Business Commons^™

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 …

A Bright Idea: Assessing Stakeholder Impact Of Social Sustainability Strategies, Sara Theis

Dissertations

The performing arts industry is experiencing an awakening in terms of the need to integrate inclusion, diversity, equity, and access (IDEA) into their practices. This is the result of calls for change in the industry from members of historically marginalized communities. The challenge is that in order for social sustainability strategies like IDEA to be effective, they need to integrate them into the organization’s culture (Serafeim, 2020). IDEA cannot be a checklist. Using stakeholder theory and resource-based view as theoretical foundations, this qualitative case study examines one exemplary organization that has differentiated on social sustainability for decades. In 27 open …

A Digital Leadership Lens For A Physical World: Digital Transformation Levers Of Control For Incumbent Companies, Michael J. Seals

Dissertations

A new wave of advanced technologies is disrupting companies of all types and transforming business models within every industry. Long-standing industrial firms that rose to prominence in a pre-digital economy are particularly vulnerable. Prevailing views suggest these companies (hereafter referred to as incumbents) must reimagine their value propositions and transform themselves by leveraging today’s advanced technologies. The opportunities provided by these advanced technologies will significantly affect incumbents whether they participate or not. The pursuit of these opportunities, commonly referred to as digital transformation (DX), is the focus of our research.

Traditional technology-enabled business endeavors creating incremental operational improvements fell within …

Factors Influencing The Adoption Of Smart-Home Appliances: Users' Perspectives, Prakash Shahi

Dissertations

Smart appliances will be a significant part of the annual $300 billion smart-home market by 2025. Their use is expected to grow at a compounded annual growth rate of 31% for the foreseeable future. Currently, 12-16% of households use smart-home products in the U.S., including thermostats, TVs, refrigerators, coffee machines, garage door openers, and vision-equipped doorbells. Smart appliances provide significant benefits to us over traditional appliances. Smart appliances simplify our lives by automating various tasks in our homes and allowing us to monitor and control them remotely from our offices, grocery stores, and wherever we may be.

Despite the usefulness …

Value Creation By Private Equity Firms: A Resource-Based View, Kei Pang

Dissertations

Despite the growing importance of the private equity (PE) industry in the United States, it is unclear how PE firms create value. This study contributes to the PE literature and strategic management research by examining PE firm resources and competencies that drive the success of equity-backed management buyout deals. Specifically, my work proposes a framework to describe the key value creation drivers and sub-drivers that position PE firms for success in all four stages of the PE value chain: Fund Raising, Deal Sourcing, Governing/Managing, and Exiting. I utilize Porter’s (1985) value chain analysis (VCA) and the resource-based view (RBV) to …