Business Commons^™

An Empirical Study Of The Relationship Between Board Chairperson Activism, Board Gender Diversity, Board Gender Inclusion, And Firm Performance, Phyu Phyu Aung Myint

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation empirically examined the effect of board chairperson activism and board chairperson power on board gender diversity, board gender inclusion, and firm performance using a sample of boards of Fortune 500 firms. Board chairperson activism, in this dissertation context, refers to board chairpersons taking actions such as speaking out on, advocating for, or actively supporting gender equality or women leadership in business. Board gender diversity refers to the gender heterogeneity of directors in the boards whereas board gender inclusion refers to the extent to which women directors are given opportunity to participate and contribute to …

Competencies Of Modern Musician Entrepreneurs: The Role Of Digitalization In The Music Industry, Richard A. Rodriguez

Theses and Dissertations

The culture creation industries are undergoing a period of accelerated digitization, globalization, and democratization. The 21st century music industry is bustling with lowered barriers to entry, increased knowledge sharing, and direct to consumer models which have resulted in a gold rush of entrepreneurial opportunities for musicians and increased competition to music firms and superstars. The music industry has been subject to innovative disruption providing valuable insight on the nuances of this paradigm shift for music entrepreneurs and scholars alike. Specifically, I explore competency factors in artist’s journey from musicians to entrepreneurs with successful self-managed careers. Employing Lazear’s Theory of Balanced …

Essays On The Influence Of Review And Reviewer Attributes On Online Review Helpfulness: Attribution Theory Perspective, Rakesh Guduru

Theses and Dissertations

With the emergence of digital technology and the increasing availability of information on the internet, customers rely heavily on online reviews to inform their purchasing decisions. However, not all online reviews are helpful, and the factors that contribute to their helpfulness are complex and multifaceted. This dissertation addresses this gap in the literature by examining the antecedents that determine online review helpfulness using attribution theory. The dissertation consists of three essays. The first essay examines the impact of authenticity (review attribute) on review helpfulness, showing that the expressive authenticity of a review enhances its helpfulness. The second essay investigates the …

The Role Of The Similarity Between Suppliers' And Buyers' Sustainability Practices In Improving Suppliers' Performance: An Empirical Investigation, Kwanheui Cheon

Theses and Dissertations

Sustainability has become an essential component of corporate survival and prosperity. As a result, companies are eager to introduce sustainability to every part of their businesses. In addition, because stakeholders' interest has spread from companies to their entire supply chain, companies must manage their relationships with other supply chain members regarding sustainability. Consequently, there has been an interest in investigating the implementation and management of sustainability along supply chains. However, there are still voids in sustainable supply chain management research. For example, scholars have pointed out the need for research on sustainability from a supplier perspective as opposed to the …

Essays On Behavioral Decision Making In Crowdfunding Environments, Bright Frimpong

Theses and Dissertations

Crowdfunding has revolutionized the world of financing. From entrepreneurs to financially excluded individuals seeking funding for essential projects, crowdfunding provides an expansive platform for project founders to raise needed capital for pending or ongoing projects. In addition to raising capital, founders also use crowdfunding to test market an idea, gain exposure for future funding, gain validation, and build trusting relationships with backers (Zhou et al., 2018). However, the success of crowdfunding is dependent on crowd participation- backer support and funding. The importance of crowd participation in crowdfunding is not limited to project funding, but also building public involvement and support …

Themes And Participants’ Role In Online Health Discussion: Evidence From Reddit, Massara Alazazi

Theses and Dissertations

Health-related topics are discussed widely on different social networking sites. These discussions and their related aspects can reveal significant insights and patterns that are worth studying and understanding. In this dissertation, we explore the patterns of mandatory and voluntary vaccine online discussions including the topics discussed, the words correlated with each of them, and the sentiment expressed. Moreover, we explore the role opinion leaders play in the health discussion and their impact on participation in a particular discussion. Opinion leaders are determined, and their impact on discussion participation is differentiated based on their different characteristics such as their connections and …

Great Recession And Corporate Recovery: Empirical Evidence Of The Impact Of Firms' Internal Control System, Gbolahan Oladayo

Theses and Dissertations

In Previous studies, we are made to understand that recession has a detrimental effect on corporate valves. Hence, I investigate substantial evidence that firms with a good internal control system, even during the financial crisis of 2008, were able to minimize redundancies that could have negatively affected the recovery of their company’s post-recession. Thus, firms with effective internal control systems are able to recover from negative events significantly faster (as measured by the firm’s values) than those without such systems.

Financial Literacy And Consumer Well-Being: Examining The Role Of Gender Role Ideology, Lorena Garcia Ramon

Theses and Dissertations

Financial literacy, or the ability to process economic information and make informed decisions about financial planning, wealth accumulation, debt, and pensions, has been linked to beneficial financial behaviors that support financial well-being. Despite these benefits, consumers tend to underperform in financial literacy tests with women generally faring worse than men. This dissertation draws from gender roles literature and Expectancy-Value Theory to examine how, why, and when traditional attitudes regarding societal gender roles (i.e., gender role ideology) hinder women’s financial literacy and willingness to acquire financial knowledge. Moreover, it examines how financial literacy and willingness to …

La Asignación De Género De Los Préstamos En El Sureste De Tejas [The Gender Assignment Of Loans In Southeast Texas], Elsa Guadalupe Magana Orozco

Theses and Dissertations

En esta investigación se examina la asignación de género de préstamos del inglés al español en el Valle del Río Grande de Tejas basándose en 32 entrevistas sociolingüistas del Corpus bilingüe del Valle (Christoffersen y Bessett, 2019). Se han llegado a reconocer tres posibles factores que determinan la asignación de género (masculino o femenino) de los préstamos, tales como el sexo biológico, el género fonológico y el género analógico (Poplack, 1982; DuBord, 2004; Montés-Alcalá y Lapidus Shin, 2011). Los resultados muestran un total de 692 préstamos la mayoría fue asignado el género masculino un 50%, mientras 33% fue asignado el …

Conspicuous Asceticism: Collapsing Consumers' Hungry Ghosts, Ash Zareian

Theses and Dissertations

The author investigates an emerging construct called conspicuous asceticism expositioned from a narcissism-centric view. The understanding of this construct is approached by drawing an idiomatic semantic parallel in opposition to conspicuous consumption and by utilizing its current theoretical framework of narcissism. Moreover, this paper seeks to extend conspicuous consumption’s theoretical framework as synonymous with the construct of compulsive consumption. Furthermore, I illustrate that consumers must transcend narcissism through engaging in treatment modalities requisite to operationalize a pioneering effort in which consumers can engage in marketing campaign efforts to advertise conspicuous ascetic contexts. This dissertation gleans from extant literature in sociology, …

Essays On Individuals’ Information Assessment, Information Disclosure, Participation, And Response Behaviors In Online Health Communities, Joseph Ade Manga

Theses and Dissertations

The emergence of online health communities (OHCs) has enabled the use of information technologies to address some social and health needs including but not limited to emotional, social, and health-related issues. This information age has encouraged user generated (UG) content, which facilitates both peer-to-peer and business-to-peer interconnections. This rich and active information epoch (i.e., OHCs) is distinct in that value is generated when peers or participants—who may be content generators and/or content consumers—interact together by exchanging information and receiving supports aimed at addressing their specific needs; and this is made possible through the online platforms or support groups acting as …

Self-Service Technologies That Appear Human Interacting With Customers: Effects On Third-Party Observers, Ross Paul Murray

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines the effects of viewing and hearing service failure and recovery interactions between self-service technologies (SSTs) and customers on third-party observers. Third-party observers are those that observe the actions of other customers as they interact with a firm in some way. These observations could occur in the present (face-to-face) or past (watching a video or listening to an audio recording). Third-party observers provide a unique perspective as they can provide a more neutral perspective of a failed service transaction and recovery as compared to the involved customer and firm.

This dissertation contributes to the SST literature and to …

The Examination Of Psychophysiological Effects Of Multisensory Imagery Marketing Strategy. A Triangulation In 3 Studies, Sasawan Heingraj

Theses and Dissertations

Multisensory imagery marketing strategy has been extensively suggested to be one of the advertising strategies that can generate long-term brand awareness, brand image, and authentic experience in a highly competitive market condition. This dissertation explored the psychophysiological effects of multisensory imagery marketing strategy on consumers' attitudes. Results from study 1 suggested that consumers’ masculine-feminine self-concept played an important role when evaluating multisensory imagery marketing messages. Specifically, consumers who exhibited a lower degree of masculine self-concept and those with feminine self-concept were likely to evaluate multisensory imagery marketing messages more positively than their higher masculine self-concept counterparts. We also found that …

Paralinguistic And Rhetorical Capabilities Of Emojis In Marketing Communication, Jacob Christopher Almaguer

Theses and Dissertations

Consumers and social media marketers have over 3,000 emojis at their fingertips. Despite the popularity of emojis on social media, marketing research on emojis remains limited. Extant marketing research on emojis that does exist primarily focuses on the emotional and reinforcement capabilities, a remnant of the limitations of the emoticon ancestor, and largely ignores the additional paralinguistic and rhetorical potential of emojis. In this dissertation, emojis as a paralanguage are explored with a particular focus on the creation of meaning on social media (Essay 1), and emojis as a full (Essay 2) and partial (Essay 3) substitute for text in …

Blockchain Value Creation Logics And Financial Returns, Daniel Narh Treku

Theses and Dissertations

With its complexities and portfolio-nature, the advent of blockchain technology presents several use cases to stakeholders for business value appropriation and financial gains. This 3-essay dissertation focuses on three exemplars and research approaches to understanding the value creation logics of blockchain technology for financial gains. The first essay is a conceptual piece that explores five main affordances of blockchain technology and how these can be actualized and assimilated for business value. Based on the analysis of literature findings, an Affordance-Experimentation-Actualization-Assimilation (AEAA) model is proposed. The model suggests five affordance-to-assimilation value chains and eight value interdependencies that firms can leverage to …

Factors Affecting Irs Audit Rate Probability: Empirical Evidence From Rgv Region, Issack Guyo

Theses and Dissertations

IRS tax audits are intended to curb tax evasion; however, they are costly to conduct and have negative impacts on taxpayers. The purpose of this study is to find out factors that lead to high IRS audit rate in a region from the perspective of the Rio Grande Valley (RGV). Relationship between IRS tax audit rate and determinants of tax evasion identified by Davis, Cebula, & Boylan (2020) among others are studied. A regression analysis is conducted on the regions scores on poverty rate, demography, unemployment rate and general level of education with the IRS audit rate. The results suggest …

The Use Of Virtual Conference Software (Vcs) In The Workplace During Covid-19 In North America: An Empirical Validation Of Innovation Diffusion Theory, Khaleed I. Khasawneh

Theses and Dissertations

Researchers in marketing and technology realized the importance of paying more attention to how and when new technologies or innovations are adopted during crisis, and which factors impact individuals’ successful adoption. Navigating through the different stages of the present COVID-19 crisis, it has become clear that such research focus would be beneficial so that firms can shape customers' decision making process in a way that ensure successful escape of a crisis and its Destructive results on a business or organization; COVID-19 will undoubtedly not be the last global crisis we face. First, a firm understanding of the factors affecting the …

Two Essays On Corporate Finance, Md Noman Hossain

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation consists of two essays on corporate finance. In my first essay, we investigate whether and, if so, how the information disclosure preferences differ systematically between Republican CEOs and Democrat CEOs in the context of management earnings forecasts. We find that Republican CEOs tend to prefer a less asymmetric information environment than Democrat CEOs, and thus make more frequent, timelier, and more accurate disclosures than Democrat CEOs. Results using the propensity score-matched sample and the difference-in-differences analysis show that our results are unlikely to be driven by potential endogeneity. Our results are robust to controlling for various CEO characteristics, …

Before Turning Into Ashes: A Study Of Entrepreneurial Cognition, Learning, And Exit, Azadeh Zamanian

Theses and Dissertations

Entrepreneurial practices such as discovery, evaluation, and exploitation of opportunities, decision-making, and problem solving are influenced by mental processes and cognitive mechanisms. Decision-making studies in the field of entrepreneurship confirm that entrepreneurs have strong tendency to use cognitive mechanisms such as biases and heuristics to simplify their decision-making processes. Compared to non-entrepreneurs, entrepreneurs show higher levels of cognitive bias.

By focusing on cognitive mechanisms of entrepreneurs, this study answers the question of why some individuals insist on continuing their entrepreneurial journey while failure-related phenomena such as critical setbacks and counterfactual thoughts exist.

Unlike the prior research that have focused on …

Essays In Workplace Safety Issues In Finance, Md Ruhul Amin

Theses and Dissertations

I examine how firms address workplace safety issues considering their value implication. In my first essay, I investigate the relation between workplace safety and inside debt held by the CEO in form of pension benefits and deferred compensation. To mitigate the endogeneity of CEO inside debt design, I exploit variation generated by the implementation of the Internal Revenue Code Section 409A Final Regulations. Consistent with the long-term orientation hypothesis, I find strong evidence of lower establishment-level work-related injuries and illnesses in firms whose CEOs have higher relative inside debt. I also document that CEOs inside debt holdings are associated with …

The Impact Of An Executive High Performance Work System On Business Model Innovation, Ravi Bala

Theses and Dissertations

Business model innovation is a phenomenon that has been gaining traction since the 1990s. Recently, a global survey of more than 4,000 senior managers by the Economic Intelligence Unit found that business model innovation was overwhelmingly preferred versus new products and new services (Amit & Zott, 2012). Both executives as well as practitioners suggest that business model innovation is ideal for future competitive advantage (Amit & Zott, 2012; Foss & Saebi, 2017). Increasing competition, globalization, and rapid changes in technology have all provided the impetus for organizations to reconsider the approaches they use to manage their numerous resources and capabilities, …

Necessitation Through Growing Entanglements: Why We “Can’T Live Without” Some Products, Jakob Braun

Theses and Dissertations

Much research has been concerned with what constitute necessities and how they are related to pertinent concepts, such as needs, wants, desires, and luxuries (Belk, Ger, and Askegaard 2003; Duncan 2002; Fraser 1998, Hoyer and MacInnis 2004; Kerin, Hartley and Rudelius 2004; Sheth and Mittal 2004). Using thing-focused approaches, earlier studies are primarily concerned with classification schemes using dichotomies such as need-want and necessity-luxury. Studies that employ a human-focused perspective challenge these divisions and argue that necessities cannot be studied without considering the social and historical contexts (e.g., Buttle 1989; Firat 1987). Notwithstanding the important contributions that these studies have …

Hawkish Or Dovish: The Effect Of Female Ceo Leadership On Strategic Conformity, Organizational Innovation And Strategic Change, Hazel Husne Dadanlar

Theses and Dissertations

The U.S. female labor market participation rate has significantly improved in the last 50 years (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2007). Along with the broader female labor participation rate, the level of female representation at the executive and director-level positions has shown some improvement in the last 24 years, albeit at a much slower pace than it has been in recent years (Pew Research Center Report, 2018). For example, while the number of female Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) leading Fortune 500 companies was zero in 1995, it rose by 7.4% by 2020. Despite some improvement, a mere 7.4% increase …

Antecedents And Consequences Of Ambidextrous Orientation Among Social Entrepreneurs, Sarah N. Kimakwa

Theses and Dissertations

Social entrepreneurship refers to the “the process of identifying, evaluating, and exploiting opportunities aimed at social value creation by means of commercial market-based activities and the use of a wide range of resources” (Bacq & Janssen, 2011, p. 388). Social entrepreneurs use market-based strategies and innovative approaches to address various social, economic, and environmental challenges. motivated by compassion, empathy, and a commitment for alleviating others suffering (Miller, Grimes, et al., 2012), they establish social ventures with a dual mission of social and economic value creation.

To meet the challenges of addressing pressing social, economic and environmental issues not tackled by …

Two Essays On Finance Of Climate Change, Abdullah Al Masum

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation consists of two essays on the finance of climate change. In the first essay, we find robust empirical evidence that firms in locations with higher exposure to climate change pay significantly higher spreads on their bank loans. To alleviate the concerns related to using firms’ headquarters in determining climate risk exposure, we exploit the economic link between a firm and its customers and find that the exposure of a firm’s customers to climate risk also adversely affects that firm’s cost of borrowing. In the cross-section, we find that the long-term loans of poorly rated firms drive the effect. …

The Role Of Sense Of Community On Knowledge Sharing Behavior In Makerspaces, Eduardo Jose Millet

Theses and Dissertations

Using the Sense of Community Theory and the Knowledge Sharing Behavior this study explores the motivation of members of makerspaces to share technical and non-technical knowledge in this type of creative spaces. In makerspaces, individuals are expected to share what they know with others to solve design and fabrication problems. Most of the sharing occurs when experienced makers transfer knowledge to the novice makers. This behavior is what motivates this dissertation. Unlike traditional knowledge sharing that happens in formal organizations, makerspace participants engage in the knowledge sharing behavior differently; they share in an informal manner creating value for makerspaces and …

I Buy Less When Others Suggest: Impact Of Personal Relative Deprivation, Temporal Discounting, Social Norms And Store Reputation On Food Over-Acquisition, Swapnil Saravade

Theses and Dissertations

Food over-acquisition has shown to have detrimental consequences such as food over-consumption, food waste, obesity, and greenhouse effects. Extant literature has typically focused on food over-consumption, with little explanation of its precursor, food over-acquisition. The current thesis situates the research in grocery retail and examines why people over-acquire food. Further, which interventions can marketers develop to mitigate food over-acquisition and in which grocery stores would those be effective? The present dissertation approaches this issue by drawing concepts from two disciplines, sociology, and behavioral economics. Through five studies, the current thesis shows that when people feel relatively food-deprived, they tend to …

The Elicitation And Functionality Of Contempt In The Workplace: A Values-Based Perspective, Gerardo A. Miranda

Theses and Dissertations

Organizational behavior research on the “moral emotions” has rapidly increased in the past few years (Greenbaum, Bonner, Gray & Mawritz, 2020). However, specific emotions have been researched to different extents. In particular, contempt has received relatively less attention than other emotions, perhaps, due to the confusion surrounding its distinction from related emotions such as disgust and anger (Greenbaum et al., 2020). At the same time, there is evidence of contempt being experienced since antiquity (Pakaluk, 2018), across cultures (Ekman & Friesen, 1986), and more recently in organizations (Pelzer, 2005). I argue that it is important to understand the role of …

How Does Choosing Fitness Labeled Food Affect Consumer’S Intention To Forgo Exercise, Mei Han

Theses and Dissertations

As one of the most widely used marketing techniques, the role and effects of food labels have received significant attention from researchers. Different labels have very different influences and implications. This dissertation focuses on a unique persuasive language label: fitness label. This dissertation starts with a discussion on self-regulation mechanisms and research on goals, and their implications on how choosing fitness labeled food affects subsequent intention to forgo exercise.

This dissertation finds that the existence of response conflict in food choice, as well as the magnitude of the response conflict affect consumer’s reaction mechanisms, which in turn affect consumer’s exercise …

A Darker Shade Of Gray: An Empirical Examination Of Gray Swans In The Supply Chain, Tony N.K. Lynch

Theses and Dissertations

The complexity and interconnectedness of markets creates risks in the global supply chain and may lead to various types of disruptions. Prior research in the supply chain management literature has focused on some aspect of disruption and firm performance. However, the effect of Gray Swans on various aspects of firms’ operational or financial performance is an under-research area. Understanding why managers often underestimate and overlook Gray Swans contributes to ongoing conversation of risk in the global supply chain. Gray Swans are defined as low probability risk events that if/when they occur can have a severe or catastrophic impact on a …