Business Commons^™

The Relationship Between High Risk Athletes Risk Perception Of Adventurous Activities, Their Travel Destinations And Their Vacation Travel Patterns, Tanir Magen

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Adventure tourism is a growing market segment in the US; the decision to participate in adventurous activities and the selection of risky destinations while on vacation involves ones risk perception about the physical risks that can lead to fatal results from these activities. Existing literature suggest that risk perception is a determinate in choosing a leisure activity and destination while on vacation and that level of tolerance to uncertainty can determine travel behavior (Floyd & Gibson, 2004; Fuchs & Reichel, 2006; Hofstede, 2001; Iso- Ahola, 1980, 1982; Money & Crotts, 2003; Reisinger & Mavondo, 2005). People who have high tolerance …

Camping: A Positive Developmental Context For Youth With Disabilities/Serious Illness, Christopher T. Troxell

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The paper will examine how elements of youth development can enhance the camp experience, so that new camps for youth with disabilities and/or serious illness, such as Flying Horse Farms, can start with a solid knowledge base of what works and why it works. Also, even though the paper is geared toward these specific types of camps, part of its recommendation could be modified to fit the purpose of any camp.

Taxonomy Of Knowedge Management Research In Hospitality And Tourism, Henner Nehles

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The hospitality industry is operating in an ever increasing knowledge-based economy, where hotels have to increase customer satisfaction and retention levels, lower employees turnover rates and operating expenses, maximize profits and strive to gain a sustainable competitive advantage. “Knowledge management caters to the critical issues of organizational adaptation, survival, and competence in the face of increasingly discontinuous environmental change. Essentially, it embodies organizational processes that seek synergistic combinations of data and information processing capacity of information technologies, and the creative and innovative capacity of human beings” (Civi, 2000, p.166). Knowledge Management (KM) is not a new concept. It has its …

Socio-Demographic And Financial Predictors Of Discharged Chapter 12 Bankruptcies For Utah, Idaho, And Wyoming, Jessica Johnson

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The purpose of this study was to examine the socio-demographic and financial characteristics that were associated with the likelihood of a discharge among Chapter 12 bankruptcy filers in Utah, Idaho, and Wyoming. Previous bankruptcy studies conducted in Utah have looked at the same associations in Chapter 7 and Chapter 13. This study contains individual filer-level data from 158 Chapter 12 bankruptcy cases filed in Utah, Idaho, and Wyoming between 1997 and 2005. These cases were accessed through the Web-PACER system, a database of imaged court documents filed in district bankruptcy courts. Free access to this system was given by the …

A Comparison Of The Economic Profitability Of Specified Risk Management Alternatives For Intermountain West Farmers, Cody D. Bingham

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The purpose of this research is to provide quantitative and limited qualitative analysis for the United States Intermountain West on the economic effectiveness of risk management alternatives in an agricultural operation. This research is not meant to be an exhaustive comparison of every potential combination of alternatives and risk scenarios. Instead, specific parameters such as farm size, crops grown, risk attitudes and risk management strategies are set to guide the research and offer a basis of comparison.

This research evaluates several levels of coverage using Multiple Peril Crop Insurance, Crop Revenue Coverage Insurance, Adjusted Gross Revenue – Lite Insurance and …

Employeer And Recruiter Use Of Social Networking Websites As A Candidate Screening Tool, Janelle L. Harrison

Communication & Leadership Dissertations and Theses

In today’s changing job market, employers and recruiters are looking to new technological methods of evaluating potential job candidates. One of these technologies is the use of social networking websites. This thesis examines the frequency to which this practice is used and also the specific behaviors looked for when checking candidate profiles. It also investigates the awareness and opinions of job seekers who have social networking profiles. Data analysis of the employer/recruiter questionnaire revealed that most employers and recruiters admit to using social networking websites as a candidate evaluation tool at least some of the time. Behaviors examined were varied …

Downtown Revitalization: Consumers' And City Planners' Perceived Barriers To Integrating Large-Scale Retail Into The Downtown, Jennifer M. Donofrio

Master's Theses

Statement of Problem

Revitalization of downtowns across America continues to be challenged by the shift to the suburbs. The barriers to integrating large-scale retail in a small, medium, and large city downtown were examined.

Forces of Data

The System View Planning Theory (Taylor, 1998) guided the study of city planners’ and consumers’ perceived barriers to integrating large scale retail into the downtown. In order to ascertain the barriers to integrating large-scale retail into the downtown intercept-surveys with consumers (n=30, responded to the intercept survey in each city) and interviews with city planners were conducted.

Conclusion Reached

Some significant differences were …

Safety-Focused Altruism: Valuing The Lives Of Others, Kevin Lee Brady

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The value of statistical life is an estimate of the monetary benefits of preventing an anonymous death. Society's willingness to pay to eliminate private health risks determines agencies' value-of-statistical-life estimates. Most estimates ignore society's willingness to pay to eliminate others' health risks. There are two possible reasons. First, altruism does not exist: Peter is not willing to pay to save Paul's life. The second possible reason is a bit more complicated. Certain economists argue that increasing benefit estimates to account for altruism involves double-counting.

The purpose of this thesis is to evaluate these possibilities. Accounting for altruism, it turns out, …

Managing Cultural Diversity In Hospitality Industry, Yi Gong

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Cultural diversity has become a major issue in the hospitality industry of the United States. This paper focuses on analyzing the change faces and current status of the cultural diversity in the hospitality workplaces, discussing the opportunities, benefits and challenges from the culturally diverse workforce, and providing practical recommendations that might help human resource managers to successfully dear with cultural diversity issues. Based on the analysis of cultural diversity, this paper creates a cultural diversity training module for a graduate human resource course or a hospitality company training program that aims at facilitating trainees to increase cultural diversity awareness and …

Rebranding: A Case Study Of A Business Hotel In Singapore, Guat Loo Ooi

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This paper examined the process of service rebranding through various studies of corporate rebranding and service branding. This paper used exploratory case study to gain insight of an actual service rebranding of a business luxury class hotel, Royal Plaza on Scotts. Information from in-dept interviews with the Marketing and Brand Director was used to understand the various elements of the service rebranding process. The study showed that the actual service brand revitalisation of the hotel involved a combination of elements in the corporate rebranding and service branding processes. The study showed that the process of making changes to service brand …

Contribution Of Family Leisure To Family Functioning Among Families With Adolescents In Mental Health Treatment, Jasmine Aileen Nutter

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between family leisure involvement and family functioning among families with an adolescent in mental health treatment. The sample (N=181) was obtained by sampling parents and adolescents enrolled in mental health treatment at Heritage Schools. Of the 181 participants, 52 cases consisted of matched parent and youth responses, 24 cases consisted of just parent responses, and 53 cases consisted of just adolescent responses. It was hypothesized that there would be a relationship between family leisure involvement and family functioning among families with youth in mental health treatment, and that when comparing …

Impact Of Offshore Outsourcing On Competitive Advantage Of U.S. Multinational Corporations, Yoram Benit

Graduate Student Dissertations, Theses, Capstones, and Portfolios

Offshore outsourcing became a common business practice by most U.S. and Western businesses after the Internet became viable. It is expected that by 2015 the U.S. market will outsource 3.3 million employment opportunities and will pay an estimated $136 billion in salaries to Asian countries (Hemphill, 2004). Outsourcing became a necessity for corporations to reduce cost and maintain competitiveness in the marketplace, but its effectiveness in achieving superior performance and competitive advantage needs to be explored.

The relationship among offshore outsourcing, market freedom, and competitive advantage is an important issue for multinational corporations to conduct business and gain competitive advantage. …

An Attribute Model For Analyzing The Relative Value, Market Share And Yearly Shipments Of Newly Produced General Aviation Airplanes, Mitchell R. Cannon

Graduate Student Dissertations, Theses, Capstones, and Portfolios

The airplane manufacturing industry has evolved into a low production rate –high unit price environment. The ability of manufacturers to easily and quickly estimate airplane market value, market share and yearly shipments during the conceptual design phase of product development has become increasingly important. The purpose of this review was to explore the influence attributes affecting the value of newly produced general aviation airplanes utilizing attribute based product valuation, market share and yearly shipments regression models.

Conclusions derived from the critical analysis are: (1) product valuation models exist and are abundant, (2) many of the product valuation models are either …

Lean Six Sigma As A Source Of Competitive Advantage, Alessandro Giorgio Cavallini

Theses and Dissertations

Anecdotal data affirms that companies applying Lean Six Sigma in their operations not only deliver higher quality products and services, but also obtain superior financial results. The goal of this research was to empirically verify anecdotal data. The study proposed to analyze a group of publicly traded manufacturing companies with the intent of verifying if a correlation exists between companies being lean and the attainment of superior returns on investments. The researcher performed a series of statistical tests comparing key Financial Performance Indicators (FPI) extracted from annual reports (10-K) from a large pool of companies. The outcome of this study …

A Balanced Scorecard Approach To Evaluate Enterprise Resource Planning Of Morehead State University, Milind Patil

Morehead State Theses and Dissertations

A thesis presented to the faculty of the College of Science and Technology at Morehead State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Science by Milind Patil on November 10, 2008.

Protecting Investment, Profit, And Personnel: Corporations As Social Change Agents, Carole C. Fotino

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This paper describes a three-level toolkit - The Investment Sustainability Toolkit. The Toolkit assists firms in improving the efficacy of one segment of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiative by creating at the first level, a strategy of conflict prevention. This strategy is followed by Common Elements of Conflict that Resolves/Becomes Violent, and Key Areas for Stabilization as Level II. The third and final level of the toolkit describes specific initiatives for increasing success, through The Screening Checklist.

The paper assesses through case study, the efforts of Firestone, Inc. in Liberia regarding regional development, stabilization, and economic development. This is done …

The Evolution Of Individual Needs On Job Satisfaction Of The Fist Year Soldier., Lee Beng Khuan

Student Works (2010-2019)

The Malaysian Army needs to have a balance and credible force to protect the country sovereignty from external threat and to protect its country natural resources and interest from others intervention. The Army through its modernization program purchased the hardware, conducting training and exercises internally or externally, the human resource played a crucial part. The disciplinary cases committed by the soldiers are on the rise such cases are absentees, criminal cases, loan defaulter etc and all those problems has caused time wastage and the resources that been used to train the soldier had stretched its capabilities and economy of effort. …

Proposing Additional Questions To Understand A Destination’S Image And Its Relationship With A Business Travelers’ Socio-Economic And Demographic Profile: Specifically, The Case Of Las Vegas, Yohan Lee

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Based on reviewed results of visitor profile reports from Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA) and other related literature, this study concentrated on developing additional and helpful questions to measure Las Vegas business travelers’ leisure needs and their perceived image of LVCVA. These questions mainly covered the areas, which were not covered by LVCVA survey questionnaire. Both quantitative and qualitative methods were utilized to create these additional questions. Thirty seven leisure attributes were used to measure business travelers’ general travel experiences. Thirty eight leisure attributes were used to measure business travelers’ perceived overall image of Las Vegas. Three open-ended …

Optimal Lot-Sizing, Pricing, And Product Intergenerational Lifestyle Decisions For The Case Of Disruptive Innovations In Fashion, Ryan Samuel Sale

Doctoral Dissertations

The objective of this dissertation is to determine production schedules, production quantities, selling prices, and new product introduction timing to fulfill deterministic price-dependent demand for a series of products in such a way as to maximize profit per period.

In order to accomplish the above task, some main assumptions are made. First, it is assumed that the series of products being considered are associated with sequential non-disruptive innovations in technology as well as disruptive innovations in fashion. That is to say, the products represent subsequent generations in the same family of products in an industry that experiences repeated minor technological …

A Forgiving Workplace: An Investigation Of Forgiveness Climate, Individual Differences And Workplace Outcomes, Susie Cox

Doctoral Dissertations

Although forgiveness has been studied for centuries, it is a relatively new area of study in organizational behavior. Organizational climate has a history of influencing individual behaviors. This dissertation considers how a climate of forgiveness may foster a willingness to forgive in individuals. A measure of forgiveness climate is developed and empirically examined. The results of this study support the hypothesis that a cohesive/supportive climate and a trustworthy/integrity climate relate to a climate of forgiveness. Furthermore, this study examines the effects of climate on willingness to forgive. A scenario-based scale to measure willingness to forgive workplace offenses is developed. Willingness …

Developing A Comprehensive Training Guide For Dealers In The Gaming Sector Of The Hospitality Industry In Las Vegas, David Lee

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Given that repeat business is at the core of profitable operations, particularly in the service industry, the purpose of this paper is to develop a comprehensive training guide for dealers in the gaming sector of the hospitality industry in Las Vegas. The comprehensive training guide will focus on customer service satisfaction to increase loyalty and add value to the Service Profit Chain (SPC). The efforts to develop and then implement this comprehensive training manual is to produce higher rates of repeat business, reflected in higher returns and overall profits. Therefore upon implementation, this comprehensive training manual will be the cornerstone …

Engineering Management Framework In Support Of Modeling & Simulation Application For Domain Specific Procurement, Thomas Guy Litwin

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

A strategic process is desirable for project-based organizations in order for them to be efficient and effective when developing Modeling & Simulation (M&S) systems. This thesis proposes an overarching process that combines traditional M&S and Engineering Management methodologies in a new framework to support M&S organizations during the procurement process.

This thesis proposes both a Strategic Project Management Process (SPMP) and a systems engineering process for M&S federation development projects. The systems engineering process utilizes the artifacts of Model Driven Architecture (MDA) to support building M&S federations driven by operational requirements. Detailed research of this systems engineering process revealed a …

Customization Vs. Standardization In Global Hotel Expansion, Nenad Praporski

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

There are numerous challenges that an international hotel chain faces when opening a property in a foreign country. The company’s response to those challenges will determine the new hotel’s overall success rate. This will in turn directly affect the corporation’s profit levels. The critical issue of this project is to define to what extent the world’s largest hotel chains utilize the theories of customization and standardization when designing a business strategy for a new property. In order to truly grasp the concept, it is essential for one to value the importance of brand standard in regards to globalization in the …

An Overview Of Change Management In The Hospitality Industry, Jennifer Lee

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

An organization operates based on shifting circumstances, both internal and external. Such a dynamic environment demands adaptability within the organization and consequently, capabilities to absorb inevitable change. Such focus requires the commitment of an organization’s staff. In the hospitality industry, this is especially so, considering the labor-intensive operations that respond to the volatile sales and the seasonality of a perishable good. This paper considers critical issues in change management that are relevant to the hospitality industry. Research studies in change management over the last several years will be identified and analyzed. In addition, case studies which support common findings will …

Meeting Planning Basics: A Guide For Administrative Professionals, Larissa J. Schultz

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Planning meetings and events is a job function that requires skills and knowledge of the meeting management industry. In today’s economy and within many organizations across the globe, both corporate and association meeting planning is a job function that is frequently being seen as a task that an administrative professional can take on in addition to their other workload. While in many instances this may seem like the most efficient and cost-effective route for organizations to undertake, in the long-run it can actually cost the organization more – in both time and money. In addition, it can lead to poorly …

An Integrated Knowledge Discovery And Data Mining Process Model, Sumana Sharma

Theses and Dissertations

Enterprise decision making is continuously transforming in the wake of ever increasing amounts of data. Organizations are collecting massive amounts of data in their quest for knowledge nuggets in form of novel, interesting, understandable patterns that underlie these data. The search for knowledge is a multi-step process comprising of various phases including development of domain (business) understanding, data understanding, data preparation, modeling, evaluation and ultimately, the deployment of the discovered knowledge. These phases are represented in form of Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining (KDDM) Process Models that are meant to provide explicit support towards execution of the complex and iterative …

The Effects Of Reputation Threat And Whistle-Blowing Report Source On Chief Audit Executives' Investigation Decisions, Cynthia Guthrie

Theses and Dissertations

This study examines the effects of reputation threats and anonymous whistle-blowing channels on Chief Audit Executives’ (CAEs) decisions to investigate whistle-blowing allegations. Participants were 94 CAEs and Deputy CAEs from publicly traded companies in the eastern half of the United States. Participants received whistle-blowing reports from either an anonymous or a non-anonymous source. In the high reputation threat condition the whistle-blowing report alleged that the wrongdoing was perpetrated by the exploitation of substantial weaknesses in internal controls that had been previously evaluated by external auditors and the internal audit function. The report in the lower threat condition alleged that the …

The Performance Effects Of Latent Factors On Assimilation Of Commercial Open-Source Erp Software On Small-Medium Enterprises, Sandra Cereola

Theses and Dissertations

This study tests a theoretical model developed to investigate the impact of assimilation of commercial open source enterprise resource planning software (COSES) in small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). Specifically, the model explains how the top management team’s (TMT’s) information technology (IT) knowledge and experience impact both assimilation and firm performance. The hypotheses were tested using survey data from SMEs that have implemented COSES. Results from structural equation modeling suggest that SMEs benefit, through higher levels of assimilation and performance, from adopting innovative enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems such as COSES when they have a TMT that has experience with …

Acceptance Of Systems Development Methodologies: Testing A Theoretically Integrated Model, Nancy A. Bonner

Information Systems & Operations Management Dissertations - Archive

Industry reports continue to portray a dismal picture of software development project success. Software projects continue to be over budget, overdue and lacking in quality and desired functionality. A variety of innovative methodologies and tools have been introduced to aid in improving the software development process. However, there has been reluctance to commit to their usage. The goal of this research is to examine the reasons a software developer makes a commitment to use a given development methodology. We used a theoretically integrated approach to study this phenomenon, drawing on theories from the fields of marketing as well as psychology. …

Software Acquisition Improvement In The Aeronautical Systems Center, William A. Pogorzelski

Theses and Dissertations

In the past 20 years, over 150 recommendations have been made to improve software systems development by organizations such as the Defense Science Board, National Research Council and the U.S. General Accountability Office. It has been discovered that many of these recommendation have remained unimplemented. This research had the purpose of confirming the application of these previous recommendations to improve software acquisition in the Aeronautical Systems Center. This was accomplished through interviews with 20 software practitioners in the acquisition community and the review of relevant literature. Through the analysis of the interviews and literature, this research was able to confirm …