Business Commons^™

Nebraska Monthly Economic Indicators: December 21, 2012, Eric Thompson, William Walstad, Adam George

Leading Economic Indicator Reports

The Leading Economic Indicator – Nebraska (LEI-N) dropped modestly, declining by 0.18%, during November 2012. The decline in the LEI-N, which predicts economic growth in the state six months in the future, followed four months of increase. The modest decline in the LEI-N is not sufficient to reverse the growth trend seen in the previous four months. The Nebraska economy is expected to expand moderately in December 2012 and the first half of 2013. Looking at individual components of the LEI-N, only one component, the number of single-family building permits, increased in November. This permit growth has been a bright …

Effects Of Website Environmental Cues On Consumers’ Response And Outcome Behaviors, Eunju Yoon

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Mehrabian and Russell (1974) developed the Stimulus-Organism-Response (S-O-R) model in environmental psychology. This model is used to examine the effects of physical stimuli on human emotions and response behaviors. The development of the Internet and electronic commerce has spurred interest in online shopping research. The S-O-R model has been applied widely to examine consumers’ emotions and responses towards online website stimuli (Eroglu, Machleit, & Davis, 2001; Eroglu, Machleit, and Davis, 2003; Menon & Kahn, 2002; Richard, 2005).

The main objective of this study was to examine the effects of website environmental cues on the consumer’s affective (i.e., hedonic attitude) and …

Shareholder Influence Over Director Nomination Via Proxy Access: Implications For Agency Conflict And Stakeholder Value, Joanna Tochman Campbell, T. Colin Campbell, David G. Sirmon, Leonard Bierman, Chris S. Tuggle

Department of Management: Faculty Publications

Corporate governance research indicates that corporate boards of directors may be overly beholden to management, which can be detrimental to firm value creation. Drawing upon agency theory and the governance law literature, we examine the effects of a new SEC rule designed to lessen managerial power by increasing large, long-term shareholders’ influence in the director nomination process. We predict and find support for a positive overall market reaction to the rule’s announcement as well as a greater reaction for firms with characteristics that suggest compromised board independence or greater CEO control. Moreover, we examine the implications of greater shareholder voice …

Nebraska Innovation Campus To Collaborate With Conagra Foods

Nebraska Innovation Campus Materials

"Breaking Ground for the Future" was the theme for a major announcement today on a new level of collaboration between University of Nebraska-Lincoln and ConAgra Foods. The collaboration continues and accelerates research and development projects at Nebraska Innovation Campus -- the university's project for private-public innovation and research. Through the collaboration ConAgra Foods hopes to foster a culture of innovation related to food science. For example, the collaboration will help to further understanding and knowledge related to popcorn and tomato breeding and research. Alongside university students and faculty, ConAgra Foods will leverage leased space in greenhouses at Nebraska Innovation Campus, …

Economic Impact Of The Ability Of Nebraska Agriculture To Irrigate: The Case Of 2012, Nebraska Farm Bureau, Decision Innovation Solutions

Nebraskiana Publications

With the harsh 2012 growing season behind for Nebraska crop producers, sights are now on the prospects for 2013. An exceptional drought gripped much of the United States from mid-June to the end of the growing season. In many regards, the drought persists in many parts of the country. Without significant moisture accumulations prior to spring planting 2013, drought conditions may continue into next year’s growing season. Since the drought of 2012 became a cause of concern in mid-2012, there have been discussions regarding ways to limit the use of water for agricultural purposes. Many of these discussions will result …

Nebraska Monthly Economic Indicators: November 16, 2012, Eric Thompson, William Walstad, Adam George

Leading Economic Indicator Reports

The Leading Economic Indicator – Nebraska (LEI-N) dropped slightly, declining by 0.06%, during October 2012. The decline in the LEI-N, which predicts economic growth in the state six months in the future, followed three months of increase. The slight decline in the LEI-N is not sufficient to reverse the trend seen in the previous three months, and the Nebraska economy is expected to expand slowly in November and December followed by moderate growth in the first half of 2013. Looking at individual components of the LEI-N, there was a decline in three of the six components. Single-family building permits declined …

What Brings You Pleasure? The Role Of Desire Within The Development Of Compulsive Purchasing, Justine Rapp

College of Business: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This paper seeks to put forth two major contributions into marketing scholarship: (1) the role of desire within the development of compulsivity from impulsive consumptions, and (2) an assessment of compulsivity measurement scales. A mixed method design provides for both statistical and qualitative support for both contributions, for a deeper and replicated account of consumer behavior within the marketplace. First, we develop a possible path for the development of compulsivity, explaining impulsivity as an antecedent with consumer shopping desire as the driving factor. With this, we introduce the variable Consumer Shopping Desire as a quantified construct related to Belk et …

Nebraska Monthly Economic Indicators: October 19, 2012, Eric Thompson, William Walstad, Adam George

Leading Economic Indicator Reports

The Leading Economic Indicator – Nebraska (LEI-N) grew by just 0.09% during September 2012. The increase in the LEI-N, which predicts economic growth in the state six months in the future, was quite weak, but did follow two months of solid increase in July and August. The continued expansion of the LEI-N, however slight, confirms that the Nebraska economy will grow moderately at the end of 2012 and early 2013. A primary reason for the slight improvement in the LEI-N was a solid increase in single-family building permits, suggesting continued improvement in the Nebraska housing market. A declining U.S. dollar …

Positive Global Leadership, Carolyn M. Youssef, Fred Luthans

Department of Management: Faculty Publications

In the wake of increasing globalization, today’s organizational leaders are faced with unprecedented complexity. To help meeting the challenge, this article proposes a new positive approach to global leadership. After first providing the background on positivity, positive global leadership is carefully defined and its similarities and differences with both the established and contemporary leadership theories are noted. The discussion then turns to how positive global leadership addresses three major challenges in the global context of distance, cultural differences and cross-cultural barriers. The article concludes that this new positive approach can help global leaders to leverage diverse strengths in themselves and …

Nebraska Monthly Economic Indicators: September 21, 2012, Eric Thompson, William Walstad, Adam George

Leading Economic Indicator Reports

The Leading Economic Indicator – Nebraska (LEI-N) grew by 1.19% during August 2012. The increase in the LEI-N, which predicts economic growth in the state six months in the future, is the second monthly increase in a row. The two consecutive months of increase suggest that the Nebraska economy will grow moderately at the end of 2012 and early 2013. A primary reason for the improvement in the LEI-N was a solid increase in seasonally adjusted airline passenger counts during August. This suggests that both business travelers and household leisure travelers have confidence in the future. Along the same lines, …

State Entrepreneurship Index, Eric Thompson, William Walstad

Business in Nebraska

STATE ENTREPRENEURSHIP INDEX

Unemployment rates and job growth are popular measures for state economies. However, these trends may differ from the state’s performance in core measures of underlying economic strength such as entrepreneurship, net migration and capital formation. Given this, the University of Nebraska - Lincoln Bureau of Business Research seeks to track these core economic measures in Nebraska and in all U.S. states.

The State Entrepreneurship Index is one effort to track these core trends. Specifically, the index is used to track entrepreneurship in all 50 states. The index was initially developed by Eric C. Thompson and William B. …

Driven To Work And Enjoyment Of Work: Effects On Managers’ Outcomes, Laura M. Graves, Marian N. Ruderman, Patricia J. Ohlott, Todd J. Weber

Department of Management: Faculty Publications

The authors examined the effects of two types of motivation, driven to work and enjoyment of work, on managers’ (N = 346) performance, career satisfaction, and psychological strain. Performance was assessed using 360-degree performance ratings. The authors also tested the effects of self-esteem on the two motives. They found that the enjoyment motive was positively related to career satisfaction and performance and negatively related to strain. Driven to work had no main effects but appeared to interact with enjoyment of work to influence performance and strain. When enjoyment of work was high, driven to work was unrelated to performance or …

Nebraska Monthly Economic Indicators: August 17, 2012, Eric Thompson, William Walstad, Adam George

Leading Economic Indicator Reports

The Leading Economic Indicator – Nebraska (LEI-N) grew by 1.24% during July 2012. The increase in the LEI-N, which predicts economic growth in the state six months in the future, follows two months of decline. Improvement in the indicator during July confirms that the Nebraska economy will continue to grow in late 2012 and early 2013, though growth will be slow. A primary reason for the improvement in the LEI-N was a sharp drop in initial unemployment claims during July, which suggests stability in the Nebraska labor market. Building permits for single-family homes also rose during July, an improving signal …

Essays In Inflation And Monetary Dynamics In Developing Countries, Simon K. Harvey

College of Business: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This dissertation is consists of three essays. In the first essay, I analyze how the information contained in the disaggregate components of aggregate inflation helps improve the forecasts of the aggregate series using inflation data from Ghana. Direct univariate forecasting of the aggregate inflation data by an autoregressive (AR) model is used as the benchmark with which all autoregressive (AR), moving average (MA) and vector autoregressive (VAR) models of the disaggregates are compared. The results show that directly forecasting the aggregate series from the benchmark model is generally superior to aggregating forecasts from the disaggregate components. Additionally, including information from …

Key Findings Of The Ntm-Impact Project, David Orden, John Beghin, Guy Henry

Department of Agricultural Economics: Faculty Publications

This special issue of The World Economy presents research findings from the European Commission–funded project “Assessment of the impacts of non-tariff measures (NTM)—on the competitiveness of the EU and selected trade partners” (NTM-Impact). Directed toward the EU and its trade partners, the project’s first overall objective was to collect and analyze new data on NTMs for key and representative agri-food products. This involved three components: creating a large symmetric international database on the diverse types of governmental standards and regulations used to address food safety and quality issues, constructing measures of heterogeneity among these standards and regulations; and evaluating the …

Authentic Leadership, Leader-Member Exchange, And Organizational Citizenship Behavior: A Multilevel Analysis, Heather M. Stewart Wherry

Department of Agricultural Leadership, Education and Communication: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Scholarship

This field study examined the relationship between leaders’ authentic leadership (as rated by leader and follower) and five constructs of organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) (altruism, civic virtue, conscientiousness, courtesy, and sportsmanship) as moderated by leader-member exchange.

Data were collected from 32 leader participants and 243 raters from seven for-profit organizations in the Midwest. A multilevel data analysis was conducted using Hierarchical Linear Modeling. Three of the five OCB constructs (conscientiousness, courtesy, and civic virtue) were analyzed as multi-level. Altruism and sportsmanship were analyzed using regression.

First, the direct effect of the leader’s level of authentic leadership was tested on each …

Ownership Structure, Absorptive Capacity, And Innovation: Planting Vs Harvesting Innovation, Seung Hoon Jang

College of Business: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This dissertation investigates the main research question: Which classification of innovation explains the heterogeneous timing of revenue realization? Given the significance of financial gain, researchers are recommended to pay attention to whether innovation outcomes result in commercial gains in the short term. Following this notion, a new category of innovation, planting and harvesting, is presented. While harvesting innovation seeks new resources in the expectation of commercial performance in the short term, planting innovation pursues potential resources creating value over a long time period. The interest in the determinants and financial contribution of these types of innovation leads to the second …

The Portrayals Of Family In Advertising: Children's Perspectives, Elise J. Johansen

College of Business: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Children are exposed to over 25,000 advertisements each year just on television. Research has demonstrated advertising’s effect on children’s preferences and perceptions including gender roles. With the changing structure of family now including diverse family types such as same-sex parents, childfree couples, single-persons, and transracial adoptive families, we do not yet know if advertising is changing with the times and how children perceive these family groups. This study seeks to determine how children perceive family in advertising and its effect on their concept of family through a content analysis of children’s television advertisements and data collection from children in the …

International Knowledge Flows And Technological Advance: The Role Of International Migration, Kacey N. Douglas

College of Business: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Immigration is a major aspect of globalization. As the world becomes increasingly integrated, it becomes important to learn more about the effects of immigration on global economic growth. According to Robert Solow’s long run growth model, technological advance is the only form of economic growth sustainable in the long run. Those who contribute to technological advance – highly skilled labor – however, increasingly emigrate from lesser developed to more developed countries in a process known as brain drain. This process has been shown to lead to a permanent increase in income and growth in the host country relative to the …

Simulation Of Tax Revenues From Individuals Receiving Advanced College Degrees, Dejing Kong

Department of Industrial and Management Systems Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

State governments always want graduates who received higher education in universities and colleges to stimulate the economic growth of the state. Many state universities want to contribute more to the state’s economy as well, and state universities frequently have relevant economic development activities and offices. The state universities normally receive annual budgeted financial support and occasional special funding from the state government while the state expects contributions to the economic growth and an educated citizen in return. In this research, the economic impact of a graduate degree funded by the state government was considered in the state of Nebraska.

Simulation …

Nebraska Monthly Economic Indicators: July 20, 2012, Eric Thompson, William Walstad, Adam George

Leading Economic Indicator Reports

The Leading Economic Indicator – Nebraska (LEI-N) declined by 1.11% during June 2012. The decline in the LEI-N, which predicts economic growth in the state six months in the future, is the second in a row, signaling weakness in the Nebraska economy during the fall and winter of 2012. In particular, while the Nebraska economy is expected to grow this summer, growth will slow significantly beginning in the fall. A primary reason for the decline in the LEI-N was a rapid increase in the value of the U.S. dollar during June. The rising U.S. dollar will limit export activity by …

Intensive Production Of Millet And Sorghum For Evolving Markets In The Sahel, John H. Sanders, Botorou Ouendeba

INTSORMIL Scientific Publications

One principal constraint to improving the performance of millet and sorghum systems is overcoming the conventional wisdom. The conventional wisdom has some or all of these characteristics depending upon where you hear it. “Sorghum and millet are subsistence crops.” “They do not respond to fertilization.” “Even if they do respond to fertilizer, it is not profitable.” “Farmers will not use fertilization on these crops even if there were agronomic and economic responses.” “Banks will not lend to farmers for sorghum and millet fertilization.”

The Role Of Interactivity In Interent Business On Customer Experiential Values And Behavioral Intentions, So Ra Park

College of Business: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Customers’ experiential value is based on holistic experience customers would have when they interact with a product/service. Experiential value is defined as “relativistic preference characterizing a subject’s experience with some object” (Holbrook, 1994). Internet is characterized for interactivity and it should have a role in customers’ experiential value. Therefore, this research investigates the role of interactivity (e-store interaction, C2C interaction, and content interaction) and web store utility on intrinsic and extrinsic customer experiential value. The final dependent variable is behavioral intentions. To test the research model, a survey was designed to capture online consumers’ perception of interactivity within e-stores, experiential …

The Leadership Of Sustainable Cities: A Multiple-Case Study Of Two Oregon Cities, Kenneth L. Weaver

Department of Agricultural Leadership, Education and Communication: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Scholarship

In order for cities to become more sustainable it is necessary for the leaders of the efforts to change the organizations and governments so that they understand and embrace what it means to be more sustainable. This study examined the change processes of two Oregon Cities, Corvallis and Eugene, that had made the choice to become more sustainable as a community. The approaches that the participant leaders used demonstrated the use of different ways of thinking about the leadership of change. The ways of thinking of the community leaders were formed by their unique personal backgrounds, knowledge, skills, and abilities. …

Impact Of Business Intelligence And It Infrastructure Flexibility On Competitive Advantage: An Organizational Agility Perspective, Xiaofeng Chen

College of Business: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

There is growing use of business intelligence (BI) for better management decisions in industry. However, empirical studies on BI are still scarce in academic research. This research investigates BI from an organizational agility perspective. Organizational agility is the ability to sense and respond to market opportunities and threats with speed, and BI can help in the sensing role of organizational agility. Drawing on the systems theory, dynamic capabilities framework, and literature on competitive advantage, organizational agility, business intelligence, and IT infrastructure flexibility, we hypothesize that BI use and IT infrastructure flexibility are major sources of organizational agility. We developed a …

An Empirical Understanding Of The Dialectic Relationship Between A Central Governing Body And The Individual Sites In A Multisite Enterprise Resource Planning (Erp) System Implementation, Tedde J. Taege

College of Business: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Multisite enterprise resource planning (ERP) system implementations are a challenge faced by organizations. One of the facets of this challenge is to balance the central control of the multisite implementation with the unique requirements desired by each of the sites. The competing interests of the individual sites against the other sites as well as the total organization are forces at work with respect to the collective interest of the organization’s ERP. The study seeks to gain insights into the dynamics of a multisite organizational ERP implementation by analyzing the motivations and challenges in the interactive relationship. The grounded theory approach …

Dr. Connie's Top 10 Confidence Boosters, Connie I. Reimers-Hild

Kimmel Education and Research Center: Faculty and Staff Publications

Strengthen your Inner Leader by investing time and resources in your self-confidence. There are a number of confidence building tools, and you have to find and use the tools that best serve you. As a Certified Professional Coach I find the issue my clients struggle with most is confidence. From my research and experience, I have developed Dr. Connie’s Top 10 Confidence Boosters. They are presented in the attached paper.

Nebraska Monthly Economic Indicators: June 15, 2012, Eric Thompson, William Walstad, Adam George

Leading Economic Indicator Reports

The Leading Economic Indicator – Nebraska (LEI-N) declined at a moderate 0.52% rate during May 2012. The decline in the LEI-N, which predicts economic growth in the state six months in the future, is the second in three months, signaling weakness in the Nebraska economy during the fall of 2012. In particular, while the Nebraska economy is expected to grow solidly this summer, growth will slow significantly in the fall. The primary reason for the decline in the LEI-N was a rapid increase in the value of the U.S. dollar during May. The rising U.S. dollar will limit export activity …

Real Impact Of Migration, Eric Thompson, Ziwen Zhang, Trung Pham, Elliot Campbell

Business in Nebraska

REAL IMPACT OF MIGRATION

Introduction

In response to economic shocks, such as the Great Recession, people seek out opportunities to return to normalcy. One way is to relocate to a new area. This study examines the people who move from one state to another, seeking better opportunities, and in the process, aiding to rebuild the U.S. economy.

This study does not simply count the number of mi-grants, it also examines the attributes of migrants to determine the human capital, or productive skills, they possess and are willing to provide to the market. Each person, due to characteristics such as education …

The 2010 Economic Impact Of The Nebraska Agricultural Production Complex, Eric Thompson, Bruce Johnson, Anil Giri

Department of Agricultural Economics: Faculty Publications

Nebraska’s agricultural production complex is remarkable in both its sheer volume of production and its diversity. The state is a national leader in the production of major crop and livestock commodities. It is also home to major input industries tied to agriculture as well as sectors processing agricultural production into value-added products, all of which contribute to its economic significance. Moreover, the growth of the state’s agriculture over the past decade has been phenomenal. In 2010, total farm cash receipts exceeded $20 billion for the first time, essentially double the 2000 level. And while the nation’s economy was hit by …