Business Commons^™

Perceptual Determinants Of Consumption Philanthropy Donation Intentions: Consumption Or Philanthropy?, Nese Nasif

Theses and Dissertations

Consumption philanthropy is the concurrent consumption of self-interested products while contributing to a charitable cause. Although this overarching notion has been widely investigated in the context of cause-related marketing, there has been little work done in marketing or other disciplines in its alternative context of donor giving behavior. Thus, the current research conceptually develops and empirically investigates a model of consumption philanthropy donation intentions (CPDI) where a potentially valued gift is offered in return for a monetary donation by an individual consumer. The conceptual model integrates three fundamental frameworks from marketing and psychology, as well as incorporates a multi-disciplinary body …

The 30th Anniversary Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival: An Internship Academic Report, Maria Plotkina

Arts Administration Master's Reports (1984-2016)

This report presents a reflection and analysis of my internship with the Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival, where I completed 480 hours of work in pursuit of the M.A. in Arts Administration. I worked primarily with Tracy Ferrington Cunningham, Director of Communications & Special Events, in preparing and organizing the 2016 Festival, which represented the organization’s 30th anniversary. In this report, I will deliver an organizational overview of the Festival, describe my internship duties and responsibilities, analyze the strengths and weaknesses of the organization, and provide best practices and recommendations in festival management.

An Analysis Of Faculty And Staff's Identification Of Malware Threats, Malora Quesinberry

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This document presents findings related to faculty and staff member’s ability to identify malware threats. This study involved discovering the most common incidents of malware threats to higher education systems. From this research, eight categories of malware were identified to be the most common threats to higher education systems. This document also describes the impact of malware intrusions on higher education systems to emphasis the importance of recognizing malware threats. Faculty and staff members at a midsize southeastern university were presented with realistic scenarios to determine the ability to identify malware threats. The results indicate malware categories such as virus, …

Newsvendor Models With Monte Carlo Sampling, Ijeoma W. Ekwegh

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Newsvendor Models with Monte Carlo Sampling by Ijeoma Winifred Ekwegh The newsvendor model is used in solving inventory problems in which demand is random. In this thesis, we will focus on a method of using Monte Carlo sampling to estimate the order quantity that will either maximizes revenue or minimizes cost given that demand is uncertain. Given data, the Monte Carlo approach will be used in sampling data over scenarios and also estimating the probability density function. A bootstrapping process yields an empirical distribution for the order quantity that will maximize the expected profit. Finally, this method will be used …

Modern Megachurch Organization In The United States (2005-2013) : An Exploratory Organizational Study Of The American Megachurch Phenomenon., Robert Lee Shelby Jr.

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation study explores the applicability of two for-profit organizational theories on a non-profit sector. Theoretical concepts from organizational ecology (OE) and new institutional sociology (NIS) provide the framework for exploring modern megachurches as an organizational phenomenon in the United States between 2005 and 2013. Modern megachurches are modern in the sense they really began to be an organizational population starting in the 1970s and 1980s. These churches are distinctively from the Protestant Christian tradition having 2,000 or more attendees (Thumma & Travis, 2007; Hartford Institute for Religion Research, n.d.). Three empirical chapters test several hypotheses germane to these aforementioned …

Evaluating Minor League Baseball Social Identity, Social Image, And Brand Equity., Christan David Hanna

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

An understanding of brand equity, the value a brand adds to a product (Keller, 1993), can provide valuable information to sport managers. This is due to the fact price elasticity, competitive strength, and brand loyalty are consequences of brand equity (Keller, 2001). The degree to which fans identify with teams has been found to predict brand equity in major professional sport (Boyle & Magnusson, 2007) and major college sport (Watkins, 2014) contexts. One purpose of this study is to assess whether fan identification is predictive of brand equity in a MiLB context. Further, Lassar, Mittal, and Sharma (1995) found social …

A Social Marketing Plan For The Lester C. Howick Animal Shelter, Joseph Michael Spiegelhoff

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The Lester C. Howick Animal Shelter (Howick) is a non-profit organization serving Washington County, Arkansas and the Northwest Arkansas community. This thesis offers Howick a comprehensive Social marketing plan. The goal of the animal shelter is to increase the total number of cats and dogs adopted, increase the total amount of donations, and increase the number of volunteers helping at the facility and various events. In order to accomplish these goals for 2016, a Social marketing plan was developed through research on other non-profit organizations, other animal shelters, communication with the shelter employees, crafting a public service announcement (PSA), and …

Why We Follow: Exploring How Culture Shapes Users’ Motivation For Following Sport Organizations On Twitter And Weibo, Bo Li

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this dissertation was to explore how culture shapes Social media users’ usage as they follow sport organizations on two similar microblogging services - Twitter and Weibo. In particular, the study attempted to measure whether Social media users exhibited different usage pattern, points of attachment, and usage motivations within two different cultural environments known as individualism and collectivism.

The Los Angeles Lakers’ Social media followers were selected and invited to participant in this study. There were 839 the Lakers’ Weibo followers and 334 Twitter followers who completed an online survey facilitated on Qualtrics. The results of Multivariate analysis …

The Effects Of Source And Content On Types Of Social Influence In Online Traveler Reviews, Laura A. Book

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Today’s highly connected purchasing environment is unique in that consumers are confronted with a vast quantity of information from a variety of sources. Using the theoretical underpinnings of social influence and judgmental heuristics, this dissertation examines source and content characteristics to understand their influence on consumers’ perceptions and decisions. This dissertation utilized two experiments to examine how source and content attributes lead to different types information processing and types of social influence in online reviews. The first study utilized a 2 (expertise) x 2 (group membership) experimental design that manipulated source characteristics. The second study utilized a 2 (recommendation percentage) …

Cultural Moderation Of The Relationship Between Anticipated Life Role Salience And Career Decision-Making Difficulties, Emily Anne Schmidtman

Dissertations

The perceived importance of, and commitment to, work and family roles has significant implications for the career decision-making difficulty (CDMD) of undergraduate college students. Additionally, cultural variables have been shown to influence undergraduate students’ anticipated life role salience (LRS) as well as the amount of difficulty experienced in making a career decision. Given this information, the current study assessed the relationship between LRS and CDMD specifically in terms of differences that may occur within this relationship for different cultural groups. Using a sample of college students (total N = 246), an online survey was used to gather information about their …

A Taxonomy Of Effective Leader Behaviors In The Construction Industry, Enrique Leonardo Cabrera-Caban

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

The construction industry is a major part of the United States economy, but it is also one of the most dangerous and high-risk industries. The industry is currently facing a shortage of effective leadership, and leaders face unique challenges in coordinating multiple teams of subcontractors on projects. The first step in remedying this shortage is to identify the behaviors of an effective construction leader. To address this need, a taxonomy of effective leader behaviors in construction was developed using grounded theory methodology and rated by construction industry subject matter experts. Archival focus group data from 10 focus groups in three …

Unconscious Bias During Recruitment Of New Hires-A Comparison Of The General Public And Human Resource Professionals, Diane Ellen Russo

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

Immediate decisions are required in various situations. Judgements are made based on a variety of influences without even realizing it has occurred. Decisions are made within split seconds, and the outcomes are often a result of biases held.

Biases can be positive or negative; they are attitudes or stereotypes that are taught during an early age in life and reinforced over time. It is important to realize how these biases impact decision making and negative judgements placed on others.

Bias begins around the time one has the ability to understand and speak words -- generally at three years old. At …

Valence Or Volume? Maximizing Online Review Influence Across Consumers, Products, And Marketing, Elika Kordrostami

Marketing Theses & Dissertations

Evidence shows that products with online reviews have a higher chance to stay in the consideration set of consumers than products with no online reviews do. Online reviews, as consumer-generated content, affect consumers’ purchase decision-making process. Most of the studies in this area have looked at valence and volume of online reviews. Generally, valence and volume of online reviews are considered to positively influence sales; however, the findings in the literature are inconclusive. While some studies have reported a positive relationship between valence/volume and sales, others have failed to find any significant relationship. Using both lab experiments and real-world data, …

Profit Based Simulation Model For The Rail Transportation Industry, Mark Patrick Doran

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Schedules often conflict in the rail transportation industry. Operations managers assign resources and make scheduling decisions with no visibility of the revenue, cost, and profitability characteristics of the route they are manipulating. Transit speed decisions focus on ensuring trains safely reach their destination on time with little regard given to the actual service needs of the customer. Although all customers want on-time deliveries, few actually pay a premium to garner this level of preferential treatment. Operating in this type of environment results in decisions that severely erode profits.

In this dissertation, a simulation model referred to as the Rail Profit …

Connection Or Competence: Emotional Labor Versus Service Quality As Antecedents To Customer Loyalty, Andrew Moreo

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Service delivery has become increasingly important in service heavy industries and particularly within restaurants. Within this segment, the employee’s ability to display the appropriate emotions is of great concern. The axiom “service with a smile”, has been a mainstay for many years. However, a frown has the opposite effect. The question has been raised, how do frontline employees manage their emotions so as to provide the service with the appropriate emotion and the feeling of a genuine connection? This form of labor has been coined, emotional labor, and has a research stream dedicated to its understanding.

This dissertation utilized a …

Omni-Channel Supply Chain Management: Assessing The Impact Of Retail Service Operations In The Retail Supply Chain, Simone Theresa Peinkofer

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The traditional retail environment, which is characterized by a clear division between brick-and-mortar and non-brick-and-mortar retail channels, has been recently disrupted by developments in e-commerce and mobile technologies. The result has been the emergence of omni-channel retailing. Within the reality of this new retail environment, it has been proposed that retailers should develop the necessary capabilities to fulfill consumer demand from anywhere – the store, the distribution center, or via drop-shipping from a supplier – which leads to the emergence of new operational complexities and challenges in the retail supply chain. In light of the growing popularity of these new …

It's Not The Load That Breaks You Down, It's The Way You Carry It: An Examination Of The Relationship Between Negative Identity And Consumer Behavior, Cassandra Denise Davis

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Research examining Social identity and consumer behavior often centers on groups with positive Social identities, exploring the influence of similar identities (i.e., shared values, shared gender, shared political affiliations, shared ethnicity…etc.) or desired identities (e.g., sports celebrities, actors, and actresses). For example, research has shown that people display an increased attention to identity-based stimuli following the activation of a Socially distinct identity (Forehand, Deshpandé, and Reed 2002) and that heightening the self‐importance of a consumer Social identity leads to a preference for identity-related brands (Reed 2004). An important but often overlooked aspect of the influence of Social identity on consumption, …

It's All About Me: How Self-Brand Connection And Social Media Interactivity Influence Purchase Intent, Shannon Taylor Mccarthy

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Social media is ubiquitous and allows consumers to display identity by through possessions through posts, images, and interactions. The self is all the individual calls their own and is expressed outwardly through everything visible, including possessions, relationships, and interactions. They tell their story through the display of envy-inducing artifacts, and create a perfect, photoshopped life. Consumers seek a connection to positively viewed brands they feel are self-representative through interaction. This dissertation seeks to better understand consumer rationale for and gratification from online brand engagement and how that, in turn, impacts the brand. Three studies examined the effects of self-brand connection, …

Audit-Related Services And Audit Quality: Evidence From Benefit Plan Audits, Jaclyn Prentice

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The following study examines a material but less understood component of the public audit marketplace, namely the provision of “audit-related” services to financial statement audit clients. I use the benefit plan audit service setting to examine the company and benefit plan characteristics associated with auditor selection and the impact of audit-related services on financial statement audit quality. I provide market evidence of distinct shifts in the use of the same audit firm for the financial statement audit and other audit-related services over time as well as characteristics of the choice of auditors. I then test whether having the same audit …

Does Assurance Matter? Evidence From U.S. Financial Institutions, Ashley Warwick Douglass

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this paper, I explore the determinants and consequences of the level of assurance that a bank selects. Using a sample of small, privately held U.S. (United States) financial institutions (banks), I find that two differing types of banks are more likely to purchase more assurance. First, larger banks that are experiencing growth purchase relatively more assurance than other banks. Second, more complex banks with lower returns on assets, losses, and higher leverage are more likely to purchase an audit than a lower level of assurance. This may indicate the influence of regulators on banks’ assurance purchasing decisions. I also …

Recruiting: An Act Of Trust, Krystal Evette Beachum

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The realization for incoming freshmen to be able to balance education and participate in athletics at the college level takes complete dedication. Participation in athletics has been linked with reports of growth in the individual's personality and leadership skills and with their overall satisfaction with the college experience (Ryan, 1989). Using former student-athletes as participants, the study aims to look at college athletics through the eyes of the student-athletes.

The purpose of this study offers an inside look at former Division I football student-athletes perception of the recruiting process, along with the perception of the financial agreement and the National …

Leveling The Playing Field? A Content Analysis Of Espn.Com And Espnw.Com’S Online Coverage, Rachael Caldwell

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this exploratory study was to compare sports coverage provided by the male-centric website ESPN.com and its affiliated female-centric website ESPNW.com. The amount and type of coverage provided for female athletes was the primary focus of this study. Results suggest that ESPNW.com provides an outlet for increased coverage of women’s sports, but the type of coverage provided to female athletes is not equivalent to that of their male counterparts. These results supported findings in previous studies on mass media coverage of women’s sports, specifically coverage on the emerging field of Internet coverage.

Communication Network Among Campus Sustainability Influencers, Alexandra C. Freling

Honors Thesis

Systems of all types require efficient communication between its parts and units in order to be successful and e ective. It is thus important to understand a systems units in order to better advance its operations. In this study, we look at Loyola Marymount University (LMU) as a systematic organization in regards to the universitys execution of its environmental sustainability endeavors. This approach allows for the identification of the path by which important environmental sustainability information is communicated, is learned, and is acted upon at LMU. Through various network centrality measurements, I will develop a visual representation of the communication …

From Offshoring To Reshoring: A Conceptual Framework For Manufacturing Location Decisions In A Slow-Steam World, Jeffrey J. Risher

Doctor of Business Administration Dissertations

Reshoring, the act of moving manufacturing operations from an offshore location to the nation of the parent company, is rapidly becoming one of the most researched topics in business. Reshoring describes the reversal of a previous offshoring decision, whereby a firm either relocated its own manufacturing operations overseas or outsourced a significant portion of production to offshore suppliers. With looming uncertainty in global consumer demand and diminishing returns in offshore markets, reshoring is gaining exposure as a viable strategy for firms experiencing a diluted competitive advantage as grounded costs approach market equilibrium.

With academic literature on reshoring only beginning to …

Analysis In Lead Contaminants Residential Households In A Midwestern City Using Statistical Process Control, Andre Assad Williams Talley

Morehead State Theses and Dissertations

A thesis presented to the faculty of the College of Business and Technology Morehead State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree Master of Science by Andre Assad Williams Talley July 15, 2016

An Information And Communication Technologies For Development (Ict4d) Decision Framework For Building An Information Economy In Developing Countries: The Case Of Palestine, Hasan Nuseibeh

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Building a thriving information economy is a goal for many developing countries. This research helps identify the factors (inhibitors and motivators) that can be used to leverage the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector in a developing country to build a sustainable information economy that benefits other sectors of the economy. This is done by studying the current literature on this topic and then synthesizing the theoretical models to create a unified decision framework to help developing countries set their path to building a sustainable information economy.

Drawing on past literature and extant theory, a novel ICT4D decision framework is …

The Use Of Rfid And Sensor Networks To Optimize Enterprise Operations And Logistics, Sobhi Mejjaouli

Theses and Dissertations

One of the biggest challenges faced by today’s supply chain is machine and equipment failures which impacts the producers’ ability to meet their scheduled demand and lead to logistics delays and quality issues, especially when perishable items are transported. This research work eliminates, or at least decreases the costs pertaining to the impact of machine and equipment failures on supply chain operations, particularly on production and transportation, like out of stock costs, lost sales cost and penalties imposed by customers. Two relatively new technologies for the production and logistics domain, RFID and wireless sensor networks, provide the needed sensing, processing, …

Enterprise Resource Planning Systems In Family Firms, James Nathan Smith

Doctor of Business Administration Dissertations

For organizations that have them, an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system is an organization’s most wide-reaching information system, sitting at the heart of its accounting and operational structure. Thus, successful implementation of an ERP is critical to an organization’s success. Organizations have long struggled with achieving successful implementations of large-scale information systems, and family influenced firms are no exception. In light of unique considerations for family influenced firms as compared with non-family influenced firms, this research examines the relation between the influence of family ownership in family business and success in implementing an ERP system. This research presents a quantitative …

The Effect Of Presentation Format On Investor Judgments And Decisions: Does The Effect Differ For Varying Task Demands?, Kevin Agnew

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study examines the efficacy of presenting footnotes information in alternative display formats on investors’ judgments and decisions. Non-professional investors play a significant role in the capital markets yet they do not always attend to information contained in footnote disclosures. As a result, nonprofessional investors systematically misprice firms and misallocate resources. Recognizing that increased mandatory and voluntary disclosures create additional challenges for non-professional investors, both the FASB and SEC have actively sought ways to increase the effectiveness of disclosures. I hypothesize that high display proximity, low signal-to-noise presentation formats can increase investors’ attention to and processing of footnote disclosures and …

Management And Organizational Influences On The Compliance Behavior Of Employees To Reduce Non-Malicious It Misuse Intention, Randy G. Colvin

Doctor of Business Administration Dissertations

The widespread use of information technology and information systems (IT) throughout corporations, too often includes employees who choose not to follow the stated policies and procedures in performing their job tasks. In many cases, this encompasses employees who mean no harm, but choose not to comply with IT policies and procedures. The present study frames such compliance behavior as non-malicious IT misuse. Non-malicious IT misuse by an employee occurs when the employee improvises, takes short cuts, or works around IT procedures and guidelines in order to perform their assigned tasks. As expressed, they do not intend to cause internal control …