Digital Commons Network^™

Franchising: A Microfoundational View Of Personality Relationships Towards Franchisee Financial Performance, Christopher Heath Rehkop

Theses and Dissertations

The franchisor-franchisee relationship is unique; it provides a blend of entrepreneurial spirit with the structure of an established corporation. Franchisees operate with a degree of independence, taking certain risks and managing the details of day-to-day business, yet are also obligated to follow prescribed systems and processes of the franchisor. Both parties have a vested interest in the success of this relationship. While many macro-level factors (economy, technology, and demographics) come into play for a franchise’s success, one micro-level variable that may be identified early during recruitment is the personality characteristic of the franchisee candidate. A micro-level or “microfoundations” approach addresses …

The Application Of Virtual Reality In Firefighting Training, Dylan A. Gagnon

Theses and Dissertations

Immersive simulations such as virtual reality is becoming more prevalent for use in training environments for many professions. United States Air Force firefighters may benefit from incorporating VR technology into their training program to increase organizational commitment, job satisfaction, self-efficacy, and job performance. With implementing a new training platform, it is also important to understand the relationship between these variables and the perceived benefits and efficacy of the VR training, which has not yet been studied in previous research. This study addresses this issue by gathering data from fire departments currently fielding a VR fire training platform.

Understanding The Importance Of Ambition In The Workplace, Jeff Bean

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Though a common term, ambition is a multifaceted concept that is vastly under researched despite it being labeled necessary for success in the workplace. Of even greater irony is that several sources indicate a significant majority of the reason that employees leave organizations is due to a perceived lack of career development or opportunity, a problem that speaks directly to talent management practices. In light the costly nature of this problem and the presence of sophisticated talent management professionals in large and medium-sized organizations which comprise half or more of the workforce, it causes one to question the assumptions that …

Evaluation Of Student Reactions To Consumer Products, Bryce K. Lesher

Honors College Theses

Based on gender role congruence theory, this research sought to understand how consumer perceptions differ for masculinized and feminized products when they are presented by the opposing gender. Additionally, our research sought to understand what role—if any—political affiliation played in the consumer’s perception of the products presented. The results of this study were inconclusive due to a data collection error, however, the study itself serves as a good framework for answering the question of interest and should be rerun to draw meaningful conclusions.

Does Extrinsic Motivation Affect Creativity Within Diverse Teams?, Gitanjali K. Viswanathan

Honors Theses

This study analyzes the relationship between extrinsic motivation and creativity in teams. The moderation effect of functionality, openness to experience, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and diversity within a team is also considered. A survey was constructed and distributed to students within Sections 1 and 6 of the course Principles of Management at The University of Mississippi. Survey data were collected from 77 respondents and used for hierarchical regression and moderation analysis. The results of this study do not support extrinsic motivation as a significant predictor of creativity. Functionality, agreeableness, and conscientiousness each demonstrate a separate, significant interaction effect with extrinsic motivation. However, …

Professional Self-Care Practices, Emotional Work And Burnout In Australian Psychology Academics, Claudia Yael Hoenig

Theses : Honours

This study examined whether professional self-care practices (PSCP) had a moderating effect on the relationship between emotional work (EW) performed and burnout symptoms experienced among Australian academics teaching psychology. Seventy-seven Australian psychology academics ranging from 27 to 64 years, with an average of 13.34 years of academic experience, and representing the full range of academic levels from Associate Lecturer to Professor, and predominantly females, participated in the study. Participants completed an online survey comprising three questionnaires: the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI), Intensive Emotion Work Inventory (IEW) and Professional Self-Care Scale (PSCS), addressing levels of PSCP, EW performed and frequency and …

It Is In The Cards: An Analysis Of Greeting Card Selection Through Identity And Personality, Emily Topilow

Honors Projects

In this exploratory study, personal and social identity were analyzed for their effect on how consumers choose greeting cards. Factors, including personality, relationships, and identity will be qualitatively analyzed to understand people’s buying habits. Certain factors, including gender, personality, relationships, type of card, and frequency of receiving and giving cards, will be qualitatively analyzed for frequency. The two theories analyzed were the Social Identity Theory (SIT) and the Identity Theory (IT).

525 college-aged students were surveyed to examine their purchasing habits of greeting cards. The results showed that the identity of the card giver and the identity of the card …

When Social Media Takes Your Money: In-App Shopping And Buyer’S Remorse Study, Catie Jaffe

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Like What You See? The Influence Of Program Assortment Organization And Viewing Motivation On Video-On-Demand Consumption, Boram Nam

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This research investigates the effect of program assortment organization and consumers’ viewing motivation on Video-on-Demand (VOD) consumption. In doing so, we examine the formation of viewers’ choice set and product interests in the context of the largely unexplored VOD marketplace. Specifically, we test the interaction between program assortment organization and the specificity of consumers’ motivation toward content for viewing on VOD to show that the size of choice set increases when program assortment is organized by content (genre) vs. a non-content specific alternative (recommendation) among consumers with an activity-focused (vs. content-focused) viewing motivation. We also provide preliminary evidence that consumer …

Implementing A Healthy Diet In The Intellectual Disability Residential Community, Stephanie Michelle Shelton

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The problem addressed in this study was how staff working in a residential agency for individuals with an intellectual disability (IID) make decisions about how to implement a healthy diet. The purpose of this study was to identify the influences on decisions made by staff on the meals they provided to their clients with an IID. The theory of planned was used to study the influences of attitude, subjective norms, and perceived behavior control on the meals provided for IID. The key research question explored how staff members make decisions. A qualitative case study design was used. The 12 participants …

A Survey Of Addictive Software Design, Chauncey J. Neyman

Computer Science and Software Engineering

The average smartphone owner checks their phone more than 150 times per day. As of 2015, 62% of smartphone users had used their phone to look up information about a health condition, while 57% had used their phone to do online banking. Mobile platforms have become the dominant medium of human-computer interaction. So how have these devices established themselves as our go to connection to the Internet? The answer lies in addictive design. Software designers have become well versed in creating software that captivates us at a primal level. In this article, we survey addictive software design strategies, their bases …

Finding The Ghost With The Machine: Breaking Through The Assessment Center Validity Ceiling By Exploring Decisional Processes Using New Sources Of Behavioral Data Within Virtual Assessments, Brett W. Guidry

Open Access Dissertations

Decades of assessment center (AC) research has resulted in an inevitable “validity ceiling” whereby increasing the validity of the AC method is becoming increasingly difficult. To overcome this challenge, new avenues for collecting and evaluating AC participant behaviors must be explored, with a particular focus on overcoming the inherent limitations of human observation—a hallmark of the AC method. This study examines detailed logs of AC participant behaviors captured automatically and unobtrusively during a computer-based simulation assessment. Using a decision making framework, basic characteristics of the new behavioral data are tested against existing theories of decisional efficacy. The construct-related validity of …

Emotional Labor: Surface Acting A Better Emotional Regulation Strategy For Dealers?, James Luverne Cox

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The performing of emotional regulation in the workplace, or emotional labor, has long been researched by scholars. The conclusion that most reached was that individuals performing this regulation were typically better off by changing their emotions felt to their emotions displayed, or what is termed as “deep acting”, rather than “surface acting”, or faking the emotion. This paper will further explore the thoughts behind this argument and propose that dealers that use deep acting are, in fact, more likely to experience emotional burnout due to the inability to constantly change inner emotional states. Additionally, the paper will also seek to …

Evaluating Indicators Of Job Performance: Distributions And Types Of Analyses, Richard J. Chambers Ii

Doctoral Dissertations

Distributions of job performance indicators have historically been assumed to be normally distributed (Aguinis & O'Boyle, 2014; Schmidt & Hunter, 1983; Tiffin, 1947). Generally, any evidence to the contrary has been attributed to errors in the measurement of job performance (Murphy, 2008). A few researchers have been skeptical of this assumption (Micceri, 1989; Murphy, 1999; Saal, Downey, & Lahey, 1980); yet, only recently has research demonstrated that in certain specific situations job performance is exponentially distributed (Aguinis, O'Boyle, Gonzalez-Mulé, & Joo, 2016; O'Boyle & Aguinis, 2012). To date there have been few recommendations in the Industrial-Organizational Psychology literature about how …

Using Latent Class Cluster Analysis To Identify And Profile Organizational Subclimates: An Exploratory Investigation Using Safety Climate As An Exemplar, Amy Frost Stevenson

Doctoral Dissertations

Organizational climate refers to the shared meaning organizational members attach to the events, policies, practices, and procedures they experience as well as to the behaviors they see being rewarded, supported, and expected (Schneider, Ehrhart, & Macey, 2011). Climate scholars have most frequently used referent-shift consensus and dispersion composition models (Chan, 1998) to conceptualize and measure organizational climate. Based on these models, climate emergence has been characterized by low variance or high consensus of individual-level climate perceptions (Chan, 1998; Ehrhart, Schneider, & Macey, 2013; Hazy & Ashley, 2011; Kuenzi & Schminke, 2009) within formally defined organizational groups (e.g., work teams).

Climate …

Educating Managers On How To Manage Introverted Vs. Extroverted Employees, Madison Hays

Honors Projects

While personality types are a popular topic in society today, many don't really understand what they mean and what implications they can have. This project combines the disciplines of both management and psychology, seeking to educate managers on how the two personality traits of introversion and extroversion can impact their ability to effectively manage employees in the workplace. It is presented in the form of a blog, each post identifying and answering an anticipated question that a manager would have while integrating personality considerations into their job practices. Also included are reviews on popular non-fiction books that are recommended for …

Creativity In Organizations: Antecedents And Outcomes Of Individual Creativity, Goran Calic

Open Access Dissertations

In this dissertation I set out to expand our collective understanding of creativity in organizations. I accomplish this through three related studies, each organized into independent chapters of this dissertation.

The first study explores how demands of organizations, particularly strategic contradictions faced by decision makers, affect creative processes and products. In this chapter I develop the theory of paradoxical creativity, which posits that creative discovery is a function of how strategic contradictions are perceived by decision-makers. The key insight of the theory of paradoxical creativity is that strategic contradictions have independent effects on the two stages of creative discovery (generation …

Feelings Of Doing Good For Myself Or Others: Discussing Effects Of Self-Conscious Emotions On Sustainable Consumption, Chi-Cheng Luan

Open Access Dissertations

Consumers have increasing interests in sustainable products, but the actual purchase rate is relatively low. To find the reasons of this gap, previous studies focus primarily on cognitive factors of behavioral change based on the theory of planned behavior. Little research, however, discusses such a sustainable consumption issue from emotional aspects. Thus, this research proposed that self-conscious emotions play an essential role of sustainable consumption behavior, and such emotions are driven from private and public self-consciousness. Study 1 examined participants’ general evaluations toward two emotions and sustainable consumption behaviors. The results showed that empathic concern had a significantly positive effect …

Disability Visibility And Stigma Threat: Effects On The Performance, Stress, And Self-Control Of Disabled Workers, William Brice

Open Access Theses

Having a stigmatized disability is a depleting experience. For those with a disability, there are many factors that contribute to potential performance decrements in any given situation. Visibility of the disability, and the stigma connected to the disability are two such factors—which I argue based on research on motivation, regulation, and stress, contributes to the regulatory depletion experienced by disabled individuals. I conducted an experimental study where participants took part in a workplace simulation. Participants were given an artificially simulated disability and both the visibility of the disability and the stigmatizing nature of the disability were manipulated. I found a …

Does The Way We Measure Fit Matter? : Predicting Behaviors And Attitudes Using Different Measures Of Fit, Jennifer A. Cavanaugh

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

The literature on person-organization (P-O) fit has been plagued with inconsistencies in the conceptualization, operationalization and measurement of P-O fit. Despite numerous studies examining the relationship between P-O fit and outcomes, these inconsistencies in measurement and operationalization have led to mixed findings concerning specific individual outcomes. The goal of this dissertation was to address some of these inconsistencies by examining the relationship between P-O fit, using perceived and subjective measures of fit, and attitudinal and behavioral outcomes. In addition, previously unexplored mediators of the P-O fit-outcome relationships were examined.

Essays On Technology-Mediated Training: Implications For Design And Evaluation, Vishal Satyapal Shah

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Information technology (IT) is increasingly used to impart a variety training skills, and these skills may range from specific software application operations and computer programming to learning about generic business processes. Using IT to assist training is broadly termed “Technology-Mediated Learning” (TML). Following the three essay model, this dissertation examines training interventions in the context of TML. In Essay 1, a thorough literature survey of technology training in Information Systems (IS) was conducted, resulting in clarification of the nomenclature used in TML. Essay 1 also identified of two leading theories used in TML research: (a) Social cognitive theory (SCT) (b) …

The Relationships Between Managerial Metacognition, Total Quality Management, And A Firm's Sustainable Competitive Advantages: An Empirical Investigation Based On Structural Equation Modeling Analysis, Young Sik Cho

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

The purpose of this study is to explore how managerial metacognition has an influence on the effective implementation of total quality management (TQM) and the creation of a firm’s sustainable competitive advantages (P) by using the lens of Resource-Based View (RBV). In particular, this study conceptualized the existing TQM framework by two sub-constructs, technical quality management (TQ) and behavioral quality management (BQ) practices, and newly proposed the sequential relationship of 'TQ→BQ→P' based on the premise of the RBV. In addition, through post-hoc analysis, this study tested the mediation effect of a firm's TQ practices on the relationship between managerial metacognition …

Motivating The Solicited And Unsolicited Sharing Of Tacit Knowledge Through The Process Of Externalization, Sheila Yvonne Sorensen

CCE Theses and Dissertations

While several U. S. firms have invested in Knowledge Management (KM) tools and software, it has become apparent that investments must be made in additional facets of KM, such as knowledge sharing (KS), thought by many researchers to be the most important component of KM. Of the two types of KS, explicit and tacit, the sharing of tacit knowledge has been shown to contribute the most to an organization’s performance. However, since tacit knowledge is difficult to both convey and acquire, this unshared tacit knowledge may ultimately harm an organization when, without the appropriate knowledge, individuals cannot effectively perform their …

The Requirement To Be Fit And Proper: What Does It Mean To Australian Psychologists?, Francesca A. Bell

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

The phrase fit and proper is used in the Health Practitioners Regulation National Law Act (Qld), 2009, which came into effect nationally in 2010 and governs psychologists. As with previous legislation that used the phrase, the legislator does not define fit and proper, leaving it up to each profession to determine its exact meaning and inform the courts accordingly. A review of the literature established that to date no Australian psychologist has attempted to define the construct. This means that Australian lawyers do not get any guidance from psychologists regarding how they should interpret the phrase fit and proper in …

Customer Envy At Service Encounters, Gerardo Anaya

Open Access Theses

Envy has been regarded as a complex emotion which can produce both positive and negative outcomes for consumers. This study explored the subjective experience of customer envy at service encounters in order to better understand how customers respond to unflattering comparisons with an envied customer. A questionnaire was designed to measure the cognitive appraisals, emotional responses, and consequences of customer envy. Study participants were also asked to share their envy incidents in the survey. A sample of 300 participants was collected and used for analysis. The findings illustrate that distinctively different patterns of cognitive appraisals such as preferential treatment, are …

Explaining Implicit And Explicit Affective Linkages In It Teams: Facial Recognition, Emotional Intelligence, And Affective Tone, Mary M. Dunaway

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Over 80 percent of task work in organizations is performed by teams. Most teams operate in a more fluid, dynamic, and complex environment than in the past. As a result, a growing body of research is beginning to focus on how teams’ emotional well-being can benefit the effectiveness of workplace team efforts. These teams are required to be adaptive, to operate in ill-structured environments, and to rely on technology more than ever before. However, teams have become so ubiquitous that many organizations and managers take them for granted and assume they will be effective and productive. Because of the increased …

May I Help You? How Stereotypes And Innuendoes Influence Service Encounters, Lauren Michelle Brewer

Doctoral Dissertations

"You only get one chance to make a good first impression." The dissertation focuses on marketing agents; among the most visible is the "service provider." Previous research establishes the important role of cognitive social schemata in determining the way consumers react to different types of marketing agents, including service providers. In the literature review, a classification schema is developed for service provider stereotypes derived from theory using social stereotypes. The development of the Service Provider Perception Framework (SPPF) creates a classification for the individual service provider along two main dimensions: competence and affect.

In services design (particularly situations involving a …

Gap Between Hospitality Employers' Demands And Hospitality Students' Perceptions Regarding Entry-Level Managers' Requirements In The United States, Yijun Huang

Open Access Theses

This study aims to identify the gap between recruiters and students regarding what knowledge, skills and abilities are most needed for graduates to secure entry-level managers in the hospitality industry. Previous literature used different approaches to attain a similar idea that students and recruiters do have different opinions, especially for those intrinsic or person-related characteristics. The researcher borrowed statements from different researchers and added two statements to make up the missing part of previous research and then combined, split and revised these statements to see whether students' thinking matched the industry's thinking. The results showed that recruiters generally ranked these …

An Exploratory Study Of Hotel Manager Side-Taking Behavior And Its Influence On Employee Unfairness Perception And Negative Emotion, Yan Zhou

Open Access Theses

It is not rare that hotel managers show inconsistent attitudes and behaviors in front of customers and employees in their daily work. With limited time and resource, sometimes it is inevitable that hotel managers present certain tendencies to side with one party over the other when service failures occur between the two groups. However, in academia few studies have discussed these side-taking phenomena. The present researcher conducted an exploratory study about their definition and influence on hotel employees. Two video-based experiments were conducted and their results testified to the hypotheses that hotel managers' side-taking behaviors can lead to employee perceptions …

Consumer Perceptions Of Child-Friendly Shaped Healthy Fruit And Vegetable Snacks, Selena Lauren Baker

Open Access Theses

Fruits and vegetables (FV) are widely recognized as healthful foods by the public, and most individuals are aware of dietary guidance recommendations to consume more FV. However, actual consumption of FV has been and continues to be low in the United States and many other countries, despite public health efforts to change this trend. The sub-optimal intake of FV among children and adolescents is of particular concern due to high nutrient requirements for proper growth and development during these life stages. Fruit and vegetable intake patterns in childhood have been shown to track into later life and may affect individuals' …