Digital Commons Network^™

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, …

Changes In Human Resources Function In Higher Education Institutions During A Pandemic, Naterena Anevia Parham-Cofield

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Pandemics have reshaped societies and paved ways for advances in sciences, political systems, technology, medicine, and the economy. However, researchers have not explored how human resources (HR) function changes due to a pandemic in higher education institutions (HEIs) and how managing it contributes to employee performance and employee well-being. The purpose of this qualitative descriptive multiple case study was to explore how HR function changed due to the COVID-19 pandemic in different types of HEIs and how managing it contributed to employee performance and employee well-being. The study was grounded in Kotter’s eight-step change management model. Data were collected through …

Forging The Future: Strategic Approaches To Quantum Ai Integration For Industry Transformation, Meng Leong How, Sin Mei Cheah

CMP Research

The fusion of quantum computing and artificial intelligence (AI) heralds a transformative era for Industry 4.0, offering unprecedented capabilities and challenges. This paper delves into the intricacies of quantum AI, its potential impact on Industry 4.0, and the necessary change management and innovation strategies for seamless integration. Drawing from theoretical insights and real-world case studies, we explore the current landscape of quantum AI, its foreseeable influence, and the implications for organizational strategy. We further expound on traditional change management tactics, emphasizing the importance of continuous learning, ecosystem collaborations, and proactive approaches. By examining successful and failed quantum AI implementations, lessons …

The Benefits Of Voluntary Disorienting Dilemmas For A Transformational Life: A Grounded Theory Study In Transformational Learning, Rebecca Bamberger

Theses and Dissertations

Being uncomfortable by choice as a means of personal growth has been touted for hundreds of years among scholars, philosophers, religious leaders, modern pop culture icons, and more. Yet, research pertaining to the benefits of being uncomfortable by choice is sparse. This qualitative, grounded theory study addressed the first step of transformational learning: the disorienting dilemma. Seventy participants located in America participated in extensive interviews to answer this study’s research question, “what if any, are the benefits of voluntary disorienting dilemmas?” Additional research questions, “what is the meaning(s) of voluntary disorienting dilemmas?” and “would subjects repeat their voluntary disorienting dilemmas …

The Futures Of Law, Lawyers, And Law Schools: A Dialogue, Benjamin H. Barton, Sameer M. Ashar, Michael J. Madison, Rachel F. Moran

Scholarly Works

On April 19 and 20, 2023, Professors Bernard Hibbitts and Richard Weisberg convened a conference at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law titled “Disarmed, Distracted, Disconnected, and Distressed: Modern Legal Education and the Unmaking of American Lawyers.” Four speakers concluded the event with a spirited conversation about themes expressed during the proceedings. Distilling a lively two days, they asked: what are the most critical challenges now facing US legal education and, by extension, lawyers and the communities they serve? Their agreements and disagreements were striking, so much so that Professors Hibbitts and Weisberg invited those four to extend their …

Unlocking The Gates Of Change: Exploring The Impact Of Transformational Leadership On Openness Toward Organizational Change, William A. Whipple Iii

M.S. in Leadership

This capstone delves into the contemporary challenge of organizational change, specifically focusing on leadership's influence on employee openness to change. The objective is to provide leaders with practical tools for fostering employee receptivity to change in today's dynamic work environment. This study employs a mixed-method approach involving a literature review and a quantitative survey. The research reveals a positive relationship between transformational leadership and employee openness to change. A 21-item survey evaluates the correlation between five subdimensions of transformational leadership and employee openness. Practical implications suggest that leaders emphasizing inspirational communication can enhance employee openness to future organizational changes, contributing …

Organizational Change In Saudi Healthcare Settings: Evaluating Organizational And Individual Readiness For Change, And The Mediating Role Of Readiness For Change Between Management Support And Commitment To Change., Sultan Alsaif

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

BACKGROUND: To respond to the constantly changing environment and developments of healthcare, leaders of healthcare organizations have been trying to introduce and implement transformations that allow their organizations to be able to operate effectively and efficiently to meet the shifts in healthcare demand and to deal with new patterns of health issues, comply with the new policies, and to enhance their present in the market. Thus, it is important for managers to determine the level of readiness for implementing organizational changes from to perspectives. These perspectives include organizational readiness for change and individual readiness for change. METHOD: This first manuscript …

Assessing Organizational Policy: Preferred Practices For Regulating Vaping In The Work Environment, Ayesha T. Kirk

Theses and Dissertations

Employee vaping negatively affects organizations in terms of costs, productivity, employee health, and workplace safety. The purpose of this qualitative dissertation study was to assess organizational policies to determine preferred practices to regulate vaping in the work environment. Open-ended questionnaires with 18 human resources administrators, combined with a literature review, yielded data on best practices for organizational policies regulating vaping in the work environment.

The data collected in this qualitative dissertation study were extracted from a structured survey questionnaire comprising 16 questions about vaping and tobacco usage in the workplace. The findings demonstrated that vaping and the use of tobacco …

Changing How We Change: Change Management Processes And How Best To Achieve Change Results In The Public Sector, Gayathri Rajasekaran

Featured Student Work

This research paper analyzes change management theories, processes and organizational behaviours intended to better understand how they are conducted in not-for-profit (i.e., public sector) organizations. This examination was conducted using a comprehensive literature review of current change management theories along with referring to a real case study of a global not-for-profit organization going through a comprehensive change. The conclusions seem to reveal that many change theories and theory driven outcomes are not only relevant to private sector organizations but can be successfully applied to not-for-profit organizations. The conclusions also seem to reveal that strong and competent leadership is an essential …

Managing For Agility In Constant Change: Hr Strategies For Teaching Center Leaders, Carolyn Hoessler, Donna E. Ellis, Bob Bayles

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Centers for teaching and learning (CTLs) exist in dynamic contexts and need to be agile, with skilled, adaptable teams to prepare for and respond to changes. In this article, we provide CTL leaders with relevant and eminently practical strategies from the human resources (HR) literature, offering guidance in the four areas of organizational structure, direction-setting, capacity-building, and accountability. For each area, we address pivotal challenges with practical approaches grounded in existing research and theory to provide options for CTL leaders in their quest to have well-functioning, agile units. Examples focus on helping existing centers to adapt and refocus, as needed, …

Evaluating The Covid-19 Pandemic Changes On Hotel Organizational Culture, Christos Kakarougkas, Theodoros Stavrinoudis, Moschos Psimoulis

Journal of Global Business Insights

The strong negative consequences caused by the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic created the need for a scientific investigation of changes that occurred in the organizational culture of the hospitality industry. This research paper, using the Delphi method, served three purposes. It first assesses the changes that the COVID-19 pandemic has brought to selected cultural components (product, external relations, and entrepreneurship strategy) that shape a hotel’s organizational culture, and determines how it interacts with other stakeholders on an inter-organizational level. Secondly, it links these changes to the three directions of change: formal/revolutionary, informal/evolutionary, and hybrid. Thirdly, it suggests specific policies …

Leading In Liminality: Implications On Individual And Collective Identity, And Knowledge Creation For School Leaders, David Sorkin, Melodie Wyttenbach, John Reyes, Michael Warner

Journal of Catholic Education

In the spring of 2020, schools of all sectors across all nations were forced to close their doors as COVID-19 rippled through communities. Drawing upon the concept of liminality, which refers to a stage, state, or period of transition (Soderlund & Borg, 2017), this study investigated the intersections of the experience of liminality during the pandemic and functioning for Catholic school leaders. Interviews with urban school leaders were analyzed to understand key characteristics of liminality as experienced by school leaders within organizations. Findings indicate that school leaders responded to the liminal experience by sharpening the focus of work, which simultaneously …

Strategies To Influence Meaning Creation To Address Resistance In A Change Initiative, Rebecca L. Escobar

Theses and Dissertations

Organizational change has been a constant and essential aspect of human societies for centuries, driving innovation and adaptability. However, despite the abundance of models and content on managing change, organizations still struggle to implement and sustain effective transformations. This research aims to address this challenge by exploring strategies to create meaning and address resistance during transformational change. The research will employ a qualitative approach, conducting 15 interviews to capture participants' experiences and strategies in influencing meaning creation during change initiatives. The data collected will be transcribed, coded, categorized, and analyzed for themes, allowing for a comprehensive understanding of the strategies …

Exploring Disc Attitudes Toward Organizational Change, Christie Cooper

Theses and Dissertations

This quantitative study explored how different personality styles, using the dominance, influence, steadiness, and compliance (DISC) personality assessment to address the concept of change. Specifically, the attitudes the four main DISC personality styles have toward change. The study aimed to contribute to the body of knowledge. There is a significant gap in the empirical research investigating DISC and change.

This study’s significance was to fill a gap in the literature in an area that has limited empirical research conducted. European and Asian countries do far more work on the front-side of change to ensure people are prepared for the change …

The Futures Of Law, Lawyers, And Law Schools: A Dialogue, Sameer M. Ashar, Benjamin H. Barton, Michael J. Madison, Rachel F. Moran

Articles

On April 19 and 20, 2023, Professors Bernard Hibbitts and Richard Weisberg convened a conference at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law titled “Disarmed, Distracted, Disconnected, and Distressed: Modern Legal Education and the Unmaking of American Lawyers.” Four speakers concluded the event with a spirited conversation about themes expressed during the proceedings. Distilling a lively two days, they asked: what are the most critical challenges now facing US legal education and, by extension, lawyers and the communities they serve? Their agreements and disagreements were striking, so much so that Professors Hibbitts and Weisberg invited those four to extend their …

Assessing Organizational Policy: Preferred Practices For Regulating Vaping In The Work Environment, Ayesha Temeka Kirk

Theses and Dissertations

Employee vaping negatively affects organizations in terms of costs, productivity, employee health, and workplace safety. The purpose of this qualitative dissertation study was to assess organizational policies to determine preferred practices to regulate vaping in the work environment. Open-ended questionnaires with 18 human resources administrators, combined with a literature review, yielded data on best practices for organizational policies regulating vaping in the work environment.The data collected in this qualitative dissertation study were extracted from a structured survey questionnaire comprising 16 questions about vaping and tobacco usage in the workplace. The findings demonstrated that vaping and the use of tobacco products …

Explore The Best Organizational Change Model For Chinese State-Owned Enterprises In The Financial Service Industry To Address Global Challenges, Chenyang Feng

Theses and Dissertations

Chinese state-owned enterprise (SOE) in the financial service industry has reached a tipping point of making changes to address incoming global competition. The unprecedented wave of policy shifts in the market will uncage powerful rivals worldwide and demand the SOEs to change. This study reviewed the best practices and unique challenges to the SOEs in the context of organizational change and strove to explore the best organizational change model for Chinese SOEs in addressing global challenges. This study began by reviewing the background and literature about Chinese SOE development and organizational change, then developed an instrument consisting of critical items …

An Examination Of Leading Through Change Using Snyder’S Hope Theory And Lewin’S 3-Step Model, Scott E. Sorensen

Theses and Dissertations

Never has the world experienced such rapid change, and the environment in which organizations operate necessitates increased change capability and organizational agility (Argyris, 1991). Strebel (1996) found success rates for change initiatives in Fortune 1000 companies ranged from a low of 20% to a high of 50%. Later studies would substantiate Strebel’s (1996) findings, claiming that, on average, failure rates of transformational change initiatives approach 70% (Beer & Nohria, 2000; Sirkin et al., 2005). Suppose this is so, and companies wish to thrive in such a dynamic environment. A fundamental understanding of why change efforts fail and how to drive …

Adaptive Leadership, Organisational Resilience And The Mediating Effect Of Change Management Amid Egyptian Academia Crises, Maha Ahmed Zaki Dajani, Dr. Maha Ahmed Zaki Dajani

Business Administration

This study aims to investigate the impact of adaptive leadership practices on organisational resilience within Egyptian academia amid the change management crisis, using the ADKAR change model. A self-administered online questionnaire (Google Form Survey) was distributed to collect data from 135 faculty members working at several private and public universities located in Greater Cairo/Egypt. The response rate was approximately 90% (out of 150 faculty members). A structural equation modelling technique was applied to test this study‟s hypotheses. The primary purpose of this study is to provide empirical evidence that leadership adaptability and organisational resilience are among the most sustainable sources …

Fostering An Evaluative Culture By Addressing A Breakdown In The Policy Development Cycle, Michelle Anderson-Draper

The Dissertation in Practice at Western University

This Organizational Improvement Plan (OIP) aims to address the problem of practice (PoP) of a breakdown in the policy development cycle. The breakdown has resulted in a lack of evaluative feedback on the extent to which policies have been implemented as intended and are effective in achieving their intended outcomes. The PoP challenges elected trustees, in a large and diverse K–12 school division in Western Canada, to carry out their governance role. To address the PoP, the OIP offers a comprehensive change implementation plan, guided by a four-step change path model, actions, and continuous improvement cycle, supported by communication strategies …

An Instrumental Case Study Of Confirmative Evaluation In The Continuous Improvement Of Online Remote Leaders’ Work, Chad Lawrence Mclane

STEMPS Theses & Dissertations

Confirmative evaluation is often noted as an important element of models of Human Performance Technology and Performance Improvement, but there exists confusion around what is and what is not confirmative evaluation. A significant issue limiting the use of confirmative evaluation is the Performance Improvement field’s inability to clearly classify confirmative evaluation in terms of its purpose and scope. Additionally, the performance improvement field lacks sufficient examples of confirmative evaluation in the literature necessary to adequately define confirmative evaluation and demonstrate its use. Without sufficient examples of confirmative evaluation, practitioners of performance improvement are left without a clear path of how …

Two Approaches To Foresight-Driven Design, Anna Victoria Bredtved Mountford, Bo Christensen

DRS Biennial Conference Series

As a response to rapid and uncertain environmental change, foresight has emerged as an approach offering a future-oriented framing to design practice. Using theory on foresight, design, and change management, this paper reports a case study on how companies engage with foresight combined with design at a strategic level to become more future-oriented in their process and better prepared for taking long term action in the present. Through observations and interviews, the study follows companies participating in the development program Future Now facilitated by the Danish Design Center. We identify two distinct company approaches to foresight-driven design, involving distinct types …

Building An Integrated Digital Transformation System Framework: A Design Science Research, The Case Of Feduni, Munir Majdalawieh, Shafaq Khan

All Works

The purpose of this paper is to propose an integrated digital transformation system framework (IDTSF) to help support business leaders and teams in making their products, services, and operations more streamlined and competitive. The framework will help organizations to best meet user/customer needs with minimum waste and time and enables businesses to achieve efficiency compared with island and traditional sequential approaches. The proposed framework can also provide insights to help organizations to avoid common failures when deploying digital transformation initiatives. The paper follows the design science research (DSR) and the information systems design science research (ISDSR) methodologies to develop the …

Going Virtual: Addressing The Challenges Faced By Organizational Leaders When Employees Transition To Virtual Environments In Times Of Crisis, Mary Susan Johnson

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, colleges and universities across the world moved their operations online. While a great deal of focus was placed on the value of teaching and learning during a crisis period, very little attention was paid to the other side of higher education institutions—the business side. Suddenly these institutions and their operational staff were forced to discover new ways to perform tasks that had always been completed in person. The leaders of these organizations faced the added challenge of ensuring that their workforce remained engaged and motivated while working in the midst of stressful, even chaotic …

A Qualitative Study Of Middle School Science Teachers’ Perceptions Of The Transition To Online Instruction During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Brian S. Ward

Doctor of Education (Ed.D)

The purpose of this study was to explore the unique lived experiences of four middle school science teachers from North Carolina and South Carolina during and following the transition from in-person to online instruction due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Four predominant themes were identified from individual, semi-structured interviews of the teachers: technology change; organizational change; changes in curricula, delivery, and student interaction; and career and personal changes. The teachers in this study described the challenges and opportunities experienced during the rapid transition in March 2020 to virtual teaching and learning. The teachers’ lived experiences seamlessly aligned with the stages of …

Marketing Strategies To Adapt Organizations To Changes In The Business Environment, Sara Hammoud

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Organizations with low marketing programs adaptation to changing market requirements suffer low firm performance. Retail business leaders who fail to implement marketing programs adaptation can experience decreases in profitability. Grounded in the 7S model, the purpose of this qualitative multiple case study was to explore marketing strategies that retail business leaders use to adapt their organizations to changes in the business environment. The participants comprised four business leaders of retail apparel organizations in southern Italy who developed and implemented successful marketing strategies to adapt their organization to changes in the business environment. Data were collected from semistructured interviews and company …

Mindfulness: A Personal Resource In Organizational Change, Mona Farid-Nejad

CGU Theses & Dissertations

As the world of work becomes increasingly uncertain, organizations and their employees must adapt and change to survive and remain solvent in light of market and social changes. Most organizational-level change management approaches, however, fail to consider the repercussions of change on employees and often do not consider the psychological resources employees need to weather the storms of change. Guided by previous research concerning the benefits of mindfulness, the current dissertation seeks to understand the benefits of trait mindfulness as a personal resource for employee well-being, motivation, and retention during organizational change. In the initial pilot study, organizational change vignettes …

Virginia Community College System Online Student Success: Best Practices And Sustainable Change, Lucy R. Hudson, Daniel L. Lindstrom, Monal Patel, Rosa Ponton

Doctor of Education Capstones

Online learning has an increasingly greater presence in the higher education landscape. Students are able to earn a degree in fully online programs and take courses in modalities that offer the necessary convenience to balance multiple life priorities. The flexibility that online courses offer is valuable for adult learners with young children, students with disabilities including invisible and non-physical disabilities, or populations who must work to support families while pursuing an education. For these populations, community colleges play an important role in providing access to education as they enroll a greater number of adult students and have a higher percentage …

Strategies For Employees To Effect Change To Improve Performance Of Public Organizations, Ibrahim Nasamu

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Seventy percent of organizations fail in their organizational change initiatives because of failure to involve employees in the change process. Some managers lack the strategies to implement change initiatives successfully. Using Kotter’s eight-step change model as the conceptual framework, this qualitative single case study was conducted to explore public sector managers’ strategies to include employees in implementing organizational change. Semistructured interviews were used to identify the strategies public sector managers use to include employees in implementing organizational change. Interviews were conducted with eight participants who met the inclusion criteria for this study. Data analysis included methodological triangulation and Yin’s 5 …

Strategies To Implement A Change Management Process For Public Sector Management In Nigeria, Mariam Yakubu Bala

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Ineffective change management implementation causes a negative impact on business revenue in Nigeria’s public sector. Public sector leaders are concerned ineffective change management causes a negative impact on business revenue in Nigeria’s public sector. Using Lewin’s change management model, the purpose of this qualitative multiple case study was to explore change management strategies Nigerian public sector managers use to implement a change management process to increase revenues. Data were collected from six top management executives in North Central Nigeria through semistructured interviews, note taking, and document review, who implemented change management processes to increase revenues from business operation. Data were …