Business and Corporate Communications Commons^™

How To Conduct A Mini-Ethnographic Case Study: A Guide For Novice Researchers, Patricia I. Fusch Ph.D., Gene E. Fusch, Lawrence R. Ness

The Qualitative Report

The authors present how to construct a mini-ethnographic case study design with the benefit of an ethnographic approach bounded within a case study protocol that is more feasible for a student researcher with limited time and finances. The novice researcher should choose a design that enables one to best answer the research question. Secondly, one should choose the design that assists the researcher in reaching data saturation. Finally, the novice researcher must choose the design in which one can complete the study within a reasonable time frame with minimal cost. This is particularly important for student researchers. One can blend …

The Debate About Using Social Media To Screen Job Applicants, Marcel Robles

EKU Faculty and Staff Scholarship

A simple web search of a person’s name on Social Media could point to multiple social media sites within minutes, and a variety of details can be found about someone, including photos and information about marital status, children, race, age, gender, religion, political affiliation, hobbies, and more (Davison, Hamilton, & Bing, 2012).

Many people may be posting personal information on social media sites with the intended audience of friends in mind, but often there is another audience that is not being considered, such as potential employers (Stoughton, Thompson, & Meade, 2013). As an inexpensive alternative to traditional background checks, many …

Millennials On The Move, But To Where?, Zach Kisor, Shelby Hoge, Ashley Cosher, Bethany Gump, Derek Carson, Kristi Mitchell

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The following reports discuss the geographical preferences of Millennials in relation to job selection preferences. Our team analyzed the moving trends of Millennials in both Ohio and the United States to determine what factors influence this decision. Collectively, our team concluded that in order to successfully recruit Millennials, companies must offer benefit packages that center around work-life balance. This entails not just highlighting what a job requires technically, but opportunities for leadership development, social activities outside of work, and more. To recruit this upcoming talent, companies need a holistic approach that convinces Millennials that working for their company creates a …

Incorporating Experiential Theory Into Virtual Strategic Planning Processes, Chris Perkins

Capstone Collection

Experiential learning theories, such as David Kolb’s Experiential Learning Cycle (2015) contribute to more than just learning environments. In this Training Course Linked Capstone I facilitated a six-week strategic planning workshop for the Diversity and Inclusion Advisory Group (DIAG) of AFS-USA, an intercultural youth exchange organization. Kolb’s cycle acted as framework for the workshop. The DIAG operates as a virtual team, with members across the United States, therefore I designed the workshop for implementation via the internet and telephone conversation. I consulted research on virtual team structure and participatory practices in strategic planning in order to design a program which …

The Transition Experiences Of International Graduate Students In Clark University School Of Professional Studies, Xuesong Huang, Mingyang Lian, Dang Trung, Jay Sheth, Yuwei Yang, Irina Klimenko

School of Professional Studies

In the last decade, the School of Professional Studies at Clark University has witnessed a sharp increase in international students. More and more international students in the millennial generation have entered the School of Professional Studies pursuing one of the two-year graduate programs: Master of Science in Professional Studies, Master of Science in Public Administration, and Master of Science in Information Technology. In the past, working adult student dominant the program. These students already had a career outside the classrooms before them came to study. The millennial international students have generated new adjustment problems. Some of the transition issues of …

Millennials As Consumers: Can Businesses Survive As Is?, Ashley N. Genoese

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Each generation brings new challenges in which businesses must change their operations, marketing strategies, and other key factors of their company. With Millennials being the most unique generation, businesses will not only have to change all of these tactics, but might even run the risk of becoming irrelevant to this next generation. Also known as Generation Y, Millennials are classified as those born between the years 1981 – 2000, and in 2016 the current ages of Millennials are 16-35, but more typically identified as those ages 19-30 in the year 2016. Born and raised in the era of booming technology …

Charlton Fire Department Resident Expectations: Survey And Analysis, Natalie Omary, Jingxin Wen, Junchen Chen, Denis Kornev

School of Professional Studies

The Town of Charlton is located in the heart of the Massachusetts with a resident population of just under 14,000 people. The Charlton Fire Department serves the town for needs related to fire fighting, fire prevention, burning permits and inspection services along with emergency medical services. The Department has requested the assistance of the Clark University COPACE Capstone students in creating and conducting survey in order to get a sense of what the resident of the town know about the fire department and to better gauge their expectations about what the department can provide for them. The survey was formulated …

Information Technology Proposal For The Town Of Spencer, Vijay Basava, Corey Kenyon, Mahdi Soltani

School of Professional Studies

The Town of Spencer came to us looking for a plan to build and maintain their own personal fiber network for connection between departments and to improve data security for important information. After assessing the existing landscape and determining the various paths forward, we created network diagrams and plans for the movement forward of this project.

After assessing a variety of plans, we found that a full single-mode fiber network would be the best system for the implementation in Spencer. While it was the highest cost, it also scored the highest in our assessment.

Developing An Online Database Of Experts For The Worcester Regional Chamber Of Commerce, Zikan Chen, Douglas Grey, Pranjal Shah

School of Professional Studies

The Worcester Regional Chamber of Commerce as part of their mission to attract business to the Worcester area, want to create an online searchable database of industry experts made up of faculty members of the Colleges and Universities in the Worcester area. This online database will be placed on the Worcester Regional Chamber of Commerce Higher Education – Business Partnership page on their website. The limitations placed on this request are that the Regional Chamber as of this moment have no monetary or Information Technologies resources to provide for the realization of this request.

The proliferation of as A Service …

Cybersecurity Awareness Shrewsbury Public Schools, Brittany Crompton, David Thompson, Manuel Reyes, Xueyan Zhao, Xueke Zou

School of Professional Studies

In the 21st Century, technology reaches every aspect of our lives. As “digital citizens” we must be aware of the dangers both to our technological equipment and our personal information stored, transmitted, and processed on this equipment. The Cybersecurity Awareness curriculum developed for the Shrewsbury Public School district is designed to meet this need, as well as foster an interest in technology and ethical computer use.

Analysis Of The Point Of Sales System At Tower Hill Botanical Garden And Suggested Courses Of Action, Brian Dunn, Keerthi Bandi, Chantal Kopwa Epse Kassa, F.N.U Shelly

School of Professional Studies

As Tower Hill Botanic Garden continues to improve on its operations and enhance the experience of its visitors and members, they are on a quest for a new Point-Of-Sale (POS) system that not only works with its existing hardware and interface with Raiser’s Edge, a smartcloud fundraising and relationship management software central to the garden’s operations but also, have a restaurant module and the capability of operating both in a wireless and hard-wired environment.

College Of Business Dean's Advisory Council On Diversity & Inclusion, Marjorie Williams

Honors Projects

Dean’s Advisory Council on Diversity and Inclusion (DACODI) is compromised of students, faculty, and staff who work together to ensure that the College of Business Administration (CBA) at Bowling Green State University (BGSU) is using best practices for a culture of diversity and inclusion. DACODI creates and evaluates the CBA’s strategic goals and missions related to diversity and inclusion to achieve the best possible business outcomes for students, faculty, staff, and alumni of the CBA.

DACODI was inspired by research done by Catalyst on the better business outcomes produced by gender diverse businesses. To leverage the gender, ethnic, and age …

Alternatives Unlimited Inc. Property Service Application, Jalpa Dave, Pennie Nataliya, Neelakshi Bali

School of Professional Studies

The purpose of this project is to propose Property service application to be enforced for documenting and managing the work orders raised throughout the residencies. The company is looking into an application that would facilitate to track and monitor the maintenance request received in a systematic order and ensuring priority work request is resolved within the set time frame. The project is to enhance the property service's work more efficiently as this will provide a high level of charge for the occupants by providing quicker response to their requests. The Objectives set to achieve for this project are realistic and …

Analyzing Shared Value And Social Business Principles: A Case Study Of Honeydrop Beverages And Seven Hills Foundation, Sarah Dys, Maya Grevatt, Brianna Mirabile

School of Professional Studies

Can the business world come together with the nonprofit world to create systems to lift low income women, children, and families out of poverty? The following report aims to show how the changing principles of business have the potential to serve international populations living on less than $2USD per day. For-profit organizations working with citizen sector organizations instead of giving charity provides a sustainable model to connect profit maximization with social good.

Honeydrop Beverages is a company based out of New York that produces lemonade sweetened with honey. Their products do not contain any refined products, only using fresh and …

Doc Wayne Youth Services, Inc. Capstone Project Youth Employment And Mentoring, Bongani T. Jeranyama, Zhengjun Liu, Sarah Parsons

School of Professional Studies

In Boston, Massachusetts, young adults age 16-19 who have dropped out of high school have a very high unemployment rate of 43.8%. Additionally, in the United States of America the difference between a young adult with a high school diploma as opposed to a young adult without a high school diploma in terms of weekly income is $180 USD; between a young adult with a high school diploma versus a young professional with a bachelor’s degree is $433 USD. These numbers demonstrate the need for services that improve academic achievement, job readiness and preparedness, and youth mentorship for struggling young …

A Nonprofit Model In A For-Profit World: A Closer Look At Sheltered Workshops And Sustainability As An Employee Run Business, Bing Jang, Mitchell Perry, Nikolin Vangjeli, Laura Ducharme

School of Professional Studies

Historically, society has tended to isolate and segregate individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Despite improvements such forms of discrimination continue to be a serious social problem. On October 11, 2011, the Department of Justice began an investigation into several state’s systems of providing vocational services to individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. This action came about due to several states being out of compliance around Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Title II of the ADA prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability for all services, programs and activities provided to the public by state and …

Understanding Millennial, Generation X, And Baby Boomer Preferred Leadership Characteristics: Informing Today’S Leaders And Followers, Lee-Volker Cox

Dissertations

Purpose. This quantitative study’s purpose was to describe and determine the degree of difference and importance of leadership characteristics as perceived by Baby Boom, Generation X, and Millennial generational cohort followers in STEM-related U.S.-based or headquartered aerospace and computer organizations as measured by the Multigenerational Leadership Characteristics Questionnaire (MLCQ).

Methodology. This was a cross-sectional, nonexperimental, comparative and correlational quantitative, ex post facto study. A web-based MLCQ was developed after conducting an academic literature review. Participants used a 6-point Likert scale identifying the importance of 30 characteristics with 2 aggregation questions identifying the most and least important characteristics; 408 members of …

Symptomatic Leadership: The Impact Of Changing Demographics On Global Business, Linda L. Ridley

Publications and Research

The past several decades have displayed a focus on diversity in the workplace throughout the corporate environment. Questions remain: has the effort been at all impactful – or, due to its symbolic nature, has it only been a distraction? What behaviors would have been better emphasized to achieve full participation and opportunity by all actors in a firm?

Considerable research has revealed that attempts at diversity are clumsy at best; and spurious at worst. [i] The challenge for firms has been to develop a “business case” for why those contributing groups represented by women and people of color should be …

Best Practices To Increase Efficacy Of Graduate School Admissions Communications At Clark University, Diana Curran, Nikki Feinberg, Mitchell Kelley, Ruiqi Li, Anning Zhou

School of Professional Studies

Within the period of time that a graduate student deposits and subsequently arrives at their academic institution, receiving timely information is important for their preparation. This process has been deemed by the Deans of the Enterprise Schools at Clark University as one that needs further investigation. As such, this Capstone looks at the array of communication that goes out to each graduate student during this four-month period. The purpose of examining this communication is to analyze its effectiveness in engaging students. To analyze the effectiveness of this communication, surveys were distributed to current students in these schools to gather data …

Review Of Factors Influencing Employees’ Willingness To Share Knowledge, Paul Mc Manus, Mohamed Ragab, Amr Arisha, Sue Mulhall

Conference papers

Effective management of knowledge is currently recognised as the foundation of any organisation to maximise its abilities and achieve business targets. Organisations strive to leverage knowledge stocks – mostly held in the minds of their individual employees – in order to create value and drive success. For organisations to promote effective knowledge management, they have to develop innovative methods to encourage knowledge sharing practices. Knowledge sharing (KS) is a vital organisational process which empowers individuals to confront challenges of uncertainty and complexity, instils best practices, and enables the transfer of knowledge between different parts of the organisation. Given the fact …

Peer Guides Deliver Popcorn And More At The University Of Nebraska-Lincoln, Joan Barnes

University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries: Faculty Publications

In recent years, one of our key strategic goals at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL; http://libraries.unl.edu) has been to transform into a more student-centered library by creating a more inviting and comfortable environment for study, collaboration, and academic programming. To accomplish this goal, we needed feedback from students, which meant we had to develop formal, and informal, ways to engage , them. As a member of the User Experience and Student Success Team, in August 2014, I was given the responsibility of coordinating a new initiative called the Peer Guide Program. The plan was that I'd hire undergraduate students to …

Capstone Revival, Mary Mesele, Ruochen Lu, Quilin Jiang

School of Professional Studies

The capstone project is a culminating experience whereby students choose to research a topic that is relevant in their field of study and have been highly regarded as important learning activities. The capstone allows students to use research, analytical, problem solving and evaluation skills they have learned in the course of the graduate program. McGill indicates the benefit of the completion of a capstone project not only in gaining knowledge in capstone but also in learning how to apply the knowledge gained in other courses in the major (McGill, 2012). Currently, COPACE (College of Professional and Continuing Education) has three …

A Mixed-Methods (Quantitative-Qualitative) Study To Identify The Perceived Level Of, Zeky Zardo

Dissertations

Different approaches to developing leaders have been established through various forms of self-assessment, action learning, and education and training activities (Smither et al., 2005). The existing body of research on the impact and success of college and university leadership development programs focuses heavily on undergraduate leadership programs and not graduate-level programs such as the Master of Business Administration (MBA) or the doctorate. The purpose of this mixed-methods (quantitative–qualitative) study was to identify the perceived level of transformational leadership skill development by students enrolled in a doctoral program in organizational leadership. In addition, it was the purpose of this study to …

A Game Theory Analysis Of Team Based Incentivization In Retailing, Don Shemwell

Atlantic Marketing Association Proceedings

The connection between incentives and outcomes has long found consistent support in management literature generally (Bartol and Hagmann 1992; Miller & Schuster 1993; Swinehart 1986) and retailing in particular (Banker et al. 1996; Team Pay Case Studies 1997). Later meta-studies strongly support this view. (Condly, Noe and Jackson 2002; Garbers and Konradt 2014). Yet, providing performance-based incentives, at least for rank and file retail employees, still is not common in U.S. retailing and team-based incentives are even rarer.

The next section of this manuscript describes some of the issues with individualized commissions, which though not prevalent in a many product …

Market Oriented Organizations And Talent Workers: Composition Of The Workforce And Its Influence On Market Orientation, Dawn Mueller, Pradeep Gopalakrishna

Atlantic Marketing Association Proceedings

Many organizations employ marketing initiatives to “assist” in launching new efforts to both internal and external audiences and weave marketing throughout as part of being “market oriented.” The primary motivation behind a market orientation is improvement of market performance, according to the literature (Narver and Slater, 1990; Kohli and Jaworski 1990).

There is literature on workforce composition and different types of workers and this includes concepts of talent workers and knowledge workers (Chowdhury 2003) and HEROes (Bernoff and Schadler 2010) but there is little to nothing on the type of workers employed by highly market-oriented organizations. …

Greening An Integrated Marketing Communication's Course: An Assessment Of Sustainability Literacy, Pia A. Albinsson, G. David Shows

Atlantic Marketing Association Proceedings

This article showcases efforts of incorporating Sustainability Issues in an Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) class during three semesters during the academic years of 2013/2014 and 2014/2015. The course was re-designed using Fink’s (2013) course recommendations of designing significant learning goals. In addition to the way the course was delivered (both face-to-face and online), the instructor worked with a Higher Ed publisher to customize a textbook to include sustainability issues related to the course content (i.e., reflecting IMC topics). The course re-design included sustainability assignments such as Virtual Field Trips (visiting corporate websites and other organizations to study their CSR statements …

The Staff Is More Important Than The Price: A Study Of The Consumer Loyalty Model In A Coffee Shop In Korea, Mikyoung Ha, Ji Young Jung, Hyo Jin Eom

Atlantic Marketing Association Proceedings

The market of a coffee shop has matured and competition among coffee shops has gotten fierce in Asia. In Korea, the number of take-out coffee shops has increased by 21.6% per year since Starbucks launched in 1999. Sustaining customer loyalty has been regarded as an effective strategy for the profitability enhancement of companies in the maturity stage. Since loyalty has been defined in both behavioral and attitudinal perspective, attitudinal loyalty was measured by repurchase intention of each brand and behavior loyalty was measured by repurchase behaviors (Olsen, 2002; Yi & La, 2004). This study aims to analyze both attitudinal and …

Creative Collaboration On A Creativity Book, Jane Harvey

Creativity and Change Leadership Graduate Student Master's Projects

Based on existing roles as writer and designer, two Master’s students partnered on one project. This project was dually about the creative product and creative process. The final product result is a book on creativity, but much of the project learning was about collaboration during the creative process itself. The project included the creation of written and visual content and a production-ready book layout on the subject of creativity. This paper describes the process followed to create a fast reading, jargon-free book with a special academic end section.

Reflection On An Intercultural Communication Workshop For Japanese Executives: Doing Business With U.S. Americans, Kristine E. Menn

MA TESOL Collection

"Vérité en deçà des Pyrénées, erreur au-delà"

(There are truths on this side of the Pyrenees that are falsehoods on the other)

Blaise Pascal (Moran, Harris & Moran, 2007, p. 2).

This paper is a reflection on an intercultural communication workshop developed for sixteen upper-level Japanese executives who work with their U.S. American counterparts in a U.S.A.-based global corporation. This training session was only one part of a much larger training program initiative which was carried out in five countries in Asia as well as in several locations across the U.S.A. Throughout my paper, I will apply the …

Boomers Vs. Gen Y—The New Communication Gap, Sara Bennett

White Papers

A key issue between Baby Boomer managers and Generation Y employees is a difference of opinion on how often feedback regarding performance should be administered and the mode of feedback that is appropriate. Effective communication is essential for performance and productivity.