Business Commons^™

The Effects Of Inflation On Businesses In Brazil, Brian Morgan, Dr. Lee Radebaugh

Journal of Undergraduate Research

The grant I received has helped me write an honors thesis entitled, “The Effects of Inflation on Businesses in Brazil.” For many years now, Brazil has been plagued with high levels of inflation. Although small amounts of inflation can help an economy grow, inflation in Brazil has often exceeded such small amounts. Now, a new economic plan has been introduced which has cut inflation dramatically. My honors thesis focused on the effects of the constantly changing economic environment on businesses within Brazil.

The Learning Advantage: The Effect Of Operational Focus On The Rate Of Organizational Learning, Jeffrey Savage, Dr. Peter Madsen

Journal of Undergraduate Research

My ORCA project is primarily focused on organizational learning. I am working closely with Peter Madsen, my mentor, to gather data and find supporting literature. Our hypothesis is that strategic focus will increase the rate at which organizations learn. In a nuclear power plant, this can be measured by the number of delays for maintenance that occur in a plant. We hypothesize that organizations that operate in a narrowly defined domain will learn faster than other companies in that domain, even if they have the same level of aggregate experience. This topic is currently under debate in the management literature; …

“Working To Put Food On The Table”: Fractured Identities And Mission Drift In A South African Nonprofit Organization, Eric C. Darsow, Dr. Christopher Meek, Dr. Warner Woodworth

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Nonprofit organizations (NPOs) face a tradeoff between activities which further their mission and those which generate revenue to pay salaries and bills. For many NPOs, management’s increasing attention to cash flow suppresses the organization’s service-oriented mission and alienates staff. This ORCA grant funded a case study of this phenomenon at RSEF, a small development NPO in South Africa. I use organizational identity theory to explore ways in which a loss of mission focus affects how staff identify with their work, and how decreased identification impacts the organization’s ability to serve society. By understanding the relationship between job commitment, organizational identification, …

Management As A Liberal Art (Seattle), C. William Pollard

C. William Pollard Papers

In these opening remarks recorded for a fall seminar at Seattle Pacific University, Pollard outlines Peter Drucker's theory of management as a liberal art and details the ways in which it was implemented in the ServiceMaster organization. He also notes why such a vision is important for contemporary management education.

Small Business Development In Southern Africa, Nathan Feliz, Dr. Warner Woodworth

Journal of Undergraduate Research

The focus of my research was to observe the process of economic development at the grassroots level in Southern Africa. In Capetown, South Africa I found an organization that was working closely with marginalized youth in the townships and squatters camps. The Center For Opportunity Development (COD) works with youth, (ages 18-35), teaching business skills. The Center For Opportunity Development had just changed to a new approach of more practical learning when I joined with them. Instead of spending more time in the class room the thought was to get the students out working more. Each student would spend a …

Pricing And Local-Content Decisions Of A Multinational Firm In A Duopoly Market, Nanqin Liu

Lingnan Theses

The internationalization of production requires each multinational firm to determine the local content rate for his product that is made and sold in a foreign country. In this thesis, we investigate the local content rate and pricing decisions for a multinational firm who competes with a local firm in a market without and with a local content requirement (LCR). We develop and solve a two-stage decision problem in which the multinational firm determines his optimal local content rate and the two firms then make their pricing decisions. Our analytical results show that the multinational firm sets a lower local content …

The Infected Organization: “Corpz” Exposure, Bobby G. Martin

Publications

Max Brooks’ 2006 novel, World War Z: An oral history of the zombie war presents an account of life in a post-apocalyptic world, from the perspective of those who lived through the experience. In the world [earth] of which Brooks speaks, there are people who, whether by personal preparedness, or pure chance, survived the apocalypse unscathed, and there are also those less fortunate, who were infected. The infected are in effect, reanimated corpses; referred to as Zed Heads (Zed, British for the letter Z), or, perhaps more familiar, ZOMBIES! The term zombie according to Brooks (2003) is “an animated corpse …

Leadership Training Center: A Resource For Guatemalan Returned Missionaries, Brian Melven, Don Adolphson

Journal of Undergraduate Research

The purpose of my project was to develop a proposal to aide Guatemalan university students in finding fulfilling employment after university graduation. I specifically wanted to help LDS university students who attended the public university in Guatemala City. The proposal was based on my findings after a two-month visit to Guatemala City last summer.

Encouraging Entrepreneurship: Microfinance, Knowledge Support, And The Costs Of Operating In Institutional Voids, Subrata Chakrabarty, A. Erin Bass

Marketing and Management Faculty Publications

This study focuses on the supplemented strategies of microfinance institutions (MFIs), in which the MFI offers nonfinancial services, such as entrepreneurship related knowledge, in addition to financial services to impoverished borrowers at the bottom of the pyramid (BoP). We examine two contextual factors–foreign direct investment (FDI) and loan defaults–to better understand the relationship between providing knowledge support to encourage entrepreneurship and costs of operating at the BoP for MFIs. In contexts where FDI is low and loan defaults are high, providing knowledge support to encourage entrepreneurship aggravates the MFI's costs of operating at the BoP. However, in contexts where FDI …

Mission Drifts In Microcredit: The Drift Away From The Poorest Of The Poor; And, The Drift From Providing Social Benefits, Jared Mabey, Dr. Warner Woodworth

Journal of Undergraduate Research

This thesis shows that the microcredit movement=s fixation on reaching financial self-sustainability is causing microfinance institutions to cease to achieve important objectives, namely: 1) reaching the poorest of the poor, and 2) providing bank members with social benefits.

Evaluating An Entrepreneurial Opportunity Through A Business Plan, Tyler L. Baldwin, Dr. Hal Heaton

Journal of Undergraduate Research

The American dream consists of having a nice home, a good job, and a family with 2.4 children. Many even dream of being the master of their own destiny by having a business of their own. Some people say all they need is a good idea to start a business. However, turning this kernel of thought from an idea into a reality is more difficult than most people realize. My creative research project consisted of evaluating an entrepreneurial opportunity of a crepery (a restaurant specializing in dinner and dessert crepes) and determining whether or not it could become a successful …

Service Recovery In China And Russia, Wendy Gubler, Dr. Kristie Seawright

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Service recovery is the process of turning disappointed customers into satisfied, loyal customers (Bell and Ridge, 1992). It is an integral part of service delivery design for service industries, where some failure is inevitable.

Summation Of Orca Research, Blaine Johnson, Dr. Warner Woodworth

Journal of Undergraduate Research

I proposed to develop a method of community development originating and sustained by those within the targeted developing communities. After formulating this methodology I anticipated the formation of a practical development advisory group on the campus of BYU that may lend assistance to emerging humanitarian organizations within these and other communities.

Summary Of Research On Attachment Disorder In Romanian Orphanages, Kendra Driggs, Daniel Ferguson

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Attachment is an enduring connection established between a child and caregiver in the first several years of life. During this sensitive period, attachment influences every component of the human condition, including, mind, body, emotions, relationship, and values. It has been observed that attachment is a physiological, emotional, cognitive and social phenomenon. Attachment is something that a child and caregiver create together. Attachment disorder results when children fail to develop normal, healthy, and secure attachments to loving, protective caregivers.

Value Blueprint And Service Design Space For Facilitating Value Creation, Steven Alter

Business Analytics and Information Systems

A new operational perspective on fundamental concepts related to customers, service, and value differs from service-dominant logic in its approach to service systems, value creation, value co-creation, service interactions, value facilitation, and value constellations. This perspective leads to two new tools for supporting service system design: 1) A “value blueprint” uses a swimlane representation to identify where value creation occurs, recognizing that parts of value creation may occur long after service providers have produced their contributions to customer value. 2) A multidimensional design space for value facilitation identifies design dimensions that can be used for characterizing current or proposed approaches …

The Strategic Decision-Making Process Of The Board And Its Impact On Decision Outcomes, Mark T. Engle

Student Scholarship

Associations have the capacity to transform society because every day they touch people's lives in meaningful ways. Association boards of directors have the tremendous responsibility of being the key decision-making body for their organizations. Too often they fail to deliver crucial decisions for consequential issues. How do association boards make high-quality, consequential decisions? This study, which spanned more than 3 years, produced a body of research that can help association chief executive officers (CEOs) and board presidents lead their boards toward making wise decisions. Key variables studied during the research project included decision consensus and decision quality, procedural justice, strategic …

Social Processes Of Organizational Formation, Scott Ashton, Dr. Teppo Felin

Journal of Undergraduate Research

When I applied for an ORCA grant one year ago, the stated purpose of my study was to “design, develop, and write the code for an agent based computer simulation which will explicitly attempt to model the social processes by which nascent firms and their entrepreneurial founders are matched with workers to thereby create an organization.” Once the simulation was completed, I hoped to be able to publish the results in a joint publication with my faculty mentor. Of these two goals – first creating a simulation, and then publishing the results – I have successfully accomplished the first but …

2013-08-15 Faculty Senate Meeting Minutes, Morehead State University. Faculty Senate.

Faculty Senate Records

Faculty Senate Meeting Minutes for August 15, 2013.

Repairing Workplace Relationships: The Salience Of Accounts And Circumstantial Moderators, Brian Reschke, Dr. Kristen B. Detienne

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Misunderstandings, breaches of trust, and unmet expectations are frequent in the workplace. Accounts, or explanations of behavior, are often deployed by alleged offenders to reshape others‟ attributions regarding conduct. In recent years, scholars have returned to the question of how rifts in workplace relationships are ameliorated through accounts such as apologies, excuses, and denials. This area is identified with the relationship repair research domain (Dirks, Lewicki, & Zaheer, 2009).

How Kaizen Group Leader Selection Affects Group Participation, M. Joleen Byerline

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Organizational communication research indicates group member participation increases as the legitimate power differences among group members decreases. Lean principles and practices indicate Kaizen Event members will contribute regardless of legitimate power levels, due to member training, education, and the Lean team-oriented culture. Further study is needed to determine if Lean culture and training maximize group member contribution, or if legitimate power levels in Lean environments manipulate participation. The focus of this case study is a central Kentucky Lean manufacturing organization that practiced Lean principles for at least three years and completed a Kaizen Event within twelve months previous to the …

The Role Of Third Party Logistics Providers (3pls) In The Adoption Of Green Supply Chain Initiatives, Edward Sweeney, Pietro Evangelista, Maria Huge-Brodin, Karin Isaksson

Practitioner Journals

The increasing importance of environmental sustainability has sharpened the focus on the need for innovative approaches to the purchasing of transport and logistics services. This article points out some of the challenges that purchasers of transport and logistics services, as well as their suppliers in the third party logistics (3PL) industry, are facing. These include the need for closer collaboration between 3PLs and their customers, as well as developing systems for the robust assessment of the environmental sustainability of services. The article is based on several years’ research experience inIreland,ItalyandSweden.

Anticipating, Preventing, And Surviving Secondary Boycotts, Judith Schrempf-Stirling, Douglas A. Bosse, Jeffrey S. Harrison

Management Faculty Publications

Even the best stakeholder-managed firms can suffer when they become the targets of a secondary boycott, as recent headlines attest. A secondary boycott is a group’s refusal to engage a target firm with which the group has no direct dispute in an attempt to sway public opinion, draw attention to an issue, or influence the actions of a disputant. This article provides a new perspective and tools for both scholars and managers concerned with this phenomenon. Building on a stakeholder theory foundation, we examine possible actions managers can take to avoid being surprised by a secondary boycott, propose conditions that …

The Mink Framework: Towards Measuring Individual Knowledge, Mohamed Ragab, Amr Arisha

Articles

Knowledge is the currency of the current economy and a vital resource for sustaining organisational performance in today’s knowledge-based intensively competitive business environment. To avoid the detrimental consequences of knowledge loss, managers are urged to identify where knowledge stocks exist and how knowledge flows within their organisations by identifying knowledge holders among their employees. Although some studies have attempted to use different methods to measure knowledge at the organisational level, very few have addressed the individual knowledge holder. Moving from a critical literature review of the existing knowledge measurement approaches, this paper proposes a novel framework that enables organisations to …

Forecasting Foreign Exchange Rates, Timothy M. Znaczko

Applied Economics Theses

The purpose of this thesis is to seek answers to different questions regarding the forecasting of foreign exchange rates. Exchange rate movement is regularly monitored by central banks for macroeconomic analysis and market surveillance purposes. Results in the literature show exchange rate models perform poorly in out-of-sample prediction analysis, even though some models have good in-sample analysis. The results were found using methods including moving average, exponential smoothing, random walk, and Box-Jenkins transfer function. The questions that I ask are: how accurate are these models when compared to a random prediction of future exchange rates, and what variables, if any, …

Industrial Machine Analysis: Economic Quality Control, Vandyke Kotoroka-Yiadom

Applied Economics Theses

The objective of the study is analyzing the optimality of industrial machines over time to explore causes of variation in the machines’ performance. The accurate estimation of machine efficiency is very important in capital-intensive industry. This study selected various productions units, labor hours per pound, product mix and shifts to analyze the variations in machine production.

This paper outlines methodology using statistical quality control methods, cluster analysis and econometrics to process and analyze the data. It then presents performance results of industrial machines and makes recommendations for future improvement of these machines. The firm that was analyzed is ideally positioned …

Implementation Of Integrated Project Delivery On Department Of Navy Military Construction Projects, Christopher S. Lee

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The concept of the project delivery system refers to the overall processes by which a project is designed, constructed, and/or maintained. There are many different types of project delivery systems to fit particular situations involving the owner and his intended project. The project delivery system is what establishes the framework that enables a construction project to be developed and ultimately executed.

The construction industry has observed that projects (both private and public) frequently suffer from factors such as adversarial relationships, low roductivity, high inefficiency and rework, frequent contractual disputes concerning who was at fault, and lack of innovation. Not only …

Your Media Speak So Loud I Can't Hear A Word You're Saying: Impact Of Media And Media Selection On Performance, Martin Hassell

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

With the proliferation of communication media and technologies available, it is important for teams to understand the influence of these media on the performance of their communications. Additionally, it is important for researchers to understand how teams choose and use media. Literature on communication media impacts and communication performance has been somewhat fragmented, and researchers have used different theories and paradigms to study this problem. Researchers still do not have a full understanding of how media influences communication, whether teams recognize and select appropriate media for their communication needs, and what makes some communication more effective, irrespective of the communication …

The Effect Of Investor Sentiment On Futures Market Returns And Volatility, Kenneth Steven Lovell

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

For over thirty years research has been done on investor sentiment and their effects on market returns and volatility. The theory of De Long et al., (1990) has been used to explain the effect of uninformed investor sentiment (also known as noise trader sentiment) on market returns and volatility. Studies of Wang (2003) and Sanders et al. (2003, 2009) in the futures market have found that uninformed investor sentiment does not affect future market returns, which is contrary to De Long et al. (1990). Also previous studies of investor sentiment in the futures market do not seem to investigate the …

Sustainable Business Models: The Contribution Of Network Organization And Governance Modes, Sudhi Seshadri, Michael Ehret

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We provide a framework for the design of sustainable business models. While extant literature on business models focuses on unlocking positive externalities, we propose a business model framework that effectively addresses negative externalities. A taxonomy-based on transorganizational models and governance modes - classifies instruments that counsel behaviour patterns. Sustainability strategies that deal with externalities often merge instruments to manage multi-stakeholder responsibilities and exchanges. The framework draws upon three established research themes - network organizational models, governance modes, and instrumental stakeholder theory - to distinguish between six instrument classes. To illustrate its potential for analysis the paper compiles instruments within these …

Interactive Empathy And Leader Effectiveness: An Evaluation Of How Sensing Emotion And Responding With Empathy Influence Corporate Leader Effectiveness, Gerald Burch

Theses and Dissertations

Empathy has been shown to be a very powerful social and work ability. This study surveyed 754 employees of a privately held eastern United States company, and incorporated annual performance evaluations to empirically link interactive empathy to leader performance of 102 leaders. Data was collected from the leader’s followers, peers, and supervisors and from self-report personality evaluations. The results of this study show that leaders that are willing to engage their followers with empathic displays are seen as better leaders from their supervisors and have more engaged employees. Other contributions of this study include validation of the interactive empathy scale …