Business Commons^™

Coordinating Over Time: The Micro-Processes Of Integrating Creativity And Control In A Dramatic Television Production, Esther R. Maier

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The pressures of continuous innovation in response to shorter product lifecycles and changing customer tastes or requirements create a constant challenge for firms expected to deliver predictable growth. Yet, the creativity needed for new product development projects often emerges in unpredictable and non-linear ways. Projects such as software development, new drug exploration, and filmmaking are knowledge-intensive undertakings where creativity is not confined to the conceptual stage of the project, but required for its duration. Different groups are often involved at different stages of the project and their creative contributions need to be conjunctive. Consequently, formal controls are required to coordinate …

Co-Ownership And Environmental Performance, Robert R. Raffety

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

In August 2011, ConocoPhillips was blamed for an oil spill off of China’s coast in the Bohai Sea. ConocoPhillips, the minority operating partner of a 51%-49% joint-venture (JV) with the China National Overseas Oil Corporation (CNOOC), immediately notified the Chinese government about the spill, but clean-up operations were delayed for weeks. In defending their efforts, ConocoPhillips explained that their joint-venture partner prevented them from containing the spill in a timely manner. This incident, and especially the division of interest and blame among the two partners, highlights the difficulty of coordinating collective action for environmental objectives within JVs.

This dissertation examines …

Leaders, Followers, And The Space Between: A Three Dimensional View Of Leader Attention And Decision-Making, Karen T. Macmillan

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

A quasi-experimental field study explores how follower voice, leader regulatory focus and leader-member exchange (LMX) affect leader attention and decision-making. The model responds to calls for more work into the interplay between leaders and followers and the effect on leadership (Avolio, 2007; Howell & Shamir, 2005), the integration of top-down and bottom-up processes that affect attention (Ocasio, 2011; Rerup, 2009); and the types, tactics, targets, and outcomes of follower voice (Morrison, 2011). Twenty-seven established leaders and their followers completed on-line instruments in a time-lagged fashion. Leaders were asked to respond to common …

Money, Morals, And Human Rights: Commercial Influences In The Marketing, Branding, And Fundraising Of Amnesty International And Human Rights Watch, Danielle Morgan

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis explores the marketing, branding, and fundraising activities of Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch and critically examines promotional texts used to communicate with the public. This thesis is multidisciplinary, combining scholarly work on the topics of history, humanitarianism, marketing, branding, commercialization, representation, and consumer culture. By adopting market logic and corporate strategies from the private sector, both organizations have increased revenue and created a strong identifiable brand. Each organization attempts to balance between the moral foundation or grassroots origins of the organization and the need to raise immediate revenue to sustain operations. This money-morals dilemma is also at …

A Free Exchange E-Marketplace For Digital Services, Wafa M. I. Ghonaim

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The digital era is witnessing a remarkable evolution of digital services. While the prospects are countless, the e-marketplaces of digital services are encountering inherent game-theoretic and computational challenges that restrict the rational choices of bidders. Our work examines the limited bidding scope and the inefficiencies of present exchange e-marketplaces. To meet challenges, a free exchange e-marketplace is proposed that follows the free market economy. The free exchange model includes a new bidding language and a double auction mechanism. The rule-based bidding language enables the flexible expression of preferences and strategic conduct. The bidding message holds the attribute-valuations and bidding rules …

Understanding Urban Development Through An Event Portfolio: A Case Study Of London, Ontario, Richelle Clark

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This study investigates the underdeveloped area of event portfolios in an attempt to fill a gap in the existing literature. This study looks at the strategic positioning of events and the critical role they play in local development. In order to understand this, a case study design was performed in a small-medium scale city in Canada. The purpose of the study was to determine how the city has utilized events for broader local development and enhancing the civic brand. Nine semi-structured interviews were conducted with local city actors and document analysis were used to further understand the strategies within the …

Clash Of The Industry Titans: Marvel, Dc And The Battle For Market Dominance, Caitlin Foster

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis examines the corporate structures, marketing strategies and economic shifts that have influenced the recent resurgence of the comic book superhero in popular Hollywood cinema. Using their original texts and adaptation films, this study will chronologically examine how each company’s brand identities and corporate structures have reacted to and been shaped by the major cultural and industrial shifts of the past century in its attempt to account for the varying success of these companies throughout their histories. Beginning with the superhero’s first appearance on screen in the 1940s, this study traces the development of Marvel and DC’s distinct brand …

The Role Of Self-Brand Overlap In Consumer Evaluations Of Brand Portfolio Management Decisions, Kendra A. Hart

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Branding research has begun to explore how loved brands are included in consumers’ self-concepts. Such self-brand overlap can enable consumers to react to brand-relevant situations as though they were self-relevant. Synthesizing theories of self-other overlap and perspective taking, self-enhancement and self-protection, as well as brand portfolios, I articulate how self-serving biased cognitions can influence consumer attitudes and behaviours toward entire brand portfolios via the consumer’s self-brand overlap with a single portfolio member.

Study 1 was designed to investigate how self-serving biases can positively affect consumer evaluations of multi-brand portfolios of which the consumer’s focal brand is a member. Potential reasons …

New Venture Creation Mode: Differences Between Nascent Intrapreneurs And Nascent Entrepreneurs, Matthias A. Tietz

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The process of new venture creation continues to fascinate practitioners and academics alike for its widespread and fundamental impact on all market economies. New ventures contribute to the economy through the jobs they create and by enhancing productivity resulting in increased economic prosperity and growth. Such important contributions underline the considerable merit attributed to understanding the determinants and consequences of new venture creation. There is little disagreement that personal, organizational, opportunity, cultural, institutional factors, etc. influence the creation of new ventures. The challenge remains to determine which factors have what kind of influence on new venture creation.

In this thesis …

The Role Of Corporate Controls, Size, And Corporate Headquarters In The Effect Of Corporate-Level Strategy On Business-Level Strategy And Business-Level Performance, S. A. Pouya Seifzadeh

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The aim of this thesis is to re-examine the relationship between corporate strategy and business unit strategy. Past research has often failed to deconstruct the notion of corporate effects to properly assess the role of corporate strategy in the behaviour and performance of business units. As a result, conflicting findings have led to researchers disagreeing on the significance of corporate effects and corporate strategy. Through this thesis, I have taken steps to clarify the misunderstood significance of corporate strategy to business-unit-level strategy and performance. This dissertation has drawn on the literature from agency theory, information processing theory, and upper echelons …

Outsourcing Family: Consumers, Culture, And Marketplaces For Care & Intimacy, Aimee L. Huff

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

In this thesis, I present an interpretive study of family members’ experiences consuming market-offered care or intimacy services for themselves or other family members. Included herein is a series of three essays that explores the phenomenon of outsourcing care and intimacy to the marketplace across three distinct contexts: mothers consuming childcare for their infants; adult siblings and their elderly parents choosing and using commercial elder care; and adult males consuming commercial sex and romance. The purpose is to develop a deep understanding of consumers’ experiences as they engage with the marketplace to consume care and intimacy, and to demonstrate that …