Business Commons^™

A Mixed Methods Study: Evaluating The Relationship Of Project Manager Competencies And It Project Management Methodologies, Keith A. Mcdermott

Open Access Theses

Determining skillsets that are particularly important to the development of an effective project manager can be useful for a variety of applications. These applications range from the hiring of a new project manager for an organization to continued training for current employees. Past research has called upon current project managers to rate what skillsets they see as important to the cultivation of an optimal or effective project manager. Additional research has expanded this idea to determine how skillsets vary between project managers and functional managers (El-Sabaa, 2001). While this research is certainly important, skillset grouping can be further explored. This …

User Acceptance Barriers For Warehouse Environment Mobile Wireless Technology, Anran Wang

Open Access Theses

This research adopted Technology Acceptance Model 2 to investigate users’ acceptance barriers for mobile wireless technologies such as RFID, bar-code scanners and Personal Digital Assistants (PDA) in warehouse environments in Lafayette and West Lafayette, Indiana.

Through survey data collections from two companies that met the research requirement and through statistical analysis of the data, the researcher found answers to the research question.

System functionality is the most important factor in determining the users’ intention to use. System failure would be the biggest acceptance barrier. Secondly, it is critical for companies to establish and strengthen the link between job relevance and …

Investigating U.S. Resident Perceptions Of Corporate Social Responsibility In Food And Agriculture, Carissa Jae Morgan

Open Access Theses

Corporations are prioritizing corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities by investing in and actively promoting their social practices. In the U.S. of the modern food supply chain creates a unique challenge for corporations to address concerns about social issues of consumers and non-consumers alike. This study is motivated by the need to better understand individuals’ perceptions of CSR as it pertains to the food supply chain. In April 2015 an online survey collected information from 1,201 U.S. residents with the objective of investigating individuals’ perceptions of relative importance of eight prominent CSR areas relevant to food and agriculture. Demographic, household consumption, …

A Framework For Organizational Performance Assessment In The Construction Industry, Zenith Rathore

Open Access Theses

Organizations have been trying to increase their efficiency and improve their performance in order to achieve their goals. Organizational success is determined by various factors that impact organizational performance. Construction industry is a project based industry which is extremely dynamic in nature. The need to identify the weak points and search solutions to improve performance of construction organization is extremely crucial. Previous research works have primarily focused on the measurement of financial or tangible assets. Industry has always focused on measure of project success. However, previous studies lack the understanding of qualitative factors and their combine effect on organizational performance. …

A Methodology For Cooperation Between Electric Utilities And Consumers For Microgrid Utilization Based On A Systems Engineering Approach, Franklin E. Pacheco Chiguano

Open Access Theses

In recent years, the energy market has experienced important challenges in its structure and requirements of its actors, such as the necessity for more reliable electric service, energy efficiency, environmental care practices, and the incorporation of decentralized power generation based on distributed energy resources (DER). Given this context, microgrids offer several advantages to the grid and its actors. However, few microgrid projects have been implemented, and the participation of electric utilities is lower than the expected. Hence, this research explores how electric utility - customer interactions can accommodate mutual benefits for both parties through the proposal of a Microgrid Reference …

Comparison Of Stakeholder Management And Change Management Factors In Managing Successful Versus Unsuccessful It Projects, Ishita Viren Shah

Open Access Theses

The purpose of this study is to conduct a meta-analysis of published case studies of projects, which are driven by information technology (IT) and are using a formal organizational change management method to manage those changes. It also identifies the common factors that influence the success or failure of a project. Change impacts people directly or indirectly and much of the research proves that people tend to resist change. The study reviews recent research and discusses the evolution of change management and current practices. The study focuses on finding the case studies published in well-known journals. It also analysis the …

Implementation And Validation Of A Probabilistic Open Source Baseball Engine (Posbe): Modeling Hitters And Pitchers, Rhett Tracy Schaefer

Open Access Theses

This manuscript details the implementation and validation of an open source probabilistic baseball engine (POSBE) that focuses on the hitter and pitcher model of the simulation. The simulation produced outcomes that parallel those observed in actual professional Major League Baseball games. The observed data were taken from the nineteen games played between the New York Yankees (NYY) and Boston Red Sox (BOS) during the 2015 season. The potential hitter/pitcher outcomes of interest were singles, doubles, triples, homeruns, walks, hit-by-pitch, and strikeouts. The nineteen game series was simulated 1000 times, resulting in a total of 19,000 simulations. The eighteen hitters and …

The Use Of Business Intelligence Techniques In Supply Chain Performance, Jue Gu

Open Access Theses

Who likes data? Businesses are always loyal data followers. Companies analyze various forms of data to maintain businesses and identify their current performance in different areas so they can find business opportunities to improve and obtain more market share in advance (Qrunfleh & Tarafdar, 2012). When Big Data comes to businesses, companies who can take advantage of data the best tend to regularly get more business and customers (Waller & Fawcett, 2013). Collecting, analyzing, and demonstrating data could be essential to a single business, a company's supply chain performance and its sustainability. As an intelligent data processing product in terms …

Field To Flight: A Techno-Economic Analysis Of Stover To Aviation Biofuels Supply Chain, Amanda C. Bittner

Open Access Theses

Greenhouse gas emissions have been a growing concern. The transportation sector contributes to one-third of GHG emissions in the United States from fossil fuel burning. The Renewable Fuel Standard set a requirement for 16 billion gallons (ethanol equivalent) of cellulosic biofuels to be used in the market. Aviation biofuels can help to meet both of these problems as well as improve U.S. energy security.

Investment in the biofuel industry carries a lot of risk. The biofuel industry is run by the private sector, but can be incentivized by government. Cellulosic biofuels carry even more risk than first generation biofuels, because …

Assessing The User Experience When Using Mobile Augmented Reality In Advertising, Shanshan Li

Open Access Theses

Facing huge profits brought by applying augmented reality (AR) to advertising on mobile devices, this study investigated the user experience from four dimensions as emotional, instrumental, motivational and social experience when using AR as an advertising tool. It aims to help designers understand that how the user experience emerges during the use of AR advertising tool. In addition, providing some design suggestions to AR designer. Eighteen participants were recruited and the data were collected through observation and interviews. According to the results, users evaluated their emotional experience higher than the other three dimensions. The AR's value in building brand awareness …

A Lean Logistics Assessment Tool For Smes In The Manufacturing Sector, Diana Lorena Sanchez Ramirez

Open Access Theses

This study developed an assessment tool to rate the maturity of the current and desired states of lean logistics operations in small and medium enterprises. The tool consists of 48 best practices classified into 8 critical factors: Inventory, Transportation, Administration, Information Systems, Warehouse, Forecasting, Packaging and Supplier Network. Each of the best practices and critical factors were identified throughout a thorough literature review and comparative analysis between authors to define commonalities among them. Using gap analysis; this tool results in a SWOT matrix providing a roadmap for lean implementation. The resulting model was evaluated by subject matter experts in different …

Guidelines For Construction Companies To Decide Between Outsourcing And Self-Performing For Prefabricated Components, Sebastian Soto Ortiz

Open Access Theses

Prefabrication and modularization has been used in the construction industry for decades. It has recently made a resurgence worldwide providing increased productivity, safety, quality and construction schedule. This research has focused on the situation where a construction company has decided to use prefabrication and faces two possibilities, they either will self-perform or they will outsource the construction of the prefabricated components. The decision making process used by a construction company to determine whether to outsource or self-perform prefabricated components is examined and analyzed.

Prefabrication is an industrial process in which certain components are manufactured in a specialized facility. These items …

An Analysis On Causes Of Late Final Payment And Release Of Retainage: Electrical Subcontractors’ View, Xuejing Zhang

Open Access Theses

Using the survey approach, this study identified the underlying causes of late payments and release of retainage for electrical subcontractors, attempting to answer the questions, "What were the minimum, maximum and average delay days of final payment and release of retainage?", "What were the rank of factors in terms of significance on delaying final payment and release of retainage?", and "What were the rank of factors in terms of frequency on delaying final payment and release of retainage?" A survey questionnaire was developed and distributed to about 150 professionals in electrical subcontractors. 29 reports were collected. Based upon the analysis …

Integrating The Sap Software Into The Manufacturing Engineering Curriculum, Lin Qian

Open Access Theses

The concept of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) was developed to integrate data efficiently and eliminate redundancy within organizations. Worldwide industries rely on ERP systems to keep a competitive advantage in world market place. Besides, cross-functional knowledge is required in industry. It is critical that schools integrate ERP concepts and methods in to academic curricula for Technology and Engineering School.

This thesis examined the effectiveness of a simulation game as a method for teaching for ERP systems in Technology and Engineering. The quasi-experimental design was used in this study to determine if the SAP simulation game had an impact on students' …