Business Commons^™

Guinness Is The "Pumpkin Spice Latte" Of St. Patrick's Day, Jin-A Choi, Yi Luo, Bond Benton

School of Communication and Media Scholarship and Creative Works

This study by a team of faculty from the Joetta Di Bella and Fred C. Sautter III Center for Strategic Communication in the School of Communication and Media at Montclair State University shows that Guinness was the most-discussed brand on social media leading up to St. Patrick’s Day, and not just in the traditional ways people share how they drink the popular beer brand. The volume of social media conversations related to Guinness beer and St. Patrick’s Day saw a 25% increase. Most social chats exhibited a happy mood as evidenced by a 62% joyful sentiment.

While the Shamrock Shake …

An Investigation Of Social Media Discussion On Valentine's Day 2024 Trends: Money Can Buy Love And Chocolates, Jin-A Choi, Bond Benton, Yi Luo

School of Communication and Media Scholarship and Creative Works

Valentine’s Day, typically defined by expression of love and affection, has been celebrated as a symbolic day to exchange gifts among lovers. The expression of love has been firmly tied with the act of giving material things, such as gifts. However, over the years, discomfort and even anger has grown around the over-commercialization of Valentine’s Day, creating a deep divide between those who gift and those who criticize and denounce the holiday as nothing but a “Hallmark card holiday” to push consumerism. Our center’s study from the previous year indicated that over-commercialization of Valentine’s Day found that love is not …

Taylor-Made Super Bowl: Taylor Swiftmania On Social Media Regarding The Big Game, Yi Luo, Jin-A Choi, Bond Benton

School of Communication and Media Scholarship and Creative Works

Celebrity couples occupy a unique space in popular culture. Similar to the royal unions of history and the present, the combination of notoriety and the voyeuristic appeal of watching a relationship play out in public spaces, celebrity couples energize popular discourse and invite public commentary and interest. The opportunity to become a spectator in ongoing celebrity coupling invites a level of perceived intimacy in what feels like a relationship with famous people.

Data collected for this study suggests Taylor Swift’s connection to Super Bowl LVIII has elevated the meaning of the game beyond the stratospheric levels of cultural significance the …

Halloween 2023: It’S A Barbie World!, Jin-A Choi, Yi Luo, Bond Benton

School of Communication and Media Scholarship and Creative Works

Encapsulated in pink, Barbie epitomizes a dreamland that stimulates feelings of nostalgia, joy, and imagination, fulfilling individuals’ desire to escape. Mattel, the parent company of Barbie, and Warner Bros. through 100 or more brand collaborations (del Barco, 2023), has relentlessly swept the world with a blitz of Barbie-themed merchandises, such as Barbie dreamhouse rentals, Barbie gaming consoles, Barbie pasta, Barbie pink suitcases, Barbie apparels, bright fuchsia Xbox, Barbie boat cruise, pink burger, etc. Staggering surge for online sales of Barbie-themed products affirms the impressive upswing of online consumers’ interest in Barbie.

With the significance of Halloween, the popularity of Barbie, …

Learning-By-Doing In Non-Homogeneous Tasks: An Empirical Study Of Content Creator Performance On A Music Streaming Platform, Yang Li, Yanni Ping, Yuyun Zhong, Ram Misra

Department of Information Management and Business Analytics Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

With the development of high-speed internet and better mobile connections, online streaming platforms with user-generated videos are becoming popular. The success of these platforms relies on content creators who can effectively enhance user engagement (e.g., subscribing to a content creator’s channel). As opposed to homogeneous production scenarios (e.g., assembling automobiles in a factory), creating user-generated videos is a more complex task in which learning might happen. In this study, we empirically test the effect of prior experience on content creators’ performance. Furthermore, we examine the role of specialization in learning. We use a dataset from NetEase Cloud Music, one of …

The Social Media Industry: Where Is It Heading?, Yanli Zhang, Huy Will Nguyen, Young Hoon Jung, Isabelle Yi Ren

Department of Management Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

The social media industry has entered a new stage with intensifying competition and heightened uncertainty about future directions. The purpose of this paper is to provide analyses of the current challenges and to identify industry-wide trends that may offer a roadmap for the future. This study identified five major trends in the current social media industry: 1) content is king, and that content is moving to visual; 2) artificial intelligence is key to competitive advantage; 3) network effects still matter, but business model innovation can overcome that barrier; 4) the need to broaden revenue sources; and 5) the strive for …

The Online Ordering Behaviors Among Participants In The Oklahoma Women, Infants, And Children Program: A Cross-Sectional Analysis, Qi Zhang, Kayoung Park, Junzhou Zhang, Chuanyi Tang

Department of Marketing Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) is a nutrition assistance program in the United States (U.S.). Participants in the program redeem their prescribed food benefits in WIC-authorized grocery stores. Online ordering is an innovative method being pilot-tested in some stores to facilitate WIC participants’ food benefit redemption, which has become especially important in the COVID-19 pandemic. The present research aimed to examine the online ordering (OO) behaviors among 726 WIC households who adopted WIC OO in a grocery chain, XYZ (anonymous) store, in Oklahoma (OK). These households represented approximately 5% of WIC households who redeemed …

Global Leadership Is Shared Leadership: How Smart Global Leaders Build Cultures Of Collaboration To Drive Results And Get Things Done, Amber A. Johnson, Tina Huesing, James D. Ludema, Brett Hinds

Department of Management Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Globalization has changed the way we work. The nature of leadership must adapt as our organizations grow to encompass more geographies, cultures, languages, and ways of working. Shared leadership emerges in these complex environments as a means of managing the interdependency of boundary-spanning work; but enacting shared leadership means shifting the bases of power on which leaders historically relied. It may also require shifting organizational structure to accommodate more voices. Scholars and executives alike must adapt quickly to keep pace with the changes of our ever more global world.

How The Leading Chinese Real Estate Brokerage Transformed Into A Digital Platform Business, Yanli Zhang, Lixia Yao

Department of Management Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Purpose

In this article, we study how a Chinese real estate broker - Lianjia successfully transformed itself into Beike - China’s leading digital platform for housing transactions and services. We explain the motivation behind this platform transformation, how it turned out, and what are the lessons learned for other companies contemplating a platform transformation. Beike’s lessons are significant as they not only can help the companies achieve growth via platform transformation but also create social value by contributing to higher service quality in traditional service industries.

Design/methodology/approach

We draw upon comprehensive archival research into Beike, and our many years of …

B Corps’ Social Media Communications During The Covid-19 Pandemic: Through The Lens Of The Triple Bottom Line, Manveer Mann, Sang-Eun Byun, Whitney Ginder

Department of Marketing Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

The COVID-19 pandemic and rising demand for transparency has heightened the importance of sustainability communications on social media to generate deeper stakeholder engagement. Although B Corporations (B Corps), businesses committed to the triple bottom line (TBL), could serve as a catalyst for sustainable development, little is known about how they communicate on social media during a crisis. Therefore, we examined social media communications of B Corps to (1) identify salient topics and themes, (2) analyze how these themes align with the TBL, and (3) evaluate social media performance against industry benchmarks. We focused on the apparel, footwear, and accessories (AFA) …

Turning Disruption Into Growth Opportunity: The Red Team Strategy, Sunny Li Sun, Yanli Zhang, Zhu Zhu

Department of Management Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

The purpose of this paper is to propose a broadened and integrated red team strategy with concrete steps to help companies better deal with the disruptive forces prevalent in our world today and turn disruptions into growth. We suggest four key steps to help companies implement the red team strategy: 1) create a red team culture and encourage diverse perspectives, 2) establish an independent red team to overcome organizational inertia, 3) use the red team to embrace disruption and growth opportunities, and 4) take a milestone approach to red team execution and resource allocation. Our red team strategy provides concrete …

The Windfall Gain Effect: Using A Surprise Discount To Stimulate Add-On Purchases, Esther Kim, Sarah Tanford

Department of Hospitality and Tourism Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

How can the business maximize revenue while providing discounts? This research suggests that hospitality operators may stimulate add-on purchases with the adoption of surprise discounts. Two experiments investigated factors that influence hospitality consumers’ ancillary spending. Study 1 tested the discount and product type effects on additional spending intentions for a cruise booking. Study 2 identified how the depth of surprise discount and add-on product type influence consumers’ add-on purchase decisions for an online hotel booking. The findings indicate that a surprise discount and hedonic items induce consumers’ unplanned purchases. A hedonic add-on item is preferred over a utilitarian item when …

Aspirations Of Chinese Families-In-Business: Development Of A Reliable Measurement Instrument, Feifei Lu, Zhu Zhu, Xiaogang He

Department of Management Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Although previous studies have recognized the contingent nature of family firms’ aspirations, they have largely neglected cross-cultural heterogeneity. Drawing on the behavioral theory and socio-emotional wealth perspective (SEW), we reexamine the construct of family aspirations in a Chinese context. We argue that Chinese family firms have culturally specific aspirations that can influence their strategic behaviors. Based on a three-phase study employing both qualitative and quantitative methods, we develop and validate a measure of aspirations of Chinese families-in-business. Six dimensions of Chinese family aspirations are explored: family harmony, financial wealth, health and longevity, continuity of family line, family honor and guanxi, …

The Chief Project Officer: A New Executive Role For Turbulent Times, Te Wu, Zhu Zhu

Department of Management Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Purpose While it is common for most C-suite executives to have substantial project responsibilities, many do not have a strong understanding of project management leading to significant failures. As projects are the main mechanisms for implementing changes, project performance has disproportional impact on the competitiveness and viability of organizations. This paper aims to attempt to raise awareness of the Chief Project Officer (CPO) role and lay out important skills and capabilities that are needed for managers to ascend to this role as well as key topics of concern when preparing the mindset to be a successful CPO. Design/methodology/approach The authors …

Haute Couture-To-Table? A Study Of Luxury Fashion-Brand Restaurants/Cafés, Chi-Chien Chen, Esther Kim, Markus Schuckert

Department of Hospitality and Tourism Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

The significant rise in luxury shopping has recently gained much attention. This paper seeks to better understand the factors involved in luxury consumption. Specifically, a list of 10 luxury fashion-brand restaurants/cafés are identified and used to survey customers’ motivations, perceptions, demographics, and purchase behavior. This study finds that brand equity drivers significantly influence individual’s intention to visit other luxury fashion-brand restaurants/cafés, and purchase products that are associate with the luxury fashion-brand restaurants/cafés where he/she has previously patronized. Female customers show loyalty to luxury fashion brand products and revisit that specific fashion brand restaurants/cafés. These findings enrich and update the existing …

Tree-Based Algorithm For Stable And Efficient Data Clustering, Hasan Aljabbouli, Abdullah Albizri, Antoine Harfouche

Department of Information Management and Business Analytics Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

The K-means algorithm is a well-known and widely used clustering algorithm due to its simplicity and convergence properties. However, one of the drawbacks of the algorithm is its instability. This paper presents improvements to the K-means algorithm using a K-dimensional tree (Kd-tree) data structure. The proposed Kd-tree is utilized as a data structure to enhance the choice of initial centers of the clusters and to reduce the number of the nearest neighbor searches required by the algorithm. The developed framework also includes an efficient center insertion technique leading to an incremental operation that overcomes the instability problem of the K-means …

Turning Discounts Into Profits: Factors Influencing Online Purchasing Decisions For Hotel Add-On Items, Esther Kim, Sarah Tanford

Department of Hospitality and Tourism Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

A hotel website exclusive discount is widely adopted by major chain hotels to increase the volume of direct bookings. Although the traditional purpose of a discount promotion is to attract customers to the business, this research suggests that a hotel website exclusive price discount can induce consumers’ additional spending. Principles of mental accounting and two thinking styles (analytic vs. holistic) predict different effects of a price discount and the add-on product type by individual thinking styles. A quasi-experiment investigated the effect of an unexpected discount, relatedness of add-on item to a hotel stay, and individual thinking styles on add-on purchasing. …

Family Ownership And Corporate Environmental Responsibility: The Contingent Effect Of Venture Capital And Institutional Environment, Zhu Zhu, Feifei Lu

Department of Management Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

As scholars and policy makers pay more attention to the environmental impact of economic activities, more focus has been placed on the corporate environmental responsibility (CER) of family firms, which accounts for the majority of businesses in both developed and developing countries. Using a sample of 4714 private enterprises across 23 provinces in China, the current study examines the effect of family ownership on CER investment, as well as the moderating effects of venture capital investment and local institutional development. Results show that concentrated family ownership leads to lower CER spending, however, when venture capital investment comes from developed markets, …

Job Satisfaction And Firm Performance: Can Employees’ Job Satisfaction Change The Trajectory Of A Firm’S Performance?, Stacey R. Kessler, Lorenzo Lucianetti, Shani Pindek, Zhu Zhu

Department of Management Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Contemporary trends in business have focused on enhancing the employee work experience. Proponents argue that doing so will improve employees’ productivity and ultimately the firm's performance. However, critics argue that job satisfaction has only a modest relationship with an employee's job performance, and therefore, such an investment will likely have little impact on the firm's financial performance. To investigate the relationship between employees’ job satisfaction and firm performance, we collected a sample of 404 employees working in 31 firms. We tested this relationship using latent growth modeling which allows us to latently examine how employees’ job satisfaction at one time …

Emotional Intelligence, Psychological Safety, And Team Decision Making, Wencang Zhou, Zhu Zhu, Donald Vredenburgh

Department of Management Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Purpose As teamwork becomes more prevalent in organizational decision-making, the influence of emotional intelligence (EI) on team decision-making process demands more research attention. This study aims to investigate the impact of EI on team psychological safety and decision-making performance. Design/methodology/approach Team decision-making performance and decision quality from a team decision task were obtained from 54 decision-making teams composed of 241 undergraduate business students from a Mid-Atlantic university. Regression analyses were used to test individual and team’s EI relationship with team decision performance and the mediation effect of psychological safety. Findings This study provides empirical evidence that individual EI is positively …

Family Ownership And Corporate Environmental Responsibility: The Contingent Effect Of Venture Capital And Institutional Environment, Zhu Zhu, Feifei Lu

Department of Management Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

As scholars and policy makers pay more attention to the environmental impact of economic activities, more focus has been placed on the corporate environmental responsibility (CER) of family firms, which accounts for the majority of businesses in both developed and developing countries. Using a sample of 4714 private enterprises across 23 provinces in China, the current study examines the effect of family ownership on CER investment, as well as the moderating effects of venture capital investment and local institutional development. Results show that concentrated family ownership leads to lower CER spending, however, when venture capital investment comes from developed markets, …

Motivating Reflection Habits And Raising Employee Awareness Of Learning, Michele Rigolizzo, Zhu Zhu

Department of Management Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Purpose While research has shown reflection is a valuable part of individual learning, developing reflection habits has remained notoriously difficult, particularly for working adults. We explore whether an intervention of being able to review previous reflections will affect employee engagement in future reflection activities and raise their awareness of learning opportunities at work. Design/methodology/approach We conducted a large-scale field experiment, including 136 employees from an international bank in Europe, in which participants were asked to reflect twice a week for eight weeks. Participants were randomly assigned to either a group that was given access to their previous reflections, or a …

The Effects Of Family Firm Ceo Traditionality On Successor Choice: The Moderating Role Of Socioemotional Wealth, Feifei Lu, Ho Kwong Kwan, Zhu Zhu

Department of Management Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Drawing on upper echelons theory, this study examines how the traditionality of family chief executive officers (CEOs) influences the selection of their successors, and how this relationship is moderated by two dimensions of socioemotional wealth. Recognizing the central role of CEOs in determining successors, we show that a family CEO’s cultural values regarding traditionality have a significant positive effect on the probability that a family member is chosen as successor. We find that this relationship is strengthened by the family members’ identification with the firm and weakened by the family members’ sense of dynasty. Our contributions to theory and practice …

A Hybrid Data Mining Approach For Identifying The Temporal Effects Of Variables Associated With Breast Cancer Survival, Serhat Simsek, Ugur Kursuncu, Eyyub Kibis, Musheera Anisabdellatif, Ali Dag

Department of Information Management and Business Analytics Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Predicting breast cancer survival is crucial for practitioners to determine possible outcomes and make better treatment plans for the patients. In this study, a hybrid data mining based methodology was constructed to differentiate the variables whose importance for survival change over time. Therefore, the importance of variables was determined for three different time periods (i.e. one, five, and ten years). To conduct such an analysis, the most parsimonious models were constructed by employing one regression analysis method—Least Absolute Shrinkage and Selection Operator (LASSO), and one metaheuristic optimization method, namely a Genetic Algorithm (GA). Due to the high imbalance between the …

Seeking Reward Or Avoiding Risk From Restaurant Reviews: Does Distance Matter?, Esther Kim, Sarah Tanford

Department of Hospitality and Tourism Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the extent to which consumers will exert more effort to avoid risk (negative reviews) versus seek reward (positive reviews) when making a restaurant decision.

Design/methodology/approach

This study investigates the influence of distance and review valence on restaurant decisions. A 2 (base restaurant review valence: negative, neutral) × 2 (target restaurant review valence: neutral, positive) × 2 (distance: 30 min, 60 min) between-subjects factorial design was used.

Findings

People exert more effort to seek a reward versus avoid a risk. People will drive any distance to dine at a restaurant with positive …

Success Factors In Title Ii Equity Crowdfunding In The United States, Stanislav Mamonov, Ross Malaga

Department of Information Management and Business Analytics Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Title II of the JOBS Act has expanded the opportunities for entrepreneurial ventures to raise funds from accredited investors via online equity crowdfunding platforms in the United States. Over $1.4 billion in capital has been committed by the accredited investors in Title II platforms since 2013, yet little is known about how venture characteristics influence the success of raising funds from investors via online equity crowdfunding platforms. Further, it is not known whether online equity crowdfunding is supplementing or replacing traditional venture funding sources. To address these gaps in our knowledge, we draw on research in traditional offline risk capital …

Data Quilting: Art And Science Of Analyzing Disparate Data, Murugan Anandarajan, Chelsey Hill

Department of Information Management and Business Analytics Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Motivated by incongruences between today’s complex data, problems and requirements and available methodological frameworks, we propose data quilting as a means of combining and presenting the analysis of multiple types of data to create a single cohesive deliverable. We introduce data quilting as a new analysis methodology that combines both art and science to address a research problem. Using a three-layer approach and drawing on the comparable and parallel process of quilting, we introduce and describe each layer: backing, batting and top. The backing of the data quilt is the research problem and method, which supports the upper layers. The …

Simultaneous Effects Of Multiple Cues In Restaurant Reviews, Esther Kim, Sarah Tanford

Department of Hospitality and Tourism Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate how consumers simultaneously process multiple cues for different dining occasions when making a restaurant decision.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper investigates the influence of priming (review prototype), effort (distance) and involvement (occasion) on restaurant evaluations, willingness to drive and willingness to pay for a restaurant meal. A 2 (prototype: negative, positive) × 2 (distance: close, far) × 2 (occasion: casual, special) between-subjects factorial design was used.

Findings

The paper finds that each variable influences a different outcome, whereby people rely on a review prototype for restaurant evaluation and choice, a distance cue for …

Ready And Willing To Learn: Exploring Personal Antecedents To Taking On Learning Challenges, Michele Rigolizzo

Department of Management Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the personal antecedents to taking on the challenge of learning, particularly when there is competition for time at work. Taking on challenging tasks, particularly those that enhance learning, is a critical behavior in today’s dynamic business environments. This paper explores how individual differences motivate people to choose a challenging task over an easy one. Design/methodology/approach: A behavioral measure was used to determine if working adults higher in learning goal orientation, curiosity, and need for cognition were more likely to take on a challenging task, even when there was competition for their …

Risk Versus Reward: When Will Travelers Go The Distance?, Sarah Tanford, Esther Kim

Department of Hospitality and Tourism Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to evaluate how consumers simultaneously process multiple cues for different dining occasions when making

a restaurant decision.

Design/methodology/approach – This paper investigates the influence of priming (review prototype), effort (distance) and involvement (occasion)

on restaurant evaluations, willingness to drive and willingness to pay for a restaurant meal. A 2 (prototype: negative, positive)   2 (distance: close,

far)   2 (occasion: casual, special) between-subjects factorial design was used.

Findings – The paper finds that each variable influences a different outcome, whereby people rely on a review prototype for restaurant evaluation

and choice, a distance cue …