Business Commons^™

Three Essays On Financing And Investment Decisions In Small U.S. Firms, F. Blaise Roncagli

ETD Archive

This dissertation consists of three essays related to the financing and investment decisions of small U.S. firms. Each of the essays presents interesting and original empirical research questions, with hypotheses well-grounded in finance and economic theories. The empirical methodology, data and models that are used to test the hypotheses are presented for each essay. The three empirical questions addressed are (1) Why don't small firms take every trade credit discount offered to them? (2) What determines the cash holdings of small firms? and (3) Why do small firms make investments unrelated to their core business? This dissertation answers these questions …

Avoiding The Mistakes Of The Past, Tom Dunne

Articles

Tom Dunne explores the long term drivers of dysfunction in Ireland's housing markets and what a more sustainable housing system would look like.

Developing The External Engagement Process In Higher Education Through Effective Change And Technology, Irene Sheridan, Colm Barry-Murphy, Heather Madden

Reports

Engagement with external organisations and enterprises is increasingly part of the higher education mission and the contribution of universities to local and regional economic and social development remains an important, but difficult to evidence, metric for Higher Education Institutions (HEI). This paper explores the implementation of a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system to support external engagement and to build business intelligence in one higher education institution in Ireland.

Building on the findings of the Roadmap for Employment-Academic Partnership (REAP) project, through a structured process towards a professional case management approach to interactions this project focuses on the introduction of a …

The Impact Of Social Networking Sites On College Students' Consumption Patterns, Whitney Sue Thoene

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

This research study examines the effect of social media, particularly Facebook and Twitter, on the purchasing habits of college students by testing for correlations between recommendations on social media and consumption patterns. Moreover, the research also examines the role of gender and social media usage frequency on consumption patterns. Findings revealed that both Facebook and Twitter are being used to obtain sales information and promotions. Furthermore, gender has an impact on both social networking sites. Additionally, this study found the higher the frequency of social media usage the more likely customers are to shop at the businesses they have befriended.

King's Daughters Medical Center: Taking Medicine Further: How A Local Health System Strives To Bring World Class Care To A Rural Community, Nga Thi Chu, Anthony Dotson, Xiaofei Wang

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

King’s Daughters Health System is a network of companies located in Ashland, Kentucky. The leadership of King’s Daughters employs a corporate level strategy successfully by deciding to diversify their services into similar industries. They entered the retail industry by opening King’s Daughters Home Health and selling home health furnishings and equipment. By creating King’s Daughters Medial Transport, they entered the transportation industry. Insurance sale with King’s Daughters Integrated Health Insurance is another way they diversified. Externally the environment influences King’s Daughters Health System in many ways. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act are the one factor that has the …

An Examination Of Star Players' Effects On The Branding Process Of Professional Sports Teams, Nathan David Pifer

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Although various models and real-life examples seem to convey its presence, the relationship between star players and the branding process of professional sports teams is one that remains rather vague and unquantified. Though numerous examples seem to suggest that star players are capable of exerting an effect on a team’s brand, more thorough analysis is required in order to decipher which areas of a brand’s development are more or less affected by these marquee athletes. Taking responses from survey questionnaires containing 40 items pertinent to the topic, this study deployed Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) to uncover six underlying factors that …

Hermes International, Phuong Tran

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Hermes International Company is the second strongest brand in luxury industry. They have spent more than 100 years to make Hermes name as famous as today. With 3,000 million euro in average revenue, Hermes has a very strong financial position and potential growth compare to other competitors. Their products are always well-designed, high quality, and fashionable. They do not make good products but extremely good ones. Hermes’ target customers are wealthy people who have high level of income and are interested in luxury items. With more than 300 stores all over the world, Hermes is working on their ways to …

Bank Of America: Is Bigger Always Better?, Marty Gillenwater

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Bank of America is the largest bank in the world for now. The case is an attempt to see how the bank got to the point where it is today. It was interesting to follow the flow from two small banks through their histories and how they became one large institution. Now, acting as the one entity, Bank of America, there are many pressing issues facing it. The firm has many internal problems before even addressing the external environment. This is not only the competitors in the market but also the environment itself. The case addresses some of them and …

The Innovative Success That Is Apple, Inc., Katherine Johnson, Yang Li, Hang Phan, Jason Singer, Hoang Trinh

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Apple, Inc. has been a successful company for years now. However, the company faces issues just like any other company. How Apple responds to these issues is in conjunction to the strengths and weaknesses of the firm. The business-level strategy of Apple also has much to do with how the company approaches various situations. The diversity and organization of the firm itself helps to address any issues that may arise. Competing in high level competitive industries also requires Apple Inc. changing day by day in order to overcome its competitors.

Cover, Front Matter & Editorial Board

Journal of Business & Leadership: Research, Practice, and Teaching (2005-2012)

No abstract provided.

Examination Of The Relationship Between Individual Leadership Style, Teamwork And Learning Preferences -- A Case From A University In China, Raymond Ho

Journal of Business & Leadership: Research, Practice, and Teaching (2005-2012)

This study explores the effects of Chinese transformational leaders' preference in teamwork, and creative learning activities and leadership style. Three types of leadership styles, transformational, transactional, and laissez-faire, were measured using Bass and Avolio's (2004) Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire. Student participants were questioned on their preferences of teamwork based on their leadership styles and type of teaching styles that they preferred. Data analyses indicated that while behaviors associated with transformational leadership motivated followers, the results did not significantly relate to a leader's propensity to support teamwork. In addition, creative learning activities were not preferred by participants who experienced laissez-faire leader behavior. …

Values-Based Management Or The Performance-Values Matrix: Was Jack Welch Right?, Aaron A. Buchko, Kathleen J. Buchko

Journal of Business & Leadership: Research, Practice, and Teaching (2005-2012)

Two alternative models were identified in the existing literature on organization values and managerial performance. The Values-Based Management model suggests that organizational values influence managerial job performance through a process of enactment, am/ thus managerial performance is contingent upon the strength of the firm's values. The Performance-Values Matrix model suggests that organizational values and managerial job performance are independent constructs. We conducted an empirical study of these two models at a manufacturing facility. We measured organizational values enactment through a 360 degree feedback process using Behavioral Observation Scales, and obtained data on manager's annual job performance appraisal ratings. The results …

Use And Perceived Value Of Class Forums, Leslie Albert, Nitin Aggarwal

Faculty Publications, Information Systems & Technology

Numerous studies have illustrated the ability of online class discussion forums to support college-level student learning and performance. Yet few instructors incorporate forums into their courses. Many believe that students will fail to find value in or even use class forums or they are concerned about increasing their instructional workloads. Herein we address these concerns via a mixed-methods study of our own students' experiences with class forums.

Alignment Of Strategy With Structure Using Control Systems, Syeda Noorein Inamdar

Faculty Publications, School of Management

Considerable experimentation in organizational form has focused executive attention on the design and use of management control systems (MCS) to align environmental context and corporate strategy with a variety of organizational structures. The paper explores how two multibusiness health care firms with a similar corporate strategy–but with different structures, centralized versus decentralized–design and use MCS. Strategy based contingency model is applied to examine the interrelationships among five constructs–environment, corporate strategy, organizational structure, MCS and performance. Results demonstrate the design and use of MCS are contingent on the extent of centralization between the corporate office and business units. In the decentralized …

Advertising Budget And Sales Paths Under The Dynamics Of The Student Work Control Problem And Regularity Requirements, Aharon Hibshoosh

Faculty Publications

Consider a firm promoting a product in a fast expanding industry by using advertising as its single promotional tool. The firm's objective is to minimize the overall cost of advertising necessary for reaching certain target sales of the product by the end of a given planning period. We adopt the Student Work Control problem (SWC) framework for modeling this marketing context, in general, and the advertising-sales response function, in particular. We compare the SWC's optimal control budgeting principle with the solutions of equally effective, alternative advertising budgeting principles, which require strong regularity conditions on the path of either the advertising …

Nothing Lasts Forever: A Different Way To Structure Severance, Kevin F. Hallock

Economics Faculty Publications

When a CEO receives a massive payout in the face of job cuts and a precipitous drop in stock price, should we really be surprised to see shareholders (and the public) get upset?

Building A New Brand Community Through Online Media: The Transition From Print To Online Platforms At Le 10 Sport, Doris Madingou, HéLèNe De Burgh -Woodman

Business Conference Papers

As online media increasingly assumes dominance in the marketplace, we use the case study of French company Le 10 Sport to explore the complexities associated with transition from print to online media and the impact on brand community. Le 10 Sport is a sport media company that has successfully gone online. As traditional print media outlets are increasingly pressured by the need to abandon existing readerships and go online, the essential question explored in this paper is can a sports media producer build and maintain its brand community while transitioning to the online platform?

The findings suggest the transition from …

Fdi In Vietnam: An Empirical Study Of An Economy In Transition, Christian Delaunay, C. Richard Torrisi

Management Faculty Publications

Vietnam has emerged as an alternative smaller emerging economy market for FDI in the last five years, attracting both domestic market seeking and export oriented FDI. Vietnam continues to attract significant East Asian and OECD investors. This paper analyses the economic determinants of FDI for a smaller Non-BRIC emerging country, undergoing a rapid transition to a market driven economy in a region of great competitiveness among host countries and growing attractiveness to major source countries. The regression models presented in this paper show that while macro-economic variables such as GDP and to a lesser extent labor costs were predictably significant …

Beginning To Explain Differences In Risky Alcohol Consumption Behaviors Across Hospitality Business And Non-Hospitality Business Populations Using The Vollrath And Torgersen Personality Typology, Carl Borchgrevink Ph.D.

Great Lakes Hospitality & Tourism Educators Conference

This presentation will provide a brief review of research on alcohol consumption among college-age populations followed by a brief review of research on alcohol consumption specific to hospitality business sub-populations. This review will establish that the hospitality business sub-population engages in a higher rate of unhealthy and hazardous alcohol consumption than comparable non-hospitality populations, and that the attempts to explain the disparity in alcohol consumption have yet to yield much meaningful results. Subsequent to the alcohol consumption literature, the discussion will focus on the general association between personality, stress, and coping, but will specifically draw from the literature on personality …

Artprize Attendees' Profiles: Comparing 2011 With 2010, Seohee Chang Ph.D., Cary C. Countryman Ph.D.

Great Lakes Hospitality & Tourism Educators Conference

The purpose of this study was to compare 2011 with 2010 ArtPrize attendees’ demographics, spending, satisfaction, and the intention to return and to suggest future implications.

Contaminants In Land-Applied Biosolids: Characterization And Modeling Of Fate And Transport During Rainfall Events, And Determination Of Effects Of Triclocarban On A Freshwater Mudsnail, Ben D. Giudice

Faculty Publications - Biomedical, Mechanical, and Civil Engineering

Studies are described in which the fate and transport of contaminants in landapplied biosolids was characterized via direct measurements and then modeled successfully. Additionally, the effects of one such contaminant, triclocarban (TCC), were investigated in a freshwater mudsnail.

Rainfall simulations were conducted on soil plots amended with biosolids. Surface runoff and leachate was collected and analyzed for the endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) bisphenol A, 17α-ethynylestradiol, triclocarban, triclosan, octylphenol, and nonylphenol; sixteen metals; and estrogenic activity via the ERCALUX bioassay. Triclosan, nickel, and copper were detected at levels that might pose risk to aquatic life, though levels of metals in the …

Empirical Support For The Pcaob’S Elimination Of The Independent Auditor’S Opinion Regarding Management’S Assessment Of Internal Control, James H. Thompson, Bart H. Ward

All Faculty Scholarship for the College of Business

In an attempt to bolster public confidence in the accounting profession, the PCAOB issued several standards that were intended to address weaknesses in audit reporting and to increase public confidence in financial reporting. One of these standards, Auditing Standard No.2, added two opinions on an enterprise’s internal control to audit reporting requirements. This Standard was superseded by Auditing Standard No. 5, which eliminated one of these opinions. The purpose of this paper is to examine the efficacy of the elimination of the auditor’s opinion regarding management’s assessment of internal control. The data in this study were taken from 10-K reports …

Workplace Dignity In A Total Institution: Examining The Experiences Of Foxconn’S Migrant Workforce, Kristen Lucas, Dongjing Kang, Zhou Li

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

In 2010, a cluster of suicides at the electronics manufacturing giant Foxconn Technology Group sparked worldwide outcry about working conditions at its factories in China. Within a few short months, 14 young migrant workers jumped to their deaths from buildings on the Foxconn campus, an all-encompassing compound where they had worked, eaten, and slept. Even though the language of workplace dignity was invoked in official responses from Foxconn and its business partner Apple, neither of these parties directly examined workers’ dignity in their ensuing audits. Based on our analysis of media accounts of life at Foxconn, we argue that its …

The Importance Of The Historical Tang Dynasty In Place Branding Contemporary Xi'an, Norman Harry Rothschild, Ilan Alon, Marc Fetscherin

Faculty Publications

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to discuss the opportunity of utilizing Tang dynasty history, heritage, buildings and names in the effort to place brand the contemporary city Xi'an.

Design/methodology/approach – The paper presents a conceptual framework for place branding cities consisting of two main dimensions. The first describes the continuum of functional versus emotional values within a city; the second measures the degree to which the image of a place is historical or contemporary. The paper then employs historical analysis to examine the meaning and construction of a Tang dynasty brand for place branding twenty-first century Xi'an. …

Beckon The Dragon: How Businesses Can Attract The Chinese Consumers Through Digital Marketing, Knowledge@Smu

Knowledge@SMU

The rise of China to the world’s second largest economy has seen a boom in its consumer market with its citizens having more purchasing power. China’s retail market is growing rapidly, including the trend of online shopping with the expansion of the credit card industry. As more and more Chinese citizens get online, the internet is slowly becoming a powerful tool for businesses to reach out to them.

It's Who You Are And Who You Know: Relating Personal And Coworker Status To Individual Work Outcomes, Sandra Spataro

Journal of Business & Leadership: Research, Practice, and Teaching (2005-2012)

In organizations, the advantages of having higher informal status relative to one's coworkers are well documented. This study extends research on status in organizations to analyze the status of one's coworkers as a factor that shapes all individual's own work experiences. In this field study of three organizations, naturally emergent informal status hierarchies in organizations were analyzed to examine independent effects of one's own informal status position, as well as the average status level of his coworkers, on the individual's work outcomes. Results show one's own status position positively relates to her performance and organizational commitment, and, after controlling for …

Medical Identity Theft, Whitney Walters, Axton Betz

Faculty Research & Creative Activity until 2018 (FCS)

The purpose of this position paper is to provide in formation on medical identity theft. Secondary purposes of this paper are to describe signs of victimization, consequences of victimization, and how to recover from medical identity theft. An additional secondary purpose is to describe how individuals can protect themselves from becoming victims of medical identity theft. More robust public policy need to be developed. And, more educators in the fields of consumer education, business and finance along with those from economics and family services need to develop detailed lessons and programs on medical identity theft and its effects on the …

Nature Or Nurture? Case Study Perspectives On Developing A Team Of Passionate Instruction Librarians At The Li Ka Shing Library, Singapore Management University, Rajendra Munoo

Research Collection Library

Developing and sustaining a team of passionate instruction librarians willing to conduct training and go the extra mile is hard to do, especially with limited resource. Successful instructional programmes depend on teamwork and collaboration especially in academic libraries. In this paper the author who is Head of Instructional Services at the Li Ka Shing Library, Singapore Management University, will share how this has been done with a team of thirteen, each with different levels of skills and competencies. The first part of the paper will cover some of the new ways information literacy programmes are being delivered at the library. …

Firm R&D Games With Differing Manufacturing Costs, Jannett Highfill, Michael Mcasey

Journal of Business & Leadership: Research, Practice, and Teaching (2005-2012)

The paper considers an industry where competition is characterized as a two-stage game between the two firms in which the product reliabilities are determined before the (Coumot) quantities. Reliability is determined by R&D expenditure. The focus is on how competitive conditions in terms of manufacturing costs affect tile firms' decision about optimal reliability. The main result of the paper is that the firm with lower manufacturing cost produces a more reliable product. However a reduction in a given. firm 's manufacturing cost only causes it to produce a more reliable product when the difference in costs between firms is low. …

2011-2012 Morehead State University Audit Report, Morehead State University. Accounting And Financial Services Office.

Morehead State University Audit Reports

2011-2012 Audit Report for Morehead State University.