This paper investigates the relationship between board gender diversity and financial performance. Previous work in this area has focused on providing evidence for a direct link between the two factors, which has resulted in mixed, inconclusive evidence. This study includes corporate social responsibility as a moderating influence on this relationship. The dataset consists of 5,077 firm-year observations with 839 firms present. The study was done with data from six emerging markets as identified by S&P Dow Jones Global Equity Index Series. The results indicate a positive interaction between board gender diversity and a firm’s corporate social responsibility engagement and a strong positive association between corporate social responsibility engagement and financial performance.

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This dissertation investigates the relationships between reinsurance activities and primary insurers' financial performance in U.S. property-liability insurance market from several perspectives. The first essay investigates the relationship between ceding insurer performance and the affiliation, domicile, and authorization of its counterparties. Specifically, we provide empirical evidence that ceding insurer financial performance is positively related to the use of affiliated reinsurance, the use of foreign reinsurance, and the use of affiliated reinsurance that is ceded to the low-tax, lightly-regulated domiciled counterparties; and negatively related to the use of unauthorized reinsurance. These results are consistent with the cost of information asymmetry theory. The second essay investigates reinsurance counterparty relationships in U.S. property-liability insurance. Firm-specific characteristics determinants of counterparty relationships are examined. We also analyze the relationship between firm performance and reinsurance counterparty relationships. We find that concentration in reinsurance counterparties, especially in unaffiliated counterparties, is adversely related to insurer performance due to higher information asymmetry. On the other hand, relationship with foreign counterparties is positive related to performance, suggesting the foreign reinsurers may have a favorable position in terms of tax treatment, specialized service, among other factors. / Business Administration/Risk Management and Insurance

In spite of the prevalence and strategic importance of diversification for US hospitality firms, research on the effects of diversification has been insufficient in the hospitality literature. Especially, examination of the moderating effect of product or brand diversification on the relationship between geographic diversification and performance of US hospitality firms has been lacking in the hospitality field thus far. This study aims to investigate the effect of each diversification strategy on firm performance for US casino, restaurant, and lodging industries. Further, to investigate effects of diversification comprehensively by incorporating interactions between different diversification strategies, this study attempts to examine the moderating effect of product diversification on the relationship between geographic diversification and performance of US casino firms, and the moderating effect of brand diversification on the relationship between geographic diversification and performance of US restaurant and lodging firms. To accomplish study purposes, this study employs fixed effects and fixed effects instrumental variable regressions analyses, which strictly address the endogeneity problem, thereby enhancing causality between diversification and firm performance. The sample of this study consists of 336 observations of 43 casino firms, 176 observations of 36 lodging firms, and 952 observations of 132 restaurant firms over the period 1993-2010. The study's results indicate a positive and significant effect of geographic diversification on firm performance in the US casino and lodging industry, but an insignificant effect of geographic diversification in the US restaurant industry. For the effect of product and brand diversification, the study's analyses show no significant effect of product diversification on firm performance in the US casino industry, a negative and significant effect of brand diversification in the US restaurant industry, and an insignificant effect of brand diversification in the US lodging industry. Regarding moderating effects, while this study finds an insignificant moderating effect of product diversification on the relationship between geographic diversification and firm performance in the US casino industry, the analyses show a negative and significant moderating effect of brand diversification in the US restaurant industry and a positive and significant moderating effect of brand diversification in the US lodging industry. Findings of this study recommend more prudent decision-making for diversification strategies for US casino firms, brand concentration strategies for US restaurant firms, and acceleration of both geographic and brand diversification for US lodging industry. This study fills a research gap in the hospitality literature by exhaustively examining the effect of diversification strategies on firm performance in the hospitality field by providing evidence for the moderating effects of product and brand diversification on the geographic diversification-firm performance relationship in three US hospitality industries. Further, this study enriches the whole body of diversification theory and literature by providing context-specific empirical findings for diversification's effects and investing the moderating role of brand diversification in the diversification strategy context. / Tourism and Sport

New capabilities required to succeed in the new Cloud environment represent a radical change for software companies, which have to transition from selling on-the-premises software products to providing subscription-based cloud services (aka Software-as-a-Service or SaaS). While emerging SaaS vendors have led the exponential growth of the market, the traditional software industry has been disrupted. The purpose of this dissertation is to analyze which capabilities are driving the performance of software firms in today’s cloud-computing environment by drawing upon the resource-based view (RBV) of the firm. What is the optimum spending across the primary firm capabilities (e.g., service delivery, R&D, marketing and sales) to maximize financial performance? This dissertation focuses on publicly-traded SaaS companies using publicly-available information from financial databases, corporate investor relations materials, and industry research. It is comprised of two essays. The first essay is a quantitative study based on secondary data. The second essay includes an extensive literature review, an analysis of in-depth interviews of practitioners, and mini case studies. Together, the essays contribute to RBV theory and provide useful insights to help assess the quality of execution of SaaS growth strategies and improve financial planning and performance in the software industry for the cloud computing environment. Although the results come from firms in the SaaS industry, the findings from this study could cautiously generalize to firms in other emerging technology industries. The dissertation concludes with a detailed agenda for future research. / Business Administration/Interdisciplinary

Despite a decade of public and private efforts to promote patient centricity in healthcare, there is still considerable ambiguity and skepticism regarding the concept and its business impact in the pharmaceutical industry. In this research, a novel methodology is developed to quantify firms’ strategic orientation using public 10-K reports. The Strategic Orientation Ratio (SOR) was developed and first validated to examine customer centricity for 9 non-pharmaceutical companies. The SOR is then extended from customer centricity to patient centricity, and it was applied to measure the extent of patient centricity in 10 multinational pharmaceutical firms. The method was successfully validated by identifying the strategic orientation of non-pharma firms such as Walmart, Apple, and Amazon. Next, by the same method, the extent of patient centricity is quantified in 10 big pharmaceutical companies for 2005-2015. This revealed the extent to which patient centricity exists in pharmaceutical companies, and how this has changed over time. The combination of an expressed patient-centric strategic orientation, personalized medicine (measured by oncology products), and patient access (measured by sales) is shown empirically to have a significant positive effect on firm performance. This implies that not only is patient centricity “the right thing to do,” it can also be a viable model for pharmaceutical firm competitiveness. / Business Administration/Strategic Management

This study investigates the relationship between Organizational Behavior (OB), IT-business strategic alignment (ITBSA), and Firm Performance (FP) within the context of the Jordanian maritime industry. Through a survey conducted among companies in the industry, data were collected to assess the constructs of OB, ITBSA, and FP. The analysis of the data revealed significant findings supporting the positive impact of OB on FP, suggesting that effective organizational behavior practices contribute to improved firm performance. Furthermore, the study found that OB positively influences ITBSA, indicating that a strong organizational behavior framework promotes the alignment between IT and business strategies. Additionally, the results demonstrate that ITBSA directly affects FP, emphasizing the importance of strategic alignment in driving favorable performance outcomes. The study also identified that ITBSA acts as a mediator between OB and FP, underscoring its role in facilitating the relationship between organizational behavior and firm performance. These findings offer valuable insights into the dynamics of the Jordanian maritime industry and emphasize the significance of fostering a conducive organizational behavior environment and aligning IT with business strategies. The implications of these findings for both theory and practice are discussed, along with suggestions for future research directions to further enhance our understanding of the relationships between OB, ITBSA, and FP in the maritime industry context.