Mobike: Backpedaling Out Of India, Brant Schwendel, Madison Tumey, Madison Godwin, Lauren Lance, Rachel Pastoric, Ashley Reese, Caroline Phillips

Symposium of Student Scholars

In the past few years, the bike-sharing industry has gained traction in large cities and suburban areas all over the world. Mobike, an app-based bike-sharing company founded in China in 2015, introduced a new, efficient and eco-friendly mode of travel for short commutes using smart bikes which are bikes with a motor that help assist the rider’s pedal-power. Bike-sharing has grown into a booming industry due to rapid urbanization, traffic congestion, and pollution problems. Mobike entered India in 2018 but faced many challenges. Since the takeover and expansion of Mobike, Meituan, the holding company, has suffered a loss of 4.6 …

Transfordming China With Electric Vehicles: An International Marketing Case Study, Jasmine Washington, Koran Baraka

Symposium of Student Scholars

TransFORDming China with Electric Vehicles: An International Marketing Case Study

Teyana Pryor, Koran Baraka, Kaleb Bell, Jasmine Washington,

Kyle King, Dylan Newman, and Bryce Lee

Abstract

Ford is a legendary automobile company established in the United States in 1903 by Henry Ford. Ford is a $1.35 million company worldwide with operations in 10 countries but it has experienced an annual drop of roughly eight percent in the last year (Wagner, 2020). Ford entered China’s automobile industry in 2004 when automobile sales totaled 215,60 vehicles (CEIC). In 2001, Due to the high level of pollution in the country and main cities, …

Restoring History: Mixed-Use Hotel & Retail Center, William Chase Sisk

Symposium of Student Scholars

Monroe, Georgia, is a unique small town, located halfway between Athens and Atlanta. The small-town atmosphere and amenities have become a popular destination for people attracted to the historic buildings, downtown events and UGA football home games. Monroe is popular for its wedding venues, antique malls, and car shows, but there are not enough hotel rooms. Currently within the historic downtown, there are only one bed and breakfast, two AirBNB’s, and no hotels, although every downtown storefront is occupied by restaurants, retail stores, and businesses.

The need for overnight accommodations has raised the possibility of a new mixed-use hotel and …

Amazon: A Maze Through China - An International Marketing Case Study, Hanane Goubil

Symposium of Student Scholars

Amazon is an e-commerce technology company best known for its fast delivering time and for being one of the tops of the big four technology companies in the United States. Despite its success in the U.S. and several countries abroad, it has struggled to succeed in China since 2004 where Alibaba and JD.com control 82% of the market. This is due to Amazon failing to compete with Alibaba and neglecting to acclimatize their online offers to appease Chinese customers’ preferences. An example of this is that Alibaba has its own payment system called Alipay, while Amazon had yet to include …

Market Research: How To Keep And Gain Customers, Chris Mccall

Symposium of Student Scholars

Customer-centered market research is essential to the creation and management of successful marketing campaigns. A company that understands their customers will be able to provide those customers with products and services that fit their needs better than the competition, and ultimately increase profits. My research focuses on a database containing customer information for a telecommunications company called Telco. Within this research, I will focus on a number of customer attributes including demographics, services provided, payment methods, contract lengths, monthly charges, and tenure with the company. Considering how these attributes relate to one another will give me a better understanding of …

Best Practices In Volunteer Management For Cherokee Family Violence Center, Andi Edwards

Symposium of Student Scholars

Volunteer programs have long been utilized by the nonprofit sector to meet growing societal needs in a cost-effective manner. However, many organizations remain unaware or resistant to volunteer management protocols that could potentially increase agency capacity and reach. Based upon existing research, industry best practices, and organizational changes needed in light of COVID-19, this project evaluates the importance of effective volunteer management as a capacity building exercise for nonprofits. The data collected were used to develop a volunteer management manual for Cherokee Family Violence Center (CFVC), a domestic violence service agency in north metropolitan Atlanta.

The overarching research question examined …

A Journey Of Success: Italy’S Welcoming Of Jeep Into The Fiat Family, Madison Griffin

Symposium of Student Scholars

The following Theory Application Paper examined the unique cultural acquisition of Jeep by the Italian automotive giant Fabbrica Italiana Automobili Torino (FIAT) Chrysler Automobiles. The CELM cultural analysis model (Gao, 2013) was used to examine the culture, business environment, consumer lifestyle and mentality that allowed an “All-American” vehicle to find a new home in the Italian market. The use of the CELM model gives an in depth look at the culture of Italian business practices and what drives Italian consumers to participate in the market. The ultimate purpose of this research was to acquire the knowledge of successful tactics used …

I. Using Social Media To Promote Awareness Of Hiv And Aids In Children: Education And Community Resources, Savannah Barnett

Symposium of Student Scholars

In this day and age, social media is critical to the success of a company whether it be for-profit or nonprofit. Eighty (80) percent of nonprofits use Facebook and 70 percent use Twitter worldwide which means that agencies who opt not to use social media are missing out on free to low-cost advertising and community engagement/ awareness (Domingues, Lopez, & Astudillo, 2016). No matter the business model or tax status, the way a company gains social media attention stays consistent in terms of what to post, how often, and the overall aesthetic and graphics that go along with the posts. …

Evolving Information Security Governance Practices From Evolving Technologies: Focus On Covid-19 Lockdowns, Cosmas Ngwenya, Kennedy Njenga

The African Journal of Information Systems

This paper contemporizes evolving information security (IS) governance practices during the coronavirus pandemic (Covid-19) in South Africa. Using post-structuralism as a lens, we offer distinct insights regarding how information systems and technologies are evolving and the impact they present to the governance of IS systems during intermittent lockdowns. An online self-administered questionnaire was designed and distributed using Google forms to elicit data around evolution. A link was emailed to 160 respondents fitting pre-defined criteria. Data was exported to a statistical analysis software for analysis. Our results present an important relationship between technology evolutions and IS threats and that changes in …

Crafting Electronic Medical Record Ontology For Interoperability, Esingbemi Princewill Ebietomere, Ukeme Nse, Betty Ukhuegbe Ekuobase, Godspower Osaretin Ekuobase

The African Journal of Information Systems

Clinical information system (CIS) whose core component is the electronic medical record (EMR), is critical to efficient health care delivery. However, patient mobility and CIS heterogeneity have strengthened the interoperability problem of EMRs. Although ontology is a panacea to this problem, creating interoperable EMR ontology is still esoteric. This paper explicates how an interoperable EMR ontology was crafted for a tertiary health facility in Nigeria. The ontology named EMRONT was created using the Noy and McGuiness’ methodology and Protégé. EMRONT has been evaluated for quality using competency questions and OntoQA and subsequently refined for interoperability by manual mapping to both …

Factors That Influence The Acceptance And Use Of Formative Feedback In An Online Undergraduate Module, Jameson Goto, Jacqueline Batchelor, Geoffrey Lautenbach

The African Journal of Information Systems

The focus of the study was to determine the factors that influence the acceptance and use of online feedback in an undergraduate module using the modified unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT2). The participants were third-year pre-service teachers in the Bachelor of Education degree who were taking a fully online Teaching Studies module, in addition to their specialist subject areas at one of the universities in South Africa. A survey instrument was developed from the original UTAUT2 instrument and modified where appropriate, to fit the formative feedback context. Exploratory factor analysis was used to validate the instrument. …

Developing An Ai-Powered Chatbot To Support The Administration Of Middle And High School Cybersecurity Camps, Jonathan He, Chunsheng Xin

Journal of Cybersecurity Education, Research and Practice

Throughout the Internet, many chatbots have been deployed by various organizations to answer questions asked by customers. In recent years, we have been running cybersecurity summer camps for youth. Due to COVID-19, our in-person camp has been changed to virtual camps. As a result, we decided to develop a chatbot to reduce the number of emails, phone calls, as well as the human burden for answering the same or similar questions again and again based on questions we received from previous camps. This paper introduces our practical experience to implement an AI-powered chatbot for middle and high school cybersecurity camps …

Secure Coding In Five Steps, Mini Zeng, Feng Zhu

Journal of Cybersecurity Education, Research and Practice

Software vulnerabilities have become a severe cybersecurity issue. There are numerous resources of industry best practices available, but it is still challenging to effectively teach secure coding practices. The resources are not designed for classroom usage because the amount of information is overwhelming for students. There are efforts in academia to introduce secure coding components into computer science curriculum, but a big gap between industry best practices and workforce skills still exists. Unlike many existing efforts, we focus on both the big picture of secure coding and hands-on projects. To achieve these two goals, we present five learning steps that …

Observations, Evaluations, And Recommendations For Deterlab From An Educational Perspective, Ahmed Ibrahim, Vitaly Ford

Journal of Cybersecurity Education, Research and Practice

DETERLab is a cluster environment that provides a set of virtual machines that can be used by researchers and teachers to run cybersecurity experiments and competitions, and where it is possible to deploy different network configurations to research attack and defense mechanisms in the cyber world. While we were working to develop a pathway for producing more usable and effective cybersecurity educational resources by investigating and examining several projects, we examined DETERLab as a prospective platform to use in the classroom. Throughout our experimentation, we faced challenges that we decided to document in order to help other educators use the …

Contingency Planning Amidst A Pandemic, Natalie C. Belford

Journal of Cybersecurity Education, Research and Practice

Proper prior planning prevents pitifully poor performance: The purpose of this research is to address mitigation approaches - disaster recovery, contingency planning, and business continuity planning - and their benefits as they relate to university operations during a worldwide pandemic predicated by the novel coronavirus (COVID-19). The most relevant approach pertaining to the University’s needs and its response to the coronavirus pandemic will be determined and evaluated in detail.

An Exploratory Study Of Mode Efficacy In Cybersecurity Training, Michael D. Workman

Journal of Cybersecurity Education, Research and Practice

Cybersecurity capabilities in organizations and governmental agencies continue to lag behind the threats. Given the current environment, these entities have placed renewed emphasis on cybersecurity education. However, education appears to lack its full potential in most settings. Few empirical studies have systematically tested the efficacy of various training methods and modes, and those that have been conducted have yielded inconsistent findings. Recent literature on the use of gamified simulations have suggested that they may improve cybersecurity behaviors. Similarly, live activities such as hackathons and capture the flag events have been surmised to augment learning and capabilities. We conducted an exploratory …

Mobile Phones And Social Inclusion Of Women In Africa: A Nigerian Perspective, Naima Hafiz Abubakar, Muhammadou M. O. Kah

The African Journal of Information Systems

Information and communication technologies (ICTs) are increasingly being recognised as vital tools with regards to the social inclusion of women. Specifically, we investigate the effect of mobile phone use on the social inclusion of women in Nigeria. Our study focuses on what these women are able to achieve with their mobile phones and the implication of these achievements on their ability to effectively participate in the society. We draw on a qualitative ethnographic study of resettled northern women in the southern city of Lagos to understand how mobile phone use contributes to their social inclusion. From our analysis, we derive …

A Framework For Accessing Patient Big Data: Ant View Of A South African Health Facility, Sibulela Mgudlwa, Tiko Iyamu

The African Journal of Information Systems

This study was undertaken to develop a framework that can be used to guide analysis when translating and transforming big data into a more purposeful resource for healthcare service delivery in South Africa. It is intended to assist in addressing some of the challenges encountered by healthcare facilities. Qualitative data were collected, with a focus on the types of interactions that happen between actors when accessing and using patients’ big data for healthcare services. Actor-network theory (ANT) was applied as a lens in the analysis of the data, to examine the relationships between actors when accessing and using big data …

Examining The Factors Influencing The Achievement Of It-Business Alignment In A Developing Economy: Evidence From Ghanaian Public Universities, Dickson Ofosu, Acheampong Owusu, Richard Boateng

The African Journal of Information Systems

The purpose of this study was to qualitatively assess the state of information technology (IT) business alignment among Ghanaian universities and to identify factors that influence the achievement of four key dimensions of the concept. Studies show that factors influencing the achievement of the concept remain underexplored and research coverage for both developing economies and the higher education sector trails behind other sectors and developed economies. A two-round online Delphi technique was employed to elicit responses from personnel in IT leadership positions using Schlosser et al. (2012) alignment dimensions model as a lens. Findings suggest that IT investment is often …

Predictors Of Successful Adoption Of Technology Supported Learning In Universities In Uganda: A Students’ Perspective, Esther Namirembe, Michael Eddie Kyobe Prof.

The African Journal of Information Systems

This study identified the predictors of successful adoption of technology supported learning (TSL) among students in universities. Presumably, the perspective of the students in understanding this study is crucial because students are key users of TSL systems and are faced with challenges in the adoption of such systems in learning institutions. We argue in the present study that predictors can be identified using Gestalts approach given the complex interactions between the organizational and individual factors. The extent of interaction between the factors was accomplished using the clustering algorithm. Data was collected from 184 students from Makerere and Gulu universities. Six …

When Leaders Ostracize: Bottom-Line Mentality Climate And Emotional Labor As Predictors Of Workplace Ostracism, Darrin Theriault

PhD in Business Administration Dissertations

Workplace ostracism is a passive, low intensity behavior associated with coworkers ignoring or excluding others. It is one of several constructs under a larger framework of workplace aggression that is harmful to the target of the ostracism and more broadly, hurts organizations. Ostracism is particularly detrimental in workplace settings because unlike the other overt, direct forms of workplace aggression, the covert, subtle nature of ostracism often leaves targets wondering if the ostracism is real or imagined. From a fiscal perspective, workplace aggression costs U.S. firms an estimated $23.8 billion annually. Research covering workplace ostracism has focused almost exclusively on the …

Challenges And Success Factors Of Scaled Agile Adoption – A South African Perspective, Lucas Khoza, Carl Marnewick

The African Journal of Information Systems

Agile methods and Agile scaling frameworks have become a solution for software-developing organizations striving to improve the success of software projects. Agile methods were developed for small projects, but due to their benefits, even large software-developing organizations have adopted them to scale their software projects. This quantitative study was undertaken to deepen the researchers’ understanding of the critical success factors and challenges of Scaled Agile from the South African perspective. A simple random sampling method was used. Data was collected with the use of an online structured questionnaire and the response rate was 70%. The results reveal that customer satisfaction …

The I-Mode (Almost) Went Global. A Case Study In Product Export Failure., Paola Rattu

Symposium of Student Scholars

The i-mode, the world’s first commercial web browser technology for mobile phones was launched in Japan in 1999, encountering immediate success and rapidly dominating the Japanese market. Nevertheless, when the technology was launched in the US and in Europe in the early 2000s it was highly unsuccessful. Ultimately, the technology was abandoned outside Japan, and several manufacturers exited the mobile phone industry following their inability to understand foreign customers’ needs and to innovate. This paper reconstructs the history of the i-mode technology and provides a business-oriented analysis of the causes of its debacle.

Emergence And Constraints Of Enterprise Platform Silos For Online Interactions: A Case Study From Ghana Before And During Covid-19, John Effah

The African Journal of Information Systems

The purpose of this study is to understand the emergence and constraints of enterprise platform silos for online interactions at the organizational level. Information systems (IS) research has focused more on external platforms without silos. As a result, not much is known about internal platforms and silos at the organizational level and how they constrain online interactions, especially in the developing economic context of Africa. This study follows an interpretive, qualitative case study methodology and the encounter-episode process model to investigate the case of using enterprise platform silos in an organization in Ghana, before and during Covid-19. The findings show …

The Social Market Economy As A Formula For Peace, Prosperity, And Sustainability, Almuth D. Merkel

Doctor of International Conflict Management Dissertations

The social market economy was developed in Germany during the interwar period amidst political and economic turmoil. With clear demarcation lines differentiating it from socialism and laissez-faire capitalism, the social market economy became a formula for peace and prosperity for post WWII Germany. Since then, the success of the social market economy has inspired many other countries to adopt its principles. Drawing on evidence from economic history and the history of economic thought, this thesis first reviews the evolution of the fundamental principles that form the foundation of social-market economic thought. Blending the micro-economic utility maximization framework with traditional growth …

Intention To Adopt E-Commerce: A Comparative Review Across Developed And Developing Economies, Mousa Albashrawi

The African Journal of Information Systems

The purpose of this study is to conduct a comprehensive literature review of online purchase intention and present a comparative case between developed and developing economies over a 20-year period to reveal insightful implications for academia and industry. Online purchase intention refers to the intended behavior of an individual to buy a product or service from an online store. Prior research has failed to present a review that compares an individual’s online purchase intention across developed and developing economies in order to disclose the largest and smallest influencing factors, theories, and models in e-commerce. Our sample consists of 97 relevant …

The Need For Police Reform, Desiree Bevineau

Emerging Writers

Law enforcement agencies are in desperate need for reform to prevent further damage to the land of the free and home of the brave. The media, newspapers and articles portray the merciless treatment of civilians by police officers. Numerous innocent individuals, specifically the ethnic community, fall prey to police violence. This article examines the history of the lack of police training and proposes solutions for how police can be trained to better serve the community.

Impact Of Regulatory Interventions And Transitions On Broker-Dealer Audit Quality, Darlene Adkins

PhD in Business Administration Dissertations

ABSTRACT

IMPACT OF REGULATORY INTERVENTIONS AND TRANSITIONS ON BROKER-DEALER AUDIT QUALITY

By

Darlene A. Adkins

The purpose of this study is to examine the audit quality of public U.S. broker-dealer (BD) entities after the passage of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 (Dodd-Frank Act). Specifically, this study investigates whether there are associations between BD regulatory efforts to protect capital market investors and auditor decision-making during BD audit engagements that occurred between fiscal years 2011 and 2018. The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) BD audit inspection reports and the enforcement actions lodged against entities provide support …

2021- The Twenty-Fifth Annual Symposium Of Student Scholars

Symposium of Student Scholars Program Books

The full program book from the Twenty-fifth Annual Symposium of Student Scholars, held on April 29, 2021. Includes abstracts from the presentations and posters.

Opportunities For Reducing Expenses Through Digital Innovation: The Case Of An Insurance Company, Craig Paul Pillay, James Kariuki Njenga

The African Journal of Information Systems

Operational inefficiencies not only affect the quality of a company's offerings but also increase its overhead expenses. Insurance companies have some of the highest overhead costs, which often are transferred to customers as premiums for insurance products. While companies are adopting digital innovation to reduce expenses by optimizing their operational functions, not all companies are ready for the digital transformation journey, which risks their existence. The unreadiness exists despite evidence that digital innovation has many potential benefits to these companies. Nine participants from six business units, all with 133 employees, were interviewed for this study. This research uses a single, …