Business Commons^™

Worker's Rights, Vijay Pereira, Daicy Vaz, Arup Varma

School of Business: Faculty Publications and Other Works

This chapter discusses the rights of workers. It focuses on Bangladesh, China, India, and Vietnam.

Responsibility Boundaries And The Governance Of Global Value Chains: The Interplay Of Efficiency, Ethical, And Institutional Pressures In Global Strategy, Thomas Deberge

School of Business: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Research Summary

I explore the relationship of firm global strategy and global value chain (GVC) governance, within a context of expanding responsibility boundaries for unethical practices in the value chain. Specifically, focusing on the tantalum supply chain within the digital electronics GVC, I conduct a case-based process study that contextualizes the different strategic responses of three manufacturers of tantalum capacitors when faced with similar efficiency, ethical, and institutional pressures. Integrating the GVC and global strategy literatures, I find that structural inertia in GVCs limits the efficacy of strategies that preserve, rather than alter, the governance structure, instead requiring a strategic …

House Bubbles, Global Imbalances And Monetary Policy In The Us, Anastasios Evgenidis, A. (Tassos) G. Malliaris

School of Business: Faculty Publications and Other Works

This paper examines the factors driving housing price exuberance in the United States, specifically the influence of expansionary monetary policies and the global saving glut. We employ medium scale Bayesian VAR and time-varying VAR models to estimate the effects of monetary policy and global saving glut shocks on US housing bubbles. We find that, prior to the Global Financial Crisis, the impact of the saving glut shock is more enduring, powerful, and rapid in generating housing bubbles compared to monetary policy shocks. However, the recent housing boom that commenced in 2019 demonstrates a different pattern. Our results suggest that both …

Curating A Consumption Ideology: Platformization And Gun Influencers On Instagram, Jenna M. Drenten Ph.D., Lauren Gurrieri, Aimee Dinnín Huff, Michelle Barnhart

School of Business: Faculty Publications and Other Works

This study explores how a platform enables social media influencers to promulgate a consumption ideology. We show how gun influencers, or “gunfluencers,” use Instagram to link products, activities, and meanings to Second Amendment ideology – a gun-centric belief system in the United States colloquially known as “2A ideology.” Through a qualitative study of 25 Instagram gunfluencers, we identify a process of curating a consumption ideology wherein social media influencers employ four curatorial tactics: glamourizing, demystifying, victimizing, and tribalizing. Findings suggest gunfluencers extend audiences and leverage algorithms to prescribe and model how supporters of 2A ideology should look, act, speak, feel, …

Migrant Flows: Humanitarian Operational Aspects Of People In Transit, Sameer Prasad, Harish Borra, Jason Woldt, Nezih Altay, Jasmine Tata

School of Business: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Millions of workers in India who migrated to cities for employment have transited back to seek refuge in their home villages, causing disruptions in both cities and villages. This type of mass flow of migrants in transit represents a humanitarian crisis. Understanding migrant flow patterns and ways to ameliorate the conditions for migrants in transit is critical to managing the humanitarian crisis. In this study, we develop a model that examines the influence of migrant networks, inter‐organizational collaboration, and environmental uncertainty on locational advantage, which, in turn, predicts migrant flow patterns. This study contributes to the humanitarian operations management and …

Deciphering Consumer Commitment: Exploring The Dual Influence Of Self-Brand And Self-Group Relationships, Brittney Bauer, Brad D. Carlson, Mark J. Arnold

School of Business: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Consumer-brand relationships are highly valued as brand-committed consumers are thought to deliver many positive outcomes for affiliated brands. However, in addition to connections between individuals and brands, consumer-brand relationships also involve relationships between individuals and other brand users. Little attention has been given to the potential consequences associated with commitment to other brand users as compared to the brand itself. Therefore, our framework establishes two distinct types of consumer-brand relationships (i.e., self-brand relationships vs. self-group relationships) that differentially influence brand commitment versus group commitment, leading to contrasting effects on both desirable and undesirable brand outcomes. Specifically, our studies illuminate …

External Affairs And Trusted Family Businesses: A Research Agenda, Jennifer Griffin, Yoo Na Youm

School of Business: Faculty Publications and Other Works

In the past two decades, the Journal of Public Affairs has solidified corporate public affairs as a legitimate leadership skillset vital to driving future business growth. Yet, more work at a persistently overlooked gap in the Journal, the intersection of public affairs and family businesses, might shed new light on thriving, trusted, and sustainable business practices. This paper examines the unique contributions of family businesses as trusted influencers. As one of the most prominent forms of business, worldwide, family businesses persistently enjoy unusually high levels of public trust while collectively employing millions of wage earners yet their contributions to corporate …

Centering Transgender Consumers In Conceptualizations Of Marketplace Marginalization And Digital Spaces, Beck Hansman, Jenna Drenten Ph.D.

School of Business: Faculty Publications and Other Works

The purpose of this study is to center transgender consumers in the conceptualizations between marketplace marginalization and digital spaces. We examine trans-gender crowdfunding as a hashtag-bounded digital space created by and for the transgender community–namely, the #TransCrowdFund digital space on Twitter. We draw on trans digital geographies as a novel analytical lens to focus attention on transgender consumers' unique experiences in and between digital spaces. Through qualitative hashtag mapping, we analyzed a sample of 200 Twitter profiles and accompanying tweets drawn from individuals using the#TransCrowdFund hashtag. Findings suggest transgender consumers utilize crowdfunding as a hashtag-bounded digital space in three ways: …

Irresponsible Contagions: Propagating Harmful Behavior Through Imitation, Andrew Bryant, Jennifer J. Griffin, Vanessa G. Perry

School of Business: Faculty Publications and Other Works

‘Monkey see, monkey do’ is an old saying referring to imitating another's actions without necessarily understanding the underlying motivations or being concerned about consequences, such as propagating harmful behaviors. This study examines the likelihood of firms imitating and proliferating others’ unethical, irresponsible practices thereby exacerbating harmful effects among even more firms; in doing so, irresponsible contagions can rapidly spread more broadly, negatively affecting even more consumers. Building upon rivalry- and information-based imitation theories, we examine if harmful behaviors of others, in combination with misbehavior of referent firms, influences the likelihood of a firm to engage in irresponsible consumer-related practices. After …

Creating Data From Unstructured Text With Context Rule Assisted Machine Learning (Craml), Stephen Meisenbacher, Peter Norlander

School of Business: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Popular approaches to building data from unstructured text come with limitations, such as scalability, interpretability, replicability, and real-world applicability. These can be overcome with Context Rule Assisted Machine Learning (CRAML), a method and no-code suite of software tools that builds structured, labeled datasets which are accurate and reproducible. CRAML enables domain experts to access uncommon constructs within a document corpus in a low-resource, transparent, and flexible manner. CRAML produces document-level datasets for quantitative research and makes qualitative classification schemes scalable over large volumes of text. We demonstrate that the method is useful for bibliographic analysis, transparent analysis of proprietary data, …

Youth Culture, Organizational Values, And Participatory Politics In The Digital Spaces Of Youth-Led Anti-Gun Violence Movements, Julie M. Szamocki

Master's Theses

As traditional forms of participating in politics are waning in popularity and younger people are becoming more politically aware, new ways to engage in politics are emerging from the intersection of youth culture and digital spaces. One way of understanding this intersection of activism and youth culture is to analyze how youth-led activist organizations engage in participatory politics in the digital space. I analyze how anti-gun violence organizations March for Our Lives and GoodKids MadCity, led by youth activists, reflect a unique and distinct form of digital engagement and organizational culture. Through content analysis, I will be highlighting organizational comparison …

The Role Of Institutions In Job Teleworkability Before And After The Covid-19 Pandemic, Peter Norlander, Chris Erickson

School of Business: Faculty Publications and Other Works

The teleworkability of jobs – whether they can and will be performed remotely – has been increasingly contested in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. To explain which jobs are teleworkable and why, we emphasize the institutional context of a job, including differences among firms, union representation, professional licensing requirements, sector, and employment models. Using a novel dataset of job characteristics extracted from the text of a large sample of online job advertisements from 2010-2021, we examine various explanations for change in the availability of remote job opportunities. Prior to the pandemic, private sector, non-union, and unlicensed jobs lagged federal …

The Platformed Money Ecosystem: Digital Financial Platforms, Datafication, And Reimagining Financial Well-Being, Akon E. Ekpo, Jenna M. Drenten, Pia A. Albinsson, Sophia Anong, Samuelson Appau, Lagnajita Chatterjee, Charlene A. Dadzie, Margaret Echelbarger, Adriene Muldrow, Spencer M. Ross, Shelle Santana, Michelle F. Weinberger

School of Business: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Digital financial platforms have become an integral part of consumers' lives–resulting in the datafication of everyday life and potential for uniquely impacting financial well-being. Extending previous transformative consumer research, we suggest financial well-being must center the ways digital financial platforms and their resulting data are increasingly enmeshed with financial decision making and consumption. Drawing on a theoretical lens of platformization, we propose the Platformed Money Ecosystem, which accounts for increased embeddedness of digital financial platforms within consumers' lives and the subtlety of how everyday life is transformed into data: producing data at the micro-level, monetizing data at the meso-level, and …

Monetary Policy, Financial Shocks And Economic Activity, Anastasios Evgenidis, A. (Tassos) G. Malliaris

School of Business: Faculty Publications and Other Works

This paper contributes to a fuller understanding of macroeconomic outcomes to financial market disturbances and the central bank’s role in financial stability. Our two major contributions are conceptual and econometric. Conceptually, we introduce phases of the business cycle and econometrically we employ Bayesian VARs. We document that a shock that increases credit to non-financial sector leads to a persistent decline in economic activity. In addition, we examine whether the behavior of financial variables is useful in signaling the 2007–2009 recession. The answer is positive as our BVAR generates early warning signals pointing to a sustained slowdown in growth. We propose …

Feminist Academic Organizations: Challenging Sexism Through Collective Mobilizing Across Research, Support, And Advocacy, Lauren Gurrieri, Andrea Prothero, Shona Bettany, Susan Dobscha, Jenna M. Drenten, Shelagh Ferguson, Stacey Finkelstein, Laura Mcvey, Nacima Ourahmoune, Laurel Steinfield, Linda Tuncay Zayer

School of Business: Faculty Publications and Other Works

This paper examines the establishment of a feminist academic organization, GENMAC (Gender, Markets, and Consumers; genmac.co), serving gender scholars in business schools and related fields. In so doing, it builds on the emerging literature of feminist academic organizations, as situated within feminist organizational studies (FOS). Through a feminist case study and by assessing the reflections of GENMAC's board members, we tell the story of the emergence of GENMAC and detail the tensions the organization encountered as it formally established itself as a feminist organization within the confines of a business school setting, a patriarchal system, and a neoliberal university paradigm. …

The U.S. Government's Program Of Welfare For The Wealthy, Stanley F. Stasch

School of Business: Faculty Publications and Other Works

No abstract provided.

How The Past Of Outsourcing And Offshoring Is The Future Of Post-Pandemic Remote Work: A Typology, A Model, And A Review, Chris Erickson, Peter Norlander

School of Business: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Information and communication technology (ICT) challenges traditional assumptions about the capacity to manage workers beyond organizational and physical boundaries. A typology connects a variety of non-traditional work organizations made possible by ICT, including offshoring, outsourcing, remote work, virtual companies, and platforms. A model illustrates how new technology serves as a proximate cause for a revision of social contracts between capital, labor and government reached through bargaining, and how external shocks such as the COVID-19 pandemic, the institutional environment, and limitations in practice influence how technology changes the organization of work. An historical case illustrates the general features of the model, …

Menstruation In Marketing: Stigma, #Femvertising, And Transmedia Messaging, Catherine A. Coleman, Katherine C. Sredl

School of Business: Faculty Publications and Other Works

No abstract provided.

Japanese Business Communication In The Covid Crisis: A Study Of Horenso And Its Implications, Kanji Kitamura

School of Business: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Horenso is a widely known concept in Japan yet under-researched system of communication specific to the nation. It refers to a continual and collaborative communication process that involves frequent status updates for consultative decision-making. This study explores its significance in the context of Japanese business and its implications that may help gain insights for future use. The aim of this research is to envisage Japanese style communication in the post-COVID era by investigating their current practice during the pandemic. This chapter will begin with a review of relevant concepts and position horenso as an attribute of the wider context of …

A Critical Discourse Analysis To Explain The Failure Of Bop Strategies, Nancy E. Landrum

School of Environmental Sustainability: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Purpose – This paper aims to highlight differences between business and non-business literature regarding base of the pyramid (BoP) and subsistence contexts and reveal discourse’s powerful role in influencing goals, solutions and outcomes.

Design/methodology/approach – This paper uses critical discourse analysis to review a convenience sample of business versus non-business literature on the BoP and subsistence contexts.

Findings – Discourse used in business literature on the BoP is oriented toward hegemonic Western capitalist approaches that result in the depletion of resources, resource inequalities, poverty and increased consumption, dependence and environmental degradation and, therefore, cannot alleviate poverty.

Research limitations/implications – There …

Influencer Celebrification: How Social Media Influencers Acquire Celebrity Capital, Gillian Brooks, Jenna Drenten Ph.D., Mikolaj Jan Piskorski

School of Business: Faculty Publications and Other Works

The digital age has given rise to new pathways for everyday individuals to accrue media attention, which can be translated into promotional endeavors. Such sociocultural currency is referred to as celebrity capital, which can be exchanged within the field of advertising through celebrity endorsements. Traditional celebrities acquire celebrity capital through institutional intermediaries such as sport, television, music, and movies. Research is needed to understand the unique process by which social media influencers (SMIs) acquire celebrity capital. We draw on interviews with 40 global advertising industry practitioners and influencers to better understand how influencers acquire celebrity capital in a saturated media …

Influencer Celebrification: How Social Media Influencers Acquire Celebrity Capital, Gillian Brooks, Jenna M. Drenten, Mikolaj Jan Piskorski

School of Business: Faculty Publications and Other Works

The digital age has given rise to new pathways for everyday individuals to accrue media attention, which can be translated into promotional endeavors. Such sociocultural currency is referred to as celebrity capital, which can be exchanged within the field of advertising through celebrity endorsements. Traditional celebrities acquire celebrity capital through institutional intermediaries such as sport, television, music, and movies. Research is needed to understand the unique process by which social media influencers (SMIs) acquire celebrity capital. We draw on interviews with 40 global advertising industry practitioners and influencers to better understand how influencers acquire celebrity capital in a saturated media …

What Microeconomic Fundamentals Drove Global Oil Prices During 1986–2020?, A. G. Malliaris, Mary Malliaris

School of Business: Faculty Publications and Other Works

The global financial crisis of 2007–2009 caused major economic disturbances in the oil market. In this paper, we consider five variables that describe the microeconomics of the supply of and demand for oil, and evaluate their importance before, during and after the global financial crisis. We consider five dissimilar regimes during the period of January 1986 to the end of 2020: two regimes prior to the global financial crisis, the regime during the crisis, and two regimes after the crisis. The main hypothesis tested is that oil fundamentals of supply and demand remained important, even though the five regimes were …

Using Macro Archival Databases To Expand Theory In Micro Research, N. Sharon Hill, Herman Aguinis, Josiah Drewry, Sanjay Patnaik, Jennifer J. Griffin

School of Business: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Databases containing macro-level data are an underutilized methodological tool for expanding theory in micro research (i.e., individual and team) to the macro (i.e., organizational and higher) level of analysis. We describe how macro archival databases support different theoretical approaches for upwardly expanding micro research and summarize unanswered research questions across micro domains requiring upward expansion. We describe 31 macro archival databases as a resource for testing research questions that upwardly expand theorizing in micro domains and how databases enable methodological best practices (i.e., data collection over time, multiple measures of a construct, multilevel statistical controls, missing data and outlier management) …

A Conceptual Framework Of Cultural Competence: A Case Study Of A Japanese Multinational In A Cross-National Context, Kanji Kitamura

School of Business: Faculty Publications and Other Works

This article proposes a diagrammatic framework[1]to address the theoretical concept of cultural competence. Bridging prevalent concepts available in literature, it posits a simple yet versatile multi-level framework with two extremes to capture a spectrum of cultural specificities. Through a case study on a Japanese automobile conglomerate partly with European management, it concludes that cultural competence can be shown on a linear scale in the systematic framework. The findings advance the concept of cultural competence and the proposed model may be used as a foothold for future research possibly in any combination of cultures. This study is not to …

Do Guest Worker Programs Give Firms Too Much Power?, Peter Norlander

School of Business: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Guest worker programs allow migrants to work abroad legally, and offer benefits to workers, firms, and nations. Guest workers are typically authorized to work only in specific labor markets, and are sponsored by, and must work for, a specific firm, making it difficult for guest workers to switch employers. Critics argue that the programs harm host country citizens and permanent residents (“existing workers”), and allow employers to exploit and abuse vulnerable foreign-born workers. Labor market institutions, competitive pressures, and firm strategy contribute to the effects of migration that occur through guest worker programs.

Information Validates The Prior: A Theorem On Bayesian Updating And Applications, Navin Kartik, Frances Xu Lee, Wing Suen

School of Business: Faculty Publications and Other Works

We develop a result on expected posteriors for Bayesians with heterogenous priors, dubbed information validates the prior (IVP). Under familiar ordering requirements, Anne expects a (Blackwell) more informative experiment to bring Bob's posterior mean closer to Anne's prior mean. We apply the result in two contexts of games of asymmetric information: voluntary testing or certification, and costly signaling or falsification. IVP can be used to determine how an agent's behavior responds to additional exogenous or endogenous information. We discuss economic implications.

Wage Theft, Economic Conditions, And Market Power: The Case Of H-1b Workers, Peter Norlander, Jed Devaro

School of Business: Faculty Publications and Other Works

This study explores what determines employers’ violations of the wage contracts of workers on H-1B temporary work visas, which occur when firms pay those workers below the promised prevailing or “market” wage. A theoretical framework is proposed that predicts more violations during economic downturns, fewer violations when firms have more labor-market power, and more violations by subcontractor firms. Empirical analysis is based on a firm-level matched dataset of wage and hour violations and the firms that sponsor H-1Bs. Higher labor market power, measured by the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index, is associated with fewer violations. Higher unemployment rates and subcontractor firms are associated …

Velocity And Vertigo: Gender Trends In Consumer Research: In Conversation With Fernando Desouches, Linda Ong, And Linda Scott, Catherine Coleman, Linda Tuncay Zayer, Linda Scott

School of Business: Faculty Publications and Other Works

In this panel conversation, industry leaders examine trends related to gender, such as those shaped by generational differences, technologies, and the urgent consequences of the pandemic. Indeed, millennial and Generation Z consumers display greater acceptance of various expressions of gender and family than older generations. These more racially and ethnically diverse digital natives, who were looking hopefully ahead to the opportunities of a growing economy, are now among the most vulnerable to the uncertain future amid the fallout of a global pandemic (e.g., Pew Research Social and Demographic Trends: https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/essay/on-the-cusp-of-adulthood-and-facing-an-uncertain-future-what-we-know-about-gen-z-so-far). The pandemic further highlights the disproportionately negative economic vulnerabilities …

Un/Re/Doing Gender In Consumer Research: In Conversation With Pauline Maclaran, Lisa Peñaloza, And Craig Thompson, Jenna M. Drenten, Pauline Maclaran, Lisa Peñaloza, Craig J. Thompson

School of Business: Faculty Publications and Other Works

This article documents a panel conversation with three exceptional scholars in the domain of gender and consumer research— Pauline Maclaran, Lisa Peñaloza, and Craig Thompson. The panel was moderated by Jenna Drenten.