Library: Business

Lack of effective leadership strategies contributes to a reduction in employee engagement and productivity. Managers are concerned about the lack of effective leadership strategies because it negatively affects employee engagement and productivity, reducing organizational growth. Grounded in Bass's transformational leadership theory, the purpose of this qualitative single case study was to explore effective leadership strategies used to enhance employee engagement and increase productivity. Five managers from an electric cooperative in Northwest Florida who implemented effective leadership str...

The U.S. hospitality industry's profitability has been shifting to environmental management and corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices. Hospitality industries accounted for 5% of the global market in 2015 and are expected to increase by 130% in 2035. Grounded in stakeholder theory, this correlation study examined the relationship between corporate sustainability officer (CSO) CSR, CSO environmental management, and hospitality business profitability. Secondary data were collected from 97 hotel websites of the Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota from 2014 to 2016. The multiple linear regres...

Understanding risk is important. Prior to 2008, as the yields on safe assets hit rock bottom, investors began to focus on an alphabet soup of more complex instruments. These complex securities were rated AAA and appeared as safe as U.S. Treasuries, but with much higher yields. The 2008 financial crisis revealed, however, that higher yields on these instruments came with higher risk, albeit too late for these investors. This study seeks to understand the risk--return tradeoff, managerial skill, and factor exposures on the risk-return tradeoff in two financial instruments that have been limitedl...

This research paper outlines the summary of the key components of a research study that examined earnings management by analyzing the effect of external and internal corporate governance mechanisms on earnings management with an emphasis on external factors. The focus on corporate governance has been emphasized over the past decade by the activities of predators, through corporate collapses, and by previously unimaginable strategic developments. This research study is outlined as follows: research questions and hypotheses, comprehensive description of survey methodology, data collection, and s...

One of the most important jobs of a project manager is to manage a project’s budget and schedule. These tasks can easily be very difficult to accomplish on projects that are complex, especially since successful project execution relies heavily on people who are expected to perform their roles individually and as a team. One of the most difficult aspects of managing projects is estimating how fast and effectively humans will perform a task; that is, determining how productive workers collectively will be each day, each week, or within any time period during the life of a project. Because projec...

This doctoral dissertation performs correlational analysis using a validated instrument to collect data from internal coaches and certified Six Sigma Green Belts about their perceptions of the key drivers of project outcomes. The data were collected from a large healthcare organization in the United States. The conclusion of the study is that internal coaching positively influences project outcomes. The internal coaches and Green Belts studied, however, do not agree on how collaboration occurs. The internal coaches did not perceive they support Green Belt teams in a consistent manner. The g...

A great deal of literature confirms the fact that small family-owned businesses rarely extend beyond the founder of the business. This study explored and identified factors that helped to create a successful family business transition for two African American family-owned businesses in the San Antonio area. One family experienced working through a well thought-out succession plan that successfully passed the mantel from one generation to the next, while the other family experienced going through an unexpected, unplanned business succession that was also successful. Understanding the factors th...

The research problem focused on Panama's low-income consumers' decision making process when shopping for consumer-products. The purpose of the research was to determine Panama's low-income consumers' consumption values, preferences, and loyalty towards a particular brand over another. The qualitative research method was employed in this study, and the data collection process consisted of observation and in-depth interview documents that were organized and categorized. The results of the study found that Panama's low-income consumers' brand preferences were widely varied and brand-loyalty behav...

One of the primary concerns in a small business is the problem of risk. Many who begin the start-up process terminate it in less than one year. Of those that survive, many are unable to achieve sustained growth and profits. Small-to-medium business enterprises (SME) have a 50% to 90% chance of failure within the first five years. While there are measures of personal risk behavior of entrepreneurs, the literature contains no measure of risk orientation for the enterprise. The purpose of this study was to develop and validate a researcher-designed instrument to measure the critical forces of ...

This qualitative study explores how middle managers who thrived during Hurricane Katrina used their workplace social support systems. An emphasis was placed on identifying the sources and types of support received before, during, and after the Katrina crisis. Significant challenges exist today for organizations on the basis of societal, political, environmental, and technological trends. Among those trends are predictions of greater numbers and intensities of weather-related crises triggered in part by global weather pattern shifts and global warming. These challenges create a compelling ne...