Business Commons^™

Labor Mobility And Hypercompetition: Another Challenge To Sustained Competitive Advantages?, Jeffrey E. Stambaugh, Yongjing Zhang, Timothy Degroot

Business Faculty Publications

Researchers have suggested globalization, technological advances, and the rise of entrepreneurship have ushered in a new era of hypercompetition where competitive advantages are hard to attain and sustain. In this paper we propose another source of hypercompetition—a sudden increase in labor mobility within an industry—by drawing on the resource-based view of what leads to a sustainable competitive advantage. Using data from the National Football League, which had a substantial change in the player mobility in 1993, we use the two-sample Kolmogorov-Smirnov test to stratify teams according to their demonstrated level of competitive (dis)advantage based on their on-field performance. We found …

A Legal Review Of Stereotypes, Biases, And Discrimination Against Muslim-American Employees, Bahaudin G. Mujtaba, Frank J. Cavico

HCBE Faculty Articles

Approximately fifteen million Muslims live and work in the United States of America. Most of these Muslims are American by birth; yet some confront discrimination, harassment, and retaliation in the workplace because of their religion. Religious discrimination is illegal in the workplace in the United States pursuant to civil rights laws. This article examines the most common challenges that American Muslims face in the workplace. The article then offers pertinent recommendations to organizational leaders so they not only can fulfill their legal duties, but also attract and retain the most qualified workers regardless of their religious affiliations, beliefs, observances, and …

Social Media And Employment At-Will: Tort Law And Practical Considerations For Employees, Managers, And Organizations, Frank J. Cavico, Bahaudin G. Mujtaba, Stephen C. Muffler, Marissa Samuel

HCBE Faculty Articles

The prevalence, widespread use, and influence of technology in society today, including the workplace, is undeniable. Computers, the Internet, email, and cell phones are now indispensable parts of social interaction as well as business; and their sophistication, uses, and reach are expanding continually. Social media has completely transformed the life of many, many people. In particular, social media has materially changed the way in which people communicate. Social media affords people readily and easily usable ways to stay in touch with family, friends, colleagues, and co-workers, including the ability to rapidly share information and commentary. Business today is also taking …

Business Ethics Of Pakistanis In Islamabad And Lahore: Do Age, Gender And Data Collection Processes Make A Difference?, Bahaudin G. Mujtaba, Arif Sikander, Naveed Akhtar, Talat Afza

HCBE Faculty Articles

Pakistan is an emerging economy and a modernizing workplace. This research surveyed 318 citizens, managers, and employees in Lahore and Islamabad to measure their Personal Business Ethics Scores (PBES) based on age and gender, as well as to see if face-to-face and online data collection processes make a difference in their level of ethical maturity. Furthermore, this study contributes to the theory of moral development. The results suggest that age is a significant factor in moral development as it leads to higher scores in moral maturity. Gender is not a factor in the ethical maturity scores of these respondents. Kohlberg's …

A Review Of Employee Health And Wellness Programs In The United States, Bahaudin G. Mujtaba, Frank J. Cavico

HCBE Faculty Articles

Due to rapidly rising healthcare costs, employee wellness has become an important topic for small and large companies alike. As such, many organizations are now taking a proactive approach to this issue by offering incentives for employees to get healthy and remain in “good shape.” Simultaneously, some firms are penalizing employees who are smokers and those who might be above the average weight limit considered to be safe for their age and gender.

This article provides a review of trends regarding wellness programs in the modern American workplace. The authors offer practical recommendations to employers to have legal, ethical, and …

Exploring Best Practice Skills To Predict Uncertainties In Venture Capital Investment Decision-Making, David Arthur Blum

Presidential Alumni Research Dissemination Award

Algae biodiesel is the sole sustainable and abundant transportation fuel source that can replace petrol diesel use; however, high competition and economic uncertainties exist, influencing independent venture capital decision making. Technology, market, management, and government action uncertainties influence competition and economic uncertainties in the venture capital industry. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to identify the best practice skills at IVC firms to predict uncertainty between early and late funding stages. The basis of the study was real options theory, a framework used to evaluate and understand the economic and competition uncertainties inherent in natural resource investment and …

An Exploration Of The Associations Among Corporate Sustainability Performance, Corporate Governance, And Corporate Financial Performance, Wenxiang Lu

Accounting Dissertations - Archive

This study examines the relationship between corporate governance and corporate sustainability performance (CSP), the relationship between corporate sustainability performance and corporate financial performance (CFP), and whether corporate governance moderates the CSP-CFP relationship. Corporate governance plays an important role in monitoring and counselling management's decision making including strategic sustainability investing. The study analyzes a sample of over 400 of the largest U.S. companies to examine corporate sustainability performance and corporate governance jointly. Four attributes of boards of directors are examined: board size, board independence, CEO duality, and female directors. The results show that all four board attributes are positively associated with …

Hire For Personality, Train For Skill: The Relationship Between Cognitive And Non-Cognitive Human Capital, Desired Employee Behaviors, And Performance, Brian Martinson

Management Dissertations - Archive

This study proposes to examine the relationship between cognitive and noncognitive human capital and work performance as mediated by desired employee behaviors. The study will also explore the moderating effects of high performance work practices (HPWPs) on this relationship. The goal of this study is to explain the distal relationship between human capital and firm performance through the more proximal relationship of the human resources practices used to manage human capital by activating individual employee behaviors. The study uses the individual level inputs of knowledge, skills, abilities, personality, and values, combined with application of HPWPs to test a set of …

Tmt Characteristics That Position Family Firms For Success: Examining The Effects Of Human Capital, Non-Familiness, Entrepreneurial Orientation, And Transactive Memory Systems, Drake Stevenson Mullens

Management Dissertations - Archive

Entrepreneurship is critical to family firm growth, profitability, and survival (Zahra 2005); however, entrepreneurship remains understudied in the family business context (Zahra and Sharma, 2004). Limited extant research suggests family firms act less entrepreneurially than their non-family counterparts but performance enhancements result from entrepreneurial actions (Litz and Klesen, 2001). Consequently, I explored the effects of human capital and non-familiness in the top management team on the group's transactive memory system (Wegner, 1987) and the organization's entrepreneurial orientation. In my sample, human capital in the top management team was positively related to the team's transactive memory system. Similarly, human capital was …

Individual Human Capital And Performance: An Empirical Study In Thailand, Pakorn Sujchaphong

Business Administration Dissertations - Archive

According to the resource-based view of the firm, human capital is a source of sustained competitive advantage of the firm (McMahan, Virick, & Wright, 1999; Wright & McMahan, 1992; Wright, McMahan, & McWilliams, 1994; Wright & McMahan, 2011). Based on micro-foundations, it is essential that one must begin with and understand the individuals that make up the organization before exploring it at the organizational level (Felin & Foss, 2005; Wright & McMahan, 2011). Hence, this study focuses on the individual level of human capital. The first research question of this study is "How does human capital affect the performance of …

Overvaluation And Stock Price Crashes: The Effects Of Earnings Management, Qunfeng Liao

Accounting Dissertations - Archive

Prior literature has shown that managers have incentives to opportunistically and selectively withhold bad news from investors because of career concerns, compensation contracts, litigation risks, earnings targets, and empire building. In their 2006 paper, Jin and Myers develop the “Bad News Hoarding” theory which suggests that when managers conceal bad news for extended periods of time, negative information is likely to get stockpiled within the firm. When managers’ incentives for hiding bad news collapse or when the accumulation of bad news reaches a critical threshold level, all of the hitherto undisclosed negative firm-specific shocks become public at once, resulting in …

The Role Of Individual Attributes In Earnings Management Intention Decisions, Janet R. Jones

Accounting Dissertations - Archive

Much research has been conducted, at the firm level, to investigate the market effect of earnings management. However, there is a gap in the literature on individual attributes that may help to explain earnings management decisions. Of the research at individual level research that is available the focus is primarily on the motives of the Chief Executive Officer or top executive teams and not the Chief Financial Officer (CFO). The limited research focusing on the CFO has produced conflicting results with regard to the motivations and decisions of the CFO to engage in earnings management, this conflict in findings stems …

Investor Overconfidence And Option Trading, Han-Sheng Chen

Finance and Real Estate Dissertations - Archive

This study examines investor overconfidence theory in the options market. The theory suggests that investors who experience high returns become overconfident in their security valuation and trading skills, and therefore trade more often, even when the high returns are market wide. Given stock investors often trade in both stock and options market, I hypothesize similar patterns could be found in the options market as well. Controlling for market volatility and stock idiosyncratic risk, past market return is positively correlated with option trading turnover. In addition, past positive market return leads to higher call option turnover ratio and higher call-to-put ratio. …

A Management Dashboard Model For Supply Chain Cost Estimations, Brad Masters

Business Administration Dissertations - Archive

As many organizations are unable to alter existing accounting systems for an Activity Based-type costing requirement, a "Dashboard" Costing Model is proposed. The model will 1) empirically verify management assumptions regarding actual Supply Chain costs, 2) satisfy management's objectives for acceptable accuracy and simplicity and 3) contribute to the current body of research by providing alternative methods of estimating Supply Chain costs within the Transaction Cost Economics framework. Future studies can expand upon this costing methodology, and test its applicability with other organizations in other industries for accuracy improvement and refinement.

Translation And Adaptation Of The Social Emotional Competence Development Scale, Sebastian Vaida, Craig R. Seal, Stefanie E. Naumann

Eberhardt School of Business Faculty Articles

This paper provides a cross-validation study of the Social Emotional Competence Inventory (SECD-I) from English to Romanian. The intent was to determine if the SECDI-I measure retained adequate internal validity after translation. Results suggest that the translated measure, called the Competenţe Socio Emoţionale scale, is a valid instrument for evaluating the social emotional competencies for young adults in a Romanian-speaking sample.

Perception Of African Youth On Personal Computer Utilization: The Case Of Ethiopia And Rwanda, S. Negash

Faculty Articles

The tendency to pursue innovativeness and adopt new technologies has been found more likely with younger individuals and a strong relationship between attitude and personal computer (PC) utilization has been found. However, research in these areas is mainly focused on high-income countries. Do these findings hold for low-income countries? What are the perceptions of African youth on the factors that impact PC use? There is a dearth of micro-level studies that promote understanding about the behavior of individuals in low-income countries. This study looked at demographic data including age, gender, grade level, region, and prior experience among 228 youth from …

Delayed Observation Planning In Partially Observable Domains, Pradeep Reddy Varakantham, Janusz Marecki

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Traditional models for planning under uncertainty such as Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) or Partially Observable MDPs (POMDPs) assume that the observations about the results of agent actions are instantly available to the agent. In so doing, they are no longer applicable to domains where observations are received with delays caused by temporary unavailability of information (e.g. delayed response of the market to a new product). To that end, we make the following key contributions towards solving Delayed observation POMDPs (D-POMDPs): (i) We first provide an parameterized approximate algorithm for solving D-POMDPs efficiently, with desired accuracy; and (ii) We then propose …

Capacity Position And Financial Performance: Longitudinal Evidence From U.S. Manufacturers, Carol J. Cagle

Information Systems & Operations Management Dissertations - Archive

This research synthesizes research from the strategy, organization theory and operations management streams in exploring the competitive implications of firms' capacity over time. Data from archival sources are analyzed via Hierarchical Linear Modeling in exploring: 1) systematic relationships between capacity and financial performance that they obtain over time; and 2) the role of strategic and environmental covariates in these relationships.

Tourist Attitudes Toward Traveling In Thailand After The Political Demonstrations And Protests, Rawewan Maliwan, Bahaudin G. Mujtaba

HCBE Faculty Articles

The objective of this research was to explore tourists' practices in Thailand duringthe demonstrations in terms of security, information and tourists' perceptionsabout the political problems. The study was limited to the Bangkok area, which is surrounded by many important institutions including the main international airport, Suvarnabhumi, which was shut down by the protesters. Using a random sampling process, the respondents were 200 male and female tourists of various nationalitieswhowere presentduring the demonstrations. Responses were gathered in tourist areas such as Bangkok, Sukhumvit, Kaosan Road, Suwannaphumi Airport, and Silom Road. The findings showed that the demonstrations have short-term negative effects on …

A Middle Management Perspective On Strategy Implementation, Ahmad Salih

Presidential Alumni Research Dissemination Award

Strategic management researchers have established the key role middle managers play in the implementation of organizational strategies. However, there is little information regarding middle managers' views and perceptions of strategy implementation and the challenges associated with implementing organizational strategies. Drawing from activity theory and inspired by the strategy-as-practice perspective, the purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study was to understand the views and perceptions of 12 middle managers and 3 management consultants on the factors influencing organizational strategy implementation. The research questions addressed in this study included the views of middle managers on: (a) the key challenges associated with strategy implementation, …

Comparing Market-Based And Financial Statement-Based Stock Valuation Models: Implications For Growth Expectations And Differences Across Time Periods, Jacqualyn Ann Fouse

Finance and Real Estate Dissertations - Archive

The value of a share of common stock in a publicly-listed company should be equal to the present value of the future cash flows the company is forecast to produce, andultimately pay out to its stockholders. Expectations for these flows may incorporate information that goes beyond current earnings discounted into perpetuity as per the Dividend Discount Model (DDM). By comparing a market-based valuation model with a financial statement-based valuation model this paper seeks to find evidence of information embedded in market valuations that may not be captured in financial statement-based valuations. The analysis endeavors first to identify a component of …

Essays On Option Market Information Content, Market Segmentation And Fear, Mishuk Anwar Chowdhury

Finance and Real Estate Dissertations - Archive

This dissertation consists of three essays. The first essay tests whether stock returns can be predicted using divergence from put-call parity. Using a robust methodology that controls for the early exercise premium of American put and call options, the study shows that stocks with upside divergence from put-call parity outperform stocks with downside divergence from put-call parity. Predictability is persistent over multiple holding periods and divergence is also predictive of tail events. The second essay examines segmentation of equity and option markets in the presence of information asymmetry. The study uses the slope of the implied volatility skew as a …

Antecedents And Outcomes Associated With The Individual Stress Response, Matthew Blake Hargrove

Management Dissertations - Archive

This dissertation explores the antecedents and outcomes associated with the individual stress response. It begins with an extensive literature review of three conceptualizations of stress in organizations. Next, the construct psychological capital is explored as a potential moderator of the stressor-stress response relationship. A review of the psychological capital literature is presented including the potential and limitations of current interventions designed to develop psychological capital. A synthetic model for organizational stress is developed and presented. Hypotheses are formulated based on this model. In order to test hypotheses, two tools are developed. First, Psychological Capital Training (PCT), a multimodal intervention designed …

The Road Less Traveled: The Moderating Effects Of Relational Coordination On The Relationships Among Human Capital, Employee Behaviors And Performance, Alankrita Pandey

Management Dissertations - Archive

This dissertation studies the micro-foundations of Strategic Human Resource Management by examining the relationships between human capital, employee behaviors, relational coordination, and performance among individuals within a firm. Multilevel modeling is used to empirically investigate and find evidence for the mediated relationship among human capital, in-role and extra-role behaviors and performance for a sample of 126 registered nurses from a large surgical care hospital in the southwestern United States. To the Strategic Human Resource Management framework, this dissertation also introduces an element of social capital, role-coordination among the registered nurses and others performing the same job, in the same work …

Threshold Effects In Volatility Spillovers: The Case Of Equity, Bond And Foreign Exchange Markets, Arun Prasath Narayanasamy

Finance and Real Estate Dissertations - Archive

Most research on volatility spillovers across countries and various asset class returns model volatility as conditional variance and assume a linear relationship in spillovers. The risk measured as conditional variance is modeled as a function of own past innovations and own past conditional variances and fails to include lagged conditional variances from other assets. In this dissertation, for a bivariate set up, I estimate the conditional variance of the second country either as a GARCH (1, 1) or DCC (1, 1) type process. Using the estimated conditional variances, the non-linear or threshold parameter is computed by maximizing the log likelihood …

Measurement Issues In The Capital Asset Pricing Model & Size Effect And Duration, Yongho Seo

Finance and Real Estate Dissertations - Archive

It has been observed that the value of an asset's beta varies with the frequency of the data used to generate the value, a phenomenon hereafter referred to as "time scale", or simply "scale". If the scale effect is strong enough, then ignoring this phenomenon calls into question studies that rely on comparing beta values. The most notable of these studies is the classification of stocks as "aggressive" or "defensive". I show that such a categorization varies substantially when comparing betas estimated using monthly data versus annual data. Contrary to other studies, betas do not vary monotonically as data scale …

Penny Stocks, Market Microstructure, And Analyst Forecasts, Julio AndréS Rivas-Aguilar

Finance and Real Estate Dissertations - Archive

The first essay of this dissertation deals with the relationship between previous earnings, earnings forecasts, and future returns. I found that stocks with the worst previous earnings and the worst earnings forecasts outperform the ones with more optimistic outlooks. Value stocks also tend to outperform glamour stocks. I also found that previous earnings are the dominating factor in determining subsequent returns. The second essay deals with the Bid-Ask Spread (BAS) behavior of penny stocks throughout trading sessions. I ran the analysis by using different days of the week, months of the year, and analyst coverage. Finally, I regressed the minute-to-minute …

The Moderating Effect Of Instrumental Job Attributes On The Relationship Between A Firm's Perceived Value Of Diversity And Its Organizational Attractiveness, Jason R. Lambert

Management Dissertations - Archive

Increasingly more firms are targeting both racial and sexual minorities in recruitment ads to attain a diverse work climate. However, the challenge remains of recruiting job seekers without alienating qualified others. Expectancy theory and social identity theory are used to investigate how employee recruitment statements regarding employment-at-will and pay moderate the effect that diversity-supportive recruitment statements have on job seekers' job pursuit intentions and attraction towards a firm. A model is tested that demonstrates an interaction effect between perceived instrumental job attributes and perceived symbolic attributes on the organizational attractiveness of a firm. Implications from the results are discussed, including …

Understanding The Relationship Of Job Embeddedness With Social And Human Capital: The Importance Of Organizational Identification, Aaron R. Moses

Management Dissertations - Archive

This dissertation examines organizational identification as a critical moderator of the outcomes of job embeddedness using a survey sample of employees from a hospital in the Southwestern United States. Results suggest that job embeddedness leads employees to develop different types of human and social capital depending on their organizational identification or disidentification. I conclude that employee outcomes are different depending on how employees view their job-embedded situations and argue that job embeddedness be reconceptualized to account for different reactions to job embeddedness based on organizational identification. Implications for researchers and managers are also discussed.

Causality And Volatility Spillover Effects On Sub-Sector Energy Portfolios, N. Alper Gormus

Finance and Real Estate Dissertations - Archive

During a time of extensive crises related to energy sources, in particular fossil fuels, IPOs for alternative energy-related companies are a common occurrence. As new industries are created or old ones are revised, investors, who constantly are trying to update their portfolios for hedging their risk, face new challenges. The purpose of this study is to aid investors in market anticipation, forecasting, and portfolio diversification through shedding some light on the inner dynamics of the select asset markets versus sector-specific energy companies. Although energy companies related to fossil fuels such as oil, coal, and natural gas are previously studied, alternative …