Business Commons^™

Consumer Shift: Examining Female Generation Y Consumers’ Activewear Consumption, Lauren Laporte

LSU Master's Theses

The onset of the Covid-19 pandemic resulted in a change to standard consumption patterns as consumers began prioritizing health and wellness, working remotely, and made a switch from material-based consumption practices to an experiential-value-based consumption mindset. Additionally, Covid-19 brought economic downturns, loss of jobs, and supply chain issues. Consequently, the activewear market demonstrated unclear results making it necessary to understand trends within the activewear market while also understanding consumer motivations to wear or not to wear activewear during these societal shifts. This research paper aims it’s focus on female members of Generation Y, a popular and growing market for activewear. …

Will Digital Fashion Be The New Normal In The Metaverse Era: Examining Consumers’ Perceptions Of Digital Fashion, Yanbo Zhang

LSU Master's Theses

Digital fashion might bring an innovative and revolutionary answer to address environmental and social issues in the textile and apparel industry because it could simultaneously deliver sustainability and fashionability. To stay in the lead in the fashion kingdom and maintain innovativeness, luxury fashion brands are embracing digital fashion. Instead of constantly balancing or trading off between exclusive values and accessibility, luxury brands could enhance both through digital fashion items. As such, investigating consumers’ perceptions and evaluations of digital fashion in general and luxury brands’ digital fashion in specific is critical to fueling digital fashion. Accordingly, the current research has twofold …

See Me From Behind The Screen: Workplace Ostracism In A Remote Environment, Quiméka Nicole Saunders

Dissertations

Workplace Ostracism is a common social phenomenon that impacts individuals of diverse backgrounds, across various industries, and cultural experiences. Literature to date highlights direct and indirect relationships of workplace ostracism, concerning the psychological and behavioral outcomes an individual may experience and the impact to organizational goals. Of existing literature, studies have focused on acts of ostracism conducted in face-to-face (F2F) environments or in F2F workplace situations. With the COVID-19 Pandemic, many companies were forced into teleworking situations, where work continues to be conducted outside of the central work office or facility (remote). With the shift in working environments, the prevalence …

How Feeling Like A Minority Affects Preferences For Autonomous Digital Interfaces, Ye Seul Kim

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines the novel aspect of minority perception and how feeling-like-a-minority influences the consumption of digital interfaces in a service context. The focus on the perception of minority consumers is important given greater emphasis on minority-related issues catalyzed by recent social events. Examining the effects on the choice likelihood for digital interfaces such as service robots is also relevant given the increasing widespread use of such technology. The findings across eight studies including six online studies and two field experiments demonstrate that individuals who perceive themselves as a minority in a service setting show defensive behavior by choosing a …

The Mediating Influence Of Organizational Trust On The Relationship Between Transformational Leadership And Job Satisfaction In The Virtual Workplace, Angela Daniels

Dissertations

Research has shown how leadership influences job satisfaction and organizational trust in the virtual workplace. With an increasing number of organizations shifting to these work environments, it is essential to study the effect of leadership on virtual workers. Prior studies suggest that leadership behaviors significantly impact job satisfaction (Hacker et al., 2019), and leadership plays a crucial role in inspiring employees to achieve the goals and objectives of the organization in a virtual workplace (Miller, 2020). Specifically, transformational leadership behaviors that shape the mindset and actions of employees are significant (Abelha et al., 2018). This study proposed a mediation model …

Utah's Inland Port: The Future Of Logistics In The Intermountain Region Or Gambling With Taxpayer Money, Austin Simonson

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Over the last 20 years, US imports and consumer demand have been steadily growing with no clear end in sight. Despite this, approximately 40% of all our containerized imports are processed through only two ports – the Port of Long Beach and the Port of Los Angeles. In 2021, these two locations alone moved over 10 million import containers. In order to help ease the strain on our nationwide supply chain – an issue that came clearly into view during the COVID-19 pandemic – in 2016, the University of Utah submitted an assessment regarding a possible inland port in the …

Our Voices: Getting To Know Autism - Creating An Informative Website For Autistic College Students, Ashley Wagner

Honors Theses

This study was done in effort to understand the thoughts and feelings of autistic adults relative to life transitions and resources available. We surveyed key stakeholders; specifically autistic students, but also family/caregivers of adults. Six surveys were created, each based upon different themes: camouflaging, life transitions, managing mental health, overstimulation, social communication, and family and caregiver perceptions. Our surveys were marketed on Western Michigan University’s campus and through social media and are still ongoing. Trends in the data, however, suggest that overall autistics have concerns about how their disabilities impact life in or shortly after college. Many respondents expressed they …

Elevating The Silicon Slopes, Joseph Evans

Undergraduate Honors Theses

From Utah’s humble beginnings in agriculture and mining, Utah has become an economic powerhouse in the United States, largely due to the rise of Silicon Slopes. Despite the successes of Silicon Slopes, there are still significant shortcomings related to diversity and inclusion in Silicon Slopes that must be remediated if it intends to achieve its economic aspirations and ensure its economic benefits flow to people of all types and backgrounds. This work outlines both the rise of Silicon Slopes as well as existing and potential private- and state-ordered solutions that may be implemented to overcome Silicon Slopes’ existing diversity and …

Transportation Managers’ Perceptions Of The Diffusion Of Innovation Within Logistics Clusters, Stephen Mcdonald Puryear

Dissertations

The human capital capacity for innovation is crucial for business success. Cluster theory posits that this capacity for innovation is enhanced by industrial clustering geographic proximity. The innovative capacity is expected to be facilitated by institutions for collaboration, informal knowledge flow, short feedback loops, and collective action regimes. Research on logistics clustering has supported this supposition. Still, no research has explicitly examined whether being physically located in a logistics cluster enhances a company’s human capital capacity for innovation.

This study uses the Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) approach to determine the innovative operational processes involved in the diffusion of innovation within …

Do Industries' Political Profiles Affect Their Portfolio Return Performance?, Shaddy S. Douidar

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The political profiles of an industry influence its performance due to its impact on industry-level investor sentiment and idiosyncratic risk. I form eight comprehensive political profile portfolios after double sorting on industry-level: (1) political geography proxied by political alignment, (2) corporate political strategies (CPS), proxied by donations to political action committees & lobbying expenditures, (3) and government interference, proxied by dependence on procurement contracts & federal regulations, and exhibit that an industries’ political profiles impact its returns. Industries with high political alignment, concentrated corporate political strategies, and low government interference, deemed the high-performance portfolio, earn an annualized alpha of 10.3428%, …

Diversity In Recruitment: The Role Of Realistic Website Job Previews For Racial And Ethnic Minority Applicants, Jennifer Saucedo

Dissertations and Theses

Prior research has examined the effects of diversity-related recruitment on racial and ethnic minority applicants, but less research has focused on how objective and realistic information about diversity influences applicant outcomes. Drawing from previous literature on realistic job previews (RJPs) and social identity theory (SIT), the current study investigates how recruitment material with objective racial demographic information (i.e., percentage of racial minorities employed) and leader diversity testimonials (i.e., positive or realistic) on diversity recruitment webpages affect racial and ethnic minority applicant outcomes (i.e., organizational attraction, sense of fit, and organizational trust) using a 3x2 between-person experimental design. Finally, the study …

The Power Of Algorithms And Big Data: A Marketing Perspective On Consumer Manipulation In Business, Jordan C'Rene Reuille-Dupont

University Honors Theses

In marketing, predictive analytics molds big data into tools that can create demographics, target pleasurable neuromodulator chemicals like dopamine, and influence individual and societal behavior patterns. Professionals and scholars alike can use machine-based computation to transform big data into usable knowledge that accurately represents and tracks human behavior. In the past couple of decades this has led to the acceleration of the attention economy and has fueled the age of information. It has pushed countries to not only enforce new laws and regulations, but also race to secure control over data science technologies. The research for this thesis will ultimately …

The Impact Of Case Management Intervention For Insured Asthma Patients In Louisiana, An Empirical Study, Mohamed Mohamed Ohaiba

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Asthma is a chronic condition whose symptoms are managed/prevented using medication and interventions. The overarching objective of this study was to evaluate the impact of patients' demographics on case management enrollment and healthcare utilization, as well as to develop machine learning models to predict high-cost patients.

To accomplish these goals, the Man-Whiteness test, the chi-squares test, logistic regression and odds ratios, and machine learning models were implemented. The average cost of the non-enrolled CM group was significantly higher than the enrolled group (p-value .0001). In addition, the non-enrolled groups had considerably more visits to the emergency department than the other …

The Dedicated Truck To Take You To The Train Station: A Case Study On Ram's Marketing Strategy Through The Hit Series, Yellowstone, Hailey Keidel

Experience Industry Management

A company’s marketing strategy is crucial to said company’s success and expansion throughout its lifecycle. When looking at the automotive industry and its marketing standards, RAM is taking a step beyond with its partnership with Yellowstone. The purpose of this study was to analyze RAM’s marketing strategy in the Paramount series, Yellowstone. A case study was conducted on RAM through a tool created by the researcher with data collected from RAM’s core site, Yellowstone’s core site, and a variety of news and statistic outlets. The results of this study determined that RAM’s marketing strategy is highly successful in connection with …

From Bali Beaches To Breathwork: A Comparative Analysis On Yoga Tourism Strategies Used By Bali’S Destination Marketing Organizations, Brooke R. Findlay

Experience Industry Management

Strategic marketing is crucial for the success of tourist destinations. When potential tourists research a location before visiting, they commonly click through the websites of various Destination Marketing Organizations (DMOs). This paper compares the marketing efforts of two (DMOs), the Bali Tourism Board (BTB) and Wonderful Indonesia, focusing on their use of social media and websites in promoting yoga tourism in Bali. Yoga tourism is an element of wellness tourism that attracts yogis from all over the world to practice yoga in spiritual locations. Bali increasingly grows in numbers of yoga tourists each season and is now a world-renowned yoga …

A New Era Of Distilling: How Dynamic Capabilities Drive Transformation In The Distilling Industry, Sean M. Scally Sr.

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The distilling industry has a rich history, starting from when people realized that by adding water, sugar, and starch together, they could develop a drink with alcohol that was safer to drink than the water all around them. Over several centuries, this discovery has grown into a significant industry worldwide. In the United States, the distilling industry went from a farm-based barter system to a multi-billion-dollar industry in 2020 (Schwarz, 2021). The sector has faced changes in regulations and other external factors that challenge how distilleries maintain market share, status, and internal challenges due to operational capabilities and market demands. …

A Study Of The Impact Of Data Intelligence On Software Delivery Performance, Yongdong Dong

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

With the rise of big data and artificial intelligence, data intelligence has gradually become the focus of academia and industry. Data intelligence has two obvious characteristics: big data drive and application scene drive. More and more enterprises extract valuable patterns contained in data with prediction and decision analysis methods and technologies such as large-scale data mining, machine learning and deep learning and use them to improve the management and decision in complex practice, so as to promote changes of new business modes, organizational structures and even business strategies, and improve the operational efficiency of organizations. However, there are few studies …

Study On Visibility Promotion For Regional High-End Hotels Based On The Value Co-Creation Theory, Pingan Luo

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

Regional high-end hotels play a great leading role in industry communication, tourism, and consumer culture in the area where they are located. However, regional high-end hotels rely on the area’s industry background and economic development for their survival and operations. Hence, their brand influence seldom spread outside the area. As a result, the limitations of brand awareness have been challenging the rapid development of regional high-end hotels. The existing research has not come to a clear theoretical response to this challenge. To enhance research in this field, this paper grounded on value co-creation theory posed one core question and three …

Dunites Wine Company: Digital Redesign, Alexandra Messner

Graphic Communication

This project is a digital redesign for Dunites Wine Company, a small San Luis Obispo wine brand. By improving their website usability and consistency, Dunites Wine Co. can generate excitement and awareness about their brand. The end deliverables will include photography, refreshed branding, and an updated website.

Garbage In ≠ Garbage Out: Exploring Gan Resilience To Image Training Set Degradations, Nicholas M. Crino

Theses and Dissertations

Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) have received increasing attention in recent years due to their ability to capture complex, high-dimensional data distributions without the need for extensive labeling. Since their conception in 2014, a wide array of GAN variants have been proposed featuring alternative architectures, optimizers, and loss functions with the goal of improving performance and training stability. While this research has yielded GAN variants robust to training set shrinkage and corruption, our research focuses on quantifying the resilience of a GAN architecture to specific modes of image degradation. We conduct systematic experimentation to determine empirically the effects of 10 fundamental …

The U.S. Army Officer-To-Unit Assignment Problem, Andrea L. Phillips

Theses and Dissertations

Every two to three years, U.S. Army officers must change duty stations, which entails a selection process based on preferences. Currently, officers are assigned to units using a stable-marriage algorithm. Two impracticalities occur within this process. First, officers are required to submit strictly ranked preferences, not allowing indifference among units. Second, the stable-marriage algorithm does not give flexibility to alternative priorities. This research focuses on two modifications to the current model. First, a mixed integer program is created that allows the user, U.S. Army Human Resources Command, to consider other priorities: unit preferences and maximum officer disappointment. Second, generated data …

If It Ain't Broke, Don't Fix It: Understanding The Value In Producing Film Adaptations And Movie Franchises, Courtney Mcdonald

University Honors Theses

The business of making movies is not an easy one; in an industry where very few see financial success, risk aversion often takes the wheel. In order to combat the immense amount of uncertainty, existing research has attempted to establish factors of film success, including actor star power and reviews. However, statistical studies evaluating these factors have produced consistently inconclusive results. To approach this idea from another perspective, this paper investigates two specific areas of film—movie adaptations and film franchises—that contain valuable properties not always as explicitly connected to box office results. While many movies are referenced, two film franchises …

Rate Effects In Aircraft Learning Curves, Caleb J. Ahern

Theses and Dissertations

Across the Department of Defense (DoD), a wide variety of analytical tools are employed by cost analysts to estimate weapon system costs. One of the techniques widely employed by practitioners is the learning curve (LC). Although learning curves have been widely studied, using rate-adjustments or production rate effects (PRE), their usage have only intermittently been evaluated in place of using the traditional learning curve. Previous studies analyzing production rate found mixed results. This research aims to examine aircraft production data to determine if production rate model is preferrable in United States Air Force programs. Additionally, this PRE research seeks to …

Transition Analysis Of Innovative Technologies Into Military Applications, Cristian J. Henandez-Rivera

Theses and Dissertations

The Department of Defense (DoD) invests over 1 billion dollars annually in Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) efforts. These SBIR efforts are similar to venture capital investments, where a transition beyond seed funding is considered a success. A baseline study of 2015-2018 Air Force SBIR investments indicates that 8.8% of the efforts secured long-term funding. Current data allows for an assessment of whether or not a project scores long-term funding; however, there is no measurement of whether or not the technology transitions to DoD usage. Transition is the rate at which SBIR investments are fielded or integrated into a military …

A Survey Of Barriers/Challenges To Improve Sbir Participation & Commercialization Success, Benjamin L. Berezin

Theses and Dissertations

The composition of the U.S. Defense Industrial Base (DIB) is changing. Within the last decade we have witnessed a decline in the percentage of new entrants, especially among Small Businesses. The Department of Defense’s base of small business participants experienced a drop of 23% from 2015-2021. New entrants provide novel capabilities and increase competition, spurring innovation essential for continued economic and military advantage. Small Businesses represent well over 40% of the Nation’s Gross Domestic Product and have vastly outpaced large firms at a magnitude of 16.5 times as many patents per small firm.

The Air Force deliberately targets funding for …

Time-Phasing Rdt&E In Air Force Acquisitions, Trevor A. Bills

Theses and Dissertations

Time-phasing describes the process of estimating expenditure profiles for multi-year RDT&E acquisition programs. The AFCAH states that one approach to producing a time-phased estimate is with the use of S-curve distributions. These S-curves are most typically modeled as Weibull, Rayleigh, or Beta distributions. Many prior studies have been completed to better understand which of the three distributions is best suited to time-phasing RDT&E programs, and what program characteristics significantly explain variance in the distributional parameters. Those prior studies utilized either contractor-supplied data or SARs, and typically found the Weibull to be the best performing distribution. This paper makes novel use …

Effects Of Level Of Effort Measurement In The Application Of Earned Value Management, James M. Demos

Theses and Dissertations

Major Air Force contracts are subject to overview utilizing Earned Value Management (EVM). EVM is flexible in its application through the adherence of guidelines rather than strict rules. Due to this method, there is concern for potential abuse of application through overuse of Level of Effort (LOE) as a measurement technique. There are current recommended practices and rules of thumb that suggest LOE should be limited to 15% of a program’s budget with no quantitative research to support this claim. This study examines how LOE is currently employed in ACAT I Air Force programs and what LOE’s impact is on …

Introvert Personality Labor: A Unique Theoretical Construct That Describes The Effects Of Introverts Existing In The Extrovert Idea, Kathleen S. Hendershott

Theses and Dissertations

The Extrovert Ideal led to a society that has a favorable bias toward extroverts. Classrooms, workplaces, and the general public have been designed with extroverts in mind. Introverts, who make up more than half the world’s population, are forced to act in extroverted ways due in part to the extrovert ideal. Previous studies indicate introvert performance declines when working with more extroverted preferences, like open offices that favor group work, but fail to discuss the acting introverts are forced to do in workplaces created for their extroverted counterparts. The purpose of this study is to present a unique theoretical construct, …

Cost Estimating Relationships For Recurring T100 Flyaway Costs, Kyrie M. Rojo

Theses and Dissertations

This research investigates a dataset of over 80 Air Force and Navy aircraft and applies regression techniques to create two cost estimating relationships (CERs) for predicting recurring T100 flyaway costs, depending on where in the acquisition lifecycle the estimate takes place. The first CER explains 89 percent of the variation in the dataset and can be applied prior to Milestone B (MS B). The second CER explains 88 percent of the variation in the dataset and can be applied between MS B and MS C. Significant cost drivers identified include stealth, cohort, empty weight, the natural log of speed, legacy …

An Analysis Of Escalation Forecasting For Ppi3364, Jacob T. Smith

Theses and Dissertations

The accurate forecasting of escalation is vital to generating useful cost estimates. This research investigates various methods for their accuracy in forecasting an index, PPI3364, which measures price changes in aerospace product and parts. This is done over two different spans of time: fiscal years and FYDP (five out years). Also, this study of methods for forecasting was conducted from the perspective of the practitioner in the PPBE process. Global Insight is the current source for forecasting escalation for the aerospace products and parts industry, but there are concerns, expressed by the Air Force Cost Analysis Agency, regarding the accuracy …