Business Commons^™

The Effect Of Mandatory Adoption Of Ifrs On Transparency For Investors, Crystal Anderson

CMC Senior Theses

This paper examines the effect of the mandatory adoption of the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) on transparency for investors by measuring the increase in earnings management during the post-adoption period of IFRS. One sign of earnings management is current year earnings being only slightly higher than the previous year’s earnings. An increase in earnings management means a decrease in accounting quality and a decrease of transparency for investors. By comparing firms that mandatorily adopted IFRS to similar benchmark firms in terms of strength of legal enforcement, book-to-market ratios, market values and net incomes, I am able to run empirical …

The Balance Between Financial And Quality Performance In For-Profit Hospitals Versus Non-Profit Hospitals, Blake Seidner

CMC Senior Theses

Recent trends of financial distress for non-profit hospitals and the uptick in acquisition of these hospitals by for-profit entities indicate different focuses from the management of each type of hospital. Using data on hospital quality and basic financial measures, this study examines shift in the balance of financial and quality performance. The dataset focuses on private non-profit and for-profit hospitals with low bed counts, ranging from 50-200 total beds. Results indicate a positive relationship between for-profit status and basic financial performance measures, such as profitability, and a negative relationship with patient experience, cost reduction for the patient, and overall quality. …

Optimize Your Fitness, Optimize Your Business: The Balanced Scorecard, Analysis And Application For The Crossfit Affiliate, Jordan G. Aronowitz

CMC Senior Theses

The Balanced Scorecard for the CrossFit Affiliate will provide unprepared or inexperienced managers with the necessary information to make informed operational decisions. The Balanced Scorecard incorporates financial data, customer satisfaction, internal operations, and future growth to create a series of cause-and-effect relationships that illustrate how decisions in one aspect of a business affect others. The Balanced Scorecard particularly benefits inexperienced managers leading small businesses. As overall small business growth increased, the boutique fitness industry expanded. The CrossFit brand rose in conjunction, but because corporate leaders insist on a hands-off licensing model, affiliate owners do not receive assistance from CrossFit corporate …

Blockchain And The Future Of The Audit, Connor Ortman

CMC Senior Theses

“In the future, virtually every function in the world of financial services will be displaced, disintermediated and decentralized. The Internet gave us a powerful way to share and access information. Blockchain now gives us a powerful way to share and access value.”

During a February 2017 AICPA roundtable, Chairman of the Wall Street Blockchain Alliance and previous Global Head of Trading Analytics at Thomson Reuters, Ron Quarantana spoke to the revolutionary scale of blockchain. Quaranta, viewed by many as an expert in financial technology, predicts that the adoption of blockchain, both by the Big Four accounting firms and their clients, …

Identifying Cross-Country Key Drivers Of Social Entrepreneurial Activity, Cris Bravo

Dissertations

Governmental and philanthropic efforts alone are not sufficient to eradicate poverty. The world needs new frameworks that enable sustainable development by integrating the economic, social and environmental dimensions, and social entrepreneurship is of great interest because it has the capacity for facilitating societal change by fostering innovative ways to address social inequality, unemployment, and climate change. Precisely because social entrepreneurship lays at the intersection of the business and nonprofit worlds, it is a complex phenomenon, and there are many unknowns regarding how the convergence of these dimensions can be understood and managed at cross-national levels.

To investigate this phenomenon, this …

Designing Narrative Artefacts, Jennifer Dempsey

Masters

This thesis documents an investigation that explored the use of narrative and material culture to present aspects of women’s lives from eighteenth-century Cork city to a twenty-first century museum audience. There were two objectives of this research. The first was to create a catalogue of elements from material culture through which these women’s lives would be revealed. The second was to use narrative to make this information accessible and engaging.

This research is linked with Nano Nagle Place, a heritage centre in Cork city that opened in 2017. The centre documents the life of Nano Nagle, an eighteenth-century philanthropist who, …

A Quantitative Study Of Employees' Perceptions Of The Relationship Between The Organizational Culture Of A Toronto-Based Technology Company, And Their Job Satisfaction And Engagement, Donn Whitehall

Dissertations

Problem

There are gaps in the literature related to organizational culture, job satisfaction, and employee engagement. Researchers have noted that these variables, and the relationships amongst them, have not been studied enough and there exists a need for further research. The purpose of this study was to examine employees’ perceptions of the relationship between the organizational culture of a Toronto-based technology company, and their job satisfaction and engagement.

Method

This study utilized a quantitative, non-experimental, correlational method, while employing a cross-sectional approach with secondary data. This study used data collected by a Toronto-based technology company in June of 2016. The …

Developing An Esp Curriculum On Tourism And Agribusiness For A Rural School In Nicaragua: A Retrospective Diary, Stan Pichinevskiy

EWU Masters Thesis Collection

A rural technical secondary school in Nicaragua needed an English curriculum that would support students at varying levels of English proficiency in grades seven through eleven to pass the TOEFL exam their senior year and meet the English national requirement for accreditation. This curriculum should be culturally and locally responsive to meet the needs of the students, teachers and the administrators as well as accommodate for the two separate tracks in English: tourism and agribusiness. Over the course of a year, I collaboratively developed an English for Specific Purposes (ESP) curriculum that included a whitepaper proposal, five-year map with overarching …

Neural Correlates Of Flow, Boredom, And Anxiety In Gaming: An Electroencephalogram Study, Tejaswini Yelamanchili

Masters Theses

"Games are engaging and captivating from a human-computer interaction (HCI) perspective as they can facilitate a highly immersive experience. This research examines the neural correlates of flow, boredom, and anxiety during video gaming. A within-subject experimental study (N = 44) was carried out with the use of electroencephalogram (EEG) to assess the brain activity associated with three states of user experience - flow, boredom, and anxiety - in a controlled gaming environment. A video game, Tetris, was used to induce flow, boredom, and anxiety. A 64 channel EEG headset was used to track changes in activation patterns in the frontal, …

Impact Of Probable And Guaranteed Monetary Value On Cybersecurity Behavior Of Users, Santhosh Kumar Ravindran

Masters Theses

"This research examines the impact of probable and guaranteed monetary gains and losses on users' cybersecurity behavior. It also examines perceptual outcomes such as threat severity, trust, and fear that are associated with users' cybersecurity behavior. Drawing on Prospect Theory in the behavioral economics and decision-making literature, hypotheses were generated for the research. The hypotheses state that: (i) users are more willing to engage in risky computer security behavior to avoid a loss than to receive a gain, (ii) users exhibit a higher tipping point of expected monetary value to receive a gain than to avoid a loss for engaging …

Classification Of Eeg Signals Of User States In Gaming Using Machine Learning, Chandana Mallapragada

Masters Theses

"In this research, brain activity of user states was analyzed using machine learning algorithms. When a user interacts with a computer-based system including playing computer games like Tetris, he or she may experience user states such as boredom, flow, and anxiety. The purpose of this research is to apply machine learning models to Electroencephalogram (EEG) signals of three user states -- boredom, flow and anxiety -- to identify and classify the EEG correlates for these user states. We focus on three research questions: (i) How well do machine learning models like support vector machine, random forests, multinomial logistic regression, and …

Diversity, Inclusion, Access, & Equity: An Analysis Of Otherness In Cultural Organizations, Cheyanne Jeffries

Senior Honors Theses and Projects

In an American society that is increasingly more multicultural and divers�� every day, diversity in cultural organizations has been the subject of much research dedicated to ensuring our cultural institutions and their boards, employees and overall organizational structure meet the rising demand for inclusion and equity in our nation. The American Alliance of Museums completed a national report in 2017 in which they found that "museum directors and board chairs believe board diversity and inclusion are important to advance their missions, but have failed to prioritize action steps to achieve it", among other key findings that identified a complete lack …

Why Employees And Managers Engage In Unethical Practices, Megan Shea Kopicko

Senior Honors Theses and Projects

The scope of this paper is to investigate the reasons as to why employees and managers in the workplace engage willingly in unethical practices. The paper begins by exploring the concept of ethics in the corporate world. It further highlights the different forms of unethical practices in the various companies in the contemporary world. The various theories that explore the issue of unethical practices in the workplace are highlighted and how they relate to the occurrence of unethical demeanor. The social contract theory and the psychological theories are highlighted in the paper. The study further delves in exploring the various …

Student-Athlete? An In-Depth Look At The Past, Present, And Future, Kyle Elliott Fluker

Senior Honors Theses and Projects

The NCAA began in the early 1900s as a way to regulate the wild west that was intercollegiate athletics. Over time, the organization has grown from its 62 member beginnings to three divisions with 1,281 members. In 2017, for the first time in its history, the NCAA brought in over one billion dollars in total revenue (Kirshner 2018). The NCAA has been able to achieve this feat by its insistence on the "amateurism" of its participants. This business model has allowed the organization to keep the financial benefits associated with the playing of high-level sports on college campuses. Participants in …

Digesting The Disaster: Understanding The Boom Of Refugee Food Entrepreneurship In The Face Of Increasing Xenophobia, Sonia De Mello

Scripps Senior Theses

Over the last few years, we are seeing an emergence of new food entrepreneurship across the globe. In the context of the Syrian refugee crisis, these food-related social enterprises are not only providing job opportunities to refugees but they are also increasing awareness about their cause and creating new narratives surrounding their arrival. This present study seeks to contribute to the knowledge surrounding refugees and entrepreneurship by explaining how several refugee food enterprises have gained great popularity despite greater nationalism and xenophobia. In the analysis of food entrepreneurship, one finds that this phenomenon is able to partly fill the void …

Three Essays On The Application Of Machine Learning Methods In Economics, Abdelaziz Lawani

Theses and Dissertations--Agricultural Economics

Over the last decades, economics as a field has experienced a profound transformation from theoretical work toward an emphasis on empirical research (Hamermesh, 2013). One common constraint of empirical studies is the access to data, the quality of the data and the time span it covers. In general, applied studies rely on surveys, administrative or private sector data. These data are limited and rarely have universal or near universal population coverage. The growth of the internet has made available a vast amount of digital information. These big digital data are generated through social networks, sensors, and online platforms. These data …

Academically Resistant Athletes: Victims Of Aces Or Commodities Of The System, Melnee Berry

Department of Conflict Resolution Studies Theses and Dissertations

Fans of college sports embrace the idea of athletes playing sport and, in turn, receiving tuition scholarships that provide them an opportunity to trade athletic talent for a free education. A contradictory body of research using internal colonization theory posits that the trade of education for playing sports is not a fair exchange but is fraught with exploitation that continues to perpetuate subjugation. An accepted narrative in athletic competition is that the recruiting pipeline draws athletes from impoverished inner-city areas engaging young athletes who experience difficulties keeping up scholastically becoming academically resistant as they focus on their sport at the …

การพัฒนาโปรแกรมประยุกต์เพื่อการบริหารจัดการการจัดหาผู้รับเหมาก่อสร้าง, ธนากร วัฒกีเจริญ

Chulalongkorn University Theses and Dissertations (Chula ETD)

ปัจจุบันธุรกิจรับเหมาก่อสร้างภายในประเทศไทยมีการเติบโตขึ้นอย่างรวดเร็วพร้อมกับจำนวนผู้รับเหมาที่เพิ่มมากขึ้นเช่นเดียวกัน เนื่องจากโครงการแต่ละโครงการมีความซับซ้อนที่แตกต่างกันและความเชี่ยวชาญของผู้รับเหมามีหลากหลาย ย่อมนำมาสู่ความยุ่งยากและความไม่เข้าใจในเนื้องานก่อสร้างของทั้งสองผ่ายได้ จากประเด็นดังกล่าว ผู้ที่ต้องการว่าจ้างอาจต้องเผชิญปัญหาที่หลากหลาย เช่น การมีความรู้ที่ไม่เพียงพอในการพิจารณาทำข้อตกลงเการก่อสร้าง การพิจารณาราคาการก่อสร้างที่เสนอโดยผู้ก่อสร้างแต่ละรายในตลาด รวมถึงช่องทางการหาผู้รับเหมาก่อสร้างที่จำกัด จึงกล่างได้ว่าการเลือกผู้รับเหมาก่อสร้างที่เหมาะสมกับโครงการนับได้ว่าเป็นความยุ่งยากอย่างหนึ่ง จากประเด็นที่ได้กล่าวแล้วข้างต้น การได้รับรู้รายละเอียดในสถานะปัจจุบันของผู้รับเหมาสำหรับผู้ที่ต้องการว่าจ้างนั้นเป็นสิ่งสำคัญอย่างยิ่ง เพื่อเป็นการแก้ไขปัญหาดังกล่าว งานวิจัยนี้ได้นำเสนอแอปพลิเคชันที่ช่วยในการบริหารจัดการการจัดหาผู้รับเหมาก่อสร้างให้แก่ผู้ที่ต้องการว่าจ้าง ซึ่งจะส่งผลให้ความเสียหายจากการว่าจ้างมีโอกาสเกิดได้น้อยลงทั้งแก่ผู้ว่าจ้างและผู้รับจ้าง งานวิจัยนี้ได้กล่าวถึงการสำรวจและวิเคราะห์พฤติกรรม รวมถึงความต้องการในการใช้แอปพลิเคชันโดยใช้แบบสอบถามเชิงปริมาณ ของกลุ่มตัวอย่าง 2 ส่วน ได้แก่ ผู้ที่ต้องการหาผู้รับเหมาก่อสร้าง และผู้รับเหมาก่อสร้าง จำนวนทั้งสิ้น 200 คน โดยทั้ง 2 กลุ่มตัวอย่างได้ให้ความสนใจในการใช้แอปพลิเคชันในการหาผู้รับเหมาก่อสร้าง คิดเป็นร้อยละ 80.0 และ 81.0 ตามลำดับ จึงสามารถสรุปได้ว่า แอปพลิเคชันที่นำเสนอนี้ก่อให้เกิดผลดีกับทั้งฝ่ายผู้ว่าจ้างและผู้รับเหมาก่อสร้างในทุกด้าน

How Do Specialist Expertise, Auditor-Specialist Communication, And Time Pressure Affect Auditors’ Use Of Specialists’ Valuations?, Sara Gochnauer

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study experimentally investigates auditors’ reliance on specialists’ work regarding complex estimates. Specifically, this paper examines how the relevance of specialists’ expertise (or the degree to which their prior experience matches the current task), the opportunity for auditor-specialist pairs to communicate, and the level of time pressure affect the extent to which auditors rely on specialists’ estimates. To investigate the research question, I employ a mixed experimental design in an abstract setting, where college students take on the roles of auditor and specialist and work in auditor-specialist pairs to complete an estimation task. I manipulate the relevance of specialists' expertise …

Two Applications Of Financial Economics To Real Estate, Jeffrey Dibartolomeo

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

My first essay examines the effects of dividend policy on the liquidity risk of REITs. I argue that the mandatory high cash payouts of REITs reduce investor reliance on the stock market to satisfy their liquidity needs. Using a sample of equity REITs from 1980 through 2015, I find strong empirical evidence consistent with this paradigm. Unlike non-REIT property companies, I find REITs exhibit negative sensitivity to marketwide liquidity shocks; a result that is evident across most property type sectors. Moreover, while my findings are robust across a wide range of portfolios based on size, dividend frequency, leverage, market-to-book, operations …

A Study Of The Soft Skills That Contribute To The Success Of Newly Graduated Business Students In The Workplace, Promeet Jaswant Singh

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

This quantitative study is focused on assessing the soft skills that newly graduated business students possess. Using the first and only skills inventory in the United States that has been endorsed by Department of Labor, the study seeks to determine what sets employees apart based on their level of performance on the job. The main purpose was to assess and interpret the soft skills that employees bring to the workplace soon after graduating. The population for the current study was human resources professionals from a variety of industry sectors in the state of Minnesota. The businesses represented a range of …

Operational Research: Multi-Period Stowage Policies Within A Multi-Zone Storage Framework., Joseph Loeffler

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

This paper will be extending the single period stowage decision model presented by [Yuan, 2017] into a multi-period stowage decision model. The stowage decision determines how incoming items are distributed and stored across multiple storage zones. The amount of items that can be picked in any given storage zone is finite within a single time period. With this constraint, this research attempts to optimize how items are stored across many zones to meet uncertain demand requirements. A simulation study will be performed to compare the stowage policies given by [Yuan, 2017] to see how well they generalize to multi-period model. …

A Study On The Impact Of Technological Advancement On Community Bank Performance, Andre Ong

Honors Undergraduate Theses

This study investigates the impact of technological advancement in community bank lending, more specifically, how online financial product and service offerings affect community banks' performance. Community banks, institutions with assets under $1 billion are praised as relationship banking specialists, are important source of credit to individuals and businesses. Their productive performance is highly beneficial for the economic development of the communities and customers that they serve, yet community banks' competitive power against large banks has become increasingly more challenging. Technological advancements radically shift all production and service based industries, including the banking industry and its institutions' offerings. The increasing use …

Technological Proactivity: Development Of A Measure And Initial Test, Nora Junaid

2018

Achieving effective use of new IT at the workplace can be notoriously difficult. There has been significant focus on the role of the individual in new job-related technology use, but considerations of personality differences and their role in effective use have been limited. Results have been mixed regarding the influence of personality on new IT use, discouraging research in the area. We attribute the shortcomings of prior results to three broad issues. Most personality-IT studies have either (1) used a measure of personality that is too broad and not specific to explain use activities (e.g. Junglas, Johnson, & Spitzmüller, 2008), …

Corporate Prediction Markets For Business Decisions: New Applications, Challenges And Limitations, Jessica A. Zinger

2018

Prediction markets, introduced roughly 30 years ago, are a way to leverage market pricing for information aggregation. Research has shown the markets provide accurate (often superior) forecasts. To date, research has been predominately of an economic nature. Despite numerous articles on the application of prediction markets in businesses (Hewlett-Packard, Google) the management literature has largely ignored the topic. This dissertation follows a three-paper model to begin to address the perceived gap.

Paper one introduces a new application of the market, namely its use as a determinant of employee compensation packages. Employers often claim to utilize a pay-for-performance model. However, principle-agent …

Competitive Strategies Of Minority-Owned Small Businesses, Peter George Smith

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Leaders of minority-owned businesses earn less revenue on average than their nonminority counterparts, even when both sets of leaders operate in the same industries. Among the factors leading to this earnings discrepancy is the lack of access that leaders of minority-owned businesses have to high-revenue opportunities. The purpose of this multiple case study was to explore the strategies that some leaders of minority-owned small businesses use to compete for contracts in high-revenue industries. The study population comprised 3 owners of minority-owned small marketing consultancy firms headquartered in the Southeastern United States. Teece and Pisano’s dynamic capabilities view served as the …

Determining Millennial Food Buying Preferences: Based On Product Marketing With “Buzzwords”, Victoria N. Hamilton

Theses and Dissertations--Community & Leadership Development

This research focuses on the importance on the Millennial Generation and their perceptions of food buzzwords. Since the Millennial Generation is the largest group purchasing and preparing their own foods, the food industry is becoming dependent on their buying preferences. A survey reflected the participants’ demographics and their buying preferences based on a series of food buzzwords when they are purchasing foods. Results show the Millennial Generation prefers “local” buzzwords. As the Millennial Generation continues to purchase foods for themselves and their families, it can be expected their choices will encourage others to do the same based on their family …

The Impact Of Childhood Socioeconomic Status On Adult Reactions Toward Quantity Surcharges, Wenjing Li

Theses and Dissertations--Marketing and Supply Chain

Quantity surcharges have been widespread in the marketplace for decades. However, little is known about what kinds of consumers and under what conditions they are more likely to be impacted by this pricing practice. The current research contributes to the existing literature by investigating how a person’s childhood socioeconomic status affects their reaction toward quantity surcharges during adulthood. Across four studies, we find that childhood socioeconomic status has a positive impact on the purchase of a large and surcharged package size. However, when the economic conditions are threatening, the positive effect of childhood socioeconomic status disappears. The current research also …

Boundary Spanning And Leadership Perceptions In Creative Organizations: Evidence From Four Orchestras, Kiho Jun

Theses and Dissertations--Management

My research examines the importance of a particular form of cross-group brokerage in social networks wherein a person represents a bridge between his or her group and people belonging to a different group. Prior research on network brokerage and leadership emergence has failed to distinguish between brokerage in general and the kind of boundary-spanning between groups that is the focus of my research. Moreover, what we currently know about social network brokerage and leadership emergence comes either from highly abstracted laboratory-based work, or it comes research in relatively traditional work organizations with clear formal structures. It is unclear whether prior …

Examining Tourist Non-Purchase Intention Of Peer-To-Peer Accommodation: Impeding Factors And Perceived Risks, Ho-Young Lee

Theses and Dissertations--Retailing and Tourism Management

With increasing trust and utilization of the Internet, the sharing economy is emerging in the tourism and hospitality marketplace. This study focused on tourist non-purchase intention to use peer-to-peer accommodation. To explore the non-purchase intention, the relationship between perceived risk and tourist non-purchase intention to use peer-to-peer accommodation, as well as the relationship between impeding factors and perceived risk were tested. The study employed survey data (N = 280) gathered from active adult U.S travelers who have never used peer-to-peer accommodation before and have no intention to use peer-to-peer accommodation in future. The results showed that six impeding factors (i.e., …