Business Commons^™

Movies That Sell: A Rhetorical Analysis Of Product Placements In Marvel Movies, Andrew Nii Okai Okai

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The advancement of digital entertainment media has given audiences the ability to skip ads that do not interest them. Consequently, brands face the challenge of creating ads that can compel audiences and finding media outlets that can effectively reach target audiences. Brands today use product placements to promote their products because movie audiences are generally attentive to ads when they are incorporated in a movie’s narrative. Marvel Cinematic Universe is a globally recognized entertainment franchise that uses product placements strategically to promote brands in their movies and TV shows. In this study, I conduct rhetorical analyses of select product placements …

The Influence Of Social Media On The Tourism Industry: A Content Analysis Of Culinary Tourism Brands Via Instagram, Angela White

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The tourism industry in the United States is constantly changing and being influenced by social media, specifically Instagram. Culinary brands use Instagram to advertise their restaurants and dishes in a creative, visual way. As a result, Instagram is now being used as a tool by tourists and both potential and current customers to share their dining experiences and find these locations based on the visual appeal. This study provides a content analysis of Instagram account information and photo composition within eight popular culinary tourism destinations by examining the strategies used by the accounts. 50 randomly selected photos were used from …

Decision-Making Framework For Circular Economy In Remanufacturing, Saleh Maffoudh Bagalagel

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Product recovery and remanufacturing have received increasing attention in the past two decades due to environmental, legal and economic drivers. The concept of reverse logistics has evolved from an initiative to recycle raw materials such as paper and glass to a broad sustainable product recovery and remanufacturing approach to enable a transition to circular economy. Advanced manufacturing companies need to develop smart manufacturing-remanufacturing systems to maximize product value recovery utilizing Industry 4.0 principles. Research articles have accumulated over the years to suggest solutions to many product recovery and remanufacturing implementation problems. However, the common case of a family of products …

Hazy Team Composition Processes: Shared Team Leadership, A Strategy To Team Excellence In Higher Education, Pervaiz Masih

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Teamwork is an emergent property of efficacious organizations. Team-based and result-oriented organizational structures are gaining momentum, increasing 6% each year. Over 80% of organizations globally deploy teams by putting ordinary people to work together for extraordinary performance. The Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center is a unique institute that teaches foreign languages in an immersive and team-based environment. This mixed-methods research study investigated (a) the teaching team composition processes, (b) the applicability of trust and diversity in team composition, and (c) the impact of shared team leadership in the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center. Data were collected from 82 …

Exploring The Experiences And Effectiveness Of Student Loan Entrance Counseling, Manoj Thekkadathu Oommen

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Student loan debt is one of the most pressing issues in the United States today. The rate of student loan debt in the United States continues to rise year after year, and the country is experiencing a crisis of increased student loan debt. A program that started with a budget of $15 million in 1965 to expand access to higher education has increased exponentially to over $1.5 trillion in student loan debt today. Students are ushered into the college experience often without possessing a firm grasp of basic financial literacy skills. Federal legislation mandates borrowers to take a 30-minute counseling …

Servant Leadership And Conflict Adaptivity In Local Government Leaders, June F. Mighty

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Government organizations’ focus on public service provides a fertile ground for conflict due to competing interests and goals. Conflicts exist and persist because of workplace pressures such as unstable political climates, budget restrictions, technological advances, a diverse workforce, disruptive change, and organizational transformation. Although typically risk-averse, these organizations need flexible and adaptive leaders who exhibit the appropriate behaviors in the best interests of the organization and the community. Servant-leaders seem likely to demonstrate conflict adaptivity due to their focus on serving the needs of followers and other stakeholders, which may require different conflict styles at different times and in different …

Work Order And Subassembly Identification And Tracking System, Israa El-Sabbagh

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The research encompassed in this thesis includes the development of a work order and subassembly identification and tracking software system created in-house and tested at SPM Automation (Canada) Inc. The research is motivated by the significant losses the company is enduring and the recurring problems occurring at the facility (i.e., excess inventory, late ordering, reordering, misplaced components, etc.). These problems are critical in the progress and profits of the company.

An extensive literature review was completed, and the research gaps were presented. The optimal work order and subassembly process was created using Process Mapping Methodology, Cause-and-Effect Diagrams, and 5Why Analysis. …

An Organization’S Ability To Improve Outsourcing Outcomes In Information Technology Outsourcing Initiatives By Increasing Organizational Knowledge: A Case Study, John Michael Mello

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The problem addressed in this study was the literature gap regarding how internal organizational knowledge can be increased effectively within outsourcing projects. The study was a qualitative social constructionist case study composed of senior technology leaders. The purpose this study addressed was to understand the current structure of technical outsourcing contracts and how future contracts could be structured to address the problem of this study. The research incorporated how a reconceptualized absorptive capacity model, sociocognitive theory, and digital leadership mindsets could improve knowledge transfer outcomes between a vendor and client. Research shows that increasing an organization’s knowledge during an outsourcing …

The Impact Of Artificial Intelligence In The Customer Journey: A Case Study Of Bosch Usa And Defy South Africa, Tariro S. Munyengeterwa

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Artificial intelligence (AI) continues to gain traction and is increasingly reshaping the media and marketing communications field. While significant research has been conducted on the impact of AI in other fields, there is little empirical evidence on how AI is affecting the customer journey. The present study explored both organizations’ current use of AI tools and how customer perceptions about AI affect AI usage and adoption through the lens of diffusion of innovation theory. The research was conducted using mixed-method qualitative research. In-depth interviews and a case study content analysis were conducted to collect and analyze the data. The results …

Personification In Advertising: A Rhetorical Analysis Of Digital Video Ads In The Insurance Industry, Dorm Kpedor

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Major companies in the insurance industry—notably Allstate, Progressive, and Farmers—often employ personification as a creative rhetorical tool in digital video advertisements. By leveraging brand characters in various ways, these companies seek to establish trust and engender emotional impact in customers. Allstate ascribes destructive characteristics that are associated with house cats to its Mayhem character; in doing so they evoke the desired emotional responses of humor and fear. Progressive creates and deploys the Motaur character, a visual personification and play on the Centaur; in this case, the company’s rhetorical strategy is to evoke humor and nostalgia that resonate with motorcycle owners. …

Barriers To Succession Planning: A Case Study Of Atlanta Nonprofit Organizations, Adonnis J. Jules

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Succession planning is not a common practice among nonprofit organizations, despite support for its effectiveness in supporting leadership development and providing organizational stability during a planned or unplanned transition. Nonprofits have acknowledged that their leadership ranks are thin, and a leadership transition tends to bring challenges to the organizations when vacancies need to be filled. Barriers exist that prevent nonprofits from engaging in succession planning, but little research has examined the nature of these barriers. This study focused on nonprofit organizations across four different industry sectors to determine the extent of their succession planning efforts and the barriers that exist …

Employee Ownership And Moral Hazard: How Broad-Based Equity Sharing Can Lower Agency Costs And Reduce Inequality, Colin Clinton Hudson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Providing incentives to top managers by offering equity has become the norm; this practice, however, does not hold for all levels of employees. After tax incentives for employee ownership were introduced through the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, there has been little legislative support to encourage companies to implement broad-based equity sharing programs. Moreover, decades of neoliberal policies have incentivized the pursuit of short-term profits and speculation, which contribute to economic instability and explain the growing gap between productivity and real wages observed since the late 1970s. Developments in the literature contend that employee ownership aligns the goals …

Competition In Economic Theory And The Skew In U.S. Corporate Wealth Creation, Marc H. Pentacoff

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Historical studies of U.S. capital markets show a dramatic skew in the distribution of corporate wealth. This thesis investigates the evolution of economic thought related to realistic models of competition, seeking to find the most suitable theory of competition to explain this skew in U.S. corporate wealth creation. The incorporation of realistic elements into the static theories of competition leads to theoretical difficulties in the early 20th century. Another line of thought developed non-equilibrium dynamic models of competition, culminating in Schumpeter. In Schumpeter, firms seek to manage the uncertainty f rom rapid change induced by innovation and increasing returns by …

Level Of Acceptance (Loa) For Scan-To-Bim Creation, William Fulton Ikerd Ii

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation presents two contributions to the use of Reality Capture and Scan-to-BIM for facility management (FM). The first manuscript proposes a novel construct for accurately defining scope on Scan-to-BIM projects. Combining the concepts of tolerance, accuracy, and density of point cloud measurements, it will aid laser scan usage in new construction as-built validation, help renovation of existing buildings that lack as-built documentation, and support facility managers who lack accurate plans and digital twins of their buildings by helping determine and communicate the appropriate requirement for Scan-to-BIM. In view of making this process more efficient and cost effective, this article …

The Hotelling Valuation Principle: Does User Cost And Reserve Differentials Improve Validity?, Brian K. Hicks

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Hotelling Valuation Principal (HVP) implies that the value per unit of an in-ground exhaustible natural resource is equal to the current price less the cost of production. The assumptions required for this principle include a certain and homogenous reserve stock, unconstrained extraction, and constant costs. Extensive research has empirically investigated the HVP. This paper expands the HVP framework and relaxes the theory’s assumptions to account for reserve differentials. The results show that the original net price model is more closely aligned with developed reserve value, than total reserve value. In addition, this paper develops two- and three-factor net price …

Corporate Ventures: Relational Microfoundations Of Innovation Performance, Burak Malkoc

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Large, established companies invest in innovation to sustain and improve their competitiveness. In addition to in-house R&D departments, they acquire startup companies and operate them under a separate organizational structure. Corporate ventures’ success depends on many factors, such as available resources, compensation schemes, and acquisition strategies, which have been explored in the extant literature. This study explores the antecedents of corporate venture innovation performance through the lens of dynamic capabilities and social capital theories. Existing research on dynamic capabilities has explored its microfoundations of managerial cognition and top management initiatives. However, the development of dynamic capabilities requires actors’ level interactions …

Microfoundations Approach To Risk And Uncertainty In The Uppsala Internationalization Process, John P. Merli

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study answers rising calls in International Business to employ a microfoundations approach for greater insight on differences in managerial cognition for entering business in high-risk locations. Consequently, findings challenge the Uppsala model’s longstanding stance concerning the risk-internationalization association governed by strict firm-level analysis. I examine CEO decision-making through the lens of their values, represented by their political ideology score along the liberal-conservative continuum, to offer greater predictability for rationalizing strategic choices. Accordingly, political ideology proved a significant predictor for explaining the circumstances in which CEOs elect high-risk locations based on their political ideology’s degree of liberalism. Additionally, its interactions …

Executive Coaching: A Cohesive Conceptual Model And The Qualitative Investigation Of Executive Coaching Styles, David Morelli

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Executive coaching is a field in search of a conceptual model to tie together disparate studies and theories. While several decades of research validate ‘that’ coaching works (Athanasopoulou & Dopson, 2018), it’s been unclear is to ‘how’ coaching works. For over two decades, the field has been calling out for a conceptual model (Kilburg, 1996; Athanasopoulou & Dopson, 2018) and hasn’t known where to turn. While several attempts have been made, each of them suffered from conflation and lack of specificity, perhaps due to the lack of theoretical grounding amidst coaching’s nascence as a field. Answering this call is important …

Hotel Executives’ Perceptions Of Effective Promotion Processes And The Successful Transition From Single-Unit To Multi-Unit Management, Mark A. Sharkey

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The growth experienced by the hospitality industry, especially the hotel industry, has outpaced its ability to develop future leaders. Like many organizations, the hotel industry employs a management hierarchy of single-unit managers responsible for each unit (hotel) and a multi-unit manager who oversees single-unit managers and their units (hotels). The vast majority of these multi-unit managers are promoted from a successful single-unit operation. The promotion can be challenging, and first-time multi-unit managers struggle to make a successful transition. Research confirms that this struggle is partially due to the need for a newly promoted multi-unit manager to develop a new and …

The Duality Of Reality: Perception Creation Using Symbolic Management, Christopher J. Thomas

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

People have historically used different types of symbols to signal an ideology, to create a sense of prestige, or to gain legitimacy. Examples of these types of symbols can be seen in displays ranging from marketing ads to presidential election materials. While these types of symbols tend to be socially constructed, and universally identifiable, the consequences of their use are less uniform in nature. This study explores the gap that currently exists between a symbol’s inherent value and the expected consequences of its use. My theoretical prediction includes two principles: The use of symbolic management to create symbolic environments and …

Airbnb Release Of Latent Economic Value And Return To Equilibrium, Daniel Joseph Trujillo

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

We empirically consider Airbnb’s effect on a new variable in Short Term Rental (STR) research, second homes, employing a model pre-Airbnb diffusion (2009), and post-Airbnb diffusion (2019). In doing so we test our hypothesis that second home use will be converted to short-term rentals with the advent of Airbnb. We do so through a natural experiment examining housing stock. We create a schema to segregate tourist and non-tourist counties based on economic variables and deploy these in our research framework observing a shock to housing supply. Notably, we observe a structural change in the use of second homes resulting in …

Three Essays Exploring Diversification Strategies In Family Firms: Evidence From The S&P 1500 On Acquisitions And Exits., Chelsea Sherlock

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Family firms are not only the most prevalent form of business organization in the world, accounting for roughly 75% of all organizations (La Porta, Lopez-de-Silanes, & Shleifer, 1999; Miller, Steier, & Le Breton-Miller, 2003), they also represent “heterogeneous and complex enterprises” that offer a “challenging array of issues to study” (Sharma, Chrisman, & Gersick, 2012, p. 5). Accordingly, this series of essays explores diversification strategies in family firms by investigating the family specific factors which may influence strategic decision-making. I begin with a review of the diversification literature over the last 20 years. Next, using data from S&P 1500 firms, …

Relevance Of Personality In Perceptions Of Abusive Supervision: A Multilevel Analysis, Jaime Leigh Williams

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this dissertation is to determine the relevance of personality of both the supervisor and subordinate in the perception of abusive supervision. A report published in 2014 found that 27% of U.S. workers – comprising over 65 million people – have claimed to suffer from some form of abusive behavior perpetrated by their leaders, such as repeated intimidation, humiliation, and verbal abuse (Workplace Bullying Institute; Zoeby International, 2014). However, researchers have not determined whether the differences in the perceptions of abusive supervision is driven by the cognitive biases of the individual subordinates or the trait driven behaviors of …

Turnover Intentions Of Self-Initiated Expatriates: The Role Of Servant Leadership And Organizational Embeddedness, Caleb W. Lugar

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The topic of this dissertation is turnover of self-initiated expatriates (SIEs). The significance of the SIE domain is evidenced by the exponential growth in SIE literature since the publication of the seminal research article authored by Inkson, Arthur, Pringle, and Barry (1997). Research in the SIE domain is also of interest to practitioners employed in multinational organizations who increasingly recognize that SIEs are an untapped source of global talent. To contribute to the SIE literature, in Essay One, of my three-essay dissertation, I first provide a systematic SIE literature review. Second, my unique contribution is a systematic review of the …

The Value Relevance Of Retail Strategy, Kexin Xiang

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

All three essays of this dissertation are under the umbrella of retail management and study the phenomenon of retail management from the following perspectives: retailers’ multichannel strategy, retailers’ store operation management, and retailers’ securities lawsuits likelihood. Specifically, the first essay studies the effect of a channel integration strategy called buy-online-and-pick-up-in-store on retailers’ stock value. The second essay studies the relationship between a retailer’s top management team (TMT) confidence and the store overexpansion. The third essay studies how TMT confidence is associated with securities class action (SCA) litigation. Essays 1 and 2 focus on retailers’ channel decision whereas Essays 2 and …

The Effect Of Servant Leadership On Nonprofit Workplace Conflict, Lorena M. Freeborough

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Workplace conflict depletes nonprofit organizations of valuable time and energy. Organizations spend millions of dollars because of the financial and human cost of unresolved interpersonal conflict in the workplace that stem from ineffective leadership behaviors. A leader’s ineffective behaviors have been linked to the organizational pressures that can cause and spread counterproductive workplace behavior, which results in interpersonal conflict and great financial cost. The purpose of this quantitative correlational study was to determine the relationship between servant leadership behaviors and interpersonal workplace conflict in nonprofit organizational settings in the United States. Specifically, the intended goal of this research was to …

The Role Of Year-Round Fan Engagement: A New Approach To Sport Fan Behavior, Han Soo Kim

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Fan engagement, the substantial psychological connectedness to a specific club, team, or sport itself, is in a state of rapid transformation due to the growth of digital media. For sport organizations, managing fan engagement throughout the year is important to maximizing team revenues and sponsors’ interests. While fans consume sports differently depending on the season, the focus has been primarily on fan behavior during the in-season in the sport management literature. Thus, the purposes of this study were to (1) provide a conceptual framework of year-round fan engagement by applying the season distinction approach, (2) establish the scale of off-season …

Do Bears Prefer The Weak And The Downtrodden? The Effects Of The 52-Week Low And Financial Strength On Short-Seller Behavior, Christopher Alan Miller

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation investigates the effects of a company’s financial strength on short-seller behavior around a non-information-producing event. The distance of a stock price to its 52-week high or low does not provide fundamental information, but the price extremes serve as salient price points upon which investors anchor their expectations of future stock performance. Using a large sample of daily short sales data, I investigated the effects of both the proximity to the 52-week low and the financial strength of the underlying company on short-seller behavior. I found that short-selling volume increases as the price nears its 52-week low and that …

Measuring The Value Of Internal Corporate Events From Attendees’ Perspective: Multidimensional Scale Development, Inna Soifer

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Purpose – Business events is a trillion-dollar sector of the meetings and events industry that supports millions of jobs. Despite the social and economic impact of the meetings, expositions, events, and conventions, only a few studies have examined perceived value in the business events context. This study addresses this research gap by developing a multi-item, multidimensional scale assessing attendee perception of corporate event value.Design/methodology/approach – This study utilized a mixed-method approach and followed widely accepted psychometric scale development procedures. The scale was developed using a multistep process: item generation, expert review, development sample 1 of 506 respondents via Qualtrics Online …