Business Commons^™

The Corporate Exploitation Of Fundamental Rights: A Nation Of Arbitration, Melanie A. Carlson

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis is an in-depth discussion and analysis of the alternative dispute resolution process of arbitration in the United States. It begins by providing a basic explanatory overview of arbitration clauses and the arbitration process. It then goes on to highlight the various benefits over traditional court litigation that arbitration has to offer. From there, the paper presents a detailed discussion of the many shortcomings of the arbitration process. It identifies the overall lack of procedural fairness that exists in arbitration today due to the fact that arbitration currently tends to favor businesses over consumers and workers during dispute settlements. …

The Gender Gap In Immigrant Entrepreneurship: The Role Of Culture And Home Country Self-Employment, Amy Ingram

CMC Senior Theses

This paper investigates the effect of culture and home country self-employment rates on immigrant self-employment in the United States, post-migration. This study analyzes the effects for both men and women, focusing on the gender gap in self-employment. The empirical results show that home country effects have a small impact on self-employment, but most of this relationship is unexplained. Because the explanatory power of home country effects is so low, it is unlikely that culture significantly influences self-employment. I find that, contrary to my hypotheses, women from countries with high female self-employment rates are likely to see a larger decrease in …

Management In Major League Baseball: How General Managers Succeed And Fail Using Statistics To Build Winning Franchises, Sam Baughman

CMC Senior Theses

Baseball fans discuss and remember the heroics of Major League Baseball players and managers. However, team executives operate away from the crowds, in the front office to draft, trade for, and sign talented players and managers to construct successful teams. The intent of this thesis is to first rank and analyze these general managers and presidents of baseball operations through finance and baseball statistics. Then, I will examine team statistics to determine what statistics correlate to winning. Two of the general managers, Theo Epstein and Dan O’Dowd, will then be examined more thoroughly to determine how their decisions impacted their …

Revenue Incentives And Referee Propensity To Make Foul Calls In The Nba Finals, Daniel Fallon-Cyr

CMC Senior Theses

In this study I examine foul calls by NBA referees alongside the difference in aggressiveness of twelve NBA basketball teams as they compete for the Championship Title. I aim to identify referee biases that increase the likelihood of the NBA Finals ending in a later game due to league revenue incentives. My data consists of 91 individual NBA Finals games played between the 2001 and 2016 NBA Finals. After controlling for changes in play as well as the difference in aggressiveness, I find that NBA referee’s foul calls are more dependent on a call on the opposing team in situations …

Is Silence The Answer?, Gator Adams

CMC Senior Theses

This study examines the relationship between company management guidance, and ex-ante crash risk over the duration of 2008(Jan 2006-Dec 2009) financial crisis using the implied volatility skew, which is based upon ex-ante volatility implied by the pricing model developed by Black-Scholes (1973). The study finds that over the duration of this crisis period, management guidance decreases with a rise in ex-ante crash risk. Further, the study provides evidence on the relationship of management guidance and earnings volatility, and how that is affected by a firm's industry product concentration based on the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI) score.

Australian Real Estate Stock Reactions To Firb Regulation Changes, Henry Wei

CMC Senior Theses

This study analyzes the share price reactions to real estate development and building/construction materials corporations in relation to FIRB rule changes. It appears companies as a whole were indifferent to the rule changes; however individual securities returns were wildly different. These findings suggest that the FIRB rule changes had a mixed effect on different corporations possibly based on their exposure to the Australian real estate market.

The Fear Factor: Determinants Of Entrepreneurial Fear Of Failure, Pema Donyo

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis aims to investigate determinants of fear of failure in entrepreneurial activity that could inhibit starting a business. The study uses cross-sectional, pooled OLS, and panel regressions. The dependent variable is fear of failure regarding entrepreneurship, measured with the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) survey question of whether fear of failure would prevent the responder from starting a firm. The unit of analysis is at country level. I categorize determinants into demographic, property rights, and procedural variables. A population of higher working age ratio (measured as the population aged 15-64 divided by the population aged 65 and over) correlates with …

Height, Weight, And Durability In Major League Baseball, Joshua Yeager

CMC Senior Theses

Using data from the 2000-2016 Major League Baseball seasons, this paper looks at the determinants of durability amongst baseball athletes, durability is measured in games played for batters and innings pitched for pitchers, with a particular focus on height and weight. This paper finds evidence that lighter, shorter batters play significantly more games than taller, heavier batters. Additionally, amongst pitchers, there is only circumstantial evidence that height and weight are important determining factors of player durability. Finally, I find that starting pitchers increase the likelihood of becoming injured in the regular season by 10.3% and 21.8% if their hits per …

Should I Stay Or Should I Go? How Land Use Regulation Impacts Housing Choice, Parker Mallchok

CMC Senior Theses

Ideally, land use policies correct for negative externalities. However, the barriers they impose on individuals and communities have serious implications. Existing studies on this topic focus on singular, specific areas because land regulation is determined at the local level and varies extensively across the nation. Furthermore, current housing literature focuses on the “norm” of single family housing. This ignores the changing attitudes toward different types of dwellings. My study examines local regulatory environments across the nation by using Gyourko et al. 2008’s Wharton Residential Land Use Regulation Index, which develops a comparative scale for the otherwise impossibly varied regulatory environments. …

A Sectoral Analysis Of The 1929 Stock Market Crash, Paul Edward Reynolds Iii

CMC Senior Theses

The stock market crash of 1929 stands today as the largest decline in market value in the history of the United States. Consequently, the event destroyed the wealth of thousands of American families and institutions. On October 28th and 29th, the United States stock market fell 11.3 percent and 12.4 percent respectively, marking the beginning of a down market that lasted over three years, the time period known today as the Great Depression. This paper empirically analyzes the effects felt by each individual industry sector in the crash of 1929, identifying gross and abnormal returns over three major days in …

Short-Termism And Corporate Myopia: The Values Assigned By The Market To Short-Term And Long-Term Firms, Justin Alexander

CMC Senior Theses

Short-termism and myopia on the part of corporate managers, analysts, and investors have created a business environment driven by the excessive focus on short-term results and the need to meet earnings targets at the expense of long-term value creation. These are accompanied by numerous consequences, including the potential for short-term-oriented firms, particularly in the U.S., to lag behind global long-term-oriented firms, as well as the potential for short-term mindsets in the corporate world to catalyze financial crises. In this paper, I demonstrate that the market generally assigns higher values to long-term firms rather than short-term ones. This is evidenced by …

An Examination Of "Lookism" In Scholarly Literature, Diana Saiki, Alyssa Dana Adomaitis, Gundlach Jessica

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

An Analysis Of Cases In Financial Accounting, Charles L. Barraza

Honors Theses

The following thesis consists of solutions to a series of case studies in financial accounting that were completed in fulfillment of the requirements of the ACCY 420 course at the University of Mississippi for the fall and spring semester for the 2015/2016 academic year. The thirteen case studies each focus on a separate area of financial accounting and aid in the comprehension and analysis of different accounting topics, such as revenue recognition and depreciation expense. The cases were formatted as a series of questions to a specific scenario. Included are answers consisting of accounting financial statements, journal entries, calculations, and …

A Discussion Of Thirteen Financial Accounting Topics, Jordan Barr

Honors Theses

The purpose of this paper is to investigate thirteen different financial reporting topics and principles using specific scenarios that have been presented in a case study. These topics include the effects of different U.S. GAAP reporting options, the calculation of return on net operating assets, the statement of cash flows, the treatment of accounts receivable, U.S. GAAP policies, the effects of depreciation expense, contingencies, long-term debt, common stock, the treatment of investments, revenue recognition, the effects of deferred income taxes, and retirement obligations. Each case study introduces a company (or multiple companies) that exemplifies the topic for analysis. Then, several …

Stigmas That Exist Regarding Technology, Lyndsey Nicole Bowers

Senior Honors Theses

In looking at technology and how technology affects an individual, research indicates that a number of stereotypes exist about the people that most frequently use technology. A large portion of these stigmas involve the personality or gender of those that work with or use technology. The research that indicates that these stereotypes exist within the field of Information Technology (IT) but does not expand to look at the general population and their use of technology. More specifically, the research has not focused on the individuals who are simply interested in information technology and who are talented in working with technology. …

Virtual Collaboration Effectiveness In Multi-Organization Projects: Tool Usability, Task Alignment And Team Connectivity, Zhaojun Yang, Jun Sun, Yali Zhang, Ying Wang

Information Systems Faculty Publications

As mobile instant messaging (IM) has become the fastest-growing social media (e.g. WeChat, WhatsApp), this study investigates the use of it as a virtual collaboration tool in multi-organization projects. The understanding of the relationships among tool, task and team in technology-facilitated collaboration leads to the integration of technology acceptance model, task-technology fit model and network externality framework into a research model. Tool usability, task fit and team connectivity are hypothesized to have direct and indirect effects on virtual collaboration effectiveness. The results based on survey observations collected from multi-organization project teams using WeChat in China support most of the hypothesized …

Distributed Leadership: Building Capacity To Maximise Collaborative Practice In A New Teaching Research Aged Care Service, Kirsty Marles

Theses

This research facilitated an approach to apply the concept of distributed leadership, as articulated in Health LEADS Australia: the Australian health leadership framework to generate the conditions required to support sustained collaborative practice. The setting for this research was ViTA South, which, at the time of the research was a newly established teaching, research aged care service located in Adelaide, South Australia. The research was concerned with developing distributed leadership amongst the staff team to engender sustained collaborative practice, critical to realising the vision for ViTA South, which requires collaboration beyond the traditional practices of an aged care workforce. This …

Distinguishing Entrepreneurial Approaches To Opportunity Perception, Stern Neill, Lynn E. Metcalf, Jonathan L. York

Marketing

Purpose – Whether opportunities are discovered or created by entrepreneurs is a foundational question in entrepreneurship research. The purpose of this paper is to examine women entrepreneurs in high-growth new ventures and explore the cognitive resources that distinguish between three approaches to opportunity perception: opportunity discovery; opportunity creation; and a combined discover-create (ambidextrous) approach.

Design/methodology/approach – Using questionnaire responses from 165 women entrepreneurs in highgrowth new ventures, K-means clustering was used to determine three approaches to opportunity perception. The cognitive resources associated with each approach were then identified using multiple discriminant analysis. Finally, multivariate analysis of variance was conducted to …

The Effect Of Control Source And Control Framing On Employee Effort, Pinky Rusli

Theses and Dissertations--Accountancy

Prior research suggests that controls can negatively impact the motivation of employees to exert effort and that the detrimental effects of controls depend on control source. That is, controls cause more adverse behavior when employees attribute the source of control implementation to their manager’s decision than when the source of control implementation is beyond their manager’s authority. This study uses experiments to investigate whether the behavioral effects of controls depend not only on control source, but also on control framing, by which managers can frame the control implementation either for monitoring or coordinating purposes. The study also suggests that the …

The Usefulness Of Climate Change Risk Disclosure: Evidence From Sec Fr-82, Chong Wang

Theses and Dissertations--Accountancy

On February 8, 2010, the SEC issued an interpretive guidance, SEC FR-82, (guidance hereafter) and required public firms to disclose climate change risk in their 10-Ks. However, this guidance has been controversial. Using firm-year observations from the Russell 3000 Index, this paper shows the following findings regarding the usefulness of climate change risk disclosure. First, a review of the legislative process leading to the 2010 guidance suggests that institutional investors and Democratic politicians play a key role in lobbying the SEC to require the climate change disclosure. Second, firms with climate change risk disclosures have lower future return on assets, …

A Quantitative Examination Of The Relationship Between Age, Gender, And Burnout In Public Accounting Professionals In A United States National Firm, Jamie Stowe

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Scholars and practitioners agree burnout is a significant problem plaguing the public accounting industry. Burnout is a condition that results from long periods of excessive strain on personal resources, and is often found in public accounting professionals due to the high stress and deadline-driven environment. As the causes for burnout are better understood, the focus has turned to why some individuals are more likely to burnout than others. Identifying who has a tendency to burnout can only help in the quest for solutions. The purpose of this correlational quantitative study was to test the theoretical framework of Maslach and Jackson …

Interpretations And Implementations Of Various Accounting Standards, Hannah Claire Farmer

Honors Theses

This thesis examines how to interpret and implement a variety of accounting standards. By using a variety of accounting cases, I have researched the issue at hand to determine the proper accounting standard that provides guidance on the way the issue must be treated. In some of these cases, such as the tax case, the guidance regarding the treatment of the tax percentages is very loose. In instances such as these, there may be several answers to the problem at hand. However, in many other cases, the guidance that accompanies the standards relating to the case are very straight-forward and …

Observations Of Homeownership In The United States Since World War Ii: A Look At The Ups And Downs, Jake Muse

Honors Theses

This thesis investigates the mechanisms that have affected homeownership since World War II. Homeownership rates can reflect people's desire to own homes or not own homes. Therefore, studying the homeownership rates will give me a better opportunity to understand how the residential real estate market operates. Robert Shiller's Homeownership graph, the U.S. Census Bureau's Total Housing Inventory Table and the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis' graph of the homeownership rate drove my research. Dating back to World War II, wherever I observed a significant increase or decrease in homeownership, I wanted to explain what was driving the increase or …

An Analysis Of The Financial Literacy Of Senior Students Across Fields Of Study At The University Of Mississippi, Robert Hollis Burrow

Honors Theses

This thesis examines the financial literacy of senior students at the University of Mississippi, as well as which variables influence a student's financial literacy level. Financial literacy is crucial for both an individual's current and long-term well-being and financial health. Students in various major fields of study participated in a multiple-choice survey, including demographic, socioeconomic, and financial literacy questions. The student's answers were analyzed using univariate analyses, an ordinary least squares stepwise regression, and a logistic stepwise regression. The study found that the average student score of 2.75 out of five financial literacy questions was comparable to the national average …

Guide To Audit Data Analytics, American Institute Of Certified Public Accountants (Aicpa)

Guides, Handbooks and Manuals

No abstract provided.

2017 Trends In The Supply Of Accounting Graduates And The Demand For Public Accounting Recruits, American Institute Of Certified Public Accountants (Aicpa)

Guides, Handbooks and Manuals

No abstract provided.

Understanding Business Valuation : A Practical Guide To Valuing Small To Medium-Sized Businesses, Gary R. Trugman

Guides, Handbooks and Manuals

No abstract provided.

Boomerang Employees: Should You Welcome Them Back?, Brad Harris, Richard G. Gardner

Faculty Publications

It’s 4:45 PM on a Friday, you’re about to head home, and then your phone buzzes. You look down to see a text from a previous employee that hasn’t been in contact since departing several months ago (sans a LinkedIn request). He says he just wants to “catch up”, but you suspect another angle. Ten minutes into a coffee meeting the next week and you get it — he wants to come back to the company. A host of questions go through your mind: Is this normal? Why did you leave in the first place? Why do you want to …

Is Retention Necessarily A Win? Outcomes Of Searching And Staying, Wendy R. Boswell, Richard G. Gardner, Jiexin Wang

Faculty Publications

This research examines the issue of employee retention by considering what happens to employees that engage in the job search process yet end up staying with an organization. Grounded in the conceptualization of reluctant staying from Hom, Mitchell, Lee, and Griffeth (2012), we consider a potential downside of employee retention. Specifically, the study examines the psychological (i.e., job dissatisfaction, low organizational commitment) and behavioral detachment (i.e., neglect behavior, diminished job performance) employees may experience when they search for alternative employment yet ultimately stay with an organization. This study also examines the moderating role of the objective underlying the search behavior …

Understanding “It Depends” In Organizational Research: A Theory-Based Taxonomy, Review, And Future Research Agenda Concerning Interactive And Quadratic Relationships, Richard G. Gardner, T. Brad Harris, Ning Li, Bradley L. Kirkman, John E. Mathieu

Faculty Publications

The study of interaction effects is critical for creating, extending, and bounding theory in organizational research. Integrating and extending prior work, we present a taxonomy of two-way interaction effects that can guide organizational scholars toward clearer, more precise ways of developing theory, advancing hypotheses, and interpreting results. Specifically, we identify three primary interaction types, including strengthening, weakening, and reversing effects. In addition, we explore subcategories within these interaction types. Our review of articles published in leading management and applied psychology journals from 2009 to 2013 supports the generalizability of this framework. We offer specific recommendations for using this taxonomy to …