Digital Commons Network^™

Friction-In-Design Regulation As 21st Century Time, Place, And Manner Restriction, Brett Frischmann, Susan Benesch

Faculty Publications

Digital networked society needs friction-in-design regulation that targets the digital architectures, supposedly smart (data-driven, algorithmic) systems, and interfaces that shape human interactions, behavior, and will (beliefs, preferences, values, intentions). The relentless push to eliminate friction for the sake of efficiency has hidden social costs that affect basic human capabilities and society. A general course correction is needed.

Friction in the digital networked environment can come in many forms. It can be as simple as a time delay prior to publishing a social media post, a notice that provides salient information coupled with a nudge toward actual deliberation, or a query …

Where The Action Is: Positioning Matters In Interaction, Danielle M. Pillet-Shore

Faculty Publications

Position matters. As a conversation analyst examining any form of recorded synchronous human interaction – be it casual or institutional – I constantly monitor for, and organize my collections of target phenomena around structural position: Where on a transcript and when in an unfolding real-time encounter does a participant enact some form of conduct? Because conversation analysis (CA) is primarily focused upon action sequences, I use CA methods to examine the ways in which participants’ audible utterances and visible body-behaviors accomplish particular social actions due at least in part to their positioning within a sequence of interaction – …

Atmospheric Meteorological Effects On Forecasting Daily Lightning Occurrence At Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Jon Saul, Torrey J. Wagner, Eric G. Mbonimpa, Brent T. Langhals

Faculty Publications

As the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and Kennedy Space Center increase their launch rate, any process that could assist in the automation of the currently-manual lightning forecast would be valuable. This work examines the possibility of machine-learning assistance with the daily lighting forecast which is produced by the 45th Weather Squadron. A dataset consisting of 34 lightning, pressure, temperature and windspeed measurements taken from 334 daily weather balloon (rawinsonde) launches in the timeframe 2012-2021 was examined. Models were created using recursive feature elimination on logistic regression and XGClassifier algorithms, as well as Bayesian and bandit optimization of neural network …

Machine Learning Prediction Of Dod Personal Property Shipment Costs, Tiffany Tucker, Torrey J. Wagner, Paul Auclair, Brent T. Langhals

Faculty Publications

U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) personal property moves account for 15% of all domestic and international moves - accurate prediction of their cost could draw attention to outlier shipments and improve budget planning. In this work 136,140 shipments between 13 personal property shipment hubs from April 2022 through March 2023 with a total cost of $1.6B were analyzed. Shipment cost was predicted using recursive feature elimination on linear regression and XGBoost algorithms, as well as through neural network hyperparameter sweeps. Modeling was repeated after removing 28 features related to shipment hub location and branch of service to examine their influence …

Does Gender And Ethnic Diversity Among Audit Partners Influence Office-Level Audit Personnel Retention And Audit Quality?, Eric R. Condie, Ling Lei Lisic, Timothy Seidel, J. Mike Truelson, Aleksandra "Ally" B. Zimmerman

Faculty Publications

Motivated by prior literature on organizational identification and 23 semistructured interviews with a variety of U.S. audit partners and directors, we examine whether the gender and ethnic diversity of an office’s audit partners influences the retention of the office’s audit professionals and the quality of the audits conducted by the office. Using hand-collected data on U.S. audit partners, we find that greater levels of (or changes in) diversity in office audit partners’ gender and ethnicity are associated with lower (reduced) turnover among office audit professionals and higher (increased) office-level audit quality. To provide further insight into the audit quality results, …

Reduced Audit Quality Acts: A Review And Organizational Model, Troy A. Hyatt, Douglas F. Prawitt, Kyle M. Stubbs

Faculty Publications

With increasing regulatory focus on improving audit quality, research on drivers of audit quality remains important to academics, professionals and regulators. One compelling branch of this research focuses on auditors' intentional actions that reduce audit quality, often referred to in the literature as reduced audit quality acts (RAQAs). This paper provides a review and synthesis of the RAQA literature, including a unifying definition for RAQAs and a model for organizing past and future RAQA research. With the model, we explore antecedents to RAQAs as well as the discovery of, responses to and subsequent consequences of RAQAs. We also discuss potential …

Balancing Loyalties: A Behavioral Study On How The Quality Of Supervisor-Subordinate Relationships Affects Whistleblowing Intentions, Jace B. Garrett, Douglas F. Prawitt, Kyle Sopp

Faculty Publications

While high-quality relationships among employees yield many benefits to organizations, they may have unintended consequences for whistleblowing. In a first experiment, we investigate whether high-quality employee-supervisor relationships reduce employees’ willingness to report supervisor wrongdoing through an internal hotline. We also investigate whether the quality of such relationships mitigates the effect of evidence strength on reporting intention. In a second experiment, we test the robustness of the effects of relationship quality and evidence strength on employees’ willingness to report wrongdoing identified in our first experiment, but to an external auditor. We also examine two factors that may mitigate the negative effect …

Current Issues Faced By Controllers, Anthony C. Bucaro, T. Jeffrey Wilks, Christopher Yust

Faculty Publications

We conduct a series of semi-structured interviews with controllers and chief accounting officers from large public and private companies—over half are Fortune 500—to identify the current issues faced by the controllership function. We map these issues into the Institute of Management Accountants (IMA®) Management Accounting Competencies and highlight recent research that addresses these issues and where there are gaps. Our findings suggest three IMA competencies that weigh heavily on controllers’ minds: (1) collaboration, teamwork, and relationship management; (2) information systems and technology; and (3) talent management. Finally, we describe how the insights from controllers suggest important improvements to accounting curriculum …

Typing Fast Versus Typing Slow: Using Typing Dynamics To Reveal Authentic And Imposter Users, David Kim, Joseph S. Valacich, Jeffrey L. Jenkins, Manasvi Kumar

Faculty Publications

Real-time assessment of users' cognitive states has practical importance, allowing organizations to infer user behaviors. Realizing its importance, prior studies – specifically those using mouse cursor movements – have applied various theories to answer a similar question, i.e., how does a high cognitive load influence the users' device usage behavior? While numerous activities can increase cognitive load, we argue that the mechanisms behind how humans process information can more holistically be explained using Dual Process Theory (DPT) (i.e., when cognitive load is either low or high) and can be applied under a broad range of usage contexts. Using a within-participant …

Life After Death: A Field Experiment With Small Businesses On Information Frictions, Stigma, And Bankruptcy, Shai Bernstein, Emanuele Colonnelli, Mitchell Hoffman

Faculty Publications

In an RCT with US small businesses, we document that a large share of firms are not well-informed about bankruptcy. Many assume that bankruptcy necessarily entails the death of a business and do not know about Chapter 11, where debts are renegotiated so that the business can continue operating. Firms also exhibit bankruptcy-related stigma, believing that bankruptcy is embarrassing, a sign of failure, and a negative signal to employees and customers. Short educational videos that address information or stigma increase knowledge and decrease stigma, both immediately and durably over 4 months. Videos increase reported interest in using Chapter 11 bankruptcy …

Barriers To A Cybersecurity Career: Analysis Across Career Stage And Gender, Justin Scott Giboney, Bonnie Brinton Anderson, Geoffrey A. Wright, Shayna Oh, Quincy Taylor, Megan Warren, Kylie Johnson

Faculty Publications

The demand for cybersecurity professionals is high—especially for women. Efforts to attract women to cybersecurity careers are not meeting goals of equal representation. Researchers have not yet identified a theoretical rationale for the differences. To provide a theoretical rationale, we investigate barriers to a cybersecurity career based on career stages defined by Super (1957) and gender. Concerns about a cybersecurity career differ between girls, young adult women, and mid-career women. Girls feel an un- awareness of opportunity and requisite training, whereas adult women are concerned that they will be undervalued in a male-dominated field, and mid-career women are concerned about …

Speed-Accuracy Tradeoffs In Decision Making: Perception Shifts And Goal Activation Bias Decision Thresholds, Jeff Larson, Guy Hawkins

Faculty Publications

A fundamental aspect of decision making is the speed-accuracy tradeoff (SAT): slower decisions tend to be more accurate, but because time is a scarce resource people prefer to conclude decisions more quickly. The current research adds to the SAT literature by documenting two previously unrecognized influences on the SAT: perception shifts and goal activation. Decision makers’ perceptions of what constitutes a fast or a slow decision, and what constitutes an accurate or inaccurate decision, are based on prior experience, and these perceptions influence decision speed. Similarly, previous experience in a decision context associates the context with a particular decision goal. …

A Multi-Measure Approach For Lexical Diversity In Writing Assessments: Considerations In Measurement And Timing, Kelly Woods, Brett James Hashimoto, Earl K. Brown

Faculty Publications

Several researchers (e.g., Gebril & Plakans, 2016; Crossley & McNamara, 2012) have noted a relationship between lexical diversity (LD) and writing proficiency. Previous research has indicated that typical LD measures can account for as much as 44 % of variability in writing proficiency (Crossley et al., 2011). However, it remains unclear which of the numerous LD measures (or combination of measures) that exist best predict writing proficiency (e.g., McCarthy & Jarvis, 2010). The present study addresses these issues using scored writing assessment samples from 911 ESL students. LD was assessed with a battery of ten measures through the Python lexical-diversity …

Coaching To Support Blended Teaching: A Phenomenological Study Of The Coaching Experiences Of Emerging K–12 Blended Teacher, Michelle Jensen, Charles R. Graham

Faculty Publications

With the growth of blended teaching comes a need to support teachers that are shifting their instruction to this mode of teaching. Coaching is a form of professional development that is growing in K–12 institutions. However, research of coaching specifically intended to support blended teaching practices is lacking. This phenomenological qualitative study seeks to contribute to the body of research by exploring the coaching experiences of four K–12 teachers from second, fifth, junior high, and high school that are new to blended teaching. Through semi-structured interviews we sought to understand how our participants were experiencing the support for blended teaching …

Ethnic Minority Analysts’ Participation In Public Earnings Conference Calls, Rachel W. Flam, Jeremiah Green, Joshua A. Lee, Nathan Y. Sharp

Faculty Publications

We investigate ethnic minority and non-minority sell-side analysts’ participation in public earnings conference calls. We find that minority analysts are underrepresented in conference call Q&A sessions, and minority analysts who do participate on the calls experience lower levels of prioritization than do nonminority analysts. Minority analysts’ lower participation rates are partially but not fully mediated by characteristics such as experience, work environment, and stock rating favorability. Additionally, firm and conference call fixed effects mediate approximately half the magnitude of lower minority participation rates. Extroverted minority analysts participate at higher rates, but the negative association between minority status and conference call …

Managers’ Use Of Humor On Public Earnings Conference Calls, Andrew C. Call, Rachel W> Flam, Joshua A. Lee, Nathan Y. Sharp

Faculty Publications

Despite the prevalence and importance of humor in interpersonal communication, the disclosure literature is silent on the use of humor in the context of corporate communication. Using a sophisticated machine learning algorithm, we identify managers’ successful uses of humor during public earnings conference calls. When managers use humor on an earnings call, stock market returns and analyst forecast revisions following the call are more positive, primarily because of a muted response to negative earnings news. Consistent with managers’ successful use of humor being a favorable signal of future firm performance, we find no evidence of a return reversal over the …

Innovations In Ipo Deal Structure: Do Up-C Ipos Harm Public Shareholders?, Mary Brooke Billings, Kevin Hsueh, Melissa F. Lewis-Western, Gladriel Shobe

Faculty Publications

This paper examines an innovation in capital formation that has spurred contentious debate: the Umbrella Partnership Corporation (“Up-C”) IPO. Advisors and underwriters argue that the Up-C deal structure is a driver of post-IPO value and, thus, is a value-enhancing means of raising capital that may be one solution to concerns regarding the drop in the number of publicly traded companies. Consistent with these claims, recent research suggests that organizing soon-to-be public businesses as pass-through entities (as is the case for Up-Cs) leads to superior future performance. Yet, broadening the analysis to consider abnormal stock performance and post-IPO litigation of a …

A Preliminary Investigation Of A Brief Tier 1 Classroom Management Measure, Allison F. Gilmour, Joseph H. Wehby, Jessica Boyle, Howard P. Wills, Paul Caldarella

Faculty Publications

Multitiered systems for supporting students’ behavior in schools rely on teachers using generally effective classroom management strategies, such as Tier 1 practices. However, few tools exist to easily assess classwide Tier 1 practices. In this brief report, we describe one potential tool, the Classroom Atmosphere Rating Scale–Brief (CARS-B) and assess the properties of the tool using item response theory and multilevel models. We found that most items on the CARS-B had acceptable discriminations and difficulty estimates. Teachers’ CARS-B latent scores were positively associated with student group on-task. We discuss potential changes to the CARS-B and its use in research and …

Aerostructural Predictions Combining Fenics And A Viscous Vortex Particle Method, Ryan Anderson, Andrew Ning, Ru Xiang, Sebastiaan P. C. Van Schie, Mark Sperry, Darshan Sarojini, David Kamensky, John T. Hwang

Faculty Publications

Electric Vertical Takeoff and Landing (eVTOL) aircraft experience complex, unsteady aerodynamic interactions between rotors, wings, and fuselage that can make design difficult. We introduce a new framework for predicting aerostructural interactions. Specifically, we demonstrate the coupling of a finite element solver with Reissner-Mindlin shell theory for computing deflections and a viscous vortex particle for capturing wakes. We perform convergence studies of the aerodynamics and the coupled aerostructural model. Finally, we share some preliminary results of the dynamic aeroelastic response of Uber’s eCRM-002 main wing, and share some qualitative observations.

Triangular Fin Array Passively Actuated By Bimetallic Coils For Cubesat Thermal Control, Josh Cannon, Rydge B. Mulford, Brian D. Iverson

Faculty Publications

CubeSat thermal control can be especially demanding due to volume and size constraints, high power dissipation per unit surface area, and highly variable internal and external heat loads. As such, CubeSat developers must rely on thermal control systems that meet the specific requirements of their mission and environmental conditions. Deployable radiators enable satellites to increase their radiative surface area and to reveal highly emissive surfaces during times when increased heat rejection is desired. In colder conditions, when decreased heat loss is preferable, the radiators can be stowed. Passive thermal control systems are unpowered and can increase system reliability by not …

Teaching Non-Native Sound Contrasts Using Visual Biofeedback, Shawn L. Nissen

Faculty Publications

This demonstration will explain how non-native sound contrasts can be taught to second language (L2) learners using real-time visual biofeedback through an electropalatographic (EPG) sensor. How the EPG sensor is created from a dental mold and is subsequently produced will be shown during the presentation. An explanation of how a student can visualize the contact patterns of their speech and how a tutor might use the various features of the associated software to customize the instruction to an individual speaker will be illustrated during the presentation. Possible limitations, costs, and drawbacks to using the technology will also be discussed.

The Gatekeeper’S Dilemma: 'When Should I Transfer This Customer?', Brett A. Hathaway, Evgeny Kagan, Maqbool Dada

Faculty Publications

In many service encounters, front-line workers (often referred to as gatekeepers) have the discretion to attempt to resolve a customer request or to transfer the customer to an expert service provider. Motivated by an incentive redesign at a call center of a mid-size US-based bank, we formulate and solve an analytical model of the gatekeeper's transfer response to different incentive schemes and to different congestion levels. We then test several model predictions experimentally. Our experiments show that human behavior matches the predictions qualitatively, but not always in magnitude. Specifically, transfer rates are disproportionately low in the presence of monetary penalties …

Corpus Of Founding Era American English: Designing A Corpus For Interpreting The United States Constitution, Brett James Hashimoto

Faculty Publications

The original meaning of words or phrases is often in dispute in Founding Era legislation, especially the US Constitution. The Corpus of Founding Era American English (COFEA) accurately provides evidence for the meaning of contested terms during the Founding Era. COFEA consists of 126,394 texts and over 136 million words. This corpus has been and is being used by legal researchers and interpreters in scholarly research as well as various courts, including the Supreme Court. This paper describes the motivation for the creation of COFEA and describes the process of designing and collecting the corpus.

Does Text Entry Method Make A Difference On Chinese Writing Test Scores?, Dana Scott Bourgerie, Troy L. Cox, Steven L. Riep

Faculty Publications

Should the writing construct be assessed through handwriting or keyboarding? As the only major language entirely without a syllabary or alphabet, the Chinese writing system is unique among modern languages, thus the question of writing proficiency is complicated by character recall. Most of the testing research comparing text entry methods has been conducted in English and has found that keyboarding and handwriting can be used interchangeably. This paper reports the outcome of a study comparing the results of handwritten and typed versions of the Chinese ACTFL Writing Proficiency Test (WPT). L2 Chinese students (n=25) with Intermediate to Superior speaking skills …

Boomer Peak Or Gen X Cliff? From Svs To Lbms In Georgia English, Margaret E. L. Renwick, Joseph A. Stanley, Jon Forrest, Lelia Glass

Faculty Publications

The late twentieth century in the United States marks the decline of regional vowel systems like the Northern Cities Shift and the Southern Vowel Shift, replaced by supralocal systems like the Low-Back-Merger Shift.We chart such change in acoustic data from seven generations of White speakers (n = 135) in the Southeastern state of Georgia. We analyze front vowels affected by both the SVS and LBMS (DRESS, TRAP), plus PRICE and FACE, known respectively to monophthongize and centralize in the SVS, and LBMS-implicated LOT/ THOUGHT. The SVS is most advanced among Georgians born in the mid-twentieth century, particularly in FACE-centralization. In …

Sample Size Matters In Calculating Pillai Scores, Joseph A. Stanley, Betsy Sneller

Faculty Publications

Since their introduction to sociolinguistics by Hay, Warren, and Drager [(2006). J. Phon. (Modell. Sociophon. Var.) 34(4), 458–484], Pillai scores have become a standard metric for quantifying vowel overlap. However, there is no established threshold value for determining whether two vowels are merged, leading to conflicting ad hoc measures. Furthermore, as a parametric measure, Pillai scores are sensitive to sample size. In this paper, we use generated data from a simulated pair of underlyingly merged vowels to demonstrate (1) larger sample sizes yield reliably more accurate Pillai scores, (2) unequal group sizes across the two vowel classes are irrelevant in …

Utahns Sound Utahn When They Avoid Sounding Utahn, Joseph A. Stanley

Faculty Publications

Today’s sociolinguistic variable: realization of post-tonic, unstressed /tən/ – e.g. mountain, button, kitten, satin – Hereafter, a Wellsesque inspirated label: MOUNTAIN – Three main variants:

1. [tʰɨn] • aspirated alveolar stop + reduced vowel + nasal • AmE citation form, formal, careful • Probably accessible by most speakers.

2. [ʔn̩] • glottal stop + syllabic nasal • AmE standard, casual, typical. • The most common for probably all speakers.

3. [ʔɨn] • glottal stop + reduced vowel + nasal • Non-mainstream: found in Utah, New York, and scattered elsewhere (Roberts 2006, Freeman et al. 2012, Eddington & Brown 2021, Davidson …

The Missionary Voice: Perceptions Of An Emerging Register, Josh Stevenson, Joseph A. Stanley, Wendy Baker-Smemoe

Faculty Publications

Today’s presentation is on a particular way of speaking among certain members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Specifically, today I’ll be telling you about Latter-day Saint missionaries, who you may encountered before. Let’s set aside any preconceived notions you may have about missionaries or their faith and explore what appears to be an emerging missionary-based register.

In essence, missionaries are Latter-day Saint volunteers who dedicate 18 months to two years to tell others about their faith. They’re assigned around the world and often have to learn a new language, are typically college-aged, and adhere to strict …

Are We Essential, Or Sacrificial? The Effects Of Felt Public Gratitude On Essential Worker Recovery Activities During Covid-19, Hee Young Kim, Sijun Kim, Taeya M. Howell, Sarah P. Doyle, Nathan C. Pettit, Michael Bizzarro

Faculty Publications

COVID-19 has been characterized by unprecedented levels of public gratitude to some, but not all, essential workers. In this research, we integrate insights from the stigmatized occupations and gratitude literature to build theory on the positive and negative relationships between such displays of public gratitude and essential workers’ recovery activities. We argue that felt public gratitude positively relates to adaptive recovery activities (e.g., exercise) and negatively relates to maladaptive recovery activities (e.g., overdrinking). We further explain how felt public gratitude impacts (mal)adaptive recovery activities through (a) felt invisibility and (b) negative/positive affect. We find support for our predictions in a …

Crimes Against Probate, Kevin Bennardo, Mark Glover

Faculty Publications

Policymakers have increasingly turned their attention to wrongdoing that affects wills, such as the forgery of wills, the procurement of wills through coercion or deceit, and the destruction or suppression of wills. In particular, they have attempted to deter this misconduct by punishing wrongdoers through new forms of criminal and civil liability. Because the United States is on the precipice of the largest intergenerational wealth transfer in history, a significant portion of which will take place through wills, these attempts of deterrence are well-intentioned. However, their implementation has been flawed.

These implementation difficulties stem from the fact that a will …