Performance Management Commons^™

Tree-Based Algorithm For Stable And Efficient Data Clustering, Hasan Aljabbouli, Abdullah Albizri, Antoine Harfouche

Department of Information Management and Business Analytics Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

The K-means algorithm is a well-known and widely used clustering algorithm due to its simplicity and convergence properties. However, one of the drawbacks of the algorithm is its instability. This paper presents improvements to the K-means algorithm using a K-dimensional tree (Kd-tree) data structure. The proposed Kd-tree is utilized as a data structure to enhance the choice of initial centers of the clusters and to reduce the number of the nearest neighbor searches required by the algorithm. The developed framework also includes an efficient center insertion technique leading to an incremental operation that overcomes the instability problem of the K-means …

Family Ownership And Corporate Environmental Responsibility: The Contingent Effect Of Venture Capital And Institutional Environment, Zhu Zhu, Feifei Lu

Department of Management Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

As scholars and policy makers pay more attention to the environmental impact of economic activities, more focus has been placed on the corporate environmental responsibility (CER) of family firms, which accounts for the majority of businesses in both developed and developing countries. Using a sample of 4714 private enterprises across 23 provinces in China, the current study examines the effect of family ownership on CER investment, as well as the moderating effects of venture capital investment and local institutional development. Results show that concentrated family ownership leads to lower CER spending, however, when venture capital investment comes from developed markets, …

Athletic Advantage: Employers’ Views On Applicant’S Involvement In Student Athletics, Jonathan Wenning

Honors Projects

I have always been told that because of my involvement in athletics, recruiters will be more interested to hire me over other candidates because of the skills I have learned as a student athlete. By completing this honors project, I had the ability to survey hiring managers and recruiters targeting Bowling Green Business Students to see if and why they have a preference of hiring a student athlete.

Subjectivity Of Diamond Prices In Online Retail: Insights From A Data Mining Study, Stanislav Mamonov, Tamilla Triantoro

Department of Information Management and Business Analytics Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Diamonds belong to a unique product category whose perceived value is largely dependent on socially constructed beliefs. To explore the degree to which the physical properties of a diamond can be used to predict the diamond price, we perform data mining on a large dataset of loose diamonds scraped from an online diamond retailer. We find that diamond weight, color and clarity are the key characteristics that influence diamond prices. The data mining results also suggest a high degree of subjectivity in diamond pricing that may reflect price obfuscation strategies employed by diamond retailers.

Surprisingly Open Or Openly Surprised? That Is The Question; Using Surprise Experiences To Increase Openness To Experience And Tolerance Of Ambiguity, Anneke Veenendaal-De Kort

Creativity and Change Leadership Graduate Student Master's Projects

Using Surprise Experiences to Increase Openness to Experience and Tolerance of Ambiguity

In the fast-changing world in which we are currently living, we constantly come across situations and problems that we have not encountered before. An open mind and the ability to tolerate ambiguity are important skills in uncertain times. People who embrace the unpredictable can develop their resilience and flexibility. Surprisologists Luna and Renninger (2015) have discovered that a great way of dipping into unpredictability is through surprise. For my Master’s Project, I designed experiences that transform people’s openness and tolerance for ambiguity through surprise. This paper begins with …

An Exploratory Study Examining A Transformational Salesperson Model Mediated By Salesperson Theory-Of-Mind, Philip (Tony) A. Pizelo Dr.

Industrial-Organizational Psychology Dissertations

A customer revolution caused by the popularity of internet commerce, the reliance on social media, and the globalization of the retail industry, calls for an examination of a sales model driven by transformational salespeople. This study examined potential salesperson performance drivers and a proposed moderated mediation model of salesperson performance. This study relied upon a foundation of transformational and other leadership attributes and salesperson theory-of-mind (SToM). Although the conditional indirect effects of the model were not statistically significant, transformational leadership was found to be a statistically significant predictor of sales performance (c’=.024, t=2.63, p =.0088). Several sub-components of transformational leadership …

Examining The Nature And Consequences Of Interfunctional Bias In A Corporate Setting, William Adam Powell

Doctoral Dissertations

Interfunctional bias is examined in this dissertation as a potential barrier to interfunctional cooperation. Interfunctional cooperation is desirable in modern corporate organizations as a contributor to effective service delivery, operations planning, and sales performance. Interfunctional stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination are hypothesized to relate positively, and together provide the bias-based theoretical basis through which barriers to interfunctional cooperation can be more thoroughly understood. Based on the extant literature in marketing and psychology, competing models of interfunctional bias are developed and hypothesized. In the first of three studies a questionnaire-based survey of supply chain employees’ perceptions of salespeople permitted the examination of …

The Impact Of Relationship Marketing (Rm) On Relationship Quality (Rq): Empirical Evidence From Commercial Bank Customers In Nigeria., Sunny E. Ekakitie

Bullion

The study set out to determine the impact of Relationship Marketing (RM) on relationship quality (RQ), with respect to the services Nigerian banks deliver to their clients. Three hypotheses were formulated to drive the study. Survey research design was adopted using a 48-item Likert style questionnaire to capture the opinions of valued clients. The study covered the six geo-political zones in Nigeria with 4 states drawn randomly from each zone. Extensive literature on RM and RQ were reviewed. Models/theories were lucidly discussed with the study evolving the quality/customer satisfaction model which is a modification of Zineldin's (2006) technical and functional …

Scholarly Pursuits: Business Insights From Driehaus Faculty Research

Business Exchange

Lessons in Marketing from the "Obama Model"; Lack of Self-Awareness at Work Hurts Team Performance; Award-Winning Research Sheds Light on Shareholder Activism

A Game Theory Analysis Of Team Based Incentivization In Retailing, Don Shemwell

Atlantic Marketing Association Proceedings

The connection between incentives and outcomes has long found consistent support in management literature generally (Bartol and Hagmann 1992; Miller & Schuster 1993; Swinehart 1986) and retailing in particular (Banker et al. 1996; Team Pay Case Studies 1997). Later meta-studies strongly support this view. (Condly, Noe and Jackson 2002; Garbers and Konradt 2014). Yet, providing performance-based incentives, at least for rank and file retail employees, still is not common in U.S. retailing and team-based incentives are even rarer.

The next section of this manuscript describes some of the issues with individualized commissions, which though not prevalent in a many product …

Using Incentive To Motivate Students During A Professional Selling Class Project, Ramon A. Avila, Scott. A. Inks

Atlantic Marketing Association Proceedings

Experiential learning methods are an important part of a robust sales curriculum. Sales call role-play, an experiential learning tool, is common in introductory and advanced sales call courses. While role-plays have several advantages, they are by definition, not “real-world.” Addressing this issue, some sales courses include sales projects/exercises in which students sell real products to real customers. This paper discusses how sales incentives were incorporated into a real-world sales exercise and the impact of those incentives on sales volume.

Market Oriented Organizations And Talent Workers: Composition Of The Workforce And Its Influence On Market Orientation, Dawn Mueller, Pradeep Gopalakrishna

Atlantic Marketing Association Proceedings

Many organizations employ marketing initiatives to “assist” in launching new efforts to both internal and external audiences and weave marketing throughout as part of being “market oriented.” The primary motivation behind a market orientation is improvement of market performance, according to the literature (Narver and Slater, 1990; Kohli and Jaworski 1990).

There is literature on workforce composition and different types of workers and this includes concepts of talent workers and knowledge workers (Chowdhury 2003) and HEROes (Bernoff and Schadler 2010) but there is little to nothing on the type of workers employed by highly market-oriented organizations. …

Measuring Work Stress Of Marketing Professionals, Nauman Abdullah, Shaukat Ali Raza, Mahr Mohammad Saeed Akhtar

Business Review

The study investigated the work stress of marketing professionals in terms of organizational factors, environmental factors and personal factors. Marketing professionals of 51 corporations from twelve sectors of industry listed with Lahore Stock Exchange constituted the sample. An adapted questionnaire having 34 items was used to collect the data. Mean scores were calculated for measuring the significance analysis. Frequencies, standard deviation, one-sample t-test, independent samples t-test, and oneway ANOVA were used to measure and compare the level of stress of the marketing professionals. The study concluded that there was an inconsiderable level of stress among marketing professionals. However, personal factors …

Employability Advantages Of Marketing Education Industry Certification Examinations, Devon Ashley Elmore

STEMPS Theses & Dissertations

Industry certification of workplace skills is emerging as a key educational movement for career and technical education programs. Many states are now integrating credentialing into their programs with the goal of preparing students with labor market advantages. However, there is little empirical evidence to support the notion that obtaining an industry certification provides students with employability advantages. As a result, the purpose of this study is to collect and analyze empirical data to determine whether obtaining an industry credential can assist a prospective student with job obtainment.

This dissertation examines the use of the National Retail Foundation (NRF) Customer Service …

Research Of Customer Relationship Management (Crm) In A Logistics Company, Surui Fang

World Maritime University Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Study On Agile Service Oriented Shipping Companies In Container Terminal, Xin Zhao

World Maritime University Dissertations

No abstract provided.

An Investigation Of The Antecedents And Consequences Of Individual-Level Customer Orientation: A Comprehensive Approach, Ceyhan Kilic

Theses and Dissertations in Business Administration

Customer orientation has been acknowledged by both practitioners and scholars as a critical element for the success of almost every business.

The primary objective of this research study is to respond to the previous research calls (e.g., Brown et al. 2002; Deshpande, Farley, and Webster 1993; O'Hare, Boles, and Johnston 1991) by investigating the antecedents and consequences of customer orientation at the individual level through a comprehensive structural model. The suggested model captures a comprehensive set of potential antecedents of customer orientation. The antecedents and consequences of customer orientation include organizational factors (i.e., organizational culture and market orientation), j ob-related …