Business Commons^™

Tipitina's Foundation - An Internship Report, Jacqueline M. Sandor

Arts Administration Master's Reports (1984-2016)

The following report contains a detailed analysis of the Tipitina’s Foundation. The Foundation serves musicians of all ages in various capacities through its four programs. This report is a culmination of an internship served under the Managing Director, Kim Katner, from January 3rd to May 20th, 2011. This paper includes the Foundation’s history, current operations and management, intern contributions and SWOT analysis. This report also contains my recommendations based on the SWOT analysis, and an analysis of best practices supported by research on similar companies and other organizations in the non-profit sector.

Omega Production Resource: An Internship Report, Lydia Anne Burgess

Arts Administration Master's Reports (1984-2016)

This report documents the internship of Lydia Anne Burgess with Omega Production Resource from August 2014 to March 2015. Omega is one of several event lighting companies operating in Greater New Orleans. Omega’s administrative offices are located in the Alario Center situated just inside of Bayou Segnette Park in Westwego, Louisiana. During her internship, Ms. Burgess worked under the direction of the Operations Director and the company founder and CEO. Among her various responsibilities, Ms. Burgess primarily assisted the CEO and Operations Director with administrative duties such as form creation/modernization, file organization, and scheduling. She also undertook marketing analysis for …

Southern Rep Theatre - An Internship Report, Peter Brooks Lazar

Arts Administration Master's Reports (1984-2016)

This report describes the duties and responsibilities involved in a 480-hour marketing and development internship from June to December of 2014 with Southern Rep Theatre. This first-hand research, supplemented by an earlier, shorter period as a box office associate from February to April of 2014, is used to examine the marketing, development, and managerial practices of the company. This examination includes a SWOT analysis, second-hand research into best practices, and recommendations for the company’s future. Southern Rep is a three decade old 501(c)3 not-for-profit professional theatre company based in New Orleans, which places a special emphasis on producing new works …

Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival: An Internship Report, Brooke Elaine Creek

Arts Administration Master's Reports (1984-2016)

The purpose of this internship report is to examine the daily activities, organizational structure, and festival planning of the Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival (TW/NOLF). The report includes my assigned duties and tasks, the organization’s strengths and weaknesses, best business practices, and detailed recommendations for improvement. The internship consisted of 480 hours, working closely with the Director of Literary Programs and Development, J.R. Ramakrishnan. The organization’s main focus during the year is to construct and produce their annual festival. iv

The Nola Project: An Internship Report, Monique Tourres

Arts Administration Master's Reports (1984-2016)

Since its origin in 2005, The NOLA Project has sought to bring innovative and high caliber works of theater to New Orleans audiences. Accustomed to performing in various venues due to lack of a permanent theatre, this nonprofit theater company has taken steps to plant roots in the community in other ways, including educational outreach for youth and the development of a new membership program.

The purpose of this report is to document my internship with The NOLA Project from April 2014 through April 2015 and to analyze the effectiveness of the company’s operations. My analysis is based on experiences …

An Academic Assessment Of The National Performance Network And Visual Artists Network: An Internship Academic Report, Rachel Swan

Arts Administration Master's Reports (1984-2016)

This academic report was composed at the conclusion of a 480 hour internship with the National Performance Network/Visual Artists Network (NPN/VAN), summarized in Chapter Two. This report includes NPN/VAN’s mission, history, and organizational structure within Chapter One. Chapter Three is a SWOT analysis, and Chapter Four includes a summary of best practices, highlighting NPN/VAN’s intermediary and network structure. In conclusion, a series of suggestions are offered for further consideration.

Efficient Parallel Approaches To Financial Derivatives And Rapid Stochastic Convergence, Mario Harper

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

This Thesis explores the use of different programming paradigms, platforms and languages to maximize the speed of convergence in Financial Derivatives Models. The study focuses on the strengths and drawbacks of various libraries and their associated languages as well as the difficulty of importing code into massively parallel processes. Key languages utilized in this project are C++, Python, Java, C, and Matlab. Along with these languages, several multiprocessing libraries such as C++ AMP, Python NumbaPro, Numpy, Anaconda, Finance Toolkit and such were compared. The results of the development and implementation of code suggests that once we massively parallelize the operations, …

Frictions, The Flow Of Information, And The Distribution Of Liquidity, Spencer A. Montgomery

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

This paper examines the effects of short sale deregulation on market quality by examining the implementation of regulation SHO, which removed the uptick rule for a subset of pilot securities. This created an exogenous event, allowing a direct examination of the effect of short sale constraints on the markets. This study builds on Roll and Subrahmanyam (2010) in examining the skewness of bid-ask spreads as they represent information asymmetry and market maker competition. We find that the price tests conducted in regulation SHO evenly effected both pilot and non-pilot securities, including a widening of bid-ask spreads and a decrease in …

Sustainable Promotion In Hospitality, Anette Isabella Nilsen

Honors College Theses

With the ever-increasing need to reduce our carbon foot print, the necessity to innovate for a more sustainable future has become the responsibility of both individuals and corporations. Sustainable development, which is development that “meets our needs today, without compromising the ability meet the needs of future generations” was first brought to light at the Earth Summit in 1987 (Bärlund, n.d.). With the growing numbers of travelers world wide, the hospitality industry was aware that environmental changes and pollution could potentially paralyze their industry and they became among the first to adopt more sustainable practices in their hotels and restaurants. …

Incubator-Induced Business Clusters: A Case Study, Bailey Tarpley

Honors College Theses

Incubator-induced business clusters are a new tool for governments wishing to economically revitalize geographic areas. However, this case study argues that the successful formation of a cluster through the use of a business incubator requires the presence of three important “cluster factors”: 1) resource dependence and integration of the four key players of a cluster 2) human capital aspects and 3) external intervention mechanisms aimed toward the creation of a cluster. The historical founding of Hollywood will be examined for these factors as well as the DUMBO incubator located in NYC. This case study will examine whether the situation in …

Designing A Visual Brand For A Children’S Furniture Startup, Rachel Denoble

Graphic Communication

The purpose of this study was to design a visual brand for a children’s furniture startup company. The research from this study was applied to The Cardboard Guys, a company that makes furniture completely made out of corrugated cardboard. Designs were created for the company’s branding style guide, product assembly instructions, and Kickstarter campaign page. Each piece of this project was measured for success a little differently - the style guide was given feedback from a professional design firm, the assembly instructions were given to a group of kids and parents to test, and the Kickstarter campaign was both critiqued …

The Economic Impacts And Changes In Environmental Regulation In Louisiana As A Result Of Hurricane Katrina And The Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, Carley Tatman

Honors Capstones

No abstract provided.

Cultural Influences On Women In Leadership: An Extension Of The Hofstede And Globe Dimensions, Wendy Bosshardt

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

Technology has forever changed the face of business. Although in the past business markets have been limited to local geographic areas, the concept of outsourcing has opened a diverse spectrum of international markets. An increase in suppliers and consumers can improve business effectiveness and efficiency, but entering international markets can be detrimental if the business is unaware of the subtle differences the new market has in regard to leadership styles and cultural values. Hofstede's cultural dimension analysis has been the primary research study for many industry and academic professionals (Bond 2002; Hofstede 1997). However, many scholars are questioning whether Hofstede's …

Disability Status, Disability Type, And Training As Predictors Of Job Placement, Jessica Stahl

All Dissertations

Human Capital Theory was used as a means to formulate predictions regarding the placement rates for disabled and non-disabled individuals who participated in job training programs at a non-profit agency in the Southeast. Research suggesting that disabilities are viewed as an economic liability by employers was reviewed, along with empirically based rejoinders to this stereotype. The first goal of this study was to address flaws in the existing categorization systems of disabilities, and to justify a categorization system that was more detailed than the typical psychological/physical disability distinction in the I/O and vocational rehabilitation literature (e.g., Ren, Paetzold, and Colella, …

This Thesis Is Submitted In Partial Fulfillment Of The Requirements For The Degree Of Master Of Science In Information Technology Management, Farhan Mohammed

Theses

A large number of recent advancements in the technology of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have enabled them to be very useful and effective in many applications in today’s society. They demonstrate a high degree of stability and agility in the air. A few years ago military applications were the main driving force behind the development of UAVs and UAV systems. Many of their applications included monitoring, surveillance, data transmission and communication. Recently, several opportunities have emerged and participated in driving the development of UAV technology further ahead. Such opportunities include integration of UAVs with smart cities, disaster recovery, military and …

The Affordable Care Act: Five Years Later, Andrew Dana Izatt

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

The challenges facing the American health care system are well known and manifold. The United States pays substantially more for its health care than any other developed, industrialized nation. Per capita health care spending in 2012 was $8,745, up from $356 in 1970 without marked improvements in life expectancy, quality of life, or outcomes. But despite all of our health spending, large portions of our population go without health insurance. Being uninsured carries real consequences. A report published in the American Journal of Public Health, by researchers at Harvard Medical School, using statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and …

Narrative Advertising, Meng Li

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Brand meaning, which is often used in narrative advertising, is an important value that companies try to build around their loyal consumers. This exploratory research aims to explore brand meanings from consumers’ narratives. This study analyzed 2,382 consumer submitted narratives for a real brand in the food service marketplace. Brand narratives were analyzed using a mixed method content analysis approach by applying Leximancer software to generate key themes and their related concepts. The results indicate brand meaning with some thematic similarities as well as differences when comparing narratives submitted by females and males. This exploratory study introduces analyzing narrative as …

Ethanol Energy Futures: Identifying Hedge Ratios, Cointegration Equations And Price Bubbles, Sergio Garcia

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

Ethanol has been the subject of intense debate following the adoption of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (EPAct) which established that the gasoline supply in the United States (U.S.) must contain 10% ethanol. The subsequent increase in the production of ethanol since 2005 has had an effect on the prices of corn, ethanol, and gasoline. This work seeks to identify hedging ratios using dynamic multivariate GARCH to best identify hedging opportunities in a newly developed futures market. In addition, Cointegration and Vector Error Models are used to identify relationships in price movements between ethanol futures, spot prices and related …

Determining The Dynamic Co-Diffusion Of Four E-Services Using Country-Level Panel Data, Samer Takieddine

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

Motivated by the slow diffusion of e-services in many countries in the world, and Rogers’ call for researching related innovation as a cluster, this study investigates the co-diffusion among e-services. To our knowledge this study is the first to examine the co-diffusion effects among e-services. It extends prior studies from the e-services diffusion literature, and the technology co-diffusion literature by examining co-diffusion among four e-services; e-banking, e-shopping, e-government, and e-learning. It also examined the co-diffusion mediation effects, moderation effects, and country-level factors’ effects. Using panel data of 28 European countries, and applying dynamic GMM econometric technique, this study’s findings were …

2015 May, Office Of Communications & Marketing, Morehead State University.

Morehead State Press Release Archive, 1961 to the Present

Press releases for May of 2015.

Organizational Communication: Perceptions Of Staff Members’ Level Of Communication Satisfaction And Job Satisfaction, Priti R. Sharma

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this research study was to explore the topic of organizational communication in higher education and examine staff members’ perceptions about their level of communication and job satisfaction in their workplaces. This study was also designed to test the relationship between communication satisfaction and job satisfaction by analyzing the significance of different dimensions of Communication Satisfaction with the view that satisfaction is multifaceted.

A total of 463 non-faculty staff members from different units of a single higher education institution participated in this study. This study included non-teaching staff, including student workers and both full-time and part-time staff members. …

Segmentation Marketing: A Case Study On Performance Solutions Group, Llc., Jordan Brian

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The purpose of this research is to show how Performance Solutions Group, LLC can effectively use segmentation marketing both in their current market and in expansion. The goal is to find a solution and suggest changes that should be made to the marketing team at Performance Solutions Group. This research was completed by looking at how segmentation marketing is used in broad industries currently and investigating how Performance Solutions Group can use it in their company. This case study shows that segmentation marketing is an effective way for Performance Solutions Group to market its services.

Moving Average Reversion Strategy For On-Line Portfolio Selection, Bin Li, Steven C. H. Hoi, Doyen Sahoo, Zhi-Yong Liu

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

On-line portfolio selection, a fundamental problem in computational finance, has attracted increasing interest from artificial intelligence and machine learning communities in recent years. Empirical evidence shows that stock's high and low prices are temporary and stock prices are likely to follow the mean reversion phenomenon. While existing mean reversion strategies are shown to achieve good empirical performance on many real datasets, they often make the single-period mean reversion assumption, which is not always satisfied, leading to poor performance in certain real datasets. To overcome this limitation, this article proposes a multiple-period mean reversion, or so-called "Moving Average Reversion" (MAR), and …

Crowdsourcing With Tullock Contests: A New Perspective, Tie Luo, Salil S Kanhere, Hwee-Pink Tan, Fan Wu

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Incentive mechanisms for crowdsourcing have been extensively studied under the framework of all-pay auctions. Along a distinct line, this paper proposes to use Tullock contests as an alternative tool to design incentive mechanisms for crowdsourcing. We are inspired by the conduciveness of Tullock contests to attracting user entry (yet not necessarily a higher revenue) in other domains. In this paper, we explore a new dimension in optimal Tullock contest design, by superseding the contest prize - which is fixed in conventional Tullock contests - with a prize function that is dependent on the (unknown) winner's contribution, in order to maximize …

Does Steering Committee Information Processing Capacity Influence Project Success In Enterprise Wide System Implementations - A Field Study, Kris Murphy

Student Scholarship

Organizations make significant investments in enterprise-wide system development--also known as enterprise resource planning (ERP). They deploy several governance mechanisms to achieve strategic goals associated with the system implementations. Yet, success in such endeavors remains elusive. To improve success rates, companies have, for some time, deployed organization-wide executive steering committees which oversee these initiatives. Still, scholars and practitioners have limited understanding of what makes these committees, if at all, successful. This study contributes to limited research on steering committees by examining engaged steering committees (in contrast to portfolio balancing committee)--which oversee enterprise-wide system implementations--success in enterprise-wide system implementations in three ways. …

Inventory Management And Control "For A Cause", John Michael Miller

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Companies today are changing the culture of business and beginning to involve more than just labor and money in overall decisions. Just as sustainability issues and humanitarian logistics are gaining popularity, so is the idea of using business to make a difference on society in addition to making a profit. As companies position themselves across the globe to make an impact, they employ people in third-world environments that create uncertainties on both the supply and demand sides. Also, the idea of strategically planning work with the goal of minimizing costs has been replaced by companies wanting to give more work …

Using The Triple Bottom Line To Select Sustainable Suppliers For A Major Oil And Gas Company, Pandarinath Adarsh Sunkari

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Companies have primarily been focusing on the financial bottom line i.e., on increasing profits by increasing revenues and reducing costs. With high energy usage and environmental change posing threats to the environment and business operations, companies are now considering sustainability. Since some global suppliers have low cost labor, Social well-being and human development has also emerged as major goals of a company performing global operations. Focusing on these three goals is termed the "Triple Bottom Line" (TBL). We study and explore the TBL benefits that could be realized by an oil and gas company by focusing on sustainable suppliers. A …

The Appeal Of The "Shop Local" Initiative To The Millennial Generation, Elisha Cummins

Accounting Undergraduate Honors Theses

Understanding the changing values and beliefs of consumers is crucial to surviving and flourishing as a retailer, supplier, or manufacturer today. It is important for businesses to adjust their focuses and strategies to meet the needs and wants of the current consumer. New generations of consumers create different trends, shopping behaviors, and concerns. Today, the shop local initiative is growing. With this in mind, I seek to determine the reasons why consumers shop locally and how millennials respond to the initiative. The goal of this research is to determine the extent to which millennials’ values align with the shop local …

The Impacts Of A Smoking Ban On Gaming Volume And Customers' Satisfaction In The Casino Industry In South Korea, Sojeong Lee

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

A growing number of countries have legislated smoke-free policies in enclosed public areas and have extended the policies to hospitality facilities. However, some states and countries exempt gaming areas from the smoking law fully or partially. Anti-smoking policy is controversial for a number of reasons, such as smokers’ strong opposition, government ordinance, public health, and economic anxiety. Casino management may worry that a smoking ban policy will result in a significant decline of casino revenue because the break for smoking may interfere with continuing play.

This thesis examined a smoking ban impacts on gaming volume and customers’ satisfaction in the …

The Political Economy Of Going Global: Understanding The Determinants Of Chinese Foreign Direct Investment In The Middle East And Africa, Majid Shirali

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This study seeks to explain the motivating factors behind Chinese foreign direct investment (FDI) patterns to the Middle East and Africa through a quantitative framework that utilizes a pooled cross-sectional time-series data set that covers 57 countries from 2003-2010. Prior research on the issue has hypothesized that China attempts to use external FDI to developing areas to promote national interests and help sustain economic growth. However, there has been an almost exclusive focus on economic determinants while generally ignoring political variables. The approach in this project attempts to fill this scholarly void by employing a broad array of independent variables …