Business Commons^™

Sustainable Management Of Groundwater In Louisiana, Dependra Bhatta

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The common property nature of the Mississippi River Alluvial Aquifer (MRAA) results in the formation of a cone of depression in the southern portion of the aquifer encompassing Concordia parish, Louisiana. Excessive groundwater withdrawal and the resulting cone of depression formation have caused some wells to go dry and others to be affected by saltwater intrusion. The depleting groundwater stock can be managed optimally using different groundwater management policies. The findings of this dissertation are relevant to both policymakers and researchers to understand the effects of policies to keep the aquifer sustainable.

My dissertation is written in a three-essay format. …

Crisis, Crisis, Read All About It! Investigating The Direct And Joint Effects Of Crisis Response Strategies, Crisis History And Strategic Actions On The Tone Of Media Coverage, Habiba Nefisa Alambo

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Crisis management research has focused on how crisis stricken firms protect their reputation by communicating appropriate messages to evaluators and employing strategic actions that favorably shape public opinion about the stricken firm. Developing conversations have addressed how a firm’s crisis history may impact current crisis management efforts. However, little is known about how these factors jointly and directly influence what is said about a crisis stricken firm and subsequently impact evaluators’ perceptions.

Primarily guided by the tenets of attribution and situational crisis communication theories, I studied the interactive and main effects of crisis response strategies (accommodative, reframing and defensive), crisis …

Developing A Competency Model For Highway Safety Engineers: A Delphi Method, Garrett K. Wheat

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The primary purpose of this study was to determine the core competencies needed by State DOT Highway Safety Engineers as perceived by Highway Safety experts in the United States. First, a list of competencies was identified. Next, a panel of Highway Safety experts determined the importance of each identified competency for the current year (2020) and for the future (year 2030). Finally, ratings provided by the panel were tested for the presence of consensus.

For this study, the researcher used a Delphi Method as classified by Delbecq, Van de Ven, and Gaustafson (1975). Through this method, a panel of forward-thinking …

Earnings Management Of Leaders And Laggards, Candice Roche Boucree

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

In this study, I examine whether earnings management varies by a firm’s life-cycle stage relative to its industry life-cycle stage. This relationship, measured as Leaders, Match, or Laggards, concerns strategic groups with different operating strategies. Leaders (Laggards) employ a pioneering (an imperfect imitation) strategy. Overall, I find evidence that Leaders engage in less earnings management than do Match firms. Specifically, Leaders (Laggards) engage in less (more) accruals-based earnings management (AEM) than do Match firms, and Leaders engage in less real-activities earnings management (RAM) than do Match firms. Within firm life-cycle stages, I find additional evidence …

Identifying Human Trafficking Networks In Louisiana By Using Authorship Attribution And Network Modeling, Hassan Marzoughi Ardakani

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Human trafficking or modern slavery is a problem that has plagued every U.S. state, in both urban and rural areas. During the past decades, online advertisements for sex trafficking have rapidly increased in numbers. The advancement of the Internet and smart phones have made it easier for sex traffickers to contact and recruit their victims and advertise and sell them online. Also, they have made it more difficult for law enforcement to trace the victims and identify the traffickers. Sadly, more than fifty percent of the victims of sex trafficking are children, many of which are exploited through the Internet. …

Exploring The Role Of Engagement Among Sport Volunteers At College Football Bowl Games, Marcella Otto

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Recent scholars noted the need for an engaged workforce to achieve optimal performance in various institutional fields. Within the sports industry, organizations often rely heavily on volunteers as a vital resource to accomplish goals and missions (Cuskelly, 2004; Doherty, 2009). The sport volunteer literature demonstrates the broadness of the field but also shows the increased demand for volunteers to aid staging events, even as the recruitment pool of volunteers is generally decreasing. Relatedly, it is in the best interest of organizations to maintain and manage volunteers to stay efficient (Chelladurai, 2006) because the need for this human resource continues to …

Essays On Mortgage Portfolio Diversification, Timothy Patrick Dombrowski

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Portfolios of mortgage loans played an important role in the Great Recession and continue to compose a material part of bank assets. The distribution of mortgage portfolio returns, and consequently, the risk of these portfolios, is quite distinct even from other fixed income asset classes. This dissertation contains three essays, each aiming to analyze a specific component of risk in mortgage portfolios and role of geographical diversification in reducing this risk.

The first essay investigates how cross-sectional dependence in the underlying properties flows through to the loan returns, and thus, the risk of the portfolio. In addition to demonstrating this …