Barrett, The Honors College Thesis/Creative Project Collection
Barrett, The Honors College at Arizona State University proudly showcases the work of undergraduate honors students by sharing this collection exclusively with the ASU community.
Barrett accepts high performing, academically engaged undergraduate students and works with them in collaboration with all of the other academic units at Arizona State University. All Barrett students complete a thesis or creative project which is an opportunity to explore an intellectual interest and produce an original piece of scholarly research. The thesis or creative project is supervised and defended in front of a faculty committee. Students are able to engage with professors who are nationally recognized in their fields and committed to working with honors students. Completing a Barrett thesis or creative project is an opportunity for undergraduate honors students to contribute to the ASU academic community in a meaningful way.
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- Creators: Kashiwagi, Jacob
Description
The purpose for creating this thesis project is to discover the effects that options have on consumer behavior and satisfaction, and to determine whether or not more options are a good thing. In exploring these questions, Information Measurement Theory (IMT), a theory founded by Dr. Dean Kashiwagi which relies on understanding natural laws to help minimize decision-making and risk, was utilized to draw conclusions. IMT illustrates that any given situation can only have one unique outcome, and minimizing decision-making in turn leads to reduced stress. The more information an individual has for the given situation, the better he/she can predict the outcome. The concepts of IMT, specifically the ideal that more decision-making leads to higher stress, were utilized to illustrate that more options naturally leads to more decisions and as a result more decision-makers will feel greater stress and less satisfaction. To conduct this research we explored two different segments of consumer markets. The first branch of our research was comprised of analyzing the differences in operations and menu structures of different fast food chains, most specifically In-N-Out and McDonald's and how these differences affect customer satisfaction. The other branch of our research involved reviewing phone case ratings based on Amazon reviews for a number of different phone types with varying popularity to gauge consumer satisfaction. Our results found that while both In-N-Out and McDonald's are successful companies, In-N-Out ranked consistently higher in customer satisfaction. Furthermore, a large portion of this satisfaction can be attributed to In-N-Out's simplistic menu structure which limits the amount of options and therefore decisions that a customer must make. Similarly, our study of phone cases found that for phone models where less case options are offered, customers rated their cases higher on a scale of 1-5 stars regardless of brand or the number of reviews. Through a combination of IMT and our research we were able to conclude that less options does indeed lead to higher consumer satisfaction.
ContributorsBrandt, Lawrence (Co-author) / Spiller, Ryan (Co-author) / Kashiwagi, Dean (Thesis director) / Kashiwagi, Jacob (Committee member) / Department of Finance (Contributor) / Department of Management (Contributor) / Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
The author is interested in a variety of topics in the sector of sports, especially coaching. Growing up in a household with a father who was a high school basketball coach for 21 years, the author has always seen sports in a different light, especially basketball. As a result, the author has been intrigued for quite some time by possible indicators and/or predictors for successful basketball coaches. Principles taken from Dr. Dean Kashiwagi's Infomation Measurement Theory and Kashiwagi Solution Model were utilized in the evaluation of current and former coaches in the National Basketball Association. 4 NBA coaches were researched in a manner that evaluated their overall success based on: longevity, wins/losses, and championships. While many of the key principles highlighted in IMT/KSM are applicable in this study, much of the emphasis was placed on evaluating Type A and Type C characteristics present in both successful and unsuccessful coaches.
ContributorsWinter, Logan Brian (Author) / Kashiwagi, Dean (Thesis director) / Kashiwagi, Jacob (Committee member) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
Sports gambling is an illegal multi-hundred-billion-dollar industry in the United States today. Due to the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA), 46 states are denied the opportunity to offer state-sponsored sports gambling (Delaware, Montana, Nevada, and Oregon are exempt). The problem with this law is that sports gambling is still occurring over the internet and through bookies. The government's attempt to control the choices of the American people isn't stopping them from gambling on sports, rather it is pushing them to underground channels where regulation has no foothold. The American government is failing to take advantage of tax revenue that can be used to monitor the sports gambling world along with the sports themselves. This issue of control has had its place in American history and the government finds itself on the wrong side of it once again. This thesis explores the misconceptions in the government's perceived idea of "control" and proposes that PASPA be repealed because of the enormous tax revenue opportunity eliminated by outlawing sports gambling.
ContributorsNypen, Tyler Dempsey (Author) / Kashiwagi, Dean (Thesis director) / Kashiwagi, Jacob (Committee member) / Department of Management (Contributor) / School of Community Resources and Development (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05