Business Commons^™

The Significance Of Sonic Branding To Strategically Stimulate Consumer Behavior: Content Analysis Of Four Interviews From Jeanna Isham’S “Sound In Marketing” Podcast, Ina Beilina

Student Theses and Dissertations

Purpose:
Sonic branding is not just about composing jingles like McDonald’s “I’m Lovin’ It.” Sonic branding is an industry that strategically designs a cohesive auditory component of a brand’s corporate identity. This paper examines the psychological impact of music and sound on consumer behavior reviewing studies from the past 40 years and investigates the significance of stimulating auditory perception by infusing sound in consumer experience in the modern 2020s.

Design/methodology/approach:
Qualitative content analysis of audio media was used to test two hypotheses. Four archival oral interview recordings from Jeanna Isham’s podcast “Sound in Marketing” featuring the sonic branding experts …

Essays On Strategies For Increasing Repayment Rates Of Digital Microloans, Alain Rutayisire Shema

Dissertations - ALL

Access to credit can act as a highly effective tool for poverty reduction and economic growth. The ability to borrow increases the propensity of low-income people to start and maintain businesses, educate their children and withstand financial shocks. These factors, in turn, can help them to move out of poverty and lead to more sustainable economic development. However, traditional financial institutions have inherent limitations that have impeded their ability to serve the poor.

Digital lenders are able to leverage the widespread adoption of mobile phones and mobile money to extend credit quickly and conveniently to more people, especially in developing …

Digital Equity: Difficulties Of Implementing The 1:1 Computing Initiative In Low-Income Areas, Demetric D. Williams

Dissertations

Successful One-to-One Computing Initiative implementation requires educators to communicate and collaborate effectively with everyone in the learning community. However, other factors such as teacher’s professional development, student’s perception, and parent’s perception often affect the implementation of the One-to-One Computing Initiative. School districts, which serve low-income areas in Mississippi, have difficulties ensuring students and communities have access to the information technology they need to participate outside the school setting. The concept is often called digital equity. However, when officials do not address the capacity, there is a vital threat to the participants’ civic, cultural, employment, lifelong learning, and access to essential …

Supplier Performance Scorecard Utilization In The Medical Device Manufacturing Healthcare Supply Chain, Justin Cardisco

Theses and Dissertations

The medical device manufacturing industry has a deficiency in determining how to improve supplier performance for the components and systems they purchase. Many complex medical devices require components from superb suppliers. But how does a medical device manufacturer (MDM) impartially assess supplier performance to know which suppliers to continuing with (or even boost purchase volumes) and which suppliers they should exit? This study describes which supplier-specific metrics are most important to medical device manufacturers (MDMs) so they can utilize this supplier performance scorecard backed by real-world inputs. This research will focus on five categories to measure MDM supplier performance (Quality, …

The Dark Side Of Artificial Intelligence: Understanding The Role Of Perceived Algorithm Unfairness On Ride-Hailing Driver Discontinuance, Zhenya Tang

Theses and Dissertations

Ride-hailing platforms (RHP) are sharing economy platforms that connect passengers who need to order a private ride or to share a vehicle with drivers who want to share a ride. However, after rapid growth, major RHPs (e.g., Uber, Lyft, and Didi) have begun to face severe driver shortages. Attracting and maintaining a large driver base is critical to the survival and success of any RHP no matter its size. While practitioners are urging to seek suggestions from academia to prevent driver loss, limited research attention has been paid to RHP drivers’ discontinuance. To fill this gap, this dissertation aims to …

Pancake Programming: An Interactive Stack-Based Coding Experience In Virtual Reality, William Adams

Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

Active Learning With Cybersecurity, Carole Shook

TFSC Publications and Presentations

A global campus grant was obtained in Spring 2020 to develop modules for Cybersecurity. This presentation encompasses the use of Cyberciege and case studies that require active learning of students.

Coronavirus Disability Survey: Assessing The Impact Of Covid-19 On Young Adults With Disabilities, Hena Rashid

Departmental Honors & Graduate Capstone Projects

This paper seeks to inform individuals of the importance of digital inclusivity, diminish the digital divide, and accessibility to technological services of college students who experience a form of disability. The United States has conducted minimal research on the digital disability rhetoric, promoted minimal disability-inclusive measures to protect the rights and well-being of college students, and minimal assistance to mitigate Coronavirus (COVID-19) impacts to this population subgroup. This subject can have a big impact on individuals who suffer from disability stigma, low accessibility issues, and who have been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic. Furthermore, this subject will benefit college students …

Business And/Or Ethics? A Framework For Resolving Multicriteria Decision Dilemmas, E. Susanna Cahn

Communications of the IIMA

Corporate leadership is often in the unenviable position of balancing ethical choices and profit. Business decisions consider alternatives and make choices to further strategic business goals. Measures of business success are likely to be financial, including profit, revenue, sales, market share, cost of production, quality of products, innovative product development. Ethical decisions are choices among right and wrong outcomes or processes. Assessment of ethical choices may or may not be easily quantified, including consideration of positive and negative consequences, moral principles, and fair process. Inevitably, then, the inherent nature of business-ethics decisions will involve multiple decision criteria, including both business …

A Self-Regulating System For Assessing Scientific Predictive Power, Ted C. Rogers

Physics Faculty Publications

I propose a method for tracking and assessing scientific progress using a prediction consensus algorithm designed for the purpose. The protocol obviates the need for centralized referees to generate scientific questions, gather predictions, and assess the accuracy or success of those predictions. It relies instead on crowd wisdom and a system of checks and balances for all tasks. It is intended to take the form of a web-based, searchable database. I describe a prototype implementation that I call Ex Quaerum. The main purpose of the present document is to motivate the project, to explain it's underlying philosophy, to explain the …

The Importance Of Agile Reporting Methods In A Retail Sales Environment, Katie Haefner

Information Systems Undergraduate Honors Theses

The primary objective of this project is to understand the importance of agile reporting methodologies for a retail sales team. Data has proven to be very vital for businesses to use and understand. In software systems that serve as data warehouses, it is expected that value be provided at each iteration within the system. This includes all the measurements, metrics, and reports. Agile reporting effects the way that data is utilized within a company. This paper looks at some of ways that value can be added when companies focus on ways to consolidate and standardize data as well as make …

Internship Thesis – Koch Industries, Sophia Gesualdi

Information Systems Undergraduate Honors Theses

The history of Koch Industries dates back to 1927, when Fred C. Koch improved the process of converting heavy oil into gasoline. This innovation was the moment that started it all; the company has only grown since its humble beginnings. Today, Koch Industries (Koch) is one of the largest privately held companies in America (Summary of Koch Industries History). Koch has involvement in an extremely diverse list of businesses and industries around the world; the organization is a conglomerate of companies that all function under the same umbrella. Two of the most noteworthy companies owned by Koch Industries are Flint …

Analytics: A Necessity In A Chaotic World, Jacob Broduer

Information Systems Undergraduate Honors Theses

Business analytics is a rapidly expanding field that offers countless job opportunities for students entering the workforce to take advantage of. However, analytic and data visualization skills are two things that are often overlooked by universities, especially if a student it not enrolled in a program that falls under the Information Systems umbrella. This thesis highlights the growth of jobs in analytics/big data and provides students with two projects that will allow them to gain valuable skills in Tableau and Power BI, giving them a needed edge in various job interviews.

Strengthening The Southern Nevada Workforce Pipeline, Katie M. Gilbertson

Student Research

Workforce development has been a keystone in the discussion of economic diversification of Las Vegas for decades. The leisure and hospitality industry is the lifeline for the Southern Nevada economy due to the reliance on tourism as the city’s main economic driver. The leisure and hospitality industry requires physical labor and more face-to-face customer interaction than other employment sectors. Thus, these jobs often do not require high educational attainment, but rather sharp soft skills like effective listening, nonverbal communication, and negotiation strategies. While these are valuable traits, the lack of educational attainment within the leisure and hospitality workforce suppresses employees’ …

Bitcoin, Blockchain Technology, And Cryptocurrencies, Jeffrey Dodson

Information Systems Undergraduate Honors Theses

The blockchain based cryptocurrency known as Bitcoin was theorized in a whitepaper published October 28, 2008, by Satoshi Nakamoto (pseudonym) (Nakamoto, 2008). The paper, titled, “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System,” laid out a digital currency creation/exchange structure that employs a decentralized ledger that would later run on the author’s open-source application (Nakamoto, 2008). The main innovation of this technology is found within the security benefits provided by the proof-of-work consensus mechanism that requires solving a mathematic trap-door compression function to verify transactions/blocks added to the blockchain. On January 3, 2009, the genesis block, a term for the first block …

Motion Capture Technologies: Viability Of Consumer Level Motion Capture Solutions, John Thomas

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Motion Capture is a prevalent and useful technology in the animation industry as well as the medical and military industries. As technology becomes better and cheaper it begins to enter the consumer market. A consumer interest in motion capture animations made by anyone has been created with the technology. This paper will focus on a review of the new technologies that have allowed the beginning of consumer-level motion-capture animations. Included will be a review of the history of motion capture and then a study of methods, workflows, and necessary prerequisites for making motion capture data using consumer-available tools. The study …

Enhancing Creativity In Organizational Teams: Development Of The Spark Program, Kimberly Morehead

Creativity and Change Leadership Graduate Student Master's Projects

Organizational teams have experienced unprecedented change since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic—such as frequent changes in leadership, increased turnover, and shifting to full-time remote work—which have impacted their ability to form lasting creative connections. This project addresses the challenge of the above changes by introducing a creativity-boosting program called The Spark, designed to help organizational teams remain inspired, connected, and energized throughout times of change. Following an overview of the rationale for this project and a review of the pertinent literature, the process plan is provided in detail. The project resulted in a program structure based on the Torrance …

Walmart Vs Amazon: How Walmart Can Compete With Amazon In The Age Of E-Commerce, Andrew Turner

Finance Undergraduate Honors Theses

In the growing battle between the retail giants, Walmart, and Amazon, it has become clear that Walmart must take steps to secure their place in a market where a pandemic-driven technology enabled e-commerce industry is expected to grow leaps and bounds over the next several years. In order to compete with Amazon, who dominates the majority of e-commerce in the US, Walmart must identify core competencies that drive revenue and customer loyalty and adapt them to a new age of retail. By taking advantage of physical locations and access to customer data, Walmart may be able to continue to offer …

How Innovation Occurs In The Software Industry: A Qualitative Study On Innovation Management, Jihoon Rim

Student Theses and Dissertations

Research in innovation has been widely conducted by academics. However, many of them merely define associations among innovation factors, findings are often contradictory, and research that involves innovation leaders with rich experiences, both successes and failures, is rare. Thus, how to best innovate remains a question among practitioners. This qualitative research is aimed at filling this gap in the literature. To that end, 23 innovation leaders, most of whom founded software companies worth hundreds of millions to billions of dollars, were interviewed with a grounded theory approach using Peter Drucker’s innovation theory as a lens through which to view new …

Digital Entrepreneurship In Asean, Chiraphol N. Chiyachantana, Pattarawan Mai Prasarnphanich

Asian Management Insights

Capitalising on the COVID-driven digitalisation phenomenon.

Turtletree: Cultivating Food Sustainably, Fengru Lin

Asian Management Insights

Lin Fengru, co-founder of TurtleTree, speaks about her entrepreneurial journey in the biotech space.

Nio's Battery-As-A-Service Strategy, Shantanu Bhattacharya, Lipika Bhattacharya

Asian Management Insights

A game changer in the EV industry?

How The Financial Services Industry Is Utilizing Social Media To Expand Their Client Base, Kristen Stewart

Marketing Undergraduate Honors Theses

Social media is becoming an increasingly important aspect of all companies’ marketing strategies. It is almost imperative for companies to advertise through social media if they want to have a fair chance of reaching the younger generation. In fact, “the majority (97%) of Gen Z consumers say they now use social media as their top source of shopping inspiration; 65% say they use social media to find entertaining content; and 61% of them are specifically interested in watching more video content” (Kastenholz, 2021). This proves that social media can make a significant and lasting impact on a company’s success. Social …

Terms Of Service Agreement Contracts: An Overview Of Personal Risk Management And Recommendations For Enhancing User Awareness, Brenda Collazo Taylor

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

This cumulative project will explore the personal risks involved when a user agrees to an online service’s Terms of Service (TOS) Agreement contract, especially when a user checks the “I Agree” box on an online service’s TOS. The key questions were: (1) What are the personal risks involved when a user clicks on the “I Agree” box on an online service TOS Agreement? (2) How are these risks co-related? and (3) How can end users mitigate risks after they have agreed to the TOS? To answer the questions, various TOS agreements were reviewed, and a poll was conducted asking a …

How To Build An Innovation Ecosystem In Enterprises -- Taking 3nod As An Example, Zhixiong Liu

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

In recent years, the global economy has been sluggish, especially affected by the Sino-USA trade war and the COVID-19, the harsh market environment and increased business uncertainty. In addition, China’s manufacturing industry is facing the impact of disappearance of the demographic dividend and strict environmental protection policies, so they are facing tremendous pressure for survival. At the same time, a new generation of science and technology continues to sprout and gradually penetrates in to production and life. Therefore, under these conditions, the innovation activities of manufacturing enterprises are more important and urgent. How to construct systematic innovation activities for manufacturing …

Diffusion Of Ai Governance, Langtao Chen, Brenda Eschenbrenner, Fiona Fui-Hoon Nah, Keng Siau, Yuzhou Qian

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to address social, economic, and environmental challenges. However, effective use of AI in organizations relies on the establishment of an AI governance framework. Although existing studies have discussed a variety of issues raised by AI-based systems and proposed AI governance frameworks to overcome those issues, organizations face challenges in adopting AI governance. Informed by innovation diffusion theory, this research evaluates the impact of internal and external influences on AI governance adoption between highly regulated and less regulated industries. We also assess the effect of adopting AI governance on organizational performance. Findings from this study …

A Study Of Social Engineering Concepts Within A Deceptive Defense, Jacob Glenn Oedekerk

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Organizations fall victim to costly attacks every year. This has created a need for more successful layers of defense. To aid in this need for additional defense, this study researches a way to bolster an underused defense style called deceptive defense. Researchers agree that deceptive defense could be the future of cybersecurity, and they call for more research in the deceptive category. The unresolved question from these researchers is what attack style could be used with a deception-based defense against an attacker. From this unresolved question, it was also determined that social engineering should be used in this culminating experience …

A Comparative Analysis Of Devices Via The Bluetooth Protocol In A Time Series Analysis, Joseph Vazquez

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

The utilization of the Bluetooth protocol has provided many with the seamless transmission of data to multiple devices. Given its versatility and being an efficient process of connectivity, it has become one of the preferred methods of wireless connections. Despite this, an aspect of the Bluetooth function is still vulnerable to being exploited by having the data transmission stolen. This project answered the following questions: “How does one reduce the vulnerability by comparing normal and abnormal Bluetooth data?”, “How does one identify outlying variables within the data?” and “How can we improve the Bluetooth function?”. This project relied on previous …

How Do Virtual Social Media Influencers Affect Millennial And Gen Z Female Consumers’ Purchase Intention? A Comparison Of Fast Fashion Versus Luxury Fashion Brands, Lauren Bouvier

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

With the emergence and increasing prevalence of social media, the effectiveness of social media influencers (SMIs) is apparent in today’s fast-paced life. Virtual social media influencers (VSMIs), computer-generated influencers with a real human appearance, have gained popularity. The purpose of this study is to examine important VSMI’s characteristics that affect brand image and trust which lead to purchase intention (fast fashion vs. luxury fashion brand). Social exchange theory and source credibility model were adopted to develop a theoretical framework for the present study. Two Instagram ads were developed that included the post’s image and corresponding caption: VSMI endorsing H&M and …

To Adopt Blockchain Technology Or Not: Is The Decision-Making Process Immune To Covid-19?, Rebecca Jauch

Thinking Matters Symposium

Blockchain technology has been shown to have advantages in improving the effectiveness of supply chain management. We use the Technology-Organization-Environment (TOE) framework with Threat-Rigidity Theory (TRT) to determine the factors that lead U.S. businesses to adopt blockchain technology, the factors that act as barriers to adoption, and the disruptive effect of COVID-19 on the rate of blockchain adoption