Business Commons^™

Consumer Experience Intensity: Towards A Conceptualization And Measurement, Ebru Ulusoy Akgun

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

Experience has been accepted as a separate market offering that is increasingly being utilized by various businesses. Consequently, there is a growing need to understand the phenomenon of commercial experiences, their role in various market contexts, and the reasons of consumers’ interest in them. It is also crucial to understand the ways the consumers derive value from marketplace experiences. Yet, it would be misleading to assume that all experiences have the same significance for consumers, and consumers derive high level of value from every experience in the market. This dissertation aims to understand the experiences that consumers find to be …

Does Money Matter? Investigating The Financing Of Emerging Firms, Casey Frid

All Dissertations

In this dissertation I investigate start-up financing by nascent entrepreneurs in the United States between 2005 and 2010. By nascent entrepreneur, I mean individuals who are in the process of creating a new business, but the business itself is not yet affecting prices and quantities in the market. Nearly all research on financing has focused on established firms. Little work, however, has been done on how entrepreneurs acquire and use financial resources during the earliest stages of the firm creation process. The availability of financial resources has been linked to firm growth and survivability, and understanding how entrepreneurs use and …

The Role Of Age In Technology-Induced Workplace Stress, Stefan Tams

All Dissertations

Recent research shows that such Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) as instant messengers can cause workplace interruptions, which lead to stress for employees and substantial productivity losses for U.S. organizations. Since the introduction of ICTs, workplace interruptions have evolved in both frequency and nature from irregular phone calls to a continuous stream of e-mail notifications and other electronic interruptions, mediated through a large number of technological devices that constantly beep and buzz. This trend of an increasing frequency of workplace interruptions closely relates to another workplace trend: the graying of the workforce, implying that the U.S. workforce is aging at …

Understanding The Role Of Embeddedness In Shaping It Professional Behavior, Michael Dinger

All Dissertations

This dissertation studies how information technology (IT) professionals become embedded and, in turn, how embeddedness influences organizational behaviors. Embeddedness refers to the extent to which an individual is attached to an organizational or professional setting. Traditionally, embeddedness is defined as having three components: social links, fit and sacrifice. We analyze the traditional conceptualization of embeddedness and identify weaknesses. As a result, we refine these three components to belongingness, fit and utility.
To deepen our understanding of embeddedness and its influence on organizational behavior, we develop a theory of embeddedness. We propose that embeddedness grows over time. As embeddedness increases, we …

An Empirical Investigation Of Supply Chain Excellence In Healthcare, Brian Keith Smith

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This research is motivated by opportunities to improve the cost and quality of healthcare delivery through improved supply chain processes. This research assesses the quality of the healthcare supply chain and identifies factors that are driving supply chain excellence among organizations in the healthcare industry. The first objective of this research is to assess the state of quality measurement in the healthcare supply chain. The achievement of this first objective is presented in Chapter 3 of this dissertation in the form of a manuscript accepted for publication in The Quality Management Journal. The second research objective is to develop …

Social Capital: Measurement, Dimensional Interactions, And Performance Implications, James Turner

All Dissertations

ABSTRACT
Recent OM literature conceptualizes social capital as being comprised of three inter-related dimensions: the relational dimension, the structural dimension, and the cognitive dimension. Existing research suggests that ocial capital offers firms the potential to leverage their interorganizational relationships to create sustainable advantage and superior performance opportunities for the firm.
However, despite the interest and attention of social capital theory among operations management (OM) and supply chain management (SCM) researchers, there is a surprising shortage of cohesive empirical research on social capital theory. The absence of reliable and valid empirical measures of social capital has limited OM researchers' ability to …

Personal Intern Experience Assessment, Jacob Reed

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

I am a senior, finishing up the last accounting class for my undergraduate degree in accounting. I recently completed an internship with PwC in the McLean, Virginia office. At PwC, I was an assurance intern primarily responsible for assisting my engagement teams by performing tests around financial statement line items such as 'cash.' I learned quite a bit about the PWC process for auditing these items because I performed these same procedures on six different clients.

My role as an intern was to perform uniform tasks that needed to be done on each engagement, and when I was done I …

Strategic Planning For A Multi-Organization Nonprofit Entity: A Case Study Of The Connecticut Boys & Girls Clubs’ 2007-2008 Strategic Planning Process, Jill Terrell-Ouazzani

Capstone Collection

The purpose of this case study analysis is to explore the development of Connecticut Boys & Girls Clubs’ Three Year Strategic Plan in order to discover the strengths as well as the areas to improve for future statewide strategic planning initiatives. Through a series of interviews, an online survey and thorough document reviews, I examined the process CT Boys & Girls Clubs used in 2007-2008 to develop a statewide, multi-organization strategic plan. To provide context, I also conducted a thorough literature review focused on strategy, strategic planning and collaboration management. The findings and analysis reveal that the Strategic Planning Taskforce …

Detrimental Effects Of Interventions With The Corporate Governance Mechanisms Of Young Entrepreneurial Firms, Guclu M. Atinc

Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to assess the post-IPO performance structures of young entrepreneurial firms. Based on the propositions of the signaling model, I propose that the firm IPO performance is a determining factor in post-IPO changes in ownership structures. Furthermore, I contend that the new owners that replace the original ones in young IPO firms will be prone to request changes in corporate governance mechanisms such as top management team membership and the boards of directors based on the need to have their own agents looking after their interests as recommended by the agency theory. Following these alterations …

Two Essays On Managerial Incentives, Hui Liang

Doctoral Dissertations

Jensen and Meckling (1976) and Jensen (1986) argue that the separation of ownership and control may generate agency problems between managers and shareholders. The equity-based compensation, by tying managerial wealth to firm long-run stock performance, can incentivize managers to be more receptive to undertaking value-increasing financial policies and to improving firm performance therefore can be used as an effective tool to achieve consonance between managers actions and shareholders interest. Over the last two decades, the increased prevalence of equity-based compensation in the form of stock and options, is partially due to an increased acceptance of the alignment effect of equity-based …

Sunshine Café: A Breakfast Restaurant Business Plan, Lillian I. Burrow

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Purpose:

The purpose of this paper is to create a business plan for the SunShine Café. While the commonly known statistic of 90% of restaurants fail within the first year is false, approximately 60% of restaurants do fail within their first three years of operation (Parsa, Self, Njite, & King, 2005). The problem for entrepreneurs starting a restaurant is how does one reduce this risk of failure.

One way to minimize this risk is to create a business plan. Thus the main objective of this paper is to create a business plan that will not only help the restaurant develop …

Hospitality Loyalty Program Effectiveness Evaluation Rubric, Nazia Charania

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This paper examines the various loyalty program strategies and design elements utilized within the hospitality industry and evaluates the implications of the various strategies on establishing and fostering loyalty among consumers within a hyper competitive industry. In order to maintain competitive parity, many programs have constantly lowered reward thresholds and increased program offerings, making such programs very costly and with little direct evaluation in their ability to stimulate true loyalty. In a society bombarded by loyalty programs in almost all industries, consumers are becoming very savvy in comparing their personal rewards to the effort and inconveniences incurred by enrolling. The …

An Exploratory Study Of Casino Customer Loyalty Programs, Cristina R. Crofts

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This study summarizes academic theories and industry applications related to customer loyalty programs, drawing on literature pertaining to reciprocity and resource theory, attitudinal loyalty, tiered loyalty programs, and reward type and timing. Specifically, this study attempts to understand aspects that have been proven successful in order to design more effective customer loyalty programs. This literature synthesis provides important professional implications for casino executives in effectively designing customer loyalty programs.

Business Plan For 1st Street Diner And Nightclub, Brian D. Deets

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

A business plan was created for a diner and nightclub located in downtown Des Moines, Iowa, and the concept was found to be unique to the Des Moines area. The downtown community is home to sixty-six American-cuisine eateries, is under continued development, and looking to house more restaurant and entertainment establishments. Des Moines has a five-county metropolitan area with a population of 562,000 and Des Moines alone is home to 200,000 people. The downtown community is growing, and with the projected employment outlook to rise 11%, downtown’s 77,000 employees will also increase. These findings suggest that there is a market …

A Cultural Perspective On Motivation Factors Affecting Exhibition Participation, Young Ki Lee

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

With increasing global competitions, more opportunities transcending national boundaries may exist for the exhibition organizers and participants. This study offered an integrated approach to understanding how various motivation factors affect the participation in exhibition. The literature review included an introduction of push/pull motivation theories as one of the most representative motivation theories. The factor analysis of survey results supported the categorization of push/pull factors in exhibition industry. The paper concluded that the factor analysis procedures yielded the motivation factor dimensions with similar natures and four underlined motivation dimensions of exhibition participation were labeled. Furthermore, the cultural difference between Western and …

E-Mail Management Of Japanese Hotels In Comparison With South Korean Hotels, Kyoko Morikoshi

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

There has been little study done concerning the service quality of Japanese hotels toward foreign guests; especially e-mail management in English has not been analyzed in Japan before. Since e-mail inquiries in English from foreign guests could be the first step for Japanese hotels to provide good service to prospective guests, managing English e-mails efficiently is a key to attracting more foreign guests. Therefore this study examined the actual condition of e-mail management at Japanese hotels by sending an English inquiry to them. Korean hotels were also included because South Korea and Japan have similar linguistic and economic backgrounds. A …

Cultural Acceptance And Its Effect On Tourism, I-Hsuan Shih

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This professional paper examines the relationship between cultural acceptance in conjunction with social perception and cultural tourism promotion strategies. It provides a matrix to evaluate the likely success of promoting a specific cultural aspect of a destination and suggestions for ways of dealing with a lack of cultural acceptance or negative perceptions. It underscores the need for tourism strategic planners to take into account the cultural acceptance of a proposed project by the host community before proceeding.

The Green Movement In Hotels: Are College Students On Board?, Amy Walker

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Purpose:

The purpose of this study is to see if environmentally friendly practices are a factor for college students when selecting a hotel. Another purpose of this study is to see if students would be willing to spend more for hotels who offer these environmentally friendly practices.

The Management Of An Indigenous Hotel Chain Company In China: A Case Study Of Sichuan Minshan Hotel Corporation, Yinglin Wang

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Justification:

The hotel industry has a comparatively lower threshold for market entry. This has enabled many international foreign competitors to successfully take up a fairly large share of this market. The competition in this emerging industry in China is becoming increasingly fierce as time progresses. Due to the pressure of growing number of foreign competitors, some indigenous hotels in China have started to follow in their footsteps and expand their sister properties across the country. However managing hotel chain properties is still new to most of these indigenous hotel chain organizations and the hotel chain effects of maximizing profits have …

The Modern Brand: A Guide To The Intigration Of Csr Practices Into Hotel Branding, Matthew Warren

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Introduction:

There are certain components of the hospitality industry that make it unique in comparison to other industries. One of those components is the perishability that is associated with the hotel product. When it comes to hotel rooms, if a room is left empty then there is instantly lost profit for that property with no way of recovering it. In order to make maximum profit all rooms must be filled each night, this makes the task of attracting customers of the upmost importance within the industry. One of the primary ways in which hospitality companies have strived to attract customers …

Business Plan For U.S. Based Soup And Salad Franchise Restaurant In Beijing, China, Xin Xu

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Purpose:

The purpose of this paper is to build a business plan for American soup and salad buffet style restaurant franchisors who want to expand their business in Beijing, China. It will focus on analyzing the potential consumers, menu, price, location, and local competitors for such a restaurant.

Technology Base Self Service In Hospitality Industry, Wan Chi Chen

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

There are more and more technology based self service (TBSS) encountering people’s daily life, even hospitality industry, where people pay to get service, has began to add TBSS as part of their service. Some people believe this TBSS is the trend for the future, but some others who have experienced this service believe that traditional human touch service (THTS) will be remain as the main service providing channel. While people are wondering what kind of service to provide as they want to get a high return on their investment, they need to have a better understanding on self service technology. …

Preventing Workplace Injuries Commonly Sustained By Hotel Guestroom Attendants, Jennifer Daros

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Introduction:

Hotels are generally organized into various departments. These provide specialized services to guests. Almost every hotel in the world has (in one form or another) a housekeeping department. Guestroom attendants (GRAs) are a primary component of any housekeeping department. GRAs (also known as maids, housekeepers, or room/suite service attendants) are employed by hotels to clean guestrooms, change bed linens, restock supplies, and provide turn down services when requested (see Appendix A). Those employed as GRAs frequently suffer injuries at work that can be costly to employers. This paper reviews some of the more common causes of GRA workplace injuries …

Research Study Proposal For Nightlife Company (San Francisco, Ca), Trevor Hewitt

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Introduction:

This research proposal proposes a study to evaluate the differences in consumer spending amongst a company’s three types of customers (pre-sale ticketed, paid admission, free admission) once granted entry to one of the company’s nightclub venues in order to evaluate the optimal supply mix of customer type to maximize revenues. Since the company’s venue has a finite customer capacity limit due to safety and fire regulations and laws and it generally reaches these legal capacity levels on the vast majority of the nights it is open for business (leaving surplus customers unable to enter the venue), the proposed research …

Evaluating Websites By Features: Do Independent Hotels In Singapore Get It Right?, Prasetya Purnawan

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This study aims to evaluate the websites of independent hotels in Singapore in the business-to-consumer (B2C) framework. The modified balanced scorecard (BSC) approach is incorporated into the evaluation by features method in order to avoid the dominance of the marketing perspective by including technical, customer, and destination information perspectives. A set of website evaluation criteria representing these four perspectives is then used to examine the websites of 37 independent hotels. Almost three of four hotels get it right in developing, utilizing, and maintaining their websites. These websites have the presence of features that are known to be contributing towards website …

Hotel Front Office Training: Turning Expense Into Investment, Thomas Sanders

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The process of employee training is typically looked upon as an expense, but perhaps a more insightful view would be to consider employee training an investment. This becomes possible when employees are taught to execute service-marketing principles during customer interactions. Well-executed interactions then lead to satisfied guests, repeat purchases, and company profitability. The purpose of this paper is to develop a customer focused training guideline integrating service-marketing concepts into the front office employee training process. A literature review was conducted to identify service marketing concepts and best training practices that can be applied to the hotel employee workplace. This information …

Three Essays On Individual Currency Traders, Boris Sebastian Abbey

Theses and Dissertations in Business Administration

This dissertation examines the performance, skill and trading characteristics of individual currency traders by examining daily returns and transaction data for 428 individual currency traders from 2005 to 2009. Additionally, we examine whether technical trading strategies are profitable for individual currency traders.

The first essay examines the performance and trading characteristics of individual currency traders. Examination of daily returns for 428 accounts from March 2004 to September 2009 shows traders are able to earn positive excess returns, even after accounting for transaction costs. Additionally, the results reveal that day traders not only trade more frequently than non-day traders, but also …

Cross-Listing Premium Or Market Timing, Moustafa M. Abu El Fadl

Theses and Dissertations in Business Administration

Previous research documented that soon after companies cross-list; they achieve significant negative post-listing abnormal returns (the post-listing anomaly). The evidence presented in this study shows that companies cross-list based on either a market-timing consideration or a genuine performance consideration. The host market condition is significant in explaining both the sign and the significance of post-listing abnormal returns. On the one hand, the evidence reveals, companies that cross-list in a host market while that host market is "positive" and achieve a significant negative post-listing abnormal returns, those companies time the market, and the post-listing anomaly is explained in the context of …

Two Essays On The Effect Of Macroeconomic News On The Stock Market, Ajay Kongera

Theses and Dissertations in Business Administration

This dissertation uses macroeconomic variables. In the first essay I use macroeconomic variables to determine if these variables affect the market's returns and volatilities, and in the second essay I examine whether the 11-month returns can be explained by these variables.

Using macroeconomic variables and forecasts of these variables on a quarterly basis from the Survey of Professional Forecasters, I first develop macroeconomic surprise variables. The macroeconomic surprise variables are then modified by dispersion of forecasts to adjust for surprises from uncertainty. Dispersion adjusted forecast surprises have not been used extensively in the literature. I also use a monetary shock …

The Behavior And Choices Of Serial Bidders In M&A Transactions: A Prospect Theory Approach, Ahmed Essam El-Din El-Bakry

Theses and Dissertations in Business Administration

This paper investigates the impact of previous losses incurred by U.S serial bidders on their M&A strategic choices and premiums paid to acquire targets. The Hubris and Overconfidence theories suggest that managers tend to overpay as a result of exaggerating their ability to extract value and manage post-acquisition integration process between the acquiring firm and its target. Managerial overconfidence, which is signaled by conducting several acquisitions within a short time period or by other manager-specific investment attributes, has been shown to contribute to increasing premiums in M&A transactions and subsequent poor post-acquisition performance.

Experimental findings in the area of psychology …