Business Commons^™

Service Dimensions Of Service Quality Impacting Customer Satisfaction Of Fine Dining Restaurants In Singapore, Ko King Lily Harr

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This paper is an exploratory study of customer satisfaction of fine dining restaurants in Singapore. Since there is a causal relationship between customer satisfaction and service quality and services literature and studies have shown that service quality is an antecedent of customer satisfaction, this paper seeks to find out the service dimensions of service quality, which lead to higher levels of customer satisfaction. This study suggested that the service dimensions of assurance, empathy and tangibles are the most important to customers’ evaluation of service quality, and thus, may have a positive influence customer satisfaction. The service aspects of each of …

Online Leisure Hotel Selection Criteria And Booking Behavior Of Young Middle-Income Singaporeans, Kin Wai Lee

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The Internet has changed the face of purchasing and customer behaviour over the last decade or so. Traditional concepts of marketing must be reviewed and businesses must be ready to fully embrace the online marketplace. The hotel industry is no different and evidently, has much to gain from this new medium with online sales figures climbing annually (Carroll & Sileo, 2007; PhoCusWright, 2006).

Studies have shown that more and more consumers are moving towards the Internet to find their products and services and ultimately making the purchase online (Starkov & Price, 2003). Singaporeans make for interesting subjects in this area, …

Risk Classification And Ratemaking In Insurance, Erin Conrad

Honors Program Theses

Actuaries in insurance companies strive to put a price tag on future risk. They use a variety of analyses and models to accurately price insurance products. Models discussed in this paper include the pure premium method, the loss ratio method, the minimum bias procedure, and generalized linear models. Each of these pricing mechanisms are used to determine accurate and actuarially sound rates for insurance products. Competition in the industry forces companies to find more refined ways to predict the future costs of a risk. Classification systems allow companies to include a variety of rating variables so that each risk is …

Fundamental Stock Market Analysis Tool, Rakshith Varadaraju

Honors Program Theses

There are many sources for stock market information and an investor can tap into the television or online media to sync up with current market news. Popular sources are news channels such as CNBC or CNN who spend the better part of the day evaluating the stock market. The internet is filled with a wealth of data ranging from historical to current market information. Added to this information are countless websites that make predictions on what stocks should be bought or sold. The challenge with all of this information is to figure out which sources are actually valid and can …

Management Challenges Of A Culturally Diverse Workforce In The Irish Hotel Sector: An Investigative Study Of Four And Five Star Hotels In Cork, Amy Jordan

Theses

In recent years Ireland has changed from a nation of emigration to one of immigration, facilitated by the Irish Celtic Tiger, the globalisation of labour markets and the erosion of labour restrictions across frontiers. Thus there is increased employee diversity in the Irish work environment, with many different races, cultures, norms, values and religions now in evidence in the Irish workforce. These changes have a significant effect on managers as the Irish workplace becomes increasingly culturally heterogeneous, and forms the basis for change in management practice.

Primary research was undertaken in the form of six interviews with hotel managers to …

Power Relationships In Information Systems Security Policy Formulation And Implementation, Michael Stephen Lapke

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis argues that organizational power impacts the development and implementation of Information Systems (IS) Security policy. The motivation for this research stems from the continuing concern of ineffective security in organizations, leading to significant monetary losses. IS researchers have contended that ineffective IS Security policy is a precursor to ineffective IS Security (Loch et al. 1992; Whitman et al. 2001; David 2002; Solms and Solms 2004). Beyond this pragmatic aspect, there is a gap in the literature concerning power relationships and IS Security policy. This research intends to bridge the gap. The dissertation is a two phased study whereby …

Toward An Effective And Humane Counterinsurgency, Adam Patrick Shilling

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Preliminary research isolated a set of thirteen candidate principles that military officers need to understand to conduct effective and humane counterinsurgency. A meta-synthesis of eight classical theorists of counterinsurgency sought support for and consensus on these principles and discovered considerable consensus on all of them. Therefore, this set could be considered a “classical” model of counterinsurgency for use in counterinsurgency campaign planning. The contemporary global political environment is very different from that the classical theorists faced. Therefore, additional research attempted to understand the changes in the environment and in the nature of insurgency to determine the changes necessary to update …

Essay 1: Does Ownership Structure Matter? Essay 2: Asset Sale In Mutual Fund Industry, Fan Chen

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The dissertation studies two aspects of the U.S. registered investment companies. The first essay analyzes the ownership and organizational structure aspect while the second essay investigates the restructure events of those investment companies. We find sellers from mutual fund asset sales are mainly financial conglomerates. Funds under management of those conglomerates experience poor performance during the period prior to asset sales. On the other hand, acquirers are generally highly focused mutual fund companies. Funds acquired by these focused entities experience improvement in both fund performance and operational efficiency. From the analysis of organizational structure, funds managed by focused mutual fund …

A Phenomenological Study Of Couples Who Pursue Infertility And The Impact On Their Lives, Mary Catherine Fontenot

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this qualitative study was to describe the lived experience of couples residing in Southeastern Louisiana who were diagnosed with infertility and underwent infertility treatments. The study was a phenomenological qualitative research design, with researcher-developed guiding questions to help direct interviews. The sample was purposeful and was drawn from the patient base of a local endocrinologist. The couples who participated were greater than 18 years of age and had discontinued treatment one year prior to implementation of the study. Two married couples participated in the study while only the women of the other three couples agreed to be …

Learning Styles And Student's Perception Of Teachers' Attitudes And Its Relation To Truancy Among African Americans Students In Secondary Education, Kenyetta Quenishia Nelson-Smith

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Many researchers have examined the effect of truancy and student achievement. However, there has been little or no focus on the effect of truancy and non-attendance among ethnic minorities. The current study examined how African American students’ learning styles and their perceptions of teachers’ attitudes toward them and the learning environment influenced their decision to become high truants. Additionally, the study sought to find if selected demographic factors had any relevance on the truancy rate of African American students. The researcher used several assessment instruments to measure the variables being tested. The Index of Learning Styles Questionnaire (ILS), developed by …

The Effect Of Consistency Of Price Promotion Cues On Retailer Credibility, Product Quality, Value Of A Deal And Purchase Intentions, Igor Makienko

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Research on price promotions suggests that higher discounts often result in more favorable deal evaluations. However, consumers’ reactions do not always follow a consistently linear path when evaluating the deal. Price promotions offering “too high” or “too low” value may result in adverse deal evaluations. In this dissertation we investigate consumers’ reactions and possible evaluations of price promotions when they are provided information on the two primary price promotion attributes - discount and time restrictions. If the price promotion attributes, acting as cues, are consistent with consumers’ expectations (e.g., a high discount with a short time period, or vice versa), …

The Impact Of Natural Disasters On Employee Turnover: The Shocks And After-Shocks Of Hurricane Katrina On It Professionals, James Davis

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Hurricane Katrina was the most destructive natural disaster in American history and created the need for organizations along the Gulf Coast to employ disaster management and recovery plans. With the ubiquitous nature of computers and technology, IT professionals were critical organizational assets in executing those plans in order to insure the safety and recovery of valuable information. The purpose of this study is to gain a deeper understanding of the impact natural disasters have on IT professionals and their subsequent turnover decisions. The theoretical guide for this study was the Unfolding Model of Turnover (Lee and Mitchell 1994) that identifies …

New Firm Emergence: The Significance Of Social Embeddedness And Resource Bootstrapping To The Process Of Nascent Firm Emergence, Warren Byabashaija

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Firm founding is an evolutionary process. Part of this process involves undertaking a series of gestation activities. Start-ups undertaking these activities are referred to as firms in gestation and the process is termed nascent entrepreneurship. Empirical evidence shows that more than half of firms in gestation do not survive the first eighteen months. One of the reasons given for this high failure rate is that firms in gestation are subject to what Stinchcombe (1965) called liability of newness because, as new creations, they lack evaluative performance history. One of the consequences of this liability of newness is that new firms …

Factors That Influence Traditional-Age College Students To Re-Enroll In Their Third Year At A Research Extensive University In The Southern Region Of The United States, Joseph M. Lutta

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Student retention is of policy significance to higher education systems. In the United States, student retention is a major problem in higher education affecting students, universities, and society. Most of the research on student retention has focused on first-year students. Little is known about the retention of college students after their first year. The primary purpose of this study was to determine the influence of selected demographic and academic characteristics on the decision of traditional-age, undergraduate students to re-enroll at a research-extensive university. The population was defined as all traditional-age undergraduate students who entered the selected university during the fall …

Managing The Characteristics Of Software Product Development Programs, Yuzhu Li

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Multiple related software development projects are often managed concurrently and systematically to deliver a complex software system. This approach of managing multiple interdependent projects together to achieve a common goal is called program management (Pellegrinelli, 1997). A software development program can generate the benefits that cannot be achieved by managing projects individually. The software product development program has the special characteristics such as complexity, uncertainty and interdependence (1995). A software product development program can play an active role in managing the uncertainty and interdependence in the software development process. This dissertation is designed to examine the external communication effectiveness of …

Understanding The Role Of Social Capital In Expertise Coordination In Information Systems Development (Isd) Teams, Shih-Chieh Hsu

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Information system development (ISD) project is a knowledge-intensive teamwork process which requires members to coordinate their expertise to generate the final outcome. Breakdown or coordination and insufficient knowledge integration have been reported as critical factors which lead to ISD project failure. Most existing coordination literature focus on the effect of administrative coordination mechanisms toward project performance which hints that more efforts are needed to understand expertise coordination and explore ways to improve it. Addressing the above issues, two studies in this dissertation attempt to understand expertise coordination within the IS development team based on social capital perspective. The first study, …

Property Tax Revenue Decline In The State Of California And The Implications: An Examination Of Selected Local Governments In The State Of California, Ryan M. Mauldin

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

The Center for Responsible Lending projects California local governments to experience a $107 billion dollar decrease in home values and taxable property rolls as a result of subprime mortgage related foreclosures [Lending, 2008]. Due to Proposition 13, property taxes do not account for a substantial portion of local government revenue. They do, however, constitute 53% of statewide K-14 funding, as stipulated by Proposition 98 (Education Revenue Augmentation Fund or ERAF). As a result of ERAF, local governments (defined as counties, cities, schools, and special districts) receive less money through a complex fund shifting process that offsets statewide general fund spending. …

Old Company Records: The Effect Of Custodial History On The Arrangement And Description Of Selected Archival Collections Of Business Records, Donna Leanne Holmes

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

This thesis takes up Terry Cook's idea that through their work, archivists are active shapers rather than passive keepers. In taking this idea further, this thesis discusses case studies comparing the custodial history of the records of four companies that were created in the seventeenth century. Consideration is given to how archival practitioners influenced the arrangement and description of the records of the Dutch East India Company (VOC), the English East India Company (EIC), the Royal African Company (RAC) and the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) during critical periods of their custodial history.

The Relationship Between Attributional Style And Information Technology Project Perception, Eric Kordt

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

The purpose of this research is to investigate the relationship between attributional style and Information Technology (IT) project perception at varying job responsibility levels. To achieve this thirty participants were recruited from a large government department in the three distinct job responsibility levels of support worker (i.e. individual who undertakes activities under general direction), line manager (i.e. individual who undertakes activities under limited direction and typically performs role of team leader) and executive manager (i.e. individual who undertakes activities that involve a high a level of management skill under broad direction) and interviewed using a modified Work Attributional Style Questionnaire …

The Hotel Guest Questionnaire: An Assessment Of Its Role As A Service Encounter Interface, Alfred W. Ogle

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

This exploratory study on hotel stakeholder behaviour uses a 'service innovation' approach to investigate how the hotel guest questionnaire can function in a way not previously considered in the hospitality management literature. viz as a remote service encounter interface between the hotel management and guest. The paper-based guest questionnaire. also commonly known as comment card. is an old hotel tradition that is the most widely used method or guest feedback elicitation by hotels. Primarily a method of measuring guest satisfaction. studies show that its inherent limitations as a survey Instrument result in inaccurate and ungeneralisable data. The trend for e-based …

Exploring The Relationship Between Organisational Culture And Planning Processes In Selected Western Australian Sport Associations, Sooyoung Sul Tcha

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

This study explored the effects of organisational culture on the planning processes of three state sport associations in Western Australia. Using the competing values framework of organisational culture and Chapman' s planning model, this study aimed to explore three research questions: (i) What are the demographic and organisational cultural profiles of the selected sport organisations? In particular, do professionals and volunteers share similar or different perceptions of the organisational cultures?; (ii) Wh~t are the development planning processes for each sport association? How does each association perceive the development planning processes?, and; (iii) How does organisational culture influence planning processes? To …

Dimensions Of Information Technology Governance: A Study Of Theory And Practice, Pui S. Ko

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

The emergence of corporate governance is the response to recent high profile collapses of organisations such as Enron and WorldCom. Because of the ubiquitous nature of Information Technology (IT) and its influence on organisational activities, IT governance is increasingly seen as an integral part of corporate governance. However, existing literature shows the lack of a common understanding of IT governance due to various perspectives held amongst academics and practitioners. For example, schools of thought group IT governance according to structure with an emphasis on control and co-ordination or process with an emphasis on capability and continuity. The purpose of this …

Textbook Bundling : Is It Really Worth The Sum Of Its Parts, Kati Simmons

Honors Theses

Studies have been conducted examining the impact of commodity bundling on company profits and the premium prices charged for these bundles. With recent news of the skyrocketing costs of higher education, it is critical to highlight the specific effects of commodity bundling on the prices of textbooks. A study performed by the Government Accountability Office in 2005 cited that a main cause of increasing textbook prices is the recent inclusion of textbook supplements such as software and workbooks. This paper investigates the impact that different types of supplements have on the overall price paid for the bundle. Aggregate sales data …

Marketing Seventh-Day Adventist Higher Education : College-Choice Motivators And Barriers, Vinita Sauder

Dissertations

Purpose. Approximately 75% of Seventh-day Adventist college-bound youth do not attend the church's 15 colleges in North America. This study explored the views of Adventist college-bound participants regarding the factors (motivators and barriers) that influence college choice.

Method. Utilizing a mixed methods approach, qualitative and quantitative data were collected in a sequential two-phase design. Insights from focus groups conducted in Los Angeles and Nashville guided the development of a nationwide telephone survey of college-bound Adventists. Three groups sorted by type of high school were identified from a sample size of 226 and compared in terms of awareness and college-choice motivators …

State Corporate Tax Policy: Is Tax Competition The Main Determinant?, Gabriel Ramón Serna

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

In the past few decades state corporate income tax policy and coordination/harmonization of corporate income taxes have been regularly discussed in the tax policy literature. The reason for this level of attention is that capital is assumed to be highly mobile across nations or unions with multiple jurisdictions with differential corporate tax rates (Bucovetsky, 1991; Cnossen, 2003; Frey & Eichenberger, 1996; Gordon, 1983; Isard, 1990; Keen & Marchand, 1997). Further, much of the literature focuses on states’ “race to the bottom” in terms of corporate income taxation or incentives to base capital in their jurisdictions, and the tendency for this …

Benchmarking The Board-Executive Director Relationship Of The Fayette Foundation, Jodie Butler Markey

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

The Fayette Foundation is a young, nonprofit organization in Lexington. Although it has only been incorporated for four years, it has already raised over one million dollars to fulfill the organization’s mission. The executive director has been with the organization for two years and believes that a strong relationship with the board is important for the success of the organization. As a result, the executive director would like to find out how to maximize the effectiveness of the board-executive director relationship.

The research question asks what makes an effective board-executive director relationship, as well as which elements of the organization …

Networks And Network Security, Michael Kuralt

Theses and Dissertations

In a world of ever-increasing security threats, companies have the difficult task of securing their networks from attack. One of the largest threats to a company is the users on its network. By educating its network administrators and employees about network threats, a company can lower its vulnerability to network attacks. Individual users also can benefit from understanding networks and network security by learning how to keep their computer and their information safe. Companies and users can stay safe by understanding how a network functions, what threats exist on the Internet, how to prevent and deal with attacks, and how …

Employee Performance Assessment In Quality Assurance, Rahul Jain

Master's Projects

Employee performance often determines the progress of a company. Poor appraisals and improper assessment directly effects employee satisfaction and impair company results. Many managers rely primarily on behavioral impressions without appropriately including factual information of the actual work done. There is clear benefit from procedures that elicit and use both factual and subjective criteria for assessment. Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) is a methodology that can be applied to complex decisions with multiple criteria [29]. AHP has the capability to combine both subjective and objective evaluation factors, thereby minimizing bias in decision making [29]. The methodology also allows subjective measures from …

Test For Infinite Variance In Stock Returns, Xian Ning Yan

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

The existence of second order moment or the finite variance is a commonly used assumption in financial time series analysis. We examine the validation of this condition for main stock index return series by applying the extreme value theory. We compare the performances of the adaptive Hill's estimator and the Smith's estimator for the tail index using Monte Carlo simulations for both i.i.d data and dependent data. The simulation results show that the Hill's estimator with adaptive data-based truncation number performs better in both cases. It has not only smaller bias but also smaller MSE when the true tail index …

The Cross-Section Of Stock Return And Volatility, Hongchao Han

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

There has been increasing research on the cross-sectional relation between stock return and volatility. Conclusions are, however, mixed, partially because volatility or variance is modeled or parameterized in various ways. This paper, by using the Jiang and Tian (2005)'s model-free method, estimates daily option implied volatility for all US individual stocks from 1996:01 to 2006:04, and then employs this information to extract monthly volatilities and their idiosyncratic parts for cross-sectional regression analyses. We follow the Fama and French (1992) cross-sectional regression procedure and show that each of the 4 monthly measures of change of total volatility, total volatility, expected idiosyncratic …