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- Creators: Barrett, The Honors College
- Creators: Arizona State University
Description
The objective of this dissertation is to empirically analyze the results of the retail location decision making process and how chain networks evolve given their value platform. It employs one of the largest cross-sectional databases of retailers ever assembled, including 50 US retail chains and over 70,000 store locations. Three closely related articles, which develop new theory explaining location deployment and behaviors of retailers, are presented. The first article, "Regionalism in US Retailing," presents a comprehensive spatial analysis of the domestic patterns of retailers. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and statistics examine the degree to which the chains are deployed regionally versus nationally. Regional bias is found to be associated with store counts, small market deployment, and the location of the founding store, but not the age of the chain. Chains that started in smaller markets deploy more stores in other small markets and vice versa for chains that started in larger markets. The second article, "The Location Types of US Retailers," is an inductive analysis of the types of locations chosen by the retailers. Retail locations are classified into types using cluster analysis on situational and trade area data at the geographical scale of the individual stores. A total of twelve distinct location types were identified. A second cluster analysis groups together the chains with the most similar location profiles. Retailers within the same retail business often chose similar types of locations and were placed in the same clusters. Retailers generally restrict their deployment to one of three overall strategies including metropolitan, large retail areas, or market size variety. The third article, "Modeling Retail Chain Expansion and Maturity through Wave Analysis: Theory and Application to Walmart and Target," presents a theory of retail chain expansion and maturity whereby retailers expand in waves with alternating periods of faster and slower growth. Walmart diffused gradually from Arkansas and Target grew from the coasts inward. They were similar, however, in that after expanding into an area they reached a point of saturation and opened fewer stores, then moved on to other areas, only to revisit the earlier areas for new stores.
ContributorsJoseph, Lawrence (Author) / Kuby, Michael (Thesis advisor) / Matthews, Richard (Committee member) / Ó Huallacháin, Breandán (Committee member) / Kumar, Ajith (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
This dissertation is an exploratory study that examined the differences in perceptions about supply chain management strategy, topics, tools, and techniques between procurement professionals in public and private sector organizations. This was accomplished through a survey of procurement professionals in a Fortune 500 company and a municipality in Arizona. The data were analyzed to understand how perceptions of supply chain management differed within this sample and whether the differences in perceptions were associated with formal education levels. Key findings indicate that for this or similar samples, public procurement respondents viewed their organizations' approach to supply chain management as a narrow function within purchasing while private sector respondents viewed their organization's approach to supply chain management as a strategic purchasing perspective that requires the coordination of cross functional areas. Second, public procurement respondents reported consistent and statistically significant lower levels of formal education than private sector respondents. Third, the supply chain management topics, tools, and techniques seem to be more important to private sector respondents than the public sector respondents. Finally, Respondents in both sectors recognize the importance of ethics and ethical behavior as an essential part of supply chain management.
ContributorsHeller, Jacob (Author) / Cayer, Joseph (Thesis advisor) / Lan, Gerald (Committee member) / Eden, Catherine (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
Cancer is the second leading cause of death in the United States and novel methods of treating advanced malignancies are of high importance. Of these deaths, prostate cancer and breast cancer are the second most fatal carcinomas in men and women respectively, while pancreatic cancer is the fourth most fatal in both men and women. Developing new drugs for the treatment of cancer is both a slow and expensive process. It is estimated that it takes an average of 15 years and an expense of $800 million to bring a single new drug to the market. However, it is also estimated that nearly 40% of that cost could be avoided by finding alternative uses for drugs that have already been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The research presented in this document describes the testing, identification, and mechanistic evaluation of novel methods for treating many human carcinomas using drugs previously approved by the FDA. A tissue culture plate-based screening of FDA approved drugs will identify compounds that can be used in combination with the protein TRAIL to induce apoptosis selectively in cancer cells. Identified leads will next be optimized using high-throughput microfluidic devices to determine the most effective treatment conditions. Finally, a rigorous mechanistic analysis will be conducted to understand how the FDA-approved drug mitoxantrone, sensitizes cancer cells to TRAIL-mediated apoptosis.
ContributorsTaylor, David (Author) / Rege, Kaushal (Thesis advisor) / Jayaraman, Arul (Committee member) / Nielsen, David (Committee member) / Kodibagkar, Vikram (Committee member) / Dai, Lenore (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
There have been multiple calls for research on consumers' responses to social issues, regulatory changes, and corporate behavior. Thus, this dissertation proposes and tests a conceptual framework of parents' responses to government regulations and corporate social responsibility (CSR) that address juvenile obesity. This research builds on Attribution Theory to examine the impact of government regulations and CSR on consumers' attitudes and their subsequent behavior. Three pilot studies and three main experiments were conducted; a between-subjects and randomized experimental design being used to capture the effects of regulations and corporate actions on product satisfaction, company evaluations, and behavioral intentions, while examining the mediating role of attributions of responsibility for a negative product outcome. This research has implications for policy makers and marketing practitioners and scholars. This is the first study to offer a new perspective, based on attributions of blame, to explain the mechanism that drives consumers' responses to government regulations. Considering numerous calls for government actions that address childhood obesity, it is important to understand how and why consumers respond to such regulations. The results illustrated that certain policies may have unintended consequences due to unexpected attributions of blame for unhealthy products. Only recently have researchers tried to address the psychological mechanism through which CSR has an impact on consumers' attitudes and behavior. To date, few studies have investigated attributions as a mediating variable in the transfer of CSR associations on consumer responses. Nonetheless, this is the first study that concentrates on attributions of responsibility, per se, to explain the impact of CSR on company evaluations. This dissertation extends previous research, where locus, stability, and controllability mediated the relationship between CSR and attributions of blame; the degree of blame being consequential to brand evaluations. The current results suggest that attributions of responsibility, per se, mediate the impact of CSR on company evaluations. Additionally, attributions of blame are measured as the degree to which consumers take personal responsibility for a negative product outcome. This highlights a new role of the CSR construct, as a moderator of consumers' self-serving bias, a fundamental psychological response that has been neglected in the marketing literature.
ContributorsDumitrescu, Claudia (Author) / Shaw Hughner, Renée (Thesis advisor) / Schmitz, Troy G. (Committee member) / Seperich, George (Committee member) / Shultz, Ii, Clifford J. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
Forrest Research estimated that revenues derived from mobile devices will grow at an annual rate of 39% to reach $31 billion by 2016. With the tremendous market growth, mobile banking, mobile marketing, and mobile retailing have been recently introduced to satisfy customer needs. Academic and practical articles have widely discussed unique features of m-commerce. For instance, hardware constraints such as small screens have led to the discussion of tradeoff between usability and mobility. Needs for personalization and entertainment foster the development of new mobile data services. Given distinct features of mobile data services, existing empirical literature on m-commerce is mostly from the consumer side and focuses on consumer perceptions toward these features and their adoption intentions. From the supply side, limited data availability in early years explains the lack of firm-level studies on m-commerce. Prior studies have shown that unclear market demand is a major reason that hinders firms' adoption of m-commerce. Given the advances of smart phones, especially the introduction of the iPhone in 2007, firms recently have started to incorporate various mobile information systems in their business operations. The study uses mobile retailing as the context and empirically assesses firms' migration to this new sales venue with a unique cross-sectional dataset. Despite the distinct features of m-commerce, m-Retailing is essentially an extended arm of e-Retailing. Thus, a dependency perspective is used to explore the link between a firm's e-Retail characteristics and the migration to m-Retailing. Rooted in the innovation diffusion theory, the first stage of my study assesses the decision of adoption that indicates whether a firm moves to m-Retailing and the extent of adoption that shows a firm's commitment to m-Retailing in terms of system implementation choices. In this first stage, I take a dependency perspective to examine the impacts of e-Retail characteristics on m-Retailing adoption. The second stage of my study analyzes conditions that affect business value of the m-Retail channel. I examine the association between system implementation choices and m-Retail performance while analyzing the effects of e-Retail characteristics on value realization. The two-stage analysis provides an exploratory assessment of firm's migration from e-Retailing to m-Retailing.
ContributorsChou, Yen-Chun (Author) / Shao, Benjamin (Thesis advisor) / St. Louis, Robert (Committee member) / Goul, Michael (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
In order to cope with the decreasing availability of symphony jobs and collegiate faculty positions, many musicians are starting to pursue less traditional career paths. Also, to combat declining audiences, musicians are exploring ways to cultivate new and enthusiastic listeners through relevant and engaging performances. Due to these challenges, many community-based chamber music ensembles have been formed throughout the United States. These groups not only focus on performing classical music, but serve the needs of their communities as well. The problem, however, is that many musicians have not learned the business skills necessary to create these career opportunities. In this document I discuss the steps ensembles must take to develop sustainable careers. I first analyze how groups build a strong foundation through getting to know their communities and creating core values. I then discuss branding and marketing so ensembles can develop a public image and learn how to publicize themselves. This is followed by an investigation of how ensembles make and organize their money. I then examine the ways groups ensure long-lasting relationships with their communities and within the ensemble. I end by presenting three case studies of professional ensembles to show how groups create and maintain successful careers. Ensembles must develop entrepreneurship skills in addition to cultivating their artistry. These business concepts are crucial to the longevity of chamber groups. Through interviews of successful ensemble members and my own personal experiences in the Tetra String Quartet, I provide a guide for musicians to use when creating a community-based ensemble.
ContributorsDalbey, Jenna (Author) / Landschoot, Thomas (Thesis advisor) / McLin, Katherine (Committee member) / Ryan, Russell (Committee member) / Solis, Theodore (Committee member) / Spring, Robert (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
Researchers lament that feedback interventions often fail. Traditional theories assume a cognitive relationship between the receipt of feedback and its impact on employee performance. I offer a theoretical model derived from Affective Events and Broaden and Build Theories to shed new light on the feedback-performance relationship. I bridge the two primary streams of feedback literature-the passive receipt and active seeking-to examine how employees' affective responses to feedback drive how they use feedback to improve performance. I develop and test a model whereby supervisor developmental feedback and coworker feedback seeking relate to the positivity ratio (the ratio of positive as compared to negative affect), enabling them to be more creative and thus improving their performance. I test my model using Experience Sampling Methodology with a sample of MBA students over a two week working period.
ContributorsChristensen, Amanda L (Author) / Kinicki, Angelo (Thesis advisor) / Zhang, Zhen (Committee member) / Hom, Peter (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
The bleomycins are a family of glycopeptide-derived antibiotics isolated from various Streptomyces species and have been the subject of much attention from the scientific community as a consequence of their antitumor activity. Bleomycin clinically and is an integral part of a number of combination chemotherapy regimens. It has previously been shown that bleomycin has the ability to selectively target tumor cells over their non-malignant counterparts. Pyrimidoblamic acid, the N-terminal metal ion binding domain of bleomycin is known to be the moiety that is responsible for O2 activation and the subsequent chemistry leading to DNA strand scission and overall antitumor activity. Chapter 1 describes bleomycin and related DNA targeting antitumor agents as well as the specific structural domains of bleomycin. Various structural analogues of pyrimidoblamic acid were synthesized and subsequently incorporated into their corresponding full deglycoBLM A6 derivatives by utilizing a solid support. Their activity was measured using a pSP64 DNA plasmid relaxation assay and is summarized in Chapter 2. The specifics of bleomycin—DNA interaction and kinetics were studied via surface plasmon resonance and are presented in Chapter 3. By utilizing carefully selected 64-nucleotide DNA hairpins with variable 16-mer regions whose sequences showed strong binding in past selection studies, a kinetic profile was obtained for several BLMs for the first time since bleomycin was discovered in 1966. The disaccharide moiety of bleomycin has been previously shown to be a specific tumor cell targeting element comprised of L-gulose-D-mannose, especially between MCF-7 (breast cancer cells) and MCF-10A ("normal" breast cells). This phenomenon was further investigated via fluorescence microscopy using multiple cancerous cell lines with matched "normal" counterparts and is fully described in Chapter 4.
ContributorsBozeman, Trevor C (Author) / Hecht, Sidney M. (Thesis advisor) / Chaput, John (Committee member) / Gould, Ian (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
Genomic structural variation (SV) is defined as gross alterations in the genome broadly classified as insertions/duplications, deletions inversions and translocations. DNA sequencing ushered structural variant discovery beyond laboratory detection techniques to high resolution informatics approaches. Bioinformatics tools for computational discovery of SVs however are still missing variants in the complex cancer genome. This study aimed to define genomic context leading to tool failure and design novel algorithm addressing this context. Methods: The study tested the widely held but unproven hypothesis that tools fail to detect variants which lie in repeat regions. Publicly available 1000-Genomes dataset with experimentally validated variants was tested with SVDetect-tool for presence of true positives (TP) SVs versus false negative (FN) SVs, expecting that FNs would be overrepresented in repeat regions. Further, the novel algorithm designed to informatically capture the biological etiology of translocations (non-allelic homologous recombination and 3&ndashD; placement of chromosomes in cells –context) was tested using simulated dataset. Translocations were created in known translocation hotspots and the novel&ndashalgorithm; tool compared with SVDetect and BreakDancer. Results: 53% of false negative (FN) deletions were within repeat structure compared to 81% true positive (TP) deletions. Similarly, 33% FN insertions versus 42% TP, 26% FN duplication versus 57% TP and 54% FN novel sequences versus 62% TP were within repeats. Repeat structure was not driving the tool's inability to detect variants and could not be used as context. The novel algorithm with a redefined context, when tested against SVDetect and BreakDancer was able to detect 10/10 simulated translocations with 30X coverage dataset and 100% allele frequency, while SVDetect captured 4/10 and BreakDancer detected 6/10. For 15X coverage dataset with 100% allele frequency, novel algorithm was able to detect all ten translocations albeit with fewer reads supporting the same. BreakDancer detected 4/10 and SVDetect detected 2/10 Conclusion: This study showed that presence of repetitive elements in general within a structural variant did not influence the tool's ability to capture it. This context-based algorithm proved better than current tools even with half the genome coverage than accepted protocol and provides an important first step for novel translocation discovery in cancer genome.
ContributorsShetty, Sheetal (Author) / Dinu, Valentin (Thesis advisor) / Bussey, Kimberly (Committee member) / Scotch, Matthew (Committee member) / Wallstrom, Garrick (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
The purpose of this study was to measure the effect of gendered communication on women's behavioral intentions regarding nonprofit and for-profit entrepreneurship. Women represent half of the U.S. workforce, but only about one third of all American entrepreneurs are women. Feminists have argued that because entrepreneurship is largely understood as a masculine activity, women — who are predominantly socialized to espouse a feminine gender role — are less likely to become entrepreneurs. Previous scholarship and the particular theoretical lens of social feminism suggest that communication about entrepreneurship that is congruent with a feminine gender role would lead to the recruitment of a greater number of women entrepreneurs. Findings of the current study, however, suggested the opposite, providing support for poststructuralist feminist theory. Women who viewed a feminine entrepreneurship recruiting brochure about entrepreneurship reported themselves to be more feminine and less likely to report intentions to become entrepreneurs than women who viewed a masculine entrepreneurship recruiting brochure. These findings suggested that feminine communication may prime women to think of themselves as feminine, which may then lead them to view themselves as not masculine enough to be entrepreneurs. The applications of these findings stretch beyond engaging more women in entrepreneurship and also extend to scholarship that investigates gender's effects on women's pursuit of other masculine careers, including those in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Until the larger discourse on entrepreneurship changes to be inclusive of femininity, it is unlikely that strategies that feminize entrepreneurial activity in controlled situations will have an effect on changing the patterns of women's entrepreneurial intentions.
ContributorsIffert, Audrey (Author) / Montoya, Mitzi M. (Thesis advisor) / Rund, James (Thesis advisor) / Niemczyk, Mary (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014