Major Research Papers - 2021-2022
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Item Open Access The Impact of Complaint Handling on Consumer Complaint Dispute Within the Two Largest States in the United States (California and Texas)(2022-08-05) Mazaheri, Parastoo; Whelan, Jodie G.Complaint handling plays a vital role in shaping business success through customer satisfaction. The substantial amount of research regarding consumer complaints has focused on individual differences of customers who are making the complaints; however, a gap still remains regarding how complaint handling affects the complaint dispute and how an organization's choice of response to complaints influences the ultimate success or failure of the provided resolutions. In addition to investigating these two factors, the current research also explores how product type, the nature of complaint issues, and customers’ (assumed) political orientations affect whether or not customers dispute resolutions. The results of this research suggest that apart from individual differences, the complaint handling process by itself impacts the likelihood of complaint dispute. Specifically, findings suggest that effective complaint receiving channels (phone) along with the proper response to the complaints (responding with any relief) can reduce the likelihood of a disputed resolution and presumably, enhance customer satisfaction.Item Open Access Analyzing Costco’s supply chain responsiveness through lean and agile strategies(2022-09-16) Persaud, Teesha; Solis, Adriano O.Supply chain responsiveness contributes to efficient supply chain performance. Supply chain responsiveness refers to effectively and efficiently meeting customer’s needs in a timely manner. This paper considers the supply chain strategies and practices that lead to the supply chain responsiveness of Costco when compared to its major competitors, Wal-Mart and Loblaws. The evaluation and comparison of key financial performance measures as well as various statistical analyses identify the supply chain strategies that benefit Costco and its competitors. The paper presents a contribution to existing supply chain literature through the in-depth analysis conducted of different supply chain performance measures for three major retailers in Canada - Costco, Wal-Mart and Loblaws. This analysis evaluates a 23-year period from 1999 to 2021. The analysis also contributes to the existing literature on the use of supply chain strategies, such as leanness and agility in the retail industry, Costco’s practices of just-in-time (JIT) inventory management and cross-docking as well as specific characteristics of Costco’s supply chain practices. The findings of the analysis lead to the validation of assertions and propositions of earlier researchers. These include the importance of employing complementary supply chain practices together as well as a focus on aligning supply chain strategies with the company’s corporate strategy. These understandings contribute to the achievement of supply chain responsiveness by encouraging cohesion and balance amongst supply chain strategies.Item Open Access Implications of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Strategies on Player and Team performance, and Retention in Professional Basketball Sport Organizations(2022-08-07) Gonsalves, Warren; Maharaj, Gajindra; Porporato, MarcelaThis project investigates the associations of diversity, equity and inclusion strategies on athlete and team performance and retention in exclusively professional basketball sports organizations. It was hypothesized that sports organizations with a structured DE&I strategy allow players to perform optimally, increasing the chance of winning at the team level represented in basketball sports statistics. Also, an organization that creates, implements, and enforces a well thought out and highly regarded DE&I strategy can assist with attracting talent and retaining top players. This project will explore this relationship and analyse the findings by determining a “DE&I score” for all NBA teams and comparing scores to their relative performance. Teams with higher DE&I score are hypothesized to win more games.Item Open Access Consumers’ Emotional and Behavioural Responses to COVID-19 in Canada(2022-07-31) Abboud, Tima; Maute, Manfred; Whelan, JodieCOVID-19 disrupted our lives since the very first day it was announced to be a global pandemic in early 2020. In Canada, social distancing measures and quarantine and health-protective regulations affected people’s emotional stability and changed how they undergo certain consumer behaviours to cope with those emotional effects. I surveyed 687 participants residing in Canada to understand some of the emotional and behavioural changes they went through during the past two and a half years since the pandemic began. Participants were asked questions on their emotional responses during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, their current well-being, and on some of their current consumer coping behaviours. Lastly, they were asked to report some demographic characteristics. My conceptual model, therefore, tests the relationship of consumers’ initial emotional response to COVID-19 in Canada with five coping behaviours via their current well-being indicators, moderated by two demographic characteristics—gender and income level. Results of this study showed that there is a significant relationship between the initial emotional response to COVID-19 (IERC) and buying behaviour via depression and loneliness, moderated by income level. While the rest of the indirect relationships were not significant, the research revealed significant direct relationship between IERC and all coping behaviours except social media behaviour and to have directly affected feelings of depression, loneliness, and hopelessness. This research has many theoretical contributions to the consumer behaviour and healthcare literature and managerial contributions that could be used by marketers, mental health professionals, public employees, and the government.Item Open Access Staffing Plan Review of a Call Center(2022-08-07) Liu, Yining; Huang, RongbingThis is a case study using statistical tools to examine the operational stats and investigate the deficiencies from the management perspective. A great amount of research on the service level of call centers uses mathematic modelling to generate an optimal staffing plan; whereas this research focuses on analytical framework and equips call center managers with tools to review their center’s performances and discover areas for improvement.Item Open Access IKEA’s Supply Chain: Growth on Sustainability(2022-07-18) Catalan, Maria Lourdes Pahamotang; Toyasaki, FuminoriThis study aims to provide insights on the influence of sustainability on business performance, focusing on IKEA’s commitment and its robust value chain. The importance of sustainability is at an all-time high as many people are more aware and are now consumer conscious. With this awareness comes its impact on the corporate world as organizations must strive and integrate into their business models sustainability practices. The depletion of our natural resources and the demand of consumers are moving in opposite directions. With our reliance on these resources and our non-stop production and consumption, businesses are in great stakes to preserve and brainstorm on how to adapt to their value chains’ sustainable profitability. IKEA being a consistent top retail brand is studied to provide insight into how this successful conglomerate can integrate sustainable strategies into the core of its business while still performing strong. An overview approach is used to identify the strategies of the company that led them to consistent growth and competitive advantage. A linear supply chain is complex enough, introducing a reverse supply chain with the end goal of becoming a circular supply chain adds various steps and factors into the picture. This study explores the different stages in IKEA’s production process that is consistently aligned with their people and planet strategy and the benefits of this implementation within their value chain. This paper also aims to shed light on other businesses in hopes of encouraging green business. By providing information, proof can be provided that shows it is possible to systematize sustainable practices and success and that in doing so, it is a win-win strategy that tackles profit, planet, and people issues.Item Open Access Wealth Tax & Entrepreneurship(2022-08-25) Yeung, Solomon; Lai, PolandIn a time of increasingly growing income inequality and a shrinking middle class, many governments are proposing redistributing wealth using a personal wealth tax. The wealth inequality has further been exasperated by the COVID-19 pandemic resulting in loss of employment. Wealth inequality is far greater than income inequality as wealth accumulation operates in a self-reinforcing way and likely to increase in the absence of taxation. Investment returns tend to increase with wealth and high earners can save more due to their lower marginal propensity to consume. Governments globally have responded to the crisis through stimulus packages which resulted in an increased budget and government deficit to keep the country’s economy from falling into an economic collapse (i.e., a recession or stagflation). This has resulted in ballooning government deficits and a response from governments to find avenues to fund the increased budgets. The wealth tax is a tool that is proposed by politicians to raise tax revenues considering the growing deficit and expanding budgets. While the tax system should help address wealth inequality, the question is whether the wealth tax is the most effective way to do so. This study will examine the impact of a wealth tax adopted by countries and entrepreneurial activity in the country. Will a wealth tax be more beneficial or harmful to a country’s entrepreneurship size? The findings from the longitudinal study showed mixed results as to whether a wealth tax had a negative or positive impact on entrepreneurship. Four main indices which the study found had an interesting relationship with wealth tax were 1) Self-Employed with and without employees, 2) Self-Employed Manufacturing versus Services sector, 3) Self-Employed Youth rates for men versus women, and 4) Self-Employment rates for men versus women. The case event study has also shown that a wealth tax may not be all beneficial and resulted in France repealing their wealth tax.Item Open Access CDO Positions: A Study on the Impact of Chief Data Officers on Organizational Performance(2022-07-30) Ojimadu, Ngozi V.A.; Gélinas, PatricePurpose – The purpose of this paper is to employ a strategic change view, with the appointing of a CDO, to develop theoretical links and empirically examine the association between the CDO’s presence and organizational performance utilizing accounting measures. Design/methodology/approach – Adopted for this study is the “matched sample comparison group” methodology, also known as the matched pair analysis, to empirically test the hypotheses, compare the performance of the treatment sample group with CDOs and the control sample group without CDOs, and assess the relationship between CDO presence and firm performance. The financial data for treatment firms with CDOs and control firms without CDOs was collected from the Compustat database. The Wilcoxon signed-rank test and regression analysis were used to analyze the performances for the treatment and control sample groups. Findings – Overall, the results indicate that firms that have lower performance will be more likely to appoint a CDO and still maintain a competitive cost structure relative to firms without CDOs. Even though the cost ratios of firms with CDOs were not lower after the appointment of the CDO than before the appointment, CDOs promptly improve their profitability relative to peers who do not have CDOs, without significantly increasing cost. Finally, prior year financial performance has very great impact on current year financial performance. Practical implications – With limited statistical confidence, due to a small sample and short period of performance measurements to analyze, as the CDO position is a quite new to Canada, the conclusion can still be made that: CDOs are hired when performance is low and excel at solutions, which they seem to bring swiftly, by improving revenues and profitability without significantly increasing costs. This research further addresses both the academic and business communities emphasizing that, in this moment in big data history, the position of the CDO is not to be ignored or disregarded, as this role may prove to appreciably advance and elevate corporate Canada. Originality/value – The study explores the relationship between the CDO’s presence and firm performance. It is the first attempt to explore the CDO’s impact on the profit and cost performances from a purely Canadian perspective, evaluating only firms listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange – TSX. Prior studies have been from a global standpoint and heavily focused on the United States of America.Item Open Access How Consumers Responded to The Cambridge Analytica Scandal(2022-08-10) Ansong, Bismarck Kingsley; Rusetski, AliaksandrThis research study aim is to explore consumers response and reaction patterns to the Cambridge Analytica scandal when they heard about it in the news. This research presents a case report of Cambridge Analytica Scandal, and through a netnogrpahy study shows how the Cambridge Analytica scandal has impacted consumers' perception and trust in using online platforms and has made consumers sceptical in engaging in online activities. The analysis of Quora and Twitter discussions immediately after the scandal revealed two groups of users: those for whom data privacy was a concern and those who were not concerned about their data privacy. The consumers on Quora with data privacy concerns comprised 47% (14/30) of the study group whereas consumers for whom data privacy was not a concern were 53% (16/30) of the study group. However, the study result on Twitter gives an opposite opinion about the results compared to the results on Quora. On Twitter the participants who expressed concerns for their data privacy were 26/30 (87%) and those who expressed less concern were only 4/30 (13%). These results show that overwhelming participants who expressed data privacy concerns were more than 6 times those participants in the study who expressed less concern for their data privacy. This means that a significant proportion of online users and their concerns cannot be ignored by online service providers and social network owners. Therefore, addressing consumers worries about data privacy risks should be an urgent priority for service providers who want to prevent users from leaving their platforms.Item Open Access Whitepaper Visualization and ICO Success(2022-07-29) Lin, Sen; Peng, Songlan (Stella)Research problem/question: Is the visualization of ICO whitepaper associated with ICO success? Objective: The purpose of the paper is to find out how the visualization of the whitepaper affects the ICO and what key information is more important to be presented visually. The definition of visualization in this study is Pictures, Tables, Charts, Font Size and Color, etc. Hypothesis Development: The first hypothesis is the visualization of the whitepaper does not affect the amount of capital raised. The second hypothesis is the effect in H1 is not affected by the use of media advertising. Design/methodology/approach: This study uses a multiple regression model to test the hypothesis and thus observe which independent visual variables in the whitepaper impact the ICO funds raised. Findings: First, when the number of media resources is 0 or 1, the ICO success is positively correlated with Pictures, Tables, changing the font color, the upper limit of the Amount Raised, and negatively associated with Font Size. Second, when the number of media resources exceeds 1, the ICO success is not related to the visualization degree of the whitepaper, but it is still positively associated with the setting of the upper limit of Amount Raised. Third, the current popular whitepaper style is to visualize essential information. Sample: This study extracts 165 whitepapers from ICObench available for download during 2019-2020. There are 141 whitepapers in 2019 and 24 in 2020. Contribution: The paper results provide insight on whether the visualization of whitepapers matter for investors, and if yes, what are these visualization characteristics. The findings of the paper may help the content of the ICO whitepaper to be more standardized, professional, and visualized. It may also help improve comparability and competitiveness among different ICO projects, thus promoting issuers' disclosure quality of internal information, facilitating investors' decision-making, and reducing market risk.