Business Commons^™

Placing Bets In A Complex Environment: One Foundation’S Approach To The Opioid Epidemic, Jill Yegian

The Foundation Review

Across the globe, foundations grapple with how to tackle complex, cross-sector societal problems. A major effort by the California Health Care Foundation to reduce opioid-related morbidity and mortality, launched just as opioid use was becoming understood as a problem that could reach epidemic proportions, presents an instructive case study of impact.

Starting in 2015, the foundation placed several “big bets” on initiatives aimed at stopping overdose deaths and preventing new addiction. That early investment had dramatic returns, laying the groundwork for scaling pilot projects statewide as hundreds of millions of dollars in government funding became available to address the crisis. …

Funder-Initiated Communities Of Practice As A Means For Sharing And Creating Knowledge In Order To Strengthen The Adaptive Capacity Of Systems, Claire Nicklin, Timothy Chancellor, Angelo Garcia, Linnet Gohole, Bettina Haussmann, Prudence Kaijage, Jane Maland Cady, Keith Miller, Marah Moore, Rebecca Nelson, Megan Powers, Batamaka Somé

The Foundation Review

Planned communities of practice can be an effective means to spread and create knowledge. This article explores the degree to which communities of practice can be initiated by funders, and presents the lessons learned and outcomes achieved from the long-term commitment to this concept by the McKnight Foundation's Collaborative Crop Research Program.

This article provides a novel contribution to the literature by showing that a funder can initiate, support, and participate in a community of practice comprised of its grantees, which can succeed in sharing and creating knowledge. Factors that organizations should consider when investigating this concept include long-term investment …

13.1 Full Issue

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

Editorial, Teresa R. Behrens

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

Back Matter

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

Investing In Leadership Development: A Tool For Systems Change In The Community Health Center Field, Michael P. Arnold, Natalie J. Blackmur, Brenda Solórzano, Carolyn Wang Kong, Bobbie Wunsch, Sunita Mutha

The Foundation Review

Over the course of 12 years, the Blue Shield of California Foundation committed nearly $20 million to growing a pool of community health center leaders who were prepared to be effective agents of change in their organizations and in the safety net field. This signature investment, the Clinic Leadership Institute, was implemented in partnership with the Healthforce Center at University of California, San Francisco, in anticipation of a generation of California health center leaders beginning to transition into retirement.

During the institute's 10 cohorts, access to community health centers dramatically increased with the Affordable Care Act, and this — coupled …

Explainable Recommendation With Comparative Constraints On Product Aspects, Trung-Hoang Le, Hady W. Lauw

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

To aid users in choice-making, explainable recommendation models seek to provide not only accurate recommendations but also accompanying explanations that help to make sense of those recommendations. Most of the previous approaches rely on evaluative explanations, assessing the quality of an individual item along some aspects of interest to the user. In this work, we are interested in comparative explanations, the less studied problem of assessing a recommended item in comparison to another reference item.

In particular, we propose to anchor reference items on the previously adopted items in a user's history. Not only do we aim at providing comparative …

Outsourcing Life Cycle Model For Financial Services In The Fintech Era, Tristan Lim, Patrick Thng

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

In today’s financial services landscape, staying ahead of the innovation curve and being disciplined at enhancing core service offerings entail careful resource planning. A well-structured outsourcing arrangement can go a long way towards enhancing long term organizational strategic growth. In the post-2014 FinTech era, (i) strategic management with an innovation focus and (ii) financial technology-associated risks, have brought about changes to outsourcing in the financial services industry. Presently, most outsourcing life cycle models in existing literature seek to provide comprehensive, yet industry-neutral guidelines lacking industry context and depth of coverage. A newly licensed financial institution deciding to embark on outsourcing …

How New, Innovative Technology Can Be Implemented To Combat The Construction Industry Labor Shortage, Noah David Jackson

The Professional Constructor

This essay addresses the construction industry’s need to compensate for the current and projected labor shortage through innovative technologies. In the first portion of this essay, three technologies that are most feasible for implementation – the Internet of Things (IoT), Drones, and Prefabrication – are detailed. The challenges faced are then discussed before the second major portion in which steps for implementation are outlined. These steps include forming partnerships, learning the process, communicating, training, implementing, and adapting and improving. The essay concludes with a discussion of how the AGC organization, and members within, can aid the industry in meeting this …

The Adaptative Construction Industry, Rhett Cox

The Professional Constructor

The construction industry is an industry that always unites to find ways to solve problems. It is very complex and requires considerable organization, hard work, specific skills, and a whole lot of determination. In this paper, I will discuss three ways that the industry is making strides to make construction better and more efficient: (a) increased use of modular construction and prefabrication, (b) use of drones, and (c) Building Information Modeling (BIM) use. With the construction process becoming more and more complex, improving efficiency and safety has gained more attraction, especially when coping with fundamental issues such as labor shortage, …

How New, Innovative Technology And Project Execution Tools And Techniques Can Be Used To Improve The Construction Process (Including Safety And Efficiency), James L. Craig

The Professional Constructor

Humanity has often sought to utilize tools and technology to make working faster, more efficient, more comfortable, and more accurate. While humans may have started with stone tools, we have since developed complex and sophisticated mechanical and digital technologies. The construction industry has been utilizing construction technology and equipment for these same reasons for generations. While other industries have embraced the use of smart, autonomous technology and robotics, the construction industry has steadily fallen behind in this effort. In this paper, I will discuss current work using these tools and possible applications for future development.

The Impact Of Climate Change On Building Energy Demands And Mitigation Measures In Florida, Aiyin (Erin) Jiang

The Professional Constructor

Tropical and subtropical parts of the world are projected to be the most vulnerable to the impact of climate change on building energy consumption demand. Few studies, however, focus on all four greenhouse emission scenarios defined by International Panel of Climate Change, which would be useful in assessing the energy demand challenges areas such as Florida. This study applies the most recognized climate change model downscaling approach, the morphing method, to investigate the impact of climate change on the commonly used commercial buildings in Florida’s climate zones under all four emission scenarios. It also analyzes the efficacy of various mitigation …

Frequency And Magnitude Of Cost Growth In Public Works Contracts, George Fulton, Panagiotis Mitropoulos

The Professional Constructor

Cost overruns are a persistent issue in the construction industry. This paper investigates factors that may drive cost growth on public works contracts. The study collected data on 1,043 public works projects completed over a three year period. The analysis examined the impact of four factors on cost overruns: (1) Project type, (2) Contract size, (3) Contract duration, and (4) Construction placement (value per day). The data were analyzed using a combination of basic descriptive statistics along with statistical hypothesis testing of means for various factors affecting cost growth. Cost growth was found to vary significantly by project type, contract …

Case Study Of Real-World Emissions Rates Verus Epaemission Standards For Motor Graders, Boshra Karimi, Phil Lewis

The Professional Constructor

Using the Volkswagen emissions scandal as motivation, the purpose of this case study was to investigate whether or not heavy-duty diesel construction equipment exceeds EPA emissions standards for nonroad diesel engines. The equipment analyzed included four separate motor graders with EPA emissions standards Tier 0, Tier 1, Tier 2, and Tier 3 engines. The analysis was based on a dataset of real-world emissions rates collected from in-use equipment on actual jobsites. The results showed that mass per time emissions rates for hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, and particulate matter decreased as the EPA emissions standards became more stringent. Furthermore, there …

Understanding Sub-Contractor Selection Factors In Thebuilding Construction Industry For The Southeastern United States, Dhaval Gajjar, Cayla Anderson

The Professional Constructor

The primary entities within building construction industry consists of the owner, the architect / engineer, and the general contractor, that ensure the success of any construction project. On a traditional project, the owner selects and contracts with the general contractor to construct a building designed by the architect. A considerable amount of research has been conducted to understand the owner’s selection factors to hire a qualified general contractor. However, the general contractor selected for the project seldom self-performs the entire construction of a building. The general contractor might self-perform some aspects of the actual building construction, but they will typically …

A Big Data Exploration Of The Informational And Normative Influences On The Helpfulness Of Online Restaurant Reviews, Stephanie Meek, Violetta Wilk, Claire Lambert

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

© 2020 Edith Cowan University With the proliferation of user generated online reviews, uncovering helpful restaurant reviews is increasingly challenging for potential consumers. Heuristics (such as “Likes”) not only facilitate this process but also enhance the social impact of a review on an Online Opinion Platform. Based on Dual Process Theory and Social Impact Theory, this study explores which contextual and descriptive attributes of restaurant reviews influence the reviewee to accept a review as helpful and thus, “Like” the review. Utilising both qualitative and quantitative methodologies, a big data sample of 58,468 restaurant reviews on Zomato were analysed. Results revealed …

Executive Summaries

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

The Development And Operation Of Foundations In China, Qun Wang

The Foundation Review

Chinese foundations flourished in the 21st century, and empirical studies emerged to address multiple aspects of their activities and relations with the government. Yet there has been little research synthetically reviewing their development and operation. As a result, we often lack the knowledge of the context in which these organizations interact with state and society.

This article divides the history of Chinese foundations into three phases: in search of identity, 1978–2004; in search of legal status, 2004–2016; and in search of the role in civil society, from 2016 onward. Within those three periods, it also examines overseas foundations and their …

Minari: The Invincible, Soonkwan Hong

Michigan Tech Publications, Part 1

No abstract provided.

A Mission To Improve Health: Lessons From Missouri’S Expanding Coverage Initiative, Anna Saltzman, Shayla Spilker, Megan Klenke-Isgriggs

The Foundation Review

To support the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, in 2013 Missouri Foundation for Health launched the Expanding Coverage Initiative. The fiveyear effort sought to reduce Missouri’s uninsured rate from 13% to less than 5% by developing a broad-based state coalition and employing a three-pronged approach of awareness building and outreach, enrollment assistance, and increasing health literacy.

While the initiative did not achieve its rate-reduction goal, the rate of uninsured Missourians dropped to 9% during the ECI’s time frame, a decrease on par with the national average despite the fact that at the time Missouri was one of 17 states …

Introduction To The Special Issue On “Grassroots And Inclusive Innovations: Conceptualizing Synergies And Complementarities”, Wee Liang Tan, Partha Gangopadhyay, Oscar Hauptman

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The paper provided a review of the state of the field of grassroots and inclusive innovations, suggested and proposed ways forward for research. It also provided a summary of the articles in the special issue and discussed their contributions. With the extant literature, and the modest contribution of the special issue, the paper postulates that grassroots innovation and inclusive innovation activities are complementary. One the one hand, the inclusive innovations actors and processes facilitate and accelerate grassroots innovation. On the other hand, the knowledge of local context and culture enables effective diffusion of external ideas. The paper also highlights the …

Introduction To The Special Issue On “Grassroots And Inclusive Innovations: Conceptualizing Synergies And Complementarities”, Wee Liang Tan, Partha Gangopadhyay, Oscar Hauptman

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This special issue was initiated in 2016 by the three co-editors with a “Call for Papers” (Gangopadhyay et al., 2016). After significant delays starting with co-editors’ health and other personal issues, and ending with the COVID-19 Pandemic, the task of finalizing the special issue is reaching conclusion and it is time to take stock of the intellectual content. The objective of this introduction is to enable the audience to make easier sense when perusing the papers selected in a broader context, guided by conceptual framing.

A Beginner’S Guide And Best Practices For Using Crowdsourcing Platforms For Survey Research: The Case Of Amazon Mechanical Turk (Mturk), Cihan Cobanoglu, Muhittin Cavusoglu, Gozde Turktarhan

Journal of Global Business Insights

Introduction

Researchers around the globe are utilizing crowdsourcing tools to reach respondents for quantitative and qualitative research (Chambers & Nimon, 2019). Many social science and business journals are receiving studies that utilize crowdsourcing tools such as Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk), Qualtrics, MicroWorkers, ShortTask, ClickWorker, and Crowdsource (e.g., Ahn, & Back, 2019; Ali et al., 2021; Esfahani, & Ozturk, 2019; Jeong, & Lee, 2017; Zhang et al., 2017). Even though the use of these tools presents a great opportunity for sharing large quantities of data quickly, some challenges must also be addressed. The purpose of this guide is to present the …

A Critical Look At The Failure Of Mainstream Economics, Joseph M. Dipoli

Journal of Global Business Insights

Book Review

Foundations of real-world economics: What every economics student needs to know (2nd ed.), by John Komlos, New York, Routledge, 2019, 306 pp., $42.95 (Paperback), ISBN 9781138296541.

Many people in the United States of America are dissatisfied with the outcomes of the economy and some are suggesting measures that seem socialistic. The time has come to recognize that mainstream economics as taught in our schools is not serving students at all. The research sharing platform of the Latin American and Caribbean Economic Association (LACEA) states that John Komlos’s textbook Foundations of Real-World Economics: What Every Economics Student Needs to …

Corporate Parenting Advantage: Conceptual, Methodological, And Empirical Considerations, Pairoj Piyawongwathana, Sak Onkvisit

Journal of Global Business Insights

The pioneering work of Campbell et al. (1995a) presented four ways a corporate parent either creates or destroys value for the companies it owns. They are (a) stand alone, (b) linkage, (c) central functions and services, and (d) corporate development. Despite widespread acceptance of the concept of parenting advantage, empirical research remains scarce. Examining the methodological issues, this research describes the development of an instrument to measure the four strategies. An exploratory factor analysis yielded six distinct factors, accounting for 74.11% of the variance. The results partially validated the a priori classification scheme. A few factors partly reflected the measurement …

Corporate Governance And Firm Value: Evidence From Lodging Companies, Serban Bakay Ergene, Erdinc Karadeniz

Journal of Global Business Insights

This study examined the relationships and interactions between corporate governance and firm values of lodging companies with different characteristics. The companies were analyzed separately using a classification and regression tree (CRT) analysis. The analysis results did not show a direct relationship between value and governance, yet that does not mean there is no relationship between them. When the companies’ governance scores were similar, corporate governance showed no distinguishing variable on firm value but is a hygiene factor. The analysis also found negative relationships between value and size. This may be important in preventing companies from becoming cumbersome. Also, positive relationships …

Destination Management: Right Or Wrong Measures, Abdullah Tanrisevdi, Osman Nuri Ozdogan, Vedat Acar, Sibel Kilicdere

Journal of Global Business Insights

Planning studies are important for the competitiveness of destinations and their actions with the principles of sustainability. Kuşadası and Didim, which have been among the most important mass tourism destinations in Turkey since 1960, have also long experienced common problems such as lack of coordination, environmental and infrastructural problems, and a lack of an integrated destination approach. Although a series of initiatives have been attempted to solve these problems—with a series of initiatives and good intentions—these initiatives have ultimately failed to achieve their outcomes. The current study aims to present the problems faced with destination management in both destinations. Specifically, …

Swot Analysis Applications: An Integrative Literature Review, Mostafa Ali Benzaghta, Abdulaziz Elwalda, Mousa Mohamed Mousa, Ismail Erkan, Mushfiqur Rahman

Journal of Global Business Insights

A strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) analysis has become a key tool used by businesses for strategic planning. Scholars have conducted SWOT research for over six decades. However, a collective understanding of SWOT analysis remains vague. This study accessed, analyzed, and synthesized the SWOT literature, allowing for new theoretical perspectives and frameworks to emerge. Using an integrative literature review, this study reviewed SWOT studies historically, providing a greater understanding of the SWOT analysis in different sectors and the different approaches used in SWOT studies. Furthermore, it fills the knowledge gap in the strategic planning context and indicates meaningful implications …

How Do Monetary Incentives Influence Giving? An Empirical Investigation Of Matching Subsidies On Kiva, Zhiyuan Gao, Zhiling Guo, Qian Tang

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Matching subsidies, through which third-party institutions provide a dollar-for-dollar match of private contributions made through selected campaigns, have served as effective tools to boost fundraising. We utilize a quasi-experiment on a prosocial crowdfunding platform to examine the effectiveness of matching subsidies in shaping funding outcomes and lender behaviors. Although matching subsidies offer matched loans competitive advantages over unmatched loans, we find that total private contributions made to both matched and unmatched loans increase compared to their prematching counterparts, suggesting a positive spillover effect on unmatched loans. However, matching subsidies lead to decreased private contributions made on the platform after a …

Traceable Monero: Anonymous Cryptocurrency With Enhanced Accountability, Yannan Li, Guomin Yang, Wily Susilo, Yong Yu, Man Ho Au, Dongxi Liu

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Monero provides a high level of anonymity for both users and their transactions. However, many criminal activities might be committed with the protection of anonymity in cryptocurrency transactions. Thus, user accountability (or traceability) is also important in Monero transactions, which is unfortunately lacking in the current literature. In this paper, we fill this gap by introducing a new cryptocurrency named Traceable Monero to balance the user anonymity and accountability. Our framework relies on a tracing authority, but is optimistic, in that it is only involved when investigations in certain transactions are required. We formalize the system model and security model …