Business Commons^™

Johnson & Johnson Strategic Audit, Hannah Headley, Lucy Peterkin, Ryan Nyffeler, Joshua Wiemers, Bailey Birkholtz

Honors Theses

Johnson & Johnson (J&J) is a healthcare company that generates economic value from its three core business segments: Consumer Health, Pharmaceuticals, and Medical Devices. Recent innovations include new pharmaceutical products, remote clinical trials, automated patient recruitment, improved scientific and digital literacy amongst employees, and innovative digitized models for supply chain planning. J&J has a competitive edge in R&D efficiency, with a 4.35 return on research capital ratio. Sociocultural, technological, and economic factors will play a large role in changing the pharmaceutical industry environment, and J&J is well positioned to benefit from sources of growth such as the increase in aging …

Essentially Doomed: How The Covid-19 Pandemic Has Impacted The American Restaurant Industry, Jack Grafton

Honors Theses

COVID-19 appeared unpredictably in late 2019 and developed into the most catastrophic global outbreak of the last century over the course of the next three years. The highly contagious virus infected hundreds of millions of people worldwide and was responsible for the death of millions. Beyond the devastating health impact the virus had on the world, pandemic related shutdowns resulted in massive economic consequences. Social distancing measures resulted in months long shutdowns and restrictions for businesses throughout the United States, resulting in massive revenue and employment losses. Of specific industries heavily impacted by the pandemic in the United States, the …

Takeda Pharmaceutical Rare Hematology Strategic Audit, Brian Duval

Honors Theses

Takeda Pharmaceutical Company is a large Japanese-based multinational pharmaceutical company that manufactures treatments for many different diseases. It is the largest pharmaceutical company in Asia and has a significant share in markets across the world. This report focuses specifically on Takeda’s treatments for rare bleeding disorders under its Rare Diseases & Hematology division. Using internal and external analysis tools, this report seeks to understand how Takeda has created and sustained competitive advantages in the complex environment of the pharmaceutical industry. Specific tools used to highlight this include Porter’s Five Forces and PESTEL analyses. This report also examines the environment surrounding …

Contributions Community Health Centers In The Delta Have Made During The Pandemic And Their Future, Ajah Tiyanna Singleton

Honors Theses

Community health centers that are located in the Mississippi Delta serve as critical points of contact for residents pertaining to medical care. The framework for the services provided locally, and nationally, originate from the now Delta Health Center in Mound Bayou, MS. The care that providers within these institutions have transformed over the course of the pandemic, and the aid rendered to patients have enabled residents to maintain their current level of health. Analyzing the various services provided during this time will allow for stakeholders to determine the next steps for these institutions as the imminent transition into a COVID-19 …

Egypt’S Pediatric Oncology Hospital 57357: A Case Study Analysis, Ashley A. Clegg

Honors Theses

Hospital 57357 is the foremost pediatric oncology hospital in Egypt and provides treatment free of charge to children with cancer. Since its establishment in 2007, the hospital has grown to a capacity of 380 patient beds across three locations. Its quest for continuous improvement led to the development of a new performance management system emphasizing the tracking and measurement of a multitude of Key Performance Indicators across all departments. While this new system enables objective and perpetual monitoring of key patient care metrics, its integration into the existing structure introduces challenges that must be addressed. To analyze the external environment …

Grasping The Intangible: The Perseverance Of Physical Music Media In A Digital World, Sam Youmans

Honors Theses

Music is a unique economic good with several interesting characteristics: as an art form, its value is immensely subjective and changes with the culture; it is most widely consumed via online streaming platforms but still embedded onto physical formats and sold through retailers; and the United States music business had to pivot through substantial economic disruption at the turn of the century with the advent of peer-to-peer file sharing. Given the digital world in which we live, this thesis explains why people still purchase music on physical formats. This is accomplished by discussing revenue data from the past few years, …

Strategic Audit Of Optum, Connor Crow

Honors Theses

Optum is a large American-based pharmacy benefit manager, healthcare consultant, healthcare delivery service, and business analytics corporation that has dominated the industry with sister-company UnitedHealthcare underneath the umbrella UnitedHealthGroup. This report seeks to understand through internal and external analyses how Optum’s business model and strategies have allowed them to gain and sustain competitive advantages in the everchanging, volatile environment of healthcare. Specific tools used to highlight this include Porter’s Five Forces, PESTEL, and SWOT analyses. Additionally, strategic recommendations are given for Optum’s next steps.

Pharmaceutical Manufacturing In The 21st Century: Identification And Analysis Of Key Elements, Robert N. Mills

Honors Theses

The availability of quality pharmaceutical products impacts the lives of the global population on a daily basis. The importance of product availability and quality within pharmaceutical manufacturing requires that quality systems put into place are capable of accurately and robustly capturing the quality compliance, or lack thereof, of the various stages of production. This review intends to analyze current expert-recommended best practices within key elements of a pharmaceutical manufacturing quality control system and provide recommendations throughout. The quality elements discussed include Quality by Design method validation, necessary equipment determination, and equipment qualification, followed by documentation control and data flow.

Determining The Effects Of Hospital Consolidation: An Examination Of The Impact Of Hospital M&A On Financial And Quality Metrics, Hailey Perry

Honors Theses

The modern explosion of M&A activity in the United States has generated significant controversy and advocates both for and against hospital consolidation have been quite vocal in presenting their cases. Using mergers and acquisitions reports from Irving Levin Associates as well as financial and quality metrics from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the American Hospital Directory, this study examines the differences between consolidated and unconsolidated hospitals in terms of overall revenue and quality, in addition to prices and costs for specified diagnoses.

Consolidated hospitals undergo significant changes during their transition and oftentimes operate in a manner different …

The Effect Of Color In Advertising Among Low And High Self-Monitors, Anne Reardon

Honors Theses

Prior research on self-monitoring has indicated high self-monitors will moderate their behavior based upon their environment, whereas low self-monitors listen to internal cues to make behavioral decisions. Within the consumer research, there appears to be individual differences in product evaluation. Self-monitoring orientation has emerged as one explanation for variance in product assessment. High self-monitors have indicated to be more receptive to image-based advertising. Conversely low-monitors have shown to be drawn to quality-based advertisements. Thus, other attributes such as product design, specifically color, appear to be moderators in product assessment among high and low self-monitors. The current research examined the possible …

Global Reach, Local Markets: The Challenges Of Leading Global Innovation, Sarah Higgins

Honors Theses

This Global Studies honors thesis addresses how managers and leaders of global firms manage innovation across multiple markets. Current research on multinational corporations provides an understanding of different kinds of innovation and the ways to attend to multiple markets. However, there is less documentation of how these innovation strategies are actually implemented on the ground and the tensions that these efforts might produce. Therefore, my research focuses in particular on the challenges and tensions faced by leaders of global firms as they implement transnational innovation strategies. This study is based upon in-depth interviews with 20 participants who held positions in …

Labor And Individual Differences: Their Influence On Product Value Perception, Trang Thi Thuy Nguyen

Honors Theses

The current research examined the impact of self-monitoring propensity on the “IKEA Effect”, in which labor induces greater liking for the products of one's labor, and as a result overvaluation of one’s creation. Whereas there was some research, such as those on toolkits or the “IKEA Effect”, which investigated valuation of self-created or self-build products, there is still little on personality traits influencing such valuations. In the experiment, students evaluated their self-assembled origami crane, cranes made by other participants, or cranes made by someone with high experience doing origami. The valuations made by the groups in different conditions are then …

Route To Persuasion In The Elaboration Likelihood Model: The Role Of Self-Esteem, Hilary Salander

Honors Theses

The current study aimed to explore the relationship between the two routes to persuasion proposed in the Elaboration Likelihood Model of persuasion, the central route and the peripheral route, and an individual’s self-esteem. It was hypothesized that individuals with low self-esteem would be more likely to follow the peripheral route to persuasion due to a lack of cognitive resources needed to enter the central route, while those high in self-esteem were thought to be more likely to follow the central route. Participants were first asked to fill out a series of three short questionnaires, one of which was the Rosenberg …