Business Commons^™

What Do Seller Manipulations Of Online Product Reviews Mean To Consumers?, Ling Peng, Geng Cui, Mengzhou Zhuang, Chunyu Li

Hong Kong Institute of Business Studies Working Paper Series

There is growing evidence that consumers are influenced by online product reviews when making a variety of purchase decisions. Firms are therefore tempted to monitor and manipulate online product reviews on the company's website or forum to influence consumer perceptions by anonymously posting positive reviews, hiding or deleting unfavorable reviews, or offering rewards to consumers who post favorable reviews. Our review of the literature has revealed a surprising shortage of work directed at the development of an integrative theoretical framework or rigorous empirical studies on the effectiveness and the exact impact of such activities on the payoffs to various parties. …

Perceived Similarity Of Other Customers On Service Experience, Lisa Wan, Shing Chung, Patrick Poon, Maggie Chu

Hong Kong Institute of Business Studies Working Paper Series

This study aims to examine how a mere appearance of other similar customers will influence the perceived service quality of a potential customer. This research involves two experimental studies. Findings shows that if potential customers perceive other customers to be similar (vs. dissimilar) in a hospitality setting with regard to age, they will have more favorable perceptions toward the service quality and have a higher purchase intention. However, the positive impact of the similarity in age cohort can override the negative impact of dissimilarity in ethnicity on one's perceived service quality and purchase intentions. The results provide implications for hospitality …

The Role Of Cognitive Effort In Decision Performance Using Data Representations :;A Cognitive Fit Perspective, Dinko Bacic

ETD Archive

A major goal of Decision Support (DSS) and Business Intelligence (BI) systems is to aid decision makers in their decision performance by reducing effort. One critical part of those systems is their data representation component of visually intensive applications such as dashboards and data visualization. The existing research led to a number of theoretical approaches that explain decision performance through data representation's impact on users' cognitive effort, with Cognitive Fit Theory (CFT) being the most influential theoretical lens. However, available CFT-based literature findings are inconclusive and there is a lack of research that actually attempts to measure cognitive effort, the …

Decision Models In Supply Chain Management: A Social Responsibility Perspective, Swathi Reddy Baddam

ETD Archive

Recent events in emerging countries concerning supplier unethical practices and the resulting fatalities have stressed the need for social responsibility in supply chains. Rising consumer awareness regarding such events and their negative impact pose a challenge in supply management decisions for firms. This research integrates the risk of supplier irresponsibility and the impact of such events from the consumer perspective in developing supply management decision models for maximizing economic performance of firms. Two important issues in supply management: supplier selection and supplier development are addressed through stylized modeling approach.First, a supplier selection decision model is analyzed that will aid a …

An Empirical Examination Of Relational Governance And Service Capabilities On The Success Of Professional Service Firms Offshore Outscoring The Client Perspective, Renee M. Castrigano

ETD Archive

Professional services, such as accounting, finance, engineering and management consulting, are significant contributors to the U.S. economy accounting for the largest value added industry within the private sector. Knowledge-intensive professional services reached this level of economic prominence by responding to heightened competition, managing rising costs, utilizing key resources, and re-directing their focus to internal core competencies through the strategic decision to engage in offshore outsourcing relationships. By 2015, the Congressional Research Study report predicts 3.4 million, or 13.7 of professional service jobs will be offshore outsourced. Offshore outsourcing is a firm level strategic decision to relocate business activities to an …

Examining The Impact Of Disruption, Supplier Quality And Knowledge Transfer: Recommended Strategies For Meeting Demand And Supplier Development, Rebecca E. Clemons

ETD Archive

I investigate the effect of supply-chain disruption on a firm's decisions on investment in quality, and on ordering decisions, when there is a choice between suppliers, and a variable rate of knowledge transfer. I find that supply-chain disruption has a negative effect on profit, which can be mitigated by appropriate policies for order allocation and supplier development. When the probability of disruption is high, the firm should seek alternative sources of supply (even if they have lower levels of quality). Under certain conditions, the firm can improve its profit by investing in quality improvement efforts at the alternative supplier. I …

An Inquiry Into The Antecedents Of Consumer Purchase Of Non-Deceptive Counterfeit Goods: Theory, Practice And Problems, Heather L. Kirkwood-Mazik

ETD Archive

With counterfeit good consumption growing at alarming rates each year, this topic is increasingly demanding attention of marketing academics. This dissertation examines two sets of factors that influence consumer attitude toward counterfeits: sociocultural influences and psychological influences. Based on a review of the literature, two constructs, namely information susceptibility and normative susceptibility are combined to form a group of sociocultural influences expected to influence consumer attitude toward counterfeits. In addition, five constructs are combined to represent psychological influences, namely value consciousness, self-identity, integrity, materialism and perceived risk. Data was collected through a web-based survey and features a cross-sectional design. Utilizing …

Order Acceptance To Increase Shop-Floor Profitability, Salil Menon

ETD Archive

Managers of manufacturing and service facilities often face situations where incoming demand exceeds available capacity. In such situations a firm can accept, reject or renegotiate the order in order to match the demand and supply. Order acceptance research studies this decision, both at the firm and supply chain level, in order to help the firm select orders that meet their business objectives. Prior research has focused on developing order acceptance models for diverse business situations. This thesis builds upon prior research by incorporating rejection techniques in the development of order acceptance models. A tunable two-step order acceptance model consisting of …

Three Essays On Pricing And Volume Distributions Of Cross-Listed Stocks, Jing Wang

ETD Archive

This dissertation provides empirical evidences in global cross-listed stocks trading volume and pricing. The first essay documents the global trading volume distribution of cross-listed stocks and examines factors that make a host market competitive in attracting order flows from the counterpart domestic market. The results show that host markets are more successful in attracting trading volume when they have a higher information factor, have lower bid-ask spreads, provide better investor protection and information disclosure, share the common language or legal origin with the counterpart home markets and locate closer to the home market. The second essay investigates the market competitiveness …

The Stock Market Impact Of Government Interventions On Financial Services Industry Groups: Evidence From The 2007-2009 Crisis, Deborah Smith

Business Faculty Publications

We examine the market reaction and shift in risk from nine prominent government interventions in response to the crisis between February 2007 and July 2009 on four types of institutions: banks, savings and loan associations (S&Ls), insurance companies, and real estate investment trusts (REITs). Overall, with the exception of the Troubled Assets Repurchase Program (TARP), the interventions were wealth-decreasing and risk-increasing events for financial institutions. Leveraged firms and firms with higher trading volumes earn significantly lower abnormal returns. For both during- and post-crisis periods, larger firms experience increases in systematic risk; non-U.S. firms experience lower changes in systematic risk.

National And Store Brand Advertising Strategies, Jenyi Chen, Stanko Dimitrov

Business Faculty Publications

As the propensity of premium store brands (SBs) increases, retailers must consider different ways to drive sales besides promotional strategies. With this in mind, we consider a national brand (NB) and a (premium) SB co-existing in a market. Each brand has to decide the amount to invest in advertising its product and the prices to charge its customers, which can be determined separately or in unison. When either advertising expenditures or pricing decisions are set, each brand must keep in mind that the advertising efforts and revenue may spillover between the two brands, customers who intend to purchase the NB …

Deal Innovations In Mergers And Acquisitions: Do Go-Shop Provisions Create Real Benefits?, Chenguang Shang

Wayne State University Dissertations

Along with the private equity boom in the mid-2000s emerged a new M&A deal technology - the "go-shop" provision. In this paper, I address the question whether go-shop provisions are utilized by target managers to pursue private benefits or are used to protect the fiduciary interests of the target shareholder. I investigate the effectiveness of go-shop provisions by empirically testing two competing hypotheses: (a) the window-dressing hypothesis, and (b) the shareholder interest hypothesis.

This is the first study to shed light on the impact of go-shop provisions on the wealth of both the target and the bidder shareholders, and thereby …

Spheres Of Semi-Legality: Discourse, Media And Informal Economic Practices In St. Petersburg, Russia (2000-Present), Maria Rosaria Roti

Wayne State University Dissertations

My dissertation project focuses on how the post-Yeltsin (2000 onwards) market economy actually works and how people define, identify and engage within this newly structured market economy. In order to understand this phenomenon my ethnographic study focuses on business in Russia from two perspectives. First, it discusses how Russian enterprises operate in Russia with the socially embedded informal economic practices inherited from the Soviet system, including trust, personal networks, patron-client relationships, system avoidance, bribery, and corruption. Second, it examines how foreign firms operate under these existing economic conditions in Russia while simultaneously still following FTC regulations and international law. Keeping …

Elections And Asset Pricing: The Politically Sensitive Equity Of Us Military Contractors, Matthew Mark Ross

Wayne State University Dissertations

I quantify the relationship between political uncertainty and equity volatility in the months around US elections from 1989-2012. The Economic Policy Uncertainty Index and Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) data are employed to measure political uncertainty faced by military contractors, capitalizing on the unique monopsony-oligopoly business environment of these firms. I employ a GARCH (1,1) model with cross-sectionally correlated moments to produce daily firm-election volatility measures. Volatility increases 11% for local, 27% for midterm, and 43% for presidential elections. These measures demonstrate that all election categories: local, federal, presidential, and midterm exhibit differential effects on equity volatility. My results …

Essays On The Role Of Competitor-Specific Human Capital On Initial Public Offerings (Ipos) Performance, Tapan Seth

Wayne State University Dissertations

This dissertation splits the idea of competitor-specific human capital into two types: competitor-specific-direct (CSD) human capital and competitor-specific-indirect (CSI) human capital, and inspects how these two types of human capital held by IPO Top Management Team (TMT) members are associated with IPO performance. Furthermore, by utilizing research on human capital, competitive dynamics, and knowledge-based view of the firm, this dissertation identifies important antecedents that result in higher degree of impact of such human capital on the IPO firm, and IPO firm's capabilities absorb such knowledge that results in higher valuations at IPO. By employing a multi-year panel data of new …

Teams, Team Process, And Team Building, James W. Bishop, Dow Scott, Stephanie Maynard-Patrick, Lei Wang

School of Business: Faculty Publications and Other Works

This chapter examines what is involved in creating effective teams first by differentiating between work units and teams, examining team processes, understanding how and when teams can contribute to a more effective organization, and discussing how to select and develop the best team members, develop effective team leadership, and motivate team performance. It examines some of the latest developments and challenges in teams, including virtual and global teams. The group process model says that the sum of the individuals’ potential plus process gain minus process loss equals group effectiveness. The chapter describes the situations in which teams can be productive …

Reducing Scrap And Cut Cases Caused By Expiration Executive Summary, Lindsay Lee

Master of Science in Logistics & Supply Chain Management Capstone Executive Summaries and Projects

Problems with unexpected cut cases and high finished product scrapping rates led the skin care product supply team within Procter & Gamble (P&G) to evaluate the work process and technical aspects of how expiration data was used in our ERP system when determining replenishment needs.

Creating And Fostering Singerian Inquiring Organizations Through Psychological Empowerment In The Context Of Information Assurance, Kristen Lee Brewer King

Doctoral Dissertations

Singerian Inquiring Organizations (SIO) (Courtney, et al., 1998; Courtney, 2001) are knowledge-based enterprises based on Churchman's theory of Singerian inquiring systems (Courtney, 2001). For Singerian organizations to thrive, employees must feel unfettered to quest for knowledge, share what knowledge has been found, and express opinions about the findings of others. In short, employees must feel empowered to act in order to foster the well-being and development of the organization and its stakeholders. Both the psychology and organizational behavior literature have examined psychological empowerment as a way to challenge individuals and/or employees to take control of and interest in organizational situations; …

Shibusawa Eiichi, Dai Ichi Bank, And The Spirit Of Japanese Capitalism, 1860-1930, John Sagers

Faculty Publications

Shibusawa Eiichi (1840-1931) has been called the “father of Japanese capitalism” and was associated with nearly five hundred business enterprises in his lifetime. From his main position as head of Dai Ichi Bank, Shibusawa was a strong advocate for business interests when the Japanese government was generally preoccupied with military concerns. He also consistently argued that business leaders should look to Confucian principle for moral guidance if they were to maintain the public's trust. Through an analysis of Shibusawa's public statements and his legacy in subsequent historical scholarship, particularly Dai Ichi Bank's 1957 official company history, we see that appeals …

Financial Institutions And The Taxi-Cab Industry: An Exploratory Study In Canada, John D. Obradovich, Amarjit Gill, Nahum Biger, Leo-Paul Dana, Canadian Western Bank

Faculty Publications and Presentations

A current challenge taxicab owner/operators face in Canada is the lack of financing for taxicabs. This article examines business opportunities and lending risk; it also provides risk management strategies for financial institutions to manage the risk of lending to the taxi-cab industry. Members of the boards of directors and shareholders from the Canadian taxicab industry, and lenders from financial institutions that do not provide financing to taxicab owner/operators, were interviewed. Board members and shareholders were asked about their perceptions regarding business opportunity, risk, and their willingness to provide collateral for taxicab loans. Lenders of financial institutions were asked about their …

From Founders To Firm: Examining The Retention Of Founder-Ceo Social Capital In Venture-Backed Firms, Bret R. Fund

The Journal of Entrepreneurial Finance

This paper examines how organizations protect themselves from the negative social and economic consequences associated with the loss of a key member and their social capital. Drawing on the social capital and upper echelons literatures, the author(s) hypothesize that social capital can be institutionalized. The corresponding hypotheses are tested on a sample of 125 venture-backed software firms and the results demonstrate that the institutionalization of a founder-CEO’s social capital leads to better performance for a firm. The results provide a basis for understanding how social mechanisms influence economic organization as well as succession and compensation in a new venture context.

Corporate Or Network Governance? The Case Of The Italian Productive Chains And Their Scaffolding Finance Approach., Guido Max Mantovani, Teresa Guidone

The Journal of Entrepreneurial Finance

We investigate and find out the inner differences between stand-alone firms and those participating to Productive Chain Networks (PCNs) as far as ownership and corporate governance characteristics are concerned. PCNs are typical Italian economic realities made of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) which behave like a unique meta-firm. Different clusters are found from an empirical analysis: firms outside PCNs, leaders in PCNs and suppliers participating to PCNs. The clusters differentiate on corporate governance practices and the consequent capability to attract funding from financial institutions. The inner differences in governance structure relate to the underpinnings of the competitive advantage of the …

The Meaning Of 'Market Value' In Australia's Income Tax Assessment Act 1997, Nicholas Augustinos

Law Papers and Journal Articles

The article examines the use of the term ‘market value’ in certain sections of Australia’s Income Tax Assessment Act 1997. It highlights the significant disparity which potentially arises between the hypothetical market context, which established legal principle suggests should be applied to market value determinations, and real-world market scenarios faced by taxpayers. As shown by the court and tribunal decisions examined in the article, inconsistency exists as to the extent to which market forces operating in the real world impact upon market value determinations. As a result, there is an absence of clear guidance from the courts and the …

Nebraska Monthly Economic Indicators: December 19, 2014, Eric Thompson, William Walstad

Leading Economic Indicator Reports

The Leading Economic Indicator – Nebraska (LEI-N) fell by 1.33% during November 2014. The sharp decline in the LEI-N, which predicts economic growth in the state six months in the future, suggests that economic growth will slow during the second quarter of 2015. Four of six components of the leading economic indicator weakened during November. For the fourth consecutive month, there was a significant increase in the value of the U.S. Dollar. Such an increase reduces the competiveness of export businesses. There also was an increase in initial unemployment claims during the month. Further, airline passenger counts and building permits …

Moral Imagination And Entrepreneurship, Ryan Wojciechowski

Honors Theses, 1963-2015

The power of storytelling has long been a means to teach ethical lessons. In modern days, stories come through the forms of oral narrations, movie watching, novel reading, as well as many other mediums. It could be said that stories are more than just a plot that is received by a person; rather, stories are an experience that causes an emotional interaction with the receiver. Science has shown that mirror neurons in the brain respond empathetically to the characters of these fictional stories. Empathy and perspective-taking are two of the defining features of Moral Imagination, an ethical theory first developed …

Undergraduate Education Background And Ethical Decision Making, Ian H. King

Doctor of Business Administration (DBA)

This research study sought to identify differences in ethical decision making between individuals with a liberal arts educational background and a business educational background. The study surveyed undergraduate degree students from liberal arts and business school programs. The Defining Issues Test, Version 2 (DIT-2) was given to respondents to identify differences of the DIT-2 results among the study participants consisting of undergraduate seniors. The research results yielded significantly higher mean postcoventional moral judgment scores by the liberal arts majors compared to the business majors.

Two Essays On Insider Trading And Option Grants Around The Filing Of Influential Patents, Liu Pan

Doctoral Dissertations

Research documents that insiders, who have access to private information, appear to trade with profits before major corporate events like mergers, bankruptcy, dividend announcements, and future cash flow news (see, e.g., Seyhun, 1990; Seyhun and Bradley, 1997; John and Lang, 1991; Jiang and Zaman, 2010). Another recent stream of studies find that the size and quality of a firm's patent portfolio are positively related to the firm's future stock returns (Hirshleifer, Hsu, and Li, 2012; Pandit, Wasley, and Zach, 2011). However, there is little systematic evidence on whether insiders act opportunistically when they possess private information about the firm's patent …

Two Essays On Insider Trading And Option Grants Around The Filing Of Influential Patents, Liu Pan

Doctoral Dissertations

Research documents that insiders, who have access to private information, appear to trade with profits before major corporate events like mergers, bankruptcy, dividend announcements, and future cash flow news (see, e.g., Seyhun, 1990; Seyhun and Bradley, 1997; John and Lang, 1991; Jiang and Zaman, 2010). Another recent stream of studies find that the size and quality of a firm's patent portfolio are positively related to the firm's future stock returns (Hirshleifer, Hsu, and Li, 2012; Pandit, Wasley, and Zach, 2011). However, there is little systematic evidence on whether insiders act opportunistically when they possess private information about the firm's patent …

Diversity Project: Poster Series Connects Core Values To Library Materials And Expertise, Bettina Peacemaker, Sue Robinson, Marilyn Scott

VCU Libraries Faculty and Staff Presentations

Virginia Commonwealth University celebrates diversity as a core value, and VCU Libraries actively strives to foster inclusion and an understanding of difference. The diversity and culture poster series was envisioned as a way to connect education about diversity directly to library collections and expertise. This poster details the distribution, response, and impact of the series.

Bases Of Power And Conflict Intervention Strategy: A Study On Turkish Managers, Kamil M. Kozan, Canan Ergin, Kadir Varoglu

Business Faculty/Staff Publications

Purpose – This study developed an influence perspective for managerial intervention in subordinates conflicts, which helped to represent various strategies identified in the literature in a single model. Managers’ power base was then related to their intervention strategies. Drawing upon Social Judgment Theory, anchoring of subordinates positions was studied as a moderating variable.

Methodology – Thirty nine supervisors and their 165 subordinates from several organizations in Turkey filled out a questionnaire reporting power base of supervisor and their intervention strategy utilizing the Critical Incident Technique.

Findings – Referent power of superior led to mediation in subordinates’ conflicts. However, mediation decreased …