Business Commons^™

Intercultural Accommodation Of Ethnic Minority Consumers: An Empirical Examination Of The Moderating Effects In Service Encounters, Sarah Mady

Theses and Dissertations in Business Administration

The current study proposed a model of intercultural accommodation and nine emergent hypotheses grounded in three theories: Accommodation Theory, Distinctiveness Theory and the Elaboration Likelihood Model. The study expected that the offering of a service in the minority consumer's language and by an ethnically-similar service provider will lead to favorable service quality perceptions, in the absence of any intervening variables. Ethnic minority consumers were also expected to differ in their perceptions of service quality when intercultural accommodation efforts were or were not offered given a number of intervening variables. The proposed model and the nine hypotheses were assessed via a …

Three Essays On Individual Currency Traders, Boris Sebastian Abbey

Theses and Dissertations in Business Administration

This dissertation examines the performance, skill and trading characteristics of individual currency traders by examining daily returns and transaction data for 428 individual currency traders from 2005 to 2009. Additionally, we examine whether technical trading strategies are profitable for individual currency traders.

The first essay examines the performance and trading characteristics of individual currency traders. Examination of daily returns for 428 accounts from March 2004 to September 2009 shows traders are able to earn positive excess returns, even after accounting for transaction costs. Additionally, the results reveal that day traders not only trade more frequently than non-day traders, but also …

What Drives U.S. Banking Mergers: Misvaluation, Gambling Or Envy?, Wenjia Zhang

Theses and Dissertations in Business Administration

The thesis consists of three essays that examine whether U.S. bank mergers are motivated by market inefficiency and managerial psychology biases. Essay I investigates equity misvaluation as a possible driver for United States banking mergers from the perspective of market inefficiency, and finds that bidders tend to use overvalued equity to buy undervalued targets. Essay II, motivated by the cumulative prospect theory of Tversky and Kahneman (1992), tests whether managerial gambling attitudes are linked with lottery characteristics of target banks (i.e., high skewness, high volatility, and low price). The evidence shows that banking acquisitions are influenced by gambling attitudes rooted …

Two Essays On The Effect Of Macroeconomic News On The Stock Market, Ajay Kongera

Theses and Dissertations in Business Administration

This dissertation uses macroeconomic variables. In the first essay I use macroeconomic variables to determine if these variables affect the market's returns and volatilities, and in the second essay I examine whether the 11-month returns can be explained by these variables.

Using macroeconomic variables and forecasts of these variables on a quarterly basis from the Survey of Professional Forecasters, I first develop macroeconomic surprise variables. The macroeconomic surprise variables are then modified by dispersion of forecasts to adjust for surprises from uncertainty. Dispersion adjusted forecast surprises have not been used extensively in the literature. I also use a monetary shock …

The Behavior And Choices Of Serial Bidders In M&A Transactions: A Prospect Theory Approach, Ahmed Essam El-Din El-Bakry

Theses and Dissertations in Business Administration

This paper investigates the impact of previous losses incurred by U.S serial bidders on their M&A strategic choices and premiums paid to acquire targets. The Hubris and Overconfidence theories suggest that managers tend to overpay as a result of exaggerating their ability to extract value and manage post-acquisition integration process between the acquiring firm and its target. Managerial overconfidence, which is signaled by conducting several acquisitions within a short time period or by other manager-specific investment attributes, has been shown to contribute to increasing premiums in M&A transactions and subsequent poor post-acquisition performance.

Experimental findings in the area of psychology …

Cross-Listing Premium Or Market Timing, Moustafa M. Abu El Fadl

Theses and Dissertations in Business Administration

Previous research documented that soon after companies cross-list; they achieve significant negative post-listing abnormal returns (the post-listing anomaly). The evidence presented in this study shows that companies cross-list based on either a market-timing consideration or a genuine performance consideration. The host market condition is significant in explaining both the sign and the significance of post-listing abnormal returns. On the one hand, the evidence reveals, companies that cross-list in a host market while that host market is "positive" and achieve a significant negative post-listing abnormal returns, those companies time the market, and the post-listing anomaly is explained in the context of …

Judging Credence Service Based On Experience Service Evaluation: Moderating Effect Of Ease Of Assessing And Extrinsic Cues, Kungpo Tao

Marketing Theses & Dissertations

The impact of service failure on customers' perception of service quality is of vital importance to service providers. Prior research reveals little about how services that are purchased jointly by consumers are evaluated. My dissertation investigates the effect of failure of an experience service on the evaluation of a credence service that is purchased at the same time. In experimental study 1 carried out in the context of automobile services, it is found that the effect of service failure on trust is mediated by evaluation of service quality, and moderated by the ease of assessing service. In study 2 carried …

Examination Timetabling With Mathematical Programming An Application In Turkish Air Force Academy, Emrah Koksalmis

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The focus of this thesis is the educational timetabling problem, which is a very challenging problem to solve especially with a high number of the departments, branches, classes, and students. Due to the large scale of educational timetabling problems and preferences of the stakeholders, it is almost impossible to form a general model that solves all of the timetabling problems in the literature. This resulted in the need to develop and employ specific models for specific institutions.

The purpose of this study is to develop a mathematical programming model that solves the examination timetabling problem in Turkish Air Force Academy …

Coping With Customer Sexual Harassment: Examining Retaliation As A Coping Strategy And Testing A Contextual Model, Valerie J. Morganson

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Research has established that customer sexual harassment (CSH) is a widespread and harmful workplace phenomenon. This dissertation consists of two studies on the topic. The first sought to operationalize a measure of coping with customer sexual harassment. In addition to three traditional factors of sexual harassment coping (i.e., external, internal, and social), Study 1 predicted that worker retaliation toward the customer would constitute an additional form of coping with CSH. The measure of coping was tested using a sample of 200 women customer service workers. Data were analyzed using factor analysis. As expected, retaliation was supported as a coping strategy, …

A Conceptual Model For Employer Training To Manage Employee Counter-Productive Behaviors, Naomi Spickard Rock

STEMPS Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to develop a model for employer training to manage employees who possess counter-productive behaviors. With the increasing encouragement for employers to hire without discriminating, the number of individuals with disabilities in the workforce will rise. There is limited training in universities and businesses to teach how to deal with difficult individuals.

Qualitative research in the form of focus groups was conducted. The following research objectives were developed: 1) Identify components of counter-productive behaviors that need to be managed in the workplace. 2) Develop behavioral management strategies that need be learned by employers. 3) Integrate …

A Method To Improve The Sustainment Of Systems Based On Probability And Consequences, Michael Ashton Gaintner

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The FROST Method is presented which improves the efficiency of long-term sustainment of hardware systems. The FROST Method makes sustainment and scheduling decisions based on the minimization of the expected value of current and future costs. This differs from current methods which tend to base decisions not on the expected value of costs, but on the expected inventory demand found through projections using data which is often inaccurate.

Distributions are used to account for randomness and inaccuracy in inputs such as failure rates and vendor-claimed dates for end of production. A Monte Carlo technique is then used to convert these …

Towards An Organizational Strategic Vitality Theory: A Study Of A Public Sector Board Of Directors, Keith L. Woodman

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Boards of directors govern practically all organizations of significant size in the public and private sector. Improving the understanding of how boards function is critical because when boards fail, the results can be devastating. Little is understood about the functioning of boards of directors in the public sector, which accounts for a significant amount of the gross national product of the world's economy. The author observed a public sector board of directors for one year. Using the grounded theory research method to analyze the observations, he generated a theory of organizational strategic vitality that describes how a board of directors …

Social Networking And Individual Performance: Examining Predictors Of Participation, Michael Anthony Brown Sr.

School of Public Service Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation addresses relationships between social networking and individual performance. The "act" of social networking is a process and practice by which people and organizations are drawn together by family, work or hobby to interact via websites. The explosion of these new network connections in the workplace suggests the need for an exploration of the various ways organizations can affect and improve performance and productivity.

This dissertation suggests a social networking participation model that may help organizations predict and understand the value proposition that affects acceptance or rejection of participation. Innovation adoption, governing by network and social capital are important …

Warranty And Price As Quality Signals: The Effect Of Signal Consistency And Unexpectedness On Product Perception, Sultan Alaswad Alenazi

Theses and Dissertations in Business Administration

This dissertation investigates the effect of signal consistency/inconsistency and signal unexpectedness on a consumer's evaluation of a product. It consists of two studies. Study One examines the effect of signal consistency/inconsistency on product quality, where consistent signals are those of the same valance. Prior research has found that a positive cue not only was unable to improve product quality perception, but also had a negative effect on perceived quality when a positive cue was combined with a negative one. The results of Study One indicate that when signals are inconsistent, consumers engage in an attribution process to explain inconsistency. If …

A Study Of Two Generations Of Culturally Diverse Community College Students Views On Leader Attributes In Self And Others, Paula Jeanine Hodkowski

Educational Foundations & Leadership Theses & Dissertations

One community college mission is preparing students for the expectations and opportunities of the workplace including roles as collaborators and leaders. Increasingly, representatives from “cultures” of generation, gender, and diverse ethnicities are gaining an education in community colleges. Research supports that cultural aspects and views of others impact an individual's leader identity.

The purpose of this quantitative, non-experimental study was to determine if participants representing millennial and generation X self-report leader behaviors of “modeling the way” and “enabling others to act”; and rate leader traits in others responding to “fits my image of a leader;” And to determine if their …

Analyst Following, Capital Market Pressure, And Real Activity Manipulation, Melanie Maureen Rose

Theses and Dissertations in Business Administration

I investigate the impact of analyst following on real activity manipulation. Because analysts follow firms and serve as information intermediaries, analyst following should reduce earnings management through real activity manipulation. However, given the negative ramifications of missing analysts' earnings forecasts, the fact that analysts are watching and issuing forecasts might actually create capital market pressures as managers try to ensure that they do not miss earnings targets. Because managers can engage in earnings management through real activities manipulation and accrual manipulation, I control for accrual manipulation in examining the relationship between analyst following and real activity manipulation. I find that …