Business Commons^™

Assessing The Efficacy Of Cites Restrictions On Malagasy Rosewood, Nicholas Cargill

Honors Theses

This paper seeks to determine whether the CITES trade restrictions on rosewood have been effective. Effectiveness will be measured by the amount of illegal logging the restrictions reduce. The Matt Hansen Global Deforestation dataset, which measures deforestation from year to year, will be analyzed in the Google Earth Engine Code Editor to determine the yearly amount of deforestation in Madagascar. This output will then be loaded into R and assessed using OLS estimation techniques to determine whether the ban had a significant impact on the amount of illegal logging occurring in Madagascar. Because CITES restrictions are lifted and restored with …

Permissions Between Creators And Users: An Investigation Of Particulars In Privacy Policies For Mobile Apps, Abbigail Griffith

Honors Theses

Mobile apps create a space for users to share information with other users and, in doing so, the creators of the applications. Generally, the greater amount of sharing information that occurs between users and creators enhances the experience of the apps for both parties. However, the extent to which mobile apps use this information can cause concerns with users about privacy due to the unknown practices of mobile apps relevant to data collection, data sharing, and data storage.

Documents, such as privacy policies, exist in attempts to moderate these concerns. Additionally, mobile apps offer in-app features for the same reasons. …

How To Plan, Budget, Write, And Implement A Student Sustainability Grant, Annalisa Wilder

Honors Theses

The Student Sustainability Grant program was created to give students valuable grant writing experience and to promote a culture of sustainability on Western Michigan University’s campus. Despite the enormous opportunity that this program provides, few students apply for the grants with their sustainable ideas. Even fewer students are able to fully complete the projects, research, and initiatives that receive funding. In order to help increase the number of grants that are fully implemented and to provide students interested in writing a grant with a useful resource, this guide was created. This ‘how-to manual’ provides an undergraduate student’s perspective on the …

Treat Transparency, Amanda Van Giesen

Honors Theses

Snacking is Growing at an Alarming Rate

As modern lifestyles change, and consumers grow ever busier, snacking is becoming a more important part of the traditional consumer’s schedule. According to Nielsen, global consumers spent roughly $374 billion dollars on snack foods between the years of 2014 and 2015 (Nielsen, 2014).

Why Students?

With college students potentially becoming customers as they begin to make their own purchase decisions, an analysis of this group and their relationships with snacks is key for manufacturers. According to my study, 73.5% of survey respondents indicated that they have consumed seven or more snacks during the …

Kalamazoo Wings Student Participation Campaign, Kelly Hughes

Honors Theses

This public relations campaign is to increase participation of Western Michigan University students at Kalamazoo Wings hockey games. The *millennial audience represents 25-30% of many professional sports teams’ overall revenue base (Fisher 2015). Western Michigan University students have low participation at Kalamazoo Wings hockey games since they do not even make up 1% of the fans that attend Kalamazoo Wings games. The campaign goal is to increase participation of Western Michigan University students at Kalamazoo Wings hockey games by 25% by May 2018. *Millennial: A person reaching young adulthood in the early 21st century.

My research has indicated that the …

Cross Cultural Study Of Food And Cpg Products In A New Market: Case Study In The United States Vs Thailand, Mariel Dehn

Honors Theses

This study examines whether there are differences in consumers’ shopping behavior due to cultural orientation. The study uses comparing samples of American and Thai culture on two occasions. Theory suggests that these two cultural groups have dramatically different shopping practices. Thai, raised in a collectivist society that values price consciousness and sophistication in money handling, differ from Americans raised in an individualist society that traditionally do not have the same values (Ackerman and Tellis 2001).

We argue that differences in culture provide the most likely explanation for the differences in prices between the two types of super markets. The overall …

An Analysis Of Gender Effects And Career Choices In Public Accounting, Amanda M. Odom

Honors Theses

Public accountants and students evaluated career success before and after career actions by public accountants, represented by resumes that were randomly assigned traditionally male or feminine names. Bias in favor of the resumes with a traditionally male name was initially detected, but after implementing recommendations from subjects, subject assessments favored resumes with a traditionally female name. This suggests that career choices matter and that choices can mitigate or even overcome gender bias in public accounting.

For The Fund$ Of It: Product Development, Josie Marshall

Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

Mud Volleyball Tournament Fundraiser Event Supporting The Water Project, Autumn Gammon

Honors Theses

The WMU Mud Volleyball Tournament took place on September 26, 2015 as Autumn Gammon and Morgan DeBoer’s honors thesis project for the Lee Honors College. The tournament was a fundraising event that helped bring awareness to The Water Project, a non-­‐profit organization that is dedicated to bringing clean water systems to communities throughout Sub-­‐Sahara Africa. Held at the Kalamazoo County Expo Center and Fairgrounds, the event brought together Western Michigan University students and surrounding community members for a fun-­‐filled day in the mud supporting a deserving cause.

The event took a great deal of organizing, with planning starting in the …

"The Living Building Challenge", Giovanni Roberto

Honors Theses

As we look around our community and the world, it becomes very apparent that we are facing many environmental, social and economic issues. In hope to make strides toward a positive future, the International Living Future Institute has developed many stringent programs, one of them being the Living Building Challenge (The Challenge). The Challenge is working to fix the problems of the built environment and to restore the negative impacts our building, landscapes, structures, etc. are having on the Triple Bottom Line (People, Planet, Profit).

The Challenge’s mission states:

To encourage the creation of Living Buildings, Landscapes and Neighborhoods in …

Leadership: Learning To Surf Into A Wave Of Change, Zachary Putnam

Honors Theses

In recent decades, leaders have needed to learn to surf into the wave of change. Throughout the business world, there are number of changes that are currently happening. The ideals of surfing can be used as an analogy to guide how leaders should react to these changes. Leadership is a process of influencing people, and it continues to change with the uncertainty and ambiguity in the business world today. Therefore, it is important to try to move through the five levels of leadership: position, permission, production, people development and personhood. Over the past decades, the nature, scope and intensity of …

Navigating The Skills Of Successful Leaders In Business And Sailing, Aras Karaitis

Honors Theses

This research starts by examining some men who have achieved great success in both business and sailing. Looking at the skills and competencies that set these men apart from their competition. The research shows how leaders in both situations organize teams, motivate, and build trust among their individual team members. While gaining an understanding of the value of using a Kaizen approach to leadership in order to promote an atmosphere of continuous improvement and open communication. The research also examines how successful leaders in both business and sailing monitor and react to the external environment, consistently working to manage risk, …