The college experience is enlightening, empowering, educational, but can also be overwhelming and stressful. If one investigates the atmosphere at your standard university campus, there is no doubt that all students are exhausted in their own unique way. The various responsibilities and obligations inherent in the academic course load, student organizations, sports teams, and other extracurricular activities that a student commits to fosters this stress. A common pattern, especially among students, is the progression from stress to exhaustion to lack of motivation, or helplessness. The Mayo Clinic published an article stating: “when stress begins to accumulate from negative or challenging events in life that just keep coming, you can find yourself in a state of feeling emotionally worn out and drained” (https://www.facebook.com/MayoClinicHealthSystem, 2020). That being said, the implementation of gamification in the college experience can significantly improve intrinsic motivation within students, thus reducing the stress and exhaustion. Gamification with regards to higher education is the use of game design elements in non-game contexts in order to engage and motivate learners. The primary purpose of gamification is to make learning more fun and interesting, as well as to increase learners’ engagement, motivation, and productivity. Video games and the concept of gamification in general have shown positive signs of relieved anxiety and increased enjoyment in many different aspects of life, such as education. The overarching goal of introducing gamification into the college environment is simple: To increase satisfaction, learning, participation, engagement, and retention among the student population.

This thesis project employs a four-frame evaluation from Lee Bolman and Terrence Deal’s book Reframing Organizations to ultimately suggest potential solutions and recommendations for how Phoenix Sister Cities and its Business Relations Committee can strengthen member engagement, increase the committee’s influence in the community, reinvigorate a greater sense of purpose in being a part of the committee. The paper begins with a description of the nonprofit organization Phoenix Sister Cities and its wide range of functions, in addition to its position within the larger Sister Cities community. Following this overview, an introduction and description of the Business Relations Committee is necessary to provide context for the multi-frame analysis. This description will include the structure of the committee as well as the current and past projects that the committee plays or has played a crucial role in. Next, using external research as well as personal testimony, I will discuss the main obstacle that the Business Relations Committee currently faces, which is cultivating engagement among all the members of the committee. After explaining Bolman and Deal’s four frames, I will use these frames to analyze the engagement of the Business Relations Committee members by looking at the challenge from a wide variety of perspectives. My recommendations that stem from the frame analysis include using stories and personal testimony to share the values of the committee with the community and to motivate fellow members to be more involved in the current committee projects. I also advise that committee leaders restructure the unit based on feedback from a distributed survey in order to identify members that can be given designated tasks moving forward. Lastly, I provide new project ideas for members to focus on in an effort to increase their belief in and devotion to the committee.

With unforeseen shocks to supply chains around the world happening as a result of COVID-19, humanitarian aid organizations like Feeding America struggled to keep up with the added demand placed on their warehouses. Many facilities struggled with getting accurate estimates of their capacity, as they fluctuate greatly with demand and supply, and most smaller facilities don’t have ERP systems to track their operations. Through the utilization of a user-friendly spreadsheet program and a basic warehouse diagram, this model offers a simple means of quantitative capacity estimation that is available to foodbanks across the nation.

This project analyzed the utilization rates of respective factories for Company X compared to the Manufacturing Utilization Policy to identify discrepancies in the policy baseline trigger and when the factories are ramped to full utilization. The current policy bases three different factory types, ATM, DS/DP, and FSM all on the same baseline of FSM. This was originally set in place from a lack of sufficient data for the other factories and now that there is enough data to identify the utilization rates of each factory type, a more suitable baseline for each can be determined. If continuing to use the FSM baseline, Company X will be designating certain factories as underutilized, triggering the manufacturing utilization policy and inefficiently allocating the building expenses, thus increasing the cost per unit of products produced.

As young women merge into the business world, the business environment structure often asks them to adjust or change their identity to be accepted by their male peers. Such identity changes include adopting masculine forms of professional dress, building relationships in the workplace, and dealing with personal life. Through a qualitative research methodology, the study explores the communication practices that women engage in to succeed in the masculine business/corporate environment. Research indicates various types of limitations in masculine environments in connection with the flexibility of schedule, equal pay, and balance between professional and family life, leading to emotional and psychological impacts. Moreover, findings indicate the use of resistance tools to assist women in the corporate/business environment in leadership mentoring, education, and information found on apps and social media. I highlight practical implications, discuss limitations, and provide recommendations for future directions.

Abstract<br/>Foreign Direct Investment has been pursued to economically integrate countries and to increase economic development. This has been accomplished partly through the WTO and Free Trade Agreements (FTAs), which have spurred foreign direct investment (FDI) by removing barriers to trade tariff and nontariff. In addition, they also created a framework and legal guidelines and regulations for investment and trade. Research suggests that this is the case when looking at country level data before and after FTAs go into effect. Although the existing literature offers important insights a weakness is it does not often look at the relationship between FTAs and FDI by analyzing firm level data. This is an important relationship to be studied as, beyond governments multinational companies (MNCs) are one of few key actors that can benefit the most and have the capabilities to take advantage of these FTAs. Therefore, studying the relationship between MNCs and their investments both before and after an FTA is signed is important to see if FDI would change in response to Free Trade Agreements and have an impact at the MNC level deployment of FDI. This would be significant to see if the current steady for attracting FDI is working. This is also important as FDI helps countries develop. Therefore, it can be seen as an exceptional contribution to the overall research on the subject. In this paper I will explore how companies have reacted to the formation of FTAs as well as the distinct effects of North-South South-South and North-North Agreements on firm’s investment strategies, using firm level data and drawing on interviews with multiple trade officials.

When examining the average college campus, it becomes obvious that students feel rushed from one place to another as they try to participate in class, clubs, and extracurricular activities. One way that students can feel more comfortable and relaxed around campus is to introduce the aspect of gaming. Studies show that “Moderate videogame play has been found to contribute to emotional stability” (Jones, 2014). This demonstrates that the stress of college can be mitigated by introducing the ability to interact with video games. This same concept has been applied in the workplace, where studies have shown that “Gaming principles such as challenges, competition, rewards and personalization keep employees engaged and learning” (Clark, 2020). This means that if we manage to gamify the college experience, students will be more engaged which will increase and stabilize the retention rate of colleges which utilize this type of experience. Gaming allows students to connect with their peers in a casual environment while also allowing them to find resources around campus and find new places to eat and relax. We plan to gamify the college experience by introducing augmented reality in the form of an app. Augmented reality is “. . . a technology that combines virtual information with the real world” (Chen, 2019). College students will be able to utilize the resources and amenities available to them on campus while completing quests that help them within the application. This demonstrates the ability for video games to engage students using artificial tasks but real actions and experiences which help them feel more connected to campus. Our Founders Lab team has developed and tested an AR application that can be used to connect students with their campus and the resources available to them.

In 2020, the world was swept by a global pandemic. It disrupted the lives of millions; many lost their jobs, students were forced to leave schools, and children were left with little to do while quarantined at their houses. Although the media outlets covered very little of how children were being affected by COVID-19, it was obvious that their group was not immune to the issues the world was facing. Being stuck at home with little to do took a mental and physical toll on many kids. That is when EVOLVE Academy became an idea; our team wanted to create a fully online platform for children to help them practice and evolve their athletics skills, or simply spend part of their day performing a physical and health activity. Our team designed a solution that would benefit children, as well as parents that were struggling to find engaging activities for their kids while out of school. We quickly encountered issues that made it difficult for us to reach our target audience and make them believe and trust our platform. However, we persisted and tried to solve and answer the questions and problems that came along the way. Sadly, the same pandemic that opened the widow for EVOLVE Academy to exist, is now the reason people are walking away from it. Children want real interaction. They want to connect with other kids through more than just a screen. Although the priority of parents remains the safety and security of their kids, parents are also searching and opting for more “human” interactions, leaving EVOLVE Academy with little room to grow and succeed.