Business Commons^™

Ownership Structure, Board Characteristics, And Tax Aggressiveness, Ying Zhou

Lingnan Theses

Tax aggressiveness, as commonly proxied by the effective tax rate (ETR), measures a firm’s effort spent on minimizing its tax payments. It is suggested that more tax aggressive firms have greater incentives to allocate resources to minimize taxes and thus have lower ETRs. Corporate governance has been continuously receiving attention in literature across different fields and can affect a firm’s tax strategy through its control mechanism. This thesis investigates how corporate governance influences a firm’s tax aggressiveness. The main hypothesis of this thesis is whether firms with good corporate governance will have less incentives and opportunities to manage tax aggressively. …

The Effect Of Word-Of-Mouth On The Purchase Of Genuine And Counterfelt Luxury Brands : The Roles Of Attitude Functions, Wei Wang

Lingnan Theses

This research aims to investigate the effect of word-of-mouth (WOM) on the purchase of genuine and counterfeit luxury brands with a focus on the roles of attitude functions, product type, valence of WOM, and brand popularity. It consists of two experimental studies. Study 1 examines the effect of WOM on the purchase of luxury brands and attempts to investigate the mediating role of attitude functions in the relationship between WOM and purchase intentions for luxury brands, with regard to different product types and valence of WOM. Study 2 compares the effects of WOM communications with traditional advertising on the purchase …

The Internationalization Of Emerging Market Multinationals : Effects Of Host And Home Country Institutional Facotrs, Yuanyuan Zhang

Lingnan Theses

As we all know, economic globalization and internationalization have sparked off countless studies and arguments in the past years. Some of the conventional theories about the internationalization of firms, however, are repeatedly challenged when they are applied to the less developed countries. The internationalization of firms from less developed countries has been a topic of growing interest in the international business and economics literature. In our study, we consider the influence of institutions from both the host and home country on entry modes of Chinese firms expanding overseas. Based on a sample of 314 China’s MNCs, the results support our …

Predicting Intentions To Donate To Human Service Nonprofits And Public Broadcasting Organizations Using A Revised Theory Of Planned Behavior, Bobbie Brinkerhoff

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Different types of nonprofit organizations including human service nonprofits like homeless shelters, public broadcasting organizations, and the like thrive on donations. Effective fundraising techniques are essential to a nonprofit’s existence. This research study explored a revised theory of planned behavior to include guilt and convenience in order to understand whether these factors are important in donors’ intentions to give. This study also examined the impact of two different kinds of guilt; anticipated guilt and existential guilt to determine if there was any difference between the types of guilt and the roles that they play as predicting factors in a revised …

The Effects Of Risk And Trust On The Achievement Of Sustainable Competitive Advantage From B2b E-Commerce Trading Relationships, Clark J. Hampton

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation consists of three interrelated studies focusing on the use of business-to-business (B2B) electronic commerce (e-commerce) to facilitate supply chain transactions. B2B e-commerce enabled supply chains produce substantial savings for organizations by reducing the amount of time and money necessary to negotiate contracts, processes orders, and pay suppliers. However, doubt exists as to whether reduced transaction costs are a sustainable competitive advantage for organizations. The advent of widespread and cost effective B2B e-commerce enabled supply chains coupled with increasingly complex, dynamic, and global competitive markets are encouraging organizations to form long-term relationships with their trading partners to achieve sustainable …

Improving The Detection Of Narcissistic Transformational Leaders With The Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire: An Item Response Theory Analysis, Dale Frederick Hosking Martin

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Narcissistic transformation leaders have inflicted severe physical, psychological, and financial damage on individuals, institutions, and society. Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ) has shown promise for early detection of narcissistic leadership tendencies, but selection criteria have not been established. The purpose of this quantitative research was to determine if item response theory (IRT) could advance the detection of narcissistic leadership tendencies using an item-level analysis of the 20 transformational leadership items of the MLQ. Three archival samples of subordinates from Israeli corporate and athletic organizations were combined (N = 1,703) to assess IRT data assumptions, comparative fit of competing IRT models, item …

"More Than Three "Rs" In The Classroom" : A Case Study In Aboriginal Tertiary Business Education, Keith Truscott

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

This was an investigation of factors that assisted Australian Aboriginal students complete or incomplete a business course at a University in Perth between 2000 and 2010. The concept of resilience and related factors of inclusion and exclusion from the participants’ past were assumed clues by the researcher. The investigation involved four inquiries. First, the researcher reviewed recent statistics of Aboriginal population, education and employment. A short history of Aboriginal education in Western Australian was also made. Both reviews indicated Aboriginal people endured relative exclusion and a lower status than the mainstream population in areas of education and employment.

Second, the …

Earnings Management And The Effect On Long-Run Performance For Firms With Seasoned Equity Offerings, Danielle Enderson

Honors Program Theses

Managers of publicly traded firms use various methods to signal to the market their beliefs about their company's current performance and future prospects. These methods include, among others, the declaration of dividends to common stockholders, a firm's repurchase of its shares in the market, or the issuance of seasoned equity. Each of these actions can be used to send a specific signal to the market based on management's beliefs regarding the firm's financial outlook.

This study focuses on a firm's issuance of seasoned equity. Seasoned equity offerings, or SEOs, are the issuance of additional shares of stock by a firm …

An Analysis Of Quickbooks Internal Control Utilization, Andrew J. Steckel

Honors Program Theses

The QuickBooks software created and sold by Intuit, Inc. is the most predominantly used accounting software among small businesses. According to a June 19, 2008 press release issued by Intuit, more than 3.7 million businesses use QuickBooks, and it held a 94.2 percent market share for retail units in the business accounting category as of March 2008 (Intuit, 2008). As such, large amounts of financial data and information are created, edited, and stored using QuickBooks. A large majority of these companies will rarely, if ever, have their financial statements or internal control structures audited. However, the accuracy and security of …

Assessment Of The Adoption Of Ifrs In Foreign Countries In Comparison To The Anticipated Results Of United States Ifrs Adoption, Emily Schippers

Honors Program Theses

The importance of discussing implications of adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) in the U.S. is imperative to financial investors, audit committees, and corporations' management as IFRS may potentially impact earnings quality and the consistency of financial statements which in turn may influence earnings per share of that particular organization. As the standards are set to converge to IFRS tentatively in 2015 for the United States, it is essential to have some indication of what types of hindrances and differences will be a result of adopting a new set of financial reporting standards. This can be accomplished by examining …

The Fair Value Accounting Debate And The Future Of The Profession, Kristina Ann Bowers

Honors Program Theses

In 2006 and 2007, new accounting statements were issued that expanded fair value accounting, which have led to a debate that extends beyond the accounting profession to the rest of the business community. While fair value accounting is not a new concept or accounting practice, the new requirements related to the statements, combined with the recent credit crisis that started in 2007, have caused many companies and users of the financial statements to argue whether or not current fair value accounting practices should be continued.

Risk Management Plans For University Athletic Facilities, Brittney Donlin

Honors Program Theses

Researching available literature on the specific topic of risk management planning for athletic facilities indicates that there is a dearth of work in this area1 . This finding is surprising given the number of people attending college and professional athletic events each weekend and recent history of violent incidents, such as the shootings in Tucson, Northern Illinois University and Virginia Polytechnic Institute (VPI). The limited articles available in this area provide an explanation of risk management processes and methodologies related to controlling campus risks, mostly focusing on the insuring of physical property against the perils of fire, wind, water and …

Integrated Marketing Communications Plan For Hospiceadeasy, Megan Elizabeth Horn

Honors Program Theses

HospiceADEASY is an online store where hospices can purchase high-quality, pre-produced, customizable hospice promotional materials. Available materials include billboards, brochures, e-marketing materials, print advertisements, 30-second radio ads and 30-second TV ads. HospiceADEASY is operated by ME&V, a full-service marketing, advertising and fundraising agency. ME&V has a wealth of experience in hospice marketing, fundraising, higher education marketing, healthcare marketing and more. This plan sets out the steps HospiceADEASY should take to increase its sales and reach a wider audience. It covers all the bases from traditional direct mail advertising to new forms of online communications and can be implemented, in full …

Credit Default Swaps Regulation And The Use Of Collateralized Mortgage Obligations In U.S. Financial Institutions, Jon Patraic Neill

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The fast and easy global movement of capital throughout the financial system, from lenders to borrowers and through intermediaries and financial market participants, has been recognized as a source of instability associated with illiquidity and financial crises. The purpose of this research was to better understand how regulation either enables or constrains capital movement. The theoretical framework comprised 2 contrasting public policymaking models, Arrow's rational-comprehensive model and Kingdon's garbage can model, which were used to derive opposing hypotheses. The research question addressed the nature of the relationship between Credit Default Swaps (CDSs) regulations and the flow of capital into Collateralized …

Relative Pricing Of Publicly Traded U.S. Electric Utility Companies, Nicholas Stephen Jewczyn

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

In the financial turmoil of 2008, U.S. firms reported debt-ratios that differed from the debt-ratios calculated from balance sheets. The problem is that investors bought common stock expecting initial investment return and lost money when companies delisted. The purpose of this quantitative study was to determine sample securities pricing with the application of synthetic assets and debt accrued. Addressed in the research questions was whether those securities were (a) underpriced compared with return-on-assets (ROA), (b) overpriced compared with ROA, (c) a debt-ratio higher than 60% and also overpriced, (d) underpriced with a synthetic asset added, or (e) related by relative …

The Impact Of Paternalism And Organizational Collectivism In Multinational And Family-Owned Firms In Turkey, Jennifer Schroeder

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This correlational study examined the influences of paternalistic leadership behavior (PL) and organizational collectivism (measured at the employee level) on employee reported LMX, job satisfaction and organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) in two types of organizations (family-owned firms and multinational organizations) in Turkey. Survey data were collected from (N = 154) employees in family-owned and (N = 159) employees in multinational firms (MNCs). Employees in family-owned firms reported significantly higher levels of PL, organizational collectivism, LMX, and OCBs. Further examination revealed additional differences by organization type, with the family-owned sample showing no significant relationships between study variables and OCBs, in contrast …

Institutional Investors And Corporate Financial Policies, Ricky William Scott

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Institutional investors influence corporate payout and research and development (R&D) investment policies. Higher payouts are encouraged by institutional investors, especially in firms with high free cash flow and poor investment opportunities. They also positively influence stock repurchases, particularly in firms with high information asymmetry. The substitution of stock repurchases for dividends as a percentage of total payout is encouraged by institutional investors. Institutional owners persuade firm management to increase research and development (R&D) investment overall and specifically in firms with higher stock liquidity, higher information asymmetry, lower free cash flow, and better investment opportunities. Institutional investors decrease agency costs in …

Using Stratified Item Selection To Reduce The Number Of Items Rated In Standard Setting, Tiffany Nicole Smith

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The primary purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of stratified item sampling in order to reduce the number of items needed in Modified Angoff standard setting studies. Representative subsets of items were extracted from a total of 30 full-length tests based upon content weights, item difficulty, and item discrimination. Cut scores obtained from various size subsets of each test were compared to the full-length test cut score as a measure of generalizability. Applied sampling results indicated that 50% of the full-length test is sufficient to obtain cut scores within one standard error of estimate (SEE) of the …

Ethnic Identities Among Second-Generation Haitian Young Adults In Tampa Bay, Florida: An Analysis Of The Reported Influence Of Ethnic Organizational Involvement On Disaster Response After The Earthquake Of 2010, Herrica Telus

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Drawing upon 20 in-depth interviews with second generation Haitian young adults, I examined the ethnic identities and the involvement in ethnic organizations of the respondents. This study pays particular attention to how involvement in ethnic organizations influenced how the second generation Haitians believed the earthquake affected their identities and how they ultimately responded to the earthquake. Several of the findings revealed differences in how and why the respondents chose to ethnically identify such as Haitian, Haitian-American, black Haitian. The respondents' choice to join an ethnic organization was driven by different desires but the perceived influence of the organization on their …

A Comparative Study Of How Social Media And Web 2.0 Tools, Such As Facebook, Twitter And Viral Marketing, Can Be Used By Small Businesses, To Integrate A Business Strategy Of Augmenting The Company Profile And Awareness With Their Publics, Robyn Foley

Theses

The object of this dissertation was to explore the public relations techniques implemented by small businesses located in Cork.

The Effectiveness Of Food Tourism Branding: The Case Of Kinsale, The Gourmet Food Capital Of The South., Lisa O'Riordan

Theses

Kinsale is a small fishing village in West Cork. During the summer months, the population increases from three thousand to over twelve thousand, due to the influx of tourists. This may be attributed, in no small way, to Kinsale’s reputation as the gourmet capital of Ireland. Kinsale has been at the core of Ireland’s food circles for many years, and has successfully branded itself as a food tourism destination.

Despite Ireland’s long association with agriculture, food tourism is a relatively unknown concept in the country. Food tourism includes visiting food producers, attending food festivals, restaurants and specific locations for food …

The Marketing Of Toys To Children In Ireland: The Parents' Perspective, Derarca O'Shea

Theses

Children, as a target audience are increasingly attractive to marketers for many reasons. Firstly, children represent an important demographic to marketers, they have their own purchasing power; they influence their parents buying decisions and are the adult consumer of the future (McNeal, 1999). Secondly, the children’s market is ever expanding and marketers see opportunities to reap the rewards by targeting their products at children in an effort to increase sales. Thirdly, children between the ages of 2-11 see more than 25,000 advertisements a year on television alone and until the age of eight years, children do not understand advertisements’ persuasive …

A Study Of The Pr & Marketing Tactics Used In The Gaming Industry., David Hurley

Theses

The gaming industry in Ireland has changed greatly in the last 20 years. The way in which we communicate has also changed greatly in this time due to technological advancements. This advanced technology has greatly changed the way in which the gaming industry works, as there has been a massive increase in popularity in recent years thanks to the advent of online gaming.

This study aims to examine and gain an understanding of the public relations and marketing tactics being promoted by both game developers and the organisations that supply them. It also assesses the overall impact the gaming industry …

It Takes A Community To Change A Broken System: Using An Inter-Organizational Collaborative Group To Ensure All Oakland Students Graduate From High School, Nyeisha T. Dewitt

Doctoral Dissertations

This qualitative study documents the formation and interactions of an inter-organizational collaborative group, Oakland's Promise Alliance, to determine if there were environmental and community factors that contributed to the success of the collaborative. The research examines how various participatory activities and group interactions used during the relationship-building phase of the groups' development helped strengthen the group over time. Lastly this study identifies the specific, preexisting characteristics of the Oakland community that affect the propensity for change.

Employing the participatory action research method, 9 of the 13 members of the executive committee voluntarily participated in qualitative interviews and group dialogue to …

Internal Control Quality And Information Asymmetry In The Secondary Loan Market, Dina El-Mahdy

Theses and Dissertations

There are four primary objectives of this study. First, it examines the association between the disclosure of the Internal Control Deficiencies (ICDs), as a proxy for the internal control quality, and information asymmetry (IA) in the secondary loan market. Second, it identifies which types of ICDs exacerbate conditions of information asymmetry in the secondary loan market. Third, it investigates whether firms that remediate or take corrective actions to address ICDs lead to a reduction in information asymmetry in the market. Finally, it examines the effect of the loan specific characteristics such as debt covenants, credit rating and number of lenders …

Leading With Emotional Labor And Affective Leadership Climate As Antecedents To Entrepreneurial Effectiveness, John Batchelor

Theses and Dissertations

This study finds leader genuine emotion does influence firm performance in two ways. First it can result in positive effect on subordinate attitude which, in turn, increases firm performance. Second, it can result in negative direct effect on firm performance after controlling for the indirect effects just mentioned. These results are interpreted herein to provide support to the claims by many (Ashforth & Humphrey, 1993; Gardner et al., 2009a; Humphrey et al., 2008; Hunt et al., 2008) that properly managed genuine leader emotion should lead to positive outcomes and improperly managed genuine leader emotion should lead to negative outcomes. Here, …

Connective Leadership: The Chief Nursing Officers' Relationship With Staff Nurses, Mary Ellen Clyne

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

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An Empirical Investigation Of Decision Aids To Improve Auditor Effectiveness In Analytical Review, Robert N. Marley

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

There is considerable evidence in the audit literature that even though auditors usually identify the relevant information needed to propose and select the correct cause of an unexpected fluctuation, they frequently do not propose the correct cause, and even when they do propose the correct cause, they often fail to select it. I suggest that working memory limitations might be a factor contributing to this analytical review paradox. Consequently, this study investigates whether two new decision aids, designed from Cognitive Load Theory, reduce auditors' cognitive load during analytical review, freeing cognitive resources for problem solving, and ultimately leading to improved …

In The Midst Of Organizational Change: A Survey Of Employee Perceptions Toward Separate Accreditation For Regional Campuses At The University Of South Florida, Rhonda S. Moraca

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to identify how employees in the University of South Florida System (USF System) perceived changes in their organizations and the system as a result of having separate accreditation for each campus in the USF System. This survey research provided a "snapshot" of employee perceptions at a particular point in time. The study was unique because it provided a picture of the perceptions of employees while each campus was at a different point in the organizational change process. The theoretical concept from Bolman and Deal's (2003) four frame theory was used to develop the dependent …

Capital Structure, Credit Ratings, And Sarbanes-Oxley, Kelly E. Carter

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Since Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) is an exogenous shock to the information environment of U.S.-listed firms, those firms might adjust their capital structures to reflect the new information environment. Using univariate and multivariate tests, including differences-in-differences, I examine SOX's effect on the capital structure of U.S.-listed firms relative to Canadian firms listed in Canada, which are treated as control firms since they are not subject to SOX. The results indicate that, after the passage of SOX, U.S.-listed firms raise their long-term debt ratios by two to three percentage points, relative to the control group. U.S. firms listed in the U.S. drive this …