Impact of Relational Incongruity on Customer Ownership and Sales Outcome Performance: A Resource-Advantage Theory Approach (open access)

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.
Date: December 2017
Creator: Fergurson, Ricky
System: The UNT Digital Library
An Analysis of the Philosophy and Trends of the High School Commercial Curriculum (open access)

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.
Date: 1948
Creator: Burden, Aline Smith
System: The UNT Digital Library
A Cooperative Part-Time Training Program in the Public Schools of Tulsa, Oklahoma (open access)

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.
Date: 1947
Creator: Taylor, S. Wayne
System: The UNT Digital Library
American Export Trade with Mexico (open access)

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.
Date: 1948
Creator: Williams, Donald Earl
System: The UNT Digital Library
A Study of Curricular Offerings in Business in the Colleges of Arkansas for the Period from 1936 to 1946 (open access)

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.
Date: 1947
Creator: Shores, P. T.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Significant Changes in Selected Financial and Operating Ratios of Twenty Leading Corporations for the Years 1940, 1944, 1946, and 1947 (open access)

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.
Date: 1948
Creator: Cox, Maple K.
System: The UNT Digital Library
An Evaluation of Distributive Education in Texas (open access)

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.
Date: 1941
Creator: Sanford, Charles
System: The UNT Digital Library
A Selective Reference List in Business Education for the Senior High School Library (open access)

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.
Date: 1947
Creator: Hedrick, James A.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Information Content of Non-GAAP Earnings of Cross-Listed Companies (open access)

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, …
Date: May 2018
Creator: Adhikari, Subash
System: The UNT Digital Library
Curricular Offerings in Business Education in the Junior Colleges of Texas (open access)

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.
Date: 1947
Creator: Green, William B.
System: The UNT Digital Library
A Comparison of Student and Teacher Objectives at Brantley-Draughon College, Fort Worth, Texas (open access)

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.
Date: 1947
Creator: Cox, Kenneth
System: The UNT Digital Library

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 …
Date: August 2022
Creator: Bhawal, Shalini
System: The UNT Digital Library

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 …
Date: August 2022
Creator: Howell, Dylan A.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Exploring Adoption, Implementation, and Use of Autonomous Mobile Robots in Intralogistics Applications (open access)

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 …
Date: August 2022
Creator: Maywald, Jacob Daniel
System: The UNT Digital Library

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.
Date: August 2022
Creator: Lai, Im Hong
System: The UNT Digital Library

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 …
Date: August 2022
Creator: Sadeghi, J. Kiarash
System: The UNT Digital Library

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.
Date: August 2022
Creator: Thapa, Sajani
System: The UNT Digital Library
An Evaluation of the Business Department of the Pilot Point High School to Study its Adequacy for Meeting Student and Community Needs (open access)

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.
Date: 1951
Creator: Bevers, Gertrude
System: The UNT Digital Library
Three Essays on Regulatory Focus, Consumer Creativity, and Co-Creation (open access)

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 …
Date: August 2018
Creator: Naletelich, Kelly
System: The UNT Digital Library
Value: An Examination of Its Key Dimensions and Elements through the Lens of Service-Dominant Logic and Beyond (open access)

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, …
Date: August 2018
Creator: Dickens, John
System: The UNT Digital Library
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 (open access)

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, …
Date: December 2018
Creator: Warren, Scott Joseph
System: The UNT Digital Library
Does the Method of Financing Stock Repurchases Matter? Examining the Financing of Share Buybacks and Its Effect on Future Firm Investments and Value (open access)

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 …
Date: December 2018
Creator: Peabody, Stephen Drew
System: The UNT Digital Library

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.
Date: May 2021
Creator: Wei, Xinyu "Eddy"
System: The UNT Digital Library
Size Framing: Conceptualization and Applications in Consumer Behavior (open access)

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.
Date: August 2017
Creator: Ketron, Seth
System: The UNT Digital Library