Business Commons^™

Learning From The Swiss, Aubrey Wright

Marriott Student Review

The trades are in trouble. With less students choosing a vocational education, the United States is facing a rapidly growing gap in skilled vocational labor. The answer: the mighty apprenticeship program, courtesy of the Swiss. The Swiss model of apprenticeships help the bottom line of companies. It also trains students for promising careers. By taking clues from the Swiss, the US can begin solving its vocational trade woes.

Fashion Copycats And Copyright Law, Rowena Natasha

Marriott Student Review

Is fashion an art? Or a utilitarian part of our life? Thanks to US copyright laws, "fast fashion" companies like H&M and Zara are making windfall gains by copying new designs, even at the expense of small start-ups. But don't start writing legislation yet. Without "fashion copycats" making affordable yet trendy products, the fashion industry would be left dependent on a small-pool of upper-class consumers.

Building Information Modeling: Risks, Benefits, And Trends In Construction, Tanner Duron

Marriott Student Review

Welcome to the information age. Building Information Technology (BIM) offers the construction industry a way to manage everything, from sourcing to construction to maintenance. BIM has significant risks, but also boasts enough benefits to make every firm in the AEC industry ready to start integrating its use. As digital natives, it is up to the rising generation of workers to spearhead the wide-spread use of BIM.

Interior Design In The Workplace, Bryce Cindrich

Marriott Student Review

While people generally spend much of their time in their home, time spent in the workplace is usually a close second. Why should people care less about how their office is set up than their home? A well-designed interior at the workplace can help promote employee productivity and support their well-being, build a sense of community, improve team collaboration, and attract and retain talent.

Editor's Letter: Expectations

Marriott Student Review

This issue of Marriott Student Review (MSR) is all about developing greater expectations for the future, finding new ways of accomplishing our dreams, and fostering relationships, even in the digital world of Zoom and Team meetings. Even though our expectations have been unexpectedly altered, in the end, the shape of our lives may be ultimately better.

A Comprehensive And Absolute Corporate Sustainability Assessment And Enhanced Input Output Life Cycle Assessment, Joseph M. Wright

Dissertations

Stresses due to economic activity are threatening to exceed environmental and societal limits with the potential to jeopardize local communities and create global crises. This research proposes new methodologies and analytic techniques to comprehensively assess corporate sustainability and enhance the efficiency of estimating environmental and social impacts with Input Output Life Cycle Assessment (IOLCA).

Sustainability assessments and management require consideration of both social and environmental impacts as outflows of economic activity. There are a number of assessment tools available to gain insight into environmental and social impacts; but in most cases, these approaches lack essential components for a comprehensive and …

Global Optimization Algorithms For Image Registration And Clustering, Cuicui Zheng

Dissertations

Global optimization is a classical problem of finding the minimum or maximum value of an objective function. It has applications in many areas, such as biological image analysis, chemistry, mechanical engineering, financial analysis, deep learning and image processing. For practical applications, it is important to understand the efficiency of global optimization algorithms. This dissertation develops and analyzes some new global optimization algorithms and applies them to practical problems, mainly for image registration and data clustering.

First, the dissertation presents a new global optimization algorithm which approximates the optimum using only function values. The basic idea is to use the points …

Changing The Focus: Worker-Centric Optimization In Human-In-The-Loop Computations, Mohammadreza Esfandiari

Dissertations

A myriad of emerging applications from simple to complex ones involve human cognizance in the computation loop. Using the wisdom of human workers, researchers have solved a variety of problems, termed as “micro-tasks” such as, captcha recognition, sentiment analysis, image categorization, query processing, as well as “complex tasks” that are often collaborative, such as, classifying craters on planetary surfaces, discovering new galaxies (Galaxyzoo), performing text translation. The current view of “humans-in-the-loop” tends to see humans as machines, robots, or low-level agents used or exploited in the service of broader computation goals. This dissertation is developed to shift the focus back …

An Automated Feedback System To Support Student Learning Of Conceptual Knowledge In Writing-To-Learn Activities, Ye Xiong

Dissertations

As a pedagogical strategy, Writing-to-Learn (WTL) intends to use writing to improve students’ understanding of course content. However, most of the existing feedback systems for writing are mainly focused on improving students’ writing skills rather than their conceptual development. In this dissertation, an automatic approach is proposed to generate timely, actionable, and individualized feedback based on comparing knowledge representations extracted from lecture slides and individual students’ writing assignments. The novelty of the proposed approach lies in the feedback generation: to help students assimilate new knowledge into their existing knowledge better, their current knowledge is modeled as a set of matching …

Peer-To-Peer Consumption In 3d Printing Design, Weizhi Chen

Dissertations

Three-dimensional printing or additive manufacturing is a new element in new product development that emphasizes on digitalization and innovation. However, due to its new emergence, existing research has rarely explored its mechanism and benefits especially in marketing, new product development and innovation. This research addresses the mechanism of 3D printing under collaborative consumption in the age of personal fabrication. The primary focus of this research lies at the intersection of marketing, 3D printing in collaborative consumption, and data science. Online peer-to-peer 3D printing sharing platform myminifactory.com is utilized as primary study context. In this research, two types of product design …

How Can Our Mission Be Fully Accomplished By Staff That Are Experiencing Secondary Trauma And Burnout?, Stephanie Reau

Other QIC-WD Products

My name is Stephanie Reau and I am a training supervisor at Summit County Children Services. We are an agency of 350 employees with a focus on recruiting and maintaining diverse staff committed to serving all children and families. Summit County strives to attract and retain wellqualified staff, but like many child welfare agencies in Ohio, this has been a difficult task to accomplish. The overwhelming pressures of the job cause secondary trauma, burnout and ultimately staff turnover. Staff turnover impacts the morale of the agency, is costly, and, most importantly, it negatively impacts the families we serve. Our mission …

Mind Maps And Machine Learning: An Automation Framework For Qualitative Research In Entrepreneurship Education, Yasser Farha

Dissertations

Entrepreneurship Education researchers often measure entrepreneurial motivation of college students. It is important for stakeholders, such as policymakers and educators, to assert if entrepreneurship education can encourage students to become entrepreneurs, as well as to understand factors that influence entrepreneurial motivation. For that purpose, researchers have used different methods and instruments to measure students' entrepreneurial motivation. Most of these methods are quantitative, e.g., closed-ended surveys, whereas qualitative methods, e.g., open-ended surveys, are rarely used.

Mind maps are an attractive qualitative survey tool because they capture the individual's reflections, thoughts, and experiences. For Entrepreneurship Education, mind maps can be utilized to …

Apple, State Aid, And Arm’S Length: Eu General Court’S Failure Of Imagination, David G. Chamberlain

Accounting

In this article, Chamberlain analyzes the EU General Court ruling in Apple, and examines state aid and transfer pricing in the EU, with a focus on (and as an advocate for) the existence of an autonomous arm’s-length principle.

What Are Total Export Commitments Telling Us About Beef’S Potential In 2020: Positive Signs?, Elliott James Dennis

Extension Farm and Ranch Management News

Overarching Market Conditions

The recent cattle on feed report suggests that cattle feedlots are coming closer to sorting through much of the backlog associated with plant closures and shutdowns as a result of plant workers testing positive for COVID-19 and plants implementing CDC and OSHA worker health recommendations. For example, the number of cattle on feed over 90 days has dipped below 2019 levels for the first time since April. However, cattle on feed over 120 days is still about 10% higher than 2019. The result of cattle being on feed longer is sustained record level dressed weights for both …

2020-August-31-Virtual Climate Reality Training Mentor, University Marketing And Communication, East Tennessee State University

ETSU News

p>JOHNSON CITY (Aug. 31, 2020) – Dr. Audrey Depelteau, director of the ETSU Innovation Lab, was chosen to be a mentor in the first Climate Reality global virtual training held in July. Five hundred Climate Reality Leaders from around the world served as mentors for more than 10,000 participants. Climate crisis training focused on diversity, equity, inclusion

Depelteau’s graduate studies focused on environmental toxicology, and she trained to be a Climate Reality Leader in 2013 to support Innovation Lab clients developing green technologies. The Climate Reality Project (CRP), founded and chaired by Nobel Laureate and former Vice President Al …

Institutional Logics And The Double Bottom Line: A Study Of Chikum Microfinance Bank Limited, Daniel Anyanwu

Dissertations

Microfinance institutions (MFIs) serve a social mission, while also having to focus on financial sustainability. Microfinance emerged as an alternative to traditional aid to the poor and aims to help alleviate poverty through providing them with financial services. MFIs can be self-sustainable and even profitable through income generating activities. This twin goal of commercial viability and social mission has generated much scholarly interest in the competition between two seemingly incompatible logics of action. Assumptions about the incompatibility of profit and mission motives have dominated the literature and led to a neglect of how some MFIs may be successful in integrating …

2020-August-31-Going Places, University Marketing And Communication, East Tennessee State University

ETSU News

ETSU welcomes the following new faculty and staff to the university family:

Dr. Michael J. Allshouse is a professor of pediatric surgery in the Department of Surgery. He comes to ETSU from Valley Children’s Healthcare, Madera, California, where he was medical director of Pediatric Surgery. He holds his D.O. from the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine.

Lori Balmer is director of Clinical Education and Radiography in the Department of Allied Health. She was previously director of the Radiography Program at Trinity College of Nursing and Health Sciences. She holds a master of public administration degree from Indiana University.

Dr. Amanda …

2020-August-31-Perfect 36 Score, University Marketing And Communication, East Tennessee State University

ETSU News

JOHNSON CITY – (August 31, 2020) Reilly Wells, a senior at University School, was notified that she earned a perfect score of 36 on the ACT exam.

Fewer than half of 1% of students who take the ACT earn a top score. In the U.S. high school graduating class of 2019, only 4,879 out of nearly 1.8 million students who took the ACT earned a top composite score of 36.

Originally from Sullivan County, Wells lives in Johnson City with her parents, Tamie and Warren Wells.  Her grandparents, Larry and Karen Daniels, live in Kingsport. This is her second year …

2020-August-31-Enjoy Retirement, University Marketing And Communication, East Tennessee State University

ETSU News

Congratulations to the following members of the East Tennessee State University family who retired in August.  Thank you for your service!

Edward A. Baryla – Associate Professor and Chair, Department of Economics and Finance

Lee Johnson Morrow – Assistant Athletic Director for Facilities and Game Operations, Department of Intercollegiate Athletics

Published August 31, 2020, as part of the Accent email newsletter for faculty and staff.

2020-August-31-Quillen College Of Medicine To Host Booney Vance Memorial Lecture, University Marketing And Communication, East Tennessee State University

ETSU News

JOHNSON CITY (Aug. 31, 2020) – East Tennessee State University’s Quillen College of Medicine will host an online lecture by Dr. Andres J. Pumariega titled “Cultural Competence in Mental Health: Lessons from Booney Vance,” on Friday, Sept. 18, at 11 a.m.

Pumariega, a former faculty member at Quillen, now serves as professor and chief of the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the University of Florida College of Medicine and UF Health.

His lecture is part of the ETSU Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences’ annual Dr. Hubert R. “Booney” Vance Memorial Lecture, established in memory of Vance, who …

Customer’S Operational Efficiency And Trade Credit Provision, Wai Ho Chan

Lingnan Theses (MPhil & PhD)

This study examines whether the trade credit provision is affected by customers’ operational efficiency. We link the supplier firms with their major customers using the Customer Segment database in order to identify the trade credit provision for each pair of supplier-customer relationships. While suppliers have the incentive to provide trade credit to high-quality customers in order to increase market share, excess trade credit would also harm the suppliers once the customers default. Our empirical results indicate that operational efficiency and trade credit are positively associated. This finding supports the view that suppliers tend to select and provide trade credit to …

Understanding The Complex Ethical Landscape Of Artificial Intelligence Adoptions, Chrissann R. Ruehle

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Although Artificial Intelligence (AI) has existed since the 1950’s, it has experienced a series of expansions and declines over the years. Currently, AI is on an upward trajectory and has prompted the fourth industrial revolution as many scientists have noted. Some firms have rapidly embraced this technology and experienced growth while others have been slow to adopt. Naturally, this expansion often has societal impacts. The aim of this study is to explore ethical considerations that arise during the adoption of this technology. This research addressed three questions: 1. How do market and regulatory forces reportedly shape Artificial Intelligence adoptions? 2. …

Freedom Indices And Capital Asset Pricing Model: Malaysian Evidence Influence Policy?, Tay Lee Ying, Devinaga Rasiah, Lai Ming Ming

International Journal of Management, Finance and Accounting

Human rights and fundamental freedoms such as economic, political, and press freedoms vary widely from country to country. It creates opportunity and risk in investment decisions. Thus, this study is carried out to examine if the explanatory power of the model for capital asset pricing could be improved when these human rights movement indices are included in the model. The sample for this study comprises of 495 stocks listed in Bursa Malaysia, covering the sampling period from 2003 to 2013. The model applied in this study employed the pooled ordinary least square regression estimation. In addition, the robustness of the …

The Nexus Of Female Labour Force Participation, Economic Growth, Education And Fertility Rate: Empirical Evidence In Malaysia, Goh Han Hwa, Vishalini Macharagai, Thai Siew Bee, Teh Boon Heng, Ong Tze San

International Journal of Management, Finance and Accounting

Malaysia, a fast-growing developing country in Asia, has envisioned Shared Prosperity Vision 2030 to become a developed economy with highincome via sustainable and inclusive economic growth by the year 2030. To accomplish this vision, femalelabour participation isneeded as the femalepopulation constitutesalmost half of Malaysia’s total population. However, female labour participation rate iswaylower than Malaysia’s overall labour force participation rate.The relatively low female labour participation rate can be a barrier to Malaysia’s economic development and thus the realization of its goal of a high income nation.Therefore, this paper makes an attempt to examine empirically the long-run causal association amongfemale labour force …

Employee Personality Traits And Reactions To Psychological Contract Breach In The Lebanese Context, Suzan Salim Al Kadi, Nasser Fathi Easa

BAU Journal - Society, Culture and Human Behavior

The aim of this paper is to examine the influence of employee personality traits on the response to a psychological contract breach within the Lebanese context. It specifically examines the influence of various typologies on job satisfaction, trust, loyalty, organizational commitment, and delves deeper into the result of having the psychological contract breached. A total of 30 comprehensive interviews were conducted in order to examine employee reactions to breach of the psychological contract, along with a qualitative analysis of their personality according to the Big Five personality trait model. The findings demonstrate that the concept of a “psychological contract” is …

Workgroup Diversity And Employees Work Performance: Insights Into Lebanon, Ghassan Raad, Nasser Fathi Easa

BAU Journal - Society, Culture and Human Behavior

Purpose - The aim of the current study is to examine the relationship between workgroup diversity and employee work performance in Lebanon.

Design-Methodology-Approach – The study used a sample of 187 employees from 18 service organizations in Lebanon that employ diverse workgroups, and a convenience sampling technique was employed as well. Nevertheless, the respondents were requested to designate their level of agreement or disagreement with a number of statements using 5 points Likert scale, which was divided into two sections, comprised of 57 questions.

Findings - The results have shown that there was a significant and positive relationship between workgroup …

Predicting Attrition - A Driver For Creating Value, Realizing Strategy, And Refining Key Hr Processes, Kevin Mendonsa, Maureen Stolberg, Vivek Viswanathan, Scott Crum

SMU Data Science Review

Talent is the most important asset for every organization's success. While attrition (or churn) and turnover can refer to both employees and customers, this paper will focus on employee attrition only. Many organizations accept attrition as an inevitable cost of doing business and do nothing to adopt or implement mitigating strategies to combat it. World class companies on the other hand take deliberate measures to understand, control and mitigate attrition (turnover) at every stage. Unmitigated attrition can have a devastating effect on an organization's bottom line and market value. In addition, the “invisible" costs of low employee morale, reduced employee …

Mindfulness: A Promising Practice To Reduce Accountant Stress, Abigail Anderson

Marriott Student Review

This article considers the practice of mindfulness as an approach to reduce stress within the lives of accountants. Mindfulness has existed for centuries as a Buddhist tradition and has only recently become popular in the Western world as a stress-reduction technique that can lead to improved mental and emotional well-being. This article also examines the prevalence of mindfulness within the Top 10 accounting firms in the United States and some results regarding employee performance. As more and more firms begin to utilize mindfulness as a low-cost method to better employee performance and well-being, university accounting programs should consider incorporating the …

Make Amazon Your Servant, Not Your Master, Lisa Takabori

Marriott Student Review

This article explains how consumers can make better purchasing decisions by recognizing how benefits of local brick-and-mortar stores, such as Target, surpass the perceived benefits of e-commerce giant, Amazon.

A Place To Grow: Social Media And The Small Business, Lilli Vehikite

Marriott Student Review

E-commerce has revolutionaized the way we shop-- yet many small businesses have yet to embrace the growth that can come through harnessing the power of social media.