Business Commons^™

Design And Cost Analysis Of A Wetland Project, Matthew Rolen

BioResource and Agricultural Engineering

This senior project discusses the cost and design of a thirty acre wetland habitat project. This project demonstrates the importance that wetlands play for waterfowl as well as wildlife. The project will also discuss the changes made to the habitat and the importance of that. Also the unique design of the habitat will be explained. The main purpose of the project is the cost analysis of it. The budget of the project and the funding it takes to develop or preserve such a project.

Cal Poly Brocade Challenge 2013, Chandler Morehardt, Alexa Coburn, Juan Silva, Kerry Sun, Greg Wang, Raul Chagoya, Jd Torres

Architectural Engineering

No abstract provided.

Gender Discrimination In The Workforce, Natalie Hays, Katherine Morrow

Social Sciences

No abstract provided.

Business Strategy For A Newly Designed Husk Fly Trap, Taylor Denney

BioResource and Agricultural Engineering

This senior project discusses the analysis, evaluation and business strategy for a newly designed Husk Fly Trap from Ag Chem Wholesalers located in Yuba City, California. This prototype is designed to hold 2 to 3 weeks’ worth of Ammonium Carbonate and alleviate the hassle of monitoring the Walnut Husk Fly. This system is cost affective, able to hold the same amount, or 2 – 3 weeks, of Ammonium Carbonate as a “supercharged” trap. The Prototype Trap is easier to handle by not having to replace blown away traps or ruined sticky cards saving Pest Control Advisors time and allowing them …

Marketing In A Multimedia Era, Jamie Armstrong

Music

No abstract provided.

The Effectiveness Of Total Quality Management Principles In The Printing Industry, Paige Cornelison

Graphic Communication

The purpose of this study was to determine the history and implications of the term “Total Quality Management”, to define the core principles of the concept, and to test their prevalence and effectiveness within the printing industry.

The research consisted of an in-depth survey, which was distributed to employees of printing companies across the country. The survey aimed to collect data that was predominately qualitative in nature. It inquired upon the utilization of quality management systems within the participant’s companies, the core objectives and direct effects of these systems, as well as upon the knowledge and usage of Total Quality …

Shreddz A Clothing Brand: Creating A Marketing Plan Through Social Media And Traditional Marketing Research, Hannah Endres

Journalism

The following research is dedicated to working with the clothing brand Shreddz to analyze marketing data and create a marketing strategy. Using scholarly findings as a literature source this campaign will help develop a direction to relaunch the Shreddz brand. Analyzing the diffusion theory will determine how people process and accept new information. Different forms of marketing including branding, social media and guerilla marketing will be used in trial form to gather data to present to the clothing company. The effectiveness of each trial will be measured in order to supply Shreddz with a new strategy. All of the trials …

Concept Graphs: Applications To Biomedical Text Categorization And Concept Extraction, Said Bleik

Dissertations

As science advances, the underlying literature grows rapidly providing valuable knowledge mines for researchers and practitioners. The text content that makes up these knowledge collections is often unstructured and, thus, extracting relevant or novel information could be nontrivial and costly. In addition, human knowledge and expertise are being transformed into structured digital information in the form of vocabulary databases and ontologies. These knowledge bases hold substantial hierarchical and semantic relationships of common domain concepts. Consequently, automating learning tasks could be reinforced with those knowledge bases through constructing human-like representations of knowledge. This allows developing algorithms that simulate the human reasoning …

The Government Service Technological Revolution: Challenges And Opportunities To Local Governments In Regard To E- Government Implementation And Advancement, Staci L. Beal

Muskie School Capstones and Dissertations

This analysis addreses the various issues that affect local government's ability to provide services via the web. The focus will be on e government services provided through local town websites. Discussed are various obstacles and opportunities that local municipalities and small government entities face with the adoption of e government services.

A Tale Of Two Trusts: A Case Study Of The Consolidation Of Two Community Land Trust Affordable Housing Organizations In Vermont, Isaac I. Wagner

Capstone Collection

Between early 2010 and May 2011 the Windham Housing Trust conducted a feasibility analysis to study the possibility of merging with or acquiring the Rockingham Area Community Land Trust, a similar community land trust organization providing affordable housing in an adjacent county.

This study analyzed the one year feasibility study and merger negotiation process between the two organizations, and explored the complex set of relationships between financial partners, communities, residents, and funding stakeholders. The methodology for this work included reviewing current literature about nonprofit mergers and acquisitions, funder involvement, and community impact of consolidating services. In addition the author interviewed …

Impact Of Adoption Of Ifrs 8 On Quality Of Financial Reporting Of Foreign Companies Listed On U.S. Securities Exchanges, Qiqi Li

Honors Theses

In this study, the results on the difference between reporting under IFRS 8 “Operating Segments” and under IAS 14 “Segment Reporting” are reported for a sample of foreign publicly traded companies listed on the U.S. stock exchanges for the periods of pre- and post-adoption of IFRS 8. Seven aspects related to the comparison are examined: definition of segments, number of segments disclosed, line items reported for each segment, number of items and words reported for segments, number of geographic areas disclosed, definition of geographic segments, and items reported in geographic disclosure. Upon adopting IFRS 8, the …

Essay 1:Imf Lending And The Emerging Markets' Governance Structure. Essay 2: Specialization Constructs Among Business Incubators, Bridgette M. Bain

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this paper is to observe and analyze whether the value system and political structure of a nation, gauged through its legal configuration, impacts its response to IMF debt and consequently impacts its GDP growth rates. This paper also analyzes whether involvement in the fund through a loan relationship affects the country’s real interest rate, inflation, exchange rate and import and export volume and whether this relationship is causal in that we can explain a nation’s loan relationship with the Fund through observance of the aforementioned variables. In this paper, we observe 34 emerging markets as defined by …

Empirical Examination Of Quantitative Easing In Monetary Policy And Earning Management Of Financial Markets And Institutions, Ali Ashraf

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

In the first chapter, I analyze the impact of changes in aggregate holding in special asset purchase programs by Federal Reserve Systems (FED) as an alternate monetary policy at aggregate level. Later, to complement the analysis of monetary impact at aggregate level, I also analyze the impact of monetary actions at bank stock level with a set of 186 banks. First, for the overall sample period, expected monetary shock has positive effect on bank stock return; however, unexpected shock component has otherwise negative impact. Second, during both conventional and QE regime, monetary shocks are not significant in explaining weekly stock …

European Stock Market Contagion During Sovereign Debt Crisis And The Effects Of Macroeconomic Announcements On The Correlations Of Gold,Dollar And Stock Returns, Ziyu Li

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

The first part of this dissertation examines the presence of the financial contagion across European stock markets with respect to the Greece sovereign debt crisis by estimating the time-varying conditional correlations of stock returns between Greece and other European countries over 2001 to 2012. We find that the correlations vary over time and reach the peaks in the late 2008 during theU.S.subprime crisis, and in the beginning of 2010 of the height of European debt crisis. Further, the correlations between stock index returns of Greece and Spain, France, Ireland, Netherlands are significantly increased by Greek sovereign credit rating downgrade announcements. …

Two Essays In Financial Economics, Eric J. Osmer

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation consists of two essays: the first investigates informed trading in the Chinese stock exchanges, and the second examines the persistency of correlation of currency future prices.

For the first essay, using a sample of Chinese firms dual-listed in both the China mainland stock exchange and the Hong Kong stock exchange, I investigate the two types of informed trading - insider trading and trading derived from better analysis in the A-and H-share markets. The results suggest that H-shares have relatively more informed trading based on better analysis. In addition, the results from the firm size regression can also be …

Examining Exchange Rate Exposure, Hedging And Executive Compensation In Us Manufacturing Industry, Mohammad N. Rahman

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

In essay one, my primary objective is to see the sensitivity of foreign exchange rate risk on firm performance in US manufacturing industry and examine if the hedging help reduce the foreign exchange rate risk. I am particularly interested in manufacturing industry because of the nature of business operation of manufacturing firms. Manufacturing firms in US are not only exposed to foreign exchange fluctuation from sales and revenue but also are exposed to foreign exchange rate risk for procurement, placement and investment. I find that the firms with extreme foreign exchange rate risk exposure exhibit lower daily return and firms …

Developing A Strategic Policy Choice Framework For Technological Innovation: Case Of Chinese Pharmaceuticals, Leong Chan

Dissertations and Theses

With the growing trend of globalization and rapid development of high technologies, emerging economies face more challenges in technology development because they are chasing a fast-moving frontier. They need to identify global technology trends and adapt to local needs and capabilities. Strategies for technology development differ among countries at different developmental stages.

In this research, a technology policy choice framework is developed to link prospective high-tech areas, technology development strategies, and various innovative resources. The research approach is to develop a hierarchical decision model (HDM) and apply the analytic hierarchical process (AHP). Experts are invited from diverse sources to provide …

Innovation Measurement: A Decision Framework To Determine Innovativeness Of A Company, Kenny Phan

Dissertations and Theses

Innovation is one of the most important sources of competitive advantage. It helps a company to fuel the growth of new products and services, sustain incumbents, create new markets, transform industries, and promote the global competitiveness of nations. Because of its importance, companies need to manage innovation. It is very important for a company to be able to measure its innovativeness because one cannot effectively manage without measurement. A good measurement model will help a company to understand its current capability and identify areas that need improvement.

In this research a systematic approach was developed for a company to measure …

Making The Most Of The Volunteer Experience For Both The Volunteer And The Community Based Organization : What Can Be Learned From A Review Of The Literature And Research, Rachel Skoff

Graduate Student Independent Studies

This literature review discusses the research and the implications of it in the areas of: volunteer motivation; screening, training and supporting volunteers; volunteer empowerment; age, gender and disability as they relate to the volunteer experience; particular issues that schools must consider when using volunteers; legal issues which impact agencies; and best practices that have been developed for volunteer programs.

The Impact Of Social Capital On Innovation Intermediaries, Songphon Munkongsujarit

Dissertations and Theses

In today's open business environments, innovation happens in globally dispersed organizations that exchange technological knowledge across increasingly permeable boundaries. Innovation intermediaries play an important role in these technology transfer processes. They operate as middle-men between solution seekers (companies seeking technological knowledge for solving their problems) and problem solvers (experts with specialized knowledge and solutions) and thus help to connect suppliers and customers of technological knowledge. Currently, clients that select an intermediary organization and managers of intermediary organizations that assign agents to a project have very little guidance as to what type of an intermediary they should select to guarantee that …

A Study Of The Effect Of The 2008 Economic Crisis Upon The Relationship Between Ceo Compensation And Firm Performance Measures., Adam Smolnycki

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This study investigates the effect the 2008 economic crisis had on the relationship between CEO compensation and firm performance measures for S&P 500 financial companies. The findings assist S&P 500 financial companies to better determine compensation levels for CEOs by accounting for performance as well as account for the most recent valley in the economic cycle. The study uses a database of CEO compensation data for S&P 500 financial firms from both before and after the crisis. The database also contains firm performance data for the respective firms and years. The relationship is explored using separate multiple regression models, then …

Managerial Competencies And Exemplary Leadership In The Lodging Industry: An Empirical Study, Fadila Maraouch

Graduate Student Dissertations, Theses, Capstones, and Portfolios

In facing the rising demand for improved quality, reduced costs, and constant innovation, the need to continuously upgrade knowledge, skills, and abilities is essential for all leadership roles including those held by executives, managers, and supervisors (Kay & Russette, 2000; Mirabile, 1997; Okeiyi, Finley, & Postel, 1994; Sandwith, 1993; Tas, 1988; Tas, LaBreque, & Clayton, 1996). With management scholars racing to meet this demand, competency modeling has become one of the most frequently used techniques to help organizations profile jobs, select, as well as prepare the right person for the right leadership position (Katz, 1955; Sandwith, 1993).

Under the …

Analysis Of International Epc Projects Using Scor Model, Monetecarlito Simulation, And Relationship Management, Xiaopeng Liang

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

The EPC contracting mode (Engineering, Procurement and Construction) has been broadly applied in construction projects, particularly, at the international level. However, the procurement process has been scarcely in literature. The purpose of this thesis is to research the procurement processes of different types of products—ETO (Engineer to order), MTO (Make to order), and MTS (make to stock)—in supply chain for a real international EPC cement project in Ethiopia. The procurement processes of steel bar (MTS), precast steel structure (MTO), and vertical mill (ETO) for the “Raw Meal Grinding and Exhaust Gas Treat,” one of the cement plant workshops, have been …

Bringing Conformity To Accounting Standards: U.S. Gaap Versus International Gaap, Dana Bjorge

Honors Capstones

Capstone submitted as a graduation requirement for the BSU Honors Program.

A Feasibility Study Of Agricultural Production Of Brussel Sprouts, Cabbage, And Kale For San Ysidro Farms, Roy Orion Killgore

Agribusiness

The purpose of this study was to determine whether it is more profitable for San Ysidro Farms to establish a new commodity mix and grow brussel sprouts, cabbage, and kale in replace of broccoli and cauliflower or continue its current commodity mix for production. The goal is to determine whether the new commodity mix will bring greater profits during the months of January, February, and March.

The project represents a basic comparison technique of the different commodities grown for San Ysidro. Using the current 2013 cash flow statement and others from the previous production years, a comparison amongst the different …

Influences Of Product Concept Demonstrations In Trade Shows: Two Essays, Taewan Kim

Marketing - Dissertations

I study the effects of product concept demonstrations on firm value and on firms' profit using two different methods: empirical and analytical approaches.

Utilizing an event study, in Essay 1, I assess the effects of product concept demonstrations in trade shows on abnormal stock returns and risks. My investigation has two interconnected parts: (1) analysis of the firms' decision on how many concepts to demonstrate and what would be the concept mix; and (2) analysis of investor reactions to the demonstration that influence the firm value and risk. I find that the number of concept demonstrations are influenced by the …

Work-Life Balance Of Parents Of Special Needs Children, Jessie Sample

Management Undergraduate Honors Theses

The purpose of this thesis is to show that establishing a work-life balance for its employees, especially those with special needs children, is essential to the health and production of a company. This thesis explores this topic by addressing hardships faced by parents of special needs children, examining programs available to help employees attain balance between work and life, and by examining what different people need at different stages of their lives. This work will hopefully raise awareness and inspire employees with special needs children to look at their specific hardships and stage in life to understand what type of …

Does Regulatory Scrutiny Change Investment Behavior? Evidence Of Suboptimal Portfolio Rebalancing After The Financial Crisis, Willie Dion Reddic

Business Administration - Dissertations

Insurers that show losses are expected to sell tax-free securities and replace them with taxable securities since they can no longer benefit from tax savings. However, rebalancing these portfolios after the financial crisis would entail recognizing additional losses during a time period when their financial performance was under stress and their industry was under increased scrutiny. I examine portfolio rebalancing behavior using the period after the financial crisis as a proxy for increased regulatory scrutiny. I predict and find that insurers with losses subsequent to the financial crisis were less likely to increase their ratio of taxable/nontaxable securities. Insurers may …

Entrepreneurship As A Process Of Self-Fulfillment: Well-Being, Affect, And Behavioral Strategies, Shoko Kato

Business Administration - Dissertations

This study unravels the underlying mechanisms that influence entrepreneurs' behavior during the startup process. Theories of entrepreneurial behavior have assumed that entrepreneurs try to achieve goals--profit, sales, job satisfaction, autonomy, to name a few. Yet, past studies are silent about how entrepreneurs keep making efforts toward business startups while not achieving goals for a prolonged period of time. If goals are hard to reach and entrepreneurs are unable to assess their achievement level toward their goals, how do they manage to keep making efforts during the business startup process? What factors influence their effort level during the startup? Based on …

Healthy Monday: A Mobile Web Application, Megan E. Snyder

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

For my capstone project I created a mobile web application to help promote the Healthy Monday initiative. This is a program on campus that is run by the Learner Center for Public Health Promotion that encourages student and people in the community to start the week with healthy lifestyle choices. Healthy Monday’s website states: “Healthy Monday is a national initiative to help end chronic preventable diseases by offering weekly prompts and programs to support people and participating organizations in starting and sustaining healthy behaviors. Healthy Monday is a public health initative founded in 2005 in association with the Johns Hopkins …