Business Commons^™

Effects Of Internet Exclusion On The City Of Detroit, Alexander G. Haddad

Honors College Theses

Introduction

The rise of Information Technology (IT) in the past 50 years has revolutionized many areas of human life and activity. Information Technology’s most obvious areas of impact are often those where they add a great and obvious value to a particular industry, and it is extremely difficult to find some aspect of life that has not changed since its inception. Some examples include the digitization of stock trading, the automation of factories and life-saving operations, and the enhanced communication and collaboration across public education, enterprise activity, and international affairs. However, what is often overlooked and understudied are the secondary …

Design Thinking & Strategic Product Planning For Highly Engineered Products, Shannon Dare Wayne

Wayne State University Dissertations

This paper offers an integrated framework to systematically address routine challenges plaguing early product development for highly engineered and complex products, such as automobiles. The framework includes up-front strategic product planning leveraging ‘design thinking’ and ‘design execution’ through a structured process to enable adaptation under uncertainties in the product development lifecycle for customer delight and program success. Included is product planning, from fuzzy front-end until product launch, and prioritizing aligned strategic initiatives while integrating design thinking throughout the process. We also discuss two real-world case studies to emphasize the efficacy of the framework and to demonstrate practical examples of how …

Turning Passion Into Profit: When Leisure Becomes Work In Modern Roller Derby, Amanda Nicole Draft

Wayne State University Dissertations

Modern roller derby operates as a “by the skater, for the skater” business model, where participants are not paid but must devote a certain amount of time, effort, and money to sustaining their sport and respective organizations. At the same time, while derby is grounded in anti-corporate values, a growing industry has sprouted to support the sport, the larger share of which consists of small business retailers selling gear, apparel, and other accessories. I use the context of modern roller derby to examine the changing natures of work and leisure, specifically how they operate as greedy institutions and emphasizing the …

Research Before Teaching And Service? Performances, Perceptions, And Experiences Of Faculty At Teaching-Intensive Institutions, Megan Elizabeth Throm

Wayne State University Dissertations

The privileging of research over teaching is well documented in scholarship regarding the teaching-research nexus. In this dissertation I analyze the experiences and identities related to research, teaching, and service of sixteen faculty members at teaching-intensive institutions through intensive interviews. The focus on teaching-intensive institutions is driven by two goals. The first goal was to gain a better understanding of how the privileging of research over teaching and service is experienced, understood, and reified by faculty members at teaching-intensive institutions. Second, by giving voice to the experiences of those at teaching-intensive institutions I hope to increase the value placed on …

Colorism Bias In Hiring Decisions: Disentangling The Effects Of Hair Type And Skin Tone, Niambi Maia Childress Powell

Wayne State University Dissertations

Studies on colorism bias are prevalent, but there exists a gap in the literature regarding how this construct operates within organizational contexts (Marira & Mitra, 2013). The current research explores colorism bias in organizational hiring decisions, considering both hair type and skin tone as physical markers which influence the enactment of colorism biases; as well as investigating the mediating effect of racial identity strength and attractiveness of the applicant, and moderating effects of job type. In a quasi-experimental design, participants viewed a Black female job applicant being considered for either a blue or white collar job, with varying degrees of …

Sex, Labor, And The American Way: Detroit Aesthetic In Mid-Twentieth-Century Literature, Jenna F. Gerds

Wayne State University Dissertations

The essay analyzes Sinclair Lewis short fiction in If I Were Boss, U.S.A. by John Dos Passos, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men by James Agee and Walker Evans, and Last Exit to Brooklyn by Hubert Selby, Jr. The primary literature is juxtaposed with a study of visual texts and historic research with a locational and thematic basis in Detroit. Ford Times and early automobile advertisements, Diego Rivera's mural Detroit Industry, photographs of the Sojourner Truth housing project riots, and the accounts of gay union workers comprise a framework for each of the central texts. Detroit aesthetic is gritty, realist, …

Communication And Identity: The Paternity Leave Decision, Scott Sellnow-Richmond

Wayne State University Dissertations

Paternity leave has remained an under-studied phenomenon in the United States. The US stands in contrast to countries such as Sweden and Norway, which have a history of government-regulated paid time off for fathers of new children. Therefore new fathers in the US face a unique situation regarding their decision of whether or not to take whatever form of paternity leave may be available to them. This study explores what aspects of new fathers’ identities are salient regarding the paternity leave decision. The Communication Theory of Identity (CTI) is used as a theoretical framework to explore how these identities correspond …

Spheres Of Semi-Legality: Discourse, Media And Informal Economic Practices In St. Petersburg, Russia (2000-Present), Maria Rosaria Roti

Wayne State University Dissertations

My dissertation project focuses on how the post-Yeltsin (2000 onwards) market economy actually works and how people define, identify and engage within this newly structured market economy. In order to understand this phenomenon my ethnographic study focuses on business in Russia from two perspectives. First, it discusses how Russian enterprises operate in Russia with the socially embedded informal economic practices inherited from the Soviet system, including trust, personal networks, patron-client relationships, system avoidance, bribery, and corruption. Second, it examines how foreign firms operate under these existing economic conditions in Russia while simultaneously still following FTC regulations and international law. Keeping …

The Power To Protect Themselves: Gender, Protective Labor Legislation, And Public Policy In Michigan, 1883-1913, Amy Marie-Holtman French

Wayne State University Dissertations

This study provides a narrative of laborers' fight for legal protection through the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. Since American law was one of the most important forces in shaping and limiting workplace reform, both labor unionists and reformers used the law to try to solve labor problems. Reformers employed the law to force state control over women and children, while labor unionists attempted to craft legislation to allow working men control over industrial relations.

Although society and the law treated men as independent agents, working men were not truly free. Common law designated workers as servants. Employers denied laboring …

Isp Thesis, Joseph Michael David

Wayne State University Theses

Abstract

AN INTERDISCIPLINARY PERSPECTIVE ON TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP

By: JOSEPH DAVID

December 2010

Advisor: Dr. Richard Raspa

Degree: Master of Interdisciplinary Studies

Many people in today's world often submit to broad assumptions, generalizations and faulty reasoning in determining what constitutes a competent leader. Qualities such as high energy, positive attitude and charisma are unfortunately the sole traits that elect leaders. While positive thinking does help to produce compelling visions to inspire people, high energy is necessary for leadership given the workload and charisma needed to win people over. These are components for election not successful leadership.

Such narrow sighted values for …