Business Commons^™

Moneyball To Moreyball: How Analytics Have Shaped The Nba Today, Joseph J. Catalfano

Sport Management Undergraduate

Moreyball is the concept of emphasizing three pointers and points in the paint over mid-range shots on offense, while forcing mid-range shots on defense. Understanding this concept is crucial not just for front office personnel, but the players and the coaches of the NBA. This research explored whether or not Moreyball accurately predicts success in the NBA. The methodology used multiple regressions between specific NBA statistics and the Win/Loss record of NBA teams. The results of this research showed that on its own, the main statistics of Moreyball were significant in predicting team success in the NBA. However when additional …

Media Perceptions Of Male Homosexual Athletes, Anthony V. Lafica

Sport Management Undergraduate

The world is forever changing and as time has gone on homosexuals coming out have become more and more commonplace, however professional male sport is having trouble accepting societies trends. The purpose of this study is to look into the initial media response to male homosexual athletes coming out. This research will be beneficial to the academic community because it researches the relationship between sport, the media, and homosexuals. This study was conducted using secondary data from four media outlets, Sports Illustrated, ESPN the Magazine, The USA Today, and the LA Times. The data collected showed that there is limited …

Preparing And Executing An Effective Sales Call, Mackenzie Wright

Honors Theses

This thesis is written in a business document format. It will have four main sections: Introduction, Preparation, Execution, and Conclusion. Each section will include subsections. I will be discussing my involvement in the International Collegiate Sales Competition (ICSC), which was my thesis project. I will be comparing my participation in the ICSC to the knowledge I gained during my tenure as a Sales and Business Marketing student in the Haworth College of Business.

Any data or information was taken from WMU’s website, the ICSC website, and my knowledge from WMU sales classes.

Vulnerability And Resistance: An Evaluation Of Hostile Takeover Defenses Proposed By: Carissa Wilson, International Business & Business Economics, Carissa Laurel Wilson

Senior Theses

Within the context of mergers and acquisitions (“M&A”), hostile takeovers comprise a complex and pivotal area of study. It is hostile takeovers, rather than friendly ones, that give rise to the need for most buy- and sell-side tactics related to strategic M&A. This paper focuses primarily on sell-side tactics, or “target defenses,” used to deflect undesired takeover attempts and prevent changes in corporate control. It will attempt to present a high level, comprehensible, and comprehensive listing of defensive tactics in the target arsenal, with references to related case law.

Target defenses developed preemptively, or before an official takeover offer has …

The Image Of Insurance, Nathalie Dail

Senior Theses

This paper discusses the concept of brand management. The purpose is to give a brief introductory understanding of brand management and how it relates to the insurance industry. The benefits associated with brand management are detailed and analyzed in order to produce a variation of a SWOT analysis and a lean canvas. Meanwhile, Generation Y is explored as a market segment, along with challenges insurers face. This thesis seeks to explore the effects of branding on the insurance industry, with this market in mind. Consumer base fluctuations and revenue are factors considered when evaluating the effects of branding. Two well …

Education And Entrepreneurship In Amman, Jordan, Nicole Bills

Senior Theses

My thesis examines the potential economic impact of entrepreneurial education in Amman, Jordan. In order to investigate this topic, I also considered the economic impacts of increased entrepreneurism and access to education more broadly. I found that entrepreneurial education is just a small piece of a much larger ecosystem needed to support economic development. In fact, encouraging the creation of nascent firms is a somewhat dubious aim given the lack of scholarship assessing whether there is a shortage of entrepreneurial activity in the Jordanian economy. Institutional factors are a vastly more important component of efforts to spur growth.

Fan Perceptions Of Selling Alcoholic Beverages At A College Football Stadium, Danielle E. Hennessy

Honors Theses

Consuming alcohol while watching a sporting event has become a tradition within the sport commnnity. Almost one in ten sports fans leave major league stadiums with a blood alcohol level over the legal limit, with 40% of spectators consuming alcohol during the game (Lopatto, 2011). Due to this tradition, many colleges and universities have struggled to answer the question, should alcohol be sold at our athletic events? To answer this question research has been done on many factors including binge drinking, violence and safety, alcohol control policies, tailgating and attendance.

The Historical Role Of The Use Of Derivatives For Speculation, Charles Austin Boyd Ii

Senior Theses

As long as humans have had a concept of possession of items and a means of trading for them, there have been speculative position in the form of derivative contracts. The first instance of a written code of laws contains protection for farmers leveraging their future crops. Aristotle writes of an instance of the equivalent of call options being used to secure a monopoly on olive presses. Many features of contemporary derivative markets were developed in Europe during Medieval trade fairs or Renaissance bourse marketplaces. The development of the first modern stock exchange brought with it further development in the …

Drones In Logistics: A Feasible Future Or A Waste Of Effort, Andrew Lotz

Honors Projects

On December 1^st, 2013 news around the world was filled with headlines about E- Commerce website Amazon.com. CEO of Amazon Jeff Bezos announced to the world that Amazon was designing a drone delivery program called Amazon Air that could deliver packages to customers in just 30 minutes. Consumers were all too excited for the program to launch while many business and air traffic savvy people were highly skeptical. Now two years later research to look back at the feasibility of drone flight and whether investment into the technology is worth it for small deliveries straight to customers is …

An Integrative Model Of Muslim Students' Religiosity And Travelling Behavior To Gaming Destinations, Dawood Sulaiman Al Jahwari

Theses and Dissertations

Scholars in the tourism industry are continuously looking for new knowledge related to travel behavior, motivations, and the preferences of the main tourist segments. Demographic, socioeconomic, and cultural variables can all influence the demand for travel. Despite numerous studies on most of the demographic and socioeconomic variables, scholars have paid very little attention to religiosity with regard to travel decision-making. Specifically, no researchers have investigated the role of Islamic religiosity in predicting Muslims’ destination choice decisions. The purpose of this dissertation is to examine the role of attitudes, subjective norms, travel motivations, Islamic religiosity, self-efficacy, travel constraints, constraints negotiation strategies, …

Media Effect On Resident Attitude Toward Hosting The Olympic Games: A Cross-National Study Between China And The Usa, Qiulin Lu

Theses and Dissertations

News media helped individuals think about and understand the impacts of hosting the Olympic Games, enabling them to clarify or construct their own opinions toward an Olympic bid. The purpose of this study was to explore to what extent the public opinion of hosting the Olympic Games was affected by the newspaper media content to which the public was exposed. Based on social exchange theory, social representation theory, and agenda setting theory, two research questions were proposed: (1) Do different news media contents about the impacts of hosting the Olympic Games lead to different attitudes among the local residents? (2) …

Three Essays On Corporate Governance And Corporate Social Responsibility, He Wang

Theses and Dissertations

In recent years, corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities, which are firms actions that go above and beyond the interests of the firm to further the social good, have become common practice. While extant literature on CSR largely investigates the consequences of CSR activities, only a few studies identify the determinants of CSR. This dissertation extends a growing literature on the determinants of CSR by exploring the impact of corporate governance on CSR activities in three related essays. The first essay investigates the impact of family control on CSR performance. Using newly collected data on the ultimate ownership structure of publicly …

Financial Crises And Government Regulation, Yusef Trad

Honors Thesis

In the midst of turmoil, regulation is “a rule or directive made and maintained by an authority” to maintain order. More often than not, the authoritative figure that imposes and upholds regulatory standards, following its introduction to the specific industry or firm, is the government of the respective country or region. However, politicians, like the rest of us, are unable to predict when a crisis will occur and what appropriate regulation should be imposed to prevent that crisis. Thus, an inevitable concern with regulation is the fact that it is unable to thwart an unforeseeable future crisis but is instead …

Campus Knowledge Of Esports, Kenny Sugishita

Theses and Dissertations

This research study investigates private college and university admission’s officers levels of familiarity of the electronic sports (eSports) industry along with determining the level of emphasis universities place on academics and co-curricular activities. A thorough examination of the professional eSports space is extensively detailed providing information about the history of video games, the development of professional eSports, and the development of collegiate eSports. Additionally, examination of trends in higher education, especially as it relates to private institutions, is explained in detail. With the eSports industry continuing to expand, this study is timely as small private colleges and universities are searching …

A Comparison Of Water Conservation Methods Within The Supply Chain, Spencer Bryant

Honors Projects

In a world where resources are becoming more and scarcer, water is one resource that companies need in order to stay functional. This purpose of this paper is to look at a variety of business sectors and see how they use water conservational methods within their supply chain in order to save on water. From the sectors observed, there were three main areas of focus in terms of water sustainability: reduce, reuse, and replenish. While the companies looked at were in two of the three areas stated, no company had water sustainability initiatives in place in all three areas. This …

Does Social Media Help Create Brand Loyalty?, Ali Russo

Honors Theses

Throughout my time at Haworth College of Business, Social Media has been a big topic of discussion. The issue has not been if companies should use it as a tool to reach consumers but how do companies effectively utilize Social Media sites. Companies have two important ways to utilize these sites: the first is to collect data from users, and the second is to create a platform where they can interact and influence purchasing decisions. I wanted to create a thesis that focused on the interaction side of Social Media. Initially, I wanted to see if Social Media would create …

Competing In The International Collegiate Sales Competition, Christina Cook

Honors Theses

The following report aims to analyze the process that is involved in competing in the International Collegiate Sales Competition. There will be an overview of the selection process and the competition itself and an analysis of the overall performance at the competition. In addition, there will also be an overview of lessons learned by competing along with general suggestions to future competitors and competition coordinators.

Before examining the details of the competition, this thesis will address the Sales and Business Marketing program at Western Michigan University. In addition, there will be models referenced within Western Michigan University’s sales program that …

For The Fund$ Of It: Product Development, Josie Marshall

Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

Exploring Relationships Between Entrepreneurship Education And Students’ Entrepreneurial Intentions: A Mixed Method Study Of Entrepreneurial Pedagogies At Chilean Universities, Paulina Andrea Gutierrez Zepeda

Dissertations and Theses

Entrepreneurs play a major role in the 21^st century economy, especially in developing countries such as Chile. Entrepreneurial individuals generate innovative ideas, create jobs, and push older businesses to improve competitiveness. To encourage entrepreneurial skills and mindset among the next generation of students, different public and private initiatives have started to include entrepreneurship education (EE) in all levels of education, especially in higher education.

Nowadays, EE is not only about business creation, it is about educating individuals to be capable of creating opportunities using entrepreneurial skills to deal with complex and uncertain environments. Yet, while much is known about …

Technical Analysis Under Knightian Uncertainty, Andre Mouton

Student Theses and Dissertations

Technical analysis, or the forecasting of asset price movements using past prices, is commonly practiced in financial markets but poorly explained by mainstream economic theory. I show that a technical rule can have predictive power when an asset’s payoffs are subject to Knightian uncertainty, defined as variation that cannot be described probabilistically (Knight, 1921). I present an asset-pricing model in which asset payoffs undergo periodic shifts in trend, and agents form expectations about these payoffs using a constant gain least squares (CGLS) rule. I investigate whether a second CGLS rule, operating on price, can provide a more accurate forecast of …

South Korea's Transition From K-Gaap To Ifrs, Rebecca Henderson

Honors College Theses

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between South Korean culture and the transition from Korean Generally Accepted Accounting Principles to Korean International Financial Reporting Standards. It is suspected that the hierarchical structure of Korean society and culture has allowed Korea to make one of the fastest accounting standards transitions in recent years. This possible correlation is examined through the use of a survey of current accounting students in Daegu, South Korea.

Examining The Interplay Of Supervisor And Subordinate Leadership Style In The Performance Evaluation Process, Victoria A. Neuhauser

Honors College Theses

The purpose of this study is to determine if differences in leadership behavior preferences in subordinates and supervisors can lead to quantitative differences in performance evaluation scores. Leadership behavior was considered on two dimensions: preference for person-oriented behaviors and preferences for task-oriented behaviors. Findings indicate that leaders with a preference for task-oriented behaviors tend to rate subordinates with the same preferences higher than subordinates with different preferences. No such relationship could be found for person-oriented leaders. Leaders with equal preference for task- and person-oriented behaviors produced, on average, equivalent scores for both types of subordinates. In a business context, the …

Bolthouse Farms Case Study, Garret Powell, Brett Banducci, Anna Greene

Case Studies in Agribusiness

The history, growth and current operations of Bolthouse Farms is presented, with a discussion of carrot growing, processing and marketing.

Kiler Ridge Olive Oil Farm, David Ayala, Martin Andersen, Rudy Raimondi

Case Studies in Agribusiness

Gregg Bone, a Cal Tech trained engineer, is a serial entrepreneur who has started 13 successful businesses, mostly in the tech industry. After a bicycle trip through Tuscany, his wife Audrey wanted to plant 40 olive trees in their backyard, which Gregg thought would be an expensive hobby. Better to plant 835 trees on a 58 acre property near Paso Robles, CA, in 2010. Five years later Gregg modified and installed an Italian olive mill for his own olives and as a custom crush operation. As a craft olive oil business, they marketing similarly to how neighboring wineries market their …

Perspectives Of Hispanic Men Who Overcame The Odds To Become Senior Leaders, Esequiel Jose Mora

Theses & Dissertations

Driven by the rapid growth of the Hispanic population in the United States, ethnic minorities will become the new majority group in the next 30 to 40 years. Yet, despite the substantial increase of Hispanics in this country, they remain underrepresented in senior leadership positions. This dissertation explored the perspectives of Hispanic male leaders to determine how they overcame barriers to successfully reach the senior leader levels. This topic is important for two reasons: (a) as U.S. businesses expand globally, they will need diverse leaders who can understand and relate to various cultures, and (b) with the increasing purchasing power …

Regional Wine Reputation: How It Influences Trade And Consumer Purchasing Behavior, Joseph Bernard Ostrander

Master's Theses

ABSTRACT

Regional Wine Reputation: How It Influences Trade

and Consumer Purchasing Behavior

Joseph Bernard Ostrander

What are wine trade buyers and wine consumers willing to pay for a bottle of wine based on the reputation of the grape growing region apart from existing corporate branding reputation, variety popularity, or accolades from industry periodicals and celebrity wine critics? Results from a previous study discovered how attitudes about place-of-origin influenced consumer perceptions regarding the quality associated with the wines from that region. Related research also looked at how wine prices depended on the quality associated with a wine region’s reputation when linked …

Spectator Attendance Strategies: A Best Practices Examination Of Mls Expansion Franchises, Bryce Schomburg

Recreation, Parks, and Tourism Administration

The expansion of Major League Soccer (MLS) has dramatically raised league awareness throughout the nation. This impact was influenced by the additional consideration organizations have paid to the role of spectator attendance within professional sports. The purpose of this study was to examine the best practices for spectator attendance strategies employed by recent MLS expansion franchises. The following organizations were evaluated for the comparative analysis: Seattle Sounders, Portland Timbers, and New York City FC. These organizations were analyzed through a best practices comparison guide developed by the researcher. Data were collected from the selected teams’ websites, third party organization analysis, …

Capstone Revival, Mary Mesele, Ruochen Lu, Quilin Jiang

School of Professional Studies

The capstone project is a culminating experience whereby students choose to research a topic that is relevant in their field of study and have been highly regarded as important learning activities. The capstone allows students to use research, analytical, problem solving and evaluation skills they have learned in the course of the graduate program. McGill indicates the benefit of the completion of a capstone project not only in gaining knowledge in capstone but also in learning how to apply the knowledge gained in other courses in the major (McGill, 2012). Currently, COPACE (College of Professional and Continuing Education) has three …

A Study Of Ethics For Accounting Students At East Tennessee State University, Jordan Warhurst

Undergraduate Honors Theses

What is being done to stop the increase of accounting scandals and frauds? This study focuses on ethics teaching for accounting students at the undergraduate level. This study asks the question, "have students increased in their use of professional judgement as defined by the AICPA code of Professional Conduct?"

An Examination Of The Residential Mortgage Systems In The United States And Canada During The Great Recession, Katelyn B. Vittatoe

Undergraduate Honors Theses

In 2007, the United States suffered what is known as the "Subprime Mortgage Crisis". This took an enormous toll on the United States Economy. However, nearby country, Canada did not experience this situation. The objective of this thesis is to determine why such different outcomes were seen in order for future economic stability. This research will examine mortgage processes, mortgage management, foreclosures on mortgages of both countries. It will then paint the economic picture that each country faced in 2007, while providing an explanation as to why the United States fared much worse than Canada during this time.