Business Commons^™

An Investigation Of Business Transformation Disruptors At The Military Strategic Command Level, Thomas Bock

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation contributes an empirical research on business transformation disruption in the military. Specifically, this exploratory research seeks a better understanding of disruption of business transformation and some of the factors that are likely to impact the transformation process at the military strategic command level. A lack of empirical studies existing in the literature, coupled with the continuous transformation challenges faced by military organizations, make it necessary to conduct this empirical study of business transformation disruption in the military.

This research was carried out utilizing a two-phase mixed-methods approach. The first phase included qualitative data gathering through a series of …

A Systems-Based Framework For The Assessment Of Performance Measurement System Implementations In R&D Organizations, Kenneth S. Baggett Jr.

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Performance measurement is utilized by organizations in all industries, including research and development (R&D). Measures are developed, data are collected, and the measurement results are used to drive the organization. The implicit hope is, of course, that the measures drive the organization to improve. However, literature identifies high failure rates directly related to performance measurement system (PMS) implementations. Establishing the fundamental operational characteristics associated with successful PMSs would provide a significant contribution towards the establishment of PMS assessment criteria. This research addresses this gap through the use of a grounded theory method employed to identify these operational characteristics, assesses the …

The Effect Of Online Reviews On Attitude And Purchase Intention: How Consumers Respond To Mixed Reviews, Chatdanai Pongpatipat

Theses and Dissertations in Business Administration

Three studies investigate how consumers respond to mixed reviews under personal and social influences. The first study looks at how individual self-construal influences the way consumers process mixed reviews from professional critics vs. regular consumers. The study finds consumers with an independent (interdependent) self construal to have less favorable attitude and to be less likely to purchase the product when the negative review comes from professional critics (consumers). Study 2 explores how consumption social context determines the way consumers respond to mixed reviews and how consumer knowledge moderates this behavior. For public consumption, the study finds that both attitude and …

Simulation Modeling And Analysis Of Customs-Regulated Container Terminal Operations With Multimodal Transportation, Mariam A. Kotachi

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

World trade has been increasing dramatically in the past two decades and, as a result, container exchange has grown significantly. Consequently and to meet this increase, several container terminals are expanding and many new ones are being established. A port with one or more container terminals is considered a complex system in which many entities interact to accomplish seamless handling of containers inbound and outbound. The level of complexity is drastically heightened for container terminals containing multimodal transportation systems as they typically involve ships, rail, and trucks arriving to one or more terminals delivering containers of different sizes to several …

Dynamic Capabilities And Resilient Organizations Amid Environmental Jolts, Stav Fainshmidt

Theses and Dissertations in Business Administration

Despite a growing body of research on dynamic capabilities, their contribution to competitive advantage and firm performance, as well as their origins remain unclear. This three-essay dissertation integrates the literatures on dynamic capabilities, environmental jolts, and imprinting theory to examine the following research questions:

1) What is the relationship between dynamic capabilities and firm performance?

2) How do dynamic capabilities influence firm performance during environmental jolts? and

3) What is the role of industry conditions in the development of dynamic capabilities and the dynamic capabilities-performance relationship?

While several scholars have suggested that dynamic capabilities should lead to superior firm performance, …

Systems Theory Based Framework For Competency Models, Joseph M. Bradley

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of this research was to develop and apply a systems theoretic framework for design, analysis and transformation of competency models using an inductive research design. This research examines the origins and development of competency models from a systems theoretic perspective. Competency models have been largely developed by a comparative method first proposed by McClelland, or the use of Delphi method survey techniques. The assumption that a population containing an exemplar and fully successful members would enable population of a holistic competency model has reported numerous failures. Similarly, reporting on the use of Delphi methods has focused on attempting …

Assessing The Impact Of Electronic Health Record Systems Implementation On Hospital Patient Perceptions Of Care, Katherine Sofia Palacio Salgar

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The delivery of health care services has been impacted by advances in Knowledge Management Information Systems (KMIS) and Information Technology (IT). The literature reveals that Electronic Health Records Systems (EHRs) are a comprehensive KMIS. There is a wide recognition in the body of knowledge that demonstrates the potential of EHRs to transform all aspects of health care services and, in consequence, the performance of Health Care Delivery Organizations (HCDO). Authors of published research also agree that there is a need for more empirical contributions that demonstrate the impact of EHRs upon HCDO. It is argued that in most cases, studies …

Mutual Performance Monitoring In Virtual Teams, Nathan Haugejorde Bjornberg

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

The use of virtual teams in organizations has become commonplace (SHRM, 2012). While a great deal of research on teamwork exists, much of it has focused on collocated teams. Spatial and temporal separations inherent in virtual teams make working together as a team more difficult. This research examined a teamwork process previously unexplored within virtual teams -- mutual performance monitoring. An experimental intervention was conducted and outcomes at both the individual and team levels of analysis were examined. A total of 161 participants were assigned to work together in 47 teams on a decision-making task. Participants communicated and worked together …

Assessing Organizational Effectiveness Through The Competing Values Framework A Data Envelopment Approach, Raghavender Macherla

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

This study proposes a model to diagnose organizations using the mathematical principles of data envelopment analysis (DEA) to the variables generated using competing values framework (CVF) in order to evaluate overall organizational effectiveness. The notion of organizational effectiveness is abstract and difficult to measure due to its complexity and multi-functional nature. Over the years, measurement of organizational effectiveness has remained a challenge due to the lack of agreement on the factors that should be assessed to determine effectiveness. This research is aimed at shedding some light into this topic by using data envelopment analysis as a tool to measure relative …

New Media And The Nfl Fan: Determining The Impact Of New Media On Team Identification In Displaced Nfl Fans, Dorothy R. Collins

Human Movement Studies & Special Education Theses & Dissertations

Sports team identification, when viewed through the lens of social identity theory (Tajfel, 1978), can be seen as a powerful means of maintaining one's sense of self and feelings of belonging as part of a group. In some cases, team identification has been found to be based on one's feelings of connection with the geographic location of that team (Uhlman & Trail, 2012). Furthermore, prior research has shown that bonds of team identification forged in one's youth are particularly strong (James, 2001). The surge of new media options that have appeared in the last decade are changing the way in …

New Perspectives In Leadership: No More Square Pegs For Square Jobs: A Proposal For A New Recruitment Mindset For The Future Of Libraries, Leo S. Lo

Libraries Faculty & Staff Publications

The article suggests how managers can adopt job crafting and positivity so to make a productive workplace that is also a happier workplace. Managers aiming for a positive environment, good employee morale and commitment, even in the face of hardships and crisis, may want to try how job crafting and positivity might improve their organization.

Governance In The Maritime Industry, Okan Duru, Mary R. Brooks, Wayne Talley, Gi-Tae Yeo

Economics Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

A Distributed Consensus Algorithm For Decision Making In Service-Oriented Internet Of Things, Shancang Li, George Oikonomou, Theo Tryfonas, Thomas M. Chen, Li Da Xu

Information Technology & Decision Sciences Faculty Publications

In a service-oriented Internet of things (IoT) deployment, it is difficult to make consensus decisions for services at different IoT edge nodes where available information might be insufficient or overloaded. Existing statistical methods attempt to resolve the inconsistency, which requires adequate information to make decisions. Distributed consensus decision making (CDM) methods can provide an efficient and reliable means of synthesizing information by using a wider range of information than existing statistical methods. In this paper, we first discuss service composition for the IoT by minimizing the multi-parameter dependent matching value. Subsequently, a cluster-based distributed algorithm is proposed, whereby consensuses are …

A Heuristic For The Analysis Of Truncated Standard Normal Distribution Assemblies, John Walter Ralls, Cesar Ariel Pinto, Shannon R. Bowling, Resit Unal, Charles B. Daniels, S. Long (Ed.), E.H. Ng (Ed.), C. Downing (Ed.)

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Faculty Publications

The analysis of data sets and process conditions commonly assume the use of standard normal distributions and truncated standard normal distributions (TSND). The use of these distributions has application to various engineering disciplines along with numerous other industries (e.g., financial industries, medical fields, management, etc.). For engineering managers, the use of truncated standard normal distributions has particular relevance when evaluating process conditions commonly associated with assembly tolerances, manufacturing, and associated measures of quality. This article summarizes a heuristic approach for the analysis of assembly-level truncated standard normal distributions and associated research from a recent dissertation (Ralls, 2014). This article provides …

Employee-Task Assignments For Organization Modeling: A Review Of Models And Applications, Cansu Kandemir, Holly A. H. Handley, S. Long (Ed.), E.-H. Ng (Ed.), C. Downing (Ed.)

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Faculty Publications

In this study, we present a review of task assignment problems in organizations, an area that has become more important as tasks become more complex and personnel skills become more specialized. The challenge is to design task assignments that meet all requirements and result in the best organizational performance. The consequences of poor design include failed tasks, reduced efficiency, and inability to meet deadlines. Moreover, inequity of workload between employees can cause lack of job satisfaction, loss of motivation and also boredom.

In general, work processes in organizations consist of different tasks, which require different expertise. Personnel usually have various …

Auschwitz As A Site Of Memory, Emma Needham

OUR Journal: ODU Undergraduate Research Journal

Auschwitz is known as the most substantial site of the Holocaust namely because Auschwitz-Birkenau was the largest concentration camp in Europe, and it is estimated that about 960,000 Jews and 125,000 others were murdered there.¹ Not only was the process of creating the memorial at Auschwitz filled with controversies, but the site also remains questionable today with regards to dark tourism, or thanatourism, “the tourism of death.”² For some, the thought of traveling to a place subsumed in death and despair sounds troubling as the consumption of dark tourism involves a process of “confronting, understanding and accepting death.” …

Auschwitz-Birkenau: A Memorial, Nichole Delasalas

OUR Journal: ODU Undergraduate Research Journal

In the 1940s, Nazi Germany was an unstoppable force spreading throughout Europe. Hitler’s agenda was to take control of Europe and make it part of his pure Aryan race. As a result of his actions and his “final solution”, many people suffered. The concentration camp of Auschwitz I was created out of an old Polish military compound for three main reasons. The first was to incarcerate real and perceived enemies of the Nazi regime and the German occupation authorities in Poland for an indefinite amount of time.¹ The second was to have available a supply of forced labor for …

Factors That Promote Perceived Usefulness Of And Clinical Outcomes From Sign-Outs At The National University Hospital, Soo-Hoon Lee, Wei-Ping Goh, Dale A. Fisher, Phillip H. Phan

Management Faculty Publications

IMPORTANCE OF THE STUDY. Currently, there is a paucity of evidence in the literature to show that handoff strategies improve the quality of handoff outcomes. Studies that show the usefulness and outcomes obtained from sign-outs may motivate junior clinicians, who have limited time to perform their clinical responsibilities, to support sign-out improvement efforts.

OBJECTIVE. To test a research model that embeds the Technology Acceptance Model and the Theory of Planned Behavior to explore factors that enhance the perceived (a) usefulness of and (b) clinical outcomes from sign-outs among junior medical officers.

DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS.

A retrospective study was conducted …

Two Essays On Attracting Foreign Direct Investment: From Both A National And Firm Level Perspective, Ryan Lawrence Mason

Theses and Dissertations in Business Administration

Countless studies with a wide variety of financial and economic indicators have been conducted over the years within the context of international business research, all searching for hints or signals as to what makes the never ending process of globalization progress. Our research follows these efforts while focusing specifically on Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). Our first study sets out to empirically test if nations adopting the inflation targeting (IT) monetary policy are more successful in attracting inbound and outbound FDI cash flows than those nations utilizing alternative monetary policies. IT is a relatively new policy which was first put into …

How Can Professional Membership Associations Provide Meaningful Value For Their Members?: Creating Models Of Affiliation And Engagement, Lisa A. Dicke, Marina Saitgalina

School of Public Service Faculty Publications

What do individual association members think about their association membership? What do they value and what do they want to see associations provide in the future? This case study uses face-to-face interviews and focus groups with 12 international Ph.D. students enrolled in a Public Administration and Management program at a major university in Texas to provide answers to these questions. The research offers an understanding of how people from diverse cultures view professional associations. The Ph.D. students were also asked about the importance of their association as a means for building ties and making connections with others, and about volunteering. …

Crime And Natural Resource Booms: Evidence From Unconventional Natural Gas Production, Timothy M. Komarek

Economics Faculty Publications

The USA has experienced a sudden expansion of oil and natural gas production due to the combination of hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling. The energy extraction boom has had many localized impacts, most notably in areas with substantial shale gas reserves. This paper exploits a natural experiment in the Marcellus region to examine one channel of the so-called resource curse, the effect of resource extraction on local crime. The results show that areas experiencing a natural gas extraction boom suffer an increase in overall violent crimes, while property crimes remain similar to non-boom areas. Furthermore, the violent crime increase appears …

From Heresy To Policy: My Prescription For China's Population Policy 25 Years Ago, Shaomin Li

Management Faculty Publications

Recently scholars have been calling for the loosening up of China's one-child policy, and even the Chinese government has begun to show some willingness to do so. The call is not new. In my doctoral dissertation 25 years ago I first showed that China should allow couples to have two children and could still achieve the same population control goal as the one-child policy. I am glad to see that what I proposed 25 years ago is repeated by many scholars and even acceptable to the Chinese government.

Evaluating Spatial Model Accuracy In Mass Real Estate Appraisal: A Comparison Of Geographically Weighted Regression And The Spatial Lag Model, Paul E. Bidanset, John R. Lombard

School of Public Service Faculty Publications

Geographically weighted regression (GWR) has been shown to greatly increase the performance of ordinary least squares-based appraisal models, specifically regarding industry standard measurements of equity, namely the price-related differential and the coefficient of dispersion (COD; Borst and McCluskey, 2008; Lockwood and Rossini, 2011; McCluskey et al., 2013; Moore, 2009; Moore and Myers, 2010). Additional spatial regression models, such as spatial lag models (SLMs), have shown to improve multiple regression real estate models that suffer from spatial heterogeneity (Wilhelmsson, 2002). This research is performed using arms-length residential sales from 2010 to 2012 in Norfolk, Virginia, and compares the performance of GWR …

A Pilot Study On Nurse-Led Rounds: Preliminary Data On Patient Contact Time, Soo-Hoon Lee, Alice Lee, Siang-Ngim Lim, Mei-Jiao Koh, Benjamin Tan, Phillip H. Phan, Reshma A. Merchant, Aisha Lateef, Dale A. Fisher

Management Faculty Publications

IMPORTANCE OF THE STUDY. Ward rounding has been a historical clinical method of inter-professional collaboration to support inpatient care through the sharing of mental models by exchanging information and discussing plans of care, treatment goals, and discharge plans for the patient. The extant literature reports that rounds are frequently led by doctors with infrequent nurse-physician collaboration and patients’ interactions with doctors during ward rounds tend to be brief.

OBJECTIVE. To explore the effects of nurse-led morning ward rounds on patient contact time.

DESIGN. An ethnographic prospective observational study comparing nurse-led and physician-led rounds. SETTING. A General Medicine ward at the …

The Inevitable And Difficult Transition From Relation-Based To Rule-Based Governance In China, Shaomin Li

Management Faculty Publications

China has benefited tremendously from replying on the relation-based way of doing business and governance, as evidenced in its rapid economic growth up to now. However, further relying on the relation-based governance may eventually hinder China's economic growth and exacerbate inequality, resulting in political instability. On the other hand, given China's cultural heritage and powerful vested interest groups, can China shed its relation-based way? This article argues from logical, theoretical, and empirical perspectives the inevitability and difficulty of China's transition from relations to rules, and discuss the implications of the transition or the lack of it for China.

The Effect Of Kernel And Bandwidth Specification In Geographically Weighted Regression Models On The Accuracy And Uniformity Of Mass Real Estate Appraisal, Paul E. Bidanset, John R. Lombard

School of Public Service Faculty Publications

The article presents a study which examines the performance of kernel and bandwidth specification in geographically weighted regression (GWR) models in mass real estate appraisal. The kernels employed in the study are the bi-square kernel and the Gaussian kernel. Data from the sales of single-family homes in Norfolk, Virginia from 2010 to 2012 are highlighted.

Intermediate Inputs And External Economies, Haiwen Zhou

Economics Faculty Publications

Is the degree of external economies (at the industry level) higher than the degree of internal increasing returns (at the firm level)? If so, what is the exact source of this difference? In the general equilibrium model in which firms producing final goods choose the degree of specialization of their technologies, external economies arise from the usage of intermediate inputs and the existence of internal increasing returns. It is frequently assumed that increasing returns are absent at the firm level while present at the industry level. In this model, the existence of increasing returns at the firm level is necessary …

International Trade With Increasing Returns In The Transportation Sector, Haiwen Zhou

Economics Faculty Publications

In this general equilibrium framework, the transportation sector is modeled as a distinct sector with increasing returns. A more advanced technology has a higher fixed cost but a lower marginal cost of production. Even with both manufacturing firms and transportation firms engaged in oligopolistic competition and optimally choosing their technologies, the model is tractable and results are derived analytically. Technology adoptions in the manufacturing sector and transportation sector are reinforcing, and multiple equilibria may exist. Firms choose more advanced technologies and the prices decrease when the size of the population is larger.

Relative Effects Of Lower-Order And Higher-Order Quality Of Work Life On Employee Job Satisfaction And Life Satisfaction: Case Studies Of Service And Manufacturing Sectors In Thailand, Kalayanee Senasu, Anusorn Singhapakdi

Marketing Faculty Publications

This research investigates the relative effects of lower-order and higher-order aspects of quality of work life (QWL) on employee job satisfaction and overall life satisfaction in Thai workplaces. The data were collected by means of questionnaires mailed to employees of 6 selected companies-3 companies in each of the service and manufacturing sectors in Thailand with respective response rates of 72 and 74 percent. The results reveal that the two aspects of QWL in all companies have a positive impact on both aspects of employee satisfaction: job satisfaction and overall life satisfaction. The results also reveal a generally more important role …

How Corporate Cultures Drive Advertising And Promotion Budgets Best Practices Combine Heuristics And Algorithmic Tools, Douglas West, John B. Ford, Paul W. Farris

Marketing Faculty Publications

This study provides a survey of the methods used by U.S. advertisers to set advertising and promotions budgets and the effects of culture, risk, and organizational experience on these choices. Findings suggest that heuristics provide checks on analytically based budget methods and may also help managers deal with risks. Understanding the role played by heuristics in budgeting provides the first step toward process improvements in advertising and promotions budgeting.