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Browsing by Subject "ERP"

Now showing 1 - 5 of 5
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    Enterprise Systems and Mergers and Acquisitions
    (2017-07) Cao, Chengxin
    This dissertation studies the impact of enterprise systems on mergers and acquisitions. The first chapter examines the relationship between Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Customer Relationship Management (CRM), and Supply Chain Management (SCM) systems and mergers and acquisitions (M&A). It also investigates how these relationships are contingent on the characteristics of the focal firm and its industry environment. The key argument is that since enterprise systems can reduce agency cost associated with internal coordination and the transaction cost of coordinating with customers and suppliers, enterprise systems may be related with horizontal, vertical and conglomerate M&A. Using a sample of 707 Fortune 1000 firms that made 1,973 M&A deals from 2009 to 2014, the empirical analysis suggests that ERP systems are positively related with horizontal and conglomerate acquisitions, more so for larger firms; CRM systems are negatively related with vertical M&A, especially when downstream industry dynamism is low; and SCM systems are negatively related with vertical M&A, particularly when supplier industry concentration is low. The second chapter examines the impact of enterprise systems (ES) of both the acquiring and target firms’ on the premium and the capital market reaction of mergers and acquisitions (M&A). The results that the extensiveness and standardization of ES are significantly associated with both market value enhancement of the acquirer as well as high market valuation for the target highlights the important role information systems play in the creation as well as the deployment of firm resources and capabilities that deliver competitive advantages to firms. Also, the availability of reliable and current information from multiple functional groups and business units that can be easily consolidated for decision making, and the availability of tools for financial modeling and simulations of different scenarios, enables senior executives to make informed and evidence based decisions in key aspects of M&A such as target choice and target firm valuation. This enables the acquirers to accurately assess the unique synergy that can be realized in the acquisition, thus preventing the acquirer from overpaying for the acquisition.
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    Masked antipriming: a behavioral and event-related potential examination of short-term antipriming effects
    (2008-11) Deason, Rebecca Gwynne
    Antipriming is a new implicit-memory effect of prior processing of stimuli measured as impaired identification of objects following recent encoding of other objects (e.g.,identifying a piano is impaired by having recently viewed objects that are not pianos; Marsolek et al., 2006). Antipriming effects have been established in several behavioral experiments (with young adults, amnesic patients, and age-matched controls),neurocomputational models, and studies measuring neural activity. In this series of studies, I extended the prior findings by establishing a new masked antipriming paradigm. This new paradigm allowed examination of the antipriming effect in a task where the prime and target are only separated by milliseconds (a short-term memory task) as opposed to the minutes of separation between prime and target in the original task (measuring long-term memory). Experiment 1 demonstrated both repetition priming (faster response times for repetition primed objects compared to objects in a baseline condition) and antipriming (decreased accuracy as compared to baseline identification). In Experiment 2, speed was emphasized in an effort to detect both priming and antipriming in one measure. Experiment 3 was the first experiment to directly examine the role of visual similarity in antipriming and it demonstrated that high visual similarity between objects could result in increased antipriming. An ERP masked antipriming task revealed two main effects. There were no very early effects and the first effect occurred around 500-600 ms as a positive deflection for antiprimed objects compared to baseline and repetition primed items. The second effect began around 1100 ms also as a positive deflection for antiprimed objects compared to baseline (and sometimes repetition primed items). This effect extends out through 1600 ms and has both a posterior and a frontal location. These effects could be explained by the same theory applied to the long-term memory effects, or they could be due to more immediate effects of competition between object representations.
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    Modulating Human Cortical Plasticity via Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation: Basic & Clinical Applications
    (2019-12) Boroda, Elias
    As humans we have a unique ability to study, and even to modify the makeup of our own existence. The concept of changing oneself has always intrigued me, and it was what initially piqued my interest in the study of the human brain. In my estimation, the brain was where most of our “existence” derived from (I’ve changed my mind about that somewhat since then), and therefore learning about it, and how to modify it, would be quite an interesting undertaking. My passion for this topic led me to work with Dr. Kelvin Lim, who at the time was building momentum for studying the clinical potential of non-invasive neuromodulation. Over the course of 5 years working with Kelvin, I was able to learn a significant amount regarding neuromodulation, research and science as a whole. This dissertation describes two of my main projects. These studies focus on researching the basic and clinical applications of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) as a means to modulate human brain plasticity. The first project, described in chapter II, was a basic science study which aimed to investigate how tDCS interacts with functional brain state. Previous literature has reported on the ability of tDCS to modulate plasticity, both in humans and in animal models. However, given the non-focal nature of tDCS, there is an open debate as to how specific outcomes (physiological or behavioral) are achieved. Recently, a hypothesis has been proposed that active brain networks or populations of neurons are preferentially susceptible to the influence of electric fields over inactive networks or groups of cells. This ‘activity-selectivity’ hypothesis has not been thoroughly tested in studies using physiological measures. In this study I use a novel electrophysiological paradigm to investigate the impact of tDCS on plasticity in the auditory cortex. The unique features of the paradigm allowed me to analyze stimulus specific effects of tDCS, making it possible to test the ‘activity-selectivity’ hypothesis using a novel physiological measure. The third chapter of the thesis describes a clinical trial where we used tDCS in combination with cognitive training to treat impaired executive functions in children with fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD). Exposure to alcohol in the womb impairs neuroplasticity in the developing brain and often leads to severe cognitive deficits later in life. Cognitive training is one of a few treatment options for these deficits, however treatment times are long and difficult to complete. Research has shown that pairing cognitive training with tDCS enhances efficacy and can allow for a shorter intervention. However, tDCS has not been tried in children with FASD and it is not clear if it would be tolerated or efficacious in this population. With this in mind, we conducted a first of its kind clinical trial in children with FASD to test the tolerability and feasibility of tDCS augmented cognitive training and its effects on executive functioning. In sum, this dissertation describes two of my major studies which describe the characteristics and the use of tDCS in both a basic and clinical setting. I believe that the findings generated by these studies will make a significant and positive effect on the field of tDCS and its use in the clinic.
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    Neural Correlates of Mindfulness and Executive Function Training in Internationally Adopted Children: A Randomized, Controlled Trial
    (2015-06) Esposito, Elisa
    Self-regulation, particularly attention regulation, is related to anxiety. Children who have been internationally adopted (IA) are at risk for deficits in both attention and emotion regulation. Promising evidence for focal executive function (EF) training and mindfulness training suggest that these skills can be readily improved in adults and children, and training EF independently may transfer to emotion regulation skills. This study examined the effects of mindfulness and executive function training programs on neural correlates of self-regulation in a sample of 96 IA children. Children were randomized to receive either 12 total hours of training (mindfulness vs. executive function) or a no-intervention control. Children completed a battery of executive function measures at laboratory testing sessions before and after the 6-week training period. Four months after training, parents and teachers provided additional ratings of children’s self-regulation skills. Executive function training led to improvement on measures of executive attention and inhibitory control, whereas mindfulness training was related to improvements in emotion regulation. Changes in the error-related negativity (ERN) were divergent between the two groups, supporting the differential impact of training on behavior. There was no evidence of transfer of EF training to observer reports of emotion regulation.
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    Psychophysiological and fMRI investigations of tobacco cue reactivity.
    (2010-06) Engelmann, Jeffrey Michael
    Development of new smoking-cessation therapies may be facilitated by identifying the neural basis of smoking-related emotional responses. In this dissertation, the affective consequences of cigarette smoking and abstinence were modeled in rats and humans using a potentiated-startle paradigm. In rats, repeated daily nicotine injections resulted in increased startle amplitude 2 h after nicotine exposure, which is consistent with the emergence of an anxiety-like withdrawal episode. In humans, startle responses to tobacco, pleasant, neutral, and unpleasant cues were measured in nonsmokers, nonabstinent smokers, and smokers who were 24 h into a 48 h abstinence period. Startle amplitude was potentiated during unpleasant cues in nonsmokers and abstinent smokers, but not in nonabstinent smokers, which suggests that smoking a cigarette reduced anxiety. Event-related brain potentials also suggested that abstinent smokers were more emotionally reactive than nonsmokers and nonabstinent smokers to both tobacco cues and unpleasant cues. An additional, functional magnetic resonance imaging study found that that two brain regions, the dorsal striatum and the anterior cingulate cortex, were involved in the expression of abstinent smokers' emotional responses to tobacco and unpleasant cues. These results suggest negative affect may be important in maintaining cigarette smoking and that the potentiated startle paradigm is an ideal model for preclinical and clinical studies of smoking-related emotional responses.