Finance and Financial Management Commons^™

Motivations For Planning: Uncovering The Inhibitors To The Adoption Of Comprehensive Financial Planning For Business Owners, Daniel R. Gilham

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Though comprehensive financial planning is well-known terminology, it is not a well-known or adopted concept. Broadly, financial planning is associated with investment management, but this approach is changing. Most research on financial planning is confined to the benefits, or process, behind planning. For business owners, coordinated, comprehensive financial planning should include the founder’s largest, most concentrated financial asset, the business they are running. The underlying motivations and bias that inhibit business owners from engaging in a comprehensive financial planning relationship has not been heavily researched. In this dissertation, I studied business owner inhibitors to the adoption of comprehensive financial planning …

An Empirical Analysis Of Sentiment And Confidence Regarding Interest Rates In Disclosures Of Public Firms In The U.S. Fintech Sector, James J. Farley

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation studied the channel of communication of 10-K and 10-Q financial reports and the effectiveness of relaying interest rate sentiment. 10-K financial reports relay information regarding a company’s financials on a yearly basis while 10-Q reports relay information on a quarterly basis. To study a newer industry of Fintech and how it may be affected by interest rates it was necessary to narrow Fintech to the United States and a coordinated public channel of communication using the 10-Q and 10-K financial reports. Fintech emerged as a relevant word and industry coming off the Great Recession of 2009. During the …

Effectiveness Of Virtual Onboarding, Shanker Menon

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

During the COVID pandemic that began in 2020, interest in onboarding efficacy increased with going virtual. This survey research study focused on the effectiveness of virtual onboarding by comparing it with face-to-face (traditional) and hybrid onboarding. It spanned 12 different business sectors and involved 730 respondents, including executives, managers, technical personnel, and non-managerial staff. This exploratory study investigated the influence of the onboarding process on important organizational variables, including turnover intention and perception of self-performance. In addition, the study investigated the perception of success of the onboarding process. Results indicated that hybrid onboarding was the most effective followed by virtual …

For Love Or Money: Investor Motivations In Equity-Based Crowdfunding, Jason C. Cherubini

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Crowdfunding is an increasingly popular method for entrepreneurial ventures to raise financing from a large number of small supporters (the “crowd”) instead of raising it through a small number of larger supporters. Crowdfunding is normally conducted through online platforms such as Kickstarter and Indiegogo, where the entrepreneurial venture runs a campaign directly seeking support from individual funders. Most of the research into crowdfunding to date has been focused on what elements of the crowdfunding campaign lead to eventual successful funding, especially in the rewards-based crowdfunding space. The comparatively new equity-based crowdfunding has not been as heavily researched and is technically …

Do Firms Overreact To The Enactment Of Corporate Laws: Evidence From Anti-Price Gouging Laws, Mario Marshall

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The enactment of state corporate laws increases attention to issues related to price fairness.I present evidence that firms become less efficient in generating margins but not revenue upon enacting anti-price gouging laws. This finding is consistent with a prediction of salience theory that increased attention to unfair pricing induces firms to adopt more conservative pricing strategies. I provide evidence that companies that are more sensitive to unfair pricing risks have larger changes in efficiency. The results are consistent with the salience theory of choice and imply that attention that corporate laws generate may substantially impact firms.

Do Industries' Political Profiles Affect Their Portfolio Return Performance?, Shaddy S. Douidar

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The political profiles of an industry influence its performance due to its impact on industry-level investor sentiment and idiosyncratic risk. I form eight comprehensive political profile portfolios after double sorting on industry-level: (1) political geography proxied by political alignment, (2) corporate political strategies (CPS), proxied by donations to political action committees & lobbying expenditures, (3) and government interference, proxied by dependence on procurement contracts & federal regulations, and exhibit that an industries’ political profiles impact its returns. Industries with high political alignment, concentrated corporate political strategies, and low government interference, deemed the high-performance portfolio, earn an annualized alpha of 10.3428%, …

Does Time Equal Money? Temporal Discounting And Self-Control: Insight Into The Rationality Of Personal Financial Decision-Making, Joshua Epstein

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Exponential and hyperbolic intertemporal choice models have been widely investigated to measure an individual’s degree of impulsivity in behavioral economics. Hyperbolic discounting research identifies subject’s disproportionately high subjective value to immediate rewards, to the extent that it is not in their best interest. Furthermore, preference reversals have shown subjective value demonstrates an inversely relationship proportional to delay.

Investigation into whether visual representations influence conservative personal finance savings behavior was demonstrated in this study by presenting a multitude of visualizations before allocation of limited monetary resources. Evaluation of the neighbor effect was tested to determine whether comparing individuals to their peers …

Deceptive Appeals And Cognitive Influences Used In Fraudulent Scheme Sales Pitches, Rafael J. Toledo

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Fraud schemes exploit the complex interplay that results from utilizing deceptive appeals to activate underlying cognitive influences. This study was designed, first, to identify the deceptive appeals present in the messaging of fraudulent schemes and, second, to identify the underlying cognitive influences being exploited by the deceptive appeals utilized. Findings reveal that effectively used deceptive appeals work to keep viewers’ mental processes in a state of cognitive ease. This state allows cognitive influences--such as heuristics, cognitive biases, and the System 1 mind--to remain in control of mental processing; however, System 1 is prone to accept deceptive beliefs. The results of …

Asking The Experts: Perception Of The Relative Importance Of Antecedents Of Optimal Financial Behavior, Chad M. Jones

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Although there is ample research on financial behavior, the inclusion of financial planners in the sample frames of such research is rare. This study used certified financial planners (CFPs) as the sole sample population to identify antecedents of optimal financial behavior and their relative importance. Data from a nationally representative sample of 167 CFPs indicated that (a) financial literacy lost relative importance as CFP tenure increased, (b) romantic partnership closely rivaled financial literacy in importance, (c) financial literacy was more weakly correlated with romantic partnership than with the other antecedents investigated, and (d) romantic partnership was universally accepted as a …

Blaine Amendments And The Judiciary: An Analysis Of Government Aid To Religious Schools, Dustin A. Robinson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

First introduced in 1875, Blaine Amendments restrict private, parochial schools from utilizing publicly acquired funds. While the federally proposed Blaine Amendment died on the Senate floor, 37 states have adopted constitutional language that limits and/or bars religious schools from receiving public funds. Fraught with bigotry and labeled as discriminatory, such measures have not gone without challenge and the judicial system has delivered numerous decisions on funding public and private schools. However, jurisprudence reveals significant shifts in court decisions over time. Through analysis of Supreme Court cases from Everson v. Board of Education (1947) to Espinoza v. Montana (2020), this work …

Combination Of Time Series Analysis And Sentiment Analysis For Stock Market Forecasting, Hsiao-Chuan Chou

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The goal of this research is to build a model to predict trend of financial asset price using sentiment from news headlines and financial indicators of the asset. Objective of the model is to conclude good results but also to minimize the difference between predicted values and actual values. Unlike previous approaches where the sentiments are usually calculated into score, we focus on combination of word embedding of news and financial indicators due to nonavailability of sentiment lexicon.

One idea is that the sentiment of news headline should have impact on financial asset val- ues. In other words, it would …

Essays On Ceo Personal Characteristics And Corporate Outcomes: Athlete Ceos And Foreign Ceos, Kirill Pervun

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation contains two essays that explore the effect of top managers’ background in competitive sports and foreign nationality on the organizational outcomes. In the first essay I document that one in four chief executive officers of large American companies (S&P 1500) have background in competitive sports developed during youth or adult years (Athlete CEOs). Using novel hand-collected data from detailed biographies of top executives I find strong evidence that Athlete-CEO-run firms are more profitable and invest more in long-term projects. Additionally, firms managed by CEOs with background in individual sports, but not in team sports, are more debt-averse and …

Work Motivation In Wealth Management: The Role Of Self Determination Theory, Mark J. Mattia

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this paper, we use Self Determination Theory (Ryan & Deci, 2000A, Deci & Ryan, 2008) as the underlying theory to help determine the factors that may influence wealth advisors to consider leaving (or being committed) to their positions. Baard et al. (2004) established that Self-determination theory was relevant to motivation in the workplace. This quantitative study utilizes a survey instrument that incorporates many already proven reliable and valid items from Self-determination Theory to better understand the wealth advisor work motivation framework. This topic is important within financial services since positive work motivation has been tied to positive work outcomes …

The Warren Buffett Project: A Qualitative Study On Warren Buffett, Christian G. Koch

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Engaged scholarship focuses on real-world problems. The purpose of my research is to understand why Warren Buffett and his investment principles are not taught systematically in institutions where people are being prepared as investment and finance professionals. The rationale for the study was to answer the research question: What major themes can be extracted from the Warren Buffett Archive?

I used a qualitative research analytic method called thematic analysis used by Braun and Clarke (2006). The research includes 11 years of coded transcripts from Buffett speaking at his annual shareholders meetings. An interval of every two years was selected, which …

Addressing The Student Loan Crisis: Nudging Borrowers To Lower Their Repayment Costs, Genevieve O. Dobson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The Purpose of Research is to determine why student loan borrowers are making poor decisions regarding their repayment plan selection and how we could use the theory of nudge to get them to make better choices. This study evaluates three main biases found in decision making to determine which one is most likely to be utilized in making decisions. It also investigates ways a tool can be created to allow borrowers to make better choices.

I use the Elaborated Action Design Research Methodology to diagnose, design and implement an effective tool. In my study, I create an artifact that allows …

Essays On The Disposition Effect, Matthew Henriksson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation contains two essays that shed new light on the disposition effect – that is, the tendency for investors to be especially eager to realize gains over losses. The first essay combines county-level natural disaster data with individual investor transactions to document an increased disposition effect for investors impacted by a natural disaster. This effect is increasing in disaster severity and decreasing in the length of time following the event, suggesting that extreme natural disasters can significantly influence investor behavior, especially in the short term. These findings are not explained by liquidity needs, tax incentives, or informed trading. The …

Closing America’S Retirement Savings Gap: Nudging Small Business Owners To Adopt Workplace Retirement Plans, Peter W. Kirtland

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Small businesses, with 50 or fewer employees, rarely offer workplace retirement plans. The lack of effective retirement plan options leads to employee stress, financial strain, and social instabilities. The purpose of this research is to study why small business owners make poor decisions about workplace retirement plans. The study evaluates the information supply chain and determines that financial advisors are a critical information delivery mechanism. However, they do not take the time to discuss the various retirement plan options available with the small business owners which leads to lack of plan adoption.

Elaborated Action Design Research (eADR) research methods are …

The Potential Impact Radius Of A Natural Gas Transmission Line And Real Estate Valuations: A Behavioral Analysis, Charles M. Hilterbrand Jr.

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study intended to address the question, “How would a purchase price be impacted if a seller provided buyers a notice that the residential property that has been listed for sale is located within a Potential Impact Radius (PIR) of a natural gas transmission line?” Does the notice of the location affect the purchase value a buyer is willing to offer for a residential property? Does the perceived risk associated with PIR affect the amount a potential buyer would offer?

To address these questions, a Qualtrics survey that included three video tour treatments of a residential property was sent to …

Essays On Time Series And Machine Learning Techniques For Risk Management, Michael Kotarinos

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The Capital Asset Pricing Model combined with the Sharpe ratio is a standard method for choosing assets for selection in a portfolio. However, this method has many structural issues and was designed for a time when high dimensional computing was in its infancy. An alternative to these methods using a mix of Multi-Level Time Series Clustering, the MACBETH algorithm and traditional time series techniques was constructed that minimized data loss and allow for customized portfolio construction for investors with different risk profiles and specialized investment needs. It was shown that these methods are adaptable to cloud computing environments and allow …

Essays On Migration Flows And Finance, Suin Lee

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In the first essay, I examine stock market implications of state-to-state migration flows that are known to provide the basis for social and business networks. I observe sizeable and robust excess return comovement between migration-flow receiving and sending states at both the individual stock and the state portfolio levels. Although I find that migration flows are associated with firms’ business activities, this comovement is not fully explained by economic fundamentals and decreases substantially when firms relocate to other states. In line with the view that migration networks form the basis for a common investor base for receiving and sending states …

The Impact Of Prior-Prior Year On Federal Student Aid Eligibility, Valerie A. Mockus

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Each year, millions of Americans complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) in hopes of securing federal, state, and institutional funding to support their educational goals. The FAFSA recently changed the age of tax data used to determine eligibility for aid, including the Federal Pell Grant—eligibility for which is often used as a proxy for students with the highest need. This study includes a comprehensive review of the extant literature on the subject of prior-prior year. It is also the first look into the actual impact of the recent shift from Prior Year (PY) tax information to Prior-Prior …

Growth Options And Corporate Goodness, Linh Thompson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

I find evidence to support the negative impact of growth options on corporate social responsibility (CSR). I propose that attention-constrained managers reduce corporate goodness to focus on growth opportunities. The effect is more pronounced for well-governed firms, for financially-constrained firms, and for capital-intensive social dimensions. Firms reduce their research and development (R&D) and capital expenditures, and experience lower annual buy-and-hold abnormal returns (BHAR) subsequent to significant increases in their social performance. I also report value implications of CSR investments. The empirical evidence suggests that managerial choices to divert attention from growth projects toward CSR hurt shareholders.

Banking On Blockchain: A Grounded Theory Study Of The Innovation Evaluation Process, Priya D. Dozier

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Blockchain technology emerged as the underlying database structure for Bitcoin, a cryptocurrency, in 2008. Interest in blockchain by the Financial Services industry grew because of its purported transparency, security, and trust elements which resulted in over $240 million in venture capital funds raised by blockchain firms mostly from banks in the first half of 2017.

The purpose of this study was to examine the underlying innovation evaluation process that Financial Services organizations employed as they evaluated blockchain technology. In this research study, blockchain was considered a technology innovation, which drove the research question: “How do financial services organizations evaluate blockchain …

Money Matters: An Examination Of Special Education Characteristics In Efficient And Inefficient Texas School Districts, Pakethia Harris

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study veers from the traditional perspective of examining school efficiency or productivity as a cost minimizing process, in which educational inputs are minimized to achieve maximum outputs (student performance). Instead, it provides a critical examination of the dominant, cost minimizing assumption associated with efficiency models and suggest schools instead behave similarly to budget maximizers as presented in Niskanen’s (1971) seminal budget maximizing framework. The study examines the relationship between total student expenditures and subsequent student outcomes, establishing the relative efficiency of Texas school districts using stochastic frontier analysis within a budget-maximizing framework. Additionally, the study investigates how special education …

Intangible Capital: Culture Of Innovation And Its Impact On The Cash Flow Multiple, James Russell Gregory

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The definition for a culture of innovation (COI) is the perception of a company that prioritizes the advancement of new ideas that create value across all operations. On the face of it that seems a precious attribute for any company to nurture and exploit, but measuring and valuing a culture of innovation has proven elusive for corporations. There is a tendency to break down innovation into R&D, patents granted, and new product development and while these are all significant components of innovation a cultural definition is more encompassing of the entirety of a company and the financial results should be …

Multi-Step Tokenization Of Automated Clearing House Payment Transactions, Privin Alexander

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Since its beginnings in 1974, the Automated Clearing House (ACH) network has grown into one of the largest, safest, and most efficient payment systems in the world. An ACH transaction is an electronic funds transfer between bank accounts using a batch processing system.

Currently, the ACH Network moves almost $43 trillion and 25 billion electronic financial transactions each year. With the increasing movement toward an electronic, interconnected and mobile infrastructure, it is critical that electronic payments work safely and efficiently for all users. ACH transactions carry sensitive data, such as a consumer's name, account number, tax identification number, account holder …

Vital Signs Of U.S. Osteopathic Medical Residency Programs Pivoting To Single Accreditation Standards, Timothy S. Novak

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Osteopathic physician (D.O.) residency programs that do not achieve accreditation under the new Single Accreditation System (SAS) standards by June 30, 2020 will lose access to their share of more than $9,000,000,000 of public tax dollars. This U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) funding helps sponsoring institutions cover direct and indirect resident physician training expenses. A significant financial burden would then be shifted to marginal costs of the residency program’s sponsoring institution in the absence of CMS funding. The sponsoring institution’s ability or willingness to bare these costs occurs during a time when hospital operating margins are at …

Modeling In Finance And Insurance With Levy-It'o Driven Dynamic Processes Under Semi Markov-Type Switching Regimes And Time Domains, Patrick Armand Assonken Tonfack

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Mathematical and statistical modeling have been at the forefront of many significant advances in many disciplines in both the academic and industry sectors. From behavioral sciences to hard core quantum mechanics in physics, mathematical modeling has made a compelling argument for its usefulness and its necessity in advancing the current state of knowledge in the 21rst century. In Finance and Insurance in particular, stochastic modeling has proven to be an effective approach in accomplishing a vast array of tasks: risk management, leveraging of investments, prediction, hedging, pricing, insurance, and so on. However, the magnitude of the damage incurred in recent …

Essays On The Tax Policy And Insider Trading, Han Shi

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In the first essay I examine the relation between firm advertising and tax aggressiveness. Advertising increases firm visibility in both the product and the financial market. While investors would appreciate more tax savings, they are aware of the negative impact of tax aggressiveness on consumers’ views of the firm and hence its competitive positions in the product market. We find that firms that spend more on advertising have fewer tax sheltering activities, lower book-tax differences, and higher cash effective tax rates. Specifically, an increase of 1% on Advertising_i,t (ADVGP_i,t), the firm pays an additional tax of $0.70 …

Two Essays On Lottery-Type Stocks, Yun Meng

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In the first essay titled “Monthly Cyclicality in Retail Investors’ Liquidity and Lottery-type Stocks at the Turn of the Month”, we find that the well-documented underperformance of lottery stocks masks a within-month cyclical pattern. Demand for lottery stocks increases at the turn of the month especially in areas whose demographic profile resembles that of the typical lottery-ticket buyers (i.e., gamblers) driving their prices higher at the turn of the month. This effect is particularly pronounced among firms located in areas whose demographic profile resembles that of the typical lottery-ticket buyer and propelled by the within-month cyclicality of local investors’ personal …