Business Commons^™

Measuring The Onlooker Effect In Information Security Violations, Sahar Farshadkhah

Doctoral Dissertations

Todays’ organizations need to be ensured that their critical information is secure, not leaked, and inadvertently modified. Despite the awareness of organizations and their investment in implementing an information security management plan, information security breaches still cause financial and reputational costs for organizations. A recent report of the Ponemon Institute for 2019 showed that the global cost and frequency of data breach increased, and negligent insiders are the root cause of most incidents. Many insider threats to cybersecurity are not malicious but are intentional. Specifically, more than 60 percent of reported incidents in 2019 were due to negligent or inadvertent …

Three Essays On Managing Information Security Using The Fraud Triangle, Randi Jiang

Doctoral Dissertations

Managing information security has increasingly become more important as information security breaches, computer fraud, and other devastating events are increasingly more frequent and disrupting business processes. Information is one of the most important enterprise assets. Therefore, information is valuable and should be properly protected. Accounting employees are tasked with specific responsibilities of information risk management. Therefore, ineffectively managing accountants may result in countless problems for the company, not the least of which are reputational problems, loss of stock value, material financial reporting errors, and financial losses. In Essay 1, I examine the elements of the fraud triangle and the impact …

Keeping Social Media Influencers Influential: Preserving Perceptions Of Authenticity While Brand Dropping, Cassandra Miriam Ditt

Doctoral Dissertations

Marketers’ use of social media influencers (SMIs)—individuals who use various social media channels to discuss a particular topic (e.g., fashion, health) or offer entertainment (e.g., comedy) and, in doing so, attract followers—to promote products, known as “influencer marketing,” is a widely employed and effective strategic tool (Linqia 2018). In fact, SMIs, who can be conceptualized as human brands (Thompson 2006), have a greater audience reach and dialogue generation compared to that of celebrities (Crimson Hexagon 2015). Further, consumers perceive SMIs’ content as trustworthy (Scott 2015), which is likely due to them being perceived as highly authentic. According to Audrezet, de …

Predicting Quality Outcome.S Of Privatized Services In Local Governments Utilizing The Scott And Bruce Measure, Kenneth L. Ward

Doctoral Dissertations

Privatization has been one of the main challenges in the reform of the public service. Privatization is often regarded as an essential means of achieving improved efficiency and quality of public services, and municipalities develop novel methods to privatize their services to cope up with the financial strain. Privatization of services, however, requires a well-formulated model of decision-making that leaders can utilize to realize the most positive outcomes. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the type of decision-making style that could be used to predict a favorable outcome when making decisions to privatize government services or projects in …

How Tempered Radicals Pursue Ideological Change Within Their Organization, Saleh M. Bajaba

Doctoral Dissertations

Organizations that are adaptive, diverse, and socially responsible are often built by employees who are able to implement change “under the radar” of those in the organization who would ordinarily fight significant change. These “tempered radicals” are insider activists who serve as the catalyst for incremental constructive changes which, over time, build better organizations. Unfortunately, little is known about what motivates tempered radicals to enact changes within their organizations. In order to better understand the motives of these internal change agents, I develop a measure of tempered radical motives (TRM). In Study 1, I develop a measure of TRM by …

Three Essays On Information Security Breaches And Big Data Analytics: Accounting And Auditing Perspective, Shariful Islam

Doctoral Dissertations

The dissertation examines two separate yet significant Information Technology (IT) issues: one dealing with IT risk and the other involving the adoption of IT. The IT risks that the dissertation focuses are information security breaches and the adoption/outsourcing of big data analytics. Using competitive dynamics theory and the theory of information transfer, the dissertation examines whether there is a spillover effect from information security breaches of breached firms to those firms’ rivals. Market reaction from spillover effects is captured from market activity and information asymmetry. The results suggest that the market of rival firms react to the focal firm’s experience …

Ceo Network Centrality And Earnings Management, Huan Qiu

Doctoral Dissertations

This study investigates the relationship between CEO network centrality, choice of earnings management, and the consequences for the period from 1998 to 2016. From our empirical analysis, we find that CEOs with higher network centrality are more likely to use accruals-based earnings management, but less likely to use real earnings management to manage earnings upward in the current year. Although the use of accruals-based earnings management normally results in bad economic consequences for firms, CEO network centrality is associated with better (at least not worse) earnings quality, after controlling the use of accruals-based earnings management. As for longterm economic performance, …

Essays In International Corporate Finance, Patrick M. Stanton

Doctoral Dissertations

International corporate finance has greatly expanded with the increased globalization and led to many new research topics. In this dissertation, I examine two distinct international finance topics; (i) determinants of corporate tax inversion and the effects ex-post; and (ii) determinants of for-profit microfinance institutions and financial and social performance.

In Chapter 1, I study corporate tax inversion which is a reorganization by which a domestic firm changes its tax-domicile from the United States to a foreign country with a lower corporate tax rate. In 2014 alone, U.S. public companies valued at over half a trillion dollars announced their intention to …

Making The Cut: Receivers Of The National Football League, Anthony Kent Davis

Mathematics Senior Capstone Papers

In this paper the prospects of the National Football League, or NFL, are studied in order to determine the relationships between past college statistics, other “measurables,” and how they translate to successful careers in the league. When referring to measurables, this consists of all of the numerical data from each player that should, in theory, help teams get an idea of the players strengths or weaknesses. The data being used comes from an annual scouting combine for NFL teams that is held prior to each season. Information about the player’s college statistics and pre-draft measurables are being compared to several …

A-023 Louisiana Tech University, College Of Administration And Business Collection, 1954 - 1970, University Archives And Special Collections, Prescott Memorial Library, Louisiana Tech University

University Archives Finding Aids

No abstract provided.

A-171 Louisiana Tech University, Department Of English, Life Sciences, Education, And Business Files, 1982-1988, University Archives And Special Collections, Prescott Memorial Library, Louisiana Tech University

University Archives Finding Aids

No abstract provided.

The Effects Of Pair Budget Goal Difficulty And Pair Identity On Decision-Making And Performance, Chaoping Li

Doctoral Dissertations

Mixed incentive compensation structures have been widely studied in the accounting literature (e.g., Tian et al. 2017; Dekker et al. 2012, Rothenberg 2011; Hwang et al. 2009). However, the findings in the literature as to the effectiveness of mixed incentives are not consistent. The inconsistency in the mixed incentives literature may be due to the various levels of social dilemma embedded in the research setting of the studies. Therefore, I experimentally investigated two factors that may reduce the embedded social dilemma issue and improve the effectiveness of mixed incentive compensation. In this study, student participants were assigned to pairs to …

The Effect Of Horizontal Inequity, Capacity For Budget Slack, And Severity Of Peer Overstatement On Managerial Reporting Behavior, Yiwen Li

Doctoral Dissertations

An ongoing stream of accounting research indicates that non-pecuniary factors significantly affect employees’ reporting behavior. This study investigates the behavioral effects of three non-pecuniary factors - horizontal pay inequity, capacity for budget slack, and severity of peer overstatement. The behaviors of interest are the employees’ level of honesty and whether or not they report a peer that is overstating.

In the experiment, participants acted as division managers who request funding from the owner of a fictitious company to produce certain parts. In each period, participants were paired with a different fictitious peer and were required to make two decisions under …

I See What You Say: Influential Nonverbal Signals Of Frontline Employees On Customer Outcomes, Shuang Wu

Doctoral Dissertations

This research aims to investigate the influential nonverbal signals of frontline employees on customer outcomes. Frontline employees play a vital role in initiating and maintaining customer relationships. The interactions between customers and employees influence not only the immediate reactions, including both affective and cognitive responses, but also customer outcomes, like purchase intention, satisfaction, perceived service quality, and positive word-of-mouth. Both qualitative and quantitative methodologies are employed in this dissertation.

Previous studies examined the effects of employee nonverbal signals on customers’ cognitive responses, but limited research has been done on the affective responses of customers. Affect-based trust, positive affect, negative affect, …

Understanding The Effects Of Regulatory Focus On Proactive Behavior, Brian P. Waterwall

Doctoral Dissertations

Over the past decade, motivation research has focused on what motivates employees to engage in behaviors that fall outside of ones' job/task requirements and bring about meaningful change in the organization's environment, proactive behaviors (Bateman & Crant, 1993; Crant, 2000). Recently, regulatory focus theory has received considerable research attention because of its potential to explain additional variance in behavior beyond other motivational constructs. Regulatory focus theory suggests that during goal striving, people will display behaviors associated with their current motivational state. Drawing from prior research examining motivation and behavior, I propose and test a model that examines the effects of …

Understanding The Role Of Social Media On A Student's College Choice Process And The Implications On A University's Enrollment And Marketing Strategies, Kimberly C. Thornton

Doctoral Dissertations

With decreasing state funds, a sluggish economy, and increased competition, universities are finding new ways to recruit prospective students to their institutions (Campbell, 2013; Sandlin & Pena, 2014). One way to create relationships and recruit prospective students to a university is through the use of social media platforms (Han, 2014; Joly, 2016). The purpose of this study, using the theoretical framework of Perna's (2006) Conceptual College Choice model, was to understand how social media impacted student college choice process by analyzing how universities used social media sites to market their universities to prospective students using the qualitative method of content …

The Influence Of Consumer Freeloading Behavior On An Observer's And Perpetrator's Affective Commitment, Mohamad A. Darrat

Doctoral Dissertations

The dissertation explores the relationship between customer affective commitment and freeloading behavior. Consumer freeloading results when a consumer takes advantage of a system or market procedures in a way that allows him or her to obtain benefits from a value proposition with no or reduced monetary costs. Thus, the freeloading consumer works the value equation in his/her favor at the expense of the marketer and/or other consumers. In addition to examining the point of view of the consumer performing the unethical behavior, the dissertation also examines the impact of such behavior on a third party observer. How do loyal consumers …

Using Latent Class Cluster Analysis To Identify And Profile Organizational Subclimates: An Exploratory Investigation Using Safety Climate As An Exemplar, Amy Frost Stevenson

Doctoral Dissertations

Organizational climate refers to the shared meaning organizational members attach to the events, policies, practices, and procedures they experience as well as to the behaviors they see being rewarded, supported, and expected (Schneider, Ehrhart, & Macey, 2011). Climate scholars have most frequently used referent-shift consensus and dispersion composition models (Chan, 1998) to conceptualize and measure organizational climate. Based on these models, climate emergence has been characterized by low variance or high consensus of individual-level climate perceptions (Chan, 1998; Ehrhart, Schneider, & Macey, 2013; Hazy & Ashley, 2011; Kuenzi & Schminke, 2009) within formally defined organizational groups (e.g., work teams).

Climate …

Evaluating Indicators Of Job Performance: Distributions And Types Of Analyses, Richard J. Chambers Ii

Doctoral Dissertations

Distributions of job performance indicators have historically been assumed to be normally distributed (Aguinis & O'Boyle, 2014; Schmidt & Hunter, 1983; Tiffin, 1947). Generally, any evidence to the contrary has been attributed to errors in the measurement of job performance (Murphy, 2008). A few researchers have been skeptical of this assumption (Micceri, 1989; Murphy, 1999; Saal, Downey, & Lahey, 1980); yet, only recently has research demonstrated that in certain specific situations job performance is exponentially distributed (Aguinis, O'Boyle, Gonzalez-Mulé, & Joo, 2016; O'Boyle & Aguinis, 2012). To date there have been few recommendations in the Industrial-Organizational Psychology literature about how …

Examining Consumers' Cognitive And Behavioral Responses To Belief Disconfirmation, Aadel A. Darrat

Doctoral Dissertations

This study explores possible reasons for why consumers persist in their beliefs despite being exposed to substantial disconfirming evidence. The theory of cognitive dissonance (Festinger 1957) provides an important foundation for the pervasiveness of the confirmation bias and belief perseverance. Four main research paradigms of cognitive dissonance theory are discussed: free choice, induced or forced compliance, belief disconfirmation, and hypocrisy. Confirmation bias and belief perseverance are positioned in the belief disconfirmation paradigm.

Confirmation bias refers to the general tendency to readily accept evidence that supports one's beliefs and to reject or avoid evidence that goes against such beliefs. Belief perseverance, …

Paths To Leadership Of Ncaa Division I Female Athletic Directors, Haley Blount Taitano

Doctoral Dissertations

The focus of this study was to examine the paths to leadership of NCAA Division I female athletic directors. Over forty years after passing Title IX of the Education Amendments Act, female athletic directors still make up less than 10% of NCAA Division I athletic directors. This stagnant statistic along with a limited amount of existing research on the subject were the main catalysts for this investigation.

This study examined the career paths of eight NCAA Division I female athletic directors, paying particular attention to their personal and professional experiences that led to becoming a Division I athletic director. Critical …

Enough Is Enough! Understanding Environmentally Driven Multisensory Experiences, Nina Lisa Theresa Eileen Krey

Doctoral Dissertations

The importance of sensory perception and sensory stimulation in creating pleasant consumption experiences has received increasing attention within recent years. Yet, while numerous studies investigate antecedents and consequences of sensory perception specific to a certain sense (vision, touch, audition, smell, and taste), limited research addresses sensation from a broader perspective by examining what constitutes "sensing" in sensations. Multiple studies are employed to investigate the totality of sensation rather than any sense specific sensation, by framing sensational experiences within the long tradition of atmospherics research. Here, the construct of need for sensation is conceptualized to reflect the notion of totality of …

Contribution Of 52-Week Low To The Momentum Strategy On 52-Week High, Hyun Chul Cho

Doctoral Dissertations

I examine whether the momentum strategy based on 52-week high price can use 52-week low price as another reference point. I find that the remoteness of current price from 52-week low price plays an incremental role in the momentum profits of the strategy based on 52-week high price. Furthermore, I find that the role depends on the level of the nearness to 52-week high price. I find that the profits of the 52-week high price momentum strategy that also uses remoteness of current price from 52-week low price increase as the level of the nearness to 52-week high price increases. …

The Effect Of Corporate Social Performance On Acquisition Performance, Sammy G. Muriithi

Doctoral Dissertations

In this dissertation, I investigate the impact that corporate social responsibility (CSR) engagement may have on post-acquisition performance outcomes. I argue that prospective targets are among the audiences that observe the firm's corporate social activities and make judgments out of the signals portrayed by such activity. With prospective targets being largely more successful than their counterparts, it stands to reason that they would prefer to be acquired by successful firms that would likely assure benefits in the long term. The socially responsible acquirer would likely be viewed as the more attractive suitor since the established moral and reputational capital present …

The Design And Evaluation Of An Anonymous, Two-Way, Ethics Management Reporting System, Jacob A. Young

Doctoral Dissertations

Despite a recognized need for whistleblowing systems in academic research, little to no attention has been given to the necessary requirements for and specific design of effective whistleblowing systems. In order to increase the rate of reporting, it is critical for reporting systems to be designed with the intent to reduce employee fears and inhibitions by reducing the potential for retaliation. Therefore, the goal of this three-essay dissertation was to enhance a firm's ability to solicit and investigate concerns by proposing and evaluating a system aimed at fostering anonymous, two-way communication between employees and investigators of wrongdoing.

In essay one, …

Cultural Context's Influence On The Relationships Between Leadership Personality And Subordinate Perceptions, Victoria J. Smoak

Doctoral Dissertations

Fascination with leadership and the pursuit of its understanding have been common across disciplines throughout history (Bass & Stogdill, 1990). Studying leadership in an organization provides value in understanding its relation to outcomes such as employee attitudes (Podsakoff, MacKenzie, & Bommer, 1996), individual performance (Tierney, Farmer, & Graen, 1999) and organizational performance (Day & Lord, 1988; Sully de Luque, Washburn, Waldman, & House, 2008). Leadership is suggested to be the underlying human factor key to organizational effectiveness (Hogan & Kaiser, 2005). In spite of the vast body of literature, much remains to be understood, especially understanding context (McCall & Hollenbeck, …

Bright Or Dark, Or Virtues And Vices? A Reexamination Of The Big Five And Job Performance, Christopher M. Castille

Doctoral Dissertations

Personality research in industrial/organizational psychology has been dominated by the description of personality traits and outcomes as either bright or dark. Unfortunately, research has shown that bright traits have dark outcomes and vice versa, suggesting that a paradox is plaguing the literature. To resolve this paradox, I propose that a different heuristic stemming from positive psychology be utilized: virtues and vices. Virtues refer to exercises of human excellence while vices refer to actions of human failure. Drawing on the virtue ethics concept of the Aristotelian mean, dark traits are viewed as extreme or elevated levels of bright personality traits, allowing …

An Empirical Examination Of Gender, Political Affiliation, And Family Composition Issues Affecting Reasonable Compensation In Closely Held Corporations, Dowis W. Brian

Doctoral Dissertations

This study examines the effect of gender, political affiliation, and family composition issues on reasonable compensation in closely held corporations. It is broken down into two parts: an archival and behavioral (survey) portion. The archival part analyzes decisions made in the U.S. Tax Court spanning 1983-2014 through the use of simple regression, multiple regression/ordinary least squares, and logistic regression. Four variables were found to be significant: judge gender, tenure, number of tax years decided, and taxpayer gender. The behavioral portion investigates the current perceptions of tax practitioners through surveying Certified Public Accountants (CPAs). Analysis of variance is used in this …

An Empirical Investigation Of Technology Usage, Virtual Status, Organizational Justice, Need For Affiliation, Organizational Identification And Their Influence On Work Success, Julia Crider Graham

Doctoral Dissertations

Advancements in information communication technology have led to a growth in the telecommuting work force and increased interest in telecommuting research. Antecedents of work success are re-examined. This study attempts to disclose the relationships among communication technology usage, need for affiliation, organizational justice, employee's virtual status and organizational identification and how these factors affect work success.

Four main questions drove this research: "Do organizational justice and employee's virtual status moderate the relationship between communication technology usage and organizational identification?" ; Do organizational justice and employee's virtual status moderate the relationship between need for affiliation and organizational identification?"; Do organizational identification, …

Arbitrage Risk, Investor Sentiment And Maximum Daily Returns, Kenneth A. Tah

Doctoral Dissertations

We test the cross-sectional relation between daily maximum return (MAX) and return in the following month for stocks with high and low idiosyncratic volatility. We use portfolio level analysis and firm-level cross-sectional regression to find that the negative and significant relation between MAX and expected stock return (known as the "MAX effect") is a non-January phenomenon observed predominantly on a sample of stocks with high idiosyncratic volatility. We find that the effect of investor sentiment on the MAX effect depends on arbitrage risk. Our findings suggest that arbitrageurs find it difficult to correct the mispricing of stocks with extreme positive …