Business Commons^™

Understanding Agile Software Development Assimilation Beyond Acceptance, Corey Wayne Baham

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Agile software development methods represent a departure from the heavily regimented and document-driven procedures of traditional, waterfall approaches. Despite the highly touted benefits of employing agile ISD methods and the growth of agile adoption rates over the past two decades, it is not clear why some organizations fail to routinize agile methods, while others do so and realize their promised benefits. Motivated by the need to understand the factors that influence agile routinization, this study empirically examines the deep contextual factors that impact the extent to which agile methods are proliferated throughout an organization. Findings indicate that project success from …

Defining A Smart Nation: The Case Of Singapore, Siu Loon Hoe

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to identify the key characteristics and propose a working definition of a smart nation.Design/methodology/approach - A case study of Singapore through an analysis of the key speeches made by senior Singapore leaders, publicly available government documents and news reports since the launch of the smart nation initiative in December 2014 was carried out.Findings - Just like smart cities, the idea of a smart nation is an evolving concept. However, there are some emerging characteristics that define a smart nation.Research limitations/implications - The paper provides an initial understanding of the key characteristics and …

The Influence Of Enrollment In Career And Technical Education Courses On The Achievement Of High School Special Education Students, Melinda Simoneaux Partin

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation joins a conversation in the special education arena about the academic and vocational agenda for special education high school students. It explores the influence of enrollment in Career Technical Education (CTE) courses on the achievement of high school special education (SPED) students. The purpose of this study was to compare the achievement of special education (SPED) students enrolled in Career Technical Education (CTE) courses with special education (SPED) students who were not enrolled in Career Technical Education (CTE) courses. The study was designed to determine whether or not SPED students enrolled in CTE improved on the academic scores …

The Mediating Effects Of Autonomy, Competence, And Relatedness During Couple Leisure On The Relationship Between Total Couple Leisure Satisfaction And Marital Satisfaction, Miriam Puerta Amato, Neil Lundberg, Peter Ward, Bruce G. Schaalje, Ramon Zabriskie

Faculty Publications

This study tested Self-Determination Theory as a possible explanatory framework to understand the relationship between total couple leisure satisfaction and marital satisfaction. The three psychological needs of autonomy, competence, and relatedness—fundamental components of Self-Determination Theory—were measured through the Fulfillment of Psychological Needs during Couple Leisure (FPNL) scale and were tested as mediators. The analysis of five structural equation models confirmed the relevance of the Self-Determination Theory in explaining the relationship between couple leisure satisfaction and marital satisfaction. Although autonomy and competence were significant mediators, relatedness consistently appeared as the strongest mediator suggesting that the fulfillment of this psychological need is …

An Examination Of The Lived Experiences Of United States Military Veterans Who Have Been Diagnosed With Psychological Inflictions Of War Who Have Utilized Equine Assisted Therapy, Thomas Frederick Banner

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

As the result of multiple psychological conditions that are inflicted by war, the need for veterans’ well-being is ever evident. “PTSD changes the body’s response to stress, often making it difficult for PTSD victims to live their lives as they normally would” (Stokes, 2013, p. 1). It is possible to touch individuals who do not react to traditional therapy with a different type of therapy. It is recommended that veterans besieged with these same symptoms could benefit from therapy with animals. Renson (2010) concluded that animals have delivered numerous benefits to people using therapy. The benefits that animals offer in …

Mitigating Bias Blind Spot Via A Serious Video Game, Elena Bessarabova, Cameron W. Piercy, Shawn King, Cindy Vincent, Norah E. Dunbar, Judee K. Burgoon, Claude H. Miller, Matthew Jensen, Aaron Elkins, David W. Wilson, Scott N. Wilson, Yu-Hao Lee

Faculty Publications

We employed a serious video game to train participants on bias blind spot (BBS), capturing training effects on BBS mitigation and knowledge at three points in time. Experiment 1 (N ¼ 703) compared the effects of hybrid training (a combination of implicit and explicit training) to implicit training; Experiment 2 (N ¼ 620) tested the effects of just-in-time versus delayed feedback; and Experiment 3 (N ¼ 626) examined the effects of singleplayer versus multiplayer learning environments. We also tested differences in game duration (30 vs. 60 min play) and repetition (single vs. repeated play). Overall, the video game decreased BBS …

The Influence Of Selected Academic And Demographic Characteristics On The Success Of First-Year Students Enrolled In A Baccalaureate Nursing Program, Scelitta F. Bond

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The primary purpose of the study was to determine the influence of selected demographic and academic characteristics on success in nursing education among first year baccalaureate nursing students enrolled in a private college in the Southern region of the United States. The participants in the study were 102 baccalaureate students admitted to the nursing program in Fall, 2013. For the purpose of the study, success was defined as a grade of C or higher in two clinical nursing courses in the first year of the nursing program. Academic and demographic criteria were examined and compared using means, standard deviations, Independent …

Being Student And Practitioner Centered: Lessons Learned From Integrating A Recreation Management Department Into A Business School, Patti A. Freeman, Mat D. Duerden, Brian J. Hill

Faculty Publications

In July 2009, Brigham Young University’s Recreation Management (RecM) Department moved to the Marriott School of Management (MSM), beginning its integration into a nationally ranked business school, including the transition from a college with little coordination between departments to one where all majors share a common core of classes. Despite initial feelings of uncertainty, many insights over time emerged as to how the RecM department could better serve students and professionals. This paper shares some of the lessons the RecM Department learned that hold applicability for other recreation departments, including the (1) influence of names on external perceptions and curriculum, …

Retention Of Institutional Memory Via Knowledge Management: Perceptions Regarding The Effectiveness Of Corporate Approaches Applied In Higher Education, Sonya Yvette Marsh

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Research has shown that private industry has a better grasp on knowledge management concepts and practices than in the higher education arena. Given the internal and external challenges facing colleges and universities, the processes and systems associated with knowledge management could serve as a resource for performance improvement and greater levels of effectiveness and efficiency. This phenomenological study was conducted to determine the perceptions and perspectives of deans regarding the usefulness and value of implementing knowledge management best practices typically employed by organizations in the private sector. Four research questions guided this study: 1) What level of awareness exists of …

Adolescent Summer Camp Volunteers’Attitudes Toward Peers With Disabilities, Megan Fort, Neil Lundberg, Ramon Zabriskie, Dennis Eggett, Mary Anne Prater, Keith Barney

Faculty Publications

This study explored themalleability of adolescent attitudes toward their peers with disabilities after volunteering in a summer day-camp. The Contact with Disabled Persons Scale (CDP) and the Multi-Dimensional Attitude Scale (MAS) were used to collect data in order to determine the association between volunteering in a recreation-based summer day camp and adolescent attitudes toward disability. After a covariateadjusted regression analysis, contact with individuals with disabilities was found to significantly predict change in attitudes toward disability. Dyadic interviews were held after camp participation to provide additional sources of data with potential for deeper understanding of the camp experience for volunteers. The …

Project Execution: A Research Agenda To Explore The Phenomenon, James Walter Marion, Tracey Richardson, Matthew Earnhardt

Publications

It is observed in the literature that although project management is considered to be an execution-oriented discipline, the Project Management Body of Knowledge developed by the Project Management Institute provides relatively little detail in the Executing process group compared with other process groups such as the Planning and Monitoring and Controlling process groups. It is further observed that project elements considered essential to the success of the project including project Scope, Cost, Schedule, and Risk are not included within the Executing process group. Likewise, the coverage of project execution in the Project Manager Competency Development Framework authored by the Project …

Essays On Earnings Forecasts, Tax Expense And Ifrs Adoption, Yan Jin

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

In this dissertation, I include three essays regarding earnings forecasts, the DuPont analysis and tax expense, all using mandatory International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) adoption in Canada as a setting. In the first essay entitled “DuPont Analysis, Earnings Persistence and Return on Equity: Evidence from Mandatory IFRS Adoption in Canada”, I propose four new models to forecast one-year-ahead return on equity and change in return on equity based on prior research in the DuPont analysis and earnings persistence. I also examine whether the persistence of return on equity has improved since Canadian companies adopted IFRS in 2011.

In the second …

Agents Of Change: The Role Of Foreign Financial Institutions In China’S Financial Transformation Since The Early 1990s, Anton Malkin

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

What role have foreign financial institutions (FFIs) played in China’s financial evolution since the early 1990s? My research finds that FFIs, which include foreign commercial and investment banks, as well as private equity (PE) firms, have played a role in China’s financial evolution in three respects. First, US financial institutions have leveraged their influence in the US government, their ties to other business groups, and mobilized connections with the Chinese elite, to help China to join the World Trade Organization in 2001. This outcome created a relatively open formal, legal environment to foreign actors—helping in the cause of liberalizing China’s …

Responses To Change In The Global Political Economy Of Innovation – The Role Of Sub-National States In Industrial Transition, Dan Herman

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This dissertation seeks to explore how sub-national levels of the state promote the development of new industrial sectors. To do so this dissertation builds on a series of theoretical perspectives on the role of the state in the economy and develops a unique view of how sub-national states coalesce and contrast within these perspectives. It does so through a series of empirical case studies focused on sub-national jurisdictions in North America that highlight diverse varieties of state actions that contribute, if not lead, industrial transitions and the development of new innovation-oriented industrial sectors. In so doing, the dissertation presents a …

A Techno-Economical Appraisal Of A Pv Domestic Plant On A Irish Dwelling, Roberto Sandano

Articles

A comprehensive study of a domestic PV installation is addressed in this paper. A series of economic results are presented for a domestic installation in Ireland.

The U.S. Airways Group: A Post-Merger Analysis, Wilfred S. Manuela Jr., Dawna L. Rhoades, Tamilla Curtis

Publications

America West Airlines acquired the bankrupt US Airways on September 27, 2005 to form the US Airways Group. Our paper analyzes the post-merger performance of the US Airways Group using airline operating metrics and financial ratios for the period 2005 to 2013. While the airline has still a long way to go to improve its leverage and liquidity ratios, its capital structure and ability to pay its obligations have improved since 2005. Moreover, although the airline is still inefficient in utilizing its assets, the efficiency improvements achieved since the merger have resulted in profits and positive returns to investors. Its …

Macroconstants Of Development: A New Benchmark For The Strategic Development Of Advanced Countries And Firms, Andrey V. Bystrov, Vyacheslav N. Yusim, Tamilla Curtis

Publications

This research proposed a new indicator of countries’ development called “macroconstants of development”. The literature review indicates that the concept of "macroconstants of development" is not used at the moment in neither the theory nor the practice of industrial policy. Research of longitudinal data of total GDP, GDP per capita and their derivatives for most countries of the world was conducted. An analysis of statistical information has been done by employing econometric analyses.

Based on the analysis of the statistical data, which characterizes the development of large, technologically advanced countries in ordinary conditions, it was identified that the average acceleration …

Defining Place Image, Candi Clouse, Ashutosh Dixit

Business Faculty Publications

The image of a place is important as it has implications for investments made in cities, workforce locations, and tourism. Place image incorporates concepts including brand, visual image, reputation, the sense of place, and the identity of the place - all of which create an overall image of a place and can lead to investment or abandonment. Place image has ramifications for decisions made about the place, including where businesses locate, where workers live, and where tourists visit (Smith, 2006). Place image has serious ramifications for decisions made about the place as people choose to stay, work, visit, and invest. …

The Corporation's Place In Society, Gabriel Rauterberg

Faculty Scholarship

The vast majority of economic activity is now organized through corporations. The public corporation is usurping the state’s role as the most important institution of wealthy capitalist societies. Across the developed world, there is increasing convergence on the shareholder-owned corporation as the primary vehicle for creating wealth. Yet nothing like this degree of convergence has occurred in answering the fundamental questions of corporate capitalism: What role do corporations serve? What is the goal of corporate law? What should corporate managers do? Discussion of these questions is as old as the institutions involved.

Design And Commissioning Of A Community Scale Solar Powered Membrane-Based Water Purification System In Haiti, Shavin Pinto, Yung Wong, Kyle Fennesy, Yan Tang, Marc Compere

Publications

This paper presents the design and commissioning of a solar powered water purification system at the Ryan Epps Home for Children (REHC) in Michaud, Haiti. This system supplies clean drinking water to the 200 children who live and go to school at REHC and also to the community in the form of a micro-business. This micro-business is the mechanism for income generation for sustainable system operation. The purifier uses a three stage filtration system with a disc-type sediment filter, a 0.1 micron ultrafiltration membrane, and an ultraviolet light for disinfection. The backwash cycle extends the life of the ultrafiltration membrane …

Oregon College Of Art And Craft (Ocac), Scott Holden, Alex Joyce, Nate Raynor, Bob Sassa

Real Estate Development Workshop Projects

Students in the PSU Real Estate Development Workshop produce a development plan for the Oregon College of Art and Craft (OCAC). Their task was to produce an original development plan, including the development concept, market analysis, conceptual design, economic analysis, capital and operations budget, and management plan.

What Are The Key Qualities And Skills Of Effective Team Coaches?, William Jacox

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

The purpose of this dissertation was to identify and understand the key qualities and skills of effective team coaches. The results serve to educate and inform those aspiring to be organizational team coaches, those presently serving as team coaches, those developing curriculum to train team coaches, and those responsible for choosing and hiring team coaches for their organizations. Study participants were all experienced professional team coaches representing several states and a few different countries. The Delphi method was used, resulting in the emergence of consensus judgements of 15 qualities and 15 skills based on anonymous responses during multiple iterations. While …

The Development Of The Creative Synergy Scale, Amy E. Climer

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

This study developed a scale for teams to assess their behaviors related to creative synergy. Creative synergy is the interactions among team members where the collective creative results are greater than the sum of their individual efforts. When a team achieves creative synergy they have the potential to solve difficult problems with innovative solutions leading to positive impacts on our communities, societies, and even our world. This study looked at the internal-process variables of teams to determine what factors impact creative synergy. The research process involved two phases.In Phase 1, a survey was taken by 830 adults who were members …

On Contemporary Leadership And Branded Organizations, Mark Bloemhard

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

This qualitative study examined a leader’s enigmatic decision-making process guiding innovative and complex organizations—organizations that are not able to rely on market research or the precedence of industry emulators for making strategic decisions. Leaders of highly creative organizations regularly make catalytic decisions that have fateful outcomes; their ability to recognize and appropriately adjudicate complex and unpredictable market forces determine the consequences. Such influential choices often require a deep level of intuition with very little research and time to decide. The purpose of this dissertation has been to develop a framework that presents Brand Leadership as a distinct and viable leadership …

A Method To My Quietness: A Grounded Theory Study Of Living And Leading With Introversion, Leatrice Oram

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

Leadership scholar-practitioners must create a more sustainable, diverse, and equitable future, fostering emergence and development of resilient, competent leaders, including those who may have been previously overlooked.Leadership studies, particularly those situated in early trait and behavior paradigms, have long privileged extraverted leaders as ideal.The scholarly conversation is limited on introverted leaders; moreover, most of that literature depicts introversion as either a pathological construct associated with shyness and social anxiety, or includes introversion only by omission, as a state of deficit-of-extraversion.This study instead began with positive inquiry, framing introversion as a positive individual difference, and explored the lived experiences of introverted …

Canadian Nurse Leaders' Experiences With And Perceptions Of Moral Distress: An Interpretive Descriptive Study, Jodi-Rae Kortje

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

Moral distress in nursing has been studied across many care contexts, yet there is a paucity of research on the experience among health care leaders.The purpose of this study was to understand the experiences and perceptions of moral distress in nurse leaders.This study used an interpretive description approach interviewing 32 Canadian nurse leaders about their experiences and perceptions of moral distress within their role as a leader and nurse.A constant comparative and thematic analysis process revealed three thematic patterns:(a) leaders suffer moral distress in similar and different ways from their employees; (b) relationships matter in the midst of coping and …

Embera Drua: The Impact Of Tourism On Indigenous Village Life In Panama, Amy Lethbridge

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

This case study examines the experience of residents of the Indigenous village of Embera Drua, Panama with 20 years of tourism. It addresses the lack of Indigenous voices in tourism literature by telling the story of Embera Drua through the lens of the villagers themselves. The study uses a mix of ethnographic observation and narrative inquiry and finds that the experience of Embera Drua mirrors the experience of other Indigenous villages offering tourism around the globe, particularly the impact of lack of community capacity on management and growth of such tourism initiatives. Findings of this study are relevant to the …

Influencing Behavior During Planned Culture Change: A Participatory Action Research Case Study, Michael Valentine

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

The study was conducted in a global, for-profit, advertising firm, which initiated a culture change effort focused culture change.The objective of the effort was to manage the negative impact of implicit bias (IB) in the workplace.This type of bias is known to influence behaviors and judgements (Amodio & Mendoza, 2010).It is hypothesized that if employees shift behavior to better understand and manage these biases in the basic work activities that are typical in any organization—like working on a team, making decisions related hiring, developing and promoting talent, and the numerous creative decisions that are typical of designing advertising campaigns—more inclusive …

Limited Information And Quick Decisions: Consumer Privacy Calculus For Mobile Applications, Mark Jeffrey Keith, Jeffrey Babb, Christopher P. Furner, Amjad Abdullat, Paul Benjamin Lowry

Faculty Publications

Mobile applications (also known as “apps”) have rapidly grown into a multibillion-dollar industry. Because they are available through devices that are “always on” and often with the user, users often adopt mobile apps “on the fly” as they need them. As a result, users often base their adoption and disclosure decisions only on the information provided through the mobile app delivery platform (e.g., the Apple App Store™ or Google Play™). The fact that using a mobile app often requires one to disclose an unprecedented combination of personal information (e.g., location data, preferences, contacts, calendars, browsing history, music library) means that …

The Macroprudential Quandary: Unsystematic Efforts To Reform Financial Regulation, Kern Alexander, Steven L. Schwarcz

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.