Business Commons^™

Closing Up Shop, Rachel Green

Capstones

The pandemic has wreaked havoc across the world. One of the hardest hit types of business was restaurants. New York City is a hub for restaurants and bars. Many restaurateurs and bar owners have been struggling to survive throughout the year. This capstone will look at specific examples of struggling business owners and see what happened when COVID-19 hit the city. https://capstone-rachel-green.webflow.io/

Will Unions Get Out The Vote For Mayor In 2021?, Caroline Leddy

Capstones

Labor unions have played an important role in New York City politics for decades--with the 2021 mayoral election approaching, will they be able to motivate their membership to vote for the candidate they endorse, or will their members vote for whomever they want without taking into account who their union recommends? Link here: https://caroline-leddy.medium.com/will-unions-get-out-the-vote-for-mayor-in-2021-a85388813d2d

Profits For Spotify, Pennies For Artists, Joshua R. Rosenberg

Capstones

Major recording labels have always been king-making investment houses. They market the music and manage the careers of artists such as New York singer-songwriter Blake Morgan, who has to fight tooth and nail to escape being mistreated financially. But digital distribution services have now come along and upped the parasitic ante. By dominating global market share and distributing millions of songs for the labels, companies like Spotify are piggybacking on the music industry’s already exploitative system and magnifying it exponentially. The more content you control, the larger the overall profit–even if the overwhelming majority of content creators are essentially starving. …

Bioscience: How One Industry Won The Pandemic And Will Change Us All, Sonya Swink

Capstones

A video and print capstone about the next great generation of biological sciences as a private industry since 2020. It encompasses the pandemic as the boost the industry needed, discussion of science’s bad reputation and the potential benefits, especially for new workspaces and real estate investors. Colorado is a focus as a burgeoning market. The news value of this story as a primer is how this will be both a beneficial industry and one that must be held to account if it becomes too monopolistic. Comparisons are from the viewpoint that bioscience is like the next Silicon Valley, but statements …

As Pandemic Endures, Impact On Households Is Here To Stay, Amanda J. Glodowski

Capstones

Covid-19 has uniquely and disproportionately impacted women. Nearly 60% of those who have lost their jobs are women. Women who stayed working had a higher likelihood of serving on the frontline during the height of the pandemic as essential workers. With most schools not fully back in-person, homeschooling responsibilities have increased and endured longer than expected. These tensions ripple through families. Fathers are finding themselves with front-row seats to the mounting pressure working mothers face, causing household dynamics to shift. As the intricacies of households come to light, fathers are willing to renegotiate their roles with their partners as well …

New York’S Jazz Scene Decimated By Ongoing Shutdown, Alissa L. Mcpherson

Capstones

New York's jazz scene is in shambles. COVID has disrupted virtually all in-person musical performances. Musicians are left with no definite time frame as to when they will be allowed to enter a club again, and club owners are doing all they can to keep the music alive.

The Business Of The Nba Could Be Changed Forever Because Of The Coronavirus, Korey S. Matthews

Capstones

This project explores the possible changes that the NBA could make to help its business thrive after the coronavirus pandemic. The pandemic has caused the league to lose revenue, and because of this, new business practices could be put in place to help the league recoup some of the revenue that it has lost. These practices could also help the league grow in the future. In this project, you will hear from experts that will give their opinion on new avenues that the NBA could look to gain revenue from. You'll also hear from fans about their view of the …

Retirement Readiness Under The Gig Economy, Laila Hmaidan

Capstones

This piece looks at the implications of retirement savings for Americans under the changing work environment, more specifically, the gig economy. Currently, 34% of Americans engage in some form of gig or short-term work. Those who engage in gig work as their main job, have far fewer savings set aside for retirement. Additionally, these types of jobs don’t give workers access to tax-advantaged retirement accounts.

https://leilahmaidan.github.io/JOBS-CORONA/

Corporations And The American Polity, Patrick Labossiere

Student Theses and Dissertations

Research on corporate communications’ effects on politics presents an acknowledgement of a relationship between the two topics, leaving a void in the explanation and examination of this topic. The void presents an opening to introduce a conceptual process for how corporations are able to craft communications to influence the American Polity, the democratic social organization within the United States. This research begins with a historical review of how corporations gain prominence in American society, capturing the ability to participate in the democratic social organization of the polity. A qualitative analysis of several conceptual frameworks serves as data, to establish an …

Left In Limbo: Willets Point Businesses Face An Uncertain Future, Jacob Kaye

Capstones

Willets Point, a small neighborhood in Queens, has been eyed for development for over a decade. But in that time, the project has sputtered and stalled, with little to be said in the way of progress but a few acres of demolished land, known as Phase 1, and a plan for an environmental review. But as the city renews its promise to develop the area, business owners say they are being ignored and quietly forced out.

https://jacob-kaye.medium.com/left-in-limbo-willets-point-businesses-face-an-uncertain-future-27a899a7cd6b

Fed Up, Desperate And Daring Enough To Unionize, Suzannah C. Cavanaugh

Capstones

This is a long-form story that outlines the hazards of restaurant work that predated the pandemic, among them wage theft, racism and sexual harassment. The story focuses on three restaurant workers pushed to unionize after Covid-19 worsened working conditions by cutting take-home pay and creating new safety hazards for employees. Legislation and employer resistance are stacked against them, but for many workers organization is the only solution.

Link to Capstone: http://fedup.tilda.ws/

The Pandemic Is Ending, But Its Boost To The Online Farmer’S Market Will Last, Min Ji Koo

Capstones

The pandemic has boosted organic and local food sales with attention to healthy lifestyles. Now, the pandemic is close to the end but its boost to the organic and local food movement will be long-lasting, especially in one retail channel: the online farmer’s market. Here is the full story: https://www.mj-koo.com/online-farmers-market

The Squeaky Wheel Gets The Oil? On The Interpersonal Effects Of Boredom Expression, Manuel F. Gonzalez

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

I explored how people react to employees who express boredom at work. I consider boredom expression as a social signal that the current situation does not adequately stimulate the expresser. The expression may then propel others to help stimulate the expresser, depending partly on others’ initial appraisals and reactions to the expression, and on the surrounding context. In Study 1, using qualitative surveys, I uncovered various affective, cognitive, and behavioral reactions to employees who expressed boredom. In Study 2, using experimental vignettes, I manipulated the emotion expressed by a “subordinate” (boredom, enthusiasm, or no emotion) and the manager’s beliefs about …

Essays On Corporate Debt Features, Capital Structure, And Cash Policies, Xiaoyu Zhu

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Chapter 1: This chapter examines variations in corporate debt features with respect to changes in macroeconomic and microeconomic conditions. The features seen in corporate debt issues have evolved substantially over the past four decades in response to changes in the corporate financing landscape. In particular, this chapter studies the evolution of active debt provisions such as fixed-price calls, make-whole calls, and callable conversion features in corporate bond contracts. By integrating corporate bond data from the Mergent Fixed Income Securities Database (FISD) and Securities Data Company (SDC), This chapter reveals new temporal and cross-sectional patterns in active debt provisions.

Chapter 2: …

Essays On Corporate Sustainability, Aditya Malateesh Kashikar

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The dissertation provides an extensive literature review of topics in Corporate Sustainability. It further examines two key topics: ESG Pay and ESG Investing. For ESG Pay, I examine Bloomberg’s ESG linked pay measure using the largest panel (to date). I confirm several important results from the nascent literature on ESG Pay. Firstly, I find that Country and Industry play a major role in determining ESG Pay adoption. Secondly, among firm characteristics, Big and Value firms tend to have a greater probability of adopting ESG Pay. Thirdly, higher ESG scores increase the chance of ESG Pay adoption in the subsequent year. …

“Caring Is Sharing”: The Effect Of Childhood Memories On Consumers’ Lending Behavior, Teodora Szabo-Douat

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This research demonstrates that recalling childhood memories increases the likelihood of lending one’s possessions to someone else by making people (particularly those who are less rebellious) feel more connected to their communities. Five studies demonstrate the predicted effect of childhood memories on consumers’ lending intentions and actual lending behavior. The studies also provide evidence that childhood memories increase less-rebellious consumers’ sense of self–community connectedness, which, in turn, facilitates lending, as sharing in (sharing with family and close others) is a far more common form of sharing than sharing outside those circles.

The Portrayal And Reception Of Multiracial Couples And Families In Advertisements, Kiran A. Chand

Student Theses and Dissertations

The goal of the research conducted here is to see the candid ways in which the American people react to the existence of multiracial couples and families. As these families are becoming more commonplace within the population and large companies such as Nestlé, Toyota, Expedia, Progressive, and General Mills have taken note of this. Instead of portraying the typical nuclear family as a backdrop for their products, companies are now demonstrating how their products are part of the everyday life of any and every American by depicting unions amongst white, black, Hispanic, and Asian partners. This normalization is due to …

Hustle Culture And The Implications For Our Workforce, Arianna Balkeran

Student Theses and Dissertations

This study defines hustle culture as an unspoken agreement between supervisors and employees concerning a designated workplace commitment compliance, which determines the minimum expectation of an employee's productivity capability. As such, this research paper aims to explore hustle culture within the workforce and how employee engagement, or lack of, affects the quality of professional relationships within the workplace. By doing so, we can begin a broader discourse on employee and managerial accountability in the relational aspect of supervisor-employee relationships and work dyads. With current changes to employment opportunities, such as the sudden influx of remote corporate workers resulting from COVID-19, …

Creating Content For A Healthy New Life, Valeria C. Borja Lopez

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Creating Content for a Healthy New Life is a project consisting of the development of a web page to connect holistic practitioners to people. This page will also allow for the promotion and sale of Ayurvedic Skincare products and services. For the capstone project, I developed a business model for the enterprise. This model offers an educational component by educating our customers to understand the importance of using holistic approaches rather than traditional ones. For this, two videos were developed to educate customers about Ayurveda and the science behind the proposed products and services. I am an experienced Holistic Practitioner, …

Building For Culture: How Municipal Ownership Of Cultural Facilities Influences Annual Arts Funding In American Cities, Adam M. Sachs

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis explores how local government support for arts and culture varies across 24 American cities. It has proven to be challenging for researchers to accurately measure municipal arts support. Research on cultural policy has also often focused on the federal level, despite total city expenditures far exceeding national or state government support. This thesis attempts to take an accurate pulse of city expenditures in 2017 and correlates those spending levels to the variation in city ownership of arts facilities. Rooted in the historical perspectives of the ‘new institutionalism’ and path-dependency, this paper argues that past decisions about taking ownership …

How Much Does Imprecision In Accounting Measurement Enhance Value?, Ying Liang

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Theory on real effects suggests that more precise accounting does not necessarily improve investment efficiency. However, with investment efficiency mostly unobservable, empirical assessment of the theory is rare. This paper develops an empirical framework based on Kanodia et al. (2005) to structurally estimate the effect of imprecision in accounting measurement on investment efficiency. My estimates suggest that imprecision in accounting measurement has mitigated over-investment in capital expenditures and R&D by 28.6% and 4.9%, respectively. On average, firms still over-invest relative to the first-best full-information benchmark. In counterfactual analyses, my estimates suggest that the optimal investment efficiency could be achieved by …

Essays On Social Connectedness, Institutional Behavior, And Market Predictability, Yan Li

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation consists of three chapters that encompass social network, institutional investor behavior, financial market efficiency, and market return predictability.

Chapter 1: We use social network data from Facebook to show that institutional investors are more likely to invest in firms that are located in areas the investor is more socially connected to. This effect is particularly large for investments in small and informationally opaque firms. After controlling for social connectedness, investments do not vary with the geographic distance between investors and firms. We find no evidence that investors achieve higher returns when investing in firms located in areas that …