Business Commons^™

A Capstone Journey In Enterprise Software Consulting For Microsoft: How An Interdisciplinary Philosophy Fosters Critical Thinking And Promotes Cross-Functional Teamwork, Jacob Mccall

University Honors Theses

This capstone review thesis explores the application of strategic innovation and enterprise software with a Portland State University (PSU) School of Business Administration (SBA) interdisciplinary team consulting for Microsoft. Faced with improving pitch meetings with a new target audience of Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs), Microsoft’s West Coast enterprise software sales team sought consultation from the PSU SBA 2023 Business Honors cohort. This text reflects on the precursors responsible for the consulting project’s success, including the university’s guiding principles, interdisciplinary philosophy, and applicable business practices. The final solution includes insights into CMO types, needs development, a marketing enterprise software visual sales …

The Praxis Of Professional Communication In Simulated Business: Psu Capstone Analysis, Molly Daniels

University Honors Theses

"Let knowledge serve the city" serves not only as Portland State University's motto but also as the guiding intent of the Business Administration capstone program to assist local companies in the city of Portland. This review covers the experience of my participation in the program including the use of education and challenges. While the experience recorded within is atypical due to the unforeseen closure of the participating client, effective communication studies with clients and other students remain pressing. This entailed examining the quantitative and qualitative needs of a hybrid coffee shop and event space and whether changing to a larger …

I Know That You Know That I Know: Meta-Parody Ads And Brand Credibility, Giuliana T. Mintiero

University Honors Theses

In recent years, advertisers have been turning to a new form of humorous advertising to reach wary consumers. This study refers to this new form of advertising appeal as 'meta-parody' advertising, defined as humorous advertisements that parody advertising tropes for the sake of building credibility with the consumer. These ads are aimed at overcoming persuasion knowledge, which is what consumers use to cope with attempts to influence them. Despite the prevalence of meta-parody in contemporary advertising, there is no existing research on meta-parody ads, let alone their relationship with brand credibility. Previous research into humorous advertising has produced mixed views …

Trackxi Capstone Review, Kevin Abarca

University Honors Theses

This University Honors review thesis is based on my business capstone which revolved around developing a strategic road map for the startup company Trackxi. Trackxi is a real estate tech startup aiming to streamline transactions using a patent-pending visual online platform. The platform is similar to companies such as Asana but provides a more linear representation of real estate transaction steps, equal to a long visual chain with blocks representing next steps. The platform also caters to independent real estate agents, as more established real estate agents usually have in house solutions. Our team also continually interfaced with the client …

Proxies Of Design: A Case Study And Analysis Of Place And Commercial Real Estate In Seattle, Nicholas Miranda

University Honors Theses

What kinds of relationships exist between individual buildings and greater society in Seattle? Focusing on the role of design in shaping the value and desirability of commercial properties, the study examines and utilizes a large temporal and spatial dataset to test price analogs between common building attributes and metrics. By employing a hedonic pricing model, the study seeks to identify the impact of these attributes on property values and ultimately relate them to architectural and contextual design, from a micro to a macro level. The empirical findings are not necessarily novel or groundbreaking, but rather, they shed light on the …

Business Analysis And Recommendations For Timber, Jared Alexander

University Honors Theses

To close out my PSU school of business experience, I've been placed on a team with five other classmates in the School of Business honors program cohort to help a business owner with some hurdles they are facing in their ventures. Throughout the last nine weeks, my teammates and I conducted a lot of research, and gave four presentations to the business owner. Our final presentation highlighted our final recommendations. The name of the business owner and company have been anonymized for confidentiality. All images featuring the name or logo of the company have been covered.

In this capstone review, …

The Power Of (Virtual) Convergence: The Unrealized Potential Of Pair Programming And Remote Work, Mikayla Maki

University Honors Theses

Remote work is expensive. It can lead to isolation, miscommunications, and ossified organizations. These problems occur because of a synchronicity mismatch between how we need to communicate as humans, and what today's tools are capable of. This mismatch can be solved by the adoption of remote pair programming, as exemplified by the authors work at a startup (Zed). Pair programming provides the organic, synchronous, reciprocal interaction necessary to develop the sorts of relationships that remote firms currently lack.

The Evolution Of Leadership During The Covid-19 Pandemic: An Analysis Of The Research, Luca Patrick Thierry Gregston

University Honors Theses

A crisis, however terrible in its consequences, is also a great opportunity to study and create new models of leadership, to discover how the concept of leadership has evolved over the pandemic. Hence this paper's research question, "How has the COVID-19 pandemic changed the concept and practice of leadership? In the end much of the empirical evidence for what COVID 19 did or didn't change in leadership practices is still relatively ambiguous. So it is too early to say that "business as usual" is gone for good. And COVID furthered and deepened long term trends, accelerating the great resignation and …

An On-Ramp To Financial Inclusion: Measuring The Impact Of Mercy Corps' Community Investment Trust Program On Minority Investors, Lexi Yokote

University Honors Theses

Mercy Corps' Community Investment Trust (CIT) was launched in 2017 as a low-risk real estate investment and education initiative. The program is now working to replicate this in cities across the United States. However, it has not been able to collect much feedback from existing investors about their experiences and needs. This paper will use primary and secondary research in the form of a literature review and original surveys to collect information about investor demographics, attitudes toward the CIT and investing, risk perceptions, and future investment plans. The results show that U.S.-born versus foreign-born status, ethnicity, and gender affect the …

Traits Of Leadership, Alinta Magdalene Ali

University Honors Theses

The objective of this thesis is to analyze the correlation between leadership styles, introverted and extroverted trails, and their impact on effective leadership within the workplace. The first section defines leadership and introduces leadership styles: servant, transformational, identity, autocratic, democratic, and coaching. The discuss delves into the distinctive characteristics, advantages, and obstacles associated with each leadership style, highlighting how each leadership prioritize personalized guidance and assistance for team members. The second section explores the introvert and extrovert aspects and how they complement each other in the workplace. Effective leaders possess the ability to adjust their personality traits, exhibiting both social …

Small Business Marketing In The Sports Industry, Cheyenne L. Abbett

University Honors Theses

This thesis explores how small sports businesses can avoid high failure rates by establishing a strategic marketing plan that makes the most of their constrained resources. The current literature on sports marketing strategy examines social media, relationship, and influencer marketing, but is limited in its application to small businesses. The purpose of this thesis is to address and fill that gap. This thesis consists of a literature review of the previously stated topics, best practices that incorporate the findings of this research, and a brief case study of these recommendations in action. Best practices include establishing a greater purpose for …

Leading For Success: Leader-Member Exchange Relationships And Employee Creative Self-Efficacy, Mary Joy Wytsma

University Honors Theses

In today's competitive and ever-evolving business landscape, creativity has become a major focus for managers, leaders, and organizations. However, there are downsides to making creative employees the end-all goal. Instead, managers and leaders should focus on fostering employee creative self-efficacy via high-quality Leader-Member Exchange (LMX) relationships. Within team settings, LMX works in tandem with Team-Member Exchange (TMX), and these relationships allow employees to experience positive physiological state, social persuasion, vicarious experience, and mastery experience, the four drivers of self-efficacy. Employees with high levels of creative self-efficacy experience increased creativity, job satisfaction, and motivation, making them major assets to teams and …

Globalizing Investments: Enhancing Retail Investor Portfolios Through Cross-Asset International Diversification, Charlotte T. Kline

University Honors Theses

Diversification is frequently reiterated, but for the standard retail investor, the what, how, and why often slide between the cracks. Diversifying internationally appears even more seldom discussed. A wealth of research has been integrated throughout this paper to focus on the what, how, and why of foreign diversification, all from a retail investor's perspective. This synthesis provides a comprehensive background followed by a discussion of a variety of asset classes available for diversification and biases and factors that lead to these gaps in diversification. The findings were divided into two categories: possible asset classes favorable to international diversification and causes …

The Power Of Algorithms And Big Data: A Marketing Perspective On Consumer Manipulation In Business, Jordan C'Rene Reuille-Dupont

University Honors Theses

In marketing, predictive analytics molds big data into tools that can create demographics, target pleasurable neuromodulator chemicals like dopamine, and influence individual and societal behavior patterns. Professionals and scholars alike can use machine-based computation to transform big data into usable knowledge that accurately represents and tracks human behavior. In the past couple of decades this has led to the acceleration of the attention economy and has fueled the age of information. It has pushed countries to not only enforce new laws and regulations, but also race to secure control over data science technologies. The research for this thesis will ultimately …

If It Ain't Broke, Don't Fix It: Understanding The Value In Producing Film Adaptations And Movie Franchises, Courtney Mcdonald

University Honors Theses

The business of making movies is not an easy one; in an industry where very few see financial success, risk aversion often takes the wheel. In order to combat the immense amount of uncertainty, existing research has attempted to establish factors of film success, including actor star power and reviews. However, statistical studies evaluating these factors have produced consistently inconclusive results. To approach this idea from another perspective, this paper investigates two specific areas of film—movie adaptations and film franchises—that contain valuable properties not always as explicitly connected to box office results. While many movies are referenced, two film franchises …

Analysis Of Oregon Multi-Family Housing In Relation To Covid-19 Pandemic, Conor Paterson

University Honors Theses

The purpose of this paper is to examine notable metrics of multi-family housing markets before and since the COVID-19 pandemic. The primary locations for the analysis of this issue were Portland, Oregon and other cities located near Portland. This paper attempts to demonstrate the ways in which the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the landscape of multi-family housing options and affordability since the year 2020. A literature review was first conducted to obtain a better understanding of what the discourse community surrounding housing changes has stated about the pandemic's role in the housing market. After drawing conclusions from the prior literature, …