Business Commons^™

The Value-Relevance Of Nonfinancial Information: The Biotechnology Industry, Ya-Wen Yang

Doctoral Dissertations

This study examines whether nonfinancial patent information is useful to investors in assessing and valuing biotech firm’s long-term financial performance. The biotech industry requires large R&D investments with uncertain payoffs. Current accounting practice expenses (rather than capitalizes) R&D expenditures. As a result, financial variables are often negative or excessively depressed. Because accounting assets do not reflect biotech firms’ valuable intangible assets, this study examines whether nonfinancial patent information supplement the information content of financial information in market valuation. Using six patent variables measuring both quantity and quality aspects of patents, I found evidence consistent with the idea that nonfinancial patent …

Interfirm Demand Integration: The Role Of Marketing In Bridging The Gap Between Demand And Supply Chain Management, Teresa M. Mccarthy

Doctoral Dissertations

As firms increasingly outsource functions to focus on core competencies, access to resources from trading partners to accomplish goals becomes more important. As such, supply chain management is recognized as critical to creating and sustaining competitive advantage by integrating activities across trading partners that can produce a unique and valuable offering. This dissertation suggests the role of marketing is well positioned to oversee and manage integration of supply and demand activities that have traditionally been practiced separately both within and across firms in a supply chain. The research fills a gap in the literature by presenting a comprehensive model of …

Citizen Police Academy Alumni: Attitudes And Perceptions Related To Law Enforcement, Larry E. Grant

Masters Theses

The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of training on attitudes and perceptions about law enforcement by participants of a Citizen Police Academy. The first goal was to identify any significant differences between attitudes or perceptions and demographic factors such as age, working status, education, ethnicity, gender, military experience, victimization, and relationships with officers. The second goal was to ascertain the existence of any correlation between certain variables related to attitudes or perceptions. The researcher surveyed 554 members of the Knoxville Police Department Citizen Police Academy Alumni Association. The alumni members received a three-part survey containing general …

A Management Plan For The Imported Fire Ant (Ifa) Migration Into Gateway Communities In East Tennessee, Elizabeth Ann Long

Masters Theses

This thesis outlines a management plan for Gateway communities to use as a preparedness guide dealing with the establishment of the hybrid species of the Imported Fire Ant (IFA). The red species of IFA, Solenopsis invicta Buren, and the black species of IFA, Solenopsis richteri Forel, are located in southern Tennessee, but it appears that it is the hybrid species of their crossbreeding that is migrating into east Tennessee. The two species of IFA and their hybrid are moving north, both by natural migration and by being brought into the east Tennessee area on landscape plant materials and by the …

Theory And Construction Methods For Large Regular Resolution Iv Designs, Robert M. Block

Doctoral Dissertations

We define 2k-p fractional factorial designs which use all of their degrees of freedom to estimate main effects and two-factor interactions as second order saturated (sos) designs. We prove that resolution IV sos designs project to every other resolution IV design, and show the details of these projections for every n = 32 and n = 64 run fraction. For k > (5/16)n, all resolution IV designs are a projection from the even sos design at k = n/2. For k ≤ (5/16)n the minimum aberration design resolution IV designs are projections of sos designs with both even and odd words …

The Effect Of Brand Equity In Supply Chain Relationships, Donna F. Davis

Doctoral Dissertations

A systematic review of the marketing literature on brands reveals very few studies devoted to understanding brands in interorganizational exchange; however, the failure to successfully manage relationships with supply chain partners is now seen as a potentially fatal obstacle to the success of a brand (Shocker, Srivistava and Ruekert 1994). Focusing exclusively on managing the brand in consumer markets ignores the needs of important downstream customers such as distributors and retailers and fails to capitalize on the potential for leveraging brand equity to create added value with upstream suppliers.

A multiple method approach was used to explore the phenomenon of …

An Examination Of Interorganizational Relationship Magnitude And Its Role In Determining Relationship Value, Susan L. Golicic

Doctoral Dissertations

As the business environment becomes more complex, organizations within a supply chain realize that in many instances they can benefit from closer, long-term relationships. However, researchers in this area agree that there is no one relationship that is appropriate or necessary for all situations. Since there exists a wide range of relationships within a supply chain, businesses need to manage the development and maintenance of each relationship in their “portfolios.” This entails recognizing the motivating factors that drive companies to a particular relationship, determining the appropriate amount of resources that will be dedicated based on the targeted relationship, and measuring …

Bayesian Analysis Of Threshold Autoregressive Models, Yongjae Kwon

Doctoral Dissertations

Threshold Autoregression is a powerful statistical tool for modeling structural nonlinear relationships. This study presents a Bayesian modeling procedure for threshold autoregressions. To this end, the analytical framework of Bayesian analysis for a univariate SETAR and a threshold VAR were developed. For the estimation of parameters, a Markov-Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) simulation and an importance/rejection sampling are used to obtain posterior samples. In model determination, this study shows that Bayes factors are reliable testing procedures in model comparison, lag order selection, and threshold nonlinearity tests. However, it is difficult to get the exact figure of a Bayes factor because the …

An Examination Of Consumer Opinions Regarding Hotel Websites, Jeremy Burnett

Masters Theses

Internet reservations are a growing portion of the distribution channels in the hotel industry. With this growing area of marketing and sales of hotel rooms comes a need for clarification of the needs of both the hotel and the consumer. This study examines consumer preferences and opinions about the features and functions available on hotel websites with respect to the type of website used by the consumer. Two researcher developed survey instruments were used in this study. The first survey process identified and refined the features and functions to be examined through a series of interviews with users of online …

Competition And Contestability In Central And Eastern European Banking Markets, H. Semih Yildirim

Doctoral Dissertations

This study attempts to analyze the effects of financial liberalization and deregulation on competitive conditions in the banking industries of fourteen Central and Eastern European (CEE) transition economies using firm-level data for the period 1993-2000. The basis for the evaluation of competitive situation is the extant oligopoly theory in the new industrial organization literature, specifically, the competition model developed by Rosse and Panzar (1977), and Panzar and Rosse (1982,1987). This approach relies on the premise that, in their long-run equilibrium, banks will employ different pricing strategies in response to a change in input costs depending on the market …

Effects Of Self-Efficacy On Transfer Of Cross-Cultural Training And Expatriate Performance, Anne Wang Drewry

Masters Theses

The presented study focused on the effect of self-efficacy, as well as other selected demographic variables, on the transfer of cross-cultural training and expatriate performance. Selected independent variables include self-efficacy, expatriate tenure, level of education, gender, age, marital status, level of foreign language competency and level of formal cross-cultural experience. Expatriates employed by multinational company that were on their current assignments were selected to be the studied sample.

The design of this study employed a quantitative research method. A survey

instrument crafted specifically for this study was digitized and was made accessible for participants via the Internet. After the data …