Business Commons^™

Social Media Impact On Small Brick And Mortar Businesses, David N. Bowles

University Honors Theses

This thesis examines the implementation of various strategies and goals for small to medium brick-and-mortar enterprises regarding their use of social media. Drawing from primary data collection with small brick-and-mortar businesses within the greater metro area of Portland, Oregon, the value of social media is the ability of an organization to create a sense of value for their consumers while promoting positive relations and enhancing the consumer's ability to interact with an organization on a more personal level. Focusing on the implementation of various strategies and promotional efforts to increase the success of these small businesses and align their organizational …

An Assessment Model Of The Healthcare Entrepreneurship Ecosystem To Foster Solutions For Underserved Communities, Abdalilah Saleh Owaishiz

Dissertations and Theses

There are significant disparities in access to healthcare treatment and this study investigates the healthcare entrepreneurship ecosystem and the challenges and considerations associated within. There is a lack of research on how to evaluate and assess the healthcare entrepreneurship ecosystem especially when applying multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) methods. The Hierarchical Decision Model (HDM) has been utilized to identify several perspectives and factors grouped under them by the expert’s quantification. This research concentrates on underserved communities because that is where the biggest needs and impact can be made to support achieving health equity and universal health coverage. The findings of this research …

Monetizing Attention And Branding Strategy: Assessing The Effects Of Personal Branding On Amateur Athletic Compensation, Abby Christiansen

University Honors Theses

What role does branding play in the compensation issues faced by amateur athletes? How has the rise of influential online social personas legally impacted their case? This thesis explores the long-standing compensation issues that many amateur athletes have faced while under the control of the NCAA. It connects the social impact of online personal branding to some of the legal victories won by student athletes as they gain more freedom over their NIL (name, image, likeness) by detailing the importance of branding and its evolution into personal branding in a 21^st century economy. Many of the rules and regulations …

A New Studio Era: How Netflix Is Becoming A Threat To The Film Industry, Al Kasper

University Honors Theses

Movie streaming services have become an increasingly popular distribution method due to their widespread accessibility to film content across the globe. Netflix is the biggest competitor of movie streaming services and has led the charge in creating original content for its customers. With many of these streaming services creating their own content, both Hollywood and independent studios are being introduced to a new competitor in their market: studios that stream their own content. While this may seem to be an issue only within the industry, there are concerns about another oligarchy of studios being created out of these streaming services …

Planning And Real-Time Resource Allocation In Freight Logistics Systems Utilizing Emerging Transportation Technologies, Darshan Rajesh Chauhan

Dissertations and Theses

Transportation is a key driver of any national economy. In the United States, the transportation sector contributes $1.3 trillion to the economy, of which freight transportation represents more than 50%. Trucks alone account for more than 70% freight movements in the United States. In addition to worsening stress at ports of entry and traffic congestion in the system, freight also accounts for nearly one-third of the greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. Emerging transportation technologies like electric unmanned aerial vehicles (or drones) and electric vehicles can provide a more sustainable alternative to combat greenhouse gas emissions and reduce the …

Honey Tree: A Neo-Soul Album, Artist & Musical Development Through The Electronic Press Kit, Raine Welterlen

University Honors Theses

This paper describes the process of preparing a Neo-Soul album for public release including monetization, marketing, arrangement, and production.

Clarifying And Measuring Inclusive Leadership, Kelly Mason Hamilton

Dissertations and Theses

Many organizations view diversity as a strategic business priority that provides important benefits such as increased creativity and innovation. Research indicates, however, that the potential benefits of diversity cannot be realized without employees feeling a sense of inclusion, which involves feeling like one belongs and can be themselves at work. Although scholars acknowledge the important role managers play in fostering inclusion, there remains limited research on specific behaviors they can enact to foster inclusion perceptions in their work groups. Additionally, there is a lack of agreement in the literature about the scope of "inclusive leadership." Historically, scholars viewed inclusive leadership …

Scenario Acceleration Through Automated Modelling: A Method And System For Creating Traceable Quantitative Future Scenarios Based On Fcm System Modeling And Natural Language Processing, Christopher W.H. Davis

Dissertations and Theses

Scenario planning is used extensively in strategic planning because it helps leaders broaden their perspectives and make better decisions by presenting possible futures in story form. Some of the benefits of using scenarios include breaking away from groupthink, creating better products, acceleration of organization learning and reducing bias. Product development teams, particularly for digital products, are gaining more autonomy in organizations and tend to manage risk by undergoing very short development iterations on their products while leaning on their consumers for feedback -- a process known as agile development. This method tends to limit the perspective of the team and …

Branding In Motion: How Animation And Branding Intersect To Support Nonprofits In Need, Shannon M. Steed

University Honors Theses

Nonprofits often don’t receive the kind of attention needed to garner a wide audience. Especially during the pandemic when the world has largely gone online, it can be a challenge for many of these organizations to adapt to the fast-paced digital landscape. This is largely due to a lack of access to resources and modern design practices to create more community visibility. This thesis is an exploration of how thoughtful design can bring these nonprofit events a new life. I created design systems for two nonprofit events, each with a digitally-focused approach and a focus on deeply considering the audience. …

Social Media Marketing And Insurance: An Analysis Of The Impact Of Social Media Marketing On Small Independent Brokerages Of Property And Casualty Insurance, Kaylee B. Brucker

University Honors Theses

Property and casualty insurance is an intangible service. It is a large industry within the US that in most regard is perpetual. Marketing for insurance is not similar to marketing for most other services or products. The agent must relay the value to the consumer prior to them purchasing it. Further, when considering social media marketing, we find a separate strategy of marketing. Social media marketing is becoming increasingly popular, it has shown as a successful strategy for obtaining consumers' attention and their business. This success has been seen in many industries, including insurance. However, there is a lack of …

Developing An Assessment Model For Entrepreneurship Ecosystems Using Hierarchical Decision Model: Case Study Of Riyadh City, Mustafa Kamal Almuzel

Dissertations and Theses

Entrepreneurship is one of the major drivers of economies. Countries that aim to improve their economies by increasing entrepreneurial activities and its effectiveness need to develop an effective entrepreneurship ecosystem. This ecosystem combines a set of domains and factors that create a healthy environment for entrepreneurs. The analysis shows that there is limited research about structured assessment methods to evaluate the entrepreneurship ecosystems.

Therefore, this research objective is to introduce a universal assessment model that can be adopted in different cities for implementing an effective entrepreneurial ecosystem. This will be achieved by addressing three main research questions. 1) What are …

Maturity Model For Customer-Centric Approach In Enterprise: The Case Of E-Commerce And Online Retail Industry, Soheil Zarrin

Dissertations and Theses

The network technologies are changing the dynamics of the interaction between customer and provider. Customers demand closer relationships and higher investment between partners, as well as cooperation between companies to build supporting technologies for their unique needs. Customer-centricity is defined as interaction with the customer through various touchpoints and aggregating these relations to create a position for the customer. Each Customer has a different need and expectation from the provider or seller, and companies need to be flexible enough to fulfill their needs. One of the reasons organizations invest less in customer experience is that they believe they are already …

Building And Expanding Avestor’S Social Media Presence: A Capstone Review, Hope Foley

University Honors Theses

The Business capstone project involves a small team working directly with a local business to provide assistance in achieving a specific goal the company may have for their future. Through research, informational visuals, and presentations to the client, the team presents a final recommendation as to the best option to achieve the company's goal and the most effective way to implement it.

"Real" Marketing Within The Fast Fashion Industry: An Analysis Of Internal Vs. External Dei Practices, Marinda Lynn Carlyle

University Honors Theses

This thesis will analyze the social media marketing (SMM) practices of Fast Fashion industry trends that have surfaced due to recent events. Specifically, this work will compare customer-facing SMM efforts related to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives against the internal values and practices a company expends towards these efforts. This thesis will use H&M as an illustrative example in representing a company within the Fast Fashion industry. The motivation of this thesis or[i]ginates from the ongoing shifts in corporate SMM practices after the murder of George Floyd in May of 2020 and the corresponding increase in social justice activism …