Business Commons^™

Building A Future Microfinance Community In Kenya, Jack Spiehs

Senior Theses

The lack of access to financial tools has been a significant problem in many areas around the world for a long time. It prevents certain groups of people from being able to progress financially and improve their economic standing. This issue stems from an overall lack of resources and infrastructure in the area. Without the acquisition of new funds, there is no path to poverty alleviation in underdeveloped areas. Currently, the global response has been to try to provide these resources through various methods, including microfinance activities.

Microfinance institutions have been operating in Kenya for decades. They provide a variety …

The Legal And Social Challenges Involved In The Expansion Of Multinational Operations: A Case Study Of Exxonmobil Indonesia, Shashaank Rajaraman

Senior Theses

Within this paper, I will analyze the legal and social relations between multinational corporations and their host countries. This analysis will be conducted through viewing the circumstances surrounding Doe v. ExxonMobil within the District of Columbia Circuit Court, in which ExxonMobil has engaged in litigation regarding their human rights record within the country of Indonesia. Through secondary research conducted both within business and legal journals, information about the practices of ExxonMobil can be examined and utilized to make general conclusions upon the corporate diplomacy practiced by multinational corporations.

Xbox In Japan? Understanding The Distinctions Of The Japanese Video Game Market To Increase Microsoft's Competitive Advantage, Sekani Adebimpe

Senior Theses

Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony remain the biggest players in the video game console space. While all three companies have achieved worldwide success, Microsoft’s performance with the Xbox brand in Japan is an outlier for its historically poor sales numbers dating back to its 2001 debut. The purpose of this thesis is to unearth the various cultural distinctions inherent to the Japanese gaming industry that Microsoft must consider to gain a stronger foothold in the country, as well as diagnose the biggest issues facing Xbox with Japanese consumers. To accomplish this, several cultural frameworks were used to assess the differences between …

Building And Expanding Avestor’S Social Media Presence: A Capstone Review, Hope Foley

University Honors Theses

The Business capstone project involves a small team working directly with a local business to provide assistance in achieving a specific goal the company may have for their future. Through research, informational visuals, and presentations to the client, the team presents a final recommendation as to the best option to achieve the company's goal and the most effective way to implement it.

Value-Oriented Business Process Management: Using A Process Reengineering Approach To Identify Productivity Improvement Requirements And Justify Strategic Capital Investment, Laura Vu

Operations Research and Engineering Management Theses and Dissertations

The goal of this praxis is to create a modeling approach that can be used to evaluate and quantify the current efficiency and throughput at a transloading facility. The model will also be used to show the expected metric improvements and financial return of potential operational changes and capital investment scenarios that could be implemented, giving the facility’s management justification to approve these upgrades.

The case study presented will show how to capture and document the current processes within the loading facility, model the relationships between resources and constraints, find appropriate probability distributions to represent the service data, define the …

Detoxing From Clean Claims: Bridging The Gap Between "Clean" And "Dirty" Beauty, Alecsandra Dragus

William & Mary Business Law Review

The clean beauty industry has gained increasing popularity in the last couple of years. This has spurred the development of many brands and impacted what consumers look for in their products. This Note engages in the existing conversation in the beauty industry pertaining to "clean" products by showing that the lack of interference from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to set definitional criteria for what constitute ''clean" products has resulted in an increase in the commercialization of health-conscious consumer beliefs based on ambiguous and misleading information. These consumers are stuck in a loop …

Taking Flight, Georgia Southern University

College of Business: News & Publications

• Taking Flight- April 2022
• Message from the Dean

News You Need: Reminder: What You Must Know About Antitrust Law, Dan Schulte Jd

The Journal of the Michigan Dental Association

This reminder emphasizes the critical importance for dentists, particularly members of organizations like the Michigan Dental Association, to understand antitrust laws and their implications. The U.S. Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission actively pursue antitrust violations among physicians and dentists. The article outlines key aspects of the Sherman Antitrust Act, emphasizing that joint activities among independent dentists that restrain competition may lead to violations. The concept of joint action and the restraint on competition are explored, with a focus on potential pitfalls, such as price-fixing and group boycotts. Dentists are urged to stay informed to avoid legal consequences.

2022-April-01-Etsu Expanding Opportunities In Health Sciences For Southwest Virginia Students, University Marketing And Communication, East Tennessee State University

ETSU News

JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. – East Tennessee State University signed two articulation agreements aimed at expanding opportunities for students who want to pursue careers in the health sciences.

One agreement provides students who achieve an Associate of Arts and Science degree at Virginia Highlands Community College (VHCC), located in Abingdon, Virginia, with the opportunity to transfer those credits to ETSU to pursue a Bachelor of Science degree in Kinesiology (Exercise Science), Public Health (Community Health concentration), or Rehabilitative Health Sciences.

“VHCC students choose ETSU to continue their educational journey, so VHCC faculty, staff, and administration were pleased to partner with ETSU …

2022 Research Day Program, Lincoln Memorial University

Research Day

This program contains abstracts and presentation summaries from LMU's 2022 Annual Research Day conference.

It’S About Time: Understanding Job Crafting Through The Lens Of Individuals’ Temporal Characteristics, Hannah Weisman, Uta K. Bindl, Cristina B. Gibson, Kerrie L. Unsworth

All Faculty Open Access Publications

Job crafting refers to the myriad ways employees customize their jobs, such as by altering their tasks and social interaction at work. Numerous scholars over the past 20 years have remarked on the overall need to better understand the role of time in job crafting. However, the literature has not considered how employees think about time, or, relatedly, how they use and manage it—and why this might matter for job crafting. To address these unresolved issues, the current paper develops a conceptual model of individual-level, time-related characteristics that shape employees’ engagement in job crafting and the effects of job crafting …

The Politics Of Bank Opacity, Heng Yue, Liandong Zhang, Qinlin Zhong

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

The distribution of power in the political system shapes the financial reporting opacity of banks. Specifically, banks located in states with senators on the Senate Banking Committee (BC senators) have greater abnormal loan loss provisions than banks in other states. The result is stronger for larger banks and banks with higher risk. In addition, BC senators have a negative effect on the likelihood of banks in their home states receiving enforcement actions, and, more importantly, this effect is stronger for more opaque banks. These findings suggest that politicians, regulators, and banks use opaque financial reporting to facilitate regulatory forbearance. Moreover, …

Corporations As Private Regulators, Wentong Zheng

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The growing trend of corporations imposing restrictions on suppliers, contractors, and customers beyond the requirements of existing laws requires rethinking the nature and impact of corporations’ private regulatory power. This trend, which this Article refers to as “Corporations as Private Regulators” (CPR), represents a paradigmatic shift in how corporations participate in the making of public policies. This Article conceptualizes the corporate CPR power as the exercise of a right of refusal to deal with counterparties. This right of refusal could be theorized as a new form of property right, whose allocation has important implications for both rights and wealth. The …

2022-April-01-Etsu Professor Speaking At 'Women On Wednesdays', University Marketing And Communication, East Tennessee State University

ETSU News

JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. (April 1, 2022) – In “Rosa Bonheur the Amazon? Equestrianism, Female Masculinity and the Horse Fair (1852–1855)”, Dr. Michael Fowler will explore the sartorial and equestrian significance of Bonheur’s self-portrait nested within the painting at noon on Wednesday, April 6 via Zoom. The live stream can be viewed here: etsu.zoom.us/j/98988963213.  

This free virtual talk is part of the “WGS on Wednesdays” series sponsored by the East Tennessee State University Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies Program.  

In 1853, Bonheur first exhibited what would become her most widely celebrated work: Horse Fair, a monumental, horizontally oriented painting …

Entrepreneurship And Ot, Alex Heumann, Susan Macdermott

Spring 2022 Virtual OTD Capstone Symposium

The purpose of this project was to discover the perceived and actual barriers to business ownership through research with current OT businesses and create a deliverable supporting OTs entering business ownership.

How Do Individuals Justify And Rationalize Their Criminal Behaviors In Online Romance Fraud?, Martin Offei, Francis Andoh-Baidoo, Emmanuel Wusuhon Yanibo Ayaburi, David Asamoah

Information Systems Faculty Publications

Online romance fraud (ORF) is a growing concern with such serious negative consequences as financial loss or suicide to the victim. Majority of empirical studies on online romance fraud using attachment, deception, protection motivation and relation theories focus on the victim. While neutralization offers insights into how individuals justify their deviant behaviors, the results have not been consistent in different contexts. In the ORF context, offenders may not only rely on justifying techniques but also rationalize their actions by denying risk both to the victim and the offender. Thus, drawing from the neutralization and denial of risk theories, we develop …

Collection Of Accountancy Case Studies, Adam Lalejini

Honors Theses

The following collection of case studies examines various personal and professional topics in accounting. These topics range from personal research and reflection on important topics within the profession to a comprehensive case competition focusing on The Coca-Cola Company. Throughout the collection, theoretical accounting frameworks and solutions are applied to real world scenarios. In addition to theoretical frameworks, financial statements and relevant outside sources are used with applicable.

Artificial Intelligence: Reshaping The Accounting Profession And The Disruption To Accounting Education, Amy Foshee Holmes, Ashley Douglass

School of Business Faculty Research

This study provides insights from accounting professionals on the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) adoption and the associated risks on the accounting profession. Survey data suggests that participants have an overall positive perception of AI and believe it will enhance their job performance by reducing repetitive tasks and the risk of human error. In addition, participants believe that the growth of AI technology will change the focus of accounting curriculums to include specialized computer skills. Significantly stronger agreement is expressed by public accountants in Big 4 firms compared to non-Big 4 firms, industry, and accounting educators. More specifically, skills in …

Are Auditors' Reliance On Conclusions From Data Analytics Impacted By Different Data Analytic Inputs?, Jared Koreff

School of Business Faculty Research

Global stakeholders have expressed interest in increasing the use of data analytics throughout the audit process. While data analytics offer great promise in identifying audit-relevant information, auditors may not uniformly incorporate this information into their decision making. This study examines whether conclusions from two data analytic inputs, the type of data analytical model (anomaly vs. predictive) and type of data analyzed (financial vs. nonfinancial), result in different auditors' decisions. Findings suggest that conclusions from data analytical models and data analyzed jointly impact budgeted audit hours. Specifically, when financial data is analyzed auditors increase budgeted audit hours more when predictive models …

Supply Chain Sustainability In The Fashion Industry, Quinn Hanley

Honors Projects

Sustainability in the fashion industry has become an important topic recently for both retailers and consumers. Through my research I will be laying out what supply chain sustainability is, how it relates to the fashion industry, as well as how companies are doing it well or poorly. I will be using both scholarly pieces and other articles online to perform my research on the topic, to find a more in-depth understanding of how companies are affecting the world around us as well as the people around us. My goal with this research is to educate consumers about how supply chain …

2022-April-01-Board Of Trustees Meeting, University Marketing And Communication, East Tennessee State University

ETSU News

ETSU Board of Trustees to hold quarterly meeting April 22

JOHNSON CITY — East Tennessee State University’s Board of Trustees will hold its quarterly meeting and several committee meetings on Friday, April 22.

All meetings will be conducted in person at the D.P. Culp Student Center, East Tennessee Room.

Meetings are scheduled as follows:

• Academic, Research, and Student Success Committee – 8 a.m.
• Finance and Administration Committee – 9:45 a.m.
• Audit Committee – 11:30 a.m.
• Board of Trustees Meeting – 1 p.m.

Committee meeting times are approximate and will begin following the conclusion of the previous meeting. When they become …

2022-April-01-Etsu's Spring Literary Festival Is April 12-13, University Marketing And Communication, East Tennessee State University

ETSU News

JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. (April 1, 2022) – East Tennessee State University’s annual Spring Literary Festival, packed with award-winning and nationally recognized writers, is set for later this month.

Poet Maurice Manning

“This is such a wonderful event, and I could not be happier about the talented writers who will be with us this year,” said Dr. Jesse Graves, ETSU’s poet-in-residence. “We are thrilled to be able to bring our literary community back together in the Reece Museum and the Martin Center.” 

Sponsored by the Bert C. Bach Written Word Initiative and the Department of Literature and Language, the two-day …

2022-April-01-Meet Mylan Hutchins, University Marketing And Communication, East Tennessee State University

ETSU News

Help Support Day of Giving

For Mylan Hutchins, a human services major with a double minor in special education and American Sign Language (ASL), service is a calling. Originally from Chattanooga, Tennessee, Hutchins came to East Tennessee State University as one of her first steps into what has evolved into a fulfilling journey of self-discovery.

“I came to ETSU because I wanted that experience of getting away from what you’re comfortable with,” said Hutchins. “I didn’t know anyone, and everyone I did know was suddenly several hours away. It was exciting.”

It wasn’t long until Hutchins realized those steps were …

2022-April-01-Championship Game, University Marketing And Communication, East Tennessee State University

ETSU News

On Tuesday, May 3 at 8 p.m., the ETSU JV Overwatch esports team will face the University of South Florida in the grand finals of the NACE Starleague Open Division.

NACE is the National Association of Collegiate Esports. They are the largest member association of varsity esports programs at colleges and universities across the U.S. Their Starleague is split in to three divisions: Varsity, Challenger, and Open. In this season, the ETSU JV team participated in the Open division.

The ETSU team is 4-2 (12-8) in the regular season and 4-1 (12-4) in the playoffs so far, for a current …

2022-April-01-University School To Hold Pickin In The Schoolyard Fundraiser At Etsu, University Marketing And Communication, East Tennessee State University

ETSU News

JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. – University School will host “Pickin’ in The Schoolyard” on Saturday, April 23 on the campus of East Tennessee State University from 10 a.m.-2 p.m. 

This event is an annual fundraiser for the Junior Appalachian Musicians Program (JAM) at University School. It will include several student groups performing Appalachian music throughout the event. Members of ETSU’s Bluegrass, Old-Time, and Roots Music Studies, JAM string bands and other University School students are scheduled to perform on both the school lawn and in the gymnasium. 

JAM is an after-school music program that introduces students to the Appalachian music of …

Liability For Non-Disclosure In Equity Financing, Albert H. Choi, Kathryn E. Spier

Law & Economics Working Papers

The paper analyzes the effects of holding firms liable for non-disclosure of material information when raising capital. We develop a model in which a privately-informed entrepreneur can choose to withhold information from prospective investors when issuing and selling stock and the investors can bring suit against the firm ex post for (alleged) non-disclosure. The damage payment received by the investors is partially offset by the reduced value of their equity stake. The analysis shows that the equilibrium depends on, among others, (1) the amount of personal capital the entrepreneur has to commit, (2) the frequency with which the entrepreneur is …

“Big Business” : The Pharmally Scandal, Leveric T. Ng

Graduate School of Business Publications

No abstract provided.

Regulatory Interventions In Response To Noncompliance With Mandatory Derivatives Disclosure Rules, Neil Bhattacharya, Hye Sun Chang, Raluca Chiorean

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

We investigate regulatory actions in response to violations of mandatory derivatives disclosure rules (SFAS 161) and the outcomes of these regulatory interventions using a hand-collected sample of derivatives disclosures. Derivatives are used by nearly two-thirds of U.S. nonfinancial firms, and they are one of the most complex types of financial contracts. Consequently, inadequate derivatives disclosures could pose significant challenges to financial statement users in assessing the risk and financial health of enterprises. First, we document that firms with high proprietary and agency costs are less likely to comply with SFAS 161. Next, by examining derivatives-related SEC comment letters, we further …

Government Auditing Standards And Single Audits, April 1, 2022; Audit Guide, American Institute Of Certified Public Accountants (Aicpa)

Industry Guides (AAGs), Risk Alerts, and Checklists

No abstract provided.

Ampsum: Adaptive Multiple-Product Summarization Towards Improving Recommendation Captions, Quoc Tuan Truong, Hady Wirawan Lauw, Changhe Yuan, Jin Li, Jim Chan, Soo-Min Pantel, Hady W. Lauw

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

In e-commerce websites, multiple related product recommendations are usually organized into “widgets”, each given a name, as a recommendation caption, to describe the products within. These recommendation captions are usually manually crafted and generic in nature, making it difficult to attach meaningful and informative names at scale. As a result, the captions are inadequate in helping customers to better understand the connection between the multiple recommendations and make faster product discovery.We propose an Adaptive Multiple-Product Summarization framework (AmpSum) that automatically and adaptively generates widget captions based on different recommended products. The multiplicity of products to be summarized in a widget …