The purpose of this three-essay dissertation is to synthesize and extend the effects of decentralization in decision-making and supply chain complexity in the context of supply chain resilience (SCRES).First essay contributes to theory and practice by expanding resilience thinking into including supply chain orientation and organizational structure and their implications and also responds to prior research arguing for the importance of identifying organizational factors that improve supply chain resilience. Second essay contributes to the supply chain organizational structure and SCRES literature by not just providing empirical support for decentralization of decision making in times of disruptions but more precisely by showing the factors that either impede or facilitate decentralization at the organizational level. Understanding the interplay among these factors is critical to explaining the lack of success for decentralization in the context of SCRES. Third essay contributes to practice by reviewing some of the major complexity drivers present in the supply chains and providing strategies along with a four-step process that practitioners can use to manage complexity.

This research aims to investigate the (1) review effects on consumer decision making process, (2) effects of negative reviews on brand equity, and (3) consumers' likely response to a brand's request for reviews. The objective of the first essay is to investigate the nature of the relationship between skepticism and consumer decision making in an online behavior context. Its second objective is to know whether people's belief on their abilities or their hedonic principle moderates the relationship between a person's skepticism toward online reviews and their reliance on online reviews. The objective of the second essay is to explore whether negative online reviews that focus on service quality specific dimensions have a different effect on a service organization's perceived brand equity. Its second objective is to analyze the role of emotional contagion in the relationship between negative reviews related to various service quality dimensions and its effect on perceived brand equity. The main objective of the third essay is to know whether consumers are more likely to write an online review for a brand when the request comes from a higher equity brand. This essay also investigates how message trust and persuasion knowledge influence the relationship between a brand's request …

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 …

This dissertation extends our understanding of how rivalries are formed, what their antecedents are, and how and why they influence consumer choices. Furthermore, the psychological processes underlying the rivalry effects and the moderating effects of temporal focus are uncovered.

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 …

In collective affect research, an assumption is often made that through processes such as emotional contagion and attraction-selection-attrition members will converge unto a shared group affective tone. While this assumption is not without warrant, a limitation of previous work on interpersonal emotional processes of individuals, individuals within dyadic relationships, or members within teams is the lack of examination into the varying perceptions individuals may form regarding these affective experiences. To examine the development and influence of these affective perceptions, we extend recent works from work group conflict literature to examine the influence of perception asymmetry when applied to affective interactions. Wherein, we describe a novel construct of Perception Asymmetry of Affect (PAA). PAA refers to the congruence (e.g.; low level of PAA) or incongruence (e.g.; high level) of perceptions of positive and negative affective experiences between two or more individuals. This paper explores the following questions: 1) does perception asymmetry of affect exist; 2) if so, what causes perception asymmetry between individuals and their groups, within dyads, and within groups. This article contributes to literature on collective affect by offering a detailed framework for an understudied phenomenon of diverging or asymmetric perceptions.

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.

To address emerging challenges in empowering patients through telehealth, this dissertation has the following objectives: (a) find the key characteristics that enable patient empowerment [PE], (b) determining when will PE work as a solution, (c) find the optimal telehealth care method that enables PE, and (d) evaluate the impact of telehealth on health care outcomes (such as, patient satisfaction, patient trust with primary care providers, etc.) that ultimately enhances PE. These objectives are addressed in three studies presented here as three essays. Collectively, these essays contribute to the knowledge on PE, patient trust, and telehealth by providing insights on leveraging PE towards better health care services and delivery systems. Essay 1 aims to systemically map the concept of PE using principles of systems thinking with the Boardman soft systems methodology that enables a graphical visualization (i.e., systemigrams). Essay 2 investigates the practical and theoretical implications of connecting patients to empowerment care plans and minimizing wait times in healthcare service delivery using electronic prescriptions (s-scripts), phone calls, and video calls. In Essay 3, the mediating role of telehealth services between patient empowerment and patient satisfaction was analyzed, along with patient trust was assessed as a moderator between telehealth usability and patient …

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.

Phishing is a social engineering attack to deceive and persuade people to divulge private information like usernames and passwords, account details (including bank account details), and social security numbers. Phishers typically utilize e-mail, chat, text messages, or social media. Despite the presence of automatic anti-phishing filters, phishing messages reach online users' inboxes. Understanding the influence of phishing techniques and individual differences on susceptibility and detection accuracy is an important step toward creating comprehensive behavioral and organizational anti-phishing awareness programs. This dissertation seeks to achieve a dual purpose in a series of three essays. Essay 1 seeks to explore the nature of phishing threats that including identifying attack intentions, and psychological and design techniques of phishing attacks. Essay 2 seeks to understand the relative influence of attack techniques and individual phishing experiential traits on people's phishing susceptibility. Essay 3 seeks to understand an individual's cognitive and affective differences that differentiate between an individual's phishing detection accuracy.

Independent manufacturers' representatives (IMRs) are companies that sell products on behalf of manufacturers (principals), typically on a commission basis. IMRs offer principals specialized knowledge about product areas or markets, and they can function as attractive supplements or replacements for in-house sales units. The literature on IMRs' allocation of resources to their principals and the downstream impact on performance is underexplored. A paucity of published research exists using actual IMR sales and commission data, likely because this data is difficult to collect due to its sensitive nature. This dissertation fills this gap by exploring the influence of principals' use of sales controls, how these controls impact the psychological climate that arises between IMRs and their principals, and the downstream impact on IMRs' allocation of sales resources and the sales volumes actually produced. Furthermore, this dissertation answers the call for research on the impact of principal's use of house territories and house accounts, through the lens of the IMR. The dissertation features three essays. The purposes are: to identify gaps in existing IMR research in order to provide directions for future research in this domain; to explore the influence of the principal's sales controls on the psychological climate between the principal and …

Social media platforms create rich social structures, expand users' boundaries of social networks and revolutionize traditional forms of communications, social interactions and social relationships. These platforms not only facilitate the creation and sharing of news and information, but they also drive various kinds of businesses models, processes and operations, knowledge sharing, marketing strategies for brand management and socio-political discourses essential for healthy and democratic functions. As such, social media has greater implications on organizations and society brought about by individuals' social media usage patterns, and therefore, calls for further investigations. The main objective of this dissertation is to explore and offer insights into such social media usage and information sharing behaviors via data driven examination of various theories. This dissertation involves three studies that focus on factors that explain individuals' three different social media usage behaviors. Essay 1 investigates individuals' perceived importance of online affiliation, self-esteem, self-regulation and risk-benefit structure as antecedents of users' geo-tagging behavior on social media. Essay 2 examines the role of online news quality, source credibility, individuals' perception towards online civic engagement, attitude towards news sharing and social influences to understand users' news sharing behavior on social media platforms. Essay 3 seeks to examine the individuals' …

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 …

Performance-based contracting (PBC) redefines the relationships between suppliers and buyers and differs from traditional contracting approaches with its reward/payment scheme, emphasis on the performance outcomes, increased supplier autonomy, and transfer of risk and responsibilities to suppliers. Given the 70% of life cycle costs of products/systems reside in sustainment, PBC has led to substantial improvements in availability, maintainability, reliability, and thus total cost of ownership of systems/products. Though PBC has changed the way of doing business and its presence has increased across multiple industry, private and public sectors, for profit and not-for-profit, its implications on various aspects of logistics and supply chain management have been understudied. It is important to explore and establish evidence regarding these implications through academic rigor. Therefore, this three-essay dissertation aims to give some insight regarding structural and behavioral implications of PBC using a multi-method approach. Specifically, it (1) explores the relationship between PBC and supply chain resilience (SCRES), (2) examines the supplier goal commitment (i.e., motivation) in PBC, (3) proposes a mathematical model to find optimal contract length, periodic contract price and investment that concurrently maximizing supplier profit and satisfying buyer requirements. This dissertation offers theoretical and managerial contributions as well.

Contract selection is at the forefront of risk management and mitigation, yet it is an underrepresented area of research in supply chain management field as well as the influences of individual-level risk propensity and risk perception on supply chain decision-making processes. This dissertation explores effects of managerial risk propensity and risk perception on contract selection through the theoretical lens of Transaction Cost Economics (TCE), using a vignette-based experimental research design. This body of work introduces both a first-ever systemmigram of TCE in relation to contract selection, and a novel measurement scale for TCE contract typology. Furthermore, this dissertation tests the TCE predictions towards contract selection and explores the moderating role of financial risk propensity and risk perception (cost vs. supplier performance) on contract selection. The main theoretical contribution of this research is the opening of an old debate on the risk neutrality assumption of TCE, by providing empirical evidence that individual-level risk propensity and perception effect contract selection. The practical implications are significant and points out to the need for a better fit between individual-level and firm-level risk propensity.

Team psychological safety fosters interpersonal risk-taking and constructive debate. Yet, how psychological safety develops in diverse teams needs to be explained. I apply collective regulatory lenses to shed light on how collective prevention focus (status quo) and collective promotion focus (growth) uniquely affect team psychological safety. I believe promotion focus makes it easier to attain psychological safety, while prevention focus makes it harder. Under a collective promotion lens, teams seek growth. Under a collective prevention lens, teams desire protection and not making things any worse. A pilot study of 76 students in 17 student project teams provided initial support for individual relationships in my model. In Study 2, an experiment, I manipulated team regulatory foci in three tasks (building towers, selling a house, negotiating a salary). I did not find significant mean group differences in psychological safety between promotion (n = 17) and prevention (n = 15) teams; yet, promotion teams experienced greater team viability in the final activity. In Study 3, I employed an experimental vignette method that suggested leadership conditions (e.g., leader humility vs transactional leadership) created differences in regulatory foci and subsequent differences in psychological safety with 343 working professionals in 7 scenarios.

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 …

This dissertation contributes to IS research by explaining user intentions while using AR features in mobile social networking and retail app contexts. It consists of three essays, which use partial least squares modeling to analyze different consumer behavior models. The first essay examines the influence of quality, human, and environmental factors on AR reuse intention in a mobile social networking context. The second essay introduces position relevance, a new construct essential to AR research in e-commerce, and it looks at the influence of this construct and app involvement on user purchase intention, while using view-in-room features on mobile retail apps. The third essay examines the influence of service quality and visual quality on recommendation intention of mobile retail apps while using view-in-room features compared to shopping without using these AR features.

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 …

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 …

Logistics 4.0 suggests that increased automation can enhance performance, while Logistics 5.0 emphasizes the advantages of a modern workforce that combines humans and emerging technologies. However, the logistics industry needs a deeper understanding of human factors, an area that has been overlooked so far. To bridge this research gap, this dissertation investigated distracted driving behavior among individuals involved in transportation and logistics-based applications. This investigation employed both qualitative and quantitative research methods. Essay 1 focuses on a systematic literature review (SLR) that comprehensively analyzes published research on self-response studies regarding distracted driving behavior. The study identifies five overarching categories of distractions: (a) cell phone-related, (b) technology-related, (c) nontechnology-related, (d) psychological, and (e) personality. The findings underscore the substantial research conducted on self-reported distractions associated with cell phones and technology. Essay 2 employs the protection motivation theory (PMT) to develop hypotheses that predict the engagement of young drivers in texting while driving (TWD). In addition to TWD, the survey also included cognitive failure to examine the indirect effects of PMT on TWD within a mediation framework. The results, obtained through structural equation modeling with 674 respondents aged 18-25, indicate that several factors including response cost, threat vulnerability, cognitive failure, self-efficacy, and …

This dissertation research explores the factors that influence direct selling agents' sales performance and job satisfaction. In the direct selling channels, the agents not only sell the products to customers. They may concurrently perform a "distributor" role as a stand-alone entity composed of their own sales network. This dissertation research features two essays. The first essay investigates how direct selling agents' perceptions of control and sense of belonging relate to PO. This essay further explores how PO influences job performance and job satisfaction. Results suggest that perception of control and sense of belonging fuel PO. Furthermore, leader-member exchange mediates the relationship between PO and sales performance, as well as PO and job satisfaction in direct selling networks. The second essay introduces a new construct (relational incongruity) and discusses how complex sales environments and direct selling agents' organizational structures influence the relational incongruity in their organization and its ensuring effect on sales performance and job satisfaction. The results indicate that organizational complexity is positively related to relational incongruity. However, customer complexity has a negative impact on relational incongruity. Relational incongruity in direct selling agents' organizations has negative effects on job satisfaction but has no effects on sales performance. Epistemic curiosity undermines …

Intelligent algorithm approaches that augment the analytical capabilities of traditional techniques may improve the evaluation and performance of decision making units (DMUs). Crises such as the massive COVID-19 pandemic-related shock to businesses have prompted the deployment of analytical tools to provide solutions to emerging complex questions with incredible speed and accuracy. Performance evaluation of DMUs (e.g., financial institutions) is challenging and often depends on the sophistication and robustness of analytical methods. Therefore, advances in analytical methods capable of accurate solutions for competitive real-world applications are essential to managers. This dissertation introduces and reviews three robust methods for evaluating and optimizing the decision-making processes of DMUs to assist managers in enhancing the productivity and performance of their operational goals. The first essay proposes a robust search field division method, which improves the performance of evolutionary algorithms. The second essay proposes a robust double judgment approach method that enhances the efficiency of the data envelopment analysis method. The third essay proposes a robust general regression neural network method to examine the effect of shocks on GDP loss caused by COVID-19 on the global economy. These three essays contribute to optimization methodology by introducing novel robust techniques for managers of DMUs to improve …

Size premium puzzle, also known as the size effect, is one of the most studied anomalies in asset pricing literature. It refers to the observation that, on average, smaller firms have higher risk-adjusted returns than larger firms over a long period of time. While many studies have debated the existence of the size effect, the question of why it exists has become a subject of heated debate. Thus, this dissertation aims to examine if previously overlooked factors can, at least partially, explain the size effect. Essay 1 examines if merger and acquisition activity can explain a part of the size effect. I find that merger and acquisition activity explain a part of the size effect. The size effect is found to be stronger during merger waves but is not consistent across industries. Further, the size effect tends to be stronger when acquisition activity is concentrated among smaller firms. Essay 2 investigates if expectational errors explain the higher return of small firms. Several empirical studies show that stocks that investors underestimate yield higher returns. However, I do not find support for the underestimation explanation in explaining the higher returns of small firms. Instead, I find that investors are overly optimistic about …