Business Administration, Management, and Operations Commons^™

Goodyear: Pivot, Expand, Or Downsize, Anastasia Vonortas, Arianna Francisco, Alicen Fimple, Jasem Jwayyed

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

In light of everything going on in the world today, Goodyear has started to question the next steps of their company. One of their biggest concerns is that since people are not driving as much, they will not be putting as much wear on their tires, meaning the tires they currently have on their vehicles will last longer and will not have the need to purchase new tires as frequently. Goodyear has asked us to look into what their company should do with all of the factors affecting their company. Should they pivot their focus to a different industry to …

Honors Research Project Goodyear Business Suggestion, Drew Hodgson, Seth Gwirtz, Isabel Hartzler, Heather Kriston, Savannah Novak

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Our project takes on the task of evaluating the current market of the tire industry in todays pandemic. We are taking our findings to the local company Goodyear, and supplying suggestions to their firm in order to help their bottom line going forward. At the end of this, we will propose to Goodyear a solution within their firm on whether to pivot, expand, or downsize their current operations.

Analysis Of The Podcast Industry And Business Growth Of Upside.Fm, Alyson Stoll, Katelyn Stanoch, John Skakun, Samantha Heim, Maanasa Humchad

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This paper explores the podcast industry with a focus on business related podcasts about entrepreneurship and startup businesses. The paper works to analyze the podcast industry and midwestern startup cities in order to assist podcast company, Upside.fm, in expanding their business model. The two main ideas researched throughout the paper are consumer behaviors in the podcast industry and the entrepreneurial ecosystems of multiple midwestern cities in the U.S including, Minneapolis, Minnesota, Kansas City, Missouri, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Indianapolis, Indiana. For the consumer behavior aspect of the research, a survey was conducted and analyzed to discover what podcast listeners enjoy and …

Less Commute Miles. Decreased Tire Wear. What Would You Do?, Dylan Schwarz, Brendon M. Ford, Brandon D. Hadinger, Abbie N. Pearce, Jacinta M. Pikunas

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

With the flagrant recognition of the coronavirus as one of those most impactful viruses in the history of the world, it is important to study how the effects of such a disease can create troublesome ripple effects in the world. Covid-19 has caused the death of hundreds of thousands of individuals and has negatively impacted the lives of American’s all across the country during the nationwide lockdown. Decreased work commuters, minimal road travel, and little need for car repairs hit the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company hard. The University of Akron has teamed up with Goodyear to explore such effects …

Organizational Dissonance In The Context Of Organizational Decline And Turnaround Of A Security Printer: A Quantitative Case Study, Tina Marie Ramirez-Dominguez

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this non-experimental, quantitative study was to examine organizational identity dissonance experienced by an organization's social actors in the context of organizational decline and turnaround utilizing factor structures from five years of pre-existing, employee surveys to determine whether differences in factor scores occurred over the 5-year time frame. Organizational identity dissonance is the psychological stress or discomfort experienced by an organization's social actors from holding two or more contradictory attitudes, beliefs, or behaviors (McLead, 2008) in relation to the organization's identity. A social actor is an individual participating in a communal environment (Whetten & Mackey, 2002). A communal …

A Contemporary Study On The Impact Of Regulations On Business Performance, Brian C. Mulligan

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines Nobel Prize Laureate Hayek's ominous warning that economic liberty in the U.S. is at risk, due to regulations, of becoming an unplanned administrative state. The research seeks to understand the effects of regulations on business performance and how to right-size them for a healthy business environment. These objectives are accomplished with two papers: (1) a macro cross-discipline literature review and call for research on the impact of regulations on business performance, and (2) a qualitative grounded theory study from interviews from elite business executives on their perspectives on the impact of regulations on business performance. The findings …

Spotify: Strategic Plan And Analysis, Riley T. Sletten

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

Spotify is a worldwide music and podcast streaming company. Spotify has the most active users of any audio streaming company in the world and is a key competitor in a growing industry. It is important to evaluate the external environment and internal forces that impact Spotify’s strategic decision-making to identify opportunities and threats that could change the audio streaming landscape. Drawing on industry research, company financial statements, and media reports, this paper analyzes the external and internal environment of Spotify to identify a strategic recommendation for the company going forward. I analyze different business frameworks to evaluate the competitive landscape …

Upside Fm: Emerging Business Podcasts, Gabrielle Vang, Brandon Counts, Gema Suarez, Nicholas Wolski

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Our team will conduct secondary and primary research to analyze the business podcast industry, as well as our client Upside FM. Through extensive research on both the industry and company, we will develop a city-by-city analysis to understand the local communities, emerging business prospects, potential sponsors in the area, and competitors as well. Factoring in all the aforementioned knowledge and analyses, we will arrive at conclusions as to the optimal cities for Upside's expansion. Other recommendations will include current media competition and ways they could improve the content and structure of their business model.

Supply Chain Governance Mechanisms, Green Supply Chain Management, And Organizational Performance, Sang M. Lee, Donghyun Choi

Department of Management: Faculty Publications

While firms understand that implementing green supply chain management (GSCM) is important, they seem uncertain about how to manage their green initiatives by looking beyond their own facilities. Building a green supply chain requires the participation of all partner firms across the supply chain. However, partner firms are different in size, situation, capabilities, and even industries. Thus, encouraging them to participate in green initiatives is difficult. Many small and medium enterprises (SMEs) hesitate to comply with green initiatives as they require a substantial amount of investment. This study empirically examines the causal relationship between the partnership governance mechanism and the …

Order Matters: How Altering The Sequence Of Performance Events Shapes Perceived Quality Formation, Owen Parker, Ke Gong, Rachel Mui, Varkey K. Titus Jr., Jiancheng Du, Gyebi Kwarteng

Department of Management: Faculty Publications

Reputation research often employs rankings which combine both the prominence and perceived quality dimensions of reputation. Though this approach has merit, it neglects nuances in the formation of perceived firm quality – i.e., how stakeholders perceive a firm’s capabilities. Since perceptions are influenced by how information is presented, we posit that the patterns of a firm’s performances – their order and interval – explain variance in perceived quality beyond valence (absolute performance level), alone. We employ two experiments and an archival study to manipulate product ratings and collect perceived quality scores (experimentally), and use trajectory of performance outcomes to predict …

The Future Of Api (Application Programming Interface) Security: The Adoption Of Apis For Digital Communications And The Implications For Cyber Security Vulnerabilities, Alison Munsch Phd, Peter Munsch Mba

Journal of International Technology and Information Management

Businesses and consumers need to have a robust Application Programming Interface (API) management and security program in place to ensure they are using the most updated policies to certify that these transactions are adequately secure. Technology vendors do provide API Management tools for Customers, and there are established API security standards for securing API transactions. Given the effort to keep APIs open and easy to implement for Business to Business (B2B) and Business to Consumer (B2C) communications, security standards must be part of API management.

This research gathered data to investigate why APIs are vulnerable. The research explored the different …

Conflict Resolution In A Multi-Level It-Enabled Outsourcing Network: A Structured Solution Approach, Shreekant Vijaykar, Mahesh Gupta Prof., Pradip Kumar Bhaumik Dr.

Journal of International Technology and Information Management

Using the case study of an Indian Technology and Outsourcing Service Provider, SmartKey (real but renamed company), a technology vendor to a global healthcare provider, this paper analyses offshore outsourcing issues using IT-enabled services to gain deeper insights needed to understand the core conflict and propose a well-reasoned solution approach. Reasoning, the conscious thought process leading to a well-justified decision, is an important managerial skill required for making dynamic decisions, resolving conflicts, and thereby developing human resources. This paper explores Goldratt’s Evaporating Clouds (ECs) as a systematic approach to reasoning in particular, and as a system for developing human resource …

Psychometric Evaluation Of Knowledge Sharing Behavior Scale In Academic Environment, Ali Asghar, Muhammad Asif Naveed

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

This study examined the psychometric properties of the Knowledge Sharing Behavior Scale (KSBS) using academicians at the University of Sargodha, Sargodha. The quantitative research design was adopted using a survey questionnaire to collect data from academicians. A 28-item KSBS was administered to 300 academicians, recruited through the convenient stratified process by visiting each department with permission. The researchers received 237 usable questionnaires indicating a response rate. The validity (e.g., construct validity, convergent validity, and discriminant validity) and reliability (e.g., internal consistency measure Cronbach Alpha) of the instrument was examined using partial least square structural equation modeling with SmartPLS. The results …

A Seat At The Table: A Phenomenological Study Of The Gap In African American/Black Women With Nonprofit Executive Leadership Roles, Angela J. Griffin

Educational and Organizational Learning and Leadership Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to explore the lived experiences of African American/Black women leaders in the nonprofit business sector in the Pacific Northwest. The intent was to understand how their experiences of inequitable opportunities in the workplace prohibited them from attaining and retaining executive leadership roles. A qualitative, transcendental phenomenological approach was used to explore the career pathway trajectory for African American/Black women in the nonprofit sector, to capture the essence of their experiences navigating inequities along the leadership pipeline. To examine their experiences, critical race theory and social cognitive career theory provided a multifaceted viewpoint of African …

Don’T Get Screwed: What Factors Determine The Inclusion Of J. Crew Blockers?, Michael Sill

CMC Senior Theses

A “J. Crew Maneuver” is a type of collateral-stripping event that transfers the value of a nearly insolvent company from the lender to the borrower. This concept matters to lenders because it exposes them to significant downside risk through the loss of hundreds of millions of pledged collateral. While credit analysts and debt lawyers have commented on the importance of preserving creditor value ex ante through lender-protective clauses embedded within debt documents, this paper breaks ground on empirically studying the determinants of these protective clauses known as “J. Crew Blockers”. I hypothesize that private equity backing, a contractionary credit environment, …

Fmla: A Blessing And Curse To The Hospitality Industry, John Avant

Undergraduate Research Symposium Lightning Talks

No abstract provided.

Use Of Factors In Development Estimates: Improving The Cost Analysis Toolkit, Matthew R. Markman, Jonathan D. Ritschel, Edward D. White

Faculty Publications

Factor Estimating is a technique commonly used by defense acquisition analysts to develop cost estimations. However, previous studies developing factors for the Engineering and Manufacturing Development (EMD) phase of the life cycle are limited. This research expands the current toolkit for cost analysts by developing cost factors in previously unexplored areas. More specifically, over 400 cost reports are utilized to create new standard cost factors that are delineated by five categories: commodity type, contract type, contractor type, development type, and Service. The factors are developed for those elements that are common in a wide array of projects such as program …

A Computational Simulation-Based Framework For Estimating Potential Product Impact During Product Design, Christopher S. Mabey, Andrew G. Armstrong, Christopher A. Mattson, John L. Salmon, Nile W. Hatch, Eric C. Dahlin

Faculty Publications

The impact of engineered products is a topic of concern in society. Product impact may fall under the categories of economic, environmental or social impact, with the last category defined as the effect of a product on the day-to-day life of people. Design teams lack sufficient tools to estimate the social impact of products, and the combined impacts of economic, environmental and social impacts for the products they are designing. This paper aims to provide a framework for the estimation of product impact during product design. To estimate product impact, models of both the product and society are required. This …

What Is Your Status Portfolio? Higher Status Variance Across Groups Increases Interpersonal Helping But Decreases Intrapersonal Well-Being, Catarina R. Fernandes, Siyu Yu, Taeya M. Howell, Alison Wood Brooks, Gavin J. Kilduff, Nathan C. Pettit

Faculty Publications

Individuals belong to multiple groups across various domains of life, which in aggregate constitute a portfolio of potentially distinct levels of experienced status. We propose a two-factor model for assessing the effects of an individual’s status portfolio, based on status average (mean status level across groups) and status variance (degree to which status varies across those groups). Five studies using samples in general-life and work-specific contexts reveal the importance of both status average and status variance, the latter of which has been largely unexplored by status researchers to date. Individuals experiencing higher status variance show greater perspective taking, which in …

The Reverse Endowment Model: Increasing A Business Family’S Philanthropic Planned Giving Through Private Placement Life Insurance And Dynasty Trusts, Kristofer R. Gray

Theses and Dissertations

Private Placement Life Insurance (PPLI) is the crown jewel of insurance planning for the ultra-high net-worth single family office. However, there seems to be an asymmetry of knowledge about the arrangement between UHNW and HNW. Business families and HNW seem uniquely suited for PPLI, and most have never heard of it. A convergent mixed method design was chosen for this study in order to help practitioners, product structurers, asset managers, and policyholders best understand both the qualitative and quantitative phenomena of PPLI. The sequential exploratory strategy deployed involves a first phase of qualitative data collection and analysis, followed by a …