The present sbudy is an effort to seek information from a type of organization rarely studied along the lines of employee satisfaction's correlation to job performance—a state institution for the mentally retarded—which will shed significant light on the dynamics of this question. It is unique in that it focuses closely on the specific job duties of both managerial and non-managerial employees as a basis for understanding the relationship between employee satisfaction and performance.

The fundamental purpose of this dissertation is to determine the extent to which many of the corporations within the United States are implementing formalized planning processes. The conditions surrounding the corporation have caused the movement toward a more systematic approach to corporate planning since there appears to be no better substitute for a formalized planning process to help assure the survival and growth of the firm.

This dissertation investigates the sources of growth which are available to conglomerate companies and draws some limited conclusions with regard to which are the major sources.

Previous research on workplace bullying primarily focuses on two main actors – the bully and the victim – while neglecting a third actor: the bystander of the bullying. The prevalence of workplace bullying is increasing across organizations, resulting in more employees becoming subjected to the effects of workplace bullying. Furthermore, witnessing coworker-on-coworker bullying is likely to influence the relationships that the bystander has with the two coworkers involved in the bullying episode. Two areas are proposed to investigate their effect on the coworker bystander: coworker interpersonal justice and personal identification with coworkers. Coworker interpersonal justice involves the perceived fairness between coworkers, while personal identification refers to how these bystanders identify with the specific actors of the bullying event. In addition to work-related outcomes, bystanders are affected at a personal level. That is, being exposed to bullying situations causes these bystanders to alter their anxiety levels and their core affect, with core affect being a precursor to moods and emotions. In addition to the aforementioned outcomes of witnessing a coworker bullying incident, there are also contextual aspects which may influence these relationships. Personal-level factors, such as a bystander's empathy and sense of coherence (i.e., coping mechanisms), may influence the effect of …

This study analyzes corporate governance practices of foreign (non-U.S.) issuers listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and Nasdaq. Specifically, I examine the extent to which these foreign issuers voluntarily comply with U.S. stock exchange corporate governance requirements applicable to domestic issuers. My sample consists of 201 foreign companies primarily domiciled in Brazil, China, Israel, and the United Kingdom. I find that 151 (75 per cent) of the sample firms do not elect to comply with any of the U.S. corporate governance requirements. Logistic regression analysis generally supports the hypotheses that conformance with U.S. GAAP and percentage of managerial ownership are positively associated, and that percentage ownership by major shareholders is negatively associated with foreign firms electing to comply with U.S. corporate governance rules. This evidence is relevant for regulators and investors.

Because of the non-recurring and transitory nature of discontinued operations, accounting standards require that the results of discontinued operations be separately reported on the income statement. Prior accounting literature supports the view that discontinued operations are non-recurring or transitory in nature, and also suggests that income classified as transitory has minimal relevance in firm valuation. Finance and management literature, however, suggest that firms discontinue operations to strategically utilize their scarce resources. Assuming that discontinued operations are a result of managerial motives to strategically concentrate resources into remaining continued operations, this dissertation examines the informativeness of discontinued operations. In doing so, this dissertation empirically tests the financial performance, investment efficiency, valuation, and analyst forecast accuracy effects of discontinued operations. In 2001, Financial Accounting Standards Board's (FASB) Statement of Financial Accounting Standards (SFAS) 144 (hereafter SFAS 144) replaced Accounting Principles Board's Opinion 30 (hereafter APB 30) and broadened the scope of divestiture transactions to be presented in discontinued operations. Some stakeholders of financial statements argued that discontinued operations were less decision-useful in the SFAS 144 era because too many transactions that do not represent a strategic shift in operations were separately stated as discontinued operations on the income statement. With the possibility …

My dissertation consists of two essays on CFOs' promotion-based tournament incentives and performance-based equity incentives. The first essay examines the joint implications of CFOs' tournament incentives and equity incentives for firms' risk-taking. With the pay gap between the CEO and the CFO as the proxy for the CFO's tournament incentives, I find that the relationship between a firm's risk taking and the CFO's tournament incentives is non-monotonic. In particular, I show that below a certain level, increase in pay gap is associated with increase in firm risk taking (e.g., higher leverage, lower cash holding balance and higher R&D intensity). However, after reaching a certain level, the CEO-CFO pay gap negatively impacts risk-taking, as increase in pay gap is associated with lower leverage, higher cash holding balance and lower R&D intensity. With the CFO's pay-performance sensitivity as the proxy for the CFO's equity incentives, I find that the CFO's equity incentives negatively impact firm's R&D intensity, but have no significant impact on broader financial decisions such as capital structure and cash policy. Collectively, my findings indicate that CFO incentives play an important role in firm's risk-taking behaviors, and the effect of the CFO's tournament incentives is more pronounced. The second essay …

This dissertation uses service-dominant logic to understand customer value creation in service innovation context. Although co-creation became an interesting phenomenon among marketing scholars, the underlying mechanisms of co-creation process are still vague. To fill the gaps in the literature, we draw from S-D logic to understand antecedents and outcome of co-creation to service innovation context. The results of this study show that most of the hypotheses are supported, thus finding support for the overall model of value co-creation.

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.

Understanding information technology and its related products and services is increasingly important because the everyday use of technology continues to expand and broaden. Despite this need for greater understanding, the extant theories that explore the dominant factors that drive intention to use a new technology are limited. The Technology Acceptancy Model (TAM) is the most popular model in explaining traditional technology adoption. The limitations of the TAM in grasping the overall evaluation of technology or service are one of motivations for developing new models in this dissertation. The two antecedents of the TAM- perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use- only capture partial utility of a service (or product). In addition, some researchers argued that key factors used in an initial acceptance model such as perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use are not strong predictors of future continuance intention of the service because they do not consider future switching intention in the later stage. Hence, one goal of this dissertation is to develop and test new models to predict factors that drive intention and continuance intention decisions of new technology related products or services. This research involves three studies that examine different aspects of adoption and continuance intention decisions …

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 …

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, …

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 …

This manuscript includes an investigation of decision making in alternative modes of transportation in order to understand consumers' decision in different contexts. In essay 1 of this study, the motives for participation in situated ridesharing is investigated. The study proposes a theoretical model that includes economic benefits, time benefits, transportation anxiety, trust, and reciprocity either as direct antecedents of ridesharing participation intention, or mediated through attitude towards ridesharing. Essay 2 of this study, focuses on self-driving vehicles as one of the recent innovations in transportation industry. Using a survey approach, the study develops a conceptual model of consumers' anticipated motives. Both essays use partial least square- structural equation modeling for assessing the proposed theoretical models.

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 …

Internet of Things (IoT) is a promising technology with great potential for individuals, society, governments, and the economy. IoT is expected to become ubiquitous and influence every aspect of everyday experience. Thus, IoT represents an important phenomena for both organizational and behavioral information system (IS) researchers. This dissertation seeks to contribute to IS research by studying the aspects that influence IoT adoption and use at both consumer and organizational levels. This dissertation achieves this purpose in a series of three essays. The first essay focuses on IoT acceptance in the context of smart home. The second essay focuses on examining the effect of artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities on consumers' IoT perceptions and intentions. Finally, the third essay focuses on the organizational investment and adoption of IoT technologies.

There is currently an increasing trend among the American working population to voluntarily join the gig economy. New terms like the gig economy, sharing economy, internet freelancing, and eLancing have been created to understand this emerging trend among today's workforce. There is a small, yet highly relevant, body of scholarly literature in human resource management that is focused specifically on the eLancing economy as a subset of the gig economy. The purpose of this research is to acknowledge and contribute to this timely literature, which has adequately recognized the enormous potential of this new trend of working. Grounded in the psychology of working theory, a theoretical typology of eLancers is proposed based on the workers' level of volition to be able to choose eLancing as their employment. Further, various predictors such as demographics and personality characteristics were explored on the basis of which eLancers can be classified into types. The study also proposes that different types of eLancers differ in their attitudinal and behavioral work and life outcomes. Prior research has shown that career decisions made by individuals with high work volition relate to higher levels of overall well-being. Hence, classifying eLancers on the basis of their varying levels of …

This dissertation investigates the interrelationships between a client's non-GAAP earnings disclosures, financial health (profit and loss status), and the external auditor's assessment of the client's going concern status. This dissertation comprises two essays. Essay 1 examines the informativeness and the quality of non-GAAP earnings disclosures in profit and loss firms separately. Using a large sample of non-GAAP earnings voluntarily disclosed by managers, I find that the informativeness and the quality of non-GAAP earnings vary in firms cross-classified by GAAP loss status and non-GAAP loss status. I also find that loss firms have higher quality non-GAAP exclusions relative to profit firms, although the expenses excluded by both profit and loss firms are associated with firms' future performance. Further, I posit and find that profit firms which voluntarily disclose non-GAAP losses have high-quality exclusions, while other non-GAAP reporting profit firms have low-quality exclusions. Having found that non-GAAP earnings in loss firms is opportunistic to some extent, I next study, in Essay 2, whether auditors understand the implications of low-quality non-GAAP reporting in these firms. Specifically, I examine 1) whether non-GAAP earnings disclosures are associated with the propensity of the auditor's going concern issuance to loss firms, and 2) whether non-GAAP earnings disclosures …

Given the growing number of socially conscious and ethical consumers, brands have been taking a strategic approach to corporate social responsibility (CSR) by integrating socially responsible activities into the brand's core value proposition in order to remain relevant in the marketplace and drive brand equity. Extant research on CSR has investigated its effect on various consumer behavior outcomes. However, from a brand-building perspective, there is still a lack of understanding on how to effectively leverage CSR, and not enough directions on how to overcome its challenges in order to build brand equity. Therefore, through three essays, the objective of this dissertation is to provide a deep understanding of the effect that CSR has on brand equity while revealing brand-building strategies that can be implemented to effectively leverage CSR, specifically within the (1) global, (2) luxury, and (3) co-creation contexts.

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 …

Contentious interactions may arise between a tax professional and client upon a disagreement over a tax position. In an increasingly competitive tax return preparation market, these contentious interactions represent a significant threat to tax practitioners' client satisfaction and retention objectives. I conduct an experiment in which I examine the effect of three factors on tax clients' (1) likelihood to accept the advice of the tax accountant and (2) likelihood to switch tax accountants upon receiving professional advice counter to their preferred tax position. The three factors are: (1) clients' antagonistic narcissism; (2) clients' relationship with the accountant; and (3) how the advice is framed by the tax accountant. The results are based on a sample of 93 taxpayers. First, this study examines how clients' measured levels of narcissistic antagonism (hereafter, antagonism) impacts their reaction to "being told no" by their tax professional. Results indicate that upon the receipt of advice contrary to their preferences, highly antagonistic clients are more likely to (1) engage in a contentious interaction with their professional and (2) switch to a new tax professional. Supplemental path analyses document that individuals with high levels of antagonism cognitively react to instances of "being told no" by simultaneously devaluing …

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.

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 …

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' …