Business Commons^™

Iba Newsletter [August 2020], Communications Department, Office Of The Registrar

IBA News

No abstract provided.

Physical Activity, Sedentary Behavior, And Sleep Quality In Adults With Primary Hypertension And Obesity Before And After An Aerobic Exercise Program: Exerdiet-Hta Study, Aitor Martinez Aguirre-Betolaza, Iñigo Mujika, Paul Loprinzi, Pablo Corres, Ilargi Gorostegi-Anduaga, Sara Maldonado-Martín

Faculty and Student Publications

© 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. Background: The purposes of the study were to: analyze, by objective (accelerometry) and subjective (International Physical Activity Questionnaire, IPAQ) methodologies, the physical activity (PA) and sedentary behavior (SB) in healthy adults (HEALTHY, n = 30) and individuals with primary hypertension (HTN) and overweight/obesity (n = 218); assess the effects of an aerobic exercise intervention on physical activity (PA), sedentary behavior (SB), and sleep quality in the HTN group; and evaluate the relationship between objectively measured and subjectively reported PA and SB. Methods: The measurements were performed before a 16-week exercise intervention …

Business Education: How Culture And Leadership Impact Organizational Outcomes, Joyce Lemay, Chris Kaiser

Business Faculty Publications

Leadership and organizational culture influence the outcomes of any business. Many companies look at various information to measure results but may not know how to manage the information or interpret it in a way to make ethical and effective decisions. Many organizational cultures are broken and leadership needs to better understand how culture impacts the required outcomes. This article reviews the demands of a broken culture and creative ways to impact culture to ensure effective organizational outcomes. In times of crisis, like COVID-19, organizational culture can direct, redirect, or worsen the desired outcomes. The ability to analyze, understand and positively …

Giving And Receiving: A Study Of Barriers And Enablers In Asian Philanthropy, Dalvin Sidhu, Jinwen Chen

Lien Centre for Social Innovation: Research

This report provides an insight into Asian philanthropy through engaging with philanthropic entities (PEs) in Greater China, India and Indonesia. Issues pertinent to this research include (1) challenges and opportunities for philanthropy in the region, (2) the interest and readiness of PEs to address common regional problems, (3) identifying support and platforms that would effectively help translate giving strategies into impact, (4) the interest and readiness of PEs to explore and engage in innovative ways, and (5) identifying the major areas in which these PEs are involved.

Impact Of Placement Of Fitbit Hr Under Laboratory And Free-Living Conditions, Hyun Chul Jung, Minsoo Kang, Nan Hee Lee, Soeun Jeon, Sukho Lee

Faculty and Student Publications

© 2020 by the authors. Wrist-worn activity monitors have become accessible for measuring physical activities, but an activity monitor's accuracy worn at different placements is not well understood. This study aimed to examine the differences in measurements of heart rates, step counts, and calories estimated from the fitness tracker worn at different locations and the accuracy of Fitbit HR against criterion measures. Thirty-two healthy adults participated in this study. Participants wore Fitbit HR at four different locations (right proximal, distal, and left proximal, distal). Treadmill exercise consisted of five 5-min phases including slow walking and jogging. Free-living activities involved ten …

Fixed Income Fund Report, August 2020, Bryant University, Archway Investment Fund

Archway Investment Fund

No abstract provided.

Multi-Phenomena Internship With Coursestars, Joanna Menendie

2020 Intern Reports

CourseStars is an online tutoring company that caters to students from kindergarten all the way to college. The company has been focusing on community outreach, among several other things. They wanted to focus on some other aspects of their business more and needed more perspectives and hands in the company to do so. This summer, I was able to be one of those people for CourseStars and focus on many categories. Originally being taken on as a Marketing intern, it was my main focus. This included helping improve their branding, social media image, and overall outside appearance. A major part …

Mass Shootings And The Performance Of Tourism Stocks, Marshall Deem

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

This study investigates the effects of mass shooting events on the performance of the tourism industry within the United States. The results of the study show that outside of the market-wide returns, the performance of tourism stocks is negatively impacted after a large-scale mass shooting event. Furthermore, when separating extreme outliers in the data such as the Las Vegas Mandalay Bay shooting, the results of the study find that tourism stocks surrounding other large-scale mass shootings are significantly negative. Overall, the results of the study demonstrate a negative response in the tourism industry to large-scale mass shootings.

Social Media Marketing, Christo Ekimov '22

2020 Intern Reports

Hespr is a mental health startup that believes that mental health is both a personal journey as well as a community one. Hespr is building an application that incorporates this idea using a guided journal, which facilitates the personal journey and a social platform to foster the community journey. It has a strong back-end which uses a variety of algorithms to calculate the emotions of the user. It combines all this with a sleek and functional UI. They focus on creating positive change in the world along with reimagining the way mental health is perceived and treated. As a marketing …

Website And Communications / Development With Iagc, Nathan Joseph '21

2020 Intern Reports

This summer, I completed a summer IMSA Internship with the Illinois Association for Gifted Children (IAGC), a non-profit aimed to provide quality education to students across the state. During this internship, I worked independently and remotely due to COVID-19 with some assistance via email or Zoom from my business mentor to complete a variety of tasks for the IAGC. Some of the endeavors that I took part in were creating website pages. Particularly, I worked on a page promoting social and emotional support for students, a page promoting and acknowledging the excellence gap, and a page answering commonly asked questions …

Safestart Medical: An Innovative Hit Solution To Never Events (Wspe), Shikhar Gupta '22

2020 Intern Reports

SafeStart Medical is a health information technology company offering a healthcare system, or electronic health record, that reduces dangerous handoff and communication errors, reduces delays and cancellations in the operating room, and empowers the patient as an active member of their care team. SafeStart is an automated and digitized revenue cycle management tool that improves perioperative patient safety, quality of care, and patient throughput. They specifically aim to prevent the occurrence of Never Events, preventable and serious medical errors that occur at an alarming rate. As an intern at SafeStart, I performed research on clinical topics such as Never Events …

Graphic Design Internship, Jonathan Gao '21

2020 Intern Reports

I have always been my own boss. From self-learning graphic design, starting in third grade, to practicing graphic design for clubs and organizations under my digression. I have been lucky enough to work for mainly myself and, when working for others, have had to cater to exclusively my taste—my experience in doing graphic design for teams has in the past been limited to making a design I like, requesting approval with little to no necessary revisions, and finally sending the design to its final destination.

Working with the Carbondale Chamber of Commerce this summer was my first time practicing graphic …

Marketing Experience: Analysis Of Competitors, Kaylee Zhou '22

2020 Intern Reports

Hespr is a start-up that focuses on promoting mental health by providing an app for the community. While the app is still in its early access program, Hespr's development team has been working diligently to improve various aspects and features. Throughout my internship, many tasks and projects were completed, such as user outreach, graphic design, written reports, and research. The objectives of this business project involved gathering information on how to analyze competitors and their marketing strategies efficiently and how to identify competitors' strengths and weaknesses effectively. My internship has provided me with valuable findings, leading me to conclude that …

Understanding Covid-19s Effect On Commerce Through Machine Learning, Madhav Parthasarathy '21

2020 Intern Reports

During these trying times, the novel virus has taken its toll on the economy. As a result, there must be a method to prevent any further loss in revenue for grocers especially. I started this project off, by researching the topic and its previous applications. As the virus is quite new, I was made to improvise a solution using machine learning. After finding a certain amount of data, I was able to utilize machine learning in order to predict the sales through certain periods of time. Due to Covid-19, there had been an extreme disparity in the sales of grocery …

Marketing & Website Visual Development To Enhance Communication For Iagc, Makayla Zheng '22

2020 Intern Reports

In the Business Context portion, the general description of the industry and organization are detailed. I interned for the Illinois Association for Gifted Children (IAGC), a nonprofit organization that works in the field of education, helping to promote the development of gifted and talented children across Illinois.

In the Business Project Description section, the work I contributed to IAGC is exhibited.During this internship, I largely partook in the marketing aspects for IAGC. I mainly worked with improving the IAGC website to increase organization and visual enhancement allowing for easier accessibility for users. The Exhibits portion consists of visuals from my …

Internship With Coursestars, Aakash Kumar '21

2020 Intern Reports

The plan of the company was to rework some parts of their website to automate submissions by employees and to attract more clients. The company I was interning with was CourseStars, a company that prides itself on finding excelled tutors to serve students. However, the project had a lot of complicated parts due to privacy issues and company policies.

First, the company needed to ensure that there was an easier way for them to give out tutor applications and publish tutors’ information on their website. The second issue was to drive tutor’s to work with CourseStars and make it easier …

Marketing And Design Applications In Website Development, Amanda Chen

2020 Intern Reports

Are there universal guidelines that ensure the efficacy of a business website’s design and marketing appeal to consumers? Through the field studies of competitor businesses of private tutoring company CourseStars, LLC. as well as research journals confirming the significance of behavioral economics working hand in hand with user experience website design, we determined that the best course of action was to rebrand the CourseStars website to reflect a personal connection its tutors can make with their students. The general principles to make a “good website” are ease of use, trust, transaction security, and behaviorally, using consumers’ cost-benefit analysis and their …

Analyzing Pricing Models In The Context Of Mental Health Markets, Edward Zhang '22

2020 Intern Reports

In today’s world, mental health is becoming an increasingly important issue. To address, this the crossroads between technology and healthcare has become more and more apparent, with many mental heath apps seeking to help consumers on this issue and reduce stigma.Hespr is one of these companies, and although in early stages of development, has a large potential to make a lasting impact.By researching pricing models and business models in the mental health software industry, this report hopes to provide insight on how these business practices can impact business finances, and ultimately have greater implications for decisions at Hespr. By using …

How To Increase A Company's Social Media Presence, Eunice Kim '22

2020 Intern Reports

The project pursued in this report is called “How to Increase a Company’s Social Media Presence.” In this context, “social media presence” will refer to how frequently Hespr posts and is active on Instagram, the levels of engagement on posts, and types of content uploaded. As the title suggests, this project will focus on factors that facilitate the growth of Hespr’s social media presence, as well as factors that may hinder progress.

Summer Internship Report, Isabel Chen '22

2020 Intern Reports

“Baby boomer,” “millennial,” and “Generations X and Z” are all familiar terms referring to the different Western cultural generations beginning from the late nineteenth century. And as they all signify a period of time in history, there are an array of associated ideas, beliefs, and traditions that come along with each. This research paper serves to explore how design and social media platforms can best cater to audiences of all generations, taking into account the differences in interests, opinions, and tendencies of each. Through observations and studies, it’s most effective to approach the audience in an attitude that is equally …

Assessing Integenerational Programs Through Market Research, Rohit Kartha '22

2020 Intern Reports

Intergenerational is an adjective that describes something that involves or affects several generations. Intergenerational programs are programs which increase interaction and exchange between people of different generations. There are several benefits of intergenerational programs. Some include generating a sense of purpose for the older adults, reducing a sense of isolation for them, as well as members from each generation learning new skills. Most importantly, younger generations better understand the aging process and learn how to face their own aging more positively. As time progresses, more and more people are understanding the benefits and importance of intergenerational collaboration and as this …

Resilience In Nonmetropolitan Nebraska: Capacity To Overcome Disasters And Hardships, 2020 Nebraska Rural Poll Results, Rebecca Vogt, Cheryl Burkhart-Kriesel, Brad Lubben, L.J. Mcelravy, Timothy Meyer, Steve Schulz, Jason L. Weigle

Rural Futures Institute: Publications

The definition of resilience is the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties. Synonyms include toughness, perseverance and grit. Last spring’s severe weather events and this year’s ongoing COVID-19 pandemic are likely testing the resilience of rural Nebraskans. Given that, how do rural Nebraskans rate their communities on dimensions that measure their resiliency? How confident are they that the federal government or local emergency management authorities can contain infectious disease outbreaks? How do they rate their ability to help their community handle adversities? How prepared are rural Nebraskans to deal with financial emergencies? This paper provides a detailed analysis of these …

The Effect Of Investor Sentiment On Earnings Management, Lin Chen

Accounting Dissertations - Archive

The association between investor sentiment and corporate reporting decisions/outcomes has been recently examined in the accounting and finance literature. As an important outcome of corporate reporting decisions, earnings management (EM) may be affected by investor sentiment. In this dissertation, I examine two research questions. The first is whether investor sentiment is associated with the propensity of firms’ engaging in the two primary forms of EM: accrual earnings management (AEM) and real earnings management (REM). The second question is whether firms’ internal governance strength and external audit quality would moderate the association between investor sentiment and AEM as well as REM. …

Shah-Dissertation2020-Humancapitalofupperechelons, Tushar R. Shah

Management Dissertations - Archive

My dissertation studies strategic change in the context of digital transformation and the role of organization’s upper echelons (specifically the human capital of TMTs and CEOs) in predicting digital transformation. I concur with the prevalent belief that digital transformation is the fourth industrial revolution. It is already disrupting several businesses and business models as a result of which existing models of strategic change may have to be modified to explain these drastic transformations. I begin with defining the domain of strategic change as experienced by organizations when they intend to or are undergoing digital transformation. To support my theoretical assertions, …

Us And Them: The Impact Of Differing Founder Mindsets On Firm Strategic Orientation, Manisha M. Vaswani

Management Dissertations - Archive

Historically, small business founders were assumed to be motivated by profit-maximization. Today, we understand that founders also have non-economic goals for starting a business, including furthering their family legacy. This dissertation contrasts two types of founder mind-sets: an entrepreneurial mindset and a small business mind-set. I propose theoretical arguments which predict that founders who identify more with the small business mindset would pursue long-term, trust-based strategies that foster relationships with stakeholders such as suppliers and customers. On the other hand, founders who identify with the entrepreneurial mindset are more likely to pursue strategies that are ambitious, contractual, and profit-enhancing. Using …

Predictors Of Organizational Decoupling In The Context Of Corporate Sustainability, Ajith Venugopal

Management Dissertations - Archive

The gap between what firms say and what they do is referred to as organizational decoupling. Despite the fact that decoupling is a widespread phenomenon, there is a paucity of empirical studies that have examined individual level predictors of organizational decoupling, especially in the context of corporate sustainability. In this dissertation, utilizing upper echelon theory, I examine how CEO psychological charactersitics predict policy-practice decoupling in the environmental and social dimensions of corporate sustainability. Using a sample of U.S.manufacturing companies from S&P 1500 during the period 2009-2018, I test the relationship between CEO personality (FFM traits), CEO value (self-transcendence), and CEO …

Skbi Big 5 Survey 2020 August, Singapore Management University

Sim Kee Boon Institute for Financial Economics

The COVID-19 pandemic led to whopping downward revisions to 2020 real GDP growth among the Big5 economies, on average greater than 7%-points (ranging from roughly 3.5%-points for China to more than 10%-points for India). The forecast revisions to headline inflation were less sizable and more uneven, perhaps because of the confluence of supply and demand influences. The 2021 median GDP forecast is expected to turn positive overall, with a balanced risk assessment for most of the Big5 (but a coin toss in IN and US), but the growth reversal is likely to be highly uneven. While China regains its prior …

Preparing Students For Digital Era Careers, Melissa Stange

Inquiry: The Journal of the Virginia Community Colleges

This paper will discuss why technical skills alone will not be enough for students to have successful careers in the digital age. Much of their success will hinge on critical soft skills, such as adaptability, inner strength, holistic thinking, and a collaborative spirit. Examples will be provided for inclusion with a computer science program, but in a way that is easily adaptable to other disciplines.

Risk Control System Construction Of China’S Equity Crowdfunding Platforms: A Comparative Study On The Differences Between Equity Crowdfunding And Traditional Venture Capital Investment, Wentao Bai

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

Equity crowdfunding is a new type of public financing activity realized by Internet technology with small single investments funds, which is different from traditional venture capital. It greatly solves the equity investment problem of middle-class people and the difficulties of small and medium-sized enterprises and start-ups in financing. It is also conducive to the construction of multi-level capital market, and the healthy development of national financial system. Due to the advantages of equity crowdfunding, the global equity crowdfunding market has developed rapidly in recent years. Unfortunately, China's formal legislation on equity crowdfunding has not been introduced yet. Each platform can …

Reexamining Metallgesellschaft’S Hedging Policy: Does Anything Beat A One-For-One Hedge Ratio?, Christopher Haddock

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

There has been significant debate surrounding Metallgesellschaft's derivatives based fixed-price marketing strategy. Most of this debate relates to Metallgesellschaft's choice to use a one-for-one hedge ratio instead of an alternative hedge ratio optimized for risk management. I contribute to this discussion by reexamining the hedging strategy of Metallgesellschaft and use the Test for Superior Predictive Ability to determine whether any hedge ratio less than one outperforms the one-for-one hedge utilized by Metallgesellschaft.