Business Commons^™

Moving Forward By Looking Back: How Family Firms Create Competitive Advantage By Embracing Their History, Adam Goldman

Dissertations

Family businesses are the engine that drives the United States economy. While extensive implications have been made in the literature about the advantages or disadvantages of family-owned businesses compared to non-family-owned businesses, the focus of this study was to show how small to medium-sized family-owned firms (FF SMEs) based in the United States can use their unique history to create a competitive advantage. Drawing on imprint theory and the resource-based view (RBV), this history-informed study helped identify the impact that founder imprints, business traditions, and storytelling have on the business performance of FF SMEs. Using quantitative methods, the findings of …

How Could Venture Capitalists Improve Their Performance At Fund Management Level Via Better Allocating Their Financial And Human Capitals - A Cross-Fund Approach, Fei Han

Dissertations

Venture capitalists’ performance has been studied at the levels of portfolio company and fund. But no similar study at the fund management entity level has been documented. This study fills in the gap to examine the drivers of the venture capitalists’ performance at the fund management entity level. This study uses the capital allocation theory to develop five hypotheses on its performance. Each of them embodies an aspect of the feature of capital allocation in the venture capital investment process. With an expanded concept of capital for capital allocation, this study examines the allocation of both the financial capital and …

The Motive To Work: Assessing Organizational Motivation Within The Federal Probation System, Aleda M. Thomas

Dissertations

Competition within the United States workforce is growing at an unprecedented rate. Turnover rates of all organizations and businesses have reached an all-time high. According to the U.S. Labor Department, 4.3 million Americans quit their job in the month of August alone. Times have shifted to where the ball no longer resides on the side of employers, but now it resides with employees. As such, it is vital to ensure workplaces are enjoyable and encompass cultures that produce high levels of motivation, satisfaction, and engagement. As such, the retention of skilled and qualified employees must be at the forefront of …

The Effects Of Capabilities And Governance On Information Technology And Business Process Outsourcing Performance: Client And Provider Perspectives, Aihua Yan

Dissertations

Research on information technology outsourcing (ITO) and business process outsourcing (BPO) has consistently found that client firm capabilities, provider firm capabilities, and governance mechanisms (contractual and relational) are key determinants of outsourcing performance. These key determinants work together to affect outsourcing performance, however, the information systems (IS) literature has investigated them in a separate manner. This study contributes to the body of IS knowledge by examining capabilities and governance mechanisms influence on outsourcing performance independently and jointly. Based on resource-based theory, transaction cost economics, and relational exchange theories, we develop a research model to examine the independent and joint effects …

Impact Of Team Citizenship Behaviors On Performance In Women's Sports Teams, Rachael Nichole Martinez

Dissertations

In organizational psychology literature, organizational citizenship behaviors (OCB) have demonstrated a significant relationship with performance outcomes. However, the existing research has shown some inconsistencies in the strength and direction of this relationship. Moreover, research has not yet explored the actual relationship between OCB and sports team performance (individual- and team-level), nor has research investigated potential moderators of this relationship. The current study examined the relationship between OCB and sports team performance and whether this OCB-performance relationship was moderated by task interdependence (i.e., sport). Two types of collegiate teams--softball and tennis--were utilized to represent two different levels of task interdependence with …

The Relationship Among Training Policy, Knowledge Transfer, And Performance Improvement: A Study Of Private Sector Organizations In The Kingdom Of Saudi Arabia, Fayez M. Shafloot

Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to explore human resource (HR) managers' perceptions of training practices (i.e., needs assessment, trainee preparation, training program review, accountability, management support, knowledge transfer, and performance improvement) in Saudi private sector organizations. The research questions were: (1) How do HR managers perceive the importance and or occurrence of training needs assessment, trainee preparation, training program review, accountability and management support? (2) How do HR managers perceive knowledge transfer and performance improvement as a function of training? and (3) What training factors do HR managers identify as being important to the delivery of training?

Data were …