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Arizona and Florida are unique venues are they are the only two locations in the world to host the preseason leagues known as Spring Training for all thirty Major League Baseball teams. With fan bases willing to travel and spend disposable income to follow their favorite teams and/or escape the

Arizona and Florida are unique venues are they are the only two locations in the world to host the preseason leagues known as Spring Training for all thirty Major League Baseball teams. With fan bases willing to travel and spend disposable income to follow their favorite teams and/or escape the cold spells of their home state, the sports and tourism industries in Arizona and Florida have been able to captivate a status as top spring destinations. This study takes a focus on the economic impact that Spring Training in March has on the state of Arizona; specifically the Phoenix Metropolitan area. Consumer research is presented and a SWOT analysis is generated to further assess the condition of the Cactus League and Arizona as a host state. An economic impact study driven by the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities & Threats (SWOT) analysis method is the primary focuses of research due to the sum and quality of usable data that can be organized using the SWOT structure. The scope of this research aims to support the argument that Spring Training impacts the host city in which it resides in. In conjunction with the SWOT analysis, third parties will be able to get a sense of the overall effectiveness and impact of Cactus League Spring Training in the Valley of the Sun. Integration of findings from a Tampa Bay sight visit will also be assessed to determine the health of the competition. This study will take an interdisciplinary approach as it views the topics at hand from the lenses of the consumer, baseball professional, and investor.
ContributorsOlden, Kyle (Co-author) / Farmer, James (Co-author) / Eaton, John (Thesis director) / Mokwa, Michael (Committee member) / T. Denny Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics (Contributor) / College of Public Service and Community Solutions (Contributor) / Department of Information Systems (Contributor) / Department of Economics (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
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Description
Company X is one of the world's largest manufacturer of semiconductors. The company relies on various suppliers in the U.S. and around the globe for its manufacturing process. The financial health of these suppliers is vital to the continuation of Company X's business without any material interruption. Therefore, it is

Company X is one of the world's largest manufacturer of semiconductors. The company relies on various suppliers in the U.S. and around the globe for its manufacturing process. The financial health of these suppliers is vital to the continuation of Company X's business without any material interruption. Therefore, it is in Company X's interest to monitor its supplier's financial performance. Company X has a supplier financial health model currently in use. Having been developed prior to watershed events like the Great Recession, the current model may not reflect the significant changes in the economic environment due to these events. Company X wants to know if there is a more accurate model for evaluating supplier health that better indicates business risk. The scope of this project will be limited to a sample of 24 suppliers representative of Company X's supplier base that are public companies. While Company X's suppliers consist of both private and public companies, the used of exclusively public companies ensures that we will have sufficient and appropriate data for the necessary analysis. The goal of this project is to discover if there is a more accurate model for evaluating the financial health of publicly traded suppliers that better indicates business risk. Analyzing this problem will require a comprehensive understanding of various financial health models available and their components. The team will study best practice and academia. This comprehension will allow us to customize a model by incorporating metrics that allows greater accuracy in evaluating supplier financial health in accordance with Company X's values.
ContributorsLi, Tong (Co-author) / Gonzalez, Alexandra (Co-author) / Park, Zoon Beom (Co-author) / Vogelsang, Meridith (Co-author) / Simonson, Mark (Thesis director) / Hertzel, Mike (Committee member) / Department of Finance (Contributor) / Department of Information Systems (Contributor) / School of Accountancy (Contributor) / WPC Graduate Programs (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
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Description
Financial statements are one of the most important, if not the most important, documents for investors. These statements are prepared quarterly and yearly by the company accounting department, and are then audited in detail by a large external accounting firm. Investors use these documents to determine the value of the

Financial statements are one of the most important, if not the most important, documents for investors. These statements are prepared quarterly and yearly by the company accounting department, and are then audited in detail by a large external accounting firm. Investors use these documents to determine the value of the company, and trust that the company was truthful in its statements, and the auditing firm correctly audited the company's financial statements for any mistakes in their books and balances. Mistakes on a company's financial statements can be costly. However, financial fraud on the statements can be outright disastrous. Penalties for accounting fraud can include individual lifetime prison sentences, as well as company fines for billions of dollars. As students in the accounting major, it is our responsibility to ensure that financial statements are accurate and truthful to protect ourselves, other stakeholders, and the companies we work for. This ethics game takes the stories of Enron, WorldCom, and Lehman Brothers and uses them to help students identify financial fraud and how it can be prevented, as well as the consequences behind unethical decisions in financial reporting. The Enron scandal involved CEO Kenneth Lay and his predecessor Jeffery Skilling hiding losses in their financial statements with the help of their auditing firm, Arthur Andersen. Enron collapsed in 2002, and Lay was sentenced to 45 years in prison with his conspirator Skilling sentenced to 24 years in prison. In the WorldCom scandal, CEO Bernard "Bernie" Ebbers booked line costs as capital expenses (overstating WorldCom's assets), and created fraudulent accounts to inflate revenue and WorldCom's profit. Ebbers was sentenced to 25 years in prison and lost his title as WorldCom's Chief Executive Officer. Lehman Brothers took advantage of a loophole in accounting procedure Repo 105, that let the firm hide $50 billion in profits. No one at Lehman Brothers was sentenced to jail since the transaction was technically considered legal, but Lehman was the largest investment bank to fail and the only large financial institution that was not bailed out by the U.S. government.
ContributorsPanikkar, Manoj Madhuraj (Author) / Samuelson, Melissa (Thesis director) / Ahmad, Altaf (Committee member) / Department of Information Systems (Contributor) / School of Accountancy (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
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This thesis will examine market research relating to consumer food trends and the business environment of Austin, Texas in order to evaluate the initial feasibility of establishing a small hydroponic produce farm. A main concern of this report is to provide a general overview of hydroponics and its potential advantages

This thesis will examine market research relating to consumer food trends and the business environment of Austin, Texas in order to evaluate the initial feasibility of establishing a small hydroponic produce farm. A main concern of this report is to provide a general overview of hydroponics and its potential advantages over traditional farming methods as a technique for producing food products for consumers in a local setting. To explore the potential of establishing such a venture, this report will also include a partial business plan focusing on the marketing strategy of initiating a hydroponic produce farm in Austin.
ContributorsShriver, John Andrew (Author) / Schmitz, Troy (Thesis director) / Manfredo, Mark (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Information Systems (Contributor) / Department of Supply Chain Management (Contributor) / W. P. Carey School of Business (Contributor)
Created2015-05
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Description
We were driven by the question: what is happening to the popularity of Major League Baseball? In order to answer this question we compared the league structure of Major League Baseball with that of the National Football League. We were able to speak with five former or current members of

We were driven by the question: what is happening to the popularity of Major League Baseball? In order to answer this question we compared the league structure of Major League Baseball with that of the National Football League. We were able to speak with five former or current members of the respective leagues in order to gain some insight into how the two leagues operate. The main focus of our research was around the payroll structures of the two leagues as well as their revenue sharing policies. In the end, we discovered that Major League Baseball is becoming highly regionalized. The sport is still growing in popularity in terms of revenue and fan involvement, but it is becoming less popular on a national stage. The league is benefitting greatly from factors like the increasing importance of "TiVo proof programming" and a lack of competition. Each league is very different in its own right. While the NFL promotes a perception of competitive balance, Major League Baseball can be plagued by the negative perception it creates surrounding some of its smaller market teams.
ContributorsHeath, Cameron (Co-author) / Linamen, John (Co-author) / Eaton, John (Thesis director) / Mokwa, Michael (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / WPC Graduate Programs (Contributor) / Department of Marketing (Contributor) / Department of Finance (Contributor) / Department of Information Systems (Contributor) / School of Accountancy (Contributor)
Created2015-05
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Description
Cryptocurrencies are notorious for its volatility. But with its incredible rise in price, Bitcoin keep being on the top among the trending topics on social media. Although doubts continue to rise with price, Bloomberg even make critics on Bitcoin as ‘the biggest bubble in the history’, some investors still hold

Cryptocurrencies are notorious for its volatility. But with its incredible rise in price, Bitcoin keep being on the top among the trending topics on social media. Although doubts continue to rise with price, Bloomberg even make critics on Bitcoin as ‘the biggest bubble in the history’, some investors still hold strong enthusiasm and confidence towards Bitcoin. As contradicting opinions increase, it is worthy to dive into discussions on social media and use a scientific method to evaluate public’s non-negligible role in crypto price fluctuation.

Sentiment analysis, which is a notably method in text mining, can be used to extract the sentiment from people’s opinion. It then provides us with valuable perception on a topic from the public’s attitude, which create more opportunities for deeper analysis and prediction.

The thesis aims to investigate public’s sentiment towards Bitcoin through analyzing 10 million Bitcoin related tweets and assigning sentiment points on tweets, then using sentiment fluctuation as a factor to predict future crypto fluctuation. Price prediction is achieved by using a machine learning model called Recurrent Neural Network which automatically learns the pattern and generate following results with memory. The analysis revels slight connection between sentiment and crypto currency and the Neural Network model showed a strong connection between sentiment score and future price prediction.
ContributorsZhu, Xiaoyu (Author) / Benjamin, Victor (Thesis director) / Qinglai, He (Committee member) / Department of Information Systems (Contributor) / Department of Supply Chain Management (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-12
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Description
The way that people consume media is changing. While every platform seems to shift to video, there is a not-so-quiet revolution going on in the podcast industry. Each week, 10,000 new podcasts are created and uploaded and this number continues to grow (Moore, 2018). As the prevalence of smartphones, faster

The way that people consume media is changing. While every platform seems to shift to video, there is a not-so-quiet revolution going on in the podcast industry. Each week, 10,000 new podcasts are created and uploaded and this number continues to grow (Moore, 2018). As the prevalence of smartphones, faster download speeds, and streaming platforms have proliferated across the globe, more and more people are turning to podcasts to get their content fix. Young professionals are especially drawn to the format because it fits perfectly into their busy lifestyles. This thesis explored how to create, produce, and market a podcast to college students and entry level workers that are interested in pursuing a career in advertising. We collected data through conducting depth interviews and an online survey to podcast listeners as well marketing and design students. The insights drawn from this research were combined with a thorough trend analysis of the podcast market to find the factors that matter most to the target consumer. From there we produced eight episodes of the podcast and released them over a timespan of two and a half months. Finally, paid social media advertisements were used to target students at major advertising colleges around the country. The results of this thesis found that there are a number of important takeaways from the process that can help anyone build a podcast brand, audience and media strategy. Our research found that prospective podcasters should: maintain a consistent upload schedule, invest in audio quality, experiment with content strategy, know their target audience, own your show’s brand, and not rely on just one audio streaming platform.
ContributorsLarkin, Brianna Nicole (Co-author) / Larkin, Brianna (Co-author) / Teixeira, Trent (Thesis director) / Eaton, Kathryn Karnos (Committee member) / Giles, Charles (Committee member) / Department of Information Systems (Contributor) / Department of Marketing (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05
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Description
This thesis studies the area of sentiment analysis and its general uses, benefits, and limitations. Social networking, blogging, and online forums have turned the Web into a vast repository of comments on many topics. Sentiment analysis is the process of using software to analyze social media to gauge the attitudes

This thesis studies the area of sentiment analysis and its general uses, benefits, and limitations. Social networking, blogging, and online forums have turned the Web into a vast repository of comments on many topics. Sentiment analysis is the process of using software to analyze social media to gauge the attitudes or sentiments of the users/authors concerning a particular subject. Sentiment analysis works by processing (data mining) unstructured textual evidence using natural language processing and machine learning to determine a positive, negative, or neutral measurement. When utilized correctly, sentiment analysis has the potential to glean valuable insights into consumers' minds, which in turn leads to increased revenue and improved customer satisfaction for businesses. This paper looks at four industries in which sentiment analysis is being used or being considered: retail/services, politics, healthcare, and finances. The goal of the thesis will be to explore whether sentiment analysis has been used successfully for economic or social benefit and whether it is a practical solution for analyzing consumer opinion.
ContributorsSoumya, Saswati (Author) / Uday, Kulkarni (Thesis director) / Brooks, Daniel (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Economics (Contributor) / WPC Graduate Programs (Contributor) / Department of Information Systems (Contributor)
Created2014-05
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Description
Monocular is a user engagement application that offers a website owner the opportunity to track user behavior and use the data to better understand the site's strengths and weaknesses in terms of user satisfaction and motivation. This data allows the customer to make improvements to a website, resulting in a

Monocular is a user engagement application that offers a website owner the opportunity to track user behavior and use the data to better understand the site's strengths and weaknesses in terms of user satisfaction and motivation. This data allows the customer to make improvements to a website, resulting in a better user experience and potential for an improved bottom line.
ContributorsHooke, Wade (Co-author) / Ortiz-Monasterio, Diego (Co-author) / Clark, Joseph (Thesis director) / Prince, Linda (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Information Systems (Contributor) / Department of Supply Chain Management (Contributor) / W. P. Carey School of Business (Contributor)
Created2014-05
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This paper is rooted in the field of business, with an emphasis on entrepreneurship in the fashion industry. The questions we tried to answer were the following: What are factors of success for current fashion brands? What is important to our target market when shopping? How can we deliver these

This paper is rooted in the field of business, with an emphasis on entrepreneurship in the fashion industry. The questions we tried to answer were the following: What are factors of success for current fashion brands? What is important to our target market when shopping? How can we deliver these attributes to our target market? How can we use our findings to create a fashion brand? First, we conducted in-depth external analysis about existing retailers including, Forever 21, Zara and Brandy Melville. After doing so, we created brand molecules and learned about other people's perceptions in relation to these existing brands. Next, using our own qualitative and quantitative research, we sought to understand the many gaps in the overall shopping experience for college students and young working professionals. Our research revealed many common themes and trends that we will integrate into our proposed business plan in efforts to fill the gaps. Through our data analysis, common trends included how our demographic learns about new fashion trends, statement pieces versus mix-and-match basics, online shopping versus in-store shopping, price sensitivity of our target market, and lastly, the quality of customer service and the store's return policy. After our extensive research and data analysis, we began to construct our brand. We propose a new business model that targets our fashion-forward consumer with a memorable shopping experience that delivers high-quality and trendiness to their wardrobe. Using the elements and trends we identified, combined with our own vision, we combined them into one brand, The Capsule Collection. ur brand will feature high-quality, reasonably priced basics ranging from everyday casual to business casual. We will have store locations in cities where there are many young working professionals, and target them through social media advertising. Our store will feature an open layout with clean and minimalistic displays, keeping everything in neutral tones and accented with plants. The goal of The Capsule Collection is to make shopping as easy and exciting as possible, and focus entirely on the customer's experience.
ContributorsMeyyappan, Rathna (Co-author) / Aggarwal, Payal (Co-author) / Gray, Nancy (Thesis director) / Samper, Adriana (Committee member) / Department of Marketing (Contributor) / Department of Information Systems (Contributor) / Department of Supply Chain Management (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-12