Business Commons^™

2024 Crummer Truist Portfolio Recommendations: Crummer Investment Management 25th Anniversary, Ryan Astley, Bryan Campbell, Bridget Collis, Axel Einarsson, Caroline Gastonguay, Valeria Hernandez-Grisanti, Jay Kineon, Catherine Mitchell, Charlie Putrino, Nicholas Rojas, David Scupholm, Trevor Siemon, Lily Thornewill, Cole Trinter, Nick Villamil, Brad Vincent, Zane Williams

Crummer Truist Portfolios

We would like to thank you for your service to the Crummer Truist Portfolio. Without your participation, Crummer students would not benefit from the unique insight you bring to managing an active portfolio. We have been fortunate to listen and learn from some outstanding guest speakers who have been generous with their time and expertise: J. Clay Singleton, Emeritus Professor, Crummer Graduate School of Business; Phillip Rich, Chief Investment Officer, United Community Bank; Rasha Mesharafa, Registered Associate, Wells Fargo Advisors; James Bishop, Director, Streamwise Capital; Matej Sušec, Research Analyst, DePrince, Race, and Zollo; Robert Zhang, Senior Research Analyst, DePrince, Race …

Applications Of Ai/Ml In Maritime Cyber Supply Chains, Rafael Diaz, Ricardo Ungo, Katie Smith, Lida Haghnegahdar, Bikash Singh, Tran Phuong

School of Cybersecurity Faculty Publications

Digital transformation is a new trend that describes enterprise efforts in transitioning manual and likely outdated processes and activities to digital formats dominated by the extensive use of Industry 4.0 elements, including the pervasive use of cyber-physical systems to increase efficiency, reduce waste, and increase responsiveness. A new domain that intersects supply chain management and cybersecurity emerges as many processes as possible of the enterprise require the convergence and synchronizing of resources and information flows in data-driven environments to support planning and execution activities. Protecting the information becomes imperative as big data flows must be parsed and translated into actions …

Investor Reaction To Spacs' Voluntary Disclosures, Vincent Castellani, Karl A. Muller, K.J. Park

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

SPACs are formed to combine with and provide a private firm public trading status and a capital infusion. Firms that enter the public market through a SPAC combination are believed to possess greater voluntary disclosure discretion than traditional IPOs as they obtain their public trading status through a merger. Consistent with regulators’ concerns, recent research finds that SPACs use this discretion opportunistically by issuing optimistic guidance. This study examines how investors respond to these disclosures. We find that optimistic projections increase retail purchasing, which is higher than that of institutional purchasing. Additionally, we find that investors partially see through the …

Common Ownership And Analyst Forecasts, Qiang Cheng, Shuqing Luo, Jinping Zhang

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

We examine the effect of the common ownership relation between brokerage houses and the firms covered by their analysts (referred to as co-owned brokerage houses, co-owned firms, and connected analysts, respectively) on analyst forecast performance. Common ownership can help the connected analysts have better access to co-owned firms, leading to higher-quality analyst research. However, common owners have incentives for higher valuation of the co-owned firms and thus can exert pressure on the connected analysts to issue optimistically biased research reports for these firms. We find that common ownership improves analyst forecast accuracy. This result is robust to a difference-in-differences design …

Impact Of Training On Employee Motivation And Performance In The Sports Industry, Alyssa Macur

Honors College Theses

This study explores the crucial relationship between employee training and its influence on motivation and performance within the sports industry, focusing on insights from Athletic Directors within the Pace University Athletic Department. Through three comprehensive, in-depth interviews with these key stakeholders, the study aims to discern the effects of targeted, effective training and clear goal setting on employee motivation and performance outcomes. The insights gathered from the Athletics Directors at Pace University reveal a strong correlation between well-designed, efficient training programs and heightened motivation. When training initiatives are aligned with clear objectives and goals, employees exhibit increased levels of enthusiasm, …

Curacao Milestone 2023: Welcoming Over Half A Million Tourists, Manuel Rivera, Valeriya Shapoval, Margaret Zorrilla

Dick Pope Sr. Institute Publications

In 2023, the Curaçao Tourism Board achieved significant milestones in promoting and developing the island as a premier tourist destination. The tourism sector experienced remarkable growth, with a 19% increase in stayover arrivals, reaching 582,400 visitors compared to 489,599 in 2022. This marked the first time Curaçao exceeded half a million stayover arrivals.

The success of Curaçao's tourism sector was bolstered by targeted marketing campaigns in key source markets. The Curaçao Tourist Board actively promoted the island through collaborations with local stakeholders, enhancing the effectiveness of their efforts. Additionally, the Board launched several initiatives to raise consumer awareness, such as …

One Beat, One Island: The Seamless Fusion Of Curaçao And The Curaçao North Sea Jazz Festival, Manuel Rivera, Robertico Croes, Brianna Morman, Margaret Zorrilla Cortez

Dick Pope Sr. Institute Publications

The Curaçao North Sea Jazz Festival (CNSJF) has established itself as a significant international event, attracting 6,232 attendees worldwide, significantly boosting the island’s tourism and cultural profile. Notably, 78.9% of attendees, or 4,917 "Festival-Passion Tourists," traveled to Curaçao specifically for the festival. These tourists were affluent and well-educated, primarily from the Netherlands, USA, Venezuela, Colombia, Aruba, and Suriname. Despite ongoing challenges with accessibility, particularly from Aruba, the festival strengthened perceptions of Curaçao as a destination, as evidenced by many visitors expressing intentions to return.[1] Held at the World Trade Center in Curaçao from August 29 through August 31, 2024, this …

The Role Of Interpersonal Conflict As A Cause Of Work-Related Stress In Construction Managers In Ireland, Patrick J. Bruce, Victor Hrymak, Carol M. Bruce Dr, Joseph Byrne

Articles

Construction is a project-driven industry that places a high premium on product delivery on time, within budget and to required standards. Modern construction projects have become more complex in nature, the complex relational and lengthy process of designing and building makes construction a process in which conflict is virtually ensured (Jaffar et al., 2011; Wang et al., 2023). These characteristics of the industry contribute to workplace stress. Therefore, it is not surprising that research has confirmed a strong presence of workplace stress within the industry, (Lingard and Francis, 2004; Vaux and Dority, 2020). Many construction managers experience excessive levels of …

Dow Jones Sustainability Indices And Esg Scores: Do They Tell The Same Story?, Minoo Tehrani, Andreas Rathgeber, Edward Dougherty, Lawrence Fulton, James Fournier

Business Faculty Publications

The focal point of this research is to compare two of the largest global organizations’ sustainability indices and scores, namely Dow Jones Sustainability Indices (DJSIs) and Standard & Poor’s Global (S&P Global) ESG scores (environmental, social, and governance), which rank companies based on their sustainability practices, and to learn if they correspond to each other. Considering that Germany is the hub of large companies from leading global industries, this research compares the ESG scores of the German companies that appear on the Dow Jones Sustainability Indices. Several statistical analyses are conducted to determine if the German companies on the DJSIs …

Are Industry Returns Informative About Other Industries And Fundamentals?, Nikiforos T. Laopodis

Business Faculty Publications

This paper examines the information content of selected US industries focusing on the dynamic linkages among these industries, the stock market and a number of fundamental variables. The period of investigation spans from January 1960 to December 2021. The empirical strategy includes several methodologies such as regressions, vector autoregressions and volatility models. The idea is to investigate the dynamic linkages among these series at both the mean and the volatility levels. The results point to significant industry returns’ explanatory power for many predictors of economic activity including the stock market. Further, time-varying analysis of the linkages among the industries and …

Firm Performance Feedback And Organizational Impression Management: The Moderating Role Of Ceo Overconfidence, Hazel H. Dadanlar, Manisha M. Vaswani, Marwan A. Al-Shammari, Soumendra Nath Banerjee

Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

We propose that while positive performance feedback is positively related to firm sentiment, negative performance feedback is negatively associated with the firm sentiment. Additionally, overconfident Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) will improve the positive relationship between positive performance feedback and firm sentiment and reduce the negative relationship between negative performance feedback and firm sentiment. Using 7,182 firm-year observations for the 2004−2017 period, we show that positive performance feedback positively affects firm sentiment, and negative performance feedback negatively influences firm sentiment. We also found that higher levels of CEO overconfidence will minimize the negative impact of negative performance feedback on firm sentiment. …

Professionalism In Culinary Arts: An Exploration Of The Experiences Of Mature Part-Time Degree Students In Industry And Academia In Ireland Using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, Orla Mc Connell

Doctoral

The purpose of the research is to explore the experiences of mature part-time culinary arts degree students in Ireland to examine the phenomenon of professionalism. While other researchers have sought the views of culinary arts educators and practitioners, the student voice is underexplored. The research focuses on a particular context: a major transition in the participants’ lives: their return to education, while working full-time as chefs. Their experiences are considered unique since they, as a group, navigate between two worlds: industry and academia. Notably, a recent study in Ireland found that professionalism is an important career success factor for chefs. …

Framing A Feminist Phenomenological Inquiry Into The Lived Experiences Of Women Entrepreneurs, Edicleia Oliveira, Serge Basini, Thomas M. Cooney

Articles

Purpose – This article aims to explore the potential of feminist phenomenology as a conceptual framework for advancing women’s entrepreneurship research and the suitability of interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) to the proposed framework.

Design/methodology/approach – The article critically examines the current state of women’s entrepreneurship research regarding the institutional context and highlights the benefits of a shift towards feminist phenomenology.

Findings – The prevailing disembodied and gender-neutral portrayal of entrepreneurship has resulted in an equivocal understanding of women’s entrepreneurship and perpetuated a male-biased discourse within research and practice. By adopting a feminist phenomenological approach, this article argues for the importance …

Black-Scholes Option Pricing And Greeks Using Excel’S “Lambda” Function, Tom Arnold, Joseph Farizo, Jonathan M. Godbey

Finance Faculty Publications

The =LAMBDA function within Excel provides a powerful new tool for investors and analysts. In this treatment, we show how to create a function that calculates an option’s intrinsic value, price, and delta based on the Black-Scholes model. Other option Greek functions and calculations are available in a downloadable file. The LAMBDA function is not limited to the Black-Scholes model and has important advantages over Excel’s previous solution of creating user-defined functions in VBA.

A New Hope? Restoring Self-Compassion In Response To Abusive Supervision, James P. Burton, Brittany C. Buis, Larissa K. Barber

Faculty Articles, Papers, and Other Scholarship

Given the persistent financial and psychological costs of abusive supervision in organizations, a greater understanding of the mechanisms that employees can use to cope with abuse is warranted. In the present study, abusive supervision is expected to be negatively related to a key employee coping mechanism – self-compassion – and this hindered mechanism would lead to higher levels of anxiety and lower levels of hope. However, a written meditation targeting self-compassion could break the link between abuse and employee anxiety or hope. The hypotheses and the written self-compassion meditation were tested across two studies incorporating both a highly controlled laboratory …

Helping Consumers Weather The Storm: The Impact Of Consumer-Targeted Resiliency Programs On Firm Value, Navid Bahmani, Atefeh Yazdanparast Ardestani

School of Business

Purpose: With the goal of helping consumers bounce back from the financial challenges they faced as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, many firms developed and announced consumer-targeted resiliency programs (e.g. Walgreens waived delivery fees, Associated Bank allowed deferred mortgage payments). However, there is a paucity of research examining the unique features of these programs, and whether firms' investors (the first external stakeholder group to provide them with feedback regarding their strategies) were receptive to these programs during a period of time in which firms themselves were suffering financially. Drawing on resilience theory and stakeholder theory, the present research incorporates …

Vibrotactile Feedback In M-Commerce: Stimulating Perceived Control And Perceived Ownership To Increase Anticipated Satisfaction, Jiayun Li, Kirsten Cowan, Atefeh Yazdanparast Ardestani, Jake Ansell

School of Business

Consumers increasingly purchase through m-channels, including apps. Accordingly, marketers have enhanced immersive, sensorial aspects of m-channels, such as including vibrations while making in-app purchases. Given discrepant findings, it remains unclear whether adding such vibrotactile feedback affects consumer decision making. The present research addresses: (1) Whether adding vibrotactile feedback influences consumers' anticipated product satisfaction and purchase confidence, and (2) if so, how? Through an online pilot survey, two online experiments, and one lab experiment, this research finds that adding vibrotactile feedback to m-channels increases consumers' anticipated product satisfaction, but not purchase confidence. Moreover, perceived ownership mediates this effect, because the vibrations …

Ceo Religion And Corporate Social Responsibility: A Socio-Behavioral Model, Isabelle Le Breton-Miller, Danny Miller, Zhenyang Tang, Xiaowei Xu

School of Business

Studies linking religion to CSR have produced conflicting findings due to a failure to draw distinctions among religious influences and different CSR practices, and to theorize their connection. Drawing on social identity theory and the theory of planned behavior, we first argue that religion will influence CSR when ethical values from a CEO’s religious social identification resonate with an aspect of CSR. Second, CEO attitudes congruent with those values and forms of CSR—interpersonal empathy and proactiveness—will strengthen that relationship. Third, the relationship between religious social identification and CSR will be strengthened by a CEO’s ability to enact CSR policies, a …

Giving Up Learning From Failures? An Examination Of Learning From One's Own Failures In The Context Of Heart Surgeons, Sunkee Lee, Jisoo Park

School of Business

Research Summary: We reassess existing theories on individual failure learning and propose an inverted-U-shaped relationship between an individual's accumulated failures and learning, based on a theoretical framework that jointly considers the opportunity, motivation, and perceived ability to learn. Using data on 307 California-based cardiothoracic surgeons who performed coronary artery bypass graft surgeries in 133 hospitals between 2003 and 2018, we find compelling evidence that individuals reach a threshold at which they discontinue learning from their own failures. We also find that this threshold is higher for surgeons who had higher perceived ability to learn. This article aims to shed new …

The Relationship Between Inequality And Poverty In Developing Countries: Mitigating Role Of Virtual Social Network And Internet Access In Schools, Simplice Asongu, Peter Agyemang-Mintah

All Works

Purpose: This research complements the extant literature on poverty and inequality by assessing the role of “virtual social networks” and “internet access in schools” in mitigating the incidence of inequality on poverty. Design/methodology/approach: Using secondary data, the focus of the study is on developing countries and the empirical evidence is based on Tobit regressions. Findings: The study shows that inequality unconditionally increases poverty while “virtual social networks” and “internet access in schools” negatively moderate the effect of inequality on poverty. An extended analysis provides thresholds of “virtual social networks” and “internet access in schools” at which, the unconditional positive effect …

Adapting And Validating A Survey To Assess Host Communities Support For Migration, Jhon G. Botello, Katherine Palacio, Erika Frydenlund, Humberto Llinás, Jose Padilla

VMASC Publications

Migration presents challenges to receiving communities, as it tests their ability to respond to unexpected expenditures and social stresses. Evaluating the local impact of rapid and substantial migration flows is difficult due to the absence of a validated instrument for assessing community support for migration. Our study adapted and validated a Support for Migration Assessment survey (SMA) based on Social Exchange Theory (SET). The validation of the SMA contributes in two significant ways. First, it establishes an instrument that enables the assessment of support for migration (SFM) by considering community-level factors: trust in institutions (TII), overall community satisfaction (OCS), and …

Advancing Environmental Engineering: The Role Of Artificial Intelligence In Sustainable Solutions - A Short Review, Amirreza Talaie, Hesam Kamyab, Ashkan Razmfarsa

Management Faculty Publications

Artificial intelligence (AI) has emerged as a transformative force in environmental engineering, offering innovative solutions to complex environmental challenges. From air pollution monitoring and water resource management to waste management, climate change mitigation, and ecological preservation, AI is revolutionizing the way we address environmental issues. Machine learning, neural networks, and other AI technologies are enabling more accurate predictions, optimizing resource use, and improving conservation efforts. However, despite its many advantages, AI also faces challenges such as data availability, energy consumption, ethical concerns, and the need for transparency. This review explores the diverse applications of AI in environmental engineering, highlighting the …

Exploring Links Between Foreign Direct Investment And Host Country Economic Development, Thi Ngoc Dao

Doctoral

The thesis explores links between Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and the economic development of host country, analysing both direct and indirect effects. Concerning direct effects, FDI has been recognised as an important driver of exports and job creation for the host country. In terms of indirect effects, however, a consensus has not been reached on the spillover effects and competition effects that FDI generates in indigenous firms. Evaluating these effects has been critical for small open economies due to their heavy reliance on external markets and factors. There is a need for comprehensive research investigating the impacts of FDI on …

Investigating The Effect Of Organizational Culture On Knowledge Management Across A Large Banking Network In Sub-Saharan Africa, Samson Debela Ayana, Getachew H. Mengesha, Philip F. Musa, Solomon Negash

Faculty Articles

This study intends to understand how organizational culture affects knowledge management using the Newman and Conrad knowledge management and competing value framework. A survey questionnaire was used to collect data from 161 respondents at Awash Bank located in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Smart PLS V.3 was used to analyze the data. The finding reveals that organizational culture significantly affects knowledge management. The study also affirms that clan culture and adhocracy culture have a strong direct effect on knowledge management. Hierarchy culture has a less positive effect on knowledge management. In a nutshell, the outcome of the study indicates that a supportive …

Entrepreneurship As Collective Action: The Next Frontier., Cyrine Ben-Hafaïedh, Claire Champenois, Thomas M. Cooney, Leon Schjoedt

Articles

Collective action in entrepreneurship is lacking in the extant literature. Despite entrepreneurship research progressively moves away from the focus of a lone heroic entrepreneur, scholars have yet to absorb the full potential of entrepreneurship as collective action. Also missing is a collective stance on key entrepreneurship concepts such as opportunity discovery or construction and entrepreneurial agency. Accordingly, this article reviews and critiques five articles that constitute this Special Issue seeking to establish ‘entrepreneurship as collective action’ as the next frontier of entrepreneurship theory development. The articles in this Special Issue each investigate a specific instance of collective action in entrepreneurship. …

Garbage In ≠ Garbage Out: Exploring Gan Resilience To Image Training Set Degradations, Nicholas Crino, Bruce A. Cox, Nathan B. Gaw

Faculty Publications

Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) have received immense attention in recent years due to their ability to capture complex, high-dimensional data distributions without the need for extensive labeling. Since their conception in 2014, a wide array of GAN variants have been proposed featuring alternative architectures, optimizers, and loss functions with the goal of improving performance and training stability. This manuscript focuses on quantifying the resilience of a GAN architecture to specific modes of image degradation. We conduct systematic experimentation to empirically determine the effects of 10 fundamental image degradation modes, applied to the training image dataset, on the Fréchet inception distance …

The Ethical Student Scale: Development Of A New Measure, Tuvana Rua, Leanna Lawter, Jeanine K. Andreassi Ph.D.

WCBT Faculty Publications

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to develop the “ethical student scale” to understand the underlying factors that lead to the decisions of cheating and plagiarism and where business students are developmentally from a moral perspective and to help academic institutions assess how best to develop ethical education throughout the curriculum. This three-dimensional nine-item scale based on Kohlberg’s moral development model is proposed to serve as a valuable tool for educators who are struggling with identifying the best approach to help their students make ethical choices both within and outside of the walls of their educational institutions and once …

Innovation In Nonprofit Organizations In The Post-Pandemic Era: An Exploratory Study, Chun (Grace) Guo, Ximeng Chen, Valerie Christian, William C. Zhou, Andrés Felipe Cortés, Stephen M. Brown

WCBT Faculty Publications

Using firsthand insights from nonprofit executives, our study aims to contribute to a refined understanding of innovation within nonprofit organizations, particularly in the aftermath of a disruptive event – the COVID pandemic.

Design/methodology/approach

We adopted an inductive, qualitative approach based on in-depth personal interviews with executives of ten nonprofit organizations operating in the Northeast of the United States.

Findings

Our study uncovers the main challenges facing nonprofit organizations in the aftermath of the global pandemic. Our findings provide empirical evidence of how nonprofit organizations responded to these challenges through innovative efforts. We also have identified the innovation-enabling factors and types …

Corporate Bond Etfs, Bond Liquidity, And Etf Trading Volume, Thomas Marta

Business Faculty Publications

This study investigates the impact of corporate bond ETFs on the liquidity of their underlying securities. By alternatively utilizing panel regressions in levels, in changes, controlling for past liquidity, subsample tests—including periods of market stress and arbitrage—and a novel quasi-natural experiment, this study addresses self-selection and index effect identification issues. The findings indicate that ETFs significantly reduce transaction costs and enhance bond liquidity. Notably, the trading volume of ETFs, which is 6.67 times greater than their arbitrage, appears beneficial.

Monetary Policy, Macroprudential Policy, And Bank Risk-Taking Behaviour In The Indonesian Banking Industry, Cep J. Anwar, Nicholas Okot, Indra Suhendra, Dwi Indriyani, Ferry Jie

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

There is a growing consensus on the translation of monetary policy actions into changes in credit demand on account of changes in interest rates. The study investigates monetary policy, macroprudential policy, bank-specific and macroeconomic determinants of bank risk-taking from 2010–2022 in Indonesia. The study aims to address a gap in the literature because most previous studies have focused on advanced markets. First, three POLS and fixed effect models are estimated. However, the Durbin Wu-Hausman test indicated endogeneity issues with the estimated models. The second stage uses a system GMM estimation to investigate the impact of central bank rates and macroprudential …