Business Commons^™

Exit, Voice, And Entrepreneurship: The Impact Of Identity Concerns On Underrepresented Minorities, Georgianna D. Melendez

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

Despite organizations’ growing concerns over the recruitment and retention of underrepresented minorities in the United States, not enough is known about the conditions that lead underrepresented minority professionals to exit organizations and become entrepreneurs. Through an intersectionality lens and using a phenomenological methodology to form descriptive themes, this study seeks to further explore the experiences of minority professionals in organizations. Specifically, the focus of the study is to understand the conditions prompting underrepresented minorities to become entrepreneurs and either straddle or exit when launching their ventures. Although underrepresented minorities launching their own businesses is not a new phenomenon, the idea …

The Yosakoi Festival And Rural Revitalization In Kōchi Prefecture, Japan, Amy L. Kostka

Senior Honors Projects

Japan has been experiencing a population decline in rural areas since post World War II. Rural prefectures including Kōchi have been participating in nationwide efforts as well as local efforts to maintain population and hopefully attract more people to these areas. These efforts have been collectively categorized under the term rural revitalization. Rural revitalization has many aims: to encourage pride in local cultural practices, to attract tourists and new residents, and to boost local economies. In this study I examined how a festival might assist in rural revitalization efforts. Exploring the literature involving revitalization efforts provided the scaffolding for my …

The Evolution Of Technology In Auditing, Alexandra Roberti

Senior Honors Projects

The intention of this project is to learn about the technological changes that are impacting the auditing process. The audit is changing due to technological advances. In order for audit firms to stay competitive and keep their clients, they need to adhere to these changes. The purpose of auditing is to examine and verify that a company’s financial statements have been prepared in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles. Audit firms are adopting many methods of change in terms of technological progression. Innovations such as inventory drones and Robotic Procession Automation (RPA) have had major impacts in this field. It …

Building A Music Festival: Understanding Media Industry Lore, Madeline Edgmon

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Music festivals have become culturally salient within the new age of consumer participatory culture. Festivals fundamentally warrant a rite of passage by providing consumers a unique, all-encompassing experience. This critical media industry study examines the music festival industry and its’ usage of lore as industry held logics based off of perceptions of consumer wants and desires that calcify within the industry (Havens and Lotz, 2012). I contend three substantial and emergent lore in the music festival industry identified include millennials, experience economy, and prosumer culture. In addition, this thesis explores industry lore as various textual representations across social and physical …

Being Sensitive To Positives Has Its Negatives: An Approach/Avoidance Perspective On Reactivity To Ostracism, Ferris D. Lance, Shereen Fatimah, Ming Yan, Lindie H. Liang, Huiwen Lian, Douglas J. Brown

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Workplace mistreatment is typically conceptualized as being exposed to a negative stimulus – for example, a threat, verbal abuse, or other forms of harassment. Consequently, we expect workplace mistreatment will have the greatest effect on individuals who are sensitive to the presence and absence of negative stimuli – or those with a strong avoidance temperament. Although this may be the rule for most mistreatment constructs, we argue that ostracism may be the exception. Using an approach/avoidance framework to highlight unique elements of ostracism, we build on the definition of ostracism as being the absence of an expected positive stimulus (i.e., …

Much Ado About Audit Opinions, Themin Suwardy

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

In a commentary, SMU Associate Professor of Accounting (Practice) and Dean of Postgraduate Professional Programmes Themin Suwardy opined that with a better understanding of the various types of modified audit opinions, investors can react appropriately to the news of companies failing to get a clean opinion. He added that investors should ask tougher questions about key audit matters at annual general meetings in order to get a more rounded and informed picture of a company’s financial and operating status.

Organizing For Artificial Intelligence (Ai) Technologies, Sukti Ghosh

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This study focuses on organisation design choices as tools for addressing the management challenges of commercialising AI technologies for competitive advantage. It explores how design choices address fundamental problems of organising in such context, illustrating notable design features observed. Additionally, it examines external alignment and internal coherence reiterating interdependencies in organisation’s design choices, when adapting to exogenous changes due to emerging AI technologies.

Constructed Response Formats And Their Effects On Minority-Majority Differences And Validity, Filip Lievens, Paul R. Sackett, Jeffrey Dahlke, Janneke Oostrom, Britt De Soete

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The inflow of immigrants challenges organizations to consider alternative selection procedures that reduce potential minority (immigrants)-majority (natives) differences, while maintaining valid predictions of performance. To deal with this challenge, this paper proposes response format as a practically and theoretically relevant factor for situational judgment tests (SJTs). We examine a range of response format categories (from traditional multiple-choice formats to more innovative constructed response formats) and conceptually link these response formats to mechanisms underlying minority-majority differences. Two field experiments are conducted with SJTs. Study 1 (274 job seekers) contrasts minority-majority differences in scores on a multiple-choice versus a written constructed response …

Humility Breeds Authenticity: How Authentic Leader Humility Shapes Follower Vulnerability And Felt Authenticity, Burak Oc, Michael A. Daniels, James M. Diefendorff, Michael Ramsay Bashshur, Gary John Greguras

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Integrating existing work that considers the self through an interpersonal lens with theories pertaining to leader humility and authenticity, we develop a moderated mediation model that theorizes how and under what circumstances leader humility relates to follower felt authenticity. We argue that followers feel less vulnerable when their leaders express humility and further that this relation becomes weaker as the authenticity of leader humility decreases. We also theorize that follower vulnerability is the mechanism explaining the interactive effect of leader humility and its authenticity on follower felt authenticity at work. Our theoretical model was supported across four studies employing both …

Informed Options Trading Prior To Bankruptcy Filings, Li Ge, Jianfeng Hu, Mark Humphery-Jenner, Tse-Chun Lin

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Prior evidence on pre-bankruptcy-filing informed trade is mixed. The inconclusive findings might result from the sole focus on stock trading. We reassess the presence of pre-filing informed and insider trades by examining the information content of options trading before bankruptcy announcements. We find that bankruptcy filing returns are not significantly related to pre-filing insider stock trading. However, filing returns are significantly negatively related to pre-filing insider and informed options trading. The informational content of options trading reduces with options illiquidity and the amount of information impounded into pre-filing stock prices.

Implications Of Rice Cultivar Selection To Optimize Returns From Crop Insurance, David Ethan Branscum

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Rice production differs from most other field crops by distinct differences in yields across cultivars and rice producers being paid for yield after post-harvest milling. Using eleven years (2003-2013) of Arkansas harvest data from performance trials in six different locations, hybrids have 19% higher paddy yields and head rice yield rate 1.7% lower than conventional cultivars. Given the 2014 Farm Bill’s emphasis on crop insurance as a risk management tool for producers, these variations in yield among cultivars have significant implications for rice producers. Comparing national level, crop insurance data on corn, soybeans and rice indicates rice producers strongly prefer …

From Trash To Treasure: The Impact Of Consumer Perception Of Bio-Waste Products In Closed-Loop Supply Chains, Ivan Russo, Ilenia Confente, Daniele Scarpi, Benjamin T. Hazen

Faculty Publications

Increasing efforts are made to convert waste into new materials for replacing “traditional” ones. In particular urban bio-waste represents a primary source of concern for both government and society. A new type of polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA) have been very recently developed to convert food waste into a biodegradable multifunctional raw material to help solving the plastic waste problem. However, little is known about consumers' reactions to products made from PHA. Hence this study aims at understanding consumers' intentions to purchase, pay for, and switch to those bio-based products. Both multivariate analyses of variance and mediation analyses are run, addressing product involvement, …

Front Matter

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

Spring Meeting Of The Council Of The American Institute Of Certified Public Accountants, May 19-21, 2019, Washington, Dc. With Index, Volume 1, American Institute Of Certified Public Accountants. Council

Association Sections, Divisions, Boards, Teams

No abstract provided.

Are You Happy? Local Economic Development In Northern Thailand, Katherine Sorensen

Master's Theses

Thailand has had a long history of economic development. In recent years, Thailand began to focus on economic development initiatives a local level. The implementation process has been slow, but the introduction of social enterprise programs has proven a promising strategy in local economic development. Successful examples of economic development can be found in Thailand wherein this paper argues through collaboration between government agencies and local communities lies the key to success.

Qualitative techniques including a two months of fieldwork in Thailand, first hand observations, and appreciative inquiry interviews are used to analyze economic development initiatives in the communities of …

Transforming Human Resource Management Into A Dynamic Capability And The Effects On Employee Attraction And Retention, William Ricardo Jimenez

Theses and Dissertations

Employee attraction and retention remain one of the biggest difficulties faced by employers in the United States. One way for firms to combat this issue is through the creation of dynamic capabilities. Dynamic capabilities are processes developed by a company that are based on its history, asset positioning, and process changes which could potentially lead firms to a competitive advantage. The purpose of this study was to explore whether a dynamic capability could be created through a firm’s Human Resource Management (HRM). More specifically, the study examined the relationship between a business’s HRM through the creation of a dynamic capability …

Crop Planning In Sustainable Agriculture: Dynamic Farmland Allocation In The Presence Of Crop Rotation Benefits, Onur Boyabatli, Javad Nasiry, Yangfang (Helen) Zhou

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This paper examines crop planning decision in sustainable agriculture---that is, how to allocate farmland among multiple crops in each growing season when the crops have rotation benefits across growing seasons. We consider a farmer who periodically allocates the farmland between two crops in the presence of revenue uncertainty where revenue is stochastically larger and farming cost is lower when a crop is grown on rotated farmland (where the other crop was grown in the previous season). We characterize the optimal dynamic farmland allocation policy and perform sensitivity analysis to investigate how revenue uncertainty of each crop affects the farmer's optimal …

Disruption Risk Mitigation In Supply Chains: The Risk Exposure Index Revisited, Sarah Yini Gao, David Simchi-Levi, Chung-Piaw Teo, Zhenzhen Yan

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Simchi-Levi et al. (2014, 2015a) proposed a novel approach using the Time-To-Recover (TTR) parameters to analyze the Risk Exposure Index (REI) of supply chains under disruption. This approach is able to capture the cascading effects of disruptions in the supply chains, albeit in simplified environments -- TTRs are deterministic, and at most one node in the supply chain can be disrupted. In this paper, we proposed a new method to integrate probabilistic assessment of disruption risks into the REI approach and measure supply chain resiliency by analyzing the Worst-case CVaR (WCVaR) of total lost sales under disruptions.We show that the …

Housing Equity And Household Consumption In Retirement: Evidence From The Singapore Life Panel, Lipeng Chen, Liang Jiang, Sock Yong Phang, Jun Yu

Research Collection School Of Economics

We utilize data from the Singapore Life Panel© survey to empirically investigate the impact of housing equity on consumption of elderly households. Based on panel analysis, we find housing equity value has no significant impact on non-durable consumption for elderly people. The conclusion holds for a battery of robustness check. Moreover, heterogeneity analyses based on subsamples by age of household head, house type, and number of property possessed also show no significant impact of housing equity on consumption in general. Finally, we use scenario analysis to study the Lease Buyback Scheme (LBS), a novel housing equity monetization scheme which allows …

Revisiting The Human Capital System, Richard Raymond Smith

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

A holistic view of human capital inside any organization consists of talent management, organizational structure and culture, and strategic leadership.

Combating Child Labor: Incentives And Information Disclosure In Global Supply Chains, Soo-Haeng Cho, Xin Fang, Sridhar Tayur, Ying Xu

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Problem definition: We investigate multinational firms’ inspection and pricing strategies to address the challenges of combating child labor in global supply chains. We also examine how several factors (such as information disclosure, goodwill loss, inspection cost, external monitoring by nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and penalty scheme) affect firms’ incentives to use different strategies to combat child labor. Academic/practical relevance: Nearly 200 million children are engaged in child labor, many in developing countries that are part of the supply base of global manufacturing networks. However, there has been little research on evaluating the impact of firms’ strategies and NGOs’ initiatives …

Making Ethnic Tourism Good For The Poor, Jean Junying Lor, Shelly Kwa, John A. Donaldson

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

How can ethnic tourism alleviate rural poverty? Due to the difficulty of simultaneously expanding tourism while promoting pro-poor tourism, most villages traverse one of two developmental pathways: 1) ensuring an inclusive structure before expanding, or 2) expanding before building an inclusive structure. This study compares four comparable cases in Southwestern China to understand the politics behind the decision to choose different pathways, and the impact each pathways has on local residents. While the first pathway requires a careful balance to maintain a pro-poor structure as tourism volume expands, the second pathway presents apparently insurmountable barriers to poverty reduction due to …

“Because I Care I Risk”: How Ceo Free Market Orientation Affects The Extent And Type Of Income Smoothing, Mirzokhidjon S. Abdurakhmonov

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The executive political ideology literature suffers from a lack of conceptual clarity because social and economic issues are conflated. This has created an inconsistency in empirical findings with the theoretical predictions of the political ideology construct. In this dissertation, I identify a distinct economic component, free market orientation, based on support for economic individualism, competition, and property rights to reconcile these inconsistencies. Specifically, I argue that these indicators of free market orientation will have a unique impact on the way executives run their organizations. I develop a novel scale that measures CEO economic values that I term free market orientation …

Evaluating The Impact Of Training Employees To Identify Victims Of Human Trafficking, Emily Roman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Human trafficking is a global epidemic that steals the freedoms away from those who have been oppressed by it. Providing victims with resources begins with identifying them. Unfortunately, identifying victims is not an easy task. Trafficked victims are controlled and protected by their traffickers, and recipients may not even realize that they are victims of human trafficking. Also, the vague nature of trafficking makes it difficult for service providers, such as those in law enforcement, healthcare, and social services, to identify victims readily. Furthermore, research efforts imply a general lack of training provided for employees to know how to identify …

Accelerators: Their Fit In The Entrepreneurship Ecosystem And Their Cohort Selection Challenges, Shu Yang

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The entrepreneurial financing landscape has drastically evolved over the past two decades with many of the new entrants (e.g., crowdfunders, accelerators, incubators, etc) rapidly rising to prominence (Block et al., 2016). Evolving from the incubator model, startup accelerators have similarly gained traction over the past decade (Pauwels, Clarysse, Wright, & Van Hove, 2016). While the number of published articles focusing on accelerators has been growing, extant research has yet to clearly delineate the accelerator phenomena conceptually and more importantly, empirically examine its selection mechanism. This dissertation addresses this gap and is composed of two parts. In the first part, I …

Resources And Future Availability Of Agricultural Biomass For Energy Use In Beijing, Fengli Zhang, Chen Li, Yajie Yu, Dana M. Johnson

Michigan Tech Publications, Part 1

The increasing importance of lignocellulosic biomass based energy production has led to an urgent need to conduct a reliable resource supply assessment. This study analyses and estimates the availability of agricultural residue biomass in Beijing, where biomass energy resources are relatively rich and is mainly distributed in the suburbs. The major types of crops considered across Beijing include food crops (e.g., maize, winter wheat, soybean, tubers and rice), cotton crops and oil-bearing crops (e.g., peanuts). The estimates of crop yields are based on historical data between 1996 and 2017 collected from the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Statistics. The theoretical and …

Essays On Networks And Corporate Finance, Tatiana Salikhova

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In my dissertation I explore how personal networks affect firms’ financial decisions. In the first essay, I study how social connections among divisional managers affect the capital allocation to divisions in diversified conglomerates. In contrast to the previous studies, I focus on the horizontal connections or connections formed among managers of the same level of corporate hierarchy. I show that connections among divisional managers lead to higher sensitivity of segment capital spending to segment’s growth opportunities, higher firm-level allocation efficiency and higher firm value. Additionally, firms tend to strategically assign better-connected managers to these segments, and connections help to reduce …

Green Practices Among Fashion Manufacturers: Relationship With Cultural Innovativeness And Perceived Benefits, Dooyoung Choi, Tae-Im Han

STEMPS Faculty Publications

The purpose of this study was to examine green practices implemented among fashion manufacturers and identify factors that drive the adoption of those practices, specifically focusing on a company’s cultural innovativeness and the perceived benefits of green innovations. An online survey was created containing both open-ended and multiple-choice questions using Likert scales. Data were gathered from 29 fashion manufacturers that were identified by the Google search engine and then approached. Qualitative data were analyzed to obtain insights into fashion manufacturers’ green practices and a cluster analysis was conducted to categorize companies into distinct groups based on their level of green …

Female Perspectives On Mountain Biking, Rebecca Irvin

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study strived to inquire about females’ perspectives of learning to mountain biking. Through an online survey, the present study explored the constraints (White, 2008) that keep women from trying the sport. Respondents (N=150) answered an online survey. Results of this study will be useful for outdoor education professionals, parks and recreation programming, cycling advocacy organizations, and any who make marketing materials for the outdoor industry. The study is designed to provide a description of the female perspectives regarding constraints and motivation towards learning to mountain bike.

An Exploratory Study Of The Impact Of Acculturation On Fashion Consumption Among Hispanic Immigrants In The U.S., Laura Toloza

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

With a population of 58 million in 2016, the Hispanic immigrant population in the U.S. is expected to grow nearly 30% by 2060 (Hispanic influence, 2016). Immigrants are affected by acculturation and often have difficulty maintaining their culture of origin. Prior studies have revealed acculturation influences on consumer behaviors, but despite the increased population and purchasing power of Hispanic immigrants in the U.S., few studies have explored the ways in which acculturation influences shopping behaviors for fashion products among Hispanic consumers. The purpose of this study is to explore the general attitude related to shopping (i.e., shopping orientation) of Hispanic …