Business Commons^™

The Effects Of Education And Allocentrism On Organizational Commitment In Chinese Companies: A Multi-Level Analysis, Shuhong Wang, Dbl Insights Llc, Xiang Yi

Research, Publications & Creative Work

As Chinese companies move to the world stage of business, they must leverage a more knowledgeable and collaborative workforce to meet new challenges. This study investigates how two prominent individual attributes, education and allocentrism, create work tension for human capital practices in Chinese companies. By surveying nearly 500 workers in four Chinese companies and using multi-level methodology, we demonstrate that higher levels of education work to the detriment of employees’ affective organizational commitment and positively influence seeking-to-leave behavior. In addition, this study suggests a positive relation between allocentrism and affective organizational commitment. Personalized leadership, a common leadership style in high-power …

The First 50 Years And The Next 50 Years Of A Behavioral Theory Of The Firm: An Interview With James G. March, Chengwei Liu, David Maslach, Vinit Desai, Peter Madsen

Faculty Publications

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the 1963 publication of A Behavioral Theory of the Firm (BTF) by Richard Cyert and James G. March, we interviewed Professor James G. March. The purpose of this article is to disseminate the full text of that interview.

The Robust Beauty Of “Little Ideas”: The Past And Future Of A Behavioral Theory Of The Firm, David Maslach, Chengwei Liu, Peter Madsen, Vinit Desai

Faculty Publications

This introductory and the following nine articles reflect comments made by panelists during a symposium honoring A Behavioral Theory of the Firm by Richard Cyert and James G. March at the 2013 Academy of Management meeting. Not surprisingly, what emerged from these comments is that the Behavioral Theory of the Firm (BTF) was enormously influential to the creation of many “little ideas” that have a big impact on a number of social sciences. More surprising is the potential for many new “little ideas” that build on the BTF. The panelists detail what these new “little ideas” may be in future …

Beyond Ss: An Analysis Of Alternative Risk Measures, Jai Kedia

Senior Independent Study Theses

Investors require a return from investing in stock securities that adequately compensate the investors for the risk level assumed. Therefore, any calculation of expected returns from a stock requires knowledge of the risk of the security. While there is no strong consensus on an ideal risk measure, traditionally risk has been conceptualized as volatility and is measured by the ß of the stock or portfolio. This paper hypothesizes that alternative risk measures such as higher order moments, size, leverage, and price-to-book value add explanatory power to the ß when predicting stock returns. Empirical analysis is conducted using both regression and …

The Effect Of Information Choice On Auditors’ Judgments And Confidence, Steven D. Smith, William B. Tayler, Douglas F. Prawitt

Faculty Publications

Previous research finds that individuals place more weight on information when they choose to obtain it than when they acquire it without explicit choice. We examine whether litigation risk and auditor experience influence auditors’ susceptibility to this information choice effect. In our experiment, auditor participants evaluate the likelihood of an inventory obsolescence issue for a hypothetical client subsidiary. We find that in a high litigation risk setting, less-experienced auditors weight information they choose to acquire more heavily than do less-experienced auditors who acquire the same information without choice. Further, we predict and find that auditors choosing to acquire information are …

The Usefulness Of Historical Accounting Reports, Michael S. Drake, Darren T. Roulstone, Jacob Thornock

Faculty Publications

In this study we investigate the usefulness of historical accounting reports(10-Ks and 10- Qs) by examining four settings where we expect investors to acquire historical reports in order to obtain qualitative and quantitative information that contextualizes and conditions information released in the current period. Using a novel dataset that tracks user requests for accounting reports stored in the SEC EDGAR database, we find that requests for historic reports during the fiscal year are positively associated with financial reporting complexity and that requests around earnings announcements are positively associated with accounting discretion and negative earnings shocks (particularly for conservative firms). Finally, …

Closing The Knowledge Gap Between Virtual Design And Product Manufacturing : Using 3d Printing For The Ninth Grade, Jeremiah D. Cooper

Graduate Research Papers

This action research investigates the impact of using 3D printing for a Technology Education course in a ninth grade classroom in general, and the effectiveness of students' ability to connect virtual design and manufacturing concepts in particular. There is a current gap in 3D printing research involving the link between designing products virtually using CADD software and the manufacturing processes necessary to create real life products. This action research attempts to fill the current research gap between computer-aided design and product manufacturing for ninth grade students.

Within the three weeks of this experimental design research, as a teacher who teaches …

Is It Feasible For The Port Of Cork Company To Integrate A Port-Centric Logistic Supply Chain For Its Container Traffic?, Kevin O'Callaghan

Theses

As a consequence of globalisation, port performance and integrated port logistics have become increasingly important. Ireland as an Island nation depends on ports for the import and export of 99% of its goods. The only way that Ireland can remain competitive with worldwide markets is to have an efficient logistics supply chain. This research has examined the feasibility of introducing a port-centric logistics supply chain for containers in the Port of Cork. A port-centric logistics supply chain is a futuristic logistics process whereby the port becomes a logistics hub rather than the traditional role as a simple gateway pier for …

Impact Of The Agency Worker Directive In Ireland, Laura Harney

Theses

The use of temporary agency workers in Ireland has increased consistently in Ireland over the last 20 years. They provide a readily available, flexible and skilled resource that can help businesses to meet market demands quickly and effectively.

On December 11th 2011 the Protection of Employees (Temporary Agency Worker) Act 2012 came into effect in Ireland. This Act transposed the Directive on Temporary Agency Work (2008/104/EC) and it stated that all temporary agency workers must have equal treatment, in relation to their basic working conditions, as if they had been directly recruited by the hirer to do the same job. …

The Affect Of Employee Engagement Among Support Staff In Cork University Maternity Hospital, Marion Josephine Cottrell

Theses

In recent years the academic research relating to employee engagement has flourished. Despite the increase in engagement literature, there is a gap concerning employee engagement regarding support staff categories. This dissertation focuses of the minority grouping, support staff

The research methodology for this study is a quantitative method. In addition, questionnaires were administrated to ninety support staff working in Cork University Maternity Hospital, with seventy contributing to the data for this study. Analysis of questionnaires resulted in the identification of a number of findings.

One significant finding of this research study was the discovery of an extra dimension affecting employee …

Predicting Social Networking Site (Sns) Use: Personality, Attitudes, Motivation And Internet Self-Efficacy, Jin-Liang Wang, Linda A. Jackson, Hai-Zhen Wang, James Gaskin

Faculty Publications

Few studies have considered the personal characteristics that may predict the use of Social Networking Sites (SNSs). We examined the prediction of SNS use from distinct personality traits (i.e., sociability and shyness), attitudes toward SNS use, motivations for SNS use and Internet self-efficacy. Participants were 352 Chinese college students who used the QQ zone. Results indicated that sociability, shyness, attitudes, motivations and self-efficacy predicted SNS use, prediction depending on the function of SNS use. Specifically, sociability, attitudes, social interaction motivation, entertainment motivation and self-efficacy were significant predictors of SNS’s social function. In contrast, shyness, attitudes, relaxing entertainment motivation and self-efficacy …

Proposing The Multi-Motive Information Systems Continuance Model (Misc) To Better Explain End-User System Evaluations And Continuance Intentions, Paul Benjamin Lowry, James Gaskin, Gregory D. Moody

Faculty Publications

Information system designers must consider the influence of users’ intrinsic motivations, in addition to commonly studied extrinsic motivations, to ensure that users will want to continue using the system. In an attempt to acknowledge this need, several studies have extended models of extrinsic motivation to include intrinsic variables. However, these studies largely downplay the role of users’ intrinsic motivations in predicting system use and how this role differs from the role of extrinsic motivation. The role of met or unmet expectations, as a result of system use, is often left out of extant models, and their function as co-creators in …

A Case Study Of E-Leadership Constructs: An Assessment Of Leadership In A Healthcare Organization, Kevin James Lovelace

Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this research is to identify the components of e-leadership theory and how it can be used to teach healthcare leaders to develop virtual teams in a healthcare organization. This study will define a way in which leaders can use e-leadership components to increase the efficacy of virtual teams. In particular, this study will examine the perceptions executive leaders have of e-leadership constructs.

This study used a mixed method concurrent triangulation design to examine perceptions of e-leadership theory which may be used to improve the efficacy of virtual teams. The e-leadership theory as a construct was first measured …

Patents, Innovation, And Performance Of Venture Capital-Backed Ipos, Jerry X. Cao, Fuwei Jiang, Jay R Ritter

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We study the predictive power of patents on the long-run performance of venture capital (VC)-backed initial public offerings (IPOs). We show that VC-backed IPOs that have at least one patent at the time of the IPO substantially outperform other VC-backed IPOs, with 3-year buy-and-hold market-adjusted returns of -7.1% vs. -23.3%. On average, VC-backed IPOs without patents perform similarly to non-VC-backed IPOs. We also report that VC-backed IPOs from 1981-1998 outperformed other IPOs, but the pattern has reversed for IPOs from 1999-2006. Although a smaller proportion of non-VC-backed IPOs possess patents, those with patents also outperform those without patents.

Diversity In Medical School Admission: Insights From Personnel Recruitment And Selection, Filip Lievens

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This issue of Medical Education includes four papers that focus upon recruitment and selection. My personal involvement with this field has occurred through my research on situational judgement tests (SJTs), most of which has been conducted in the broader field of personnel recruitment and selection for the workforce. As such, I read the four studies with two questions in mind: (i) on what issues have the respective strands of recruitment and selection diversity research in the medical education and workforce domains converged? (ii) What new insights emerging from workforce diversity can inform medical education research?

Corporate Social Performance, Analyst Stock Recommendations, And Firm Future Returns, Xueming Luo, Heli Wang, Sascha Raithel, Qinqin Zheng

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This study posits that security analysts heed corporate social performance information and factor it into their recommendations to general investors. In particular, as corporate social performance is often uncertain and ambiguous to general investors, analysts may serve as the informational pathway connecting corporate social performance to firm stock returns. Thus, we argue that analyst recommendations mediate the relationship between corporate social performance and firm stock returns. On the basis of not only a qualitative study with literature searches and interviews of stock analysts but also a quantitative study with two longitudinal samples of large firms, we find support for these …

Establishing Hr Professionals' Influence And Credibility: Lessons From The Capital Markets And Investment Banking Sector, Paul Aldrich, Graham Dietz, Timothy Adrian Robert Clark, P.Eter Hamilton

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Through two separate studies involving 47 interviews inside 22 institutions in the capital markets and investment banking sector, we explore the levels of influence and sources of credibility for senior HR professionals, and examine the challenges they face in establishing credibility. We compare these findings against previous research, which has identified several determinants of HR's influence and credibility. Our findings confirm that HR's modest influence is contingent on the predispositions and convictions of key stakeholders, notably the CEO, but also depends on the decision being taken. We find that the basis for senior HR professionals' credibility is more individual than …

การพัฒนาเครื่องมือสําหรับคัดกรองบุคคลที่มีศักยภาพประสบความสําเร็จในธุรกิจเครือข่าย, รัตนา หิรัญพงศ์

Chulalongkorn University Theses and Dissertations (Chula ETD)

ในปัจจุบันธุรกิจเครือข่ายขยายตัวอย่างต่อเนื่องไปทั่วโลกรวมทั้งในประเทศไทยด้วยทั้งในเรื่องของยอดขายและจำนวนคนที่เข้าสู่ธุรกิจเครือข่าย แต่อย่างไรก็ตามบุคคลที่เข้าสู่ธุรกิจนี้และประสบความสำเร็จนั้นมีจำนวนน้อยมาก ซึ่งสาเหตุหนึ่งของความล้มเหลว ส่วนหนึ่งเป็นผลมาจากการที่นักธุรกิจเครือข่ายไม่สามารถสรรหาบุคคลที่มีศักยภาพที่จะประสบความสำเร็จเข้าสู่เครือข่ายของตนได้ ดังนั้นเพื่อช่วยให้นักธุรกิจเครือข่ายและบริษัทที่ทำธุรกิจเครือข่ายสามารถสรรหาบุคคลเข้าสู่ธุรกิจได้อย่างมีประสิทธิภาพมากยิ่งขึ้น งานศึกษานี้จึงมุ่งที่จะพัฒนาเครื่องมือคัดกรองบุคคลที่มีศักยภาพประสบความสำเร็จในการทำธุรกิจเครือข่าย โดยแบบจำลองสมการเชิงโครงสร้างถูกพัฒนาขึ้นเพื่อศึกษาและยืนยันเกณฑ์หลักและเกณฑ์รองที่จะนำไปใช้การคัดกรอง จากนั้นกระบวนการวิเคราะห์เชิงลำดับชั้นแบบฟัซซี่ถูกนำมาใช้ในการวิเคราะห์เพื่อคัดกรองผู้มุ่งหวังบนฐานเกณฑ์หลักและเกณฑ์รองที่พัฒนาขึ้น ผลการวิเคราะห์จากแบบจำลองสมการเชิงโครงสร้าง พบว่า แบบจำลองที่พัฒนาขึ้นสอดคล้องกับข้อมูลเชิงประจักษ์ โดยในแบบจำลองประกอบด้วยตัวแปรแฝงจำนวน 3 ตัวแปร คือ 1) การไม่ยอมรับช่องว่างระหว่างสิ่งที่มีกับสิ่งที่ปรารถนา และ ความไม่มีประสิทธิภาพของทางเลือกที่เป็นไปได้ทั้งหมดในการลดช่องว่างระหว่างสิ่งที่มีกับสิ่งที่ปรารถนา 2) พลานุภาพ และ 3) การยืนหยัดในการตัดสินใจแม้บุคคลสำคัญรอบข้างเป็นอุปสรรค จากนั้นนำเกณฑ์ที่ได้ไปวิเคราะห์ต่อโดยใช้กระบวนการวิเคราะห์เชิงลำดับชั้นแบบฟัซซี่ ซึ่งจากการทดสอบจะเห็นว่ากระบวนการวิเคราะห์เชิงลำดับชั้นแบบฟัซซี่นั้นสามารถนำมาประยุกต์ใช้ได้เป็นอย่างดี

The Fuzzin' Facts, Rebel Alliance, Mitch Ohnstad, Rebekka Erks, Erin Prohaska, Ryan Mueksch, Rachel Foehlinger, Laura Bergen, Sean Davis

College of Journalism and Mass Communications: Student Advertising Projects

The challenge for this campaign is to expose the facts about sexual health and safe sex practices in a light-hearted manner in order to make it a more comfortable topic to talk about so that more people understand the need to get the facts, get tested and get involved to help prevent the spread of sexually transmitted diseases in Nebraska.

Talk. Act. Thrive. (You)Nified, Amitynine, Amy Okell, Cristina Petrisor, Dayton Stange, Connor Schulte, Amanda Schmidt, Courtney Sehn, Brandon Weeldreyer, Colin Burt, Anh Thoai Dinh

College of Journalism and Mass Communications: Student Advertising Projects

This project was developed in response to the following challenge: create messaging to promote a more welcoming and inclusive climate on campus while branding the Jackie Gaughan Multicultural Center.

How Product Attributes Influence Internationalization: A Framework Of Domain- And Culture-Specificity, Terence P. C. Fan, Alex Tai Loong Tan

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This paper introduces two important dimensions of product attributes in the context of internationalization: domain- and culture-specificity. Products can be high or low in domain- or culture-specificity, thereby being one of four broad categories in a two-by-two matrix. This framework of product attributes helps explain a series of gradations on how cultural difference influences the difficulty of selling a product internationally. By examining four cases, one from each of these categories, this paper shows that different product attributes affect the difficulty or ease with which the products of these firms were internationalized. While all four cases were able to derive …

Tunneling Through Non-Operational Fund Occupancy: An Investigation Based On Officially Identified Activities, Guohua Jiang, Pingui Rao, Heng Yue

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

In this paper, we investigate the problem of controlling shareholder Non-Operational Fund Occupancy (NOFO) in China, where controlling shareholders directly take funds away from listed firms without matching business transactions. The NOFO problem was an evident and widely used tunneling activity in China and was identified by the securities market regulators. Unlike previous literature that used indirect measures of tunneling, we directly collect the actual amounts of NOFO from mandated disclosures and utilize this direct measure of tunneling in a series of empirical tests. First, we examine and find that various mechanisms such as ownership structure, corporate governance and institutional …

Continuing Professional Development In The Accounting Profession: Practices And Perceptions From The Asia Pacific Region, Paul De Lange, Beverley Jackling, Themin Suwardy

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

Drawing on research in the sociology of professions as a reference point, this study examines the practices and perceptions of professional accountants towards the requirements of IES7 on continuing professional development (CPD). Responses from 1310 accountants in the Asia Pacific region suggest while increasing globalisation has led to more unified standards of professionalism, the perceptions of these standards are not uniform across the region. While there is some consensus that the ongoing development of accounting as part of globalisation, significant differences were identified in perceptions towards CPD offerings between professional accountants in developed economies, compared with emerging economies. Differences in …

Short Selling Pressure, Stock Price Behavior, And Management Forecast Precision: Evidence From A Natural Experiment, Yinghua Li, Liandong Zhang

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

Using a natural experiment (Regulation SHO), we show that short selling pressure and consequent stock price behavior have a causal effect on managers' voluntary disclosure choices. Specifically, we find that managers respond to a positive exogenous shock to short selling pressure and price sensitivity to bad news by reducing the precision of bad news forecasts. This finding on management forecasts appears to be generalizable to other corporate disclosures. In particular, we find that, in response to increased short selling pressure, managers also reduce the readability (or increase the fuzziness) of bad news annual reports. Overall, our results suggest that maintaining …

Managing Fit Between Organizational Functionality, Package Features And Stakeholder Needs During Enterprise Accounting Systems Implementation: A Process Analysis, Gary Shan Shi Pan, Sl Pan, Chu Yeong Lim

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

Multiple stakeholder involvement in Enterprise System implementations makes it challenging. Using Fiedler’s (2005) contingency theory of leadership as an analytical lens, this study examines the Organization-Package-Stakeholder (OPS) fit, managing fit between organizational functionality, package features and stakeholder needs during ES implementations. We develop a framework on managing OPS fit in the implementation of Learning Environment Online (LEO) system at the Republic Polytechnic (RP) of Singapore. The leadership styles suited to each of the three system development phases of planning, development and post-implementation are moderated by situational contingency variables. The interplay between the contingency variables power (legitimizing, applying and reserving), knowledge …

Does Service Employees' Appearance Affect The Healthiness Of Food Choice?, Tabea: Benoit Huneke, Sabine Benoit, Anders Gustafsson

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Derived from previous research on social influence on food consumption and social comparison theory, this article examines the effect of service employees’ appearance on consumers’ food choice using an experimental study, involving a video manipulation and eye-tracking technique. The video shows a menu being proffered by a waitress whose degree of apparent healthiness varies (healthy, overweight, unhealthy lifestyle). The menu contains both healthy and unhealthy meal alternatives. The analysis of participants’ eye movements demonstrated that exposure to the overweight employee did not stimulate greater (i.e., earlier or longer) attention to unhealthy meal alternatives, whereas exposure to the employee who displayed …

Situational Judgment Testing: A Review And Some New Developments, Janneke K. Oostrom, Britt De Soete, Filip Lievens

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Although situational judgment tests (SJTs) have a long history in the personnel selection literature, there have been some recent developments in how they are designed, administered, and scored. An SJT is a measurement method typically composed of challenging work-related situations and a list of plausible courses of action. Test takers are asked to evaluate each course of action for either the likelihood that they would perform the action or the effectiveness of the action. In this book chapter, we first briefly review current practice regarding the development of SJTs in personnel selection. We also review evidence concerning reliability, construct-related validity, …

Communicating Corporate Social Responsibility In Singapore: Towards More Effective Media Relations, A. Pang, Angela Ka Ying Mak, Joanne M. H. Lee

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Organizations face several impediments when it comes to communicating their corporate social responsibility (CSR) engagement to the public via the media. This paper examines practitioners’ and journalists’ perception of CSR communication using the agenda-building model (Qiu Q, Cameron GT, Communicating health disparities: building a supportive media agenda. VDM Verlag, Saarbruecken, 2008) by examining news coverage of how practitioners and journalists understand CSR, what types of CSR stories get covered in the media, and how are CSR stories portrayed in the media. News coverage of Singapore’s mainstream publications, The Straits Times, The Business Times, and The New Paper, were analyzed. The …

Limited Attention, Marital Events, And Hedge Funds, Yan Lu, Sugata Ray, Melvyn Teo

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We explore the impact of limited attention on investment performance by analyzing the returns of hedge fund managers who are distracted by personal events such as marriage and divorce. We find that marriages and divorces are associated with significantly lower fund alpha, during the six-month period surrounding the event and for up to two years after the event. Relative to the pre-event window, fund alpha falls by an annualized 8.50 percent during a marriage and 7.39 percent during a divorce. Busy fund managers who manage larger funds and engage in high tempo investment strategies are more affected by marriage. Fund …

Hazards To Effective Due Diligence, Michael Benoliel

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

It is not surprising that many business deals fail to realize their expected future value because some deal makers fail to perform effective due diligence. Successful deal makers, however, know that due diligence is one of the most important tasks in successful deal making. Thus, they avoid the psychological and contextual traps that cause poor due diligence. In this article, I describe the hazards – the psychological biases and contextual factors – that might affect the due diligence task. These hazards include information availability bias; confirmation bias; overconfidence bias; time pressure; self-interested agents; deal fever; narrow focus; and complexity. Following …