Digital Commons Network^™

Succession Planning Strategies Of Nonprofit Organization Executives, Mohamed Karaki

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Nonprofit organization executives lack strategies for effective succession planning. Executives who implement succession planning strategies can improve human talent, transition executive successors, and retain leadership continuity to preserve organizational success. Grounded in the human capital theory, the purpose of this qualitative multiple case study was to explore strategies nonprofit organization executives use for effective succession planning. The participants included four executives from multiple organizations in southeast Michigan who used strategies for effective succession planning. Data were collected from semistructured interviews and company documents. Through thematic analysis, three themes emerged: effective strategies to formalize a succession plan, effective strategies to develop …

Improving Academic Success: Creating A College Planning Resource For Students, Hannah Grunden

Honors Projects

Academic performance of students is a major concern for colleges, especially with the recent COVID-19 pandemic. Research has shown that active involvement, the development of self-regulation skills, and improved mental health all have a considerable impact on college students’ academic success. Colleges like Bowling Green State University need to consider how they can use these factors and leverage resources to improve student performance. In this project, a solution is proposed in the form of a college/personal planner which is directly based off research on early academic success. While further, more specific research is needed to fully understand the issue and …

Modular Interior Partitions In Commercial Housing: A Case Study, Adam David Meleo

Construction Management

The ability to modify an interior space with ease and reasonable cost is beneficial to designers, owners, and end-users. Modular interiors are not a new concept. Modular interior partitions can come in the form of Japanese Shoji screens, as well as folding walls that would be found in a convention center. While not new in concept, the market for products that allow partitioning an interior space with ease appears to be growing with the introduction of innovative products and solutions. This paper will focus on two student housing projects in San Luis Obispo, California, with regards to their design and …

Cost Optimization Modeling For Airport Capacity Expansion Problems In Metropolitan Areas, Woo-Jin Choi

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

The purpose of this research was to develop a cost optimization model to identify an optimal solution to expand airport capacity in metropolitan areas in consideration of demand uncertainties. The study first analyzed four airport capacity expansion cases from different regions of the world to identify possible solutions to expand airport capacity and key cost functions which are highly related to airport capacity problems. Using mixed integer nonlinear programming (MINLP), a deterministic optimization model was developed with the inclusion of six cost functions: capital cost, operation cost, delay cost, noise cost, operation readiness, and airport transfer (ORAT) cost, and passenger …

Clarifying The Relationship Of Design Thinking To The Military Decision-Making Process, Thomas S. Fisher

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The complexity of today’s operational environment where military organizations are conducting campaigns to address some of the nation’s most urgent problems has grown exponentially. To address this expanding complexity, the Defense Department introduced ‘design’ into its problem-solving doctrine as a method to understand the new and dynamic challenges associated with this increasingly complex environment and provide a tool to augment its current doctrinal military decision-making process. However, it appears military ‘design’ as prescribed by the Department may be only marginally effective at producing viable solutions for solving the complex, ill-structured problems that current military campaigns were developed to resolve. This …

An Inside Look Into Event Planning, Anastasia Goebel

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This paper will summarize the planning process, methods, and results of a local Ellensburg, Washington event and student project, “Mickey’s Countdown to Christmas.” This event was a fundraiser taking place during the holiday season, where the goal was to raise money for the Ellensburg High School Band (EHS). The EHS Band takes a biannual educational trip to The Disneyland Resort, and as over 100 kids want to go in the year 2020, it has become an expensive endeavor. The hope for the fundraiser was to raise some extra money that could be deposited directly into student accounts, so that more …

Strategies To Sustain A Real Estate Small Business In Postnatural-Disaster Area, Vianka Miranda

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Many small real estate business leaders lack effective strategies to resume and sustain operations in a postnatural-disaster environment. This multiple case study investigated strategies that 3 small real estate business leaders in southeastern Louisiana used to resume and sustain operations in the aftermath of a natural disaster. The chaos theory and stakeholder theory were the conceptual frameworks for this study. Data were collected from semistructured interviews, and reviews of business continuity plan documents and member checking. The themes that emerged from data analysis were leaders' strategies relating to business planning and innovation, stakeholder engagement, operations management, and disaster responsiveness. Implications …

Music & Media: A Senior Recital & Honors Project, Kayla Luteran

Honors Projects

Music & Media: A Senior Recital & Honors Project is a cross-media marketing strategy. The main purpose of this project was to develop visually appealing, informative graphic elements and branding to effectively promote a musical performance. This is interdisciplinary in nature and includes written and oral communication.

While many music students post about their senior recital on social media or place flyers, they do not develop a thorough methodology for generating buzz about their event. Although musical preparation is of utmost importance for a performance, I believe that time should be spent on all aspects of planning the recital. With …

Retail Business Managers' Strategies For Enhancing Workplace Diversity Planning, Daniel M. Ortiz

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Lack of workplace diversity planning leads to negative financial outcomes. The purpose of this qualitative multiple case study was to explore strategies that business managers in the retail sector use to enhance workplace diversity planning for assuring compliance with Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) regulations. The population included a single focus group of retail business employees as well as business managers of 5 distinct retail stores located in the Southeastern United States who have successfully instituted workplace diversity plans for assuring compliance with EEOC regulations. The conceptual framework for this study was cultural intelligence theory, which researchers have used to …

Budget Planning, Budget Control, Business Age, And Financial Performance In Small Businesses, Tracy A. Foster

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Over 390,000 businesses failed in the United States in 2014. The primary cause for most business failures is poor planning, and budgets are a primary means of planning. The purpose of this correlational study was to examine to what extent, if any, budget planning, budget control, and the age of the business significantly predict financial performance in small businesses. The target population consisted of small business leaders in the Midwest. Churchill and Lewis's theory on the relative importance of selected management factors of small businesses through 5 stages of development formed the theoretical framework for this study. Data were collected …

Leadership Practices That Improve The Workplace Safety Environment, Nathan Nomore Chikono

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Inadequate leadership is the reason workplace accidents in the mining industry remain high, making the industry one of the most hazardous operational activities in the world. Unsafe leadership practices may result in death or injury to workers. A group of 30 mining company leaders from 3 gold mines in Zimbabwe revealed an exception to these hazardous practices, however, notable through their outstanding safety improvement records. To better understand what these practitioners were doing, this multicase study research design explored their strategies to improve the workplace safety environment in the mines. Data were collected using audio-recorded semistructured interviews and document analyses. …

Do Education, Spending Habits And Planning Habits Affect Investing Habits?, Miran Simunic

Theses

The purpose of this thesis is to explore the influence of formal education, spending habit, and planning habit on investing habit, while controlling for age, gender, income, and self-perception of financial knowledge. The previous studies tested the influence of education on certain money management skills or investing habits, but none of them explored the influence of formal education, spending habit and planning habit on investing habits. This thesis explores this influence of those three independent variables with control variables on a sample that represents the entire population of the United States. The testing is performed on the data from 2012 …

Strategies For Implementing A Successful Enterprise Resource Planning System, Wanda A. Swanier

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The U.S. Department of Defense executives consider enterprise resource planning systems as a critical technology because of increasingly global operations and audit compliance pressures, which may affect organizational performance and overall success. The estimated cost to implement enterprise resources systems to avoid failure and meet budget cost across the Department of Defense services and agencies has ranged from $530 million to $2.4 billion. Guided by the general systems theory, the purpose of this single-case study was to explore enterprise resource planning strategies developed and implemented by United States Marine Corps military leaders. Data collection consisted of a review of organizational …

The Benefits Of Having A Comprehensive Financial Plan For The Average Consumer, And The Necessary Components Comprised To Make An Effective And Efficient Plan, Nicholas M. Lund

CMC Senior Theses

Socioeconomic changes in American society over the past few decades, as well as an overwhelming amount of uncertainty and misconceptions, have resulted in a majority of Americans to fall short of their financial goals in the short-term, the mid-term, and the long-term. Without proper preparation and financial planning, it is likely that these Americans, and many more, will be unable to reach these goals as well as retire comfortably. Many Americans are overwhelmed with the immense amount of financial information, tools and resources, and as a consequence are unable to plan their finances efficiently and effectively. Americans need a better …

Alternative Institutional Arrangement For Urban Transit And Intercity Railway Operations: Lessons For The U.S., Seitu Akira Coleman

City and Regional Planning

Public transportation is an important part of the U.S. transportation system. After losing popularity in the U.S. during the mid-20th century, public transportation has been making a strong comeback in major metropolitan areas since the 1990s. In an effort to reduce inner-city traffic congestion, promote environmentally sustainable development patterns, rejuvenate decaying central business districts, and take advantage of all the other externalities of public transportation (i.e., reduced air pollution, a smaller urban footprint reducing sprawl, etc.), urban areas have been actively expanding their existing systems or building completely new systems. Despite the strong interest in reinvesting in public transportation and …

Governmental Procurement Restrictions, Deficit Reductions, And The Sustainability Of Alaska Native Corporations, Paul O. Fondren

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Alaska Native Corporations (ANCs) came under political scrutiny in the United States in 2009 during a climate of economic recession and governmental spending reductions. Since then, ANCs have faced increased governmental regulations that immediately changed the ways that their leaders previously achieved growth and success. The purpose of this explanatory case study was to identify elements of ANC strategic plans that lead to success and growth when operationally implemented. The central research questions investigated what executable strategic plans ANC leaders need to ensure sustainable business growth and what practices have led to success and failures. Data were collected from interviews …

Local Energy Governance In Vermont: An Analysis Of Energy System Transition Strategies And Actor Capacity, Tarah Rowse

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

While global, national, and regional efforts to address climate and energy challenges remain essential, local governments and community groups are playing an increasingly stronger and vital role. As an active state in energy system policy, planning and innovation, Vermont offers a testing ground for research into energy governance at the local level. A baseline understanding of the energy planning and energy organizing activities initiated at the local level can support efforts to foster a transition to a sustainable energy system in Vermont. Following an inductive, applied and participatory approach, and grounded in the fields of sustainability transitions, energy planning, and …

International Career Conference 2011, Candice Ryann Powell

Communication Studies

As marketing coordinator for the International Career Conference (ICC) 2011 I describe the steps I took to advertise for the event. This event had 10 workshops, 17 companies, and over 200 attendees.

Collaborative Planning Forecasting Replenishment (Cpfr);Successful Implementation Attributes, Robert G. Stoll

ETD Archive

This dissertation paper offers a theoretical and empirical explanation for why interfirm collaborations form yet fail, and further suggests how firms might manage them for a more positive outcome. The main focus of this dissertation was to research and investigate the implementation issues in the early stages of CPFR. The crux of the argument is that firms enter into collaborative relationships because these are expected to yield superior results relative to alternate organizational forms in certain situations, offering potentially synergistic combinations of complementary resources and capabilities, yet such relationships are frequently prone to failure. Since CPFR implementations are a recent …

Understanding Sustainable Tourism Development From A Complex Systems Perspective: A Case Study Of The Swan River, Western Australia, Janine R. Mcdonald

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Tourism does not operate in a predictable and mechanistic environment and is influenced by unpredictable circumstances. Influences include underlying values and perceptions keeping the system unpredictable and dynamic. Tourism that utilises natural resources is exposed to the additional unpredictability of natural changes and activities and/or decisions of other stakeholders. Tourism research generally adopts reductionist approaches and has not effectively understood tourism as a stakeholder within a complex system of stakeholders. Reductionist approaches have led to interpretations of sustainable tourism development being highly focused and sector specific limiting understanding of the complex systems in which tourism operates and resulting in narrow …

An Evaluation Of The Business Value Gained Through The Use Of Customer Relationship Management And Related Ebusiness Solutions Deployed Within An Irish Enterprise, Catherina Kelly

Theses

The company at the centre of this case study is the Irish registered company Hewlett Packard (HP) European Software Centre (ESC) based in the Ballybrit Industrial Estate in Galway, Ireland. The core operation of the ESC is customer services distribution. For HP ESC, effective customer support and service had become a major strategic focus resulting in the strategic requirement for a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) eBusiness solution.

This case study evaluated the business value associated with HP’s CRM implementation focusing primarily on intangible elements of business value as opposed to the more traditional financial measures of IS/IT evaluations. The research …

Exploring The Antecedents Of Successful E-Business Implementations Through Erp : A Longitudinal Study Of Sap-Based Organisations 1999-2003, Colin Ash

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

This research was carried out between 1999 and 2003 on the use of e-business applications in ERP-based organisations. A composite research method based on structured case studies was developed for this study. It combined the application of case methods by Carroll et al. (1998], Klein and Myer (1998), and Eisenhardt (1989). This was used to provide a focused, yet flexible structure, as a dynamic approach to case study interpretive research. The research method used three distinct models at three progressive stages of the study, to provide a multi-faceted view of each case. This composite case-based method was developed to maintain …

Identification And Realisation Of The Benefits Of Participating In An Electronic Marketplace : An Interpretive Evaluation Approach, Rosemary Stockdale

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Electronic marketplaces have proliferated as use of the Internet has become widespread in business. A rapid growth in the number of marketplaces, followed by a period of stringent consolidation, as market makers develop a greater understanding of effective business models, has resulted in a climate of uncertainty and confusion. As with many aspects of e-commerce the drive towards participation is fuelled less by strategy planning than by a fear of lagging behind competitors or losing first mover advantage. In this climate of uncertainty organisations often bypass effective evaluation of the benefits that can be realised from participation in e-marketplaces, thereby …

Strategy Implementation Effectiveness In A Nonprofit Environment: The Case Of Museum Stores, Sandra A. Mottner

Theses and Dissertations in Business Administration

The character of museums in America has changed significantly in this century as museums change how they market themselves to their constituents. One of these changes has been the growth and development of museum stores. First designed to supplement museum income museum stores are now a major source of museum funding (American Association of Museums 1999) and a source of educational enhancement of the museum's educational mission (Theobald 2000). However, despite the growth of the museum store, virtually no academic research has been undertaken.

This research seeks to help fill this void in the literature of not only museum store …

Strategic Marketing Plan For San Antonio Urology Medical Group, Incorporated, Victor Choy Ching

Theses Digitization Project

San Antonio Urology Medical Group, Inc. (SAUMG) is a single speciality urologic practice in Southern California comprised of three urologists. The rapid changes occurring in healthcare must be analyzed and strategies developed to enhance the continued growth fo SAUMG and to shape its future.

Development Of The Base Support Plan Process Model For Evaluation Of Proposed Process Improvement Initiatives, Daniel T. Kalosky, Patrick G. Walker

Theses and Dissertations

The primary role of the United States Air Force (USAF) logistics planner is to plan for war. For the wing level logistics planner, an important war planning product they are responsible for is the base support plan (BSP). The BSP is the installation level plan to support unified and specified command wartime operations plans, as well as MAJCOM supporting plans. Two Armstrong Laboratory sponsored initiatives exist to automate and enhance some of the BSP processes: the Survey Tool for Employment Planning (STEP) and Beddown Capability and Assessment Tool (BCAT). This research explored the BSP process and improvement initiatives by (1) …