Business Commons^™

Evaluating Ceres Fair Food As An Urban Sustainable Food Initiative: A Comparison Of Retail Pricing, Wholesale Pricing And Food Miles For A Healthy Food Basket, Stella Chung

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

CERES Fair Food, an organic food delivery system in Melbourne, VIC was evaluated in terms of its transportation resource consumption, ability to enhance food security, and support of local organic farmers, which are key factors in sustainable food systems for urban areas.

Transportation resource consumption was analyzed by calculating the food miles for a selection of Fair Food’s products and comparing them to data on typical products consumed in Victoria. Most of Fair Food’s products had similar or lower food miles, particularly the fresh produce. But many assumptions had to be made in the calculations due to limited information. Food …

Beads, Sculptures, And Baskets: South African Traditional Craft As A Means Of Economic Empowerment, Sasha Kaori Hippard

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The significance of the South African traditional craft industry is often associated with the preservation of historical culture. However, besides being a crucial element in the protection and promotion of cultural heritage, craftwork also can be a significant source of income generation for disadvantaged communities across South Africa. The African Art Centre, a non-profit organization located in Durban, reaches out to various communities of disadvantage in and around the KwaZulu Natal province, holding training and design workshops, providing access to craft skills and materials, and providing a market for the sale of craft as a source of sustainable economic empowerment. …

Understanding Loyalty And Motivation Of Professional Sports Fans, Victoria Wilkins

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the factors which create continuous and permanent commitment to a specific professional sports team.

Statement of Objectives: There is no denying that the current economic standing of the United States does not promote spending large sums of money on entertainment and leisure. Since taking a family to a professional sports game gets rather expensive, families are lead to pursue other alternatives while deciding how to spend free time. The costs of game attendance, including tickets, parking, food, beverages and souvenirs, can easily surpass one hundred dollars, which is undoable for many …

Imf: Predatory Lender Or Latin America’S Best Chance?, Paul Thomas Smith

Political Science Theses and Capstones

Recently, there has been heated debate as to whether or not assistance from the International Monetary Fund has proven to be a great humanitarian effort or a scheme by Western governments to keep emerging Latin American countries in debt. The IMF partners with numerous governments in order to create a collective monetary community from which all may benefit in times of need. These partnered countries are also able to apply for assistance if they find themselves in monetary hardships. Some studies have shown that the IMF has been too heavy handed, while other studies have shown that recipient governments may …

Massive Kinked Bonuses, Kevin F. Hallock

Economics Faculty Publications

While most people are paid by the hour or with a yearly salary, some are also paid bonuses. And, some are paid very large, all-or-nothing bonuses. The author's favorite recent example is from last summer when golfer Darren Clarke earned a $3-million bonus from his sponsor. But it was how the payout was structured more than the amount that so intrigued him -- his sponsor's payout was all or nothing. How people are paid is fascinating. It is particularly interesting in this case of very, very large bonuses. The sports odds that Darren Clarke would win the tournament going into …

Mountain Monitor-4th Quarter 2011, Mark Muro, Kenan Fikri

Mountain Monitor Quarterly

Recovery was firmly underway in the Intermountain West by the fourth quarter of 2011 but its pace varied considerably across the region’s 10 major metropolitan areas. Six of the 10 metros saw job growth in the fourth quarter but only four saw it accelerate over the previous one. Output grew everywhere but only in half of the region’s metros did the pace of growth quicken. The unemployment rate was down across the board from one year earlier. House prices in most markets stabilized. Yet signs of a robust, sustained, and self-fueling recovery remained elusive.

National economic indicators from early 2012 …

Large Mutual Fund Families: Bigger May Not Always Be Better, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

Size is not everything but it may be intuitive for the novice investor to place his money in a mutual fund from large fund families thinking that it will outperform the smaller ones.

Workplace Dignity In A Total Institution: Examining The Experiences Of Foxconn’S Migrant Workforce, Kristen Lucas, Dongjing Kang, Zhou Li

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

In 2010, a cluster of suicides at the electronics manufacturing giant Foxconn Technology Group sparked worldwide outcry about working conditions at its factories in China. Within a few short months, 14 young migrant workers jumped to their deaths from buildings on the Foxconn campus, an all-encompassing compound where they had worked, eaten, and slept. Even though the language of workplace dignity was invoked in official responses from Foxconn and its business partner Apple, neither of these parties directly examined workers’ dignity in their ensuing audits. Based on our analysis of media accounts of life at Foxconn, we argue that its …

The Relationship Between Attitudes Toward Women As Managers And Sex-Typing Of Toxic Leader Behaviors, Lacee Marie Vega-Cartwright

Theses Digitization Project

The purpose of this study is to add to the existing body of research on harmful leadership with a specific focus on the construct of toxic leadership. If toxic leader behavior is indeed sex-typed as masculine, as is leader behavior in general, there is a potential that women may also be devalued more harshly than men when behaving in a toxic manner. Although the behaviors and characteristics of toxic leaders are not desirable for either sex, if they are more attributable to one sex over the other, there is a potential that the other sex may be treated differently for …

Housing Issues And Solutions For The Residents On The Pine Ridge Reservation, South Dakota, Dana Tell, Axton Betz

Faculty Research & Creative Activity until 2018 (FCS)

This position paper details the poor housing and living conditions of American Indians in Pine Ridge Reservation and proposes some solutions to the problems. These include training for home upkeep and repair and owner education classes.

Exploring The Cultural Origins Of Differences In Time Orientation Between European New Zealanders And Māori, Kevin D. Lo, Carla Houkamau

Organization, Leadership, and Communication

Previous research suggests that time orientation differs as a function of national culture. National cultures often cluster together by region, thus regional generalizations can provide insights on how cultures in a given cluster perceive time. We consider the unique case of bi-cultural New Zealand with two cultures, the European New Zealanders (Pākehā) and the indigenous Māori from historically contrasting temporal clusters: Anglo-American and South Pacific. To demonstrate the ways in which Pākehā and Māori differ in their perspectives on time orientation we take our analysis beyond the basic generalizations based on regional clusters and consider the cultural roots of Māori …

The Promise And Challenge Of Ecotourism, Biqi Wu

Social Space

The following article is adapted from an ecotourism case study conducted by Wu Biqi. It was supported by the Lien Centre and supervised by Associate Professor John Donaldson of the School of Social Sciences at the Singapore Management University.

Self Vs. Organizational Employment: The Neglected Case Of Positive Spillover, David J. Prottas

New England Journal of Entrepreneurship

Self-employment is presented as enabling people to better balance their work and family roles but research on its effectiveness is equivocal. We collected survey data from 280 self- and organizationally-employed certified public accountants and conducted a multivariate analysis comparing positive spillover and conflict between the two groups.The self-employed reported less work-to-family conflict with no differences with respect to family-to-work conflict or positive spillovers. However, there were different patterns between male and female subsamples: self-employed males experienced less conflict and more positive spillover than male employees, whereas self-employed females had less of one form of conflict but more of the other.

A Polyphonic Approach To The 'Dark Side' Of Making Video Games, Johanna Weststar, Amanda Pettica-Harris, Steve Mckenna

Management and Organizational Studies Publications

This paper considers the video game industry and how it is represented through social media blogs and tweets. It aims to disentangle the polyphony of voices communicating through different stories about what it means to work in the gaming industry. The multiple voices found within the blogs and tweets weave a complex and contested narrative about the carnivalesque way in which video games are made, poignantly illustrating the good, the bad, and the ugly. Using the work of the Russian literary theorist and philosopher, Mikhail Bakhtin (1984, 1993), and particularly his notions of monologic and dialogic stories and narratives (McKenna, …

Natural Resources In Nonmetropolitan Nebraska: Use And Priorities: 2012 Nebraska Rural Poll Results, Rebecca J. Vogt, Cheryl A. Burkhart-Kriesel, Randolph L. Cantrell, Bradley Lubben

Nebraska Rural Poll

Many rural Nebraskans say they already recycle a lot and face no barriers. However, many rural Nebraskans cite lack of programs and difficulty getting materials to drop-off sites as barriers to recycling. Persons living in or near smaller communities are more likely than persons living in or near larger communities to say their community doesn’t offer recycling. However, most rural Nebraskans say their community offers either curbside pickup or drop-off recycling for all of the materials listed with the exception of glass bottles.

Most rural Nebraskans are in favor of building the Keystone XL pipeline, but think it should be …

Is Organisational Commitment Culturally Bound?, Helen Chen, John Murray

Irish Business Journal

The paper investigates whether organisational commitment is culturally bound. Literature was reviewed on the impact of Hofstede’s four dimensions of culture on organisational commitment. Three hypotheses were put forward in relation to the cultural impact on the three components of organisational commitment: affective, normative and continuance commitment. Data was collected from two branches of an American multinational corporation with operations in China and Ireland. The two cultures were chosen as they demonstrate differences as well as similarities on Hofstede’s dimensions, which provided an opportunity to explore the cultural impact. The results supported two of the hypotheses that Chinese employees have …

Quality Of Life In Nonmetropolitan Nebraska: Perceptions Of Well-Being And Church Life: 2012 Nebraska Rural Poll Results, Rebecca J. Vogt, Cheryl A. Burkhart-Kriesel, Randolph L. Cantrell, Bradley Lubben, Philip Schwadel

Nebraska Rural Poll

Most rural Nebraskans are positive about their current situation. And, they continue to be generally positive about their future situation. Over one-half (51%) of rural Nebraskans think they are better off than they were five years ago and just under one-half (45%) think they will be better off ten years from now. Certain groups remain pessimistic about their situation. Persons with lower household incomes, older persons, and persons with lower educational levels are the groups most likely to be pessimistic about the present and the future.

When asked if they believe people are powerless to control their own lives, most …

Strategic Discourse Across Organizational Meetings:Towards A Systems Perspective., Brendan K. O'Rourke, Martin Duffy

Conference Papers

Strategic Discourse across Organizational meetings: Towards a Systems Perspective Abstract This paper presents a tentative theoretical conception of how organizational meetings may be viewed as a system rather than as individual events. Perspectives from process metaphysics(Langley and Tsoukas, 2010), meso-discourse analysis (Alvesson and Karreman, 2000, 2011) and systems thinking (von Bertalanffy, 1969) are adopted, to explore and expand the theoretical resources available to conceptualise a ‘system of meetings’. The primary data draws from 130+ hours of recorded meeting proceedings, spanning 58 meeting events, from multiple sub-groups within a medium sized company.

Inbound International Tourism To The United States: A Panel Data Analysis, E. M. Ekanayake, Mihalis Halkides, John R. Ledgerwood

Publications

The objective of this paper is to analyze the demand for tourist arrivals to the United States, using the panel cointegration technique. The study attempts to identify and measure the impact of the main determinants of inbound international tourism flows to the United States. The study uses annual data from 1986 to 2011 for tourist arrivals from 50 major countries of tourist origin. The specified model includes several country-specific determinants. The panel unit root tests indicate all the variables are integrated of order one. The panel cointegration tests show that all seven test statistics reject the null hypothesis of no …

Restaurant Selection In Dublin, Frank Cullen

Articles

The primary objective of this research was to investigate the selection process used by consumers when choosing a restaurant to dine. This study examined literature on consumer behaviour, restaurant selection, and decision-making, underpinning the contention that service quality is linked to the consumer’s selection of a restaurant. It supports the utility theories that consumers buy bundles of attributes that simultaneously combined represent a certain level of service quality at a certain price. The findings of the research displayed a preference by Dublin consumers for Italian and Chinese styled restaurants and identified quality of the food, type of food, cleanliness of …

Does Self-Efficacy Influence The Application Of Evidence-Based Practice?, Kathleen Abrahamson, Priscilla Arling, Jenna Gillette

Scholarship and Professional Work - Business

Background: Implementation of Evidence-Based Practice (EBP) is complex and consequently, even within organizations that have made efforts to promote EBP use, EBP is often underutilized by individual clinicians.

Purpose: The aim of our study was to better understand the relationship between self-efficacy and EBP implementation in clinical environments that have undergone efforts to increase EBP utilization. We suggest that EBP is a set of behaviors that result from individuals acquiring, applying, and sharing new knowledge with others in the organization. We hypothesize, based upon a social cognitive theoretical approach, that these behaviors are influenced by clinician perception of self-efficacy.

Methods: …

Smiles As Signals Of Lower Status In Football Players And Fashion Models: Evidence That Smiles Are Associated With Lower Dominance And Lower Prestige, Timothy Ketelaar, Bryan L. Koenig, Daniel Gambacorta, Igor Dolgov, Daniel Hor, Jennifer Zarzoza, Cuauhtémoc Luna-Nevarez, Micki Klungle, Lee Wells

WCBT Faculty Publications

Across four studies, the current paper demonstrates that smiles are associated with lower social status. Moreover, the association between smiles and lower status appears in the psychology of observers and generalizes across two forms of status: prestige and dominance. In the first study, faces of fashion models representing less prestigious apparel brands were found to be more similar to a canonical smile display than the faces of models representing more prestigious apparel brands. In a second study, after being experimentally primed with either high or low prestige fashion narratives, participants in the low prestige condition were more likely to perceive …

Informality And Labor Market Dynamics During Economic Downturns: Evidence From Egypt, Rania Roushdy, May Gadallah

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

This working paper investigates the evolution of the Egyptian labor market during the world financial crisis period. There has been a mild decline in unemployment, combined with a slight increase in both labor force participation and employment to population ratio. Some subgroups of workers have been more vulnerable than others during the crisis period. The results of this paper concur with the historical experience, which suggests that young, old, unskilled and female workers are more likely to bear the brunt of an economic downturn.

The Alternative Staffing Work Experience: Populations, Barriers And Employment Outcomes, Helen Levine, Brandynn Holgate, Risa Takenaka, Françoise Carré

Center for Social Policy Publications

This paper presents results of a three-year study of workers and former workers at four Alternative Staffing Organizations (ASOs). ASOs are fee-for-service job brokering businesses created by community-based organizations and national nonprofits whose objective is to gain access to temporary and “temp to permanent” opportunities for workers facing barriers to employment. The paper looks specifically at the relationship between the personal characteristics of workers, their temporary work experiences through the ASO, and the subsequent employment status of former ASO workers, determined through a follow-up survey conducted by telephone six to eight months after workers had left the ASO. We found …

Why Use The Services Of Alternative Staffing Organizations: Perspectives From Customer Businesses, Françoise Carré, Brandynn Holgate, Risa Takenaka, Helen Levine

Center for Social Policy Publications

Organizations that aim to improve the experiences and employment chances of job seekers who face barriers to employment have, over the years, had to contend directly with potential employers and their requirements. This is particularly true for community-based job brokers that use a temporary staffing model, offering job access and immediate work to their service population.

Alternative staffing organizations (ASOs) are worker-centered, social purpose businesses that place job seekers in temporary and “temp-to-perm” assignments with customer businesses, and charge their customers a markup on the wage of the position. These fee-for-service organizations can help job seekers who face labor market …

The Emergence Of A Standards Market: Multiplicity Of Sustainability Standards In The Global Coffee Industry, Juliane Reinecke, Stephan Manning, Oliver Von Hagen

Management and Marketing Faculty Publication Series

The growing number of voluntary standards for governing transnational arenas is presenting standards organizations with a problem. While claiming that they are pursuing shared, overarching objectives, at the same time, they are promoting their own respective standards that are increasingly similar. By developing the notion of ‘standards markets,’ this paper examines this tension and studies how different social movement and industry-driven standards organizations compete as well as collaborate over governance in transnational arenas. Based on an in-depth case study of sustainability standards in the global coffee industry, we find that the ongoing co-existence of multiple standards is being promoted by …

Job Satisfaction Determinants: A Study Across 48 Nations, Jeanine K. Andreassi, Leanna Lawter, Martin Brockerhoff, Peter Rutigliano

WCBT Faculty Publications

This paper examines the drivers of job satisfaction across four cultural regions—Asia, Europe, North America, and Latin America. Using Hofstede’s theory, determinants were used to predict job satisfaction for each region and then compared to determine significant differences. Data was collected from a proprietary industry survey on employee work attitudes. The sample consisted of over 70,000 employees from 4 large multinational organizations. Data was analyzed using regression analysis and comparison testing across models. There are significant relationships between job characteristics and job satisfaction across all regions of the world, with a sense of achievement universally the most important driver. Although …

Housing Issues And Solutions For The Residents On The Pine Ridge Reservation, South Dakota, Dana Tell, Axton Betz

Consumer Sciences Faculty Publications

This position paper details the poor housing and living conditions of American Indians in Pine Ridge Reservation and proposes some solutions to the problems. These include training for home upkeep and repair and owner education classes.

‘Going Through The Mist’: Early Career Transitions Of Chinese Millennial Returnees, Emily T. Porschitz, Chun (Grace) Guo, José Alves

WCBT Faculty Publications

Over the past decade management practitioners have sought to understand the career expectations of the Millennial generation - those born between 1979 and 1994 (Myers and Sadaghiani, 2010) - who are rapidly becoming a dominant force in the global economy. As workers from the Baby Boomer generation move towards retirement, organization leaders are becoming more interested in understanding how to attract and retain millennial employees most effectively (Walmsley, 2007). A large body of research is devoted to uncovering the career expectations of millennial workers, so that practitioners can better understand them. Findings suggest Millennial have high expectations regarding career success …

Women Religious In A Changing Urban Landscape: The Work Of Catholic Sisters In Metropolitan Cleveland, Robert L. Fischer, Jennifer Bartholomew

Faculty Scholarship

In many communities, women religious play a vital role in addressing the needs of the poor, neglected, and vulnerable members of society. Catholic Sisters have long been active in the areas of education, health care, outreach, and advocacy in northeast Ohio. In high-poverty urban areas such as Cleveland, women religious continue to provide essential services, support, and spiritual guidance. The experience in Cleveland is relevant to other cities where the population has shifted from an urban center to suburban areas, leaving inner-city churches with declining membership and support. Survey data collected from 164 Catholic Sisters from fifteen religious orders in …