Business Commons^™

Essays In Microeconomics, Teng Ma

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation consists of three essays of different topics in microeconomics.

Chapter 1 investigates the effect of environmental uncertainty over the issue of resource allocation in a common pool resources setting. This chapter provides a model of how agents allocate resource among abatement technology, production, and saving with an endogenously determined uncertain damage. The results of a laboratory experiment show a negative effect of uncertain damage on abatement technology adoption and a non-linear relationship between the investment in abatement technology and the self reported risk aversion. Contrary to the “common belief” that greater risk averse agents invest more in abatement …

Collaborative Speculation And Overvaluation: Evidence From Social Media, Adam Barrett Booker

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

I use data from StockTwits and Twitter to provide evidence that investor attention on social media in the period before earnings is related to short-term overvaluation, consistent with bullish investors herding around common information. In the 2 to 60 days after earnings, returns for companies in the highest quintile of pre-earnings announcement investor attention are 4.2 percent lower than those of companies in the lowest quintile. I find evidence that the negative post-earnings drift result found in this study is related to investors waiting until after earnings are announced to enact costly arbitrage strategies. I further examine intra- and inter-network …

Fields And Consumer Groups: The Layered And Overlapping Roles Of Culture, Brandon James Mcalexander

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The first essay investigates Bourdieu’s conceptualization of fields and its use in the marketing literature. It suggests that fields do not exist in isolation, but rather work together in a number of different possible configurations. Fields are reconceptualized as dominated, overlapped, unrelated, contrasted, and co-constituted, rather than completely distinct and opens a new theoretical space for interpretive researchers in marketing. The second essay is a descriptive ethnography of a local fab lab. The essay describes in rich detail the ways in which new skills are developed in a shared work environment, and contextualizes the findings using practice theory as a …

Choosing Information Systems As A Major: Factors That Influence Selection, Carole L. Shook

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine student perceptions of factors affecting the decision to select information systems as an undergraduate major. Additionally, information systems students were compared to other business students to see if significant differences existed between groups. The four factors studied included: (a) personal interest in the major, (b) student competence, (c) value and utility, and (d) external influences of other people and academic experiences.

A convenience sample was used at a public university in the Southeastern region of the United States. Two hundred junior/senior students were selected as participants. One hundred of the students were …

Barriers Of African American Football Student-Athletes In Seeking Mental Health Services, Todd Andrew Wilkerson

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Nearly half (48%) of collegiate football student-athletes are African American (NCAA, 2018). African American student-athletes face adversity at their respective institutions in the forms of racism and unfair treatment (Hill, Hall & Appleton, 2010). African American male student-athletes face educational stressors, campus stressors and athletic stressors. These stressors consist of academics, family, athletics and social relationships (Miller & Hoffman, 2009). Many African American student-athletes do not seek mental health treatment due to their status on campus (Watson, 2006). However, few studies have examined mental health and barriers for African American male student-athletes when seeking mental health services. As such, the …

Sensemaking In The Process Of Inquiry: A Qualitative Case Study Of A Networked Improvement Community, Bethany Fillers

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

There are persistent and pervasive issues plaguing American education, and almost seventy years of educational reform efforts have failed to adequately improve educational outcomes for many of America’s children. Networked improvement communities (or NICs) are a type of social organization created to address such problems and are proposed as an effective and efficient way to organize improvement efforts. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore the sensemaking experience of a newly-formed networked improvement community as members engaged in inquiry around a chosen problem of practice. During network initiation, NIC members engage in experiences to collaboratively identify and …

“Can Entrepreneurs Sell Their Firms And Still Own Them?”: The Adoption Of Dual-Class Structures And Their Effects On Ipo Performance, Nitin Kumar Singh

Management Dissertations - Archive

Dual-class Structures enable entrepreneurs to separate voting rights and cash-flow rights in arbitrary proportions to exercise control of the firm. Dual-class structures allow entrepreneurs to retain the benefits of being private and reap the benefits of going public. This dissertation identifies the governance, firm-specific, and strategic antecedents of firms that adopt dual-class structures and determines its effect on IPO performance. This study finds that firms that adopt fewer governance mechanisms, have a greater number of insiders, are younger, have a higher level of sales, pursue risky strategies (such as internationalization, acquisition, and innovation) are more likely to adopt dual-class structures. …

Estimating Demand Elasticities For Rice In Benin, Ogoudele Simon Codjo

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Rice consumption in Benin is increasing along with shifting consumer demand toward higher quality rice. In this context of changing demands, experimental estimation methods provide an effective way to estimate the current state of consumer preferences. We conducted a hypothetical choice experiment in 15 open markets in Benin to analyze the demand for rice and its substitutes. The results reveal that consumers value quality rice, even those in the low-income class. While high income consumers are more likely to choose high quality imported rice, low- and middle-income consumers are more likely to select high quality domestic rice among the set …

Consumers' Awareness And Perceptions Of Luxury Counterfeits, Murphy Aycock

Apparel Merchandising and Product Development Undergraduate Honors Theses

Counterfeiting is a global phenomenon. Because counterfeiting has drastically increased over the past several decades, it is easier for consumers to obtain counterfeited merchandise without any penalties. As the seriousness of the issue increases, companies and scholars suggest that consumer education and awareness may reduce the impact of counterfeit manufacturing.

Recently, the luxury goods industry has become one market that is highly affected by counterfeiting, due to their popularity with consumers (Phau, Teah, & Lee 2009). Based on a thorough analysis of literature, many factors have been examined that influence consumers’ attitudes and purchasing intentions towards luxury counterfeits. Results show …

New Sheriff In Town: Antecedents And Consequences Of Effective Lead Independent Directors, Dinesh Hasija

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This paper examines a relatively new form of board leadership structure, the Lead Independent Director (LID), that has not received much attention in the corporate governance literature. This role was adopted in 2003 by most large US firms as a result of stock exchange mandates and pressure from institutional investors. From an agency theory perspective, this new form of leadership structure was designed to give additional control to independent directors, thus enhancing the monitoring function of the board. However, according to symbolic management theory, firms may adopt such a structure merely as a response to institutional pressures, thus making no …

Financial Reporting Of Cryptocurrency, Andrew Hartley

Honors Theses

Cryptocurrency is a digital form of currency that uses mathematical equations to encrypt data. This type of currency has significantly grown in popularity over the past 5 years due to more people and companies using it. Some companies have started accepting it as payment in exchange for goods and services. More people are going to be turning to cryptocurrency in the future. Businesses will have to come up with ways to deal with cryptocurrency; however, the FASB has yet to define cryptocurrency, leaving businesses with no formal guidance on the subject. The purpose of this paper is to recommend a …

Antecedents And Consequences Of Leaders’ Security Orientation, Joseph J. Simpson

Theses and Dissertations

Organizations’ leaders are responsible for ensuring that firms’ proprietary assets are protected from expropriation. Firms are increasingly targets of large-scale proprietary assets breaches that jeopardize their ability to financially benefit from their innovation activities. Some firms have proactively built capabilities that allow them to protect their proprietary assets, while leaders are more security oriented and therefore do more to protect their organizations from proprietary assets breaches? Current research on leaders’ role in the protection of proprietary assets is lacking at the strategic level because most studies on organizational security have emphasized employee-level behaviors (e.g., da Veiga & Eloff, 2010, Lee, …

The Relationship Between Motivation To Use Airbnb And Guests’ Repurchase Intention: Moderating Effect Of Consideration Set, Wen Jiang

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

With the rise of the peer-to-peer sharing economy, Airbnb has become the leading platform as an online marketplace that allows homeowners to contract short-term leases or rents to tourists. It has expanded rapidly around the globe. This study comprehensively reviews previous literature with respect to the marketing of Airbnb. The study then summarized and categorized 12 motivators linked as causative agents for guests choosing Airbnb. Using the push-pull theory, along with research on the consideration set, this study examines the relationships between Airbnb motivators and guests’ repurchase intention. This study further examines how the consideration set moderates these relationships.

Seventy-eight …

A Quasi-Experimental Study Of The Effect Of Experience Staging Techniques On Engagement, Emerson Ferrell Watanabe

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of experience staging techniques (personalization through co-creation and multisensory stimuli) on engagement level. This study also explores the possible contribution of experience staging techniques as practical tools that recreation professionals can use to better engage participants in recreation activities and events. A 2-way univariate ANOVA revealed no significant relationship between the use of co-creative and multisensory stimulating techniques and engagement levels in participants (F (3,200) = .263, p = .826, partial η2 = .004). Practical applications for recreation professionals and further research opportunities are discussed.

Essays On Alternative Investments, Chad Kwon

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation considers the role of cultural traits in the markets for alternative investments. The latter refers to assets that are not traditionally discussed when building a financial portfolio for ordinary investors. These are subject to low turnover, high maintenance costs, and low liquidity for investors. These features distinguish them to be non-typical assets that demand more careful strategy to acquire, maintain, and sell these belongings. Nevertheless, investors are interested in these assets for the dual purposes of building equities and consuming benefits simultaneously during ownership. We focus on two types of durable assets—residential houses and paintings at art auctions—to …

Essays On Corporate Finance And Interstate Risk Sharing, Liu Hong

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

My dissertation consists of two topics: the relation between derivatives and corporate finance, and the relation between bank deregulation and interstate risk sharing.

In the first essay, I study the use of commodity derivatives among U.S. oil and gas producers. Using hand-collected data, I find large variations in hedging intensity and hedging profits. On average, firms generate significantly positive profits, and their profits relate positively to the intensity of hedging. I further decompose the hedge ratio into two components: the pure hedging component and the market timing component. I find that the hedging profits relate strongly and positively to the …

Community College Grow Your Own Leadership: A Phenomenological Study Of Employee Perceptions Of Individual And Organizational Leadership Development, John Delozier

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Community colleges often face challenges with leadership as a result of retirements and turnover. In reaction to these challenges some community colleges have developed Grow Your Own (GYO) leadership development programs. Although the topic of leadership and leadership development has been researched extensively, more research is necessary concerning GYO programs and their perceived impact on participants and their colleges. This study was designed to determine the perceived development of GYO participants as well as the perception of a GYO’s impact on the organization. Guilford Technical Community College (GTCC) in Greensboro, North Carolina has had a GYO program for 30 years. …

Consumer Response To The Disposal Of Potentially Harmful Products: The Product Life-Cycle, Consumer Activism, And Subjective Well-Being Across Borders, Sergio Enrique Robles-Avila

Theses and Dissertations

This research attempts to uncover the factors that influence protest behaviors, specifically, consumer activism intention and how the factors are different between industrialized and developing countries. This research draws from the Values-Norms, Beliefs (VBN) Theory and the Not-In-My-Backyard (NIMBY) framework to test protest intention between the United States and Mexico regarding the improper disposal of potentially harmful products across borders. Further, this research attempts to extend the VBN-Theory to include trust-in-government, attitude towards the firm, and subjective well-being.

The findings of this research indicate that the VBN Theory is confirmed not only in the United States, but also in Mexico …

The Effect Of The Minimum Server Wage On Restaurant Guest Tipping Behavior And Perceptions, Jason Tang

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Restaurant server income is predominantly composed of tips received from guests and the minimum server wage received from restaurants. Grounded in equity theory, this dissertation investigated the effect of the minimum server wage, in combination with established antecedents of voluntary tipping, on tipping rate and examined guest perceptions of fairness of the minimum server wage and three prevalent tipping policies (voluntary tipping, automatic service charge, and service inclusive pricing). Two experiments were conducted, a 2 (minimum server wage) x 2 (service quality) experimental design, and a 2 (minimum server wage) x 3 (tipping policy) experimental design. The results revealed that …

Footprints Of Resilience: Tracking The Career Development Steps Of African American Male Musicians, Patrice Tiffany Leshay Bax

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

For African American (AA) male musicians, the road toward career advancement in the entertainment industry is particularly arduous. Despite many difficulties on the journey to career success, the history of gospel, R&B, jazz, and funk music is evidence that many AA male musicians find their way to develop and advance their careers. Many AA male musicians find career development and advancement opportunities through religious and sacred institutions. However, the journey to become a professional musician for AA males is fluid and not formalized causing ambiguity in the steps taken to enter this career field and sustain growth in a rapidly …

Program, Policy, And Culture Factors Minority Millennials Perceive As Important Within Their Workplace For Retention, Tanesha C. Watts

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Millennials make up the largest segment of the current workforce. However, research about minority Millennials and their needs are relatively unknown. The purpose of this study was to find out what minority Millennials deemed important within an organization’s culture and the policies and programs that would persuade them to remain with the company. Purposeful sampling was used to identify participants for this study. Participants met the criterion of a Millennial by age, identified as a minority, currently worked at an organization with 50 or more employees in an office location and had worked for their current employer for one year …

An Empirical Examination Of Formal And Informal Institutional Factors’ Influence On Global Food Industry Sustainability Engagement, Kat Yamamoto

Doctor of Business Administration (DBA)

This study contributes to the sustainability literature through empirical investigation on how both formal and informal institutional factors influence the level of global food industry’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) engagement (also known as sustainability engagement). This study proposed six hypotheses to be tested for formal and informal institutional factors’ influence on sustainability engagement with simple and multiple linear regression analyses, correlation analysis to examine the relationship between sustainability engagement and individual countries’ institutional factors. Six institutional factors the author studied include Yale’s World Economic Forum’s environmental performance index; the Barilla Center for Food and Nutrition (BCFN) Foundation’s food loss and …

Examining The Antecedent And Effects Of Servant Leadership : The Role Of Followers, Xinru Wu

Lingnan Theses (MPhil & PhD)

Servant leadership (S-L) was first introduced by Robert Greenleaf (1977), and it is a leadership philosophy where leaders go beyond their self-interest to put their followers’ needs first. Servant leadership is becoming popular in practice, reflecting the calls for a new school of leadership to rise to the challenges of the changing business environment. However, it still lacks empirical support to help us better understand the antecedents and the effect of servant leadership on a range of follower and organizational outcomes. Therefore, this thesis aims to examine follower characteristics (follower proactive personality and person-supervisor (PS) fit) as the antecedents to …

Organizational Cognition As Intervened By Organizational Support And Engagement On Medical Coders’ Exhibition Of Organizational Citizenship Behaviors, David W. Conley

Human Resource Development Theses and Dissertations

Informed by the social cognitive theory and social exchange theory, this study examined medical coders’ evaluation of organizational cognition in the presence or perception of organizational support and organization engagement and their resultant behavior. The reciprocal exchanges present in the employee and organization relationship are identified, as positive valuations facilitate mutually beneficial outcomes. Specifically, the examination of cognitions, implicit employee judgments, and behaviors provide a framework to examine the state of engagement and its related outcomes. The use of perceived organizational support and organization engagement as intervening variables provided insight into the complex relationships between medical coding employees’ evaluation of …

Factors Of Women-Founded High-Growth Technology Startup, Renee Gillard

Dissertations

Purpose: The purpose of this mixed-methods study was to identify and describe critical startup factors of high-growth technology startups as identified by women founders in Seattle, Washington.

Methodology: This mixed-method study identified and described 15 women founders of high-growth technology startups in Seattle. Participants were chosen based on specific criteria and recommendations of a sponsor and expert panel. Interviews were conducted with the participants and they completed an online survey.

Findings: Ten major findings emerged from the data. Founders fostered a strong network of professional and personal relationships to help develop and solidify their identity; they also …

Effects Of The Dimensions Of Quality Of Work Life On Turnover Intention Of Millennial Employees In The U.S., Julie Lewis

Human Resource Development Theses and Dissertations

Voluntary employee turnover, or quitting jobs, in the U.S. has been steadily increasing since 2009. This study investigated the relationships among the dimensions of quality of work life (QWL), job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and turnover intention among millennial employees in the U.S. It sought to determine whether statistically significant relationships existed among these variables. The study tested a model of the relationships among the aforementioned constructs using structural equation modeling with the IBM^® SPSS^® Amos 25.0 (SPSS) software package.

Using maximum likelihood estimation (MLE), 339 respondents drawn from Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) were examined. Results showed that job …

"Poverty Wages Are Not Fresh, Local, Or Sustainable": Building Worker Power By Organizing Around (Re)Production In Portland's "Sustainable" Food Industry, Amy Katherine Rose Coplen

Dissertations and Theses

Although conscious consumers flock to sustainability-branded restaurants and grocery stores to "vote with their forks" for environmental sustainability and vibrant local economies, workers in these industries face the same poverty wages, discrimination, and exploitative labor practices that plague the food service and retail industries at large. Despite rapid growth and labor degradation, low-wage workers in these industries have largely been left behind by the mainstream labor movement and the alternative food movement. Whereas in the past, progressive social movements worked to alter power relations between labor and capital through collective action, today's mainstream labor movement focuses on servicing its dwindling …

Corruption Norms And Corporate Tax Avoidance In A Weak Institutional And Environment : Evidence From Alcohol Consumption In China, Can Flora Guo

Lingnan Theses (MPhil & PhD)

Both anecdotal and empirical evidence suggests a relation between cultural norms and illegitimate corporate behaviour. The mechanisms through which cultural norms exert effect on corporate behaviour include socialization, learning and networking, and employee selection. Being among the most significant elements of traditional Chinese culture, alcoholic drinking is the prime lubricant for social interactions and often serves to facilitate business dealings and exchange of favours. It is widely believed that drinking is a hotbed of power abuse and corruption. In order to improve our understanding of the determinants of corporate behaviour, this study is aimed at examining whether corruption norms inferred …

Hedge Fund Ownership And Auditor-Client Contracting In U.S. Firms, Sarah Feltus

PhD in Business Administration Dissertations

Hedge funds have grown rapidly in the last two decades, from managing assets worth approximately $600 billion in 2003 to over $3 trillion in 2017. As hedge funds themselves have grown, so too have concerns about their involvement with publicly traded companies and their effect on various stakeholders and the economy. Although Critics claim that hedge fund activism creates a short-term focus, shifting funds out of expansion and research and development and into distributions to shareholders, proponents argue that hedge fund activism helps boards overcome management incompetence and counter passive investors. Academic research is mixed on the long-term effects of …

The Negative Impact Of Positive Stereotyping: Relationship Between Positive Stereotypes, Perceived Competence And Perceived Potential For Leadership, Megan Chan

Undergraduate Honors Theses

For many years, Asian Americans have been positively stereotyped as the most successful racial group in America. Yet, very few Asian Americans occupy top leadership positions. This research investigates how positive stereotyping affects managers’ perception towards Asian Americans’ level of competence and potential for leadership. I conducted a scenario study with a sample of 315 people working and residing in the United States. These participants assumed the role of decisions makers and were presented with information about job applicants where the variable data (i.e. race) was manipulated. Based on the differences in ratings on Asian Americans and non-Asian Americans, I …