Business Commons^™

Utilizing New York State’S Distributive Generation Laws For Affordable Housing Organizations, Reuben Jaffe Goldstein

Bard Center for Environmental Policy

The focus of this report is to assist in the deployment of renewable energy in New York City by creating a framework that affordable housing organizations can use to navigate evolving New York regulations to deploy solar PV to their tenants and reduce their tenants’ utility bills. New York’s regulatory environment is trying to make it easier to deploy solar PV through programs such as Shared Solar Program and Remote Net Metering that provide guidance to those who are currently unable to access solar PV. However, incentivizing Solar PV and distributed generation have disproportionately increased costs for utilities, which has …

An Investigation Into The Obstacles And Barriers Preventing Farmers In Rural Areas Using Information Communication Technologies, David O'Leary

Theses

Technology and in particular, mobile devices can help farmers both from a social and business perspective. This study focuses on the areas preventing farmers using smart phones and the downfalls they might be facing on a regular basis in the adoption of mobile devices. The objectives of this study were to identify what devices are being used and for what purpose, identify who helps the farmer when they are in difficulty with their device, identify if broadband is an obstacle and to develop a set of recommendations based on my research for the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) …

An Investigation Of Service Quality Within Irish Franchised Motor Dealerships, Clive Atkinson

Theses

This study investigates service quality within franchised motor dealerships from the perspective of thirty-eight persons working in the roles of Dealer Principal, After-Sales Manager or Service Manager in dealerships operating under the Volkswagen group of brands in Ireland (VW, Audi, SEAT and Skoda). With approximately 2.3 million cars on Irish roads, more than two thirds of the Irish adult population encounter car service experiences on a regular basis. Regardless of brand or dealership type, the quality of vehicle service experience is paramount for customer retention. Despite this, however, service quality within Irish motor dealerships remains an under-explored area. Qualitative analysis …

Entrepreneurship Inside And Out: Three Essays Exploring The Interplay Between Hybrid Entrepreneurs And Their Organizational Employee Roles, David Ross Marshall

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A growing body of research focuses on undertaking new venture creation while remaining employed in existing organizations. Known as hybrid/part-time entrepreneurship, scholars suggest most entrepreneurs engage in entrepreneurship in a part-time capacity. As such, there exists an interesting space for the study of a new form of interrole dynamics: employee and entrepreneurial role interactions. Through three essays, I conceptually and empirically explore the effects of engaging in hybrid entrepreneurship on outcomes associated with employee and entrepreneurial roles. In Essay One I present a theoretical model of role enrichment from entrepreneurial to employee roles. Specifically, I propose that individuals engaged in …

Two Essays On Investors' Attention To Economically Linked Firms, Mahsa Khoshnoud

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

My first essay examines the degree to which the market prices of publicly traded firms reflect and respond to new information regarding the economic viability and vitality of organizations to which they are strategically linked. More specifically, I exploit the uniquely transparent nature of the lessor-lessee relationship across commercial real estate markets to evaluate whether future returns to real estate investment trusts (REITs) are systematically affected by the financial return performance and/or operational opacity of the tenants who lease their investment properties. Using a hand collected data set identifying the principal tenants of 96 publicly traded REITs, I find those …

What's Black And White And Not Read All Over?: An Examination Of The Evolving Landscape Of Newspapers Through The Lens Of The New York Times, Anne Reiber

Honors Undergraduate Theses

The research and statistics gathered in this thesis begin in 2000. Newspapers began experiencing change due to technology before 2000. However, the information necessary to complete this thesis only goes back to that year. Since the year 2000, the newspaper industry has struggled to adapt to the age of ever-changing technology. Newspapers across the US, including large and well-established publications have been forced to find new strategies that allow them to keep up with new digital technologies. The New York Times was the focus of this study, but it is only one part of a very large industry. However, it …

Assessment Of Physical Workload, Ergonomic Problems And Prevalence Of Pain Among Low Wage Hotel Housekeepers In Orlando, Rachel Mammen

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This research study examined the work conditions, ergonomic problems, and prevalence of pain among low wage hotel room cleaners in Orlando. In most hotels, the cleanliness of guestrooms is one of the most important service standards expected by customers. The role of the housekeeper is thus critical to service provision and hotel profitability. The hospitality industry is a major recruiter of low wage workers with the majority working in housekeeping departments. Due to the nature of the research problem, a positivist quantitative approach was adopted although the survey instrument included space for qualitative comments to some of the latter open-ended …

Driven To Dishonesty: The Effects Of Commuting On Self-Regulatory Depletion And Unethical Behavior, Matthew Griffith

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Most people must commute to and from work each day, yet little research has examined this critical time between home and work and the potential spillover effects of commuting on employees' subsequent workplace behavior. Drawing on self-regulation theory and the commuting stress literature, I propose that stressful driving conditions on the way to work (e.g., bad weather, traffic congestion, long routes) can cause employees to subsequently behave unethically at work. Specifically, I suggest this occurs through a depletion of self-regulation as resources are consumed while driving under stress and thus unavailable for deterring tempting, unethical behavior. I test this mediation …

Helca Mining Company, Claire Dalman

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

No abstract available.

The Influence Of Cognitive Factors On The Relationship Between Accounting Standard Precision And Aggressive Financial Reporting, Kara E. Hunter

2017

The U.S. SEC has formally advocated for the creation of a single set of global accounting standards. As the SEC considers converging U.S. GAAP with IFRS, there is heightened interest in how the precision of accounting standard influences the quality of the financial reporting process. My dissertation consists of three studies that seek to address how accounting standard precision interacts with different behavioral factors to influence aggressive financial reporting decisions and auditor judgment. Paper one presents evidence of a significant interactive effect of standard precision and preparer incentive horizon. Specifically, we find evidence that when the incentive horizon is long …

Environmental, Social, And Governance Risk And Performance: Implications For Audit And Corporate Governance Research, Jenna J. Burke

2017

This dissertation examines oversight of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) related risk and performance. These considerations are a new piece of business language, and are crucial in monitoring and evaluating the sustainable impact of modern corporations. The dissertation is comprised of three archival studies, which together contribute to an emerging accounting literature at the intersection of audit and corporate governance. The first study uses hand-collected data on voluntary board-level committees that oversee ESG-related issues to investigate the performance implications of these committees. This paper presents a theoretical framework and methodology that incorporate the committee’s role in shared value creation and …

The Influence Of Corporate Social Responsibility Disclosure On Stakeholder Decision-Making, Andrew C. Stuart

2017

As part of the Disclosure Effectiveness Initiative, the SEC is seeking public comments on whether sustainability disclosures are important to investors’ decisions. The interest in sustainability disclosures by the SEC coincides with the recent increase in companies voluntarily publishing corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports. My dissertation consists of three studies that examine CSR disclosures, with an emphasis on how disclosure influences stakeholder decision-making.

Part one reviews the CSR disclosure literature contained in accounting journals. I find an overlap between CSR disclosure issues and traditional accounting issues examined in the literature. Focusing on where the issues overlap, I separate the CSR …

What To Do Amid Disruption? Ethical Climate And Trust As Determinants Of Virtual Team Member Effort, Kenneth Mullane

2017

Although the effects of ethical climate and trust on individual behavior have been investigated within organizations, understanding how this relationship unfolds within virtual teams has been largely overlooked. In response to this gap, I use social exchange theory to integrate research on ethical climate and trust to develop a model of individual virtual team member effort. Specifically, when virtual teams experience an event that disrupts existing work procedures and workflow, this can negatively affect levels of trust between teammates and jeopardize member contributions to the team. I argue that virtual team member perceptions of a caring (i.e., other-focused) ethical climate …

Gender And Networking: Building And Benefiting From High Status Ties In The Workplace, Meredith L. Woehler

Theses and Dissertations--Management

While organizations have significantly reduced the overt and intentional forms of sex discrimination that impeded women’s careers in the past, a great deal of research suggests women continue to face informal barriers in the workplace. One such arena in which women tend to be disadvantaged is in their workplace networks. In many ways, men and women have similar networks, yet women are less likely than their male counterparts to have personal relationships with high status coworkers. Scholars have long suggested that these strategic connections are valuable and may be especially beneficial to or necessary for women. Networking has long been …

Managers' Network Change And Their Promotability During A Merger, Wookje Sung

Theses and Dissertations--Management

I investigate whether cross-functional or cross-organizational networking following a large corporate merger and acquisition improves managers’ career outcomes. Previous research on networks and career success has focused on stable organizational environments, finding that large, open networks with many structural holes are most advantageous because of superior information benefits and control power, while closed networks provide redundant information that is unhelpful career-wise. However, I suggest that while dense, closed networks formed within knowledge (functional) or identity (legacy organization) boundaries might be detrimental to executives’ future promotability, closed networks are helpful if they are created across those boundaries. These ties help to …

How Organizational Turbulence Shapes The Broker Vision Advantage, Jesse Fagan

Theses and Dissertations--Management

Research on social networks has established that those who bridge the gaps between dense social groups (i.e. structural holes) are granted a “vision advantage” compared to those who are embedded in dense groups. A common explanation for the advantage is that bridging a structural hole provides the broker with access to diverse information. What is less clear is how this process performs when the organizational context is turbulent. I propose that in a turbulent organizational context, when the organization is experiencing dramatic changes, employees benefit less from building a repertoire of diverse information and instead benefit more from adopting socially …

Workplace Bullying In Kuwait, Hamad A. Alaslawi

Theses and Dissertations--Social Work

Workplace bullying (WPB) is a pervasive problem in contemporary society, inflicting detrimental repercussions upon employees, employers, and organizations alike. It affects the physical, psychological, and financial wellbeing not only of its victims, but also their families, their communities, and society as a whole.

Research into this phenomenon has evolved significantly over the past two decades. While related to the physically violent phenomenon of schoolyard bullying, WPB is primarily a psychological phenomenon, manifesting as abusive power in workplace relationships, rather than as interpersonal conflict. Bullying at work comes in many forms, has many faces, and occurs in many places. It ranges …

Development Of A Supplier Segmentation Method For Increased Resilience And Robustness: A Study Using Agent Based Modeling And Simulation, Adam J. Brown

Theses and Dissertations--Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

Supply chain management is a complex process requiring the coordination of numerous decisions in the attempt to balance often-conflicting objectives such as quality, cost, and on-time delivery. To meet these and other objectives, a focal company must develop organized systems for establishing and managing its supplier relationships. A reliable, decision-support tool is needed for selecting the best procurement strategy for each supplier, given knowledge of the existing sourcing environment. Supplier segmentation is a well-established and resource-efficient tool used to identify procurement strategies for groups of suppliers with similar characteristics. However, the existing methods of segmentation generally select strategies that optimize …

An Evaluation Of The Quality Of Mens 100% Cotton Jersey Knit T-Shirts Representing Three Retail Categories, Jeanne Oakes Badgett

Theses and Dissertations--Retailing and Tourism Management

The purpose of this research was to evaluate the quality of design, materials, construction, appearance, and performance of mens 100% cotton jersey knit t-shirts from three retail categories: mass merchant, fast fashion, and better. These retail categories were represented by brands Fruit of the Loom, H&M, and Brooks Brothers, respectively. A convenience sample was comprised of 78 t-shirts. 13 white and 13 navy t-shirts from each brand were used for testing according to ASTM and AATCC standards and specifications. Evaluations and measurements were conducted before washing, and after one, five, ten, and twenty laundry cycles. The t-shirts were evaluated for …

Should I Stay Or Should I Go? How Land Use Regulation Impacts Housing Choice, Parker Mallchok

CMC Senior Theses

Ideally, land use policies correct for negative externalities. However, the barriers they impose on individuals and communities have serious implications. Existing studies on this topic focus on singular, specific areas because land regulation is determined at the local level and varies extensively across the nation. Furthermore, current housing literature focuses on the “norm” of single family housing. This ignores the changing attitudes toward different types of dwellings. My study examines local regulatory environments across the nation by using Gyourko et al. 2008’s Wharton Residential Land Use Regulation Index, which develops a comparative scale for the otherwise impossibly varied regulatory environments. …

A Sectoral Analysis Of The 1929 Stock Market Crash, Paul Edward Reynolds Iii

CMC Senior Theses

The stock market crash of 1929 stands today as the largest decline in market value in the history of the United States. Consequently, the event destroyed the wealth of thousands of American families and institutions. On October 28th and 29th, the United States stock market fell 11.3 percent and 12.4 percent respectively, marking the beginning of a down market that lasted over three years, the time period known today as the Great Depression. This paper empirically analyzes the effects felt by each individual industry sector in the crash of 1929, identifying gross and abnormal returns over three major days in …

Short-Termism And Corporate Myopia: The Values Assigned By The Market To Short-Term And Long-Term Firms, Justin Alexander

CMC Senior Theses

Short-termism and myopia on the part of corporate managers, analysts, and investors have created a business environment driven by the excessive focus on short-term results and the need to meet earnings targets at the expense of long-term value creation. These are accompanied by numerous consequences, including the potential for short-term-oriented firms, particularly in the U.S., to lag behind global long-term-oriented firms, as well as the potential for short-term mindsets in the corporate world to catalyze financial crises. In this paper, I demonstrate that the market generally assigns higher values to long-term firms rather than short-term ones. This is evidenced by …

Exploring ‘People’ As The Key Element In Enterprise Architecture Implementation: A Critical Realist Perspective, Edi Triono Nuryatno

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

TOGAF (2009) describes the purpose of Enterprise Architecture (EA) is to optimise enterprisewide systems - the often-fragmented legacy of data processes (both manual and automated) - into an integrated environment that is responsive to change and supports the delivery of the business strategy (The Open Group Architecture Framework [TOGAF], 2009). However, for a number of reasons organisations still have difficulties establishing an effective EA (Raadt & Vliet, 2008; Gartner, 2009; and Janssen & Klievink, 2012, among others) and various reports suggest up to two thirds of implementations do not fulfil expectations (Roeleven, 2010). Being organisation wide with a strong governance …

Workplace Bullying: An Exploratory Study In Australian Academia, Manish Sharma

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Workplace bullying is a behaviour which adversely affects individuals, organisations and the community at large. While substantial research has been conducted on workplace bullying in different work settings, limited research exists on this behaviour at universities; no comprehensive studies have to date been conducted in the context of Australian academia. This study therefore contributes through breaking new ground by exploring bullying within the increasingly corporatised and competitive Australian higher education sector. New Public Management (NPM) practices, diminished government funding, and limited resources risk transforming this sector into a full-fledged industry focused on corporate objectives to achieve operational profitability. Universities’ primary …

Realizing Edgar: Eliminating Information Asymmetries Through Artificial Intelligence Analysis Of Sec Filings, Ryan H. Giarusso

Honors Program Theses

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) maintains a publicly-accessible database of all required filings of all publicly traded companies. Known as EDGAR (Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis, and Retrieval), this database contains documents ranging from annual reports of major companies to personal disclosures of senior managers. However, the common user and particularly the retail investor are overwhelmed by the deluge of information, not empowered. EDGAR as it currently functions entrenches the information asymmetry between these retail investors and the large financial institutions with which they often trade. With substantial research staffs and budgets coupled to an industry standard of “playing …

Ginning Up Economic Growth? Evaluating The Effects Of County-Level Alcohol Sales, Nathan Smith

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

The academic literature on the topic of legal alcohol sales is vast; from the effects on crime to population health outcomes. The economic development impact of alcohol sales, however, remains relatively unexplored. This research examines county-level data from the State of Arkansas between the years 2009 and 2014 in a cross-sectional time-series regression analysis to determine whether economic development benefits exist that can be attributed either directly or indirectly to legal alcohol sales. Ultimately, this study finds that alcohol sales are positively and significantly related with food service and accommodation employment as well as higher per capita personal income.

A Comparative Analysis Of The Organizational Effectiveness Of Three Korea Land And Housing Corporation Construction Field Groups, Jachoon Koo

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

The purpose of this study is to propose a performance evaluation method (organizational effectiveness value) that is most suitable for LH field organizations and to suggest an improvement plan by comparing and analyzing the results from organizational perspective.

I compared and contrasted three LH construction fields. The following is my research findings: First, the main factors which determine successful or unsuccessful field are organizational cohesion and inter-organizational communication. Mutual communication of field groups affects the quality more, if the field conditions are difficult. Second, if field groups fail to cohere and communicate, it is likely to lead to low performance …

Brand Hate And Brand Forgiveness - A Dynamic Analysis, Alexandra Sampedro

Honors Program Theses

Purpose – Despite the vast research regarding customer brand relationships, and the positive feelings towards brand, there is little research on negative feelings towards brand. Despite the importance of brand hate and brand forgiveness, no research assesses how brand hate evolve over time and how this relates to brand forgiveness. The purpose of this thesis is to address this gap. Design/Methodology/Approach – We used a multi-method approach. First, we conducted a series of 30 in-depths interviews to explore these concepts and develop our research model. Second, we conducted a survey by using MTurk to obtain U.S. representative sample of 506 …

Education's Loss Of The Public: An Archival Exploration Of American Public Schools' Diminishing Social Returns And The Emerging Utility Of Social Entrepreneurship, Tia Ha-Quyen Ho

Scripps Senior Theses

The literature presented in the following pages explores the shortcomings of the American public education system in the context of creating long-term, sustainable social change. Using financial illiteracy and its relationship to low quality of life as an entry point, the first section exposes public schools’ shortcomings as agents of social change by delving into the hardships endured by the original public school promoters of the 19^th century, the pitfalls of President George W. Bush’s 2001 enactment of No Child Left Behind, and the shortcomings of the financial literacy programming that found traction in urban schools following the subprime …

Gender Matters: Perceptions Of Corporate Leadership, Kylie A. Braegelmann

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Women remain conspicuously underrepresented at the highest levels of corporate management; thus, it seems, gender matters. Gender bias in financial markets would imply an inefficient market, which necessarily constrains economic performance and social welfare more generally. To measure gender bias, I examine the cumulative abnormal returns around CEO announcements from 1992 through 2016 using a modified event study methodology. Existing event studies in this field are inconclusive as to whether or not such a bias exists. Therefore, this research contributes to the literature by extending the data, using a larger event window, and studying bias over time and firm size. …