Business Commons^™

Proactive Environmental Strategies: Managing A Corporate Culture Shift Toward Sustainability, Mark E. Calub

Master's Projects and Capstones

The roles and responsibilities of Environmental, Health and Safety (EHS) professionals have expanded over the last several decades. Initially focused solely on reducing a firm's ecological impact, many EHS professionals are now tasked with managing a firm's cultural shift towards sustainability. EHS professionals need to develop proactive environmental strategies that further interconnect the environmental, social, and economic performance goals of the firm. Using a concept analysis and integrative literature review approach, the research examines the evolving role of corporate environmental management and evaluates strategic management tools for environmental compliance, environmental performance, and corporate sustainability. The research reveals that the role …

Vulnerability And Resistance: An Evaluation Of Hostile Takeover Defenses Proposed By: Carissa Wilson, International Business & Business Economics, Carissa Laurel Wilson

Senior Theses

Within the context of mergers and acquisitions (“M&A”), hostile takeovers comprise a complex and pivotal area of study. It is hostile takeovers, rather than friendly ones, that give rise to the need for most buy- and sell-side tactics related to strategic M&A. This paper focuses primarily on sell-side tactics, or “target defenses,” used to deflect undesired takeover attempts and prevent changes in corporate control. It will attempt to present a high level, comprehensible, and comprehensive listing of defensive tactics in the target arsenal, with references to related case law.

Target defenses developed preemptively, or before an official takeover offer has …

The Image Of Insurance, Nathalie Dail

Senior Theses

This paper discusses the concept of brand management. The purpose is to give a brief introductory understanding of brand management and how it relates to the insurance industry. The benefits associated with brand management are detailed and analyzed in order to produce a variation of a SWOT analysis and a lean canvas. Meanwhile, Generation Y is explored as a market segment, along with challenges insurers face. This thesis seeks to explore the effects of branding on the insurance industry, with this market in mind. Consumer base fluctuations and revenue are factors considered when evaluating the effects of branding. Two well …

Three Essays On Corporate Governance And Corporate Social Responsibility, He Wang

Theses and Dissertations

In recent years, corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities, which are firms actions that go above and beyond the interests of the firm to further the social good, have become common practice. While extant literature on CSR largely investigates the consequences of CSR activities, only a few studies identify the determinants of CSR. This dissertation extends a growing literature on the determinants of CSR by exploring the impact of corporate governance on CSR activities in three related essays. The first essay investigates the impact of family control on CSR performance. Using newly collected data on the ultimate ownership structure of publicly …

Social Networking Sites And Personnel Selection: An Initial Validity Assessment, Travis J. Schneider

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The purpose of this dissertation was to add to the literature on the use of social networking sites (SNSs) for personnel selection. The first goal was to evaluate whether SNSs have the potential to be used as a valid source of information for selection. Specific SNS Indicator scales were created to test whether they have better validity evidence than the more traditionally-used Global SNS Rating. In a study of 141 undergraduate students at a large Canadian university, the Specific SNS Indicators demonstrated fairly weak evidence of interrater reliability, but some evidence of structural validity, and construct validity (convergent and discriminant). …

Examining The Interplay Of Supervisor And Subordinate Leadership Style In The Performance Evaluation Process, Victoria A. Neuhauser

Honors College Theses

The purpose of this study is to determine if differences in leadership behavior preferences in subordinates and supervisors can lead to quantitative differences in performance evaluation scores. Leadership behavior was considered on two dimensions: preference for person-oriented behaviors and preferences for task-oriented behaviors. Findings indicate that leaders with a preference for task-oriented behaviors tend to rate subordinates with the same preferences higher than subordinates with different preferences. No such relationship could be found for person-oriented leaders. Leaders with equal preference for task- and person-oriented behaviors produced, on average, equivalent scores for both types of subordinates. In a business context, the …

Subordinate Humor And Leader-Member Exchange Relationships: Laugh And The Boss Laughs With You?, Nancy Marietta Scott

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation used a political lens to investigate humor in a leader-member exchange (LMX) framework to explore how subordinates can use humor to manage relationships with their superiors and the subsequent outcomes associated with the quality of these relationships. This dissertation linked humor to outcomes that had not previously been studied, such as political skill and employee guarding tactics. This dissertation uniquely contributes to the current body of research by 1) empirically investigating subordinate humor in an LMX framework, 2) exploring how political skill affects the relationship between humor and LMX relationship quality, and 3) examining an unexplored outcome of …

Rogue And Deviants: A Game-Theoretic Perspective On Opportunism In Strategic Alliance Relationships, Anton Pavol Fenik

Doctoral Dissertations

Opportunistic behavior is often studied in interfirm relationships, yet we don’t know the different types of behavior that are hidden behind the general opportunism label. Therefore, using game theory as guidance, this dissertation examines the roots of and influences on two types of opportunistic behaviors in strategic alliances. Specifically, the author suggests that the strategic alliances literature would benefit from recognizing that opportunistic behaviors don’t always originate from the firm (rogue-firm opportunism), but instead often originate from individual alliance employees (deviant-personal opportunism). Moreover, this dissertation examines how relational factors between two alliance partners impact these two types of opportunistic behaviors. …

Perspectives Of Hispanic Men Who Overcame The Odds To Become Senior Leaders, Esequiel Jose Mora

Theses & Dissertations

Driven by the rapid growth of the Hispanic population in the United States, ethnic minorities will become the new majority group in the next 30 to 40 years. Yet, despite the substantial increase of Hispanics in this country, they remain underrepresented in senior leadership positions. This dissertation explored the perspectives of Hispanic male leaders to determine how they overcame barriers to successfully reach the senior leader levels. This topic is important for two reasons: (a) as U.S. businesses expand globally, they will need diverse leaders who can understand and relate to various cultures, and (b) with the increasing purchasing power …

Joint Optimization Of Allocation And Release Policy Decisions For Surgical Block Time Under Uncertainty, Mina Loghavi

Doctoral Dissertations

The research presented in this dissertation contributes to the growing literature on applications of operations research methodology to healthcare problems through the development and analysis of mathematical models and simulation techniques to find practical solutions to fundamental problems facing nearly all hospitals.

In practice, surgical block schedule allocation is usually determined regardless of the stochastic nature of case demand and duration. Once allocated, associated block time release policies, if utilized, are often simple rules that may be far from optimal. Although previous research has examined these decisions individually, our model considers them jointly. A multi-objective model that characterizes financial, temporal, …

Understanding Employee Work Attitudes: An Integration Of Psychological Contract Theory And Organizational Support Theory, Wen Chang

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Employee motivation and retention are critical concerns for the hospitality industry. The purpose of this study was to understand employees’ work attitudes and emotional affect through a social exchange perspective by integrating employee psychological contract theory and organizational support theory. Affective event theory provided the theoretical foundation for this study. Data was analyzed using exploratory factor analysis and path analysis. The results showed that employees’ psychological contract fulfillment was a strong predictor of their perceived organizational support. In addition, psychological contract fulfillment and perceived organizational support together explained employee affect at work as well as other work attitudes. Affect at …

Creating Competitive Advantage In The Premium Market Segment Through A Sustainability Strategy, Andrew E. Iberg

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Spare Parts On Demand Using Additive Manufacturing : A Simulation Model For Cost Evaluation., Stefan Jedeck

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Little is known about the impact of additive manufacturing in the spare part supply chain. A few studies are available, but they focus on specific parts and their applications only. A general model, which can be adapted to different applications, is nonexistent. This dissertation proposes a decision making framework that enables an interested practitioner/manager to decide whether using additive manufacturing to make spare parts on demand is economical when compared to conventional warehousing strategy. The framework consists of two major components: a general discrete event simulation model and a process of designing a wide range of simulation scenarios. The goal …

Targeting The Weak: A Content Analysis Of Violence In Advergames, Arshak Papazyan

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

With a rising trend of targeting children using various means of advertisement, the popularity of advergames has significantly increased. Although previous research suggests that negative content in advergames result in less favorable attitudes toward the game (Waiguny, et al., 2013), the presence of violence in advergames targeted to children aged three to ten years is significantly high. Despite the growing concern regarding violence in advergames and other means of advertisement targeted to children, research has not yet investigated the actual amount of violence in advergames. To shed light on this important issue, the present research discusses results of a descriptive …

Identifying Elements Of A Climate For Sustainability, Rosemond A. Moore

Theses and Dissertations

Sustainability as an area of research is growing in importance not only among academicians, but practitioners as well. A 2010 Accenture study of 700 CEOs found that 93% identified sustainability as important to the long term future success of their organizations. Utilizing CEO sustainability statements Content Analysis was conducted to understand and identify those key elements necessary for a climate for sustainability. A climate for sustainability is one in which sustainability policies, practices, and procedures drive behaviors that are rewarded, supported, and expected within an organization.

Content analysis of CEO statements from organizations recognized for both their sustainability practices as …

The Competitive Environment Of Community Banking And The Potential Impact On Microenterprise Entrepreneurs' Access To Bank Financing, Robert D. Morrison

Theses and Dissertations

Over the past 35 years, Great Depression era regulatory restrictions on the geographic area of operation and the scope of financial services banks can offer have change significantly. These changes fueled a surge of merger activity and resulted in a 70% decrease in the number of bank charters by 2015. Currently, community banks hold only 14% of bank assets in the US; nonetheless, they play an important role in the US economy because they continue to provide the majority of funding to small businesses. This study finds that over 83% of bank failures occurred in metropolitan areas despite the distribution …

Essays On Deceptive Counterfeits In Supply Chains: A Behavorial Perspective, Jillian Watson

All Dissertations

This dissertation is comprised of three essays intended to contribute to the operations management discipline, specifically within supply chain management. The first essay provides a research agenda for studying deceptive product counterfeits, which are products that have been manufactured and/or distributed and sold by an entity in violation of another’s intellectual property rights and intentionally misrepresented by the seller as the genuine article. The proliferation of counterfeits into legitimate supply chains presents quality, health and safety and cost concerns for nearly all industries. We identify antecedents of vulnerability to deceptive counterfeits for firms and their supply chain partners using Situational …

Resources, Innovative Outcomes, And The Symbolic And Substantive Performance Of Entrepreneurial Firms: An Examination Of Independent Popular Music Artists, John A. Deleon

Management Dissertations

The importance of innovation to the success of entrepreneurial firms has been well established in prior work. Yet, important gaps still remain. I draw from the innovation literature, the resource-based view, and institutional theory in order to address how entrepreneurial firms are able to find success through innovation in competitive environments. Specifically, following Penrose’s (1959) approach to the resource-based view, I argue that two resource categories, creativity-related resources and management-related resources, form antecedent conditions for innovative outcomes. I divide these innovative outcomes into two separate components, innovative output and innovative uniqueness. Further, I argue that innovative output and innovative uniqueness …

Data Visualization In Exploratory Data Analysis: An Overview Of Methods And Technologies, Yingsen Mao

Business Administration Theses

Exploratory data analysis (EDA) refers to an iterative process through which analysts constantly ‘ask questions’ and extract knowledge from data. EDA is becoming more and more important for modern data analysis, such as business analytics and business intelligence, as it greatly relaxes the statistical assumption required by its counterpart—confirmation data analysis (CDA), and involves analysts directly in the data mining process. However, exploratory visual analysis, as the central part of EDA, requires heavy data manipulations and tedious visual specifications, which might impede the EDA process if the analyst has no guidelines to follow. In this paper, we present a framework …

Moderating Effects Of Institutional Logics On Strategic Response To Coercive Institutional Change, Leon Paul Weeks

Business Administration Dissertations

Using institutional theory, the study examines the relationship between compliance behaviors and attitudes of small business owners and managers toward external coercive institutional change pressures. Organizations can experience conflicting institutional pressures (Pache & Santos, 2010). Variation in change pressures suggest heterogeneous impacts from institutional demands for change (e.g. Herremans, Herschovis, & Bertels, 2009). This study traces Internal Revenue Service regulatory, normative and cognitive-cultural changes targeting the tax preparation industry and examines the relationship between owner/managers attitudes about the changes and their compliance behaviors. Additionally this study traces the historical development of commercial and professional institutional logics in tax preparation and …

Servant Leadership And Related Issues In Chinese Hotel Industry, Yiqing Wang

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Because of the economy growth and the Open Door Policy, Chinese hotel industry was under a huge expansion. Since more and more western customers are visiting and Chinese customers are having more hotel experience abroad, the service Chinese hotels used to provide dose not meet the standard anymore. So the managers and leaders need to find an appropriate approach to encourage their employees to improve the service to their customers. This research went through over 40 articles about Chinese hotel industry and Chinese culture and found out that servant leadership style should be the best approach to engage the employees.

Transformational Leadership Increases Self-Determination And Positively Impacts Hospitality Frontline Employees, Xiao Zhang

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This professional paper presents literature by exploring the role of self-determination theory between the relationship of transformational leadership and hospitality employees’ well-being. It integrates the present research on leadership style, needs theory and well-being and provides useful and meaningful information for executives and organizations who are dedicated to improve employees’ well-being.

Predictive Analytics Of Organizational Decisions And The Role Of Rationality, Arash Barfar

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

How can we predict key decisions made by organizations in the presence of big data and on-demand information? In this dissertation we exploit a large repository of B2B real-time transactional data with service quality indicators and present evidence that organizational decision analytics apply both rational and boundedly-rational (i.e. behavioral) economic models. The dissertation’s findings demonstrate that both utility and heuristic models, respectively, play significant roles in predicting organizational decisions on churn, a key decision in this context. In the presence of a large data set the assumed rationality of organizations appears to provide accurate predictions in uncontrolled experiences and selected …

Engaging Overqualified Employees: The Role Of Job And Nonwork Crafting, Soner Dumani

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The present study examined the relationship between perceived overqualification and work engagement through basic need satisfaction at work and further incorporated job crafting and nonwork crafting to understand the indirect role of need satisfaction. In study 1, a new measure for targeted nonwork crafting was developed and validated. The final scale provided adequate reliability and validity evidence, and predicted life satisfaction and job satisfaction above and beyond the measures of intrinsic motivation and recovery experiences. The main study included a total of 321 full-time employees who had been working in their current job for at least 3 months and represented …

The Emergent Strategic Human Capital Resource: A Multilevel Model Incorporating Social Capital And Absorptive Capacity, Alia Crocker

Doctoral Dissertations

Strategy scholars have exhibited interest in human capital, and in this dissertation, I follow recent work in this area to explore human capital from a multilevel perspective. In particular, I seek to answer the question of how the individual resources that are component to the unit-level human capital resource (HCR) and the collective capabilities that are characteristic of the HCR together impact performance through absorptive capacity. In examining the emergent HCR, with respect to human capital, social capital, and absorptive capacity, I seek to reconcile the tension between the preference for firm specific knowledge, skills, and abilities in prior human …

Quality Competition In Supply Chain Networks With Applications To Information Asymmetry, Product Differentiation, Outsourcing, And Supplier Selection, Dong Li

Doctoral Dissertations

The quality of the products produced and delivered in supply chain networks is essential for consumers' safety, well-being, and benefits, and for firms' profitability and reputation. However, because of the complexity of today's large-scale highly globalized supply chain networks, along with issues such as the growth in outsourcing and in global procurement, as well as the information asymmetry associated with quality, supply chain networks are more exposed to both domestic and international quality failures. In this dissertation, I contribute to the equilibrium and dynamic modeling and analysis of quality competition in supply chain networks under scenarios of information asymmetry, product …

Socially Responsible And Small: A Quantitative Study Of Corporate Social Responsibility In Small And Medium Organizations In The United States, Abigail Sorenson Berk

Dissertations

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has become a global imperative supported by governments, industry, and citizens alike. In 2000, the United Nations launched the Global Compact to encourage businesses to adopt socially responsible policies. In tandem, businesses became increasingly attentive to their social practices with the vast majority of executives declaring CSR important to their organization’s success. Despite this increase in attention – which occurred among businesses of all sizes – the academic literature on CSR has focused almost exclusively on large, public companies. Ironically, the majority of businesses in the United States are small, private businesses suggesting the existing CSR …

Employee Retaliation Against Abusive Supervision: Testing The Distinction Between Overt And Covert Retaliation, Derek Michael Hutchinson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study attempted to expand previous research on employee retaliation against abusive supervision by evaluating both overt and covert retaliatory behaviors and the different mechanisms behind these behaviors. Initial confirmatory factor analysis did not find substantial support for a two-factor retaliation construct, but this may have been a result of the nature of behavioral retaliation items that composed the measures. Correlational analyses did not demonstrate clear discriminate validity between overt and overt retaliation; additionally, regression analyses did not find support for high performing or highly political skilled employees retaliating primarily through one form of retaliation. Highly political skilled and high …

A Mixed-Methods (Quantitative-Qualitative) Study To Identify The Perceived Level Of, Zeky Zardo

Dissertations

Different approaches to developing leaders have been established through various forms of self-assessment, action learning, and education and training activities (Smither et al., 2005). The existing body of research on the impact and success of college and university leadership development programs focuses heavily on undergraduate leadership programs and not graduate-level programs such as the Master of Business Administration (MBA) or the doctorate. The purpose of this mixed-methods (quantitative–qualitative) study was to identify the perceived level of transformational leadership skill development by students enrolled in a doctoral program in organizational leadership. In addition, it was the purpose of this study to …

An Investigation Of The Perceived Development Of The Life-Long Learning Skills Of Division I Student-Athletes, Andrew T. Goodrich

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The primary purpose of this investigation was to examine the perceived development of life-long learning skills of Division I student-athletes and their non-athlete general student peers. Using grade point averages and graduation rates, athletics administrators are constantly evaluating the academic performance and growth of student-athletes by comparing their results with those of non-athlete general students. Though these traditional metrics are useful in many ways, there is little research on the self-reported development of life-long learning skills.

Due to a changing global economy, employers are less concerned with the knowledge students possess at graduation and are more interested in a student’s …