Business Commons^™

The Alumni Base Holds The Institution In Their Heart: Alumni Decision Making And Communication Strategies During University Leadership Change, Brandy Cox Jackson

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of the research was to understand how alumni executives make decisions and formulate communication strategies during university leadership change. The research was based on the trends found by the American Council on Education that the tenure of the college president has been on the decline since 2006 and is currently 5.9 years. Multiple factors have been identified in the literature that have led to this decline. The research focused on the largest constituency of most universities, its alumni base, and provides context and a description of decision making and communication strategies for alumni executives navigating leadership change. The …

Social Media Impacts On Arkansas Consumer Perceptions Of Gmos, Elizabeth R. Berner

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study builds upon previous consumer perceptions of GMOs studies. A need existed to determine what, if any, effects social media messages about GMOs had on consumer perceptions in Arkansas. The study utilized a qualitative approach with three focus groups. Data were analyzed using descriptive code. Participants were found to have a general understanding of GMOs, though discussion about what a GMO product was took an uncertain tone. Most participants did not consider GMOs as a factor when purchasing products. Rather participants considered characteristics such as price, quality, and convenience. Participants did not believe the infographics had changed their opinions …

Navigating Leadership Pathways: Learning Module Development, Alana Skogen

Agricultural Education, Communications and Technology Undergraduate Honors Theses

Navigating Leadership Pathways is an innovative learning initiative designed to address the challenges and barriers faced by women in their pursuit of mid to high-level leadership positions. Comprising three self-paced modules, this project delves into the intricate landscape of gender bias, second-generation biases, and cultural norms that hinder women's progression in the workplace. Drawing on extensive research and real-world insights, each module provides a dynamic and interactive learning experience.

Module 1: Introduction to Gender Bias in Leadership

This module lays the foundation by exploring second-generation biases, leadership style differences between men and women, the glass ceiling, diversity, and inclusion. Participants …

College Girl's Guide To Fayetteville, Ar, Sydney Johnson

Human Nutrition and Hospitality Management Undergraduate Honors Theses

The mission behind creating the College Girl’s Guide to Fayetteville, AR was to ease the adjustment from high school to college for females attending the University of Arkansas. This is one of life’s most monumental transitions, often resulting in anxiety, depression, and loneliness, specifically among the female demographic. With that in mind, the intent of the guidebook was to develop culture, confidence, and community on campus. In the aftermath of Covid-19, loneliness on college campuses has become an epidemic in need of a university-wide solution to increase student satisfaction and retention. A research aspect that heavily impacted the project was …

Help Or Hindrance: How Social Media Affects The Selection And Hiring Processes Of Businesses, Alexandra Krska

Management Undergraduate Honors Theses

Continually, young people have been advised to be conscientious of the imagery they put on social media regarding their personal lives in preparation for employment selection. However, the use of social media in the selection process may cause Human Resource professionals to have inadvertent biases toward candidates among other moral and ethical issues. Through extensive research of the thoughts and actions of a plethora of different corporate professionals, I will analyze whether using social media as a tool in the selection process authentically produces positive unbiased results, or whether social media poses more ethical issues. With the hopes to create …

The Buzz Behind Alcohol Advertising: A Study Of How Alcohol Advertisements On Social Media Impact Behavior, Alexis Morgan Campbell

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Alcohol advertisements are known to be appealing and memorable, and several researchers have investigated what makes these advertisements so attractive. Several trends have emerged regarding the content within alcohol advertisements: themes of parties, celebration, and social success within television, magazines, and social media since the 1970s. Recently, several studies found that new themes in alcohol ads have been found to be popular, especially in social media advertisements (Campbell & Chung, 2022). The elaboration likelihood model (ELM) provides insight into why a person’s attitude could be more susceptible or why their behavior could be more easily influenced by certain types of …

The Effects Of Consumer Loan Application Formats And Advertised Terms On Consumer Borrowing Decisions, Alicia M. Johnson

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Consumers continue to demonstrate a willingness to accrue more debt. They are also more accepting of increased repayment risk via the acceptance of longer loan terms. Extant research on consumer borrowing consists primarily of experiments designed to assess consumer choices and understand how consumers evaluate loan attributes in relation to one another within consumer borrowing contexts (Kamleitner, Hoelzl, and Kirchler 2012; Ranyard et al., 2006). Thus, prior research examines consumer responses to loan information rather than the generation of loan parameters at the time of financing. With important implications for consumers, marketers of financial products, academic researchers, and federal regulators, …

How The Financial Services Industry Is Utilizing Social Media To Expand Their Client Base, Kristen Stewart

Marketing Undergraduate Honors Theses

Social media is becoming an increasingly important aspect of all companies’ marketing strategies. It is almost imperative for companies to advertise through social media if they want to have a fair chance of reaching the younger generation. In fact, “the majority (97%) of Gen Z consumers say they now use social media as their top source of shopping inspiration; 65% say they use social media to find entertaining content; and 61% of them are specifically interested in watching more video content” (Kastenholz, 2021). This proves that social media can make a significant and lasting impact on a company’s success. Social …

A Social Media Strategy Plan For The Jane B. Gearhart Full Circle Food Pantry, Sara Katelyn Holm

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The Jane B. Gearhart (JBG) Full Circle Food Pantry is a student-led program that provides food assistance for members of the University of Arkansas community. This thesis project includes a social media strategy plan that aims to increase the overall awareness of the pantry and its multifaceted services to decrease food insecurity levels at the University of Arkansas. This plan intends to create behavioral changes that expand usage of the pantry and social media engagement among UA students. Grounded in data-driven insights, this plan is designed from (i) literature on food pantry marketing techniques; (ii) a review of the pantry's …

Alcohol Advertisements On Social Media: A Study Of How Alcohol Advertisements On Social Media Platforms Appeal To Young People, Alexis Campbell

Journalism Undergraduate Honors Theses

Underage drinking is not uncommon and is associated with a number of school, social, legal, emotional, behavioral, health problems, and even death. This research seeks to explore alcohol-related social media advertisements across a variety of alcohol types, alcohol brands, and social media platforms. This was accomplished by a content analysis of the most popular alcohol brands’ advertisements on the Internet that examined the strategies used to appeal to consumers and the overall content patterns and characteristics of online alcohol advertisements. The strategy used differed by brand and alcohol type, but the most common themes included “taste,” “seasonal,” “holiday,” “recipe,” and …

Characteristics Of Face-To-Face Communications In Agriculture Marketing And Customer Service, Ashlyn Ussery

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

As communication forms evolve, it is important for business leaders to not only follow the trends, but to be data-driven and make calculated decisions that are beneficial for their businesses. In this qualitative study, the researcher sought to describe how Arkansas Farm Bureau Federation used face-to-face and computer-mediated communication methods to communicate as an organization and the value their employees and members place on each communication method. Uses and Gratifications theory was used to guide this research and evaluate the results. This theory is unique in that it does not describe the effect media has on people, like many human …

Psychological Scene Gist And The Perception Of Sustainable Business Models Via Digital Media Audit, Shelby Hansen

Marketing Undergraduate Honors Theses

The technology space is giving rise to new business models that impact how we interact with companies, the causes we are interested in, and even our perception of how we process information. Within those contexts, I will be using the psychological concept of scene gist to explore the sustainable business model of clean beauty and investigate the technological ways that these companies interact with Gen Z consumers via social media. Gen Z consumers want to interact with companies who are socially responsible and who contribute to causes they believe in. The clean beauty trend is spearheading efforts to eliminate harmful …

Social Media Preferences Of Individuals Seeking Graduate Business Degrees, Peyton N. Boxberger, Hannah C. Lee

Management Undergraduate Honors Theses

The purpose of this thesis is to provide actionable insight to the Walton MBA Programs Office for a cohesive social media strategy that is inclusive of all audiences. This research hopes to help the Walton MBA program better understand potential and current students based on their social media behavior and learn how social media use has changed due to the global COVID-19 pandemic. This report will analyze the results of a survey crafted to better understand the social media preferences of individuals seeking graduate business degrees. From these, a social media marketing strategy can be created to tailor content to …

The Role Of Peer Irrigators On The Choice And Intensity Of Efficient Irrigation Techniques, Noah Hayward

Agricultural Economics and Agribusiness Undergraduate Honors Theses

We evaluate the use and the proportion of farmland that uses prominent irrigation practices in Arkansas, USA. A bi-variate sample selection model evaluates the determinants of the share of irrigated land in a farm that uses each practice. We evaluate the relationship between the irrigation practices peers use and the intensity that another farmer utilizes that same irrigation practice(s). So, if a peer of an Arkansas Delta farmer uses center pivot irrigation, for example, it increases the probability that the farmer him or herself will use acreage using center pivot by 66%. Conversely, a peer using surge irrigation only results …

Digital Marketing And The Culture Industry: The Ethics Of Big Data, Jonathan Michael Bowman

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Instead of the steady march of the one percent growth in ecommerce as compared to total retail revenues in the last decade (to comprise about nine percent of the industry at the close of 2019), we have witnessed leaps now to over twenty percent in just the last year. Scott Galloway marks the pandemic as an accelerant not just of digital marketing posting a year of growth for each month of quarantine but as an accelerant of each major GAFA (Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Apple) firm from market dominance to total dominance (Galloway 2020). Viewing these trends from the standpoint …

Media’S Portrayal Of Women And Its Impact On Body Image And Self-Esteem, Hannah Bareis

Marketing Undergraduate Honors Theses

This project addresses the portrayal of women in media and its damaging effects on body image and self-esteem. It raises two critical questions: What negative impact is media creating on women? What can be done to combat these destructive effects?

According to a study done by Common Sense Media, "American teens use an average of 9 hours of media daily, not including for school and homework" (Common Sense Media, 2015). This data, along with many others, shows the severity of media exposure to teens. This has brought a valuable discussion to the table. How has this impacted female body image, …

A Study On The Impact Of Social Media Marketing In The Event Industry: Executing A Marketing Plan, Adrian N. Bradley

Human Nutrition and Hospitality Management Undergraduate Honors Theses

Marketing is a large part of growing one’s business or event. The objective of this study was to gain an understanding of how social media marketing increases brand loyalty, attendance, and engagement within current and potential guests over traditional event marketing methods. Through this study a data collection survey for the University of Arkansas’ Hospitality Management annual event Students Mastering the Art of Hospitality (SMASH) to gather information on the effectiveness of e social media marketing’s influence on their attendees. Unfortunately, due to a global pandemic SMASH was canceled and the researcher and honor’s committee thought it to be best …

Developing A Food Assistance Informational Graphic And Implementation Plan Based On Consumer Evaluation, Mckenna Cunningham

Agricultural Economics and Agribusiness Undergraduate Honors Theses

Food insecurity refers to the uncertainty of having or acquiring enough food to sustain all members of a household. In 2019, 10.5% of households in the United States reported being food insecure. Of that number, 4.1% of households reported ‘very low food security,” meaning that there were additional periods of time in which one or more household members restricted or forfeited their food intake due to lack of money or other resources (USDA, 2020). Without access to proper nutrition, the health of both adults and children are put at risk for illness including anxiety, high blood pressure, diabetes, and other …

Student-Run Agencies: A Guideline For Agency Survival, Brooke Borgognoni

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this paper is to study 110 student-run agencies (including advertising, public relations, integrated/digital marketing, communications, and graphics and/or design) in the U.S. by analyzing how they currently operate, what practices exist in the agencies for learning, growth, and continuation and how leadership roles of students and advisors influence the agency. This project built upon past studies of student-run agencies and expanded on the topic using the evolutionary theory of a firm by analyzing factors that determine whether it appears that a student-run agency might dissolve or last. This was determined by measuring the faculty advisor involvement level, …

Relationship Marketing And Intercollegiate Sport Promotion, Alison Fridley

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The first article, a case study on a NCAA Division I Power Five university in the southeastern United States, employed a case study framework, explored target markets and exposure techniques through both the planned behavior theory and social identity theory theoretical lenses. This study aimed to better understand how university students and booster club members identify as a social group. The data emerged into four distinct themes, including communication, social interaction, connection, and hospitality. The findings suggested booster club members are primary fans and help the team generate fan interest. The importance of sociability was clear and the implications for …

Consumer Food Socialization In The School And Home, Ashley Deutsch Cermin

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Consumer socialization literature has focused on individual socialization agents and their isolated effects. However, as John (1999) pointed out, children do not grow up in a social vacuum. Instead, the multitude of agents socializing children find their narratives interacting and their effects continually shaped and co-created. To understand how school-age children learn about food, I interrogate the complexity of socialization in three essays.

In the first essay, I take an ethnographic approach to investigate the interactive effect peers and adults, namely service workers, have on children’s food socialization in a public-school lunchroom. By combining a Loseke’s (2007) layered narrative model …

The Political Preferences Of Arkansas Farmers And Ranchers, Rachel J. Barry

Agricultural Economics and Agribusiness Undergraduate Honors Theses

This research was conducted to evaluate where farmers and ranchers find political information and assess their political preferences. By conducting a survey of Arkansas farmers and ranchers we were able to determine that they prefer face to face interaction as a source of information by large margins. They typically consult friends, peers, and extension agents where appropriate. Depending on the type of political information they are seeking (information about candidates as opposed to information about policy topics), they often used other types of information sources such as the internet and broadcast media. We also ascertained that farmers and ranchers have …

Accelerating Leadership And Professional Development For Adults: Developing A New Measure For Assessing Kegan’S Constructive Developmental Orders, Tom Pierce Coker

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Much has been learned and theorized about adult development and its importance in leadership effectiveness and professional development interventions thanks to the framework proposed by Kegan’s Constructive Developmental Theory (CDT). However, research and practice in this area has been hindered by the difficulty of utilizing the current method for assessing constructive developmental Level, the Subject-Object Interview. The present study addresses this problem through the development and preliminary validation of a new self-report instrument that measures the Levels of development described in Kegan’s CDT. This new measure, the Constructive Developmental Self-Report (CDSR), was constructed through theoretical-based item generation that utilized both …

Program, Policy, And Culture Factors Minority Millennials Perceive As Important Within Their Workplace For Retention, Tanesha C. Watts

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Millennials make up the largest segment of the current workforce. However, research about minority Millennials and their needs are relatively unknown. The purpose of this study was to find out what minority Millennials deemed important within an organization’s culture and the policies and programs that would persuade them to remain with the company. Purposeful sampling was used to identify participants for this study. Participants met the criterion of a Millennial by age, identified as a minority, currently worked at an organization with 50 or more employees in an office location and had worked for their current employer for one year …

Collaborative Speculation And Overvaluation: Evidence From Social Media, Adam Barrett Booker

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

I use data from StockTwits and Twitter to provide evidence that investor attention on social media in the period before earnings is related to short-term overvaluation, consistent with bullish investors herding around common information. In the 2 to 60 days after earnings, returns for companies in the highest quintile of pre-earnings announcement investor attention are 4.2 percent lower than those of companies in the lowest quintile. I find evidence that the negative post-earnings drift result found in this study is related to investors waiting until after earnings are announced to enact costly arbitrage strategies. I further examine intra- and inter-network …

Extending The Boundaries Of Supply Chain Transparency: Supplier Monitoring Activity Disclosure, Consumer Evaluations, And Brand Equity, Yanji Duan

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Socially responsible policy makers and consumers are pressuring firms to make their supply chains more transparent by disclosing information about their supplier monitoring activities (SMA). Yet, high monitoring costs and the complexity of supply chains pose challenges for firms to effectively monitor their extended supply chain, including both first-tier and lower-tier suppliers. In order to comprehensively evaluate the net benefit from SMA, it is therefore critical to consider potential effects on drivers of additional revenues that may accrue from the disclosure of SMA to consumers.

Prior research on SMA has examined the associated cost, risk, and supplier relational implications on …

Social Class And Social Networks: How Sociocultural Upbringing Affects Organizational Social Networks, Jacqueline Tilton

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Organizations are a key venue where individuals from different backgrounds have the opportunity to interact and yet we know very little about how social class background shapes interactions within the workplace. There is reason to believe that the differing value systems of social class groups influence their attitudes and behavior towards workplace connections and relationship formation. This article considers how social class background affects organizational social networks as well as the class-distinct values and attitudes that shape networking behavior of employees. To study this phenomena, I analyze a sample of 490 employees from a broad range of roles and organizations …

Philosophia Soteria: How Occupational Safety And Health Professionals Influence Decision Makers, Daniel Jay Snyder

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to identify ideas about how occupational safety and health (OSH) professionals influence decision-makers on matters impacting occupational health and safety management systems. A modified nominal group technique was used that involved 67 participants in ten nominal groups and identified the most important ideas about how OSH professionals can influence workplace safety and health decision making. The research produced themes of communication, scientific, professionalism, leadership, adaptability, and business acumen that resulted in six domains of occupational safety and health professional influence.

Essays On Performance Implications Of Social Media For Established And Nascent Firms, Alireza Golmohammadi

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The possibility of large-scale communication with stakeholders brought about by social media has made these new channels of communication an important arena for spending marketing budgets. Despite the increasing share of social media in firms’ marketing budget, there is significant heterogeneity in firms’ social media communication practices even within the same venue and among firms from the same industry. As such, there is need for more research on how firms can leverage social media to achieve better performance. In order to address this broad question, two essays have been designed and executed.

The first essay utilizes integrated marketing communication as …

Agricultural Information Needs And Food Access In The Stann Creek District Of Belize, Sam Harris

Agricultural Education, Communications and Technology Undergraduate Honors Theses

The purpose of this study was to describe agricultural information sources available to farmers and to describe food access and availability for the people of Dangriga, Stann Creek, Belize. This study used descriptive survey research methods with convenience sampling of the general public (n=22) and of farmers (n = 38) in the summer of 2017. Farmers use a variety of agricultural information sources with the extension service cited most often, followed by friends and fellow farmers. Weather, lack of information, pests, and inadequate access to capital were of primary concern for farmers. Face to face meetings were …