Department of Management

Animal rights organizations, in attempting to affect institutional change in industrial
animal agriculture, face an institutional mountain. I show how these organizations,
though contesting institutions which are highly reified, tacitly endorsed, and historically
inertial, leverage emotional experiences and regulation to incrementally move this
mountain. Using a grounded qualitative study of interview data from animal rights
advocates and archival data generated by animal rights organizations, this study finds that
animal rights organizations have encoded both response- and antecedent-focused emotion
regulation into two distinct strategies used to garner support for their institutional change
project: transgression mining and seed planting. Furthermore, this study expounds upon
the role of moral emotional experiences in the individual-level process by which persons
alternate into support for animal rights organizations and their goals, here labeled
autodidactic frame alignment. Drawing on Goffman’s backstage/frontstage distinction,
this study illustrates how emotion’s role in institutional change efforts varies across both level of analysis and areas of interactive life. In doing so, this research adds empirical
weight to and extends recent theoretical work expounding upon the emotionally-charged
nature of the lived experience of institutions.

My work investigates the effects of founding conditions for organizational
founders on the eventual satisfaction founders have with the financial and social
outcomes of their organization. First, I introduce two new constructs, social salience and
economic salience, which represent the intended social or economic goals of the founder
for their organization when they found the new organization. I then utilize organizational
imprinting theory to argue that the social and economic salience, along with founders’
previous work experience, influence the structure of the new organization via the legal
form. I then argue that the legal form influences the specific capabilities that the
organization will acquire or create early in the organization’s life. Finally, I argue that the
capabilities established at founding will influence the eventual satisfaction founders currently have with their organizations’ social and financial outcomes as the capabilities
endure over time.
Based on a sample of 150 organizational founders that are still actively managing
their organizations, my results support the idea that founding conditions for individual
founders influence the capabilities that their organizations create or acquire. Further,
founders’ current level of satisfaction with the financial and social performance of their
organizations is significantly related to these capabilities. These results largely support
the process based model of imprinting effects on organizational outcomes, and suggest
that founders play a critical role in setting the original imprint of an organization that will
endure via organizational inertia, perhaps long after the imprint’s originally designed
purpose.

The research study investigates factors that influence entrepreneur’s ability to
identify new venture opportunities. Entrepreneurial alertness has been widely argued as
fundamental to the opportunity identification process, yet this relationship remains
largely unverified by empirical evidence. This study provides an explicit investigation
into the implications of entrepreneurial alertness for opportunity identification as well as
how metacognitive factors moderate the proposed relationship. First, Chapter 1 provides
an overview the purpose, research questions, the significance of the study, and the
conceptual framework. Next, a comprehensive review of the existing literature on
opportunity identification is provided which is followed by the development of
theoretical arguments, associated hypotheses, and the conceptual model. Subsequently,
and overview of the research methodology and sampling procedure is presented. Finally,
the analyses and results presented followed by a discussion, future research, and
conclusions.

The music industry has undoubtedly seen accelerated change over the past
decade. Standard practices in the industry have been turned upside down, leaving record
label executives, managers, and other personnel behind the scenes working to develop
new and innovative ways to cope with this change. Music publicists are not immune to
these changes and have seen a tremendous shift in their roles and responsibilities. With
the advent of the digital age, the role of music publicity is getting stronger and is
arguably one of the most vital components of a successful music career. The demand and
necessity for a well-executed music publicity campaign is growing as modern technology
reduces the need for a record deal. However, external forces resulting from technological
changes are making the job of a music publicist difficult.
Despite its importance, little has been said about the field of music publicity in
scholastic literature, and the few in-depth texts and articles on the subject are grossly
outdated rendering them irrelevant. The majority of recent comment on music publicists and their duties have come from journalists and music publicists themselves. Further, the
average person knows little about the practice of music publicity and what a publicist
does. Independent publicists are often highly criticized and looked down upon merely
because artists, managers, media personnel, and even record labels may not fully grasp
what a publicist does. This poses a slew of issues, including the publicist not feeling
completely part of the artist’s team, despite being one of the most essential components
of the artist’s successful career.
The author of this thesis is an independent senior publicity manager for a boutique
music publicity firm. The purpose of this thesis is to define music publicity, bring to light
essential issues in music publicity, and provide a thorough understanding of the role and
responsibilities of a music publicist. Through analysis of the available literature and
qualitative interviews with industry professionals, this paper will address what music
publicity is, how the digital age has changed music publicity, and finally will provide
suggestions for best-practices when working with indie artists and mid-level campaigns.

Globalization has increased the number of individuals who identify with more than one culture. Studies in cultural psychology suggest that the manner in which bicultural individuals manage their dual cultural identities has important implications for them and for their host societies. While existing studies have examined the psychological and sociocultural consequences of biculturalism, only little attention has been paid to understanding its economic consequences. Importantly, the effect that managing dual cultural identities has on bicultural individual's entrepreneurial intentions has remained unexplored. Given the fact that entrepreneurship is vital to the economic success of nations and biculturals are said to play an important role as founders of several new business ventures, it has become critical to analyze the impact that biculturalism has on bicultural individual's propensity to start new business ventures. This dissertation aspires to fill this gap in research. In this dissertation, I used the identity integrationist perspective to argue that amongst biculturals, those with high identity integration will display greater entrepreneurial intentions than those with less identity integration. Further, I argued that cognitions, specifically cognitive cultural intelligence, cultural metacognition and cognitive flexibility, will mediate the effect of bicultural identity integration on entrepreneurial intentions. Empirical analysis supported the argument that biculturals with high identity integration display greater entrepreneurial intentions. Further, cognitive cultural intelligence and cultural metacognition were found to mediate the effect of identity integration on entrepreneurial intentions. I also assessed the role that attitude towards risk taking and attitude towards autonomy play in explaining biculturals' entrepreneurial intentions. I argued that biculturals with more positive attitude towards risk taking and more positive attitude towards autonomy will display greater entrepreneurial intentions. Empirical analysis supported this viewpoint. Further, based on entrepreneurial cognition stream of research, I argued that cognitions, specifically cognitive cultural intelligence, cultural metacognition and cognitive flexibility will positively influence biculturals attitude towards risk taking and attitude towards autonomy. Empirical analysis found support for the positive effect of cognitive flexibility on biculturals' attitudes towards risk taking and autonomy. Taken together, results of this dissertation offer a finer grained understanding of the factors and the mechanism that influence bicultural individual's entrepreneurial intentions.

Although recognized as an important stage of the merger and acquisition (M&A) process, little is understood about the processes that unfold during deal negotiations. In line with recent qualitative research highlighting the role of interorganizational trust, I examine the role of acquirer trust during M&A negotiations. Specifically, through two essays, I consider the effects of acquirer trust on two outcome variables: the acquisition premium and target executive retention. In Essay One, I integrate the social embeddedness theory and agency theory and find that acquirer trust leads to higher premiums. In Essay Two, I integrate the social embeddedness perspective with justice theory and find that the positive relationship between acquirer trust and target executive retention is mediated by justice. Boundary conditions are also considered in each essay. These two essay provide contributions to the nascent literature on M&A negotiations and the complex role of trust in M&A negotiations.

The Music Industry we knew 20 years ago has evolved into a completely different business. Major labels are scrambling to adapt to a new market created by digital streaming and the heavily dominated mobile environment. The purpose of this study is to explore the choice of remaining independent as a musician, and develop a systematic process that any aspiring artist or band manager can confidently follow to ensure their project has the best chance of success. Most of the published writings on this subject are either too broad, or too business-minded for the typical musician. This thesis provides a creative approach with the organization of the information. I present the process of band management in five chapters named after the five movements of traditional sonata form: The Introduction (Chapter 1) presents the various themes that are covered throughout the study, and describes the reasoning for using sonata form for organization and also elaborates on the author’s background. The Exposition (Chapter 2) describes the beginning stages of creating a band and establishing a creative project in the local music scene. This includes the initial formation of the band and its members, the process of networking within the local music scene, and an in depth explanation of how to effectively utilize all the “Essential Websites.” The Development (Chapter 3) describes the process of developing a band into a consistently gigging1 project. The main topics covered are booking shows, performing shows, recording and releasing an album, and what to focus on after it is released. The Recapitulation (Chapter 4) condenses the main topics of the thesis into a more palatable checklist of essential steps that musicians can easily reference throughout the process of managing their project. The Coda (Chapter 5) looks towards the future of the music industry, and serves as a prediction of how the previously effective methods apply to new technologies and website.

Society’s progression through the digital streaming age has created a music licensing landscape of grave concern to all stakeholders in the industry. These drastic changes have occurred under an outdated legal framework. This paper will recommend a comprehensive reform to our copyright law to uphold the intentions of copyright in the modern, digital age of today. By looking at the history of copyright and its evolution, one can assess how Congress has been tasked with establishing a fair market value for music by promoting the public interest and fairly compensating copyright owners. This will lead to an evaluation and comparison of those methods used to determine fair market value for creative works that will be the basis of the recommendation used to modernize copyright law. This recommendation will comprehensively provide for equitable treatment for all parties in the streaming age through its totality, additional reforms, and alternative ideas.

This is a comprehensive study of how Big Data and analytics will be the future of music marketing. There has been a recent trend of being able to turn metrics into quantifiable, real-word predictions. With an increase in online music consumption along with the use of social media there is now a clearer view than ever before about how this will happen. Instead of solely relying on big record companies for an artist to make it to
the big time, there is now a plethora of data and analytics available not just to a small number of big companies, but to anyone.

Researchers and policy makers consider entrepreneurship to be a major source of economic development and competitiveness. Determinants of entrepreneurship have been studied at individual, regional and national levels. Even though research indicates that variation in the levels of entrepreneurship across regions within nations is greater than the national differences and that these differences persist over time (Bosma & Schutjen 2009, 2011; Fritsch & Mueller 2006; Sternberg 2004; Tamásy 2006), we still do not know the full range of regional level determinants of entrepreneurship. I drew from Wennekers’ (2006) framework and link two lines of research (international entrepreneurship and international management) to examine the effects of institutional, economic, technological and cultural contexts on entrepreneurship across within-country regions developed ten hypotheses regarding the relationship of institutional, economic, technological and cultural context to entrepreneurship. I tested these hypotheses within Europe using the regional classification scheme developed by the European Union. Data for the variables came from the European Values Survey, European Social Survey, Eurostat, World Bank, International Social Security Association, Eurobarometer and the Global Competitiveness Report. To test the hypothesized relationships, I use Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM 6.0.) The results indicate that there is a positive relationship between institutional trust, Long Term Orientation and entrepreneurship levels across regions. In conclusion, examination of region-level predictors of entrepreneurship must include different measures of entrepreneurship to provide more accurate understanding and to inform policy makers.