Business Commons^™

The Downside Of National Team Identity: A Model To Measure Negative Outcomes Of Team Identity, Fei Gao

Theses and Dissertations

Team identity has been a prevailing subject and has drawn a wide range of attention from both academia and the sport industry. The previous literature indicates that team identity had significant impact on team-related purchases, game attendance, TV viewership, loyalty, other social identities (e.g., national identity), etc. However, the majority of team identity studies were merely focused on unveiling these positive outcomes of team identity. Little is known about how team identity works on fans’ negative sentiment toward outgroup members. The purpose of this dissertation was to establish a model to measure the effect of team identity on xenophobia and …

Serving As A Backup Plan: Accounting Reserves And Their Impact On Managerial Risk-Taking, Kun Lui

Theses and Dissertations

This study examines how accounting reserves influence firms’ internal decisions. In particular, this study investigates whether and how reserves currently reported in a firm’s balance sheet affect managerial risk-taking in the making of capital investment decisions. The experimental results show that firm managers are more likely to take risks in the making of capital investment decisions when the amount of reserves is large compared with when it is small. Additionally, the amount of reserves influences managerial risk-taking through sequentially influencing managers’ perceived risks of missing relevant earnings targets and managers’ perceived risks of investing in risky capital investment options. These …

The Effectiveness Of The Counter Marketing Strategy Of The Truth® Campaign, Maura Castronuovo

Senior Theses

The counter marketing strategy of the truth® campaign is unique. They use a voice that does not talk down to the teens in their target market; instead, they talk to teens in their own voice. Throughout this paper, I work to determine the effectiveness of the truth campaign’s counter marketing strategy. I do this through my own research, in which I utilize a survey and two focus groups, in addition to secondary research. As many of the studies I looked at were from the time of the launch of truth®, conducting my own research allowed me to gain a better …

A New Generation Of Workers: Preparing For Generation Z In The Workplace, Kendra Harris

Senior Theses

A new generational wave has begun to enter the workforce. The oldest members of Generation Z, those approximately at the age of 25 and below, have recently begun their careers. In the past few years, some changes have been made to work environments, like constructing gyms and daycares at workplaces, expanding the options for work at home programs, and firms hosting social events to attract top, young talent. Some of these actions were to appease Generation Y (Millennials), but some, whether the intent was known or not, will be very pleasing and beneficial to Generation Z. However, Generation Y and …

The Adoption Of Cryptocurrency Technology Into The Us Banking Infrastructure, Trevor Melito

Senior Theses

This thesis examines the possibility of using Blockchain technology to permanently change the payment structure of the US banking system. First, I examine the current technology that dominates the banking sector. I introduce the most frequently used payments methods including Automatic Clearing House transfers and wire transfers, both domestically and internationally. In addition, I highlight the major players controlling these transactions. Under the current system, frictions between senders and receivers cause billions of dollars in losses each year.

Next, I examine Blockchain’s roots along with some similar cryptocurrency technology, namely Distributed Ledger Technology and Smart Contracts. The transparency, security, and …

The Supply Chain Of Digital Music: Empowering Independent Artists Through Availability And Accessibility, Justin Reed

Senior Theses

The process of creating and sharing digital music can be viewed from the “supply chain” perspective: identifying the resources and value-adding tools that ultimately result in a final audio product. By researching and documenting the steps involved in this process, I identify this supply chain as a series of steps, an itinerary, or process model of digital music creation. Moreover, I found that each step in the process can be assess for its accessibility and usability by independent artists. I conclude by exploring how this democratizes the music industry by affording independent artists the necessary tools and empowerment to create …

Institutional Investors, Asset-Backed Securities, And Single-Family Rental Homes: A Revolution Doomed To Fail Or The Building Of A Future Empire, Brandon Deshotels

Honors Capstones

No abstract provided.

Operational Drivers Of Hospital And Physician Adaptation To Industry Change, Justin Taylor Kistler

Theses and Dissertations

Hospitals and physicians are often required to adapt their operations in response to macro changes in their industry environment. This dissertation examines the operational factors which influence and incentivize changes in hospital and physician operating performance. The first essay in this dissertation investigates how legislative political support and competition in the area in which a hospital operates influences hospitals’ investments and commitment to complying with performance mandates implemented by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) legislation in the United States. Leveraging United States hospital performance data from 2007 to 2014, results indicate a differential impact of government ideology …

The Effect Of Audit Procedure Extent And Precision On Auditors’ Skeptical Judgments, Sarah Alexis Judge

Theses and Dissertations

I investigate how the extent and precision of an audit procedure influence auditors’ responses to errors. The results suggest that while audit procedures with expanded extents are beneficial, this benefit is influenced by the presence of false positives. Specifically, I predict and find that as the extent of an audit procedure expands, auditors will be more likely to recommend audit adjustments. However, this effect is moderated by the presence of false positives. When false positives are absent, auditors are more likely to recommend an adjustment when they use a large extent procedure, however when false positives are present, there is …

Stock Liquidity Of Malaysian Public Listed Firms, Yee Ee Chia

Student Works (2020-2029)

This thesis is motivated by the limited research on the liquidity of Malaysian public listed firms, the growing number of liquidity horseraces, the recent data commercialization by Bursa Malaysia, and liquidity-enhancing policies being spearheaded mainly by stock exchange regulators in emerging markets. By assembling information that covers 1250 public listed non-financial firms over 2000–2015, the thesis conducts three empirical analyses on the determinants of firm liquidity and the effects of higher liquidity on firm valuation, where liquidity is proxied by the “Closing Percent Quoted Spreads” (CPQS). First, the thesis revisits the standard liquidity model and advocates the inclusion of shareholder …

Engineering Management Competencies: A Framework For Present And Future Engineering Environments, Christopher Vaughn Barrett

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Managing and directing engineering requires engineering management competencies. Although perspectives may differ concerning competencies for engineering management, identifying competencies can direct and improve management. The purpose of this research is to develop a framework of competencies for engineering managers using an inductive research design. Development of this engineering management competency framework involves an exploration of three primary research questions. The first question is ‘What are the current competencies for engineering managers?’ The response to this question provides a basis for the current state of competencies for engineering managers. The second research question, ‘What are future engineering management competencies based on …

Dod Mission Engineering And Integration Explorative-Exploitative Architecture For Technology Innovation, Jose L. Bricio-Neto

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The ability of U.S. Department of Defense to achieve timely innovation in support of U.S. National Defense and Military Strategies continues to increase in significance. The growing challenges in U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) technological innovation in a context of global security and rapid pace of global competitiveness continue to reveal many shortcomings in current weapon systems development and acquisition practice. As the pace of technological innovation is accelerating, the DoD faces the challenge that the same disruptive technological advances are also being made available to or developed by its adversaries. Based on literature review, no innovation system theory exists …

The Effects Of Optimism, Transformational Leadership, And Work Engagement On Work Outcomes: A Moderated Mediation Model, Chad Kenneally

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Optimism serves as a powerful resource that can help employees accomplish tasks at work and overcome challenges. However, there are still psychological connections that need to be drawn to explain why optimism has these effects. The Job Demands-Resources Model and the general resource perspective have previously investigated resources in the workplace and the relationships they hold with different work outcomes. In this study, work engagement was investigated as a mediator between optimism and task performance, work withdrawal, and turnover intention. Transformational leadership was investigated as a moderator for the relationship between optimism and work engagement. Optimism was expected to have …

The Influence Of Mating Motives On Reliance On Form Versus Function In Product Choice, Seyed Hamid Abbassi Hosseini

Theses and Dissertations in Business Administration

Through five experiments, this research examined and supported the central hypothesis that a casual mating motive promotes higher reliance on form in product evaluation and choice, whereas a committed mating motive promotes higher reliance on function. Particularly, compared to a committed mating motive, a casual mating motive was associated with the relative preference for product options superior in form attributes as opposed to options superior in function attributes (Study 1, Study 2, and Study 4). This research applied three different operationalizations of mating motives. In studies 1 and 5, contextual priming was used. Studies 2 and 3 employed chronic mating …

Helping Employees Help The Environment: An Intervention To Increase Environmental Organizational Citizenship Behaviors (Ocb-E) Via A Subtle Stimulus, Rebecca C. Garden

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Researchers’ understanding of the relationships between environmentally-oriented organizational citizenship behaviors (i.e., OCB-Es) and other workplace variables have improved since the turn of the century, but both our comprehension of the behaviors and the effectiveness of interventions targeting them require much more investigation. Further, there is very little research that examines the role of positive affect in promoting these behaviors, even though scholars have suggested that it may be the “silver bullet” (Kals & Müller, 2012) to facilitating employees’ voluntary environmental actions. To that end, the aim of the current research is to take an initial step towards understanding how organizations …

Three Essays On The Roles Of Review Valence And Conflict In Online Relationships, Ran Liu

Theses and Dissertations in Business Administration

In the context of online marketing, product reviews and online relationships have played essential roles in determining consumer's decision making. The three essays examine how valence and volume of online reviews affect consumers' perceived relationships with a firm, as well as the boundary effect of the causal link. Previous literature has been focusing on the direct effects of word-of-mouth (WOM) on consumers' short-term purchase decisions and treating WOM solely as an outcome of a relationship. Consequently, the role of online reviews has been underestimated by contemporary literature and how electric WOM (eWOM) changes consumers' perception with an exchange partner is …

Two Essays On Consumer Envy, Murong Miao

Theses and Dissertations in Business Administration

Consumer envy, which is a two-faceted emotion (benign versus malicious), could change consumer behavior in different ways. Although research on envy is abundant in the psychology field, little attention has been paid to envy in marketing research. This dissertation composes of two essays. Based on Social Comparison Theory (SCT), these two essays examine the envy mechanism in driving consumer behavior using different contexts (social media behavior and counterfeit luxury consumption).

Essay one examines the relationship between envy and consumer’s intention to conduct different social networking sites (SNSs) activities. To test the hypothesized relationships, four experiments were conducted. Experiments 1, 2, …

Essay 1: How We Feel: The Role Of Macro-Economic Sentiment In Advertising Spending-Sales Relationship; Essay 2: It Was The Best Of Times; It Was The Worst Of Times: The Effect Of Emotional Uncertainty And Arousal On Healthy Food Choices, Leila Khoshghadam

Theses and Dissertations in Business Administration

Essay 1: Controversies regarding the advertising spending-sales relationship have spawned many studies in marketing. Previous research on macroeconomic influencers of this relationship has focused mostly on objective macroeconomic indicators such as cyclical contraction and expansion. Extending these previous studies, the current research argues that sales response to advertising is also contingent upon the pervasive feelings present in the macroeconomic environment, above and beyond the influence from objective macroeconomic factors. Specifically, it argues that future outlook negativity and uncertainty in macroeconomic sentiment can affect the ad spending-sales relationship. Analyzing sales and advertising spending data for salty snacks in conjunction with macroeconomic …

Pricing The Cloud: An Auction Approach, Yang Lu

Theses and Dissertations in Business Administration

Cloud computing has changed the processing and service modes of information communication technology and has affected the transformation, upgrading and innovation of the IT-related industry systems. The rapid development of cloud computing in business practice has spawned a whole new field of interdisciplinary, providing opportunities and challenges for business management research.

One of the critical factors impacting cloud computing is how to price cloud services. An appropriate pricing strategy has important practical means to stakeholders, especially to providers and customers. This study addressed and discussed research findings on cloud computing pricing strategies, such as fixed pricing, bidding pricing, and dynamic …

Two Essays On Negotiations Between Entrepreneurs And Angel Investors, Aydin Selim Oksoy

Theses and Dissertations in Business Administration

This dissertation has two essays examining negotiations between entrepreneurs and angel investors. In Essay 1, I study the dual roles of equity from the angel investor’s perspective, where the equity position sought in an embryonic firm creates two concerns. The first concern relates to the risks involved in generating returns from the initial capital investment. The second is a governance concern due to the challenges involved in managing future interactions between the firm and its environment. Because the angel investor is beholden to the entrepreneur for the proper execution of the embryonic firm’s strategy, this governance concern involves incentivizing the …

The Effects Of Balanced Scorecard Implementation On Organizational Performance: The Case Of The Healthcare Sector In The Uae, Alaa Salah Mushtaha

Dissertations

The aim of this study is to identify the critical success factors (CSFs) that positively affect balanced scorecard (BSC) implementation in the healthcare sector in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and to examine the impact of BSC implementation on organizational performance. The BSC theory has been applied in various industries, including manufacturing, the public sector, banking and insurance, hospitality, and healthcare. However, little knowledge has been revealed about its design and implementation in healthcare organizations. In addition, no published articles exist on BSC implementation in the context of the healthcare industry in the UAE, which shows a clear gap when …

Academic Digital Badges: Industry, Employment, And Prospects, Terry M. Mcgovern

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Digital badges are becoming more prevalent in the credentialing sector yet there is limited understanding of how the industry is developing or how digital badges influence the hiring process. This study employed an exploratory case method to make known the development of the badging industry. This dynamic new educational technology has a wide range of stakeholders working at establishing standards to ensure consistent and effective application across the badging ecosphere. To understand academic badging further, the researcher conducted a type of field experiment called a résumé audit study. In the late Spring of 2019, the investigator applied to 1,848 unique …

Applying Data Organizational Techniques To Enhance Air Force Learning, Jacob A. Orner

Theses and Dissertations

The USAF and the DoD use traditional schoolhouses to educate and train personnel. The physical aspects of these schoolhouses limit throughput. A method to increase throughput is to shift towards an asynchronous learning environment where students move through content at individually. This research introduces a methodology for transforming a set of unstructured documents into an organized TM students can use to orient themselves in a domain. The research identifies learning paths within the TM to create a directed KSAT. We apply this methodology in four case studies, each an education or training course. Using a graph comparison metric and the …

Predicting Pilot Success Using Machine Learning, Aaron C. Giddings

Theses and Dissertations

The United States Air Force has a pilot shortage. Unfortunately, training an Air Force pilot requires significant time and resources. Thus, diligence and expediency are critical in selecting those pilot candidates with a strong possibility of success. This research applies multivariate and statistical machine learning techniques to pilot candidates pre-qualification test data and undergraduate pilot training results to determine whether there are selected pre-qualification tests or specific training evaluations that do a \best" job of screening for successful pilot training candidates and distinguished graduates. Flight experience, both during training and otherwise, indicates pilot training completion and performance.

Sortie-Based Aircraft Component Demand Rate To Predict Requirements, Thomas R. O'Neal

Theses and Dissertations

Weapon System Sustainment (WSS) costs are growing at an increasing rate despite the vast efforts to reduce them. Researchers have attributed much of the cost increase to inaccurate demand forecasts for weapon system spare parts. In 2011, the forecast to sustain all United States Air Force (USAF) aircraft was 19% accurate and WSS costs per year have continuously increased. The purpose of this study is to explore a parsimonious change to aircraft component forecasting to reduce costly forecast error. This study substitutes flying hours with sorties for the purpose of demand forecasting. Many F-16 and B-52 spare parts are evaluated …

Strategic Sourcing Of Air Force Contingency Pharmaceuticals: A Cost-Benefit Analysis Approach, Adam J. Brubakken

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this research is to identify and explore effective supply chain management principles as mitigating measures to improve contingency pharmaceutical item shortfalls in the Air Force Medical Service Contingency Pharmaceutical Program. Analysis of current pharmaceutical shortages demonstrates a significant trend of insufficient demand signals for various pharmaceutical items, resulting in instances of non-fulfillment by private sector suppliers. Through the scope of transaction cost economics, a cost-benefit analysis for various alternatives was conducted. The proposed alternatives evaluated in this thesis include continuation of the status quo, centralized procurement models from a single site, and procurement from regionally designated ordering …

Forecasting Attrition By Afsc For The United States Air Force, Trey S. Pujats

Theses and Dissertations

Retention and personnel management is a challenge for every organization, particularly the military due to its hierarchical structure and barriers to entry. Talent must be developed and retained to become leaders, beginning at the lowest level in the Air Force. The Air Force faces a retention problem unlike most organizations that requires a unique perspective and tailored solution to each Air Force Specialty Code (AFSC). There exists previous efforts to predict attrition rates in the Air Force based on economic factors. This study expands upon the economic factors and tailors the predictor variables of attrition based on the AFSC. The …

Conceptualization And Application Of Deep Learning And Applied Statistics For Flight Plan Recommendation, Nicholas C. Forrest

Theses and Dissertations

The Air Forces Pilot Training Next (PTN) program seeks a more efficient pilot training environment emphasizing the use of virtual reality flight simulators alongside periodic real aircraft experience. The PTN program wants to accelerate the training pace and progress in undergraduate pilot training compared to traditional undergraduate pilot training. Currently, instructor pilots spend excessive time planning and scheduling flights. This research focuses on methods to auto-generate the planning of in-flight events using hybrid filtering and deep learning techniques. The resulting approach captures temporal trends of user-specific and program-wide student performance to recommend a feasible set of graded flight events for …

Resilient Aircraft Sustainment: Quantifying Resilience Through Asset And Capacity Allocation, Zachary B. Shannon

Theses and Dissertations

Decision makers lack a clear, generalizable method to quantify how additional investment in inventory and capacity equates to additional levels of resilience. This research facilitates a deeper understanding of the intricacies and complex interconnectedness of organizational supply chains by monetarily quantifying changes in network resilience. The developed Area under the Curve metric (AUC) is used to quantify the level of demand that each asset allocation can meet during a disruptive event. Due to its applicability across multiple domains, the USAF F-16 repair network in the Pacific theater (PACAF) is modeled utilizing discrete event simulation and used as the illustrating example. …

Addressing The Student Loan Crisis: Nudging Borrowers To Lower Their Repayment Costs, Genevieve O. Dobson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The Purpose of Research is to determine why student loan borrowers are making poor decisions regarding their repayment plan selection and how we could use the theory of nudge to get them to make better choices. This study evaluates three main biases found in decision making to determine which one is most likely to be utilized in making decisions. It also investigates ways a tool can be created to allow borrowers to make better choices.

I use the Elaborated Action Design Research Methodology to diagnose, design and implement an effective tool. In my study, I create an artifact that allows …