Other Business Commons^™

The Use Of Twitter By Luxury And Midscale Hotels, Yolanda M. Tselepidakis

Honors Theses and Capstones

Twitter has demanded a presence in company brands since its start up in 2008, including the hotel industry. As an up and coming marketing tool, the social media website is still new to both hotels and their guests. Observing the different strategies incorporated by luxury and midscale hotels, the paper provides explanations on how these two segments differ in utilizing Twitter. Through direct interviews with US luxury and midscale hotels and analyzing individual Twitter feeds, it was found that luxury hotels and their target market are much more active on Twitter than the midscale hotel segment. Implications suggest that although …

Cfp: Handbook Of Research On Technological Applications And Innovation For Economic Development, Deogratias Harorimana Mr

Dr Deogratias Harorimana

The innovation in the 21st century goes significantly beyond the high-tech picture driven by small or large industry clusters in a specific region-typically Silicon Valley and M4Corridor. The future of innovation will lie within knowledge management and seamless technological applications. These will be supported by planned funding strategies, possibly with clients as drivers of the innovation. This view seems to be supported by the UK government “Technology and Innovation Futures” (2011); the USA government (2011), study into which leading scholars concede that the future innovation and technological applications for economic growth will include products and processes, improvements in areas such …

Development Of A Model Of Airline Consumer Satisfaction, Erin E. Bowen, Brent D. Bowen, Dean E. Headley

Aviation Technology Faculty and Staff Publications

Previous research on perceptions, satisfaction, and attitudes regarding the major commercial air carriers in the United States has provided little more than an interesting descriptive “snapshot” of the average air traveler. Building upon 20 years of work with the National Airline Quality Rating, the present study attempts to move beyond basic descriptive information of air travelers to identify attitudinal patterns and relationships in the way consumers at varying levels of travel frequency view the commercial air industry. Development of such a model allows key players the ability to improve their understanding of the prime drivers and perceptions of passenger behavior. …

Cultural Contradictions Of The Anytime, Anywhere Economy: Reframing Communication Technology, Nikhilesh Dholakia, Detlev Zwick

Nikhilesh Dholakia

Technology-aided ubiquity and instantaneity have emerged as major goals of most information technology providers and of certain classes of users such as “road warriors”. New mobile technologies promise genie-in-a-bottle type near-magical qualities with anytime, anywhere access to information and services. While the complex science, systems, and economics of such technologies receive considerable attention from industry executives and researchers, the social and cultural aspects of these technologies attract less attention. This paper explores the oft-contradictory promises and pitfalls of anytime, anywhere technologies from a cultural standpoint. It makes suggestions for reinterpreting these technologies for greater human good.

Consumer Subjectivity In The Age Of Internet: The Radical Concept Of Marketing Control Through Customer Relationship Management, Detlev Zwick, Nikhilesh Dholakia

Nikhilesh Dholakia

In this paper, we present a poststructuralist analysis of customer database technology. This approach allows us to regard customer databases as configurations of language that produce new and significant discursive effects. In particular, we focus on the role of databases and related technologies such as customer relationship management (CRM) in the discursive construction of both customers and customer relationships. First, we argue that organizations become the authors of customer identities, using the language of the database to configure customer representation. From this perspective, we can see the radical innovation that the customer database brings to the organizational construction of its …

Professional And Trade Associations In A Nascent And Formative Sector Of A Developing Economy: A Case Study Of The Nasscom Effect On The Indian Offshoring Industry, Nir Kshetri, Nikhilesh Dholakia

Nikhilesh Dholakia

As important sources that shape institutional structures in an economy, professional and trade associations play significant roles in bringing and legitimating institutional changes. This paper examines the roles of professional and trade associations' impacts on institutions associated with a nascent and formative sector of a developing economy. In empirical terms, the paper offers an in-depth case study of India's National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM) on institutional changes related to the offshoring industry. The NASSCOM case shows that under appropriate conditions, professional and trade associations represent an alternative to the state in shaping the industry landscape.

Q&A Platforms Evaluated Using Butler University Q&A Intelligence Index, Trent Ritzenthaler, Richard Fetter, Ginger Lippert

Scholarship and Professional Work - Business

A new study using the Butler University Q&A Intelligence Index measures how various mobile Q&A platforms deliver quality, accurate answers in a timely manner to a broad variety of questions. Based on the results of our analysis, ChaCha led all Q&A platforms on mobile devices.

Results of the study are based upon review of a large set of responses from each of the major Q&A platforms, coupled with a comparison of disparate Q&A platforms that serve answers in different ways. Our methodology included the creation of a new metric, termed the Butler University Q&A Intelligence Index, which measures the likelihood …

Investigating Virtual Worlds, Patricia D. Sobczak

VCU Libraries Faculty and Staff Presentations

The global phenomena of online gaming engages millions of people, some playing over 45 hours a week - the equivalent of a second full-time job. Our children are logging over 10,000 hours of gaming time before they are 21 years old; the equivalent of the time children spend in formal classrooms from grades five through 12. Players in one of the most popular online games have logged over 5.3 million years of play time since 2004.

These statistics show that virtual worlds, including online games, have become an important component of modern culture, but their impact on society has yet …

A Horrible Hundred 2013: Problem Puppy Mills In The United States, The Humane Society Of The United States

PUPPY MILL INFORMATION

This report is a list of some of the nation’s dog breeding kennels that are of high concern to The HSUS due to repeated problems with animal health or animal care. It is not a list of all puppy mills, nor a list of all problematic facilities. The list does not include other problematic puppy mill dealers, such as brokers and pet stores, unless the operators are also breeding dogs.

Puppy Mill Brokers, The Humane Society Of The United States

PUPPY MILL REPORTS

A puppy mill “broker” is a pet dealer engaged in the business of re-selling puppies who were bred elsewhere. Unlike retail pet stores, brokers are middleman dealers who obtain puppies from breeders and puppy mills, and then transport and resell them. Brokers typically sell puppies to pet stores, but sometimes to research facilities, often travelling great distances to do so. In some cases the term is also used loosely to describe people who re-sell litters directly to the public that they themselves did not produce, for example, by posing at the original breeder and selling them through websites or classified …

Environmental Impacts Of Puppy Mills, The Humane Society Of The United States

PUPPY MILL REPORTS

A puppy mill is “a dog breeding operation in which the health of the dogs is disregarded in order to maintain a low overhead and maximize profits.” Avenson v. Zegart, 577 F. Supp. 958, Dist. Court, Minnesota (1984). State and federal inspection reports reveal that a common method employed to maximize profits includes irresponsible waste management practices that are harmful to the environment. Impacts may be caused by improper disposal of feces, urine and carcasses.

Techscribe Ste Term Checker: Uwe Muegge Reviews A Free Vocabulary Checking Tool For Asd-Ste100, Uwe Muegge

Uwe Muegge

The Simplified Technical English Maintenance Group (STEMG) recently made its Simplified Technical English (STE) specification ASD-STE100 available to the technical communication community free of charge. While STE was originally developed for the European aerospace industry, the ASD-STE100 specification has become the most widely used controlled language on the planet. The STE Term Checker is a new tool that lets users of Simplified Technical English automatically check texts for compliance with the word lists and vocabulary rules of ASD-STE100.

Strategic Planning: A Dynamic Process, Steven Slezak

Steven Slezak

A presentation outlining the steps taken to produce a thorough strategic business plan, along with the supporting analysis.

What Is Strategy?, Steven Slezak

Steven Slezak

A presentation outlining the nature of strategy, emphasizing its paradoxical nature, describing its structure, and describing competitive advantage and the value chain.

The Reality Of Digital Currency As A Financial Medium Of Exchange, Dale H. Shao, Lawrence Shao, Ralph E. Mckinney, Duane C. Rosenlieb

Management Faculty Research

This paper presents a discussion of the requirements for the long term acceptance of digital currency as a financial medium of exchange through the examination of fundamental criteria associated with common tender and the examination of selected digital currencies. According to the U.S. Treasury, digital currencies are subject to regulation if that digital currency has a substitutive purpose for facilitating exchanging goods and services (Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, 2013). Although governments can place stipulations on currencies, users of common tender, such as digital currencies, expect at least three basic privileges for a digital currency to evolve from conception to realization. …

Sources Of The Persistent Gender Wage Gap Along The Unconditional Earnings Distribution: Findings From Kenya, Richard U. Agesa, Jacqueline Agesa, Andrew Dabalen

Economics Faculty Research

Past studies on gender wage inequality in Africa typically attribute the gender pay gap either to gender differences in characteristics or in the return to characteristics. The authors suggest, however, that this understanding of the two sources may be far too general and possibly overlook the underlying covariates that drive the gender wage gap. Moreover, past studies focus on the gender wage gap exclusively at the conditional mean. The authors go further to evaluate the partial contribution of each wage-determining covariate to the magnitude of the gender pay gap along the unconditional earnings distribution. The authors' data are from Kenya, …

Knowledge Management And Measurement: A Critical Review, Amr Arisha, Mohamed Ragab

Articles

Purpose - Knowledge is the currency of the current economy, a vital organisational asset and a key to creating a sustainable competitive advantage. The consequent interest in Knowledge Management (KM) has spurred an exponential increase in publications covering a broad spectrum of diverse and overlapping research areas. The purpose of this paper is to provide a literature review and categorised analysis of the rapidly growing number of KM publications, and offer a comprehensive reference for new-comers embarking on research in the field with a particular focus on the area of Knowledge Measurement.

Design/methodology/approach - A total of 350 articles published …

Fact Sheet On Puppy Mills And Flea Markets, The Humane Society Of The United States

PUPPY MILL REPORTS

Flea Markets are meccas for problematic puppy sellers. Since the USDA is now regulating commercial breeders who sell puppies sight-unseen over the Internet, flea markets are one of the last unregulated marketplaces for questionable puppy sellers, many of them unlicensed and uninspected. As a result, there has been an increase in the number of operators selling puppies at flea markets across the country—likely in an effort to escape government regulation.

Texas Puppy Seller Investigation, The Humane Society Of The United States

PUPPY MILL INFORMATION

Over a five-month period in 2013, HSUS staff visited 16 pet stores and three flea markets across the state with hidden cameras to find out where they get their puppies and to check on the puppies’ conditions. HSUS staff also studied hundreds of shipping documents representing more than 1,400 puppies shipped into Texas between May 2012 and August 2013 from out of state, representing just a sampling of the thousands of puppies shipped into Texas every year for resale. Between the document research and in-person visits, investigators studied a total of 34 pet stores and flea markets. HSUS investigators found …

Investigation: Many Maryland Pet Stores Found In Violation Of Puppy Mill Disclosure Law, The Humane Society Of The United States

PUPPY MILL INFORMATION

An undercover investigation by The Humane Society of the United States and ReLove Animals, Inc., found most of the pet stores in Maryland that sell puppies are apparently not fully complying with a law designed to provide shoppers with information about the origin of their puppies. In September 2013, investigators visited 12 puppy-selling pet stores in Maryland. Specifically, investigators checked to see if the stores were fulfilling the requirement that they “post conspicuously on each dog's cage” the “state in which the breeder or dealer of the dog is located” and “the United States Department of Agriculture license number of …

The Relationship Between Human Capital And Social Capital In Professional-Client Relationships, Yuliani Suseno

Research outputs 2013

Professionals in knowledge-intensive firms rely on their human capital and social capital to deliver value in their professional services to clients. In this study of corporate lawyers and clients, we examine the construct of knowledge acquisition, representing a professional’s human capital, and its relationship with social capital. Quantitative analyses on the survey data reveal significant evidence of relationships between human capital and social capital. The application of both the human and social capital theories to the study of professionals therefore has the potential to advance our knowledge and understanding of the relationships between professionals and their clients.

Who Calls The Shots?: How Mutual Funds Vote On Director Elections, Stephen J. Choi, Jill E. Fisch, Marcel Kahan

All Faculty Scholarship

Shareholder voting has become an increasingly important focus of corporate governance, and mutual funds control a substantial percentage of shareholder voting power. The manner in which mutual funds exercise that power, however, is poorly understood. In particular, because neither mutual funds nor their advisors are beneficial owners of their portfolio holdings, there is concern that mutual fund voting may be uninformed or tainted by conflicts of interest. These concerns, if true, hamper the potential effectiveness of regulatory reforms such as proxy access and say on pay. This article analyzes mutual fund voting decisions in uncontested director elections. We find that …

The Rise And Fall Of Record Labels, Ilan Bielas

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis studies the music industry as a whole, and delves more specifically into how new technologies have disrupted the old business model. Advances in technology such as the Internet, MP3s, and file-sharing software have made it possible to bypass the traditional role of record labels, thus creating a closer link between artists and consumers. As the music industry transformed over time, the role of record labels became less defined. This has left once behemoth labels struggling to find a competitive advantage in a rapidly devolving industry. Record labels are no longer the most relevant segment of the music industry, …

Measuring Quality In Diabetes Care: An Expert-Based Statistical Approach, Dimitris Bertsimas, David Czerwinski, Michael Kane

Faculty Publications

We present a methodology for using health insurance claims data to monitor quality of care. The method uses a statistical model trained on the quality ratings of a medical expert. In a pilot study, the expert rated the quality of care received over the course of two years by 101 diabetes patients. A logistic regression model accurately identified the quality of care for 86% of the patients. Because the model uses data derived from patients’ health insurance claims it can be used to monitor the care being received by a large patient population. One important use of the model is …

Actions, Practices, And Workplace Conditions That Characterize High-Engagement Workgroups In A Hospital Environment, Barbette Weimer-Elder

Dissertations

In the United States a large number of people are not engaged at work. The lack of engagement affects the service outcomes as well as financial bottom line of organizations. The cost of actively disengaged employees in the U.S. is about $300 billion a year. Research cites the importance of examining business units that scored high on employee engagement to learn about actions and practices that drive business outcomes.

Between 2005-2010 The Community Hospital (TCH), part of a Healthcare Corporation in Valley Town, USA (pseudonym), assessed employee engagement using Gallup’s Q12 survey. Some groups scored in the top quartile and …

A Study Of Facility Management Knowledge Classification For The Effective Stewardship Of Existing Buildings, Robert G. Doleman

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

The aim of the study was to establish the Facility Management knowledge categories within the life cycle of a building context. The significance of the study stemmed from research undertaken into the compliance to Australian Standards 1851-17:2005 Maintenance of Fire and Smoke Doors within West Australian nursing homes, which demonstrated 87 per cent non-compliance. The level of non-compliance appeared to identify a lack of knowledge, and appropriately qualified and experienced personnel involved within the management of nursing homes (Doleman, 2008). The issues identified prompted the question on how facility management knowledge categories evolves and develops throughout the life cycle of …

Cultural Diversity And The School-To-Work Transition: A Relational Perspective, William Feighery

William Feighery

Drawing on evidence from the European tourism sector and adopting a Bourdieusian approach, this chapter embraces a relational perspective on the school-to-work transition. Taking account of macro public policy, as well as meso organisational and micro individual social spheres, the reported study sought to develop insights on the perceived value of, and demand for, diversity in the European tourism sector. Based on data from three research instruments, it is suggested that in the European tourism sector, the school-to-work transition is in a process of transformation as a number of forces, including neoliberalism, globalisation and the “democratisation” of education, mitigate against …

Cultural Diversity In Television Narratives: Homophilization, Appropriation, And Implications For Media Advocacy, Cristel A. Russell, Hope J. Schau, David Crockett

David Crockett

This research explores the role of cultural diversity in the construction of consumer identity, and in particular, how cultural diversity is appropriated through television viewing. Data based on depth interviews and surveys of young adults who created brand collages centered on a television-based character reveal that viewers identify and engage with television narratives through a process of “homophilization”; that is, they actively envision various features of television narratives as similar to themselves and their own lived experiences. The data also show that homophilizing processes are enacted primarily by customizing the narrative, or textual poaching, in which the consumers insert themselves …