Business Commons^™

Students' Perspectives Of Ngo Service-Learning Experiences: A Case Study Of Operation Smile, Suzanne B. Unger, Shana Pribesh, Linda Bol, Daniel Dickerson

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Faculty Publications

Past research demonstrated both strong and questionable benefits to students participating in domestic service-learning. However, we know little about high school and college students' perspectives of service-learning while working with nonprofit, non-governmental (NGO) agencies that serve international populations. This qualitative, exploratory study aims to determine how students perceive their lives are impacted as a result of their service-learning experiences at Operation Smile. Data were collected from two focus groups comprised of high school and university youth. Results indicated service-learning in an international setting positively influences areas of personal growth, career choice, and future philanthropic participation. It also affects level of …

Project Manager Insights: An Analysis Of Career Progression, James W. Marion Jr, Tracey M. Richardson, Matthew P. Earnhardt

Publications

The project manager is key to the success of any project. But the path to becoming a successful project manager is ill defined. In this study, the authors analyzed interview results of 87 project managers’ responses to questions associated with entry into the field, career progression, and advice for the new project manager, seeking to better understand practicing project manager career progression. Qualitative analysis techniques were used to identify recurring themes from the interview summaries. The themes and the resulting conceptual framework provide evidence that supports the development of successful project manager career path. Further, the results suggest individual project …

Support For Sister-Affiliated Ministries During Challenging Times: Understanding A Foundation Initiative In Two Regions, Robert L. Fischer

Faculty Scholarship

This article describes the efforts of two foundations to sustain the ministries of Catholic sisters in two regions: northeast Ohio and South Carolina. Spanning more than 10 years, the initiative has drawn on multiple strategies – including convening, grantmaking, communicating, and research – in partnership with sisters themselves to sustain a diverse set of ministries. The work informs foundation practice by illuminating an approach to capacity development in very different regional contexts. Key lessons include being sensitive to the context, paying attention to both individual and organizational capacity, and the need for data.

Social Networks Among Auction Bidders: The Role Of Key Bidders And Structural Properties On Auction Prices, Mayukh Dass, Srinivas K. Reddy, Dawn Iacobucci

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Auctions have been studied extensively as an economic marketplace. The economist’s focus is on modeling final sales prices, but the processes that give rise to those outcomes are rarely studied in great detail. This research is intended to provide that complementary perspective. We show how the interactions between bidders in an auction unfold in a dynamic pattern of bids and counter-bids, and thereby over the duration of an auction, create a network structure. The auction network contributes significantly to models of price dynamics and the network predicts final sales prices better than economic (non-network) indicators alone. In addition, network analyses …

Is The Cross-Section Of Expected Bond Returns Influenced By Equity Return Predictors?, Tarun Chordia, Amit Goyal, Yoshio Nozowa, Avanidhar Subrahmanyam, Qing Tong

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This paper studies whether the commonly analyzed equity return predictors also predict corporate bond returns. Bond markets do price risk, but are also susceptible to delayed information transmission relative to equities. Firm size and profitability are negatively priced while idiosyncratic volatility is positively priced, suggesting that large firms, more profitable firms and relatively less volatile firms are more attractive to bond investors, thus requiring lower returns. Consistent with a relatively sophisticated institutional clientele, bonds are efficiently priced in that none of the behaviorally-motivated variables provide profitable trading strategies after accounting for transactions costs, though some risk-based variables continue to do …

Finding Real Relevance, Ishrat Husain Dr.

Faculty Research - Newspaper and Magazine Articles

Business schools in Pakistan face a number of dilemmas and disconnects, which if left unresolved may make what they teach irrelevant to society, writes Dr Ishrat Husain.

Business education has become a popular subject for young people entering the tertiary education stage. The glamour of a business executive with his own home, car and vacations at a relatively young age is drawing a large number of students into this field.

Unfortunately, it is the mushroom growth of privately owned business schools, which are only interested in accumulating huge profits, that has been meeting this growing demand. There is a time …

What Constitutes The Success Or Failure Of Multinational Corporations (Mncs) In Foreign Markets? A Case Study Of Chinese And American Mncs, Shiwei Jiang

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

Scholars have identified multinational corporations (MNCs) as increasingly important and influential actors in international politics. However, mainstream international studies scholarship has failed to explain why MNCs succeed or fail in entering foreign markets. Market entry is a particularly vexing question for U.S. and Chinese firms seeking to compete for each other's consumers. As this study shows, surprising differences in success among U.S. firms in China, as well as Chinese firms in the U.S., suggest that statist and market factors interact with corporate strategies in confounding ways. Through case studies in the internet, automobile and fast food industries, this dissertation builds …

Mgmt 30100: Management Career Lectures, Maureen Huffer Landis

IMPACT Symposium

Abstract: Management Career Lectures (MGMT 30100) is designed to help undergraduate management students with their overall career/professional development whether that focus on internship/job search processes or graduate school attendance. The course also supports the development, refinement and enrichment of the competencies within the “Launching Business Leaders” initiative. Students develop skills useful for the internship/job search process, gain knowledge that benefits short and long-term academic and career planning, and learn how to prepare for tangible activities interacting with professionals including career and graduate school fairs, interviews, networking and correspondence. Specific learning outcomes include:

• Communicate individual interests, skills, experiences, and values to …

Small Business Crews As High Performance Work Teams: The Role Of Vertical And Horizontal Familiarity, Foster Brett Roberts

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This research focused on the influence of vertical team familiarity (past work experience between leader and members) and horizontal team familiarity (past work experience between members) on fluid team financial job performance. Utilizing role theory (Foa & Foa, 1974), leader-member exchange (Graen & Scandura, 1984) and team-member exchange (Seers, 1989) theories, within Grant's (2007) relational job design model, a conceptual model is developed and then empirically tested. It is proposed that through vertical team familiarity and horizontal team familiarity resource exchange relationships develop which influence team financial job performance. The effect of vertical team familiarity on team financial job performance …

There Is No "I" In Team: An Investigation Of Team Dynamics In The Buyer-Seller Interaction, Katerina Hybnerova

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The importance of sales team composition and the necessary team competencies is examined in this research. This research uses team intelligence, role expectancy, team cohesion, and improvisation to build an Input-Process-Output model for sales team composition. A strategic plan is devised for the sales team presentation process through three important phases, (1) team composition (2) presentation preparation, and (3) presentation execution. The team composition process, or the formation of the team, will illuminate the competencies necessary for the salespeople who will be responsible for the presentation to the buyer in the buyer-seller interaction (i.e. the initial sales pitch). Through the …

The Influence Of Location Of Firm Ownership On Consumers, C. Clifton Eason

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

An increasing number of consumers are making consumption decisions based on perceptions of a firm's social performance. In other words, many consumers take into account a firm's impact on society and the environment when deciding where they will spend their money. Thus, it is important for firms to understand what these consumers perceive to be important indicators of a firm's social performance. A potential element of social performance that has yet to be studied is local ownership as well as its influence on consumers' store perceptions and consumption decisions. As large, national chains increasingly threaten the existence of smaller, locally-owned …

Initial Online Consumer Trust (Ioct): The Influence Of Third-Party Service Provider Reputation, Website Utility, Electronic Word-Of-Mouth, And Previous Experience With Similar Websites, Surma Mukhopadhyay

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Objectives: The objectives of the study were 1) to conceptualize Initial Online Consumer Trust (IOCT) and 2) to examine the effects of website utility, electronic word-of-mouth, consumer past experiences with similar websites, and third-party service providers' reputation on the development of IOCT. Methods: To explore the research objectives, the study deployed a 2X3 experimental design that involved six experimental groups. Subjects were recruited from the undergraduate student pool at the University of Mississippi, School of Business. The vignettes used in the study was hypothetical book selling websites, one with the presence of third-party service providers and the other without any …

The Road Taken: A Between And Within Subjects Study Of Intervention Selection Decisions By Performance Improvement Professionals, Hillary Leigh

Wayne State University Dissertations

Background: In performance improvement, intervention selection is a complex decision that ought to be based on the best available evidence. Despite this, there is little research into what sources of evidence are used in intervention selection and what changes in belief occur during performance improvement professionals' decisions. Framed in decision theory, this study aims to resolve these problems. Methods: Sixty-one Certified Performance Technologists completed a dynamic, Web-delivered questionnaire where they provided a general assessment of intervention success (Pr₁), then responded to 12 performance improvement scenarios; by selecting an intervention, providing a prior probability (Pr₂), receiving additional …

Financial Reporting Manipulation And The Role Of Religious Ownership: Evidence From Nonprofit Hospitals, Ryan Seay

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Empirical evidence (e.g. Eldenburg and Vines 2004; Leone and Van Horn 2005; Ballantine et al. 2007; Eldenburg et al. 2011) demonstrates that nonprofit hospital managers respond to competing institutional and regulatory pressures by engaging in various forms of financial reporting manipulation. While some recent research in accounting (e.g. Dyreng et al. 2012; McGuire et al. 2012) shows that religious social norms can deter this undesirable behavior, these studies focus on the private, for-profit sector and use a location-based measure of religiosity. This study extends this line of research by using a more direct measure of religious social norms, the ownership …

Top Management Team Attention To The Threats From Technological Disasters: Evidence From Polluters In The S&P 1500, Jaemin Kim

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Increased public attention to environmental disasters is reducing the likelihood firms can ascribe the consequential damages of stakeholders to "acts of Nature". This phenomenon indicates that the absence of top management team (TMT) attention to natural environmental issues leads a firm to control-reducing and likely-loss threats, but less is known about whether firms engage in environmental actions in response to technological disasters and why some firms actively undertake environmental action, while others do not. Drawing on the attention-based view, I propose that technological disasters that happen in a focal firm's affiliated industry cause a TMT to increase a firm's environmental …

Mr Hyde Or Dr. Jekyll? Characteristics Of The Information Systems Security Mindset, David Pumphrey

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Information security professionals have a unique challenge in today's connected world. They are charged with protecting digital assets from individuals, groups, and even foreign governments with little or no restrictions limiting their behavior. To be successful, security experts must have the mindset and skills of those who seek to harm their organization, but most are not alloto retaliate, in kind. Instead, they must use these skills only to predict and to prevent future attacks; thus using their technical prowess for good and not for evil. In a survey of 330 information security professionals, the data reveals six mindsets of security …

Robust Design Review Conversations, Andy Dong, Massimo Garbuio, Dan Lovallo

Design Thinking Research Symposium

Design reviews and executive conversations at the point of strategic decision-making share an important outcome: they both result in the (nearly) irrevocable allocation of resources to pursue a design concept or strategic option. Our study aims to contribute to the strategic decision-making scholarship by investigating the robustness of these conversations. We define a robust design review conversation as one in which the participants discuss evidence in favor of and against the option and at the same time propose new hypotheses to explain or resolve the evidence in favor of and against the option, hypotheses that can eventually be tested. We …

Two Essays On The Low Volatility Anomaly, Timothy B. Riley

Theses and Dissertations--Finance and Quantitative Methods

I find the low volatility anomaly is present in all but the smallest of stocks. Portfolios can be formed on either total or idiosyncratic volatility to take advantage of this anomaly, but I show measures of idiosyncratic volatility are key. Standard risk-adjusted returns suggest that there is no low volatility anomaly from 1996 through 2011, but I find this result arises from model misspecification. Caution must be taken when analyzing high volatility stocks because their returns have a nonlinear relationship with momentum during market bubbles.

I then find that mutual funds with low return volatility in the prior year outperform …

Three Essays On Investments, Xin Hong

Theses and Dissertations--Finance and Quantitative Methods

This dissertation consists of three essays on investments. The first essay examines the incidence, determinants, and consequences of hedge fund share restriction changes. This paper finds that nearly one in five hedge funds change their share restrictions (e.g., lockup) over the period of 2007-2012. Share restriction changes are not random. Fund’s asset illiquidity, liquidity risk, and performance are related to share restriction changes. A hazard model indicates that funds who actively manage liquidity concerns live longer by adjusting share restrictions. The paper examines whether changes in share restrictions create an endogeneity bias in the share illiquidity premium (Aragon, 2007) and …

Two Essays On Nonbank Financial Institutions, Di Kang

Theses and Dissertations--Finance and Quantitative Methods

Evidence shows that nonbanks, which are now significant participants in the corporate loan market, exploit information gained from lending to trade in public securities. In the first essay, I examine whether these institutions use loan-based information to facilitate merger and acquisition (M&A) deals. I find that firms are more likely to become targets if they borrow from nonbanks rather than banks. Borrowing from a larger number of nonbanks or from those with a sizeable client network also enhances a firm’s acquisition prospects. When nonbanks gain more information about borrowers through loan amendments or multiple loans, the impact of nonbank lending …

Collaborative Trust: A Case Study Of Trust Evolution In A Public/Nonprofit Partnership, Maria Stella Odumodu

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Lack of trust between nonprofit organizations and the communities in which they are located is a well-documented problem in the academic literature. The nature of this mistrust is far less understood, and little is known how community-nonprofit collaborations can overcome these gaps in trust. Guided by Simmel's theory of trust, this study examined the role of collaborative trust between public and non-profit organizations with a focus on better understanding how trust evolves. The research questions focused on how trust was defined and the factors that enhanced and inhibited trust evolution within the context of collaborations between nonprofit organizations and communities. …

Physician Well Being And Patient Satisfaction Among Employed Physicians, Deanna Santana-Cebollero

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Understanding physician well-being may help prevent physician burnout, improve the quality of care they provide to their patients, reduce medical errors, and improve patient satisfaction. Using the biopsychosocial-spiritual theory as the conceptual framework, this quantitative study examined the relationship between: (a) physician well-being and patient satisfaction, (b) physician gender and physician well-being, (c) primary care providers' and specialists' well-being, (d) patient satisfaction based on physician specialty, and (e) the duration of practice and physician well-being. All of the 87 employed physicians in a Florida regional hospital were invited to respond to a physician well-being questionnaire; a response rate of 58.4% …

Mission Statement Clarity And Organizational Behavior At An Art-Focused High School, Michael Allen Mitchell

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Many new institutions struggle with issues of identity and purpose, which can create instability and lack of growth. Mission statements are often used to clearly identify the characteristics that make an organization unique. This study was informed by theories of organizational management, art integration constructivism, and Bronfenbrenner's cultural ecology. The literature indicates that there is a strong connection between a clear and concise mission statement and the organization's behaviors. This study examined a small Southeast Michigan charter school devoted to integrating arts and academic curricula to determine how the stated mission was understood and implemented by its stakeholders. An applied, …

Prioritizing Offshore Vendor Selection Criteria For The North American Geospatial Industry, Simon Wolfgang Musaeus

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The U.S. market for geospatial services totaled US $2.2 billion in 2010, representing 50% of the global market. Data-processing firms subcontract labor-intensive portions of data services to offshore providers in South and East Asia and Eastern Europe. In general, half of all offshore contracts fail within the first 5 years because one or more parties consider the relationship unsuccessful. Despite the high failure rates, no study has examined the offshore vendor selection process in the geospatial industry. The purpose of this study was to determine the list of key offshore vendor selection criteria and the efficacy of the analytic hierarchy …

A Price Forecasting Model Of Magic: The Gathering Cards, Efridge Engelhardt, Michael Jackson

Summer Community of Scholars Posters (RCEU and HCR Combined Programs)

No abstract provided.

An Economic Analysis Of Oceanic Health, Amanda Loy

Summer Community of Scholars Posters (RCEU and HCR Combined Programs)

No abstract provided.

Organizational Research In The Social Sciences, Cole Rickles

Summer Community of Scholars Posters (RCEU and HCR Combined Programs)

No abstract provided.

Mitigate, Tolerate Or Relocate? Offshoring Challenges, Strategic Imperatives And Resource Constraints, Stephan Manning

Management and Marketing Faculty Publication Series

This paper examines key firm-level factors influencing initial strategic responses to offshoring implementation challenges. Comparative case findings indicate that firms are likely to try to mitigate challenges if they perceive to have control over their cause; if strategic objectives are diverse; and if firms have abundant resources available. By comparison, firms tolerate challenges if cost is a strategic imperative, or if resource endowments are limited. Firms relocate operations temporarily or permanently in particular if challenges are externally caused, whereby temporary relocation requires investments into flexible global infrastructures. Findings reveal critical contingencies of capability development and learning in offshoring and beyond.

An After Tax Valuation Of Debt Instruments, Charles J. Higgins

Finance Faculty Works

The net present value of any loan at is own discount rate is shown to be zero in both pre tax and after tax worlds. This allows separation from any investment net present value analysis. Further, it simplifies the analysis and it is argued is appropriate even in weighted average cost of capital scenarios wherein the cost of capital equal to its own after tax discount rate and remains a zero in terms of its own net present value.

The Impact Of Attitudinal Ambivalence On Weight Loss Decisions: Consequences And Mitigating Factors, My Bui, Courtney M. Droms, Georgiana Craciun

Marketing & Business Law Faculty Works

This research takes a new look at individuals' attitudes and intentions towards losing weight. Study 1 examines the relationship among those interested in losing weight and individual self-evaluative ambivalence on attitude towards trying to achieve a weight loss goal and the intentions to achieve the weight loss goal. For Study 2, a between-subjects experimental design, where attitudinal ambivalence and prior outcome feedback were manipulated and self-efficacy was measured, is conducted to examine attitude towards eating healthier and intention to change eating behaviours. Findings across the two studies show that attitudinal ambivalence about the self and the individual's abilities and motivation …