Finance and Financial Management Commons^™

Financial Leverage And Firm Performance: An Empirical Review And Analysis, Iqbal Md. M Islam

Journal of Global Business Insights

This paper examines the dual impact of financial leverage on corporate performance by analyzing empirical data across developed and developing nations, industries, and different periods. Leverage can enhance profitability through tax benefits and improved efficiency, but it also maximizes financial risk, making its effects highly context dependent. Theoretical frameworks such as the Trade-off Theory, Modigliani-Miller Theorem, Agency Theory, and Pecking Order Theory offer diverse perspectives on how debt influences firm outcomes. Empirical findings reveal mixed results; moderate leverage may lower capital costs and boost performance, whereas unnecessary debt can lead to financial distress. Disparities emerge between developed and developing economies. …

"What's A Computer?" Exploring Insurance Agents' Role In Small Business Cyber Insurance Transactions, Dalton A. Crabtree

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This mixed-methods study examined how insurance agents' role identity impacts cyber insurance transactions, addressing gaps in professional practice and academic literature. Small businesses increasingly rely on cyber insurance for protection as cyber risk continues to evolve. The study employed sequential explanatory methodology with 25 interviews across three groups: insurance agents (n=15), corporate cyber insurance professionals (n=5), and small business owners (n=5). Thematic analysis using Katz and Khan's Role Episode Model informed development of the Cyber Insurance Role Identity Scale (CIRIS), tested with 100 agents. Six themes emerged. Key findings reveal that successful cyber insurance transactions require agents to transition from …

Applying The Synergy Of Experience Accounting And Service Dominant Logic To Rank Customer Experiences In The Mainstream Cruising, Ganna Demydyuk, Mats Carlbäck

Journal of Global Hospitality and Tourism

This study analyzes how service-related experiences influence customer satisfaction and perceived value for money in the cruise industry. By integrating Service-Dominant Logic (S-D-L) and Experience Accounting (EA), it aims to support the development of customer-centric performance systems for managerial decision making in the all-inclusive hospitality sector. This is the first empirical study to merge data from three perspectives in service-for-service exchanges: customer review ratings from online platforms, ship-level operational characteristics, and financial metrics from corporate reports. This integrated approach allows for a holistic evaluation of the service ecosystem and cocreation of value onboard cruise ships. A quantitative analysis was conducted …

Exploring Factors That Influence Artificial Intelligence Adoption In Banks And Credit Unions, Vijaya S. Tumma

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The importance of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is exploding in the banking sector, fueled by enhanced productivity, improved efficiencies, and personalized services to the consumers. For credit unions, the adoption of AI technologies presents opportunities and challenges. This research explores the factors influencing AI adoption in the banking sector through the lens of Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) framework. This study aims to explore the influence of key aspects of UTAUT model, Performance Expectancy (PE), Effort Expectancy (EE), Social Influence (SI), and Facilitating Conditions (FC) on the intention of AI adoption among credit unions, banks, and their …

Advancing Sustainable Investing: A Deep Learning Model For Multi-Source Stock Prediction, Hongxuan Yu, Tingting Zhang, Murat Kizildag

Journal of Global Business Insights

The burgeoning role of the stock market within the national economy elevates the importance of precise stock price analysis and prediction, a field that has garnered substantial interest in academic research. Stock price fluctuations, influenced by many factors, including company fundamentals, market sentiment, capital flows, industry news, and macroeconomic policies, present a highly dynamic and complex challenge for predictive modeling. Addressing this challenge, our study introduces an innovative method that capitalizes on the synthesis of news text and stock price data for forecasting market movements. We employ GloVe embeddings to capture semantic nuances from news text and integrate them with …

Millennials’ Perception Towards Adaption And Intention Of M-Banking: Experience From A Developing Country, Noman Hasan, Md. Shahed Mahmud, Abdul Gaffar Khan, Reshma Pervin Lima, Shiblu Miah

Journal of Global Business Insights

In recent years, m-banking has been developed rapidly around the world. The research aims to measure millennials’ perception towards adaption and intention of m-banking from a developing country’s perspective. A PLS-SEM modeling approach was performed to test the hypothetical model. The empirical results reveal that perceived ease of use, perceived security and privacy, and perceived cost significantly affect the millennials’ attitude to adopt m-banking. In contrast, perceived usefulness and perceived self-efficacy have an insignificant effect. Furthermore, attitude towards adopting m-banking significantly impacts adoption and intention among millennials. Practical and theoretical implications have been identified based on the study results.

Essays On Machine Learning And Corporate Disclosure, Zicheng (Leo) Xiao

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation contains two essays that shed new light on the dynamic of information disclosure on the capital market. For both two essays I leverage computational linguistics and 20 million turns of dialogues from earnings conference calls from 2006-2022. In the first essay, I introduce a novel measure that quantifies the disparity in narrative focus between managers’ disclosures and analysts’ questions during these calls, denoted as Topic Attention Divergence (TAD). A higher level of TAD indicates a higher level of firm-investor asymmetry and lower information quality. My results confirm that higher TAD in earnings conference calls inversely (positively) predict firms’ …

Essays In Climate Finance: Climate Risks In Real Estate And Banking, Vikas Soni

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation includes two essays that examine the impact of climate risks on commercial real estate and bank performance. In the first essay, I study the impact of sea level rise (SLR) on commercial real estate (CRE) pricing and commercial lending. Using novel property level sale transactions from 2011-2018, I find that commercial properties exposed to a 6-feet sea level rise are sold at a 6% discount, which increases over time. This discount appears to be driven by local buyers and buyers’ brokers that are more sensitive to climate risks. In addition, the discount significantly rises after an extreme hurricane, …

Financial Characteristics Of Mobile Banking And Payment Users In The United States, Jordan Mitchell, Xiao Li, Doug Steel, Phillip Decker

Journal of Global Business Insights

This study aims to examine the personal finance characteristics of mobile banking and mobile payment users in the United States. To achieve this goal, we used the 2018 National Financial Capability Study, which surveyed over 27,000 American adults regarding their personal financial standing and behaviors. By using ordinary least squares models, our results indicated that the use of mobile banking and mobile payment technology was associated with lower age, Non-White Ethnicity, higher income, higher debt load, debt types (auto, student, credit card, and predatory), and spending more than one’s income. These results reveal that the higher one’s income, financial liabilities, …

Determinants Influencing The Adoption Of Mobile Banking By Women In Bangladesh, Soma Dey, Sacchidanand Majumder

Journal of Global Business Insights

Women’s mobile banking adoption is linked to several advantages, including empowering women, enhancing investment in women-owned businesses, and decreasing extreme poverty.This study explores the demographic and socioeconomic characteristics that affect women’s mobile banking adoption in Bangladesh using Bangladesh Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS; 2020) data. In this study, 12,147 ever-married women aged 15-49 are included in the analysis. The chi-square test is used to examine the effect of socioeconomic and demographic factors on women’s mobile banking adoption. Then, the enter method of a binary logistic regression model is applied to identify the factors most strongly affiliated with it. The result …

An Empirical Analysis Of Sentiment And Confidence Regarding Interest Rates In Disclosures Of Public Firms In The U.S. Fintech Sector, James J. Farley

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation studied the channel of communication of 10-K and 10-Q financial reports and the effectiveness of relaying interest rate sentiment. 10-K financial reports relay information regarding a company’s financials on a yearly basis while 10-Q reports relay information on a quarterly basis. To study a newer industry of Fintech and how it may be affected by interest rates it was necessary to narrow Fintech to the United States and a coordinated public channel of communication using the 10-Q and 10-K financial reports. Fintech emerged as a relevant word and industry coming off the Great Recession of 2009. During the …

Motivations For Planning: Uncovering The Inhibitors To The Adoption Of Comprehensive Financial Planning For Business Owners, Daniel R. Gilham

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Though comprehensive financial planning is well-known terminology, it is not a well-known or adopted concept. Broadly, financial planning is associated with investment management, but this approach is changing. Most research on financial planning is confined to the benefits, or process, behind planning. For business owners, coordinated, comprehensive financial planning should include the founder’s largest, most concentrated financial asset, the business they are running. The underlying motivations and bias that inhibit business owners from engaging in a comprehensive financial planning relationship has not been heavily researched. In this dissertation, I studied business owner inhibitors to the adoption of comprehensive financial planning …

Effectiveness Of Virtual Onboarding, Shanker Menon

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

During the COVID pandemic that began in 2020, interest in onboarding efficacy increased with going virtual. This survey research study focused on the effectiveness of virtual onboarding by comparing it with face-to-face (traditional) and hybrid onboarding. It spanned 12 different business sectors and involved 730 respondents, including executives, managers, technical personnel, and non-managerial staff. This exploratory study investigated the influence of the onboarding process on important organizational variables, including turnover intention and perception of self-performance. In addition, the study investigated the perception of success of the onboarding process. Results indicated that hybrid onboarding was the most effective followed by virtual …

For Love Or Money: Investor Motivations In Equity-Based Crowdfunding, Jason C. Cherubini

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Crowdfunding is an increasingly popular method for entrepreneurial ventures to raise financing from a large number of small supporters (the “crowd”) instead of raising it through a small number of larger supporters. Crowdfunding is normally conducted through online platforms such as Kickstarter and Indiegogo, where the entrepreneurial venture runs a campaign directly seeking support from individual funders. Most of the research into crowdfunding to date has been focused on what elements of the crowdfunding campaign lead to eventual successful funding, especially in the rewards-based crowdfunding space. The comparatively new equity-based crowdfunding has not been as heavily researched and is technically …

An In-Depth Analysis Of The Impact Of Cyberattacks On The Profitability Of Commercial Banks In The United States, Asligul Erkan-Barlow, Thanh Ngo, Rajni Goel, Denise W. Streeter

Journal of Global Business Insights

This study examined the effects of cyberattacks on the profitability of U.S. public and private commercial banks using a sample of 120 data breaches across various institutions. The results showed that cyberattacks negatively influence bank profitability, with effects more robust in the 12 quarters following a breach, especially from non-hack breaches. Large and private banks suffer more than small and public banks, with breaches resulting in decreased deposits and loans and increased liquidity. These changes are confirmed as independent channels reducing bank profitability. The results were robust after controlling for factors like multicollinearity, non-stationarity, cross-sectional dependence, and heteroskedasticity.

Do Firms Overreact To The Enactment Of Corporate Laws: Evidence From Anti-Price Gouging Laws, Mario Marshall

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The enactment of state corporate laws increases attention to issues related to price fairness.I present evidence that firms become less efficient in generating margins but not revenue upon enacting anti-price gouging laws. This finding is consistent with a prediction of salience theory that increased attention to unfair pricing induces firms to adopt more conservative pricing strategies. I provide evidence that companies that are more sensitive to unfair pricing risks have larger changes in efficiency. The results are consistent with the salience theory of choice and imply that attention that corporate laws generate may substantially impact firms.

Do Industries' Political Profiles Affect Their Portfolio Return Performance?, Shaddy S. Douidar

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The political profiles of an industry influence its performance due to its impact on industry-level investor sentiment and idiosyncratic risk. I form eight comprehensive political profile portfolios after double sorting on industry-level: (1) political geography proxied by political alignment, (2) corporate political strategies (CPS), proxied by donations to political action committees & lobbying expenditures, (3) and government interference, proxied by dependence on procurement contracts & federal regulations, and exhibit that an industries’ political profiles impact its returns. Industries with high political alignment, concentrated corporate political strategies, and low government interference, deemed the high-performance portfolio, earn an annualized alpha of 10.3428%, …

Exploring The Factors That Affecting Adoption Of Mobile Banking In Bangladesh, Md. Abdullah A. Mamun, Masud Rana, Md. Ashraful Islam, Md. Abdullah A. Mamun

Journal of Global Business Insights

This paper seeks to unearth the factors affecting the adoption of mobile banking in Bangladesh. Primary data from 630 respondents are collected from January 2021 to June 2021 using a structured questionnaire to accomplish this objective. The questionnaire contains 20 statements regarding the adoption of mobile banking. Gathered data are tabulated, categorized, and arranged to fulfill the purpose. The convenience sampling method is used to choose respondents from the Pabna district in Bangladesh. The collected data are examined using exploratory factor analysis, KMO and Bartlett testing, and reliability testing. Findings confirm that risk, the convenience of use, ease of access, …

Does Time Equal Money? Temporal Discounting And Self-Control: Insight Into The Rationality Of Personal Financial Decision-Making, Joshua Epstein

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Exponential and hyperbolic intertemporal choice models have been widely investigated to measure an individual’s degree of impulsivity in behavioral economics. Hyperbolic discounting research identifies subject’s disproportionately high subjective value to immediate rewards, to the extent that it is not in their best interest. Furthermore, preference reversals have shown subjective value demonstrates an inversely relationship proportional to delay.

Investigation into whether visual representations influence conservative personal finance savings behavior was demonstrated in this study by presenting a multitude of visualizations before allocation of limited monetary resources. Evaluation of the neighbor effect was tested to determine whether comparing individuals to their peers …

Essays In Political Insider Trading, Jan Hanousek Jr.

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation, I examine senators’ stock transactions, filled both electronically and on paper, between 2012 and 2020 to assess the extent of politicians’ insider trading and its impact on the market. The results suggest that senators use inside political information when investing. I find that both the estimated realized returns and buy-and-hold market abnormal returns are positive and significant. The extent of returns depends on the various personal characteristics of senators. Furthermore, there is evidence that senators attempt to obscure their more profitable trades, further suggesting that they use inside information when trading.

To extend traditional return-based methods, I …

Deceptive Appeals And Cognitive Influences Used In Fraudulent Scheme Sales Pitches, Rafael J. Toledo

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Fraud schemes exploit the complex interplay that results from utilizing deceptive appeals to activate underlying cognitive influences. This study was designed, first, to identify the deceptive appeals present in the messaging of fraudulent schemes and, second, to identify the underlying cognitive influences being exploited by the deceptive appeals utilized. Findings reveal that effectively used deceptive appeals work to keep viewers’ mental processes in a state of cognitive ease. This state allows cognitive influences--such as heuristics, cognitive biases, and the System 1 mind--to remain in control of mental processing; however, System 1 is prone to accept deceptive beliefs. The results of …

Working Capital Management Of Manufacturing Companies In Bangladesh: What Factors Make Significant Impact?, Sumaiya Zaman

Journal of Global Business Insights

The paper aims to determine factors that make a significant impact on working capital management of a manufacturing company in Bangladesh. Of 221 service and manufacturing firms listed on the Dhaka Stock Exchange, 109 companies are chosen based on data availability for the five-year period 2014-2018. The study examines literature on working capital management and tests theory on manufacturing companies listed on the Dhaka Stock Exchange. Cash conversion cycle is used as a measurement of working capital efficiency. Financial ratios representing six aspects of company's financial performance are taken as explanatory variables. They represent company asset management, debt structure, growth, …

Numeracy And Financial Wellbeing During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Nora Wikoff

Numeracy

This paper examines the role of numeracy in smoothing financial difficulties during the COVID-19 pandemic. The results show that numeracy was associated with a 30% reduction in late or non-payment of bills and a 20% reduction in the odds of feeling financially squeezed. The effect of numeracy on financial wellbeing was remarkably consistent across levels of education, ethnicity, and gender, suggesting that improving numeracy levels in the population may be an effective strategy to increase financial capability across the board. However, while numerate individuals were less likely to experience financial difficulty, high numeracy did not predict narrower gaps between Whites …

Asking The Experts: Perception Of The Relative Importance Of Antecedents Of Optimal Financial Behavior, Chad M. Jones

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Although there is ample research on financial behavior, the inclusion of financial planners in the sample frames of such research is rare. This study used certified financial planners (CFPs) as the sole sample population to identify antecedents of optimal financial behavior and their relative importance. Data from a nationally representative sample of 167 CFPs indicated that (a) financial literacy lost relative importance as CFP tenure increased, (b) romantic partnership closely rivaled financial literacy in importance, (c) financial literacy was more weakly correlated with romantic partnership than with the other antecedents investigated, and (d) romantic partnership was universally accepted as a …

Higher Education Financing Analysis Based On The Examples Of Selected Countries, Hilal Celik, Hasan Arslan

University of South Florida (USF) M3 Publishing

Higher education institutions are seen as the center of scientific activities. Thanks to these institutions, which fulfill the task of conducting scientific and technical research by following the developments of the era, countries develop and have a say in the world. Undoubtedly, it is very important that higher education, which has such a valuable place, is adequately financed. With the globalization, countries that increase their scientific studies by developing higher education finance methods will be at the forefront of foreign competition. In this research, based on selected country examples, current issues in higher education financing will be discussed and suggestions …

Proceedings Of The Global Conference On Services Management: Volume 2, Cihan Cobanoglu, Valentina Della Corte

University of South Florida (USF) M3 Publishing

This is the second volume of the Global Conference on Services Management Proceedings Series.

ISSN: 2641-5062

Advances In Global Services And Retail Management: Volume 2, Cihan Cobanoglu, Valentina Della Corte

University of South Florida (USF) M3 Publishing

This is the second volume of the Advances in Global Services and Retail Management Book Series. This volume has the following parts:

• Part 1: Hospitality and Tourism
• Part 2: Marketing, E-marketing, and Consumer Behavior
• Part 3: Management
• Part 4: Human Resources Management
• Part 5: Retail Management
• Part 6: Economics
• Part 7: Accounting and Finance
• Part 8: Sustainability and Environmental Issues
• Part 9: Information Technology

ISBN: 978-1-955833-03-5

Hospitality and Tourism

• Significance of VR in the spa: A spatial analysis
  • Irini Lai Fun Tang, Schultz Zhi Bin Xu, and Eric Chan
• Social media marketing in rural hospitality and tourism destination research
  • Samuel …

Decentralized Approach To Deep-Learning Based Asset Allocation, Sarthak Sengupta, Priyanshu Priyam, Anurika Vaish

University of South Florida (USF) M3 Publishing

Investment is an artistic science. The study discusses deep learning-based techniques for asset allocation. Deep learning is a subset of machine learning. The majority of the population lacks either the skills or the time to self-analyze the different financial investment options available to them and therefore they seek the help of the portfolio managers who make trading decisions on behalf of their clients depending on their risk appetite. Besides, portfolio managers analyze different assets, compare the strengths and weaknesses of each option before making a decision about which equities are suitable, to optimally balance profit and risks. This makes portfolio …

Blaine Amendments And The Judiciary: An Analysis Of Government Aid To Religious Schools, Dustin A. Robinson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

First introduced in 1875, Blaine Amendments restrict private, parochial schools from utilizing publicly acquired funds. While the federally proposed Blaine Amendment died on the Senate floor, 37 states have adopted constitutional language that limits and/or bars religious schools from receiving public funds. Fraught with bigotry and labeled as discriminatory, such measures have not gone without challenge and the judicial system has delivered numerous decisions on funding public and private schools. However, jurisprudence reveals significant shifts in court decisions over time. Through analysis of Supreme Court cases from Everson v. Board of Education (1947) to Espinoza v. Montana (2020), this work …

Combination Of Time Series Analysis And Sentiment Analysis For Stock Market Forecasting, Hsiao-Chuan Chou

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The goal of this research is to build a model to predict trend of financial asset price using sentiment from news headlines and financial indicators of the asset. Objective of the model is to conclude good results but also to minimize the difference between predicted values and actual values. Unlike previous approaches where the sentiments are usually calculated into score, we focus on combination of word embedding of news and financial indicators due to nonavailability of sentiment lexicon.

One idea is that the sentiment of news headline should have impact on financial asset val- ues. In other words, it would …