Digital Commons Network^™

A Study And Critique Of Sexual Violence Against Disabled Individuals In Sub-Saharan Africa: Implications For Policy And Practice Of Trauma-Informed Care, Kaeley Sells

Lux et Fides: A Journal for Undergraduate Christian Scholars

This paper examines and critiques current sexual violence against disabled individuals in Sub-Saharan Africa by evaluating the social and cultural stigma present that perpetuates cycles of vulnerabilities. Currently, women and girls with disabilities are disproportionally at risk for sexual violence as economic, cultural, and political structures in many Sub-Saharan African countries fail to recognize and adequately protect those with disabilities. Incorporating evidence from journals, books, reviews, and studies, this paper demonstrates the need for non-government and government actors to recognize the need to provide protection and trauma-informed care for disabled individuals.

Closing The Gap: A Literature Review Of Gender Disparities In Higher Education, Morgan Purdy

Pepperdine Journal of Communication Research

No abstract provided.

Raising The Bar — Integrating Cultural Competence And Equity: Equitable Evaluation – With 2024 Prologue, Jara Dean-Coffey, Jill Casey, Leon D. Caldwell

The Foundation Review

Editor’s Note: This article, first published in print and online in 2014, has been republished by The Foundation Review with minor updates.

Whether implicit or explicit, social justice and human rights are part of the mission of many philanthropies. Evaluation produced, sponsored, or consumed by these philanthropies that doesn’t pay attention to the imperatives of cultural competency may be inconsistent with their missions.

The American Evaluation Association’s Statement on Cultural Competence provides those who produce, sponsor, and use evaluation an opportunity to examine and align their practices and policies within a context of racial and cultural equity and inclusion. The …

Internal Culture, External Impact: How A Changemaking Culture Positions Foundations To Achieve Transformational Change – With 2024 Prologue, Amy Celep, Sara Brenner, Rachel Mosher-Williams

The Foundation Review

Editor’s Note: This article, first published in print and online in 2016, has been republished by The Foundation Review with minor updates.

This article argues that a foundation’s internal culture is critical to achieving large-scale social change, but that efforts to build a changemaking culture too often are left out of strategy conversations.

While there is no one culture that suits every foundation, a particular set of characteristics must be present in those that seek largescale social change: a focus on outcomes, transparency, authenticity, collaboration, racial equity and inclusion, continuous learning, and openness to risk.

This article offers insights into …

The Soft Stuff Doesn’T Have To Be Hard: Foundation Investments In Grantee Workers Are Necessary, Valuable, And Measurable – With 2024 Prologue, Rusty M. Stahl

The Foundation Review

Editor’s Note: This article, first published in print and online in 2022, has been republished by The Foundation Review with minor updates.

There is an urgent need for funder investments in the ability of grantee nonprofit organizations to support their staff. Such investments, when done well, can yield significant value for individuals, organizations, and fields of work or movements. Furthermore, the value of these investments can be evaluated and communicated.

This article explores the reasons for and implications of the inadequate response by funders, offers a path forward for designing investments in grantee staff, and documents how funders can capture …

The Influence Of Trauma And Tradition In Culinary Conformity And Chef Retention: Is Institutional Isomorphism Forcing Culinary Homogeneity Impacting Chef Retention?, Kevin Ward

Dublin Gastronomy Symposium

For chefs, the kitchen is not merely a workplace. It is a complex socio-cultural domain shaped by history, tradition, and societal expectations, where a separate world view is shared, along with the ritual customs, artefacts and practices that define them as a tribe. Indeed chefs have a distinctive transformative power as role models, with the capacity to bestow symbolic meaning to food, the fabric of our memories, societies, and daily practices. The culinary domain, like any other institution, is defined not solely by its creations, but also by its perpetuated lived experiences including traumas, memories or traces, created and preserved …

The Oneal Project: Negotiation Education For Library Workers, Courtney Fuson

Library Faculty Scholarship

Come and learn about a new open educational resource and community to support library workers as they develop their negotiation knowledge and skills. Designed to help all library workers learn negotiation best practices and strategies for both their personal and professional lives, this OER includes lectures, readings, assessments, and hand-on assignments. In addition to learning about this resource, attendees will learn about the community being created to provide support for library professionals responsible for negotiations and about key issues and trends uncovered during an interview research study. While the content developed around licensing is geared toward an academic audience, the …

A Path Towards Trust: Enhancing Relations Between Ngos Using The Intergroup Trust Model, Mariska Kappmeier, Chiara Venanzetti

Peace and Conflict Studies

Trust is a fundamental element of human relations, facilitating positive cooperation among individuals, groups, and organizations, including those dedicated to peacebuilding. While these organizations ideally collaborate toward their shared goals, interorganizational competition often undermines relationships, breeding distrust. Cultivating interorganizational trust can make the difference between failure and success. However, building trust is challenging due to trust’s elusive, multifaceted nature.

This article proposes a multidimensional trust model to facilitate a systematic approach to trust assessment and subsequent trust-building

Through a case study of two NGOs, we present firstly, the Intergroup Trust Model, which proposes trust consists of five dimensions competence-, …

Exploring The Relationships Between Motivations, Beliefs, Emotions, And Behaviors In The Context Of Organizational Change Readiness, Sidney Taylor Thomas

Doctoral Dissertations

Organizational change is an inevitable and key feature of an organization’s lifecycle, especially in today’s constantly shifting technological, cultural, and corporate landscapes. However, organizations often struggle to adapt, and change initiatives rarely succeed. Because of this, organizational change readiness has become a popular area of study in the field of industrial-organization psychology. Change readiness in the organizational context has been redefined several times over the past four decades, with recent efforts focused on developing a comprehensive definition and corresponding instrument of measurement for the concept. Change readiness at the individual level is intended to evaluate the psychological state in which …

Crafting A Succession Process For A Nonprofit Organization: Exploring And Plotting The Creation Of A Succession Plan For The Chips Montgomery Foundation, Robert King

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

In this case study, the phenomena of leadership loss and transition within a small nonprofit organization, which is a pivotal cycle impacting businesses of all sizes and types, was explored. The study underscored that employee turnover is an inevitable occurrence, influenced by a myriad of factors, leading to significant decisions on staff replacement and thereby shaping future organizational trajectories. Central to this investigation was the exploration of various organizational development theories, functionalism, and human resource planning, which provided a conceptual framework for understanding leadership transitions. Both for-profit and nonprofit entities grapple with leadership losses, yet nonprofits encounter distinct challenges necessitated …

Predicting Government Non-Manager Employees’ Creative Self-Concept Based On Their Leaders’ Transformational Leadership Qualities, Steven R. Palmer

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This quantitative non-experimental, predictive, correlational study aimed to evaluate the predictive relationship between government leaders exercising transformational leadership attributes and government service employees' potential to engage in creative problem-solving. This study contributes to the existing knowledge on leadership and creative self-concept by focusing on the government civilian service sector. This sector represents a large population with limited exposure to the correlation between leadership and creativity. The sample for this study was 1,432 engineering and contracting professionals from a government acquisition center in northern Alabama who designed and built weapons systems for combat forces. The data analysis included 609 participants. The …

Effects Of Covid-19 On Mental Health Workers' Job Satisfaction, Employee Burnout, And Intent To Leave, Colton Jacobs

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The COVID-19 disease emerged in December 2019 and created a worldwide pandemic. As the COVID-19 virus spread, healthcare workers faced increased workloads and burnout due to increased stress. With a current abundance of research to better understand how the pandemic affected healthcare workers, minimal research has been conducted to investigate the effects on mental health workers. It is imperative to better understand how the consequences of the pandemic affected mental health workers due to their importance in supporting the mental well-being of our communities. This study focused on how the COVID-19 pandemic influenced job satisfaction, burnout syndrome, and intent to …

A Study Of Followership In An Organizational-Wide Change Of The Ministry Of Child Evangelism Fellowship, Michelle M. Russell

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The influence of Child Evangelism Fellowship saw a significant increase across the United States of America after an organizational change following a 2001 Supreme Court case ruling. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to describe the role of followership on the change and followership principles that emerged during the change that was implemented following the ruling Good News Club v. Milford Central School on the Good News Club ministry of Child Evangelism Fellowship. Organizational change was defined as intentional actions promoted by leadership and intentional actions taken by followers who took advantage of the rights guaranteed by the ruling. …

Mental Toughness In The Workplace, Maiah E. Taylor

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Within the realm of the modern work organization, the employers role on employees’ mental health has emerged as a critical factor concerning job attrition. Frequently, work organizations prioritize their productivity and output, rather than recognizing the importance of individual contributions as a reflection of their well-being. Research on workplace satisfaction and adversity management has failed to address the challenges that non-military or law enforcement populations face in retaining talent. Current research on mental toughness, resilience, and grit has overlooked the importance of civilian population training interventions, leaving a gap in the literature. This mixed-method study used an explanatory sequential design, …

Who We Are Is How We Lead: Storytelling As An Intervention In A Manager Development Program, Brittany Grieb

Dissertations

Leadership development programs (LDPs) have long been recognized as a means for organizations to develop their leaders, yet studies on their efficacy or use of creative interventions are limited. Despite the plethora of leadership studies that exist today, research is still seeking to answer the question: what is the best way to develop leaders? This qualitative study sought to investigate how storytelling can be used as an intervention for leadership development in a manager development program (MDP), an LDP for entry-level to midlevel managers at a biotechnology corporation. Using storytelling as an Indigenous model for knowledge cocreation as a framework, …

Intercultural Perspectives On Managing Organizational Change In Response To Government Policy Reform: A Case Study On The Leadership Of New Oriental Education, Yihe Yang

Dissertations

In 2021, a policy aimed at addressing educational inequality triggered a significant upheaval in the private tutoring sector of China by fundamentally transforming prevailing business models and financial viability within the industry. New Oriental Education & Technology Group Inc. (New Oriental Education), one of the preeminent private tutoring enterprises in China, attracted considerable attention for its subsequent organizational change. This study explored the leadership dynamics and organizational change efforts implemented by New Oriental after the policy enactment.

The theoretical framework synthesized organizational change theory, organizational culture, and transformative leadership approaches from both Western and Chinese perspectives. It elucidated effective practices …

Navigating The Bow Wave Of Change: The Felt Experience Of Belonging To The United States Naval Academy's First Gender-Integrated Class, Peter Shaner

Dissertations

On July 6, 1976 the United States Naval Academy (USNA) admitted its first-ever gender-integrated class. I was a member of that class, along with 81 female classmates who entered USNA with the class of 1980 (USNA ‘80). Those classmates were pioneers, though few of them realized at the time just how long and how hard their journey would be. The numerous challenges faced by USNA ‘80 on their journey through the Academy have been well documented (Gelfand, 2008). But there has been far less research on the lived experience of that pioneering class. This study fills a gap between historical …

A Phenomenological Study On The Perceived Impact Of Bass's Four I'S Of Transformational Leadership, Yarissa Marn

Dissertations

Purpose: The purpose of this phenomenological study was to identify and describe World of Warcraft game leaders’ perceptions of the impact on their guilds regarding Bass’s 4 I’s of transformational leadership.

Methodology: This qualitative study interviewed 13 World of Warcraft game leaders who have led their guild members for at least one year. The main source of data collection was semi-structured open-ended interview questions with other resources to include artifacts. The researcher coded and analyzed data for themes and patterns.

Findings: Several domains of Bass’s Four I’s Transformational Leadership framework were found to have an impact on World of Warcraft …

One Stitch At A Time: Examining The Self-Care Of Art Therapists And The Potential Of Fiber Arts For Wellbeing, Elaine Chippero

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

The goal of this thesis was to understand why art therapists are particularly at risk for burnout, why it is essential for art therapists to engage artmaking for their own self-care, and why fiber crafts are particularly suited for self-care. The literature was collected and organized using reflective journaling and visual–tactile coding and then presented in the following review. The first two sections of the literature review include comprehensive definitions of burnout and self-care and how both concepts have been discussed in literature relating to the helping professions and specifically art therapists. The third section covers the historical context of …

Wellness In Licensed Professional Counselors: Counselor Perception Of Documentation Expectations On Professional Satisfaction, Aleta Seay Gibbs

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Counselors are important parts of a community, helping people heal and learn to cope with life. Communities are seeing staffing shortages, counselors leaving the field, and increasing mental health needs of residents. During the COVID-19 pandemic, regulations concerning documentation requirements and service provision rapidly changed, often several times. Counselors were permitted different ways of doing things in light of the constraints imposed by the virus. This included a reduction of how much documentation is required and might have included reductions in paperwork, policy changes, and service provision exceptions for licensed professional counselors (LPCs), like switching to telehealth for health and …

Impact Of Leadership Decisions On Police Officer Well-Being: A Covid-19 Response, Jason N. Spencer

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this qualitative dissertation research project is to determine the impact that law enforcement leaders, their leadership styles, and decision-making processes have on the well-being of police officers. This study sought to understand this impact by focusing on the perspectives of frontline police officers, detectives, and first-line supervisors from various law enforcement organizations in the Central Virginia Region and within the context of leadership decisions made in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Using the constructivist grounded theory approach to research design, 12 participants responded to an initial qualitative questionnaire, followed by a semi-structured interview to gain the rich, …

[Re]Thinking Digital Infrastructure: Centering Humans In Integrated Systems Work, Mark Lane, Bodeene Amyot Cairdeas, Rebecca B. French, Jody Condit Fagan

Libraries

In this talk, librarians and archivists from an academic library will discuss establishing and cultivating a Digital Infrastructure Working Group (DIWG). The DIWG was born out of a need to create interoperability between metadata, preservation, discovery, and access systems for archival materials, and demanded a radical rethinking of prior organizational approaches to digital asset curation, including leveraging available APIs and vendor contracted system development. Learn how team members approached technological work by centering each other’s well-being and intentionally making visible the often-invisible human labor invested in developing and maintaining digital infrastructure. We will share how the DIWG challenged organizational silos, …

Skill Bias Perceptions Of Unskilled Workers' Self-Perception And Self-Efficacy, Cheryl M. Jackson

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

A common phenomenon witnessed in the United States health care industry is a division between skilled and unskilled workforces. The division results from skill bias perceptions that strip the appreciation and value of certain job titles and responsibilities. The purpose of this quantitative nonexperimental study focused on the human capability approach theory was to ascertain the differences in perception between the two types of workers and whether skill bias perceptions predict self-perception and self-efficacy. The goal was to recognize and support the innate human capabilities of unskilled workers as valuable human capital resources. From stratified sampling, 172 skilled and unskilled …

Msw Portfolio, Mallory Phillips

Graduate Student Portfolios, Professional Papers, and Capstone Projects

No abstract provided.

Physician Burnout And The Marital Relationship: Spouse Perspective, Lisa Anne Muehlenbein

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Physician burnout rates have consistently been higher than the general working population; however, recent literature suggested that after a steady decline in physician burnout rates, the COVID-19 global pandemic and additional organizational factors have caused physician burnout to reach an all-time high. Substantial research is available on physician burnout; however, little is known about how a physician’s burnout is experienced in the marital relationship through the spouse’s perspective. This basic qualitative study used purposive, convenience, and snowball sampling methods to recruit 10 female spouses of male physicians to participate in semi-structured interviews. The research question investigated the participants’ perceptions of …

Expressive Therapies And Resiliency – Resistance In Mental Health: A Literature Review, Gabrielle Lopez

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

This review evaluates the current literature on psychological resistance amongst human service professionals experiencing burnout and the effect of Expressive Arts interventions on resiliency. Concepts include identifying the main symptoms, risk factors, causes, and treatments for burnout in education faculty, medical staff, and clinicians. Qualitative, quantitative, and meta-analysis studies are included to identify the most prevalent intervention frameworks for reducing stress including Arts-Based and Mindfulness-compassion based techniques. The effectiveness of Arts-based tools on strengthening identity, self-esteem, emotional regulation, and meaning-making in combating burnout is presented. Based on analysis of the literature, the author proposes a three-step intervention framework for utilizing …

Persistent Identifiers And The Next Generation Of Legal Scholarship, Aaron Retteen, Malikah Hall-Retteen

Faculty Scholarship

This article discusses the importance of the most common persistent identifiers in scholarly communications—the digital object identifier and the ORCID identifier—to legal scholarship. Persistent identifiers help preserve and disseminate academic content and data-driven services that leverage this information standard are now integrated into the publication process. Because legal publishers have not widely adopted persistent identifiers, the legal discipline cannot enjoy the benefits offered by this system. This article looks at barriers to implementing persistent identifiers among legal publishers and provides an anecdotal example of creating a sustainable workflow between the law library and student-run law journals.

The Journey To Project Management: Navigating The Transition From A Nonproject Environment, Renate Lian Mascarenhas, Shagun Verma, Shrishti Rana

School of Professional Studies

To facilitate a seamless transition from a non-project management environment to a project management environment, Non-Profit Organizations (NPOs) passionately dedicated to their missions and operating with limited resources can establish a Project Management Office (PMO) as a pivotal organizational function. This PMO will collaborate closely with senior executives to devise a comprehensive strategic plan for this transformation. An essential component of this plan is the identification of dedicated representatives within key departments, including IT, HR, Human Services Program, and Learning & Development. These departmental representatives will serve as proactive Project Management advocates, responsible for initiating and executing the transition strategies, …

Shift Schedule Justice And Clinician Outcomes: A Quasi-Experimental Approach, Caroline George

All Dissertations

Emergency Physicians (EPs) work in stressful and unpredictable work environments. Due to these factors and the nature of their work scheduling (in shifts), EPs experience heightened levels of adverse work outcomes. As such, it is important for EPs to believe their shift schedule is fair, and for them to have adequate recovery time away from work. The present research examined the effects of Emergency Department leadership approving a 1-hour increase to EP shifts, equating to roughly two fewer shifts per month (8-hour shifts will become 9-hour shifts). As such, EPs should experience more time off from work per month, allowing …

Herding Tigers Through A Reorganization: Practical Applications Of A Pandemic Reorganization, Michelle Colquitt, Renna Tuten Redd, Chris Vidas

Publications

Organizational change generally and reorganization especially can inherently cause feelings of nervousness and tension. This chapter discusses the moving parts of an organizational transformation to an R1 library and how communication and consensus-building efforts at multiple levels of the library are vital to this kind of transition. Prior to their library’s reorganization, the three authors worked on three different teams across two different units. After the reorganization, the authors were positioned in the same department within a new division in the library and faced the challenge of leading their teams in a new structural environment. Clemson University’s mascot is the …