Business Commons^™

The Impact Of Medical Device Usability And Accessibility Information On Purchasing Decisions Of People Without Disabilities, Maysam M. Ardehali

Theses and Dissertations

The disparity between people with and without disabilities in timely diagnosis and appropriate treatment is exacerbated by inaccessible medical devices. The industry appears reluctant to address the shortcomings or provide usability and accessibility information to enhance the purchasing decisions of people with disabilities. This reluctance is mainly caused by the lack of market motivation based on perceptions of market size and the profitability of investments in accessibility evaluation and improvement. This study aims to challenge this notion by demonstrating that usability and accessibility information do not solely benefit what may be considered a “niche market,” and the purchasing decisions of …

Digital Equity: Difficulties Of Implementing The 1:1 Computing Initiative In Low-Income Areas, Demetric D. Williams

Dissertations

Successful One-to-One Computing Initiative implementation requires educators to communicate and collaborate effectively with everyone in the learning community. However, other factors such as teacher’s professional development, student’s perception, and parent’s perception often affect the implementation of the One-to-One Computing Initiative. School districts, which serve low-income areas in Mississippi, have difficulties ensuring students and communities have access to the information technology they need to participate outside the school setting. The concept is often called digital equity. However, when officials do not address the capacity, there is a vital threat to the participants’ civic, cultural, employment, lifelong learning, and access to essential …

Exploring Customers' Reactions To Enforcement Of Fine Print, Sudipto Sarkar

Theses and Dissertations

The goal of this dissertation is to investigate the effects of enforcement and/or unenforcement of “Fine Print” on consumers’ reactions. “Fine Print” is defined as both the explicit and implicit conditions under which the product/service contract waives firm responsibility and accountability toward unsuccessful product/service experience, and outcome or lack of customer satisfaction with the same. Study 1 examined the interaction effects between “Fine Print” and “Company Size” on trust, satisfaction, repurchase intention, switching intentions, and word-of-mouth in a retailer context. The results revealed significant interaction effects between “Fine Print” and “Company Size” for satisfaction and repurchase intention, where satisfaction and …

Application Of Theory Of Constraints (Toc) In Managing Project Information Constraints, Ferdinand Z. Prantl

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Projects for D. Eng. Degree

The scope of this doctoral project is the non-traditional application of Drum-Buffer-Rope (DBR) from the area of Theory of Constraints (ToC) in mitigating disruption in distribution facilities during phased upgrades caused by information constraint. The relevance of this project is that industrial equipment upgrades pose a significant risk of disrupting the operation of automated distribution facilities. It is partly due to a very high expected availability rate, as well as tight coupling with other upstream and downstream elements of the larger supply chain network. As a consequence of disruption in this scenario, losses incurred not only within the facility being …

Information Content Of Revised Earnings Forecasts, Market Learning, And Analyst Behavior, Lifei Xue

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

In my first essay, I examine how the quality of private information and the quality of public information contained in analyst revised one-year-ahead earnings forecasts issued right after a quarterly earnings announcement affect the post-earnings announcement drift (PEAD). I find that high precision of private information contained in revised forecasts reduces the level of PEAD and that the precision of public information contained in the revised one-year-ahead earnings forecasts partially offset the reduction in PEAD. Moreover, I find the effect of precision of private information on PEAD decreases after Reg FD, which required in the year 2000 that analysts could …

Strategies For Using Information And Communication Technologies To Improve Profitability, Rodney Mciver

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Small business owners in a range of industries continually adapt to take advantage of technological developments in accounting, marketing, and communication. The purpose of this multiple case study was to explore strategies that small business owners operating in the central region of North Carolina used to implement information and communication technology (ICT). Roger's diffusion of innovation theory grounded the study. Data collection included face-to-face semistructured interviews with 6 owners of small businesses who successfully implemented ICT, field notes from site observations, and reviews of participant websites. Interviews were transcribed and participants were engaged in member checking. Data were analyzed using …

Essay On Asset Pricing, Fei Gao

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

We uncover a novel stock return predictor from the options market, the volume-weighted strike-spot price ratio (VWKS) across all traded option contracts. High (low) VWKS indicates that the mass of options volume on an underlying stock centers at the out-of-the-money region of call (put) options. Empirically, VWKS has positive and robust predictive ability for underlying returns after controlling for a long list of variables including known return predictors from the options market, stock illiquidity, and past stock returns, and has more persistent and stronger predictive power for stocks with higher information asymmetry and arbitrage costs. We also find that VWKS …

Statistics-Bierce Library Study, Tyler J. Hushour

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This is a report from two surveys that I created and administered to students and faculty at Bierce library who came to the Circulation Desk or the Tech Desk, as well as some of my other findings when periodically looking around the library to see where students like to study or hang-out. There was a written survey given at the Circulation Desk, and a different survey given at the Tech Check-Out Desk. The project is for Melanie Smith-Farrell, the head of Access Services, and is based on a similar study Ian McCullough did in the science library. While this is …

Overcoming The Adverse Impact Of Internal Subculture Communications Within Organizations, Terrence Lee Farrier

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The need for clear and organizationally effective communications is necessary to maintain sustainability as competition increases. Current research has not addressed problems associated with senior managers' clarity and intent and the misinterpretation by midlevel managers of that intent, causing division managers to misinterpret the company plans. Unresolved miscommunications may lead to destructive subculture development. This mixed methods design focused on how to minimize the confusion that manifests between senior and midlevel management within diverse and decentralized decision support structures. The secondary purpose was to advocate for the identification of divisional misalignment and provide information for a tool to help senior …

The Decision-Making Processes Of Nontraditional Or For Sale By Owner (Fsbo) Home Sellers Engaged In The Listing And Sale Of Their Homes, Valentin Demarco Jr.

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

In spite of promises that the Internet would allow people to buy and sell their homes without intermediaries, real-estate agents still control approximately 90% of the transactions made in the 2.5-trillion-dollar residential real-estate industry. Existing literature has yet to provide conclusive arguments as to why the expected disintermediation has not occurred. Tentative arguments include claims that policy is biased in favor of agents, or that agents have a broader social network than their customers which helps them sell faster and for a better price. Most studies make the assumption that agents matter. They analyze the real-estate market from the perspective …

Gestión Tecnológica Como Estrategia Empresarial, Laura Stphanie Jiménez López, Melany Fonseca Pedroza

Administración de Empresas

El presente artículo tiene como objetivo proporcionar una reflexión sobre la gestión tecnológica, su implementación y el manejo adecuado de la información en las estructuras organizacionales, lo cual genera una estrategia empresarial determinante con el fin de obtener ventajas competitivas. El creciente interés de la gerencia por desarrollar estrategias tecnológicas para la obtención de la información en tiempo real, ha hecho que el mundo empresarial ponga mayor atención a los diversos procesos de I+D; en palabras dichas por (Matthews, 1990) “Las decisiones sobre tecnología son más decisivas que nunca para el éxito y la supervivencia, una industria puede quedar obsoleta …

Enterprise Gis & Architecture, Nevin Gaudet

Geography and the Environment: Graduate Student Capstones

Enterprise GIS solutions are becoming more attractive to companies to implement because of the ability to leverage system of record portals. Information is largely regarded as a company’s competitive advantage enabling organizational capability to operate and build capital and equity within a business. And with good reason large amounts of data and information are difficult to collect and organize within a digital framework. Building a GIS enterprise is a solution for data organization and management. Workflows must be in place to collect, process, calculate, and store data with high regard to timeliness and accuracy. Business decisions are made based on …

Following The Herd: An Economic Analysis Of The Effects Of Herd Mentality On The U.S. Housing Bubble, Michael P. Spicer

Honors Theses

One focus of economics in the recent years has been the integration of human behavior, including that of herd behavior, into economic thought. Herd behavior can be defined as the way that individuals, who have private information, end up acting together as a group inadvertently, without planned action. It is thought to be caused by incomplete information and subsequently information cascades. Does this behavior exist, and if it does, did it have any effect on the recent housing market? The last twelve years provide a good opportunity to test whether or not herd behavior exists in the housing market, and …

The Influence Of Organizational And Information Systems Factors On The Effectiveness Of Post-Merger Technology Integration, Gianilda A. Morsell

Dissertations

This dissertation explores how ten specific organizational and information systems factors influence post-merger IS integration success, and the role that degree of IS integration plays in moderating the influence these factors may have on IS integration success. Data were gathered, using a self-administered survey instrument, from senior IS executives at firms that experienced a U.S. public merger greater than $25 million between 2004 and 2007. Support is found for the study's Conceptual Model, indicating that all ten factors in unison influence post-merger IS integration success. The data support the hypotheses that quality of merger planning, quality of communication of merger …

Security Design That Addresses Agency Conflicts And Information Asymmetry, Manish Tewari

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study focuses on the role of structured derivative securities to meet diverse corporate financing objectives in the light of agency theory and asymmetric information. The focus is on the nonconvertible callable-puttable fixed-coupon bonds. The primary objective is to discern the marginal role of the put and put-deferred features in addressing the agency issues and asymmetric information. A sample of (159) securities issued over the period (1977-2005) are examined using Merton's (1974) structural contingent claims valuation model. The put option as well as the deferred put option incorporated in these securities is found to mitigate the asset substitution issue. It …

The Interrelations Between Investor Beliefs, Information And Market Liquidity, Stephanie Yates Rauterkus

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

I use two datasets to test the relation between trading volume, the heterogeneity of beliefs and the heterogeneity of belief revisions. The first dataset allows me to construct two groups that proxy for ‘holders’ and ‘non-holders’ of a traded asset. This construct allows me to test the relation between changes in trading volume and changes in the dispersion of beliefs both within and across these two groups. I examine changes in within- and across-group dispersion separately and simultaneously. The second dataset allows me to examine belief revisions more closely by analyzing only those prior and posterior beliefs surrounding an information …

The Effects Of Ethnicity, Ethnic Salience And Ethnic Identification On Consumers' Sources Of Information And Purchase Behavior, Patricia Wooten Humphrey

Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to determine if there were any significant differences in the search and purchase behavior between white and black consumers due to ethnicity, ethnic identification, ethnic salience and ethnic situation.

The sample was chosen from two universities, one predominately white, the other predominately black. Of the 360 questionnaires administered, 345 were usable. The sample was representative of the student population of each university with respect to age, gender, and ethnicity. Statistical techniques used were ANOVAs, t-tests and paired comparisons.

The findings indicate that ethnicity plays an important role in an individual's sources of information used …

Electronic Commerce And The Communication Of Information, Donna Carroll Bigelow

Theses

Electronic Commerce is a relatively new phenomenon in today's market place. Commerce or the buying and selling of goods and services can take many forms. In the early years of computerization. commercial activities revolved around the exchange of financial data between businesses and banks (Electronic Funds Transfer). Then businesses began exploring the transfer of data in an electronic format between individual businesses in the form of Electronic Data Interchange (EDI). Over time much broader types of business transactions began occurring. Data exchange included inventory items, marketing. sales materials, product design. Items which were sent via mail took on an electronic …

Marketing Customer Service Within The Information Movement And Management Industry, Mark Jones

Theses

The goal of this project is to determine what characteristics of the service firms are considered critical to success of vendors within the information movement and management industry.

The first task undertaken was to determine a definition for the information movement and management industry and which firms were major competitors within the industry . The size of the industry in terms of employees and revenues was then estimated. Some of the characteristics of the major competitors were then expanded.

The next activity involved the determination of what factors the information movement and management market members used to select a vendor …