creation and develop new skills that will be very helpful in her future career and life.

Experiential Learning Final Report: Scrumgenius, Alexandra Wyatt

SASAH 4th Year Capstone and Other Projects: Publications

Alexandra Wyatt reports on her internship with ScrumGenius, a digital standup bot that works to get rid of wasted time in in-person standup meetings by asking teams a few simple questions to gather metrics on their goals, tasks and blockers. This report details her tasks and different roles and the work she accomplished, as well as what she learned from working there, including copywriting, vector image creation, and SEO and keyword targeting tactics to help boost the online presence of ScrumGenius. Alexandra discusses honing pre-existing skills in writing and content creation and developing new skills that will be helpful in …

Innovative It Use And Innovating With It: A Study Of The Motivational Antecedents Of Two Different Types Of Innovative Behaviors, Yasser Rahrovani, Alain Pinsonneault

Business Publications

The paper distinguishes two different types of innovative behaviors with information technology (IT): innovative IS use (IU) and innovating with IT (IwIT). While the former focuses on changing the technology and the work process to better support one’s existing work goals, the latter focuses on using IT to develop new work-related goals and outcomes. Drawing on Parker’s theory of proactive behavior, the paper compares the motivational antecedents and consequences of these two innovative behaviors with IT. Our model hypothesizes that three generic types of motivation differentially affect IwIT vs. IU. The paper also explores the moderating role of slack resources …

The Role Of Mutual Funds In Corporate Social Responsibility, Zhichuan Li, Saurin Patel, Srikanth Ramani

Business Publications

This paper examines the role of mutual funds in corporate social responsibility (CSR). Using a fund-level, holdings-based CSR score, we find that CSR-friendly mutual funds improve firms’ CSR standings. This effect is more pronounced for firms with higher mutual fund ownership and stronger corporate governance. We further show that while CSR-friendly mutual funds have influence on almost all CSR categories, they focus on increasing CSR strengths rather than reducing CSR concerns. We also discover that CSR-friendly funds are more likely to vote in favor of CSR proposals, and that firms owned by CSR-friendly funds are more likely to link their …

Managerial Attributes, Incentives, And Performance, Zhichuan Li, Jeffrey L. Coles

Business Publications

We examine the relative importance of observed and unobserved firm- and manager-specific heterogeneities in determining executive compensation incentives and firm policy, risk, and performance. First, we decompose executive incentives into time-variant and time-invariant firm and manager components. Manager fixed effects supply 73% (60%) of explained variation in delta (vega). Second, controlling for manager fixed effects alters parameter estimates and corresponding inference on observed firm and manager characteristics. Third, larger CEO delta (vega) fixed effects predict better firm performance (riskier corporate policies and higher firm risk). These results suggest that the delta (vega) fixed effect captures managerial ability (risk aversion).