Business Commons^™

Northern Illinois University Huskie Marching Band Stoles, Emma Walsh

Honors Capstones

The Northern Illinois University Huskie Marching Band plays a huge role on campus and in the NIU community supporting NIU athletics and entertaining audiences throughout the university and surrounding area. Since 1899, the NIU marching band has grown to approximately 200 members a season and plays to crowds of 30,000 people at Huskie Stadium. Known as “The Pride of the Midwest”, the Huskie Marching Band has enriched the Huskie spirits of students, faculty, parents, alumni, and the Huskie community as a whole.

The dedication and persistence these students demonstrate each day at rehearsals, games, and events is something that does …

Building A Business: A Close-Knit Relationship Between Marketing & Entrepreneurship, Gabrielle O. Ysteboe

Honors Capstones

This project explores how best to build a knit blanket business with respect to several parameters including market research to determine price point, where to sell the product, with options including Etsy, brick and mortar, larger retail stores, personal website, craft fairs, and pop-up retail locations, and determining the target market and demographics, which will shape the marketing strategy to be used. It shows the ties between the 4 P's of marketing and entrepreneurship. Through surveys and primary research, data was found that allowed for one option for business placement to come out on top. It also allowed for the …

Developing And Modernizing Small Businesses In Dangriga, Belize, Abby Teague

Management Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis evaluates the effectiveness of the Small Business Development project located in Dangriga, Belize, and includes research on the challenges of entrepreneurship in developing countries. The project consisted of research and the implementation of marketing workshops to teach businesses how to manage their online and social media presence through the Belize Tourism Industry Association (BTIA) Dangriga. The impact of the project was significantly important because many Belizeans struggle to survive and succeed within their businesses. Belize contains multiple microenterprises that cannot meet their potential because of a lack of knowledge and communication. Overall, the project aims to give BTIA …

How Did The Tax Cuts And Jobs Act Of 2017 Effect Small Businesses?, Jackson Pittman

Accounting Undergraduate Honors Theses

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) of 2017 marked a significant overhaul of the United States tax system, promising to stimulate economic growth and enhance the competitiveness of American businesses. Amidst its broad-reaching reforms, the TCJA introduced several provisions directly impacting small businesses, aiming to alleviate their tax burdens and foster entrepreneurial activity. This thesis endeavors to evaluate the multifaceted effects of the TCJA on small businesses, examining its implications for their financial performance, investment behavior, and overall economic contribution.

Preliminary findings suggest that the TCJA has produced a generally positive result for small businesses. On one hand, reduced …

Exploring Growth: A Multifaceted Approach To Development In The Stann Creek District Of Belize, Brady A. Voss

Finance Undergraduate Honors Theses

This honors thesis delves into the multifaceted approach to development within the Stann Creek District of Belize, as undertaken by the Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) in collaboration with the international non-profit Peacework. Authored by Brady A. Voss under the guidance of Dr. Amy Farmer, this research is a culmination of efforts aimed at enhancing economic growth and sustainability in the region.

The thesis begins by outlining the author's involvement in three primary projects during a summer internship in 2023: assessing market awareness of dragon fruit, estimating the cost of production for habanero peppers, and formulating a business plan for the …

Impact Of Seasonality On Demand Forecasting Techniques For Small-Scale Food Retailers, Indu Sree Guturu

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

This study explores the impact of seasonality on SKU (Stock Keeping Unit) demand forecasting in small-scale food retailers through the analysis of historical sales data, focusing on four key products, labelled: Product A, Product B, Product C & Product D. The research aims to assess the accuracy of different forecasting models in capturing seasonal fluctuations. The research questions are: (Q1) What is the impact of seasonality on SKU demand forecasting in case of small-scale food retailers. (Q2) How does the efficacy of Traditional model compare to alternative technologically driven forecasting techniques? (Q3) To what extent can the impact of seasonality …

The Phygital Design Process: Using Emerging Technologies To Create A Phygital Fashion Brand Rooted In Nostalgia, Madeline M. Mcdaniel

Creativity and Change Leadership Graduate Student Master's Projects

This Master's Project is a comprehensive exploration of the intersection of digital fashion design, nostalgia, and sustainable practices. Its primary objective is to create 'project CYBERBAE,' a phygital fashion collection that draws inspiration from early 2000s video game characters, trends, and aesthetics. The project utilizes advanced digital tools like Clo3D to demonstrate a comprehensive digital fashion design process that emphasizes inclusivity and sustainability. It also pioneers the development of a 3D virtual world, providing users with an immersive environment to interact with and experience digital fashion. This virtual space serves as a platform for a community of fashion, technology, and …

Objective.Gg: Uniting Scholastic Esports, Martin Beirne

Honors Program Theses and Research Projects

Objective.gg is a startup online recruitment platform within the scholastic esports scene that seeks to unite esports prospects with collegiate esports programs in an effective manner. Currently, there is a large divide that high school and transfer esports prospects must navigate through, and it is Objective.GG’s mission to build a bridge over that gap. Objective.gg seeks to accomplish its mission by operating an online platform that allows prospects and collegiate coaches to create their own profiles and connect with one another, building a community around the platform in the process. This platform will be accessible to both prospects and coaches …

Nonprofit Leader Experiences In Sector-Bending After Lean Six Sigma Training: Tension, Concepts, And Changed Behaviors, Beverly Codallos

Dissertations

Government, business, and nonprofit represent three distinct types of organizations governed by different legal frameworks designed to facilitate collective action (DiMaggio & Anheier, 1990). The emergence of hybrid forms and increasing isomorphic pressures in the nonprofit sector (Bromley & Meyer, 2017; McCambridge, 2014) have challenged the traditional separation of organizational forms. This study explored the phenomenon popularized as sector-bending, “a wide variety of approaches, activities, and relationships that are blurring the distinctions between nonprofit and for-profit organizations, either because they are behaving more similarly, operating in the same realms, or both” (Dees & Anderson, 2003, pg. 16). This qualitative study …

A Review Of The Business Capstone: Working With An Education Program, Hanna Tran

University Honors Theses

This review thesis walks through the business capstone process which is a hands-on experience with a local business client. The business client, Company A, is an arts and education program that has reached out to the School of Business's capstone class to help them improve their reach to potential customers and find alternative funding other than student tuition and donations. To achieve these goals, our group conducted several analyses and thorough research combined with our existing business education. Our findings and final recommendations are shown in presentations and a final report that the business client can utilize for their future …

Third Mission Accelerator Labs (Tmals): An Exploratory Study On The Strategic Evolution Of Sustainability In University-Business Incubators (Ubis), Abdalla Hassanein

Theses and Dissertations

Globally, higher education institutions (HEIs) are devoting rising resources in order to remain competitive, impactful and attractive within the ever-changing socio-economic developments and to well position and communicate their value among their stakeholders (Lafuente-Ruiz-de-Sabando, et al. 2018). Students today want to do more than just get a degree; they want to create businesses, develop new markets, and start social movements (Kay et al., 2010). Under the open innovation model, universities' third mission (TM) includes deeper linkages and engagements with the private and public sectors, emphasizing the development of entrepreneurial mindsets, skills, and incubation services to encourage new business ventures, in …

Community Cultural Wealth And Its Impact On Pandemic Relief Funding For Small Businesses, Brett Smith

West Chester University Doctoral Projects

This dissertation investigates the impact of social, navigational, familial, aspirational, and resistant capital on the ability of small business owners in Pennsylvania to access relief funding during the COVID-19 pandemic, primarily the period from March 2020 to December 2020. Utilizing Dr. Tara Yosso’s Community Cultural Wealth framework, the study explores systemic barriers within relief initiatives and how they affect marginalized communities.

To meet business owners where they were, and to utilize technologies born as a result of the pandemic, this study utilized Asynchronous Video Interviews (AVI) and online surveys, to capture the lived experiences of these small business owners. Not …

Good Times, Bad Times: Small Business Social Responsibility And Community Crisis Response In Small To Midsized Communities, Amber Monique Chatelain

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

It is common practice for small businesses to support their local communities through social responsibility and citizenship behaviors. Small business response to local crisis events and participation in relief efforts can serve as an indicator of the company’s awareness of community events and signal to customers their embeddedness in and commitment to the local community. Using primary data and an experimental methodology, this dissertation examines customer perceptions of small business’ response to community crisis. Specifically, this study examines customer perceptions of trust and loyalty, and customers’ purchase intent for small businesses that participate in socially responsive behaviors in the face …

Marketing Synergy: Digital Product Development & Marketing Strategy, Laura M. Clague

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

An extension of Marketing Analytics class BMKT: 440, this research delves into marketing efforts employed to promote "Chubby’s Swatch Book," a plus-size fashion guide tailored for college girls and a college lifestyle. The guide was created by a college student to address the challenges faced by plus-size individuals in finding fashionable and fitting clothing. The study spans a four-week marketing campaign, focusing on branding, social media marketing, and content creation. This paper outlines the development of the "Chubby’s Swatch Book," it’s marketing strategies, and the effectiveness of said strategies through various metrics such as engagement rates, sales conversions, and follower …

Leadership In Startups: How Founder Personality And Leadership Behaviors Impact Startup Success And Psychological Safety, Ria Passi, Ronald Riggio

CMC Senior Theses

New ventures created by entrepreneurs are crucial to the economy and to the diffusion of innovative technologies. However, startups often operate in highly uncertain environments characterized by constrained resources, lack of established processes, and complex market dynamics. Despite surges in startup investment, the failure rate for new ventures remains high, making it crucial to understand the factors that can contribute to their success. This thesis explores how founder personalities, leadership styles, and cultivating psychological safety impact startup performance and growth trajectories. Founder personality traits like openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness are positively associated with securing funding, achieving exit opportunities, and overall …

The Relationship Between Startups’ Early Adoption Of Digital Platforms And Startups’ Pre-Money Valuation, Bader Hassan Faqeeh

Dissertations

The objective of this study was to explore whether there was a significant positive relationship between startups’ early adoption of the digital platforms, namely, 1) mobile application, 2) a premium domain name website, and 3) the existence of active startup social media accounts, and startups’ pre-money valuation. To achieve this objective, this research used a relatively novel method in entrepreneurial research to collect data, whereby LinkedIn’s Sales Navigator was used along with an automation tool in order to send hundreds of automated connection and message requests to investors on LinkedIn who were sent a copy of the survey questions along …

An Examination Of Reward-Based Crowdfunding Performance And Success, Matthew Alan Grace

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Reward-based crowdfunding (RBCF), where fundraisers raise funds from a crowd of investors in return for a reward, has carved a niche as a proven option for not just entrepreneurs seeking early-stage funding, but also for established firms looking to presell or market a new product or service. Establishing crowdfunding performance and success factors is important for researchers and practitioners alike. Fortunately, a large portion of the RBCF academic literature is immediately applicable to entrepreneurs, with very little additional interpretation required. However, important questions about RBCF remain. The first paper in this three-part dissertation, a systematic literature review, examines some of …

For Love Or Money: Investor Motivations In Equity-Based Crowdfunding, Jason C. Cherubini

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Crowdfunding is an increasingly popular method for entrepreneurial ventures to raise financing from a large number of small supporters (the “crowd”) instead of raising it through a small number of larger supporters. Crowdfunding is normally conducted through online platforms such as Kickstarter and Indiegogo, where the entrepreneurial venture runs a campaign directly seeking support from individual funders. Most of the research into crowdfunding to date has been focused on what elements of the crowdfunding campaign lead to eventual successful funding, especially in the rewards-based crowdfunding space. The comparatively new equity-based crowdfunding has not been as heavily researched and is technically …

Successfully Scaling Digital Technology Ventures: An Empirical Study Of The Strategic Choices That Maximize Firm Value, Scott Morris

Dissertations

Our study aims to understand the choices managers working for subscription-based digital ventures must make at arguably the most critical juncture of their firm’s lifecycle. With few slack resources to repair mistakes, managers at these scaling firms must make decisions that are larger in scope and scale than in the start-up phase. Tradeoffs are often required as decision-makers face choices such as investing more resources in sales and marketing to drive growth or in product development to improve quality and add new products or features. In many instances, the question is whether to forego some growth opportunities to maximize profitability …

An Investigation Of The Impact Of Entrepreneurship Programs On Student Interest In Entrepreneurship Competitions, Toni Sharp

All Theses

According to a survey by ACNielsen International Research, over half of Americans want to start their own business to build wealth and achieve independence (Bygrave & Zacharakis, 2011). In the research community, most entrepreneurship education research happens in business schools (Matlay, 2006). As a result of continually researching one form of entrepreneurship, less attention has been paid to other forms contributing to the “definitional obscurity with important consequences for the direction of the field” of entrepreneurship (Baker & Welter, 2017). This has created a need for research on entrepreneurship at the college level in fields outside of business.

Clemson University …

Design Thinking & The Entrepreneurial Mindset In The Collegiate Music Classroom, Antonina M.C. Johnston

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this research study was to investigate the implementation of design thinking andan entrepreneurial mindset into a collegiate music classroom, where students have an interest in applying business acumen and entrepreneurship to their future plans as teaching and performing artists. The following questions guided this study: 1) are there benefits to introducing design thinking and the entrepreneurial mindset to music students as they transition from student to professional?; 2) will the addition of these approaches give students greater confidence as arts entrepreneurs?; 3) how can design thinking and the entrepreneurial mindset methodologies be successfully introduced and practiced throughout …

Cofounder Selection & Satisfaction: How Entrepreneurial Cofounders Come Together And Succeed Together, Audra G. Quinn

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

As many new ventures are created by teams, not solo founders, choosing a cofounder is an important decision for entrepreneurs. The individuals who mutually select into the founding team not only define and develop the concept, imprint the venture, and influence its chances of success, but also impact each other’s satisfaction and willingness to persevere. Yet despite these relationships’ crucial implications, the literature offers only scattered insights into how and why cofounders come together and succeed together.

With this dissertation, I advance theoretical understanding of what goes into forming and maintaining a quality cofounder relationship—a key resource that can neither …

Business Analysis And Recommendations For Timber, Jared Alexander

University Honors Theses

To close out my PSU school of business experience, I've been placed on a team with five other classmates in the School of Business honors program cohort to help a business owner with some hurdles they are facing in their ventures. Throughout the last nine weeks, my teammates and I conducted a lot of research, and gave four presentations to the business owner. Our final presentation highlighted our final recommendations. The name of the business owner and company have been anonymized for confidentiality. All images featuring the name or logo of the company have been covered.

In this capstone review, …

Small Business Marketing In The Sports Industry, Cheyenne L. Abbett

University Honors Theses

This thesis explores how small sports businesses can avoid high failure rates by establishing a strategic marketing plan that makes the most of their constrained resources. The current literature on sports marketing strategy examines social media, relationship, and influencer marketing, but is limited in its application to small businesses. The purpose of this thesis is to address and fill that gap. This thesis consists of a literature review of the previously stated topics, best practices that incorporate the findings of this research, and a brief case study of these recommendations in action. Best practices include establishing a greater purpose for …

Profitability Analysis Of The Commons, Chloe E. Meyer

Construction Management

Given the current saturated housing market, prices of single-family dwellings have exponentially increased. Due to this housing crisis, alternative housing approaches need to be considered. One potential solution to increasing the supply of affordable housing units is a tiny house village community. Tiny house communities can carry with them a stigma of rundown looks and an RV park aesthetic, but they don't need to. Tiny house communities, at their best, can be thriving communities that are anchored in communal living, shared resources, and affordability.The Commons is a proposed tiny house village development that would be located on 1.6 acres. The …

Cutting Board Business Model, Austin W. Dasis

Construction Management

This paper covers a business model and investment proposal for a cutting board business. The cutting board industry is a lucrative sector where there is room to grow as a business while being profitable. There are alot of factors that go into starting a business and making it successful. The student has put this together to be able to give it to a potential investor to demonstrate what he has done and what he plans on doing upon an investment. The student enjoys woodworking and wants to be able to start his own business but has minimal knowledge of what …

Origin Of Value Creation: The Role Of Delayed Intuition In Entrepreneurial Problem Framing, Chan Hyung Park

Olin Business School Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Highly successful entrepreneurial ventures often result from solving problems that have not been solved before (i.e., entrepreneurial problems). The problem-solving and entrepreneurship literatures indicate that individuals need to develop novel problem frames—uncommon interpretations of observable needs or pain points (i.e., symptoms) signaling the problems—to create solutions that other people would not typically think of and generate unique value that is key to entrepreneurial success. However, developing novel frames of entrepreneurial problems is difficult for two reasons. The symptoms of the problems are ambiguous and unstructured, and the structured information to find the right frame of problems is costly to acquire. …

Brand On The Run: The Effects Of Internal And External Stakeholder Communication Of Corporate Rebranding Efforts, Abby Vandiver

Honors Theses

A company’s most valuable asset is its brand. Not just limited to its name and logo, a brand is loosely defined as the identity of an organization. A strong brand identity can create strong customer loyalty. Changing even a part of this identity can cause confusion and ultimately revenue loss. This study examined how business owners and marketers communicate with their stakeholders when they decide a rebrand is necessary. After researching current literature on this topic, businesses in Oxford, Mississippi which have undergone a rebrand in the last decade were recruited to answer questions. Ten organizations participated either through interview …

Combatting Consolidation In The United States Banking Industry: An Analysis Of Performance And Strategy Of First National Bank Of Clarksdale, Lydia Johnsey

Honors Theses

This thesis is based on a submission with group members in the 2023 Case Study Competition for the Conference of State Bank Supervisors. This thesis includes additional background information not included in the original competition paper in order to clarify the competition standards and goal of the paper. This thesis evaluates First National Bank of Clarksdale with respect to two areas: financial analysis, which evaluates earnings performance, loan portfolio composition, asset growth, capital levels, and liquidity of the bank; and strategy, which includes staffing, succession, training, and technology strategies instituted by bank management. Data from the bank’s Uniform Bank Performance …

The Ties That Blend: Social Capital And Family Firm Innovation, Dustin L. Odom

Theses and Dissertations

The research project empirically assesses the influence of an under-researched aspect of social capital on the family firm’s entrepreneurial behaviors. Specifically, blending social capital, which consists of bonding social capital and bridging social capital that develops between family firms and external family stakeholders, is considered in examining the family firm’s engagement in innovation efforts. Additionally, familial tie strength and outside business ownership of external family stakeholders are argued to moderate the proposed relationship between blending social capital and family firm innovation. The surveying methods for assessing the hypothesized relationships included conducting a two-wave study with adapted, modified, and validated scales. …