Business Administration, Management, and Operations Commons^™

The Influence Of Enterprise Systems On Business And Information Technology, D. Lance Revenaugh, Ph.D., Myles M. Muretta

Business & Information Technology

Business strategy is important to all organizations. Nearly all Fortune 500 firms are implementing Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems to improve the execution of their business strategy and to improve integration with its information technology (IT) strategy. Successful implementation of these multi-million dollar software systems are requiring new emphasis on change management and on Business and IT strategic alignment. This paper examines business and IT strategic alignment and seeks to explore whether an ERP implementation can drive business process reengineering and business and IT strategic alignment. An overview of business strategy and strategic alignment are followed by an analysis of …

Contextualising Csr In Asia: Corporate Social Responsibility In Asian Economies, Bindu Sharma

Lien Centre for Social Innovation: Research

This publication seeks to present a narrative about the practice of CSR in ten Asian economies – China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand. The aim is to present a uniquely Asian perspective on the CSR story in these countries that will inform CSR practitioners, researchers and interested corporate stakeholders. Drawing on historical and traditional notions of business responsibility and engagement, the research looks at modern day drivers of CSR in these countries such as the government, civil society, globalisation and enlightened self-interest. The research also throws light on other underlying influences and looks at …

Supply Chain "Mega-Trends": Current Status And Future Trends, Edward Sweeney

Practitioner Journals

The supply chain management (SCM) concept has become embedded in the thinking of many organisations in recent years. Originally introduced by management consultants in the early 1980s, SCM has a strong focus on integration of processes across functions within firms, as well as between the organisations that comprise the wider extended enterprise. There is a significant body of research to support the notion that the consistent delivery of value to customers is predicated on higher levels of intra-firm and inter-firm integration. Putting the supply chain integration (SCI) concept into practice is critically dependent on the ability of firms to manage …

Improving Non-Profit Organizations: Mon Ami, Dylan Yang, Kevin Diaz, Santos Miletes, Robert Tonucci

Academic Symposium of Undergraduate Scholarship

For our Collaborative Learning Program winter term group project, we completed community service at Mon Ami [1] and Service by going to the non-profit every Friday to help the teachers in the day care center. While we were there, our group made observations about the non-profit organization. At the end of the community service experience, our group constructed solutions for the problems we discovered at the non-profit organization and recommended ways to implement these solutions. Our research results were presented to our CLP professors in written form and as a formal presentation.

[1 ]The organization's name has been changed due …

Imsa360: Spring 2013, Imsa Fund

IMSA Fund Reports

Having recently announced my retirement from IMSA, I am writing my last letter for IMSA360 to share my appreciation and admiration for the engagement and support of the entire IMSA community, which includes each and every reader of this publication. During the past six years, our collaborative work has produced some exceptional results as evidenced by our students’ success in national and international competitions, publications, presentations and leadership conferences. In addition, other highlights include our institutional recognition- especially the 2009 Intel Star Innovator Award-our growing donor base, the expansion of programs and services for Illinois students and teachers, a growing …

2013 Ijbe Front Matter, Tamra Connor

International Journal for Business Education

1. Editorial Board
2. President's Letter
3. SIEC-ISBE International

Integrating Strategic And Tactical Rolling Stock Models With Cyclical Demand, Michael F. Gorman

MIS/OM/DS Faculty Publications

In the transportation industry, companies position rolling stock where it is likely to be needed in the face of a pronounced weekly cyclical demand pattern in orders.

Strategic policies based on assumptions of repetition of cyclical weekly patterns set rolling stock targets; during tactical execution, a myriad dynamic influences cause deviations from strategically set targets. We find that optimal strategic plans do not agree with results of tactical modeling; strategic results are in fact suboptimal in many tactical situations. We discuss managerial implications of this finding and how the two modeling paradigms can be reconciled.

News - Don't Hang Up! Learn How To Better Serve Customers With Hearing Or Speech Loss With Georgia Relay Partner, Ellen Rolader, Lindsay Hebert

Georgia Library Quarterly

Georgia Relay, the free public service provided by the State of Georgia that makes communicating by telephone easy, accessible and reliable for everyone, wants to make Georgia’s libraries friendlier for people who are deaf, hard of hearing, deaf-blind, late-deafened or who have difficulty speaking. This article provides an overview of Georgia Relay Partner, a free program that provides local businesses with online educational and training materials about Relay services so that employees will be able to easily accept and place calls to customers who have hearing loss or speech difficulties.

Lobbying In The Defense Aerospace Industry, Austin Smiley

Honors Projects

The purpose of this research paper is to identify the main variables that impact an aerospace defense firm’s decision to lobby. This study focuses on important accounting and financial measures specific to each company. It also takes into account government and public variables such as the level of public scrutiny the company experiences and national defense spending. This study finds that cash flow and profitability are both negatively correlated with the decision to lobby. It also finds a positive correlation between inventory turnover and the decision to lobby the following year. Additionally, there is a positive relationship between public scrutiny …

Managing And Securing Business Networks In The Smartphone Era, Sathiadev Mahesh, Aaron Hooter

Management Faculty Publications

This paper discusses the impact of user owned mobile computing devices (smartphones, tablets, and future devices like Google Glass) on management and security of the corporate network. Personally owned portable computing devices are widely used at work and create a porous network perimeter for the enterprise network. The paper reviews corporate policies posted on websites along with research papers and corporate whitepapers to develop a comprehensive user owned mobile computing device policy. This is a rapidly evolving topic that has not been researched in the business academic literature. We survey trade journals and corporate websites for information regarding this policy …

A Simulation Approach To Airline Cost Benefit Analysis, Massoud Bazargan, David Lange, Luyen Tran, Zhiyuan Zhou

Management, Marketing and Operations - Daytona Beach

In this paper we conduct a cost benefit analyses using simulation for an Airline. This study pertains to using Towbarless Towing Vehicles (commonly referred to as supertugs) to transport aircraft to and from the terminal to airline’s maintenance hangar facility at their hub. This study attempts to investigate the possibility of reducing costs through saving jet fuel by adopting supertugs and identify if their high purchasing costs are justified. This study adopts simulation to analyze the annual savings by studying the numbers needed, as well as the utilization and operation cost for these supertugs. The results are very encouraging, enabling …

Formal And Informal Institutional Influences On Multinational Enterprise Social Responsibility: Two Empirical Studies, Dawn L. Keig

Dissertations, Theses and Capstone Projects (Full IR Collection)

How do environmental institutional influences in a multinational enterprise’s (MNE’s) portfolio of locations affect social responsibility (and irresponsibility)? To explore this question, I engaged in two complementary empirical research studies, each exploring a particular subset of the MNE portfolio environment-social responsibility dynamic.

The first study applies the concept of institutional distance from the international business literature to examine how the differences in formal and informal institutional environments across a firm’s full portfolio of operating locations can affect its social performance. I hypothesize and find that firms with greater informal institutional distance within their locations will have lower overall levels of …

A Contemporary Examination Of The Miles And Snow Strategic Typology Through The Lenses Of Dynamic Capabilities And Ambidexterity, Marc D. Sollosy

Dissertations, Theses and Capstone Projects (Full IR Collection)

This study’s focuses on the examination of the Miles and Snow typology through the lenses of dynamic capabilities with a particular emphasis on ambidexterity. While each element of the typology has received varying degrees of study in both the management and marketing literature, to date, no study has examined the typology, as first proposed by Miles and Snow under the influence of either dynamic capabilities or ambidexterity. This study proposes to examine the alignment of the three elements of the typology with each other and the four strategic archetypes identified by Miles and Snow. It was Hambrick’s observation in his …

Two Essays On The Knowledge-Based View Of The Firm: The Impact Of Local Market Knowledge On Domestic Firm Performance In Both Transitional And Developed Economies, Ted B. Randall

Dissertations, Theses and Capstone Projects (Full IR Collection)

Are there strategies that domestic transitional economy firms (TEFs) can use in order to be successful given the increasing numbers of multinational enterprises (MNEs) operating in their home country markets? How do domestically focused, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in developed economies maintain satisfactory levels of performance when faced with the superior resources of MNEs and the resulting increased competitiveness in domestic industrial markets?

I attempt to answer these two questions in two separate papers. In the first paper, I examine TEFs by using research on the knowledge-based view of the firm (KBV) to create and test a new theory …

Two Essays On The Unintended Consequences Of Sarbanes-Oxley On Small Banks And Small Businesses, Earl C. Howell

Dissertations, Theses and Capstone Projects (Full IR Collection)

These essays examine the impact of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act on small banks (Essay #1) and small businesses (Essay #2). Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX), passed in 2002 by the Congress of the United States, was intended to enhance the security of the public shareholder through extensive reporting and compliance programs. As some compliance costs are fixed, the costs of SOX would logically fall disproportionately upon smaller banks, possibly producing unintended consequences. These costs if significant may impact the bank’s choice of strategy. How then can the bank respond? The expectation of a negative impact on small banks is well documented, and consistent with …

Influences On Supply Manager Behavior Toward Environmental Responsibility, James Anthony Swaim

Dissertations, Theses and Capstone Projects (Full IR Collection)

As firms invest a substantial amount of time, effort, and funds to purchase goods and services, it is questionable if organizations will reach environmental sustainability objectives without supply manager active involvement. Although existing research has identified low supply manager support for environmental buying, there is little theoretical understanding and explanation relating corporate environmental policies and objectives to individual behaviors. Consequently, this dissertation seeks to provide insight into understanding and overcoming a lack of supply manager support for environmental sustainability. A research model based on the Theory of Planned Behavior used survey data from practicing supply managers to study the behavioral …

Rhody's Run For Dana-Farber 5k, Bryan P. Poston, Mark Albanese

Senior Honors Projects

The event itself was designed to benefit the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the Jimmy Fund. In the early stages of the project, it was clear that a charity event would have the largest impact both on our experiential learning as well as the community as a whole. Dana-Farber was selected as the events beneficiary due to their impressive contributions to cancer research worldwide. While the success of the project isn't solely determined by charitable contributions we collected, it provided a form of measurement of progress throughout the semester. With the goal of simultaneously promoting student health, the event was organized …

2013-04-01 Executive Council Meeting Minutes, Morehead State University. Faculty Senate.

Faculty Senate Records

Executive Council Meeting Minutes for April 1, 2013.

Your Prized Executive Is Leaving. Now What?, John R. Ledgerwood, Stephen N. Morgan

Publications

The departure of a key member of your organization can quickly throw things into turmoil if the person is tightly tied to the firm in the minds of investors. For these reasons and others, nonprofits and for-profits alike should have an established succession plan for identifying a worthy replacement. This article examines how one global nonprofit is planning proactively for the future.

Capturing Creative Program Management Best Practices, Brandon Keller, Joseph R. Wirthlin

Faculty Publications

This research attempted to capture the creative aspects of government program management in three specific areas: efficiently navigating oversight, capturing the intent of regulations, and developing innovative risk management practices. Respected acquisition leaders with diverse backgrounds and experiences were interviewed with ranks ranging from 0-6 to 0-8 and GS-15 to SES. Several contractor interviews were conducted for specific purposes. The data were iteratively coded and analyzed using ATLAS.ti. The results were categorized into four themes, each with three sub-elements. Differences between respondents with program director experience and those with rapid acquisition experience are discussed. A survey was then distributed to …

Diffusion Of Mobile Payment Systems Among Microentrepreneurs In Kenya And Tanzania, Dionne A. Nickerson

School of Business Student Scholarship

The rapid rise of Kenya's mobile payment system, M-PESA , has grasped the attention of policy makers and private enterprise alike. In just six years M-PESA has transformed how money flows throughout Kenya, and similar systems are gaining traction elsewhere in Africa. This project examines the impact of mobile payment system adoption on the economic advancement of Kenyan and Tanzanian microentrepreneurs. This work will further the understanding of mobile payment systems’ contribution to the economic growth of microenterprises, which may have implications for poverty reduction in these two nations.

Embedding In Organizations: Individuals' Perspective Of The Effects Of Internal Versus External Focus On Team Adaptability And Potency, Heather Grooms

Student Scholarship

Teams must balance internally focused interactions with externally focused processes of embedding in organizations. These inputs and processes influence the team's ability to manage changing tasks, goals, and priorities as well as build confidence in its capability to achieve its goals which may be predictive of performance. We utilized factor analyses to verify our constructs and structural equation modeling to test direct effects, mediation effects, and moderation to analyze responses to our survey. This study was informed at the individual level by participants on workplace teams from more than 10 industries, the majority in healthcare and education. What emerged was …

Vmanagement: Initial Exploration Of Management Practice, M. Susan Wurtz, Dale Cyphert, Leslie K. Duclos

Faculty Work

For several years, the authors have maintained a simulation (sim) in Second LifeTM, with management responsibility for allocating sim resources across research and instructional projects, some of which involved working with residents. Although not originally anticipated to be a research site in management theory and practice, the project presented an unexpected pattern of difficulty and an unexpectedly rich case study to examine why and how the virtual environment generated norms of power and empowerment for which traditional management practice was not effective. We conducted a theoretical thematic analysis on a body of conversation transcripts, meeting agendas and minutes, email messages …

Female Authority In A Globalizing Market, Megan R. Mccann

Honors Theses and Capstones

No abstract provided.

2013-03-28 Faculty Senate Meeting Minutes, Morehead State University. Faculty Senate.

Faculty Senate Records

Faculty Senate Meeting Minutes for March 28, 2013.

Organizational Leadership In Times Of Uncertainty: Is Transformational Leadership The Answer?, Sophon Shadraconis

LUX: A Journal of Transdisciplinary Writing and Research from Claremont Graduate University

In a world that is rapidly changing, organizations are finding that they must adapt quickly to meet the needs of their changing environment. Organizations can only remain relevant and achieve long-term success and sustainability by adopting a model of leadership that addresses the needs of their fluctuating environment. However, many organizations have failed to adapt to their operating environment. Some examples of recent major organizational failures and bankruptcies include: Circuit City, Hollywood Video, and Mervyn's. To remain competitive, leaders must adopt a model that allows for rapid responses to the changing business environment. Transformational leadership can serve as this needed …

2013-03-25 Executive Council Meeting Minutes, Morehead State University. Faculty Senate.

Faculty Senate Records

Executive Council Meeting Minutes for March 25, 2013.

Continuous Process Improvement At Tinker Air Logistics Complex, Robert S. Rabon

Theses and Dissertations

The Air Logistics Centers (ALC) represent the Air Force's largest Maintenance, Repair, and Overhaul (MRO) Operations. The ALCs strive to become leaner by reducing Work In Progress (WIP) inventory, reducing flow times, and increasing product quality to meet aircraft and engine demand levels. The Toyota Production System (TPS) is considered the best example of lean manufacturing by many. TPS utilizes the ingenuity of Toyota employees to generate Continuous Process Improvement (CPI). Achieving CPI can aid the ALCs in reducing operating capital while providing increased levels of service. The Air Force as a whole has made several attempts to get lean. …

An Empirical Investigation Of Usaf Logistics Readiness Officer Mission Sets, Matthew D. Roberts

Theses and Dissertations

USAF Logistics Readiness Officers (LRO) operate in an evolving environment which necessitates growing multi-faceted LROs capable of succeeding across all mission sets. Because of this evolving nature, the knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) needed in these mission sets may have changed. This study sought to validate the mission sets an LRO operates in, identify critical KSAs needed within each, discover overlap, and to determine if the KSAs are being adequately taught. The problem was addressed through qualitative content analysis of interviews and focus groups comprised of logistics practitioners in the Air Force. Analysis led to validating Deployment, Distribution, Materiel Management, …

Investigation Into Risk And Uncertainty: Identifying Coefficient Of Variation Benchmarks For Air Force Acat I Programs, Shaun T. Carney

Theses and Dissertations

Previous DoD cost growth studies found typical cost growth in defense acquisitions is around forty-six to sixty percent of the original estimate. The research in this study addresses the identification of risk and uncertainty benchmarks by providing decision makers with coefficient of variation ranges for cost estimates. The study recommends coefficient of variation (CV) ranges for Air Force Acquisition programs, determines if different CV ranges should be used based on platform type, and determines if CV decreases over the course of the program's acquisition lifecycle. The analysis found that the Air Force should enhance the CV review process to ensure …