Digital Commons Network^™

Risk And Return Comparisons Of Pre-Harvest Marketing Strategies, John Leander Turner V

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This paper analyzes risk and returns associated with pre-harvest corn grain marketing strategies for the state of Arkansas. Farming is characterized by a volatile environment. Numerous risks are taken by producers in order to provide commodities that are bought and sold by various parties in the supply chain. Price, yield, and production costs vary daily and can have large variation between years. Risk and Return Comparisons of Pre-harvest Marketing Strategies examines the effectiveness of using pre-harvest marketing strategies to enhance returns and to mitigate inherent price risk in the Memphis cash corn market. Thirteen strategies are compared to the October …

Examining Emergent Systems Management Strategies In Overseas Operations, Kristofer Hawbaker

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Stadler, Mayer, and Hautz (2015) believed that most global companies did not possess the right management capabilities to make overseas movement profitable. Businesses must manage a bevy of internal and external organizational and process interdependencies to achieve success globally (Dynes, 2008), and these organizational processes have become increasingly more complex and adaptive (Anderson, 1999; McKelvey, 2001; Stacey, 1992; Wheatley, 1999). Today’s business leaders still develop reductionist solutions to solve complex problems despite this type of thinking's practical limitations (Menkes, 2011). Comstock (2016) foresaw emergent management as a necessity in the current era, which requires organizations to unify around information flows …

Future And Value: The Library As Strategic Partner, Antje Mays

Library Presentations

Broader economic trends spawn budget pressures for education and libraries, prompting a plethora of studies on the value and relevance of libraries. Numerous reports on economic decline in libraries and studies with mixed pronouncements on the value of libraries have led to a negative self-image within the library profession. Yet libraries' leadership in connecting learners to knowledge is at the heart of producing many of the key skills sorely needed in robust societies and economies. Librarianship has many untapped opportunities for positioning itself as a prominent strategic partner. This paper outlines current research on the economic and societal context for …

Managerial Approaches To Telecommuting, Kristina P. Cheyne

Student Publications

The purpose of this theoretical paper is to synthesize the current knowledge on the topic of telecommuter managerial approaches by cross-analyzing certain commonalities and differences among relevant literature and scholarly sources. This paper will explore key themes such as trust management, performance-based reviews, communication, boundary management, work-life balance, and social and professional isolation. Additionally, this analysis will identify significant issues and contradictions amidst the research of flexible work arrangement management styles. Furthermore, it will outline the most significant disadvantages and repercussions of telecommuting and discuss them in relationship to the management styles best suited to alleviating these issues. Then, this …

Mayflower: Ode To New Beginnings — A New Column For New Times With A Positive Mission, Antje Mays

Library Faculty and Staff Publications

Numerous studies and articles downplay the value of libraries, citing instances of library defunding, layoffs, and outright closures, along with studies on the waning usefulness of libraries based on flawed quantifiables. Such pronouncements spread fear of obsolescence and irrelevance, contributing to dissatisfaction in the library profession. Yet polls in the United States and Great Britain reveal the library profession's enduring value among the most trusted professions.

To kick off the column "Mayflower: Ode to New Beginnings", this article frames library pressures in a context of broader trends affecting economic and educational conditions, examines professional stewardship and the library profession’s enduring …

Studying Abroad: A Travel Campaign, Flora Lindsay

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

This project displays the steps taken in order to create a successful marketing campaign for the Center for Global Engagement at James Madison University. It explores the history of studying abroad, its perceived benefits, concerns, and existing marketing strategies. The client is studied in depth in order to create a SWOT analysis of its current state. From this research a creative strategy statement is created to better understand the target audience, competition and strategies for the campaign. The campaign idea then comes to life in the deliverables to be used by the client for marketing efforts.

Nvidia Corporation: A Strategic Audit, Daric Teske

Honors Theses

NVIDIA is company that has been involved with the production of computer hardware known as a graphics processor units (GPUs) since the turn of the century. Over the past decade, NVIDIA has begun to explore other applications of its proprietary technology, including the fields of artificial intelligence (AI) and accelerated computing. Looking from a business perspective, this strategic audit analyzes the history of the company and its current state, as well as industry outlooks to provide a strategic recommendation. Annual reports, market reports, and press releases were all utilized to provide the best perspective of the industry possible. Though NVIDIA …

Strategic Analysis Of Lifeloop, Llc: Current Positioning And Recommendations For Future Growth, Erin Dabbs

Theses/Capstones/Creative Projects

LifeLoop is a senior living software company that has the potential to gain market share in a new and growing industry. By making changes to current processes, business level strategy, and corporate level strategy, the company can grow organically, faster. LifeLoop must make these strategic changes to areas of marketing and sales processes now as the industry is changing life cycle stages; the company’s movement in this window of opportunity is critical to their future success. These findings outline where LifeLoop is currently positioned and the first steps needed to grow and develop into a reputation of excellence that will …

A Strategic Audit Of Tesla, Abigail Hoelzlhammer

Honors Theses

This strategic audit will examine the problems Tesla is currently facing, do a Porter’s Five Forces analysis of the company, review environmental factors affecting Tesla, state Tesla’s current strategy, evaluate their distinguishing resources and competitive advantages, and end with a strategic recommendation along with implementation requirements.

One of Tesla’s vehicles crashed in March 2018 while on autopilot, which caused their stock to drop significantly. They’re also experiencing issues with the production of the new Model 3. The current political situation and growing demand for the parts Tesla needs are environmental factors that are having a negative effect. On the other …

A Strategic Audit Of Tesla.Pdf, Abigail Hoelzlhammer

Abigail Hoelzlhammer

A Strategic Audit Of Tesla.Pdf, Abigail Hoelzlhammer

Abigail Hoelzlhammer

Social Contagion And Knowledge Acquisition In Construction Professional Service Firms, Oluwasegun O. Seriki, Roisin Murphy

Conference papers

The construction industry in Ireland, including professional service firms (PSF’s) operating therein, are undergoing a period of change and uncertainty driven by economic, demographic, political and technological factors. While considerable evidence exists demonstrating the relationship between environmental turbulence on organisational decision making, there remains a distinct lack of focus on behavioural patterns affecting decision-making process of construction firms. Social contagion (SC) theory asserts that the spread of ideas, attitudes, or behaviour patterns in a group is achieved through imitation and conformity, and is well established within social sciences research, and is increasingly being used to analyse organisational behaviour. However, limited …

Google Strategic Audit, Margaret Witzenburg

Honors Theses

This thesis fulfills the requirement for the strategic audit in MNGT 475H/RAIK 476. It discusses Google's competitors and the rest of the technology industry along with how Google fits into it all. It's a red ocean industry, so Google must continually innovate to maintain its competitive advantage. In addition to a summary of the current strategy and how Google competes, the thesis explores alternative strategies for Google to pursue given their strengths and weaknesses and the opportunities and threats in the industry. It includes a timeline, potential budget, and contingency plan for the best strategy.

Becoming Strategic: Finding Leverage Over The Social And Economic Determinants Of Health, Douglas Easterling, Laura Mcduffee

The Foundation Review

While a number of observers have offered advice to foundations on how to be more effective with the implementation, evaluation, and adaptation of their strategies, there is little guidance on how foundations should go about designing their strategies.

This study fills that gap by analyzing the strategic thinking of health conversion foundations when they determined how they would address various social determinants of health. Based on interviews conducted with the leaders of 33 foundations across the U.S., we identified four strategic pathways: expanding and improving relevant services, creating more effective systems, changing policy, and encouraging more equitable power structures.

In …

Supplemental Readings And Practice Problems For "What Counts And What Gets Counted", Jeremiah Bentley

Accounting Educational Materials

“What Counts and What Gets Counted” (Bloomfield 2016)[1] is an innovative way of teaching managerial accounting. The 1^st edition of the book won the 2014 Jim Bulloch Award for Innovations in Management Accounting Education, and has only gotten better since then. However, the book suffers from two significant limitations. First, the book was intended primarily for MBA students, not for accounting undergrads. As a result, the book doesn’t go into sufficient depth on some of the technical topics that accounting majors need to understand. Second, the book lacks a bank of practice problems and solutions for students to …

Strategic Audit Of Spreetail, Aryn Huck

Honors Theses

This report investigates the history and current situation of Spreetail, a local ecommerce company in Lincoln, Nebraska. The company faces several challenges going forward, including determining how to best compete with large companies in the same market such as Amazon. This report looks at Spreetail’s current standing using tools such as SWOT and PEST analyses and examines the company’s competitive analysis. Spreetail is recommended to speed up its rebranding process to maintain the benefits of the more fitting name and rebranding efforts already underway.

Scenario Planning For Organizational Adaptability: The Lived Experiences Of Executives, Robert John Gaskill-Clemons

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Organizational adaptability is critical to organizational survival, and executive leadership's inability to adapt to extreme disruptive complex events threatens survival. Scenario planning is one means of adapting to extreme disruptive complex events. In this qualitative interpretive phenomenological study, 20 executives who had lived experience with extreme disruptive complex events and applied scenario planning to help adapt participated in phenomenological interviews to share their experiences related to the application of scenario planning as a means adaptation to extreme disruptive complex events. Participants were from a single large organization with executives distributed throughout the United States and executives from 10 state agencies …

Small Business Sustainability Strategies, Wayne A. Fillingim

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Small businesses provide 48% of private-sector jobs in the United States and play a vital role in the country's economic growth and development. Only half of U.S. small businesses survive for longer than 5 years. The purpose of this qualitative multiple-case study was to explore sustainability strategies managers of small oilfield service companies used to sustain their business for longer than 5 years. Data were collected from semistructured interviews with 10 managers--one manager from each of 10 different oilfield service companies located in the Rocky Mountain region of the United States and from review of publicly available documents and archived …

Successful Climate Change Strategies In Corporate Farming In North America, Deann Renee Reaves

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The impact of climate change on agriculture is evident in changing growing seasons, crop yield, crop quality, and even complete crop losses. Changing climate conditions negatively affect the profitability of agricultural organizations. This study was a single descriptive case of one agricultural corporation in the western United States. The purpose was to identify and explore successful climate change-based sustainability strategies. The conceptual framework for this study was legitimacy theory. The data collection methods consisted of a semistructured interview of a corporate exectutive and obtaining corporate documents, including the annual report from the company's website. Data were analyzed using content analysis …

Strategies To Sustain Small And Medium-Size Manufacturing Enterprises In Jamaica, Hugh Anthony Blake

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Jamaica's small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have a high failure rate. In 2016, the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) recorded Jamaica's SME start-up rate at 4.06% and the discontinuance rate at 9%. The purpose of this qualitative descriptive multiple case study was to explore the strategies some Jamaican SME owners used to achieve business sustainability in the manufacturing sector for longer than 5 years of operation. The conceptual framework used was the entrepreneurship theory, which provided insights into business sustainability. A purposive sample of 5 owners of SMEs who had achieved business sustainability in the manufacturing sector for longer than 5 …

Strategies For Motivating A Multigenerational Workforce, Avon Donnell Cornelius

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The multigenerational workforce creates leadership challenges for business managers, and the members of each generational group have different factors that motivate them. Failure to motivate a multigenerational workforce can lead to decreased productivity, increased absenteeism, high turnover rates, and reduced profits. The purpose of this single case study was to explore the strategies that marketing managers in a Maryland-based marketing firm use to motivate a multigenerational workforce using Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory. The study comprised 7 marketing managers who have experience motivating a multigenerational workforce. The data collection process for this study consisted of semistructured interviews, observation, and member …

Strategies To Reduce Maquiladora Employee Absenteeism In Mexico, Antonio Jose Cachazo

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Employee absenteeism is a costly problem, affecting organizations' ability to deliver products and services. Finding strategies managers use to help reduce employee absenteeism is critical to sustain operational capacity, control labor costs, and to achieve organizational success. Drawing from the Herzberg 2-factors theory, the purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore strategies implemented by six business organizations to reduce employee absenteeism in the maquiladora industry in Mexico. Through semistructured interviews, 11 management participants shared strategies implemented to reduce absenteeism. In addition, other data sources, such as organizational policies, management graphs, and meeting minutes were used. Data were coded …

Cash-Flow Management Strategies In Small And Medium-Sized Occupational Health Enterprises, Sibongiseni Selby Myeni

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Small businesses are critical to the success of a country's economy. The leaders of the South African government focus on the role of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to boost the economy and eradicate inequality, poverty, and unemployment. However, the sustainability track record of South African SMEs remains one of the worst records in the world. Therefore, it is essential that stakeholders improve the sustainability of SMEs. Using the resource-based view conceptual framework, the aim of this multiple case study was to explore the strategies that occupational health SME leaders use to manage cash flow to achieve sustainability for longer …

Strategies For Hiring Skilled Furniture Manufacturing Workers, Michael L. Simmons

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

In April 2013, the U.S. unemployment rate was 7.6% and did not drop as quickly in the recent recession as in past recessions. The Unemployment and Job Creation Program study informed readers that many employers could not find qualified workers. The purpose of this qualitative multiple case study was to explore hiring managers' strategies to locate and hire skilled workers in the furniture manufacturing industry. The target sample included 3 furniture manufacturers located in Huntsville, Alabama who have successfully developed and implemented strategies for hiring skilled workers. The skill shortage theory was the conceptual framework for this study. In the …

Strategies To Improve Business Performance With Information From Social Media, Taylor Chan

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

In the past 3 decades, China has experienced rapid economic growth. The China retail market reached renminbi (RMB) 29,651 billion in 2016, up by 10.4% from 2015. Using traditional ways that developed before the Internet era to acquire information regarding customers' changing preferences for products and services in a fast-moving business world is insufficient to support management in the retail industry to make informed strategic decisions. The purpose of this multiple case study was to explore successful customer-centric strategies that business leaders used to improve business performance with marketing information acquired from social media. The population comprised business leaders from …

Strategies For Adopting Additive Manufacturing Technology Into Business Models, Robert Martens

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Additive manufacturing (AM), also called 3-dimensional printing (3DP), emerged as a disruptive technology affecting multiple organizations' business models and supply chains and endangering incumbents' financial health, or even rendering them obsolete. The world market for products created by AM has increased more than 25% year over year. Using Christensen's theory of disruptive innovation as a conceptual framework, the purpose of this multiple case study was to explore the successful strategies that 4 individual managers, 1 at each of 4 different light and high-tech manufacturing companies in the Netherlands, used to adopt AM technology into their business models. Participant firms originated …

Fifty Shades Of Day - The Varied And Incomplete Meanings Of Marketing Capabilities, Gregory J. Tanguay

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Capabilities theories have been the subject of robust research efforts since being bridged into the Marketing domain from the organizational strategy literature approximately 25 years ago. While much empirical work has been performed to establish and clarify the relationships between marketing capabilities and firm performance, little work has been done in the ensuing period to describe and clarify the construct itself in the period ensuing its introduction to the marketing domain.

This has led to a large yet unchanging body of research founded upon a relatively vague construct. Marketing capabilities theory offers the domain an interesting means to explain marketing’s …

Collective Action And Market Formation: An Integrative Framework, Brandon Lee, Jeroen Struben, Christopher B. Bingham

Brandon Lee