Digital Commons Network^™

Improving The Education Of Leaders: An Exploratory Case Study In An Undergraduate Business Leadership Course Focused On Gender, Kanina Blanchard

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This exploratory case study is conducted in an undergraduate leadership course at a business school in Ontario. The research develops an understanding of how former students value and are influenced by leadership education that teaches a breadth of knowledges (instrumental, hermeneutic and emancipatory) and focuses on participants’ perspectives of how gender and inequality continue to impact the practice of leadership in Canada. By using document analysis and semi-structured interviews, findings emerge which provide insights into how changes in curricula and pedagogy may better prepare students of leadership to navigate the ethical and social complexities in today’s workplace.

An Exploration Of The Relationship Between Strategic Renewal And Occupational Identity, Krista L. Pettit

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Strategic renewal research focuses on what activities organizations need to engage in and how these activities need to be organized for successful renewal. During periods of strategic renewal the only certainty is that organizational activities will change, often substantially. Activity change is a challenge for organizations with occupations embedded within them as the activities of members are closely tied to the occupation and the identity of these occupational members (Pratt, Rockmann, & Kaufmann, 2006). In spite of the close link to activities, the current research on strategic renewal does not consider the important influence occupational identity has on this process …

Responses To Subpar Performance In Foreign Subsidiaries, Vanessa C. Hasse

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Many multinational enterprises (MNEs) experience subpar performance in some of their foreign subsidiaries. Despite the clear importance to practitioners, there are surprisingly few comprehensive studies on the appropriate responses to be taken when such a situation occurs. Studies addressing the subpar performance phenomenon have been fragmented across research domains, causing there to be a lack of theory-driven studies within an international context to provide insights. Thus, the research questions guiding this thesis are: When a foreign subsidiary experiences (repeated) subpar performance, what determines which specific type of response is chosen (if any at all)? Which type of response (if any) …

Social Movement Organization And Robust Action: Creating A Pre-Movement In A Movement-Inhibiting Environment, Yanfei Hu

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Social movements are extra-institutional forces that stimulate institutional and social change. Research has emphasized political opportunities, consciousness and organizational readiness as critical conditions for movements. In this thesis, I argue that such a conceptualization couches agency under structure, and does not explain how activists may create movement potentiality when none of the aforementioned conditions exist. This omission is significant because many movements can be traced to a pre-movement period when one (or a few) activist group(s) operated in movement-inhibiting environments to create conditions that enable future movements. In particular, the current literature lacks insights regarding the following question: How does …

Can Applying A Gender Lens To Social Innovation Promote Women's Rights And Gender Equality?, Sarah Saska-Crozier

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Social innovation is not new, but it is increasingly being called on to provide solutions to some of the world’s most pressing social and economic problems. Despite awareness about its importance, research in the field of social innovation is often vague, and there are competing definitions and understandings of the concept. There is also very little research that attempts to connect the field of social innovation with the fields of gender studies, women’s studies, feminist research, or men and masculinity studies. This dissertation applies a gender lens to the concept of social innovation. In doing so, it aims to develop …

Human Resource Management Practices And Performance: A General Systems Perspective, Duckjung Shin

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis consists of three essays on strategic human resource management (SHRM) based on general systems theory. The first essay introduces a systems perspective on SHRM, the second essay applies the feedback concept, and the third essay considers implementing human resource management (HRM) practices as adaptive systems. The three essays suggest that general systems theory extends the SHRM literature by considering antecedents, processes, and consequences of HRM in modern organizations.

In the first essay, I review the SHRM literature and identify four traditions in SHRM studies (economic, psychological, sociological, and critical perspectives). I propose a systems perspective on SHRM as …

"My Friends, They Are People To Rely On": The Social Foundation Of Business In Ghana, Patrick D. Shulist

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The management and entrepreneurship literatures increasingly engage in poverty alleviation research in the developing world. However, there is a marked tendency to overlook how the Western World, from where most theory comes, differs from the developing world. Such a fallacy has potential deleterious effects on the research itself, but more importantly on the practical applications of that research.

With this in mind, my dissertation uses an inductive qualitative methodology to explore the nature of self-employment in the developing world as it is; that is, not coloured by theoretical priors. In doing this, I lay the groundwork for understanding the …

Designing A Hybrid Experience: The Effect Of Experience Structure On Consumers' Evaluations, Juan Wang

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

A hybrid experience refers to an experience that is composed of two or more separable constituent experiences that are traditionally consumed independently of one another. A good example is an educational trip where sightseeing tours and educational engagements are combined in a single market offering for consumers. In this dissertation, I consider whether the structure of a hybrid experience impacts its evaluation. Through six experiments, I demonstrate that alternately structured hybrid experiences (e.g., partaking in both sightseeing tours and educational engagements within each day of a six-day trip) are more favourably evaluated than sequentially structured ones (e.g., completing all sightseeing …

Evaluating Loyalty Programs With Endogenous Redemption, Mihaela Alina Nastasoiu

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Evaluating the capacity of consumer loyalty programs to generate additional sales is essential for marketers who run such programs. However, customers' self-selection into the loyalty programs makes this evaluation difficult. This is the case especially in set-ups where the reward is not granted automatically upon achieving a certain number of points. In the case of automatic rewards, marketing theory predicts that points accumulation accelerates as consumers approach the threshold of necessary points for the reward, and is also boosted after the redemption, in what is called `the rewarded behavior effect'. In this thesis I use these insights to develop two …

Three Essays In Empirical Finance And Corporate Governance, Chongyu Dang

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis includes three integrated articles in empirical finance and corporate governance.

The first article studies the effects of sell-side financial analysts’ innate ability on corporate insider trading prior to annual earnings announcements from the perspective of information asymmetry. The empirical results show that analysts with higher innate ability are associated with lower level of net buys when insiders have “good” inside information about earnings, but this relation does not hold for net sells when insiders have “bad” inside information. The effects of analysts’ innate ability mostly reside in opportunistic trading rather than routine trading. The tests of analysts’ initial …

Social Barriers To Entry: Liquefied Natural Gas Import Terminals In The Us From 2000 To 2013, Chethan D. Srikant

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Management scholars recognize the uncertainties and challenges during the market entry process that can impede operational startup. However, very little empirical research exists to fully understand these challenges and explain firm responses. Even less attention has been paid to the threats from non-market actors and the countering strategies employed by firms. Hence, this thesis explores firm reactions to community contestation, as a form of social barrier to entry that can prevent the firm from exploiting market opportunities. Specifically, I consider the strategic implications of firms’ rhetorical responses to community contestation during the market entry process.

For this thesis, U.S. liquefied …

The Causes And Consequences Of Corporate Short-Termism, Mark R. Desjardine

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Corporate short-termism is one of the most significant concerns facing companies and society today. It demands that companies maximize profits in the short term regardless of the long-term consequences. Corporate short-termism can destroy long-run wealth generation, fuel job lay-offs, impede innovation, and neglect society’s social and environmental interests. Paul Polman, CEO of Unilever, declares that short-termism, “lies at the heart of many of today’s problems.”

In spite of the potential harm it may cause, corporate short-termism is one of least understood topics in management research. Anecdotal evidence suggests that financial market pressures fuel corporate short-termism, but little research has explored …

Nurses' Workplace Social Capital: Development And Validation Of A Self-Report Questionnaire, Emily A. Read

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Background: Social capital refers to resources created by and embedded in social relationships and has been identified as an important aspect of nurses’ work life. There is limited empirical evidence regarding its role and currently no valid and reliable self-report instruments to measure workplace social capital comprehensively.

Purpose: This study aimed to develop and test a self-report questionnaire to measure nurses’ workplace social capital and examine the nomologicial network of the concept including authentic leadership and structural empowerment as precursors of social capital and team effectiveness and patient care quality as outcomes.

Methods: A cross-sectional survey of 1,000 Registered Nurses …

Ethics For Aspiring Entrepreneurs: Finding Education In Poetics, Peggy M. O'Neil

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Aspiring entrepreneurs need and want ethics education. Authentic, robust educational resources and personalized instructional methods are not, however, available in professional or scholarly settings. Textbooks focus on large corporations and do not provide a framework to coordinate various ethical theories. Alternatively, some instructors use literary theory and real life exemplars to frame and teach ethics. In my dissertation, I expand on the characterization of the entrepreneur as a liberal artist and poet, isolate the ethical dilemmas presented by the entrepreneurial setting, summarize the strengths and limits of four major ethical theories, and identify current educational aims, resources and instructional methods. …

The Copyright Board And Tribunals Process: Users In The Balance, Louis J. D'Alton

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The wholesale adoption of copyright collective management as public policy tool has had an extraordinary impact on the information landscape. The unfettered expansion of collective rights organizations throughout the 20^th century has resulted in increased social costs and a burgeoning bureaucracy surrounding the collective use of rights.

This thesis considers the role of copyright tribunals within that process, and more importantly within a critical historical frame. While some work has been done with respect to copyright tribunals and their role in the policy process, none of it has considered the tribunals within a critical frame. This thesis considers those …

Values Of Hospital Chief Executive Officers In Ontario, Alexander Smith

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Value-based health systems, where the fundamental goal of the system is to maximize patient value, have been suggested as a means to improve health service delivery. However, our understanding of various stakeholder values in Ontario is limited. This study collected interview responses from 26 Ontario hospital Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) in an attempt to understand their personal values, alignment with health-system values, and use of values to drive decision-making. Results suggest that Ontario hospital CEOs have two value sets; a set of core values (i.e. integrity, compassion, empathy) that are established at a young age and are largely non-negotiable, and …