UNT Libraries - 144 Matching Results

Search Results

Results: 1 - 50 next
Impact of Relational Incongruity on Customer Ownership and Sales Outcome Performance: A Resource-Advantage Theory Approach
There exists heightened research attention afforded to the pivotal demands - both internal and external - that exist within the salesperson role set. Unprecedented pressures on salespersons to acquire, retain, and build enduring customer relationships to enhance the firm's bottom-line performance coincides with increasing complexities within the work environment. This relevant and timely research introduces an original construct derived from the long-standing attention afforded to relationship selling, relational incongruity that exists within the buyer-seller exchange. Relational incongruity, defined, is the relational tension spawned between the salesperson, the customer, and the firm when situational psychological incongruity exists within the buyer-seller exchange itself. Framed in resource-advantage theory, this research investigates divergent demands and the increasing complexity of sales relationships through the lens of relational incongruity. A research program based on minimizing relational incongruity will augment the sales management and B2B literature by looking at how he salesperson and the customer build strong relationships as well as the antecedents that can undermine these relationships by generating realtional incongruity.
An Analysis of the Philosophy and Trends of the High School Commercial Curriculum
This study is designed to set forth the philosophy and indicate trends in the teaching of commercial education in the high schools of the United States.
A Cooperative Part-Time Training Program in the Public Schools of Tulsa, Oklahoma
The purpose of this study is to present the basic facts and principles involved in the organization and administration of the cooperative part-time training program in the public schools of Tulsa, Oklahoma.
American Export Trade with Mexico
The purpose of the study is to make a survey and analysis of the export trade of the United States with Mexico. Attention is given to the kinds and types of goods exported to Mexico and imported from it, to the value of the trade, to some ways of carrying it on, and to aspects of Mexican life that influence trade relations.
A Study of Curricular Offerings in Business in the Colleges of Arkansas for the Period from 1936 to 1946
The problem which forms the basis of this study is one involving an investigation of the curricular offerings in the field of business in the liberal-arts colleges of Arkansas. The purpose of the investigation is to compare the growth of business offerings during the eleven years from 1936 to 1946.
Significant Changes in Selected Financial and Operating Ratios of Twenty Leading Corporations for the Years 1940, 1944, 1946, and 1947
An effort to determine how the ratios of leading corporations changed during World War II and in the two peace-time years following.
An Evaluation of Distributive Education in Texas
This study was made in an effort to evaluate the need in Texas for Distributive Education--a vocational education for workers in distributive occupations. By the term, distributive occupation, is meant an occupation in which workers are employed in the commercial exchanges necessary for making available to consumers the goods and services produced by others.
A Selective Reference List in Business Education for the Senior High School Library
The purpose of this study is to determine the types of books and periodicals in the field of business education which should be included in the library of the average senior high school, and to compile a selective list of the best publications as a standard reference list for the use of the high school commercial teacher.
Information Content of Non-GAAP Earnings of Cross-Listed Companies
To supplement earnings reported under generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP), public companies often voluntarily report alternative measures of earnings called non-GAAP earnings (NGE). These companies assert that NGE exclude the effect of non-recurring transactions, thereby helping users of financial information to better assess the company's past performance and prospects. Because NGE measures are not well defined, managers can exploit the inherent discretion in calculating NGE to mislead users. Prior studies provide arguments and evidence on the informative as well as opportunistic use of NGE. However, the studies have examined the characteristics and informativeness of NGE with a focus on U.S. companies. The results of studies that consider the NGE disclosure by U.S. companies may not be generalizable to the cross-listed companies because foreign financial reporting standards are different from the U.S. GAAP. Further, prior studies report a difference in earnings quality of U.S. firms and cross-listed firms, which can also result in a difference in the informativeness of their NGE. To fill this gap in literature, I examine whether the informativeness of NGE of cross-listed companies is different from that of U.S. companies. This study contributes to the debate on the informativeness of NGE. It provides evidence that in general, NGE are equally informative for U.S. and foreign companies but foreign companies are more opportunistic in excluding recurring items from NGE. The results of this study are of potential interest to investors, regulators, and academics who are interested in and interact with cross-listed companies.
Curricular Offerings in Business Education in the Junior Colleges of Texas
The primary aim is to discover the number and nature of curricular offerings in the field of business education in the junior colleges of Texas. A secondary purpose is to study the growth and development of business education in the schools and colleges of the United States from the earliest days to the present period.
A Comparison of Student and Teacher Objectives at Brantley-Draughon College, Fort Worth, Texas
This study involves three things: first, a comparison of the general objectives of students and teachers; second, a comparison of jobs wanted by students with jobs for which the teachers think they are training their students; and third, a comparison of student and teacher objectives in the individual subjects.
Response to Regulation of Technology: A Multi-Industry Perspective
Overall my dissertation work tries to capture a holistic view of the various complex interactions that occur in technology development, implementation, adoption and diffusion, in the context of three industries by examining issues that arise due to regulation of technology. Essay 1 focuses on the social media industry, which is in the early stage of the industrial life cycle, and is the foci of government attention for its ill effect on society. Results from the study (N= 647 employed adults in the US) supported hypotheses related to the antecedents and outcomes of platform utilization in the context of the three regulation dimensions. Essay 2 focuses on the automotive industry, which is in the growth stage of the industrial life cycle. Here the focus is on electric vehicles (EV) transitioning from the niches to the main market. Results from the longitudinal study (N = 429) support the moderating role of political activism on innovation capability of manufacturers and presence of ancillary services in the diffusion of different types of electric vehicles in the US market. Essay 3 focuses on the US healthcare industry, reflecting mature stage of industrial life cycle, yet also characterized with high cost and fragmentation of service. The results supported a causal relationship and further indicate that the relationship between resources and capabilities is quadratic when evaluated in presence of regulatory challenges. In conclusion, results of three essays indicate that the effect of regulatory forces on an industry are complex and affected by multi-level interactions. Hence, taking a holistic view in understanding the impact of regulation on the utilization, implementation and eventual diffusion of technology is essential. Additionally, insights are gained by considering these impacts within the nuances of industry life cycle, evolving technology and differing regulations.
The Informational Effects of Non-Deal Roadshows
Non-deal roadshows (NDR) are privately held one-on-one meetings between the buy-side of financial institutions and firm management. Using a novel dataset of these meetings, I examine the effects that NDR meetings have on the outcomes of two important corporate events: seasoned equity offerings (SEOs) and mergers and acquisitions (M&As). I also study the potential implications of the information content in NDRs on the behavior of stock returns following earnings announcements, which has been the subject of much academic work. I structure the dissertation in three essays. In the first essay, I examine the relationship between NDR activity and the underpricing of SEOs. I find that NDRs are associated with lower SEO underpricing. This association is stronger for firms with infrequent NDR activity, for smaller firms, and for firms with higher analysts' forecast errors. These findings suggest that NDRs reduce the level of asymmetric information between firms and investors, which results in a lower cost of raising equity. In Essay 2, I investigate whether the occurrence of NDR meetings affects post-earnings-announcement drift (PEAD). I find that PEAD declines after NDR activity when the most recent NDR meeting occurs within one month before the earnings announcement. This decline is most pronounced among smaller firms, firms with high idiosyncratic volatility, and firms with Friday earnings announcements. These findings suggest that NDRs are mechanisms to convey earnings-specific information about forthcoming earnings. In the third essay I explore the relationship between NDRs, the medium of exchange used in M&As and the value created by this important corporate event. I show that NDR activity is important to understand the cross-sectional variation of the excess returns around M&As, and the bid premium. NDRs are also relevant to understand the medium of exchange. This relevance of NDR is more pronounced when the firms involved have higher levels of …
Exploring Adoption, Implementation, and Use of Autonomous Mobile Robots in Intralogistics Applications
Autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) use decentralized, AI-driven decision-making processes to providing material handling capabilities in industrial settings. Essay 1 examines how firms organize and engage to mitigate uncertainty during external technology integration (ETI), using an abductive approach with dyadic customer-supplier data to extend prior ETI models by exploring firm engagement, organizational adaptation, and distinct uncertainty types in AMR ETI projects. Essay 2 applies a grounded theory approach to examine AMR integration, using constant comparison and theoretical sampling to develop core categories explaining how suppliers, customers, and users exchange knowledge impacting AMR integration and project performance. Finally, Essay 3 is a conceptual paper examining the importance of end-user adoption by integrating ETI and technology acceptance model (TAM) frameworks, exploring important relationships between managerial interventions, cognitive constructs, user acceptance, and project success in AMR ETIs. As a whole, these essays contribute to the body of knowledge by extending the breadth and depth of current ETI models, emerging a substantive theory of AMR AIU, and extending TAM by grounding managerial interventions and individual cognitive constructs in an AMR context. Managers can use these frameworks to differentiate AMRs and other autonomous collaborative technology from traditional automation, and develop strategies enabling timely and effective AMR implementation.
The Impact of Blockchain Food Tracing Information Quality and Trust on Intention to Purchase
The purpose of our research is to empirically test how system attributes of blockchain build trust through system and information components in blockchain food traceability systems. Findings showed that system attributes of blockchain are strong predictors of trust leading to intention to purchase. A sample of 358 responses were collected from college students through online survey. SmartPLS 3.0 is adopted for data analysis. We made contributions by building a new research model to guide future studies on trust formation in blockchain based systems as well as informing practice to adopt proven features of blockchain to create and capture values for customers.
Cyber Risk Management in Supply Chains: Three Essays on Cyber Resilience, Business Continuity, and Information Security
This dissertation provides empirical and theoretical support for the antecedents and consequences of cyber resilience via three essays on cyber resilience. Essay 1 comprises 2 studies using a multi-method empirical research effort to determine whether emphasizing suppliers' implementation and use of business continuity management (S-BCM) is actually beneficial to buyers. In Study 1, data from 150 managers was collected via a survey-based questionnaire to determine whether buyers' adoption of monitoring supplier operational performance (MS-OP) and monitoring S-BCM (MS-BCM) enhances S-BCM implementation and use. Evidence from Study 1 suggests that MS-BCM is more effective than MS-OP. Moreover, the results suggest that while buyer power positively augments the effectiveness of MS-BCM, it actually has a diminishing effect on the effectiveness of MS-OP. Study 2 uses the data of 114 managers from a vignette-based experiment to determine whether S-BCM leads to improved buyer operational and financial performance. Study 2 offers evidence that confirms the positive link between S-BCM and buyer operational and financial performance. The results also suggest that the use of reward power further enhances the association between S-BCM and buyer performance. Using two studies, Essay 2 examines how supply chain power and learning can be related to cyber resilience capability. Study 1 indicated that powerful buyers and supply chain learning from new knowledge contribute to visibility to build cyber resilience while dominant suppliers are reluctant to share information. The results of Study-2 show that supply chain and operations managers believe that companies and their suppliers would have better operational performance if they invest in the accuracy of visibility. Moreover, supply chains properly can avoid, maintain, and recover from cyber disruption when real-time information is available. Essay 3 focuses on the role of downstream complexity along with enterprise resource planning (ERP) in building cyber resilience in supply chains. The results reveal that …
Increasing the Effectiveness of Location-Based Advertising
Location-based ads are defined as any ads that are sent by an identified source to consumers' mobile devices when they are around the advertised product/store. Although mobile ad spending is said to have accounted for 68% of all digital ad spending in 2020, knowledge of how businesses can use mobile and location-based technology to reach their customers effectively is limited. Thus, the purpose of this three-essay format dissertation is to review the literature on LBA and identify the gaps in the literature and attempt to address a few of these gaps in the remaining two essays. The second essay tests an integrated model by examining the effects of the various retailer and consumer-controlled factors on two retail performances. In the third essay, we explore how LBA affects different dimensions of consumer-brand engagement. The results and findings provide important implications for retailers and brands to increase their performances.
An Evaluation of the Business Department of the Pilot Point High School to Study its Adequacy for Meeting Student and Community Needs
In order to teach the desirable business courses in the Pilot Point High School, it is necessary to discover what courses would be most practical for the students and also the training that business firms require of their employees. The future can be based upon the present and the past. This study attempts to determine the future needs by probing into the present and the past.
Three Essays on Regulatory Focus, Consumer Creativity, and Co-Creation
Co-creation has been conceptualized in a number of ways but is generally referred to as an ongoing partnership between a firm and stakeholders (i.e. consumers) to collaboratively identify and solve mutually beneficial issues. While current scholarship has deepened our knowledge about the process of including consumers in the co-production of value, much remains to be learned. This is particularly true with respect to the consumer behavior side of the discipline as it pertains to creativity and motivation. Thus, the focus of the following three essays is to investigate how customer participation in the ideation of products and advertising influences down-stream responses, depending upon an individual's regulatory focus. According to regulatory focus theory, individuals are motivated to pursue their goals based upon two distinct self-regulatory systems known as promotion and prevention. Promotion-focused consumers are most concerned with the achievement of accomplishments and aspirations, which often results in approach oriented behavior. In contrast, prevention focused individuals seek to avoid negative end states, such as losses, and therefore are concerned with their security, duties, and obligations, resulting in avoidance-related behavior. These two distinct motivational states influence the way these individuals approach creative goals, which shares commonalities with co-creation. By its very nature, the goal of co-creation is to develop novel output, which often requires creativity. However, the way promotion versus prevention consumers approach creativity significantly varies, and therefore, the purpose of the present research is to understand how regulatory focus interacts with co-creation across three specific contexts to influence consumer responses. Essay 1, titled "From Ordinary to Extraordinary: Using Analogies to Increase Consumer-Brand Outcomes," finds across two studies that when engaging in co-creation, promotion focused individuals have significantly greater purchase intentions if first given an analogical reasoning task prior to a co-creation activity. Prevention-focused consumers (who are often considered less creative) can also …
Value: An Examination of Its Key Dimensions and Elements through the Lens of Service-Dominant Logic and Beyond
his dissertation advocates that value and its creation are often misunderstood concepts since both lack robust comprehensive conceptual foundations from which to advance rigorous theoretical development and analysis. Furthermore, this dissertation characterized value as the subjective assessment of the total worth of benefits received for the price paid or costs, i.e. money, time, energy, etc. The purpose of this dissertation was to conduct a holistic examination of value through the lens of service-dominant logic (S-D) and several historical economic periods of thought. I conducted a comprehensive S-D literature review in conjunction with a conceptual Boardman Soft Systems Methodology to develop a systemigram that captured the most critical S-D concepts and interrelationships to clarify its purpose and future research opportunities. During this process, value was recategorized and simplified into five primary dimensions, i.e. nature, perspectives, measures, storage, and creation. I employed Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory to illustrate that value at the lowest level of abstraction is the efficient satisfaction of human needs. I also investigated value creation and introduced a comprehensive value creation conceptual framework. Value creation is seen as a continuum of activity of key processes, i.e. value co-production, value in exchange, and value co-creation, and key procedural elements, i.e. actors, resource integration, ecosystems, services exchange, institutions and institutional arrangements as essentials to value creation. In addition, this dissertation also presented a Leyden value concept to the S-D lexicon. This concept complements use-value to capture associate upstream co-production activities and efforts as stored potential value. This dissertation then employed this conceptual framework to perform two survey based empirical studies. The first tested Lusch et al. (2007) value-co-production framework and incorporated other constructs such as transaction cost, satisfaction, and future purchase intent into a single testable model. This study leveraged covariance based structural equation modeling with 477 respondents to simultaneously …
A Multi-Methodology Study of the Historic Impact of Soft Systems Methodology and Its Associated Data Visualization Approach in the Context of Operations and Business Strategy
The purpose of this three-essay dissertation was to expand knowledge and theory regarding soft systems methodologies (SSMs) and data visualization approaches in business, engineering, and other social sciences. The first essay depicts a bibliometric analysis study of the historic impacts of SSM from 1980-2018 on business, engineering, and other social sciences fields. This study found 285 articles that described or employed SSM for research and included outcomes such as top SSM authors, author citation impacts, common dissemination outlets, time-bound distribution of publications, and other relevant findings. This study provided a picture of who, what, why, when, and where SSM has had the greatest impact on academic thought and practice. The second essay presents research on the academic impact of Systemigrams, an associated data visualization approach, finding examples of conceptual or research development that employed Systemigrams to depict complex problem situations. Recommendations for improvement of designing these data visualizations to increase their field use resulted from this study. The final essay leverages a selection of the articles as use cases to produce a grounded theory study to identify phenomena that arose from the use of SSM for operations and firm strategy research. This study identified two broad themes including (i) scope, structure, and process challenges and (ii) performance and evaluation limitations. These themes were explained by six patterns that emerged from the publications. Each produced change recommendations for SSM process, practice, and reporting to support its continued viability and adoption in business and operations research.
Does the Method of Financing Stock Repurchases Matter? Examining the Financing of Share Buybacks and Its Effect on Future Firm Investments and Value
Recent increases in stock repurchases among U.S. corporations coupled with a historically low cost of debt since the Global Financial Crisis has created media speculation that firms in recent years are paying for their expanding share buyback programs with debt. Repurchasing stock by increasing leverage, instead of using internal funds, implies that managers may speculate on current low interest rate environments at the expense of shareholders. Recent studies find that stock repurchases are associated with reductions in future firm employment and investments such as capital expenditures and research and development expenses. This study expands on prior studies by evaluating how debt-financed stock repurchases affect firm investment, investigating the likelihood of these repurchases in low interest rate environments and assessing the effects on firm value. Results confirm that, in recent years, debt-financed repurchases have increased substantially and the probability of debt-financed repurchases increases in the presence of low interest rates. This relationship is especially pronounced in the years following the Global Financial Crisis. Debt-financed repurchases are associated with small reductions in firm investment; however, these reductions are significantly less after adjusting for industry conditions. Finally, there is little evidence that the method of financing repurchases affects firm value nor does it increase a firm's operating performance.
Development and Exploration of End-User Healthcare Technology Acceptance Models
This dissertation consists of three studies that collectively investigate the factors influencing the consumer adoption intention towards emerging healthcare technologies. Essay 1 systematically reviews the extent literature on healthcare technology adoption and serves as the theoretical foundation of the dissertation. It investigates different models that have been previously applied to study healthcare technology acceptance. Meta-analysis method is used to quantitatively synthesize the findings from prior empirical studies. Essay 2 posits, develops, and tests a comprehensive biotechnology acceptance model from the end-user's perspective. Two new constructs, namely, perceived risk and trust in technology, are integrated into the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology. Research hypotheses are tested using survey data and partial least square – structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). Essay 3 extends the findings from the Essay 2 and further investigates the consumer's trust initiation and its effect on behavioral adoption intention. To achieve this purpose, Essay 3 posits and develops a trust model. Survey data allows testing the model using PLS-SEM. The models developed in this dissertation reflect significant modifications specific to the healthcare context. The findings provide value for academia, practitioners, and policymakers.
Size Framing: Conceptualization and Applications in Consumer Behavior
Size information is vital in many consumer contexts, but currently, no central framework or conceptual model exists for a thorough understanding of the underlying process of how consumers interpret size information and form size judgments. Thus, the purpose of this three-paper dissertation is to introduce such a framework, discuss future research directions based on that framework, and pursue a few of these directions in the second and third papers, both of which focus on a vanity sizing context. The resulting work and findings illustrate the process through which consumers go in forming size judgments and collectively present both scholars and practitioners with a common basis for future study and implementation of findings in contexts in which size information is salient.
Information Privacy and Security Associated with Healthcare Technology Use
This dissertation consists of three studies that investigate the information privacy & security associated with healthcare technology use. Essay 1 PRISMA-style systematically reviews the existing literature on privacy information disclosure in IoT technology and serves as the theoretical foundation of the current research. It is crucial to comprehend why, how, and under what consequences individuals choose to disclose their personal and health information since doing so is beneficial to the company. This SLR method allows us to find those factors that significantly impact individuals' behavioral intention to disclose personal information while using IoT technologies. Essay 2 posits, develops, and tests a comprehensive theoretical framework built upon the theory of planned behavior and the health belief model to examine factors affecting willingness to disclose PHI in order to use WFDs. A research survey is designed and distributed to a crowdsourcing platform, Mechanical Turk (M-Turk). Research hypotheses are tested using partial least square – structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). To achieve this purpose, Essay 3 extends the findings from the previous essay and further investigates the caregiver context. Therefore, we developed a novel theoretical model utilizing privacy calculus theory and the technology acceptance model to investigate the willingness of the elderly to disclose personal health information needed to use caregiver robots. Survey data were collected using crowdsourcing utilizing Amazon's Mechanical Turk (M-Turk) and Prolific. Research hypotheses are tested using partial least square – structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM). The findings provide value for academia, practitioners, and policymakers.
Incorporating Ethics in Delegation To and From Artificial Intelligence-Enabled Information Systems
AI-enabled information systems (AI-enabled IS) offer enhanced utility and efficiency due to their knowledge-based endowments, enabling human agents to assign and receive tasks from AI-enabled IS. As a result, this leads to improved decision-making, ability to manage laborious jobs, and a decrease in human errors. Despite the performance-based endowments and efficiencies, there are significant ethical concerns regarding the use of and delegation to AI-enabled IS, which have been extensively addressed in the literature on the dark side of artificial intelligence (AI). Notable concerns include bias and discrimination, fairness, transparency, privacy, accountability, and autonomy. However, the Information Systems (IS) literature does not have a delegation framework that incorporates ethics in the delegation mechanism. This work seeks to integrate a mixed deontological-teleological ethical system into the delegation mechanism to (and from) AI-enabled IS. To that end, I present a testable model to ethically appraise various AI-enabled IS as well as ethically evaluate delegation to (and from) AI-enabled IS in various settings and situations.
Organizational Blockchain Assimilation towards Supply Chain Pain Management and Collaboration
Extant research on technology adoption provides limited insights into the extent of technology penetration into an organization's work routines, especially in collaborative efforts across supply chains. Further research is required to delve into the broader scope of permanent technology-based solutions that effectively tackle specific issues within the supply chain. This dissertation examines blockchain through three essays to fill these research gaps and contributes to blockchain-based supply chain collaboration and performance literature. Essay 1 examines supply chain behavioral drivers of blockchain assimilation by grounding the hypotheses on social network theory. Findings indicate that supply chain learning, collaboration, and network prominence will affect blockchain assimilation through a cross-sectional survey of supply chain professionals familiar with blockchain. It provides psychometrically validated scales for blockchain assimilation and network prominence, adding to the blockchain literature. Essay 2 builds on institutional theory to argue that peripheral organizations in the blockchain-based network will succumb to institutional pressures and that blockchain principles will require them to play crucial roles in supply chain collaboration efforts to gain legitimacy. By adopting a multi-method approach of a vignette-based experiment and a survey, the findings help supply chain collaboration practitioners manage institutional pressures across emerging blockchain-based systems, particularly for organizations in the early stages of blockchain implementation. Furthermore, the second essay focuses on the structural positions within a blockchain-based business-to-business network. It proposes a novel scale based on network theory to assess the organizational blockchain network periphery. Essay 3 argues that supply chain organizations that adopt blockchain as a set of ordinary capabilities and develop the dynamic capability of integrated supply chain flow will benefit from blockchain potential in managing its archetypal supply chain pain points. Grounding hypotheses in supply chain practice view and dynamic capability theories, the findings indicate that blockchain capabilities partially mediate supply chain pain management through supply chain …
Linguistic Racism in the Marketplace
Linguistic racism is faced by non-native customers due to their different language style when they go through the service exchange process. Despite its prevalence and importance, there is a dearth of research about linguistic racism in the marketing literature, especially from consumers' perspectives. This dissertation thus aims to address this gap by focusing on consumers' cognitive and affective responses as a result to their linguistic racism experiences when they interact with service employees (native speakers) from the host country. Toward this goal, first (Essay 1), a qualitative study is performed to anchor the dissertation in the customers' real-life experiences and to help identify key associated themes which are further empirically examined (Essay 2 & 3) in this three-essay format dissertation. Essay 2 empirically investigates if the identity assignment through ones' language style makes customers feel stigmatized and influence their psychological well-being. In addition, how these experiences subsequently influence their inclination to use technology-mediated interfaces. Similarly, the main objective of Essay 3 was to employ a sociological perspective to examine the impact of language-based chronic social exclusion on non-native customers' psychological and behavioral responses in the marketplace. Moreover, their intention to pay higher tip as a refocusing strategy when these customers experience language-based chronic social exclusion. Together these three essays extend our understanding of how language varieties and the associated stigma influence non-native customer's affective and cognitive responses and shape their consumer buying behavior.
The Effects of Generational Stereotypes and Attribute Affirmation on the Collection of Audit Evidence
As the workplace has evolved over the past few years, several studies have documented perceived differences in personalities, values, and preferences between generations in the workplace, including in public accounting. In this study, I examine whether exposure to a negative preconceived belief about a staff auditor's generation (generational stereotype) influences the affective state of staff auditors and ultimately causes them to reduce the extent to which they communicate with a client manager to gather the necessary information to perform an audit adequately. I also investigate whether attribute affirmation from a work buddy helps elicit positive affect to mitigate the effects that exposure to negative generational stereotypes may have on audit evidence collection. I conducted a 2 x 2 experiment using graduate auditing students as a proxy for staff auditors. I find that general affect (i.e., mood) rather than interpersonal affect (i.e., likability), drives the negative effect of exposure to generational stereotypes on willingness to collect more audit evidence. I also find that high levels of negative mood can negatively impact participants' self-efficacy. I, however, failed to find evidence of a moderated mediation. The presence of an attribute affirmation results in an insignificant increase in positive affect. When staff auditors are exposed to a negative generational stereotype, attribute affirmation does not evoke enough positive affect to help auditors overcome the generational stereotype threat.
Corporate Environmental Litigations: Peer Effects and Its Relationship to Firm Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Performance
The dissertation analyzes three issues related to corporate environmental performance. In the first essay, I analyze the stock price reactions of the defendant firms and their peer firms to environmental lawsuits. Empirical evidence finds that the defendant and their peer firms experience negative and significant cumulative abnormal returns to the announcement of environmental lawsuits. Additionally, cross-sectional analyses find certain firm characteristics, such as profitability, growth opportunities and leverage can influence the market reaction. Furthermore, if the plaintiffs are government agencies or corporations instead of individual citizens, the defendant and peer firms experience higher negative market reactions. The second essay examines if a firm's environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance can moderate the negative market response to environmental lawsuits. The results are mixed. The overall sample of the defendant and their peer firms show that ESG performance is not a significant factor in mitigating the negative market response. However, an interesting finding shows, for defendant and peer firms in the environmentally sensitive industries, better ESG ratings help reduce the adverse market reactions. The final essay investigates whether the defendant and peer firms improve their ESG performance in the next two years following the lawsuits. The results indicates that firms generally experience a drop in their ESG ratings in the year the lawsuits are filed. However, post-lawsuit filing years, there is a general trend for the defendant and peer firms in the environmentally sensitive industries to improve their environmental performance.
Worker Displacement by Artificial Intelligence (AI): The Impact of Boundary-Spanning Employees
Limited literature examines the impact of the displacement of boundary-spanning employees artificial intelligence (AI). Scholars and practitioners appear focused on tangible benefits of AI adoption, and do not seem concerned by any less tangible and possibly untoward implications of worker (particularly boundary-spanning worker) displacement. My dissertation addresses this gap in the literature. In Essay 1, a qualitative study is performed to anchor the research on the appropriate ethnographic setting, the firms where this displacement phenomenon is taking place, by utilizing the Straussian grounded theory approach. The outcome of iterative coding of the first order data collected from the interviews and content analysis is a conceptual framework which amongst other findings shows how the unique competences of boundary-spanning employees and those of AI are best suited for different spectra of interorganizational collaborative activities. In Essays 2 and 3, I investigate major themes that emerged from Essay 1 utilizing quantitative and qualitative research methods in both studies. Initially I test research models using structural equation modelling on practitioner survey data, after which I probe further via focused interviews to better understand the survey results. The two papers allow us to put forth several theoretical and managerial contributions, specifically emphasizing the positive essential role of boundary-spanning employees on supply chain agility and innovation, even as AI displaces workers. These contributions provide insight into the optimal balance of human and artificial intelligence for today's highly dynamic marketplace.
Who are You Going to Believe: Me or Your Lying Eyes? Three Essays on Gaslighting in Organizations
In this dissertation, I theorize on how gaslighting manifests in managerial and organizational settings. I discuss the process of gaslighting and how the use of various manipulation tactics manifests between people in organizations over time. I take three distinctive approaches to study this complex phenomenon. First, using a rich case study, I develop new theory to explain how one notorious child molester was able to sustain a career for decades while assaulting hundreds of children and young women. In doing so, I introduce the concept of gaslighting which previously has only been rigorously applied to intimate interpersonal relationships in domestic (e.g., at home) settings. In essay 2, I expand on the individual level theory developed in essay 1 to develop a more generalized theory of gaslighting in organizations. I situate gaslighting within a nomological net of related constructs and illustrate how gaslighting is a unique construct with different antecedents and consequences that occurs in organizations more often than it should. In my final essay, I build on one of the propositions developed in essay 2 and empirically test what antecedents are likely to influence whether or not a firm is accused of gaslighting on Twitter. Through doing so, I find counter-intuitive yet interesting results. In conducting a post-hoc analysis, I reveal insightful knowledge about the interactions influencing whether a firm will be accused of gaslighting on Twitter and impacting the number of accusations that will be leveraged against a firm.
Three Essays on Collective Privacy and Information Security
In Essay 1, we seek to expand the insights on an individual's decision to share group content. Social networking sites (SNS) have become a ubiquitous means of socializing in the digital age. Using a survey, we collected data from 520 respondents with corporate work experience to test our research model. Our analysis highlights the complex interplay between individual and group factors that shape users' risk-benefit analysis of sharing group content on social networking sites. Furthermore, the results of this study have important implications for social networking site design and policy, particularly with regard to providing granular control over the privacy settings of group content and clear and concise information about the potential risks and benefits of sharing group content. Essay 2 aims to extend the knowledge of information security policy (ISP) compliance. Using a comprehensive approach, we extended the perspective of control mechanisms in the context of ISPs. It is evident that maintaining information security is an important concern for organizations of all sizes and industries. Organizations can establish policies and procedures to regulate and ensure compliance with information security policies, and various control mechanisms can be employed to ensure compliance. Among these control mechanisms, enforcement, punishment, evaluation, and recognition have been identified as important factors that influence information security policy compliance. In Essay 3, we delve deep into the current digital era and the reality of individuals becoming particularly vulnerable to privacy breaches. In the third essay, we offer a thorough examination of existing literature to gain insight into the disparities between users' stated privacy concerns and their actual information-sharing behavior. Our analysis reveals that, in addition to technological and environmental factors, cultural and personal differences significantly contribute to the paradoxical behavior observed among individuals. Utilizing the S-O-R (stimulus-organism-response) framework, we emphasize the necessity of examining the intricate interplay …
Freight Forwarder Satisfaction: A Conceptualization and an Empirical Test of Effect on Airport Customer Loyalty and Competitiveness
In 2018, global gross domestic product (GDP) was US$86.3 trillion, and almost a quarter of that value was due to international trade with a value of US$19.6 trillion. Air cargo accounts for about 35 percent of that trade value (approximately US$6.86 trillion). Moreover, from the perspective of the airport sector, air cargo revenue contributes between 20 to 70 percent of airport revenue. The global airport revenue for freight in 2018 was US$250 billion. Despite the interest and research activities surrounding competition and competitiveness of airports and specifically among airlines and passengers, it appears scholars have overlooked research concerning the competitiveness of airports when it comes to air cargo. This study attempts to fill the gap in the supply chain and logistics literature by putting forward a framework and ultimately operationalizing the framework highlighting the pivotal role of air cargo in the supply chain domain and within the global economy. Specifically, the framework is operationalized within the freight forwarding air cargo supply chain domain – providing insight into this important yet understudied phenomenon. The population of interest is freight forwarders from the Dubai International Airport, United Arab Emirates. The Middle East represents 18 percent of the world's air cargo volume and the region's air cargo volume has been growing three times faster than worldwide air cargo making the Dubai International Airport an appropriate and novel setting for the study. A sample frame obtained from the National Association of Freight and Logistics (NAFL) provided the final sample of 187 respondents. The survey was undertaken during the fourth quarter of 2019. The data are analyzed using structural equation modeling. The dissertation contributes to the supply chain and logistics literature by synthesizing and operationalizing a framework that measures freight forwarder satisfaction specific to air cargo. Relying on Porter's theory of industry structure and competitiveness, …
The Effects of the Use of Natural Language Processing and Task Complexity on Jurors' Assessments of Auditor Negligence
The purpose of my dissertation is to examine jurors' evaluation of auditor negligence in response to auditors' use of natural language processing (NLP). To test my research objective, I conducted a 2x2 between-subjects experiment with 175 jury-eligible individuals. In the online experiment, I manipulated whether the audit team analyzes contracts with NLP software or by having human auditors read the contracts. I also manipulated task complexity as complex or simple. The dependent variables include a binary verdict variable and a scaled assessment of negligence. This dissertation makes several contributions to the accounting literature and practice. First, it contributes to the recent juror literature on emerging technologies by providing evidence that jurors attribute higher negligence assessments to auditors when auditors use NLP to examine contracts than when human auditors examine contracts. I also find that auditors' use of NLP leads to jurors' higher perceived causation, which, in turn, increases jurors' assessments of auditor liability. Second, this study answers the call of other researchers to examine the relationship between task complexity and negligence in different settings. I also find a marginally significant interaction effect of the use of NLP compared to human auditors to perform audit testing that is greater for complex tasks than for simple tasks. Third, this dissertation provides new insights for practitioners and accounting firms when using emerging algorithm-based AI technologies such as NLP. As more AI technologies are used in audit practice, the findings will provide helpful insights for audit practitioners to consider when they utilize technologies to design and implement audit procedures.
A Heuristic Approach to Selection of Analytical Methods: Three Empirical Healthcare Studies
Managers rely on analytics to make decisions and the choice of the analytical method can influence their decision-making. This dissertation considers three cases and examines how the choice of analytical methods influence interpretations and implications. These areas are communication for health-related information in social media, health information technology investment by hospitals as it relates to patient satisfaction, and health related expenditure policies of countries. These studies develop theoretical models and empirically test them on primary or secondary data, comparing the performance of popular analytical methods. The conduct of these three studies contributes to a better understanding about the choice of analytical methods and allow development of a heuristic approach by offering guidelines for selecting an appropriate methodology. They demonstrate the value of heuristic approaches for use with non-traditional and traditional statistical methods, as the information gained from non-traditional methods (NNs) provides insights into traditional statistical methods, similar to insights gained from exploratory data analysis. The studies also show the value in examining any dataset with multiple methods because they either confirm each other or fail to confirm, providing insights.
Three Essays on Harmony in Intrapersonal Identity Networks
Drawing attention to an under-examined process during organizational socialization, we develop theory to explain how newcomers' new organizational roles and social identities become embedded. The process of identities becoming embedded is influenced by how an individual's preexisting identities interact with new organizational identities during socialization. Perceived harmony relationships among identities indicate if newcomers experience identities interacting in a positive or negative manner generally. Using a network perspective, we suggest that the identity embeddedness of new roles and identities are indicated by: degree centrality in an intrapersonal identity harmony network, perceived harmony with the network itself, and the perceived cost of lacking harmony with a focal identity. Newcomers are likely to be more satisfied and engaged with identities with greater embeddedness as well as find such identities more salient. Organizations can work to embed their employees' new identities through initiating identity work directed towards increasing harmony perceptions among the newcomers' new organizational identities and preexisting identities. Through helping individuals create harmony relationships among identities, organizations can improve socialization outcomes.
Three Essays on Information Security Risk Management
Today's environment is filled with the proliferation of cyber-attacks that result in losses for organizations and individuals. Hackers often use compromised websites to distribute malware, making it difficult for individuals to detect. The impact of clicking through a link on the Internet that is malware infected can result in consequences such as private information theft and identity theft. Hackers are also known to perpetrate cyber-attacks that result in organizational security breaches that adversely affect organizations' finances, reputation, and market value. Risk management approaches for minimizing and recovering from cyber-attack losses and preventing further cyber-attacks are gaining more importance. Many studies exist that have increased our understanding of how individuals and organizations are motivated to reduce or avoid the risks of security breaches and cyber-attacks using safeguard mechanisms. The safeguards are sometimes technical in nature, such as intrusion detection software and anti-virus software. Other times, the safeguards are procedural in nature such as security policy adherence and security awareness and training. Many of these safeguards fall under the risk mitigation and risk avoidance aspects of risk management, and do not address other aspects of risk management, such as risk transfer. Researchers have argued that technological approaches to security risks are rarely sufficient for providing an overall protection of information system assets. Moreover, others argue that an overall protection must include a risk transfer strategy. Hence, there is a need to understand the risk transfer approach for managing information security risks. Further, in order to effectively address the information security puzzle, there also needs to be an understanding of the nature of the perpetrators of the problem – the hackers. Though hacker incidents proliferate the news, there are few theory based hacker studies. Even though the very nature of their actions presents a difficulty in their accessibility to research, a glimpse of …
Creating Supply Chain Resilience with Information Communication Technology
Supply chain resilience refers to the capability of a supply chain to both withstand and adapt to unexpected disturbances. In today's turbulent business environment, firms are continually seeking to create more resilience within their supply chain through increased information communication technology use and enhanced business-to-business relationships. The focus of this dissertation is the investigation of how information communication technology creates resilience at the differing process levels of supply chain operations. Past research into information communication technology use within supply chains has often been conducted at the macro-level of supply chain phenomena. As such, there is still much to understand about how decision-makers interact with information communication technology at the micro-level of supply chain decision-making. A more in-depth, broad coverage of this interaction will provide both practitioners and academics a better understanding of how to leverage information communication technology in achieving supply chain resilience. To meet this aim, this dissertation contains three essays that re-orient conceptual thinking about supply chain phenomenon, explore how advances in information communication technology influence business-to-business relationships, and identify how information communication technology effects the decision-making of supply chain managers.
A Foot in Two Worlds: Exploring Organizational and Professional Dual Identification
Who am I? Who are you? Who are we? These are some of the fundamental questions that identity scholars have grappled with since the 1900s when researchers across multiple disciplines first began to theorize about the self, identity, and identification. While the benefits and consequences of singular identities has been largely studied, recent scholars have argued for the importance of multiple identity research, as multiple identities have become increasingly salient to individuals due to societal and organizational changes including globalization and technological advancements. An important phenomenon within multiple identity research is dual identification, of which I explore a specific type– identification with both one's organization and one's profession. Using a three-study, quantitative design spanning two industries, I studied the effects of dual identification and identity conflict on individual psychological outcomes, turnover intentions, and OCB engagement. Findings from these three studies, holistically, indicate that when individuals experience identity conflict between their organizational and professional identities, they experience negative outcomes. These negative outcomes – increased emotional exhaustion, psychological distress, and turnover intentions, in addition to reduced OCB engagement – have important ramifications for the individuals themselves and their organization. However, post-hoc results indicate that dual identification – through the main effects of organizational and professional identification – itself leads to positive outcomes. Thus, whether multiple identities are a boon or burden might be a result of whether an individual has reconciled these identities. Ultimately, this research adds to the identity literature by providing a more nuanced view of multiple identities and their outcomes.
An Investigation of the Value of Bank Capital in the Context of Mergers and Acquisitions in the Banking Industry
I analyzed a sample of 228 U.S. bank acquisitions announced from January 1996 to December 2015. This dissertation explores whether acquiring banks pay more for targets with a higher capital ratio using a better measure of goodwill than previous studies. Specifically, this study uses manually collected goodwill to evaluate the value of bank capital, a measure that I argue is superior to those used in prior studies. I collect information about goodwill for 203 merger and acquisition (M&A) deals. I find a positive relation between the target's capital ratio and the goodwill paid for targets, which is consistent with previous cross sectional analysis on the relation between bank equity capital and value. This positive relation exists in the deals with a bank target, but not when the target is a savings institution. Furthermore, I find that the positive association between the target's capital ratio and goodwill paid by the acquirer only exists in the sample of acquisitions of banks announced before the 2007 financial crisis. This dissertation also evaluates the value of bank capital by analyzing the changes in shareholders' wealth around the announcement of M&As. My empirical analysis shows that banking mergers create value for the shareholder of targets. However, I find a significantly negative association between target's capital ratio and cumulative abnormal return to acquirers in M&As. Furthermore, I also report that this negative association only holds in M&As announced during and after the financial crisis. This dissertation also investigates the impact of bank capital on the cost of equity, another channel through which capital can influence banks' value. This dissertation tests the potential impact of bank capital on the cost of equity in the context of bank M&As. M&As are a good laboratory to study the relation between bank capital structure and the cost of equity capital …
Do Banks' Dividends Signal Their Financial Health?
This paper examines the relation between banks' dividends and their future financial health. Using banks' Nonperforming Loans Ratio, Loan Loss Provision Ratio, and Z-score as proxies for their financial health, I show that there is a strong positive relation between banks' dividends lagged by one quarter and their financial health in the current quarter. This main finding continues to hold following several additional tests, including the application of an instrumental variable approach, the use of change in dividends as the key independent variable, the exclusion of banks that are subject to stress test, the addition of macroeconomic variables, the exclusion of too-big-to-fail banks, and the exclusion of non-depository banks. I also find that the positive relation between banks' dividends and their future financial health is more pronounced for banks with a higher degree of opacity, a lower Tier 1 capital ratio, and during the 2007-2009 financial crisis. This paper contributes to three strands of the finance literature, including the Risk Reduction Hypothesis of dividend signaling in corporate finance, bank dividend policies, and the determinants of banks' financial stability. First, I show that there is a positive relation between banks' dividends lagged by one quarter and their financial health in the current quarter, also meaning that banks' dividends are negatively associated with their future risk conditions. This finding is consistent with the Risk Reduction Hypothesis regarding dividend signaling. Second, Floyd, Li, and Skinner (2015) propose a new idea that banks use dividends to signal financial health, and they rely on this idea to explain why banks have a higher and more stable propensity to pay dividends vis-à-vis industrials during the past several decades. My finding that banks' dividends are positively associated with their future financial health empirically supports this idea proposed by Floyd, Li, and Skinner (2015). Last, to my knowledge, …
Peeling Back the Layers of Ambidexterity in Multi-Business Firms
There is a dual accountability accepted by top executives of large multi-business firms (MBFs) to both consistently deliver performance in the short term and cultivate scalable opportunities for future growth, which requires that they be able to implement both evolutionary and revolutionary change. Researchers have defined this capability as organizational ambidexterity (OA) and deemed it a crucial requirement for every organization. Literature in the field of organizational ambidexterity (OA) describes the need to simultaneously orchestrate attention and activities along two dimensions of ambidexterity: exploitation and exploration. This dissertation peels back the layers in MBFs to generate a deeper understanding of OA in the MBF, by answering three research questions, using a mixed method approach-qualitative study followed by quantitative study: (1) What is an appropriate specification of OA in an MBF? (2) Are there differences in exploration and exploitation across the three levels within the MBF? and (3) Is there a relationship between exploration and exploitation and MBF performance at each of the three levels within the MBF? Qualitative Study 1 was conducted in December 2017, to investigate and confirm the appropriateness of the three-level operationalization of OA in MBFs. The data comprised eleven semi-structured interviews with senior executives that serve or have served as independent board directors (IBDs), chief executive officers (CEOs) or business unit general managers (BUGMs). The executives were able to articulate the existence of and differences in exploitation and exploration roles and activities at each of the three levels. Study 2 was conducted during June 2018, designed to test five sets of hypotheses. The study used a qualified panel of senior executives to generate a representative sample of respondents in each of three roles: IBDs, CEOs, and BUGMs. Data was collected through an online survey instrument, distributed to the panelists by Qualtrics and Centiment. Completed surveys resulted …
Small world, not small competition: does spatial distance among audit partners matter?
The purpose of my dissertation is to examine whether competition among audit partners affects audit quality. While prior research on audit market competition focuses on audit firm-level or office-level analyses, I argue that audit partners, as the primary decision makers in providing audit services, are likely to engage in competitive actions in the audit market. Further, I use spatial distance among audit partners to measure partner-level competition. I conjecture that spatial distance could better reflect the dynamics of audit market competition than the Herfindahl index, the traditional proxy for competition used in most extant studies. Drawing on the spatial economics theory and the social comparison theory, I hypothesize a negative association between competition measured by spatial distance and the quality level delivered by the incumbent audit partner. Using newly available data of U.S. audit partners, this study provides evidence that audit quality is higher (lower) when the spatial distance between the incumbent partner and the closest competing partner is larger (smaller). In addition, the results reveal that the effects of competition measured by spatial distance on audit quality is mainly a partner-level phenomenon rather than an office-level one. Overall, this study highlights the importance of studying competitive dynamics among audit partners.
The Determinants and Consequences of Having a Chief Operating Officer
This study examines the determinant and consequences of having a chief operating officer (COO). Specifically, we investigate chief executive officer (CEO) related factors that affect the choice to employ a COO and look into the impact of having a COO on firm operational efficiency using a data envelopment analysis (DEA)-based measure. Although prior literature has extensively investigated the role of CEOs and chief finance officers (CFOs) on firm outcomes, few studies focus on the impact of COOs. Thus, this study explores characteristics associated with the likelihood that a firm will have a COO. This research also sheds light on the effect of COOs on firm operational efficiency because the core duties of COOs include optimizing operational performance and improving cost efficiency. Our results imply that CEO busyness, CEO ability, CEO demographic characteristics, and CEO network size have a significant impact on the decision to employ a COO. We also find that firms that have a COO have a lower level of operational efficiency than firms that do not. This result implies that the cost of having a COO outweighs the benefit of having one. The effects last for three years on average. Further, we find that firms with a COO have lower receivables turnover and sales to cost of goods sold ratio, lower sales to PPE expense ratio than firms without a COO. Finally, we find evidence that COOs with industry expertise are associated with higher operational efficiency than those without such expertise and outside COOs perform better than inside COOs in terms of operational efficiency.
Impact of Market State on Momentum Portfolio Risk and Performance: A Risk-Based Explanation
The momentum puzzle, i.e., stocks that have performed better in the past tend to perform better in the future, has been a constant challenge to classic finance theory. Prior research has failed to provide valid risk-based explanations because winner portfolios do not exhibit higher risk characteristics. Without a convincing risk explanation, the persistence of momentum profit is a violation of the efficient market hypothesis. Today, the momentum puzzle remains one of the very few major anomalies that cannot be explained by Fama-French factor models. I find prior empirical efforts to measure momentum profits and its sources are contaminated by the state of the market during both formation and holding periods. By looking into different market states, classified by both traditional and non-traditional bull and bear market definition, I find the key to at least partially solve the momentum mystery. Momentum stocks are riskier when formed in bull market, and momentum profit is much higher in continuation of market than reverses of market condition, lending empirical support to a risk-based explanation. My definition of market states is essentially based on the risk premium of major risk factors. When market risk is considered a risk factor, if realized market risk premium is positive, it is a bull market; when size is considered a proxy for risk factor, if SMB (small minus big risk premium) is positive, it is a bull market; when valuation (book-to-market) ratio is a proxy for risk factor, if HML (High-minus-Low risk premium) is positive, it is a bull market. This paper also explores simulations using models based on the positive relationship between risk and return. The simulation result confirms that at least part of the momentum profit can be explained by risk.
An Empirical Investigation into the Value of Credit Lines
Access to adequate liquidity to finance future investments is an essential element of financial management. The two main questions that this dissertation attempts to answer are (i) what is the net valuation effect of LoC? and (ii) if LoC create value, what are the sources of this value? To answer these questions, I constructed a sample of 85,232 firm-years spanning from 1993 to 2016, with credit line data obtained from Capital IQ and Bloomberg. I investigated the valuation effects of LoC with a methodology extensively used in the analysis of the valuation implications of cash. I used this methodology because cash and LoC are two alternatives to manage liquidity and estimated the changes in shareholders' value associated with changes in existing LoC undrawn balances and on new LoC agreements. The results from this analysis demonstrates a positive association between increases in LoC capacity and shareholder's value. These findings are also obtained in univariate and event study analyses. The results also suggest that LoC create more value for firms that are rich in cash, indicating the LoC and cash are complementary liquidity management tools. I then focused on the sources of the value created by credit lines. I examined whether information asymmetry plays a role in LoC valuation by analyzing the association between firm value and LoC for firms with high- and low-information asymmetric. I also studied whether LoCs reduce agency problems by comparing firm value and LoC capacity in both poorly and well-governed firms. Furthermore, I examined whether firms benefit from an increase in financial flexibility provided by access to credit lines. I found results consistent with LoC being more valuable for firms with higher levels of informational asymmetries. The analysis also suggests that LoCs with longer maturity create more value than those with shorter maturity. Surprisingly, I find limited …
How is the Volatility Priced by the Stock Market?
Traditional portfolio theory suggests that, in equilibrium, only the market risk is priced in the cross-section of expected stock returns. However, if the market is not perfect and investors are constantly changing investing behaviors based on their perceptions about future market outlook, then non-traditional risk factors could potentially provide significant power of describing the expected stock returns. This dissertation has two essays on the pricing of volatility, in which the market is not assumed to be frictionless or perfect. Essay 1 focuses on the pricing of individual volatility in penny stocks. Empirical results show that individual volatility plays an important role in describing the average cross-sectional returns of penny stocks. Resorting to the rolling portfolio approach, evidences indicate that portfolios consisting of penny stocks with high individual volatilities, on average, earned much higher returns than portfolios consisting of penny stocks with low individual volatilities. This effect is statistically significant when multiple factors are controlled simultaneously. Essay 2 focuses on the pricing of the market volatility among individual stocks. Following the rolling portfolio method, Essay 2 constructs portfolios that consist of individual stocks with various market volatility exposures. Traditional risk factors such as market beta, size, book-to-market, and momentum are controlled respectively to obtain more detailed analyses. Empirical results yield a negative pricing of the market volatility and it is more prominent in stocks that have high market beta, small size, and high book-to-market.
Who Makes the Decision? Managerial Influence on Corporate Boards and Auditor Selection, Change, and Compensation
This dissertation examines whether managers influence corporate boards of directors in their auditor selection, change, and compensation decisions. This topic is important because it addresses concerns that the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX) is not effective in eliminating managerial influence over auditor engagement decisions and that it may provide a false sense of security to investors. These concerns are based on the implicit assumption that managers prefer weaker governance oversight and lower audit quality. However, empirical research testing associations between managerial influence and audit-related decisions post-SOX is scarce and generally guided by agency theory. Incorporating agency, stewardship, and resource dependence perspectives, I find that managerial preferences for auditor selection are not aligned. Specifically, CEOs positively influence the selection of higher quality auditors, whereas CFOs have the opposite effect. Further, CEOs who hold powerful roles as chairs of their companies' boards of directors appear to mitigate the negative influence of CFOs and inside directors on audit quality. CEOs serving in dual roles also oppose auditor turnover when lower earnings quality prompt higher demand for audit effort. Finally, my study provides some evidence that management exercises downward pressures on audit fees, suggesting that managers utilize their authority beyond the regulations established by SOX to negotiate auditor compensation.
The Embarrassment Paradox: Encouraging Compensatory Consumption in Morality-Laden Contexts
This research introduces the unique context of immoral inaction—situations in which consumers have the opportunity to engage in virtuous behaviors but opt against doing so. Through five studies I demonstrate that in such contexts, embarrassment—a negatively valenced self-conscious moral emotion evoked by the perception that one's behavior is worthy of judgment by others—interacts with the use of approach-motivated coping strategies to lead consumers to engage in prosocial compensatory behaviors. Though extant literature suggests that marketers seeking to evoke prosocial behaviors should employ communications and promotions framed to elicit consumers' guilt, such studies are based in contexts whereby individuals feel guilty and/or embarrassed because of something they have done, not for something they did not do. This research suggests that that the condition of immoral inaction serves to evoke a contrasting psychological mechanism that reverses these findings, making embarrassment a more effective driver of desired outcomes when marketers seek to promote overcoming past inactions. These findings are discussed in light of their implications for research and application.
Back to Top of Screen