Business Administration, Management, and Operations Commons^™

The Determinants And Consequences Of Disclosure Committee Adoption, Lyle Roy Schmardebeck

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

After the passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, the Securities and Exchange Commission recommended that companies voluntarily adopt disclosure committees to aid in preparing company disclosures. In this paper, I investigate the determinants and consequences of disclosure committee adoption. I find that companies with material weaknesses in internal controls over financial reporting and less readable 10-K filings are more likely to adopt disclosure committees. In consequences analyses, using a propensity score matched control sample and a difference-in-differences research design, I find that 10-K filings are longer and less readable after disclosure committee adoption. However, consistent with institutional theory, I …

Firm-Level Corporate Governance In The Context Of Emerging Market Firm Internationalization, Luisa F. Melo

2015

This dissertation focuses on internal corporate governance structures, ownership and boards of directors, of emerging market firms (EMNEs). In the context of recent and rapid internationalization, this research aims to make empirical, theoretical and policy contributions. In the first decade of the 21st century, EMNEs became a defining feature of global investment. Emerging market economies attract more than half of global FDI inflows and are counted among the top-20 global investors (World Investment Report, 2011). Explanations of EMNE activity should be grounded in established international business theory; this allows for insights possible through a corporate governance lens.

However, the study …

Customer Envy At Service Encounters, Gerardo Anaya

Open Access Theses

Envy has been regarded as a complex emotion which can produce both positive and negative outcomes for consumers. This study explored the subjective experience of customer envy at service encounters in order to better understand how customers respond to unflattering comparisons with an envied customer. A questionnaire was designed to measure the cognitive appraisals, emotional responses, and consequences of customer envy. Study participants were also asked to share their envy incidents in the survey. A sample of 300 participants was collected and used for analysis. The findings illustrate that distinctively different patterns of cognitive appraisals such as preferential treatment, are …

The Effects Of Acquisition On Restaurant Firms’ Performance: Different-Sector Versus Same-Sector Acquisitions, Yongjin Lee

Open Access Theses

This study examines the postacquisition accounting performance of acquiring firms in the restaurant industry between 1992 and 2012. Specifically, this study investigates the effects of different-sector and same-sector restaurants acquisitions between full-service and limited-service restaurants on restaurant firms' performance. Additionally, the Wilcoxon signed-rank test and regression model are used to examine return on assets (ROA) and return on equity (ROE) for the accounting performance of the acquiring restaurants.

The ROA and ROE reveal that the profitability is significantly negative up to 5 years after firms are acquired. However, negative effects are strongest within the first year after acquisition and decrease …

The Effect Of Loyalty Program Attributes On Customer’S Booking Choice, Sung Jun Joe

Open Access Theses

A loyalty program is commonly observed in our real world to establish and maintain a customer relationship. However, there is limited research information on the effect of loyalty program schemes on customers' choice in an online booking context. The current study summarized the awards currently offered by major hotels and online travel agencies (OTAs) and examined: 1) customers' preference toward attributes of the loyalty program, 2) within reward attributes, which contributes to an increase in consumers' booking choice, 3) which attributes make customers book on hotel websites rather than on OTA websites, and 4) the interaction between customer involvement and …

The Use Of Business Intelligence Techniques In Supply Chain Performance, Jue Gu

Open Access Theses

Who likes data? Businesses are always loyal data followers. Companies analyze various forms of data to maintain businesses and identify their current performance in different areas so they can find business opportunities to improve and obtain more market share in advance (Qrunfleh & Tarafdar, 2012). When Big Data comes to businesses, companies who can take advantage of data the best tend to regularly get more business and customers (Waller & Fawcett, 2013). Collecting, analyzing, and demonstrating data could be essential to a single business, a company's supply chain performance and its sustainability. As an intelligent data processing product in terms …

Career Intentions Of International Master Students In Hospitality And Tourism Management, Wenjun Li

Open Access Theses

The purpose of this qualitative study was to investigate career intentions of international master's students in hospitality and tourism management (HTM) in the United States. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with a sample of 19 participants at two different U.S. institutions. Interview questions were designed to better understand students' career intentions upon graduation and the determinants behind the plans. Results indicated that student's career intention should include measures of career decision self-efficacy, academic and career outcome expectations, and career exploration intentions. Unique personal background (e.g., gender and marital status, length of time in the U.S.), industrial working experience (e.g., internships), and …

A Lean Logistics Assessment Tool For Smes In The Manufacturing Sector, Diana Lorena Sanchez Ramirez

Open Access Theses

This study developed an assessment tool to rate the maturity of the current and desired states of lean logistics operations in small and medium enterprises. The tool consists of 48 best practices classified into 8 critical factors: Inventory, Transportation, Administration, Information Systems, Warehouse, Forecasting, Packaging and Supplier Network. Each of the best practices and critical factors were identified throughout a thorough literature review and comparative analysis between authors to define commonalities among them. Using gap analysis; this tool results in a SWOT matrix providing a roadmap for lean implementation. The resulting model was evaluated by subject matter experts in different …

Guidelines For Construction Companies To Decide Between Outsourcing And Self-Performing For Prefabricated Components, Sebastian Soto Ortiz

Open Access Theses

Prefabrication and modularization has been used in the construction industry for decades. It has recently made a resurgence worldwide providing increased productivity, safety, quality and construction schedule. This research has focused on the situation where a construction company has decided to use prefabrication and faces two possibilities, they either will self-perform or they will outsource the construction of the prefabricated components. The decision making process used by a construction company to determine whether to outsource or self-perform prefabricated components is examined and analyzed.

Prefabrication is an industrial process in which certain components are manufactured in a specialized facility. These items …

An Analysis On Causes Of Late Final Payment And Release Of Retainage: Electrical Subcontractors’ View, Xuejing Zhang

Open Access Theses

Using the survey approach, this study identified the underlying causes of late payments and release of retainage for electrical subcontractors, attempting to answer the questions, "What were the minimum, maximum and average delay days of final payment and release of retainage?", "What were the rank of factors in terms of significance on delaying final payment and release of retainage?", and "What were the rank of factors in terms of frequency on delaying final payment and release of retainage?" A survey questionnaire was developed and distributed to about 150 professionals in electrical subcontractors. 29 reports were collected. Based upon the analysis …

An Exploratory Study Of Hotel Manager Side-Taking Behavior And Its Influence On Employee Unfairness Perception And Negative Emotion, Yan Zhou

Open Access Theses

It is not rare that hotel managers show inconsistent attitudes and behaviors in front of customers and employees in their daily work. With limited time and resource, sometimes it is inevitable that hotel managers present certain tendencies to side with one party over the other when service failures occur between the two groups. However, in academia few studies have discussed these side-taking phenomena. The present researcher conducted an exploratory study about their definition and influence on hotel employees. Two video-based experiments were conducted and their results testified to the hypotheses that hotel managers' side-taking behaviors can lead to employee perceptions …

Estimating Truncated Hotel Demand: A Comparison Of Low Computational Cost Forecasting Methods, Yue Ding

Open Access Theses

The aim of this thesis is to evaluate the effectiveness of six selected low computational cost hotel demand forecasting methods (SA, SMA, EMA, DEMA, BP and PU) in terms of restoring truncated demand data, and then identify a low-cost and easy to follow demand forecasting method that can be used by U.S. independent hotels. Obtaining revenue gains by applying demand forecasting techniques have been proved by many studies in hospitality and other related industries. However, few studies have focused on low computational forecasting methods' comparison in hospitality field. For this reason, the author decided to test the performance of six …

Gap Between Hospitality Employers' Demands And Hospitality Students' Perceptions Regarding Entry-Level Managers' Requirements In The United States, Yijun Huang

Open Access Theses

This study aims to identify the gap between recruiters and students regarding what knowledge, skills and abilities are most needed for graduates to secure entry-level managers in the hospitality industry. Previous literature used different approaches to attain a similar idea that students and recruiters do have different opinions, especially for those intrinsic or person-related characteristics. The researcher borrowed statements from different researchers and added two statements to make up the missing part of previous research and then combined, split and revised these statements to see whether students' thinking matched the industry's thinking. The results showed that recruiters generally ranked these …

Assessing An Animal Humane Society Using Mckinsey’S 7s Framework To Make Recommendations For Organizational Improvement, Tandreia Sherice Dixon

Open Access Theses

An organization's effectiveness is predicated upon the degree of fit and alignment of its internal components. Organizational effectiveness and alignment are both essential to successfully create and implement strategies within an organization. An animal humane society suffering from employee turnover wanted to improve their organizational effectiveness. There were strategies and recommendations provided for employee turnover; in hope of successful implementation, the researcher investigated the animal humane society further by evaluating the current state of the organization with an organizational framework. The McKinsey 7s's Strategic Readiness Survey derived from the McKinsey 7s framework was used to evaluate the current state of …

Achieving A Competitive Advantage Through Ethical Business Practices An Ethnographical Case Study, Valarie Denney

Publications

Ethical leadership can be a key driver of corporate behavior but it is an individual’s sense of ethics that has an impact on business success. The specific problem was that despite the plethora of academic, government, and industry studies, it remained unclear whether investing in ethics provided a competitive advantage for businesses. The purpose of this qualitative, ethnographic case study was to examine how the internal stakeholders in a single business defined and applied ethics and what elements of the business culture and competitive environment affected decision-making. The research was a practical application of the stakeholder theory, normative ethics and …

The Adoption And Diffusion Of It Management Innovations: Adaptation, Reinvention, Alternative Designs, And Rhetorical Persuasion, Quang N. Bui

2014

This research examines the adoption and diffusion process of Information Technology (IT) management innovations—ones that focus on the organizing logics and governance of IT activities. IT management innovations are inherently important to organizations as they can dramatically transform the way businesses are organized and operated. However, because those innovations are tacit and composed mostly of abstract ideas, their adoption and diffusion are often plagued by ambiguity and fads, at times best described as "a solution in search of a problem." Against this backdrop, using theories from communication, sociology, Information Systems, and organizational studies, this research focuses on three underexplored aspects …

Creating And Fostering Singerian Inquiring Organizations Through Psychological Empowerment In The Context Of Information Assurance, Kristen Lee Brewer King

Doctoral Dissertations

Singerian Inquiring Organizations (SIO) (Courtney, et al., 1998; Courtney, 2001) are knowledge-based enterprises based on Churchman's theory of Singerian inquiring systems (Courtney, 2001). For Singerian organizations to thrive, employees must feel unfettered to quest for knowledge, share what knowledge has been found, and express opinions about the findings of others. In short, employees must feel empowered to act in order to foster the well-being and development of the organization and its stakeholders. Both the psychology and organizational behavior literature have examined psychological empowerment as a way to challenge individuals and/or employees to take control of and interest in organizational situations; …

The Impact Of Organizational Insiders' Psychological Capital On Information Security, A. J. Burns Iii

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation research seeks to examine the role of organizational insiders' psychological capital (PsyCap) on the performance of protection motivated behaviors (PMBs). The dissertation examines the role of PsyCap through three studies which were conducted for this research. Using structural equation modeling (SEM), the responses from four distinct samples were analyzed. The results largely support the significant role of PsyCap in information security. The first study takes an expectancy theory (Vroom, 1964) approach and found that PsyCap was a significant consequence of insiders' security-related expectancy dimensions. Additionally, expectancy theory was found to be an appropriate frame-work for promoting PMBs.

The …

An Eriksonian Approach To Consumer Identity, Sandra Rathod

Open Access Dissertations

Rathod, Sandra R. Ph.D., Purdue University, December 2013. An Eriksonian Approach to Consumer Identity. Major Professor: Richard A. Feinberg.

Ego development is the fifth stage in Erikson's Lifecycle Development theory (1959) and is a major psychosocial stage beginning in adolescence and lasting into emerging adulthood. Past research based upon Marcia's Ego Identity Status Paradigm (1996) has investigated a number of ideological and interpersonal domains relevant to one's ego identity, however in today's consumer societies, where what you have is at least as important is who you are or what you do, an Eriksonian approach to consumer ego identity (CEI) has …

Your Media Speak So Loud I Can't Hear A Word You're Saying: Impact Of Media And Media Selection On Performance, Martin Hassell

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

With the proliferation of communication media and technologies available, it is important for teams to understand the influence of these media on the performance of their communications. Additionally, it is important for researchers to understand how teams choose and use media. Literature on communication media impacts and communication performance has been somewhat fragmented, and researchers have used different theories and paradigms to study this problem. Researchers still do not have a full understanding of how media influences communication, whether teams recognize and select appropriate media for their communication needs, and what makes some communication more effective, irrespective of the communication …

The Effect Of Investor Sentiment On Futures Market Returns And Volatility, Kenneth Steven Lovell

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

For over thirty years research has been done on investor sentiment and their effects on market returns and volatility. The theory of De Long et al., (1990) has been used to explain the effect of uninformed investor sentiment (also known as noise trader sentiment) on market returns and volatility. Studies of Wang (2003) and Sanders et al. (2003, 2009) in the futures market have found that uninformed investor sentiment does not affect future market returns, which is contrary to De Long et al. (1990). Also previous studies of investor sentiment in the futures market do not seem to investigate the …

Institutional Distance And Entry Mode: How Do Emerging-Market Multinational Companies Overcome Competitive Disadvantages In A Developed Market?, Ru-Shiun Liou

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

As latecomers to global business competition, emerging-market multinational companies (EMNCs) utilize cross-border merger and acquisitions to swiftly acquire strategic assets, such as brands and distribution channels, compensating for their competency deficiency. Developed markets with well-established firms and well-developed market-supporting institutions become important destinations for EMNCs' strategic asset-seeking investments. Institutional distance, national differences in the institutional environment, constitutes a major source of competitive disadvantage for foreign firms competing with indigenous firms. Foreign firms need to overcome the challenges of unfamiliarity, relational, and discriminatory hazards to establish legitimacy in the host market. Compared to established multinationals that originate from other advanced markets …

Load Mixing To Improve Container Utilization, Crystal Wilson

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The under utilization in trucking leads to nearly 5 billion gallons of wasted fuel annually. One way to recapture part of this waste is to use collaborative logistics. This research focuses on one specific aspect of collaborative logistics: load mixing. Load mixing is the idea of mixing two or more items of different weights in the same container to reduce the number of trucks needed.

Load mixing is similar to other packing problems such as the knapsack and container loading problems. However, traditional packing problems typically only assume a single type of capacity (e.g., weight), whereas load mixing must simultaneously …

Investor Return In Reits: Evidence Of Market Timing And Capacity Constraints, Ekaterina Petrova Damianova

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

This dissertation studies the returns earned in Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) from the point of view of the average investor. Traditional buy-and-hold returns while appropriate as a measure of return for financial asset may not adequately reflect the returns of the average individual investor because they do not take into account the capital flows in and out of an asset. Just as their name suggests, these are the returns one would earn if one buys a financial asset or portfolio at the beginning of a period and holds the investment until the end without making changes to the amount …

The Impact Of Nutrition Information Delivery Methods On Restaurant Consumers' Attitudes And Behavior, Jiaqi Zhu

Open Access Theses

Zhu, Jiaqi. M.S., Purdue University, December 2013. The Impact of Nutrition Information Delivery Methods on Restaurant Consumers' Attitudes and Behavior. Major Professors: Barbara A. Almanza, Carl A. Behnke.

Obesity is a major public health threat. It not only creates challenges for those who are obese and overweight, but also brings an economic burden to the whole society. One important contributing factor for obesity is food eaten away from home, which accounts for more than 40% of American's food budget. Although chain quick-service restaurants are required by law to post calorie information on menus and menu boards, the efficacy of menu …

Exploring The Development Chain – An Inquiry Into The Linkages Between New Product Development And Supply Chain Management, Dirk J. Primus

2013

This dissertation conducts an inquiry into the linkages between new product development and supply chain management. Simchi Levi, Simchi-Levi and Kaminsky (2008) coined the term "Development Chain" for the area where product development and the supply chain intersect. The first chapter of this research (Chapter 2) contributes to a more thorough understanding of the Development Chain (DC) and its impact on financial success with new products. We expand the term Development Chain and provide precise definitions for its scope and its activities. We develop a conceptual view of the DC at the single product/project level which can be understood and …

User Resistance And Trust In A Clinical Rfid Employee Location Tracking Information System, Wilson Wong

2013

User resistance has been identified as a factor in information systems implementation failures in the health care industry. RFID, radio frequency identification, is being incorporated into new health care information systems in order to effect cost reductions by tracking, identifying and monitoring individuals and medical items. This is the first study to research the relative contributions of vendor trust and IT artifact trust components to user resistance and, as a result, makes a unique contribution to the information systems literature. An understanding of the degree to which technology adoption behavioral beliefs, and particularly system trust, affect user resistance towards information …

Practicing Technology Implementation: The Case Of An Enterprise System, Yukika Awazu

2013

Drawing on four theories of practice – Communities of Practice (CoP), Bourdieu's theory of practice, Pickering's mangle of practice, and Actor Network Theory (ANT), the study provides an in-depth understanding about technology implementation practice. Analysis of an Enterprise System implementation project in a software manufacturing company reveals five stories of practice that relate to the major challenges faced. The story of mentoring related to the challenge of developing skilled analysts, and is examined by focusing on episodes about newly hired staff members. The story reveals the inhibiting impact of past habits and the role of occupational status. The second challenge …

Essays On Hedge Fund Performance, Sang Heon Shin

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

This dissertation consists of two essays on hedge fund performance. The first essay models exposure of hedge fund to risk factors and examines time-varying performance of hedge funds. From existing models such as ABS-factor model, SAC-factor model, and four-factor model, we extract the best six factors for each hedge fund portfolio by investment strategy. Then, we find combinations of risk factors that most explain variance in performance of each hedge fund portfolio by investment strategy. The results show instability of coefficients in the performance attribution regression. Incorporating time-varying factor exposure feature would be the best way to appropriately measure hedge …

Essays On Time-Varying Risk And Investor Sentiment: Evidence From The U.S. And G-7 Countries Using Multivariate Garch Modeling, David William Johnk

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

This dissertation investigates the effects of investor sentiment on asset prices in both the U.S. equity market (chapter III) and international market (chapter IV). It employs a conditional version of the CAPM using a parsimonious generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (GARCH) model in which the risk premia, betas, and correlations are time-varying. Investor sentiment is presented from two direct measures (surveys) and one indirect measure as conditional information variables; whereas, previous studies used macroeconomic fundamentals. Furthermore, investor sentiment is not assumed to be fully irrational. It is decomposed into its rational and irrational components. Both rational and irrational components are tested …