Business Administration, Management, and Operations Commons^™

Cracking The Code Of Ai Autonomy: Examining The Role Of Challenge And Hindrance Appraisals And Ai Literacy In Task Satisfaction, Rujuta Parekar

Graduate Studies Theses and Dissertations 2026

AI is constantly evolving and being rapidly integrated into the workplace. Limited research has examined how this integration is affecting employee outcomes, and particularly the impacts of whether employees are expected or mandated to use AI for their work. The present study utilized the challenge-hindrance framework to examine the effect of autonomy in using AI on task satisfaction through challenge and hindrance appraisal among working adults. Since the ability to understand and use AI can influence how individuals perceive it, the moderating effect of AI literacy on the hypothesized research model is also examined. A multi-wave research design was used …

Revisiting The Foundation Of Strategic Core Theory: Informal Roles And Teamwork Roles In Work Team Centrality, Allen Thomas Shorey

Graduate Studies Theses and Dissertations 2026

Strategic core theory makes a distinction between roles within a team that are central to the team’s workflow (i.e., core roles) and those that are not central (i.e., non-core roles) (Humphrey et al., 2009). This line of work has shown that attributes, such as job-related skill of core team members, were more predictive of team performance than those of non-core members. However, this line of work has primarily examined core and non-core roles as defined by formal taskwork roles. In this thesis, I examine patient care teams and management simulation teams with the principal conviction that (a) informal roles and …

Overcoming The Glass Wall: Self-Employment As A Career Strategy For Immigrant Professionals, Barbara Silva

Graduate Studies Theses and Dissertations 2026

Skilled immigrant professionals frequently experience barriers that limit their ability to secure employment opportunities aligned with their qualifications in host-country labor markets. Although prior research has documented some of the challenges these professionals face, such as credential devaluation and discrimination, less is known about why recruiters perceive immigrant candidates with similar qualifications differently and why some immigrants navigate the labor market more successfully than others. Drawing on Status Characteristics Theory, this dissertation examines how the location and type of immigrant professionals’ prior work experience shape hiring-related outcomes by influencing recruiters’ perceptions of competence and acculturation. First, I review the literature …

Two Papers Exploring Cognitive Fit Theory And Data Visualization In Accounting, Kelly Wellman

Graduate Studies Theses and Dissertations 2026

This dissertation examines how data visualization design influences judgment and decision making in accounting using cognitive fit theory as a unifying framework. As visualization tools such as dashboards, Excel, Tableau, and Power BI become increasingly prevalent, understanding which design choices improve performance has become critical. The first paper provides a structured literature review of cognitive fit theory from 1991 through 2025, synthesizing research across accounting and related disciplines and tracing its evolution from early graph vs tables comparisons to mor recent work incorporating task complexity, individual differences, and design-specific features. The review identifies key gaps, including limited attention to difference …

Switching Things Up: Investigating The Costs Of Switching Between Tasks Of Varying Interdependence And Factors That Influence These Transitions, Taylor A. Wilhelmy

Graduate Studies Theses and Dissertations 2026

Though researchers have indicated that there is a high probability teams will transition between tasks of varying interdependence (Benishek & Lazzara, 2019; Mesmer-Magnus et al., 2016), there is a need to further examine this idea (Smith-Jentsch, 2015; Mesmer-Magnus et al., 2016) as few have actually studied it. Expanding upon Moon et al. (2004), this study examines the costs associated with transitioning between two tasks of varying levels of interdependence (i.e., pooled and team interdependence; Saavedra et al., 1993), how these costs vary depending on the order the tasks are engaged while examining how team cognition (i.e., transactive memory systems) and/or …

Sensory And Emotional Impacts On Modern Consumer Experiences, Winter E. Bland

Graduate Studies Theses and Dissertations 2026

This dissertation comprises two essays examining how environmental and psychological stimuli shape consumer experience, attitudes, and cognition. The first essay investigates the joint influence of scent temperature (warm versus cool) and scent arousal (stimulating versus relaxing) on experiential attitudes and cognitive performance in digitally mediated consumption environments. Across multiple lab experiments with biometric validation, findings reveal that these two scent dimensions interact to shape downstream outcomes. Warm, low-arousal scents (e.g., vanilla) enhance consumers' experiential evaluations of digital interactions but do not improve task performance, whereas cool, high-arousal scents (e.g., peppermint) boost cognitive efficiency and accuracy but do not elevate experiential …

Did They Think I Was Rude? The Emotional And Relational Consequences Of (In)Congruence Between Perpetrators’ Self- And Meta-Perceptions Of Workplace Rudeness, Nicholas C. Andriese

Graduate Studies Theses and Dissertations 2026

Workplace rudeness negatively impacts employees and costs organizations millions of dollars each year. Although much is known about the consequences of workplace rudeness, little is known about how perpetrators make sense of and respond to their (potentially) rude behavior. In this dissertation, I propose that perpetrators consider not only their self-perceptions of rudeness, or how rude they believe their actions were, but also their meta-perceptions of rudeness, or their beliefs about how rude another person perceived them to be. Because rudeness is subjective and people vary in their perceptual accuracy, self- and meta-perceptions of rudeness are unlikely to consistently …

Strategic Signaling Or Structural Friction?: How Ai Disclosure Moderates Resource-Performance Dynamics In Hotels And Restaurants, Jaewan Heo

Graduate Studies Theses and Dissertations 2026

Artificial intelligence (AI) has become an increasingly important strategic issue in the hospitality industry. While prior research has primarily examined AI as an operational technology that improves efficiency and service delivery, less attention has been paid to how AI-related disclosures influence investor evaluations of firm resources. This dissertation investigates whether AI-related disclosures moderate the relationship between organizational resources and financial performance in publicly traded hospitality firms.

Drawing on signaling theory and the resource-based view, this study conceptualizes AI disclosures as strategic signals that shape investor perceptions of firm capabilities and future value creation. Firm-level financial data were obtained from Compustat …

Cultivating Workplace Happiness In Technology Workers, Cherie A. Herrin

Graduate Studies Theses and Dissertations 2026

Technology workers are central to the innovation and performance of modern organizations and retaining them is a persistent challenge for modern organizations. One important aspect of retention in many contexts is Workplace Happiness, which has been argued to improve worker performance and reduce turnover; however, there is little empirical evidence of the effectiveness of these interventions for technology workers. This dissertation develops a model in which two affective states, Workplace Happiness and Workplace Distress, mediate the relationships between six socio-technical work conditions and two behavioral outcomes: Turnover Intent and Work Execution (i.e., self-rated work performance and quality). A systematic literature …

The Impact Of Executives’ Social Networks And Digital Capabilities On Firm Performance In Dynamic Environments, Lijun Men

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

With the acceleration of digital transformation, improving firm performance in complex and dynamic market environments has become a central challenge for companies. This study examines the effects of executives’ social networks and firms’ digital capabilities on firm performance. Further, it investigates the moderating roles of digital capabilities and environmental dynamism in these relationships. Using panel data for Chinese listed firms from 2005 to 2024, we conduct empirical analyses with fixed-effects models. The results indicate that executives’ political, business, and academic networks all contribute positively to firm performance, underscoring the importance of executives’ social networks in resource acquisition, information flows, and …

The Impact Of Corporate Mergers And Acquisitions On Performance From The Perspective Of Growth Pressure, Jiandong Wang

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

Against the backdrop of economic volatility and intensified industry competition, firms generally face multidimensional growth pressures, including historical growth pressure, social growth pressure, and market competition pressure. Growth pressure is not only related to firms’ operational stability, but also profoundly influences their strategic choices, particularly merger and acquisition (M&A) behaviour.Grounded in performance feedback theory, this study constructs an integrated analytical framework encompassing growth pressure, M&A strategic decisions, and M&A performance, and systematically examines how different types of growth pressure affect firms’ M&A decisions, as well as how M&A performance varies across different firm characteristics and different types of M&A.

The …