Business Commons^™

Growth Perspectives In Tree Campus Higher Education And Tree City Usa, Olivia Coffey, Logan Lewis, Michael Schneider, Mason Ellis, Austin Vandersteen, Nicholas Lennon

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

With an aggressive goal of 25% growth in both the Tree City USA and Tree Campus Higher Education programs, the Arbor Day Foundation (“ADF”, “Arbor Day”) needs a correspondingly bold plan to follow. Our group’s set of recommendations keep in step with ADF’s goals of inspiring people to Plant, Nurture, and Celebrate trees. Adopting ADF’s guiding principles informed and refined our recommendations. Our suggestions to ADF are to expand and refine marketing objectives, make use of communication platforms, streamline the survey and application procedure, and restructure the Tree City participation incentive programs. The subsections of this report provide greater detail …

Prompt-Specificity In Scenario-Based Assessments: Associations With Personality Versus Knowledge And Effects On Predictive Validity, Thomas Rockstuhl, Filip Lievens

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Many scenario-based assessments (e.g., interviews, assessment center exercises, work samples, simulations, and situational judgment tests) use prompts (i.e., cues provided to respondents to increase the likelihood that the information received from them is clear, sufficient, and job-related). However, a dilemma for practitioners and researchers is how general or specific one should prompt people's answers. We posit that such differences in prompt-specificity (i.e., extent to which prompts cue performance criteria) have important implications for the predictive validity of scenario-based assessment scores. Drawing on the interplay of situation construal and situational strength theory, we propose that prompt-specificity leads to differential relationships between …

Are Investment Banks Helpful Or Hurtful? An Analysis Of Intraday Volatility In The Direct Listing Process As Compared To Investment Bank-Involvement In Traditional Ipos, Alexis Paff

Scripps Senior Theses

In this paper, I carry out an empirical analysis of the pricing volatility of direct listings as compared to traditional IPOs. Direct listings solve an efficiency problem in the US going-public market, in which well-funded, late-stage firms lack incentives to pursue a public listing, which would create liquidity for preexisting shareholders and allow for a more diverse body of public shareholders. Direct listings have been allowed on the New York Stock Exchange since early 2018, and four firms, Spotify, Slack, Asana, and Palantir, have gone public through this new listing mechanism. While underwriters are heavily involved in the IPO process, …

Eco 230 / Mgt 230 Introduction To Economic And Managerial Statistics, George Vachadze

Open Educational Resources

No abstract provided.

Comparison Of Yield Responses To Climate Variations, Organic Versus Conventional Crops, Qiuqiong Huang, Joost Wilken Meyer, Eva Stephani Caroline, Song Feng

Agricultural Economics and Agribusiness Faculty Publications and Presentations

The objective of this study to compare the yield responses to climate variations and extreme weather events under organic and conventional agriculture.

Derby City Gaming Expansion: Its Impact On The Louisville Metro Area, Thomas E. Lambert

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Do Blockchain And Iot Architecture Create Informedness To Support Provenance Tracking In The Product Lifecycle?, Somnath Mazumdar, Thomas Jensen, Raghava Rao Mukkamala, Robert John Kauffman, Jan Damsgaard

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Consumers often lack information about the origin and provenance of the products they buy. They may ask: Is a food product truly organic? Or, what is the origin of the gemstone in the ring I purchased? They also may have sustainability concerns about the footprint of a product at the end of its life. Producers and sellers, meanwhile, wish to know how longitudinal tracking of the provenance of products and their components can boost their sales prices and after-market value, and re- veal new business opportunities. We focus on how the product lifecycle (PLC) can be leveraged to track information …

Solutions To Fermi Questions, Feb. 2021, Larry Weinstein

Physics Faculty Publications

Solutions for Fermi Questions, Feb. 2021. How many visible photons per second does a light bulb emit? How much does the U.S. spend on residential lightbulbs (both the bulbs and the electricity) every year?

Engaging Hotel Managers Through Managerial Support, Susan Gordon, Xiaolin Shi

ICHRIE Research Reports

The influence of varying levels of organizational support and managerial support on hotel managers’ psychological contract and work engagement was examined through a scenario-based experiment. Findings showed that lower managerial support is more detrimental and thus, recommendations are presented to help organizations foster managerial support of managers.

Goodyear: Pivot, Expand, Or Downsize, Anastasia Vonortas, Arianna Francisco, Alicen Fimple, Jasem Jwayyed

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

In light of everything going on in the world today, Goodyear has started to question the next steps of their company. One of their biggest concerns is that since people are not driving as much, they will not be putting as much wear on their tires, meaning the tires they currently have on their vehicles will last longer and will not have the need to purchase new tires as frequently. Goodyear has asked us to look into what their company should do with all of the factors affecting their company. Should they pivot their focus to a different industry to …

Honors Research Project Goodyear Business Suggestion, Drew Hodgson, Seth Gwirtz, Isabel Hartzler, Heather Kriston, Savannah Novak

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Our project takes on the task of evaluating the current market of the tire industry in todays pandemic. We are taking our findings to the local company Goodyear, and supplying suggestions to their firm in order to help their bottom line going forward. At the end of this, we will propose to Goodyear a solution within their firm on whether to pivot, expand, or downsize their current operations.

Feasibility Of Podcasts And City By City Analysis For Upside.Fm, Nicholas Mcfadden, Adam Sacks, Logan Dusseau, Angela Rizzo, Sarah Wieser

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The objective of the project is to conduct a feasibility study for Upside, with regard to their underlying business model. We then hope to make recommendations for other cities and complementary products that can fit under the Upside umbrella.

An Analysis Of How The Goodyear Rubber And Tire Company Should Navigate The Covid-19 Pandemic, Nicholas Zubek, Alexander Morgan, Alyson Pekkola, Kayla Jancewicz, Thomas Rovnak Iii

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected the world in an unprecedented way with many countries being forced to shut down all non-essential businesses. A majority of people were laid-off or forced to work from home while the state mandated quarantine regulations. Due to fewer people and employees commuting on the roads, tire usage has decreased drastically. Companies, like The Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company, depend on high transportation and automobile usage and thus have been heavily impacted. In the nine months since 2020 began, Goodyear has reported sales of $2.367 billion dollars lower than their sales in 2019, which mostly came …

Analysis Of The Podcast Industry And Business Growth Of Upside.Fm, Alyson Stoll, Katelyn Stanoch, John Skakun, Samantha Heim, Maanasa Humchad

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This paper explores the podcast industry with a focus on business related podcasts about entrepreneurship and startup businesses. The paper works to analyze the podcast industry and midwestern startup cities in order to assist podcast company, Upside.fm, in expanding their business model. The two main ideas researched throughout the paper are consumer behaviors in the podcast industry and the entrepreneurial ecosystems of multiple midwestern cities in the U.S including, Minneapolis, Minnesota, Kansas City, Missouri, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Indianapolis, Indiana. For the consumer behavior aspect of the research, a survey was conducted and analyzed to discover what podcast listeners enjoy and …

Three Essays Exploring Diversification Strategies In Family Firms: Evidence From The S&P 1500 On Acquisitions And Exits., Chelsea Sherlock

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Family firms are not only the most prevalent form of business organization in the world, accounting for roughly 75% of all organizations (La Porta, Lopez-de-Silanes, & Shleifer, 1999; Miller, Steier, & Le Breton-Miller, 2003), they also represent “heterogeneous and complex enterprises” that offer a “challenging array of issues to study” (Sharma, Chrisman, & Gersick, 2012, p. 5). Accordingly, this series of essays explores diversification strategies in family firms by investigating the family specific factors which may influence strategic decision-making. I begin with a review of the diversification literature over the last 20 years. Next, using data from S&P 1500 firms, …

Do Bears Prefer The Weak And The Downtrodden? The Effects Of The 52-Week Low And Financial Strength On Short-Seller Behavior, Christopher Alan Miller

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation investigates the effects of a company’s financial strength on short-seller behavior around a non-information-producing event. The distance of a stock price to its 52-week high or low does not provide fundamental information, but the price extremes serve as salient price points upon which investors anchor their expectations of future stock performance. Using a large sample of daily short sales data, I investigated the effects of both the proximity to the 52-week low and the financial strength of the underlying company on short-seller behavior. I found that short-selling volume increases as the price nears its 52-week low and that …

Analysis Of Modern Barn Design, Gunther Soehnlen

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The agriculture industry is always changing. Barn structures are one of the most important aspects of the agriculture industry. As the agriculture industry changes, so does the design and construction of barns. There are many types of barns, but over the last 300 years four of the most prevalent types have been the Bank Barn, Open Span Truss Barn, Hoop Barn, and Transverse Frame Barn. The Bank Barn and Transverse Frame Barn have been popularly built for over 200 years. The Hoop Barn and the Open Span Truss Barn have been recently introduced to the industry, becoming popular within the …

Less Commute Miles. Decreased Tire Wear. What Would You Do?, Dylan Schwarz, Brendon M. Ford, Brandon D. Hadinger, Abbie N. Pearce, Jacinta M. Pikunas

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

With the flagrant recognition of the coronavirus as one of those most impactful viruses in the history of the world, it is important to study how the effects of such a disease can create troublesome ripple effects in the world. Covid-19 has caused the death of hundreds of thousands of individuals and has negatively impacted the lives of American’s all across the country during the nationwide lockdown. Decreased work commuters, minimal road travel, and little need for car repairs hit the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company hard. The University of Akron has teamed up with Goodyear to explore such effects …

Covid-19 Impact On Produce Perks, Taylor Swindall, Anna Muntin

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Despite the benefits of diets containing fresh fruits and vegetables such as a lower risk of heart disease, very few Americans, especially low-income individuals, consume enough to meet the recommended amounts. For our Honor’s Project our team focused on the Ohio based SNAP-EBT food share program Produce Perks. To do so we studied two sets of data to our answer our research questions; ‘Has COVID-19 further impacted low-income individuals’ fruit and vegetable consumption’, How is the Produce Perks program impacted low-income consumers’, and “How can this program be better marketed to include more low-income individuals. Through our research we were …

Organizational And Financial Considerations Of Inter-District School Of Choice On One Small District In The Detroit Metropolitan Area, Lori Lucas

Wayne State University Dissertations

The research study investigated the organizational and financial structure of a school district that participated in inter-district school of choice. The goal was to see if choice, resident and non-resident, had any influence on these structures. The literature that I reviewed highlighted the various organizational and funding mechanisms that school districts need to account for when considering options such as school of choice. This research study was conducted on a smaller scale compared to studies that have been completed on a grander scale. The goal of this study was to review the organizational and financial changes that districts make to …

Understanding The New Wealthy: Ideologies, Consumption Patterns, And Organizational Strategies For A New Generation Of High-Net Worth Individuals, Ana Brant

Theses and Dissertations

Despite the fact that the Ultra High-Net Worth (UHNWI) belong to the wealthiest, most powerful, and influential group of consumers in the society, and nearly 70% created wealth on their own, current marketing approaches fail to consider what drives consumption behavior of this group of consumers and how can brands maximize their socio-economic impact. Across two studies, I develop a model that guides theory and practice regarding this consumer group. The first part of the first study deployed netnography and grounded theory to understand the ideologies of 30 self-made UHNWI derived from self-presentation on 3,393 Instagram posts. To ensure self-made …

Organizational Dissonance In The Context Of Organizational Decline And Turnaround Of A Security Printer: A Quantitative Case Study, Tina Marie Ramirez-Dominguez

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this non-experimental, quantitative study was to examine organizational identity dissonance experienced by an organization's social actors in the context of organizational decline and turnaround utilizing factor structures from five years of pre-existing, employee surveys to determine whether differences in factor scores occurred over the 5-year time frame. Organizational identity dissonance is the psychological stress or discomfort experienced by an organization's social actors from holding two or more contradictory attitudes, beliefs, or behaviors (McLead, 2008) in relation to the organization's identity. A social actor is an individual participating in a communal environment (Whetten & Mackey, 2002). A communal …

The Impact Of A Management Company’S Scale On Hotel Market Value, Gil Keinan

Theses and Dissertations

The choice of management structure is growing in importance for hotel owners. Most owners’ investment theses are based on an attractive acquisition basis, focusing on net cash flow and the sales exit. Depending on the market, transaction price may be influenced by asset level performance which is highly influenced by daily revenue and expense decisions. Hotel brands quantify their value via measures that include market share and loyalty of a customer base. While much research has been conducted on the impact of brands on market value, the influence of hotel management on resale value has not been well investigated. This …

From Truth To Trust: The Impact Of Blockchain Traceability On Trust In Product Authenticity, Frank Betz

Theses and Dissertations

In the global marketplace, customers are increasingly unaware of the source, provenance, and authenticity of products. Early research has shown that the introduction of blockchain technology into the supply chain area can make it more transparent and trustworthy. As a platform that supports distributed, cryptographically secure, auditable transactions, blockchain has expanded from the domain of digital cryptocurrency into the domain of physical asset provenance and ownership tracking and tracing. This research examines blockchain support of trust in product authenticity adopting a two-paper dissertation format. In the first conceptual paper, I develop a conceptual framework on blockchain technology's unique features and …

A Contemporary Study On The Impact Of Regulations On Business Performance, Brian C. Mulligan

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines Nobel Prize Laureate Hayek's ominous warning that economic liberty in the U.S. is at risk, due to regulations, of becoming an unplanned administrative state. The research seeks to understand the effects of regulations on business performance and how to right-size them for a healthy business environment. These objectives are accomplished with two papers: (1) a macro cross-discipline literature review and call for research on the impact of regulations on business performance, and (2) a qualitative grounded theory study from interviews from elite business executives on their perspectives on the impact of regulations on business performance. The findings …

Adoption Of Ai-Enabled Technology: Taking The Bad With The Good, George Dagliyan

Theses and Dissertations

From autonomous vehicles to smart home assistants and telemedicine, artificial intelligence enabled (AI-enabled) technologies are increasingly available in the market. Consumers are saddled between the benefits and the risks of these new technologies, yet prior research has not accounted for the coexistence of inhibitory and faciliatory factors and how they affect intentions to use AI-enabled technology. The current research introduces a conceptual model to address these relationships and integrates the role of subjective ambivalence and brand trust. The model was tested using structural equation modeling with a cross sectional survey of U.S. consumers across three distinct categories of AI: autonomous …

Corporate Venturing In The Media & Entertainment Industry: Contextual Factors That Influence Corporate Venture Decision Making, Graylind R. Wherry

Theses and Dissertations

This research study focuses on Corporate Venturing (CV) within the Media and Entertainment(M&E) industry and investigates factors that influence CV decision-making. CV provides a viable strategy to facilitate innovation and organizational change within companies; however, this area is understudied within the M&E industry. Companies that make up the entertainment industry may not have specific insight into how best to exploit this opportunity. Specifically, this study looks at the influence of firm characteristics, industry characteristics, and other outside factors using the PESTLE strategy model characteristics impacting the parent or venture unit's CV decision-making within the M&E industry. In terms of this …

Job Demands And Job Resources Among Western Airline Cabin Crews: A Comparative Study Of Canadian, German, And French Flight Attendants, Sarah Nogues, Diane-Gabrielle Tremblay, Sari Mansour

Journal of Aviation/Aerospace Education & Research

Flight attendants are frontline workers in charge of onboard security, safety and customer service. They are required to perform a number of tasks requiring physical and psychological efforts associated with numerous health costs for this group of workers. In the aftermath of Covid-19, flight attendants employed at major airlines will likely be faced with increased job demands. However, little is known about how widespread job resources are among Western cabin crews. Based on recent findings in flight attendant job-demands literature along with the ability-motivation-opportunity (AMO) framework in strategic HRM, this paper questions airline leeway and choices in resource allocation to …

What Factors Predict A Consumer's Willingness To Purchase A Subscription-Based Airline Program?, Sean R. Crouse

Journal of Aviation/Aerospace Education & Research

Introduction: Many services offer subscription-based sales models. The aviation industry has not widely attempted to market a subscription-based service through their airline for ticketing purposes. This study developed a regression equation to determine predictive factors for the type of individual who would purchase a subscription-based airline ticket.

Method: A two-stage approach was used where the participants (N = 521) answered demographic information, flight habits, and the same scenario with a perceived value scale and willingness to purchase scale.

Results: Stage 1 found perceived value, employment status, and early boarding preference all to be significant factors, accounting for …

The Value Relevance Of Retail Strategy, Kexin Xiang

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

All three essays of this dissertation are under the umbrella of retail management and study the phenomenon of retail management from the following perspectives: retailers’ multichannel strategy, retailers’ store operation management, and retailers’ securities lawsuits likelihood. Specifically, the first essay studies the effect of a channel integration strategy called buy-online-and-pick-up-in-store on retailers’ stock value. The second essay studies the relationship between a retailer’s top management team (TMT) confidence and the store overexpansion. The third essay studies how TMT confidence is associated with securities class action (SCA) litigation. Essays 1 and 2 focus on retailers’ channel decision whereas Essays 2 and …