Business Commons^™

Employee Perceptions Of Well-Being Programs, Alice V. Edwards, Susan Marcus

Journal of Social, Behavioral, and Health Sciences

Measuring the effectiveness of well-being programs in the workplace is important for optimizing the return on investment and selection of programs that meet organizational objectives. A pilot study was performed to assess employee well-being using the Happiness Mini-Survey and a one-sample pre–post study design intended to quickly allow employees to subjectively rate their well-being before and after participating in various classes as part of a well-being program. The findings demonstrated statistical significance in employee subjective ratings; they reported feeling better emotionally, physically, and mentally after participating in the classes. The employees’ self-rating for stress level also had statistically significant improvement …

Are Hospital Efficiency And Quality Of Care Affordable Without External Revenue?, Frank Pieter M. Naus, Carol-Anne Faint, Rocky J. Dwyer

International Journal of Applied Management and Technology

This qualitative study explored strategies academic research hospital administrators in Ontario, Canada, apply to generate nongovernment revenue to remain sustainable. The participants in the study consisted of senior-level academic research hospital executives with extensive experience in the subject area from major academic research hospitals, ranking the hospitals from highest to lowest in revenue generation. From this study, five themes emerged: working within the fiscal reality, the impact of the political environment, the focus on the mission, nongovernment revenue generation, and opportunities for the Ontario academic research hospitals. Findings from this study may contribute to discussions on implementing change by encouraging …

Crop Insurance Strategies For Mitigating Net Underwriting Losses, Kennedy K. Kitur

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Crop insurance is an essential risk management tool for America's agricultural producers because a single crop failure or disastrous year can eliminate the results of multiple years of profitability. Crop insurance is designed to provide financial protection to farmers; however, insurance managers who lack managerial underwriting strategies disrupt companies to the point of financial distress. Self-insurance and self-protection theory were the conceptual frameworks for this single-case study to explore successful strategies that insurance managers used to mitigate net underwriting losses. Four insurance and senior strategic managers from an insurance company in the midwestern United States were recruited through a purposeful …

A Multifaceted View Of Ceo Compensation And Performance: A Case Study, John Nirenberg

Journal of Sustainable Social Change

This case addresses CEO pay, a topic that annually stimulates the question of whether or not executive compensation is based on performance or something else and why it is so high in absolute terms. The societal impact of the new class of executives among the largest companies in the United States set apart from the rest of the world in a cocoon of wealth and privilege inflames resentment among workers, widens an already unfathomable distance between those at the top and the rest of us, and endangers the social amity among citizens of the polity . Positive social change might …

Strategies To Influence A Quality And Compliance Culture, Betsy Macht, Anne Davis

International Journal of Applied Management and Technology

Sales of defective or substandard products carry a potential risk of unintended effects on the consumer. The purpose of this single-case study was to explore the strategies to influence a culture of quality and compliance. Findings identified the value of weaving quality and compliance into a unified matrix to establish a holistic approach to endowing the organizational culture with the behaviors and habits that drive quality and compliance across business unit boundaries. To treat any aspect of quality and compliance as a separate element of the culture may undermine the overall effectiveness of quality and compliance programs, leaving room for …

Strategies To Streamline The U.S. Army’S Acquisition Approval Process, Donald E. Schlomer, Douglas G. Campbell

International Journal of Applied Management and Technology

This qualitative single-case study explored strategies that senior U.S. Army Commanders could use to reduce the approval time for an acquisition category (ACAT) III need document in the Joint Capabilities Integrated Development System (JCIDS). Data came from historical documents and semistructured interviews of 30 ACAT III requirement writers and senior U.S. Army commanders with expertise in JCIDS. The conceptual framework was Goldratt’s theory of constraints. Miles, Huberman, and Saldana’s data analysis method was used to identify themes. Six themes emerged that yielded six possible strategies to reduce approval time: (a) define and implement an objective goal, (b) simplify the process …

Can Four Generations Create Harmony Within A Public-Sector Environment?, Glenda B. Arrington, Rocky J. Dwyer

International Journal of Applied Management and Technology

The purpose of this quantitative study was to examine the relationship between generational cohort and cohort perceptions of managerial effectiveness within the context of the federal public service. Data in this study were derived from the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey, which included 421,748 full-time, part-time, and nonseasonal federal government employees geographically dispersed across the United States and overseas. The results of the study indicated that ratings of managerial effectiveness by all four generational cohorts for all three levels of managers studied were relatively high with correlation coefficients ranging from .96 to .99. However, the only cohort association that consistently had …

Black Business Owners Overcoming Barriers In Texas, Henry Williams

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Black entrepreneurs in the state of Texas reported that they did not achieve the same level of success as nonminority enterprises. Many Black entrepreneurs have obtained education from top tier institutions and have the managerial experiences, skills, and working knowledge that facilitate business success, but they are not able to sustain business growth. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore the lived experiences of Black Texan entrepreneurs. This research was established using the conceptual framework of human capital. The overarching research question concerned the lived experiences of Black Texas entrepreneurs who were not as successful in business as …

Organizational Leadership Activities That Positively Influence Virtual Employee Engagement, Milton Jones Perkins

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Considering the growing virtual workforce, it is important for people-managers to understand whether traditional management techniques produce increased engagement and greater productivity with a virtual population. Guided by James Heskett, W. Earl Sasser Jr., and Leonard Schlesinger's conceptual Service Profit Chain framework, this study focused on addressing the gap in contemporary literature related to management techniques that influence virtual employee engagement. Much of the current research provides a foundation for managing and engaging traditional office-based employees. To better understand which experientially-based management techniques influenced traditional employee engagement for a group of virtual employees, a qualitative descriptive phenomenological methodology was used …

Scenario Planning For Organizational Adaptability: The Lived Experiences Of Executives, Robert John Gaskill-Clemons

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Organizational adaptability is critical to organizational survival, and executive leadership's inability to adapt to extreme disruptive complex events threatens survival. Scenario planning is one means of adapting to extreme disruptive complex events. In this qualitative interpretive phenomenological study, 20 executives who had lived experience with extreme disruptive complex events and applied scenario planning to help adapt participated in phenomenological interviews to share their experiences related to the application of scenario planning as a means adaptation to extreme disruptive complex events. Participants were from a single large organization with executives distributed throughout the United States and executives from 10 state agencies …

Cross-Project Knowledge Transfer Succession Planning For Family-Owned Businesses, Kristina L. Mccarthy

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

When the owners of family-owned businesses leave the workplace, they can transfer ownership to the next generation; however, their knowledge of the business goes with them. There is a gap in the literature regarding effective ways to transfer family business resources and knowledge to subsequent generations. The problem was some small and family-owned businesses do not have detailed plans in place based on the needs of owners and the successor generation, with cross-project knowledge as part of the succession plan. The purpose of this nonexperimental study was to examine the relationships between the subscales of cross-project tacit knowledge transfer and …

An Exploration Of The Causes Of Success And Failure Of Managed Change, Michael Moore

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Change management (CM) and organizational development are mature industries with decades of research and development. Yet, failure rates stated for organizational change initiatives remain high at 70%. This failure rate suggests that 30% of change initiatives were successful, but no reports of these successes were found in the literature. The overarching question considered the experiences of change leaders of successful CM initiatives. The conceptual framework for this research consisted of change models defined by Burke, Kotter, Schein, and others. The primary purpose of this study was to identify the strategies used by successful change leaders. 10 phone interviews with senior …

Corporate Social Responsibility Implementation Framework, Samuel Bonsu

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

As social problems, such as environmental pollution persist, the need to implement corporate social responsibility (CSR) to enhance societal well-being becomes important. However, little is known about how corporate leaders implement CSR. The purpose of this qualitative transcendental phenomenological study was to identify and report the lived experiences of corporate managers relevant to CSR implementation. This study was guided by ecological systems theory, the Porter hypothesis, the Maslow hierarchy of needs theory, and the Harrod-Domar growth model, which justify the importance of societal well-being to business profitability and growth. The research question regarding the lived experiences of corporate managers of …

Strategies Of Successful Government It Projects Based On Cost And Time, Ullice John Pelican

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

From 2001 through 2015, some information technology (IT) project managers failed to deliver U.S. Government IT projects on time and within budget. The failure of IT project managers to complete projects on time and within budget provoked the U.S. Government Accountability Office to classify IT projects as high risk. This multiple case study explored strategies government contracted IT project managers use to reduce cost overruns and improve on-time delivery. The participants in this study were government contracted IT project managers from organizations that provide IT project management in the Maryland area. Employing purposeful sampling of the explicit population, 5 selected …

Ensuring Quality Consumer Service Encounters, Katina Robertson

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Counterproductive employee behaviors are inevitable, unpredictable, and widespread in the U.S. retail industry. The purpose of this multiple case study was to explore U.S. midlevel retail leadership strategies used to prevent and correct employee behaviors that sabotage quality service encounters. Gilbert's behavior engineering model, which links employee behaviors to performance, was the framework used in this study. The data-collection process comprised 7 semistructured interviews with midlevel retail leaders, online company documentation, and researcher observations and assisted in achieving methodological triangulation. Member checking ensured the accuracy of participant responses, while Moustakas' modified van Kaam method was used to guide the data …

Organizational Information Security: Strategies To Minimize Workplace Cyberloafing For Increased Productivity, Hawazin Al Abbasi

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Productivity loss occurs in organizations that experience high levels of personal Internet use by employees on company time, which includes employees using smartphones to surf without needing the firm's Internet connection. The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study was to explore reliable ways for organizational leaders to monitor or limit their employees' use of smartphone technology for personal use (cyberloafing) while on the job to minimize wasted work time. Social cognitive theory, which includes an emphasis on human behavioral changes based upon the environment, people, and behavior, served as the conceptual framework. The general research question was as follows: How …

Testing Matching And Mirroring With Homophily In Onboarding Leadership Socialization, Manuel Almendarez

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

This study was designed to test the relationship between matching and mirroring (MM) and homophilous perceptions (PHM) in leadership socialization. Elevated PHM levels were hypothesized to affect workplace acceptance levels. The need for testing leadership socialization skills was magnified with the current demographic shift known as the leadership succession crisis, creating problems with onboarding strategies. The theoretical foundations of the study were based on the social identity theory, the social presence theory, the leader-member exchange theory, and the similarity-attraction paradigm. The study conducted at Workforce Solutions North Texas in Wichita Falls, Texas was sampled based on the calculated strength of …

Organizational Policy Prohibiting Marriage Between Coworkers In The Nigerian Banking Sector, Pamela Obi

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The Human Resources (HR) policy prohibiting marriage between coworkers contributes to employee attrition and an unhappy, demoralized, and unengaged workforce in commercial banks in Nigeria. Marriage between coworkers has resulted in forced resignations in commercial banks in Nigeria and employees' perception of being unfairly treated in their organizations. The purpose of this qualitative case study, based on the conceptual framework of organizational justice, was to explore how bank employees whose spouses resigned due to the HR policy prohibiting marriage between coworkers respond to this policy. Fifteen such employees participated in semistructured, one-on-one interviews, and 5 other employees participated in a …

Transformational Leadership And Job Satisfaction In The Federal Government, Dorothy Marquitia Thomas

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Since 2002, the federal government has disseminated surveys to all of its federal agencies

to obtain employees' views on the federal agencies' work environments. This study examined the relationship between employees' perception of their leaders' transformational leadership skills and employee job satisfaction. This study was conducted in a metropolitan area in the midwestern United States using 12 federal agencies, totaling approximately 33,000 employees. The theoretical framework for this study was transformational leadership theory. The 5 constructs published by House and Burns were used in multifactor leadership questionnaire surveys by scholarly and peer-reviewed studies and represent the primary leadership skills. The …

Strategies For Insurance Agency Managers To Retain Customers And Improve Revenue, Daniel Lee Jackson

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The cost of creating new property and casualty insurance accounts is much greater than the costs associated with sustaining current accounts. Property and casualty insurance agency managers lack strategies to retain customers, the retention of whom has been found to improve revenue. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore strategies for insurance agency managers to retain customers and improve revenue. The population used for the study was 4 insurance agency managers in the Northeastern United States. The conceptual framework was customer relationship management, which is a technological and organizational mechanism for buffering market instability by understanding customer …

Beyond The Enclave: Success Strategies Of Immigrant Entrepreneurs, José Delfín González, Douglas G. Campbell

International Journal of Applied Management and Technology

In the United States, immigrant entrepreneurs start almost one third of all new businesses. However, many immigrant entrepreneurs lack the knowledge or expertise to evolve their businesses beyond the ethnic enclave where their businesses are located. This multiple case study captured the strategies used by five Latino immigrant business owners who successfully expanded their business beyond their ethnic enclave. The conceptual framework for this study was dynamic capabilities theory. Data were collected from interviews, company documents, and observations of the operation of businesses and owners. Member checking and transcript reviews were used to enhance the reliability and credibility of the …

Correlates Of Job Satisfaction Among Bank Employees In Nigeria, Nosayaba Ernest Oumwense

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Job dissatisfaction among bank employees may adversely influence the financial performance of banks due to employee turnover, decreased productivity, poor service quality, decreased customer satisfaction, and negative employee attitudes in the workplace. The purpose of this correlational study was to examine how work on the present job, pay, opportunities for promotion, supervision, and coworker relationships predict job satisfaction among bank employees in Nigeria. The population of the study was 167 bank employees in 3 commercial banks in Nigeria. The 2-factor theory (TFT) served as the theoretical foundation in this study. Data collection was through a survey instrument called the job …

The Effects Of Behavioral Determinants And Sociodemographic Factors On Homeowners' Intent To Conserve Energy, Sallieu M. Jalloh

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Greenhouse gas emissions are caused, in part, by human activities. However, consumers may assume that the burden of environmental problems, such as carbon emissions reduction through sustainable energy practices, should be borne by the entire society. The purpose of this cross-sectional study was to test whether behavioral determinants and demographic factors could influence homeowners' intent to conserve energy. Empirical data were collected from 436 sampled homeowners in the Northeast region of the United States using an online survey questionnaire. The survey instrument was adapted from Ajzen's theory of planned behavior instrument. Variables aligned with the theory of planned behavior, alongside …

Project Manager Strategies To Improve The Delivery Of Construction Projects, Luis Gaspar Crespo

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The return on investment of construction organizations is at risk because construction managers fail to execute projects efficiently. The purpose of this single case study was to explore strategies that construction managers used to deliver projects efficiently. The selected population was 10 construction managers from a single construction organization operating in Panama. The conceptual framework for this study was the McKinsey 7S. Data were collected using semistructured interviews, observations, and a review of public documents. Collected data were compiled, disassembled, reassembled, interpreted, and then conclusions were reached, as noted in Yin's 5-step analysis. Themes that emerged from the study included …

Strategies To Combat Tenant Fraud In The Rental Housing Market, Dr. Gwendolyn B. Dawson

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Many business executives lack strategies to detect and eliminate tenant fraud in subsidized rental housing. The purpose of this multicase study was to explore strategies some business executives used to detect and eliminate tenant fraud in subsidized rental housing. The conceptual framework used to guide this study was the theory of planned behavior. Data were gathered using semistructured interviews with 6 purposively selected business executives of public housing authorities, supplemented with a review of policies and procedures that business executives used. Yin's 5-step analysis, which entails examining, categorizing, tabulating, creating a data display, and testing the data, guided the process …

Characteristics Of Stocks And Individual Investor Herd Behavior: A Causal-Comparative Study, Tze Sun Wong

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Some individual investors follow institutional investors in trading, a phenomenon called herding, that leads to excess market volatility and mispriced stocks. Individual investors who herded suffered from inferior investment performances and monetary losses, and the impact is broader in an individual investor dominant market such as Taiwan. Behavioral finance is the theoretical base of herd behavior. The purpose of this causal-comparative study was to examine individual investor herd behavior as related to characteristics of stocks in the Taiwan stock market. The research questions addressed what differences in individual investor herd behavior, if any, existed by market capitalization, price-to-book (P/B) ratio, …

Successful Strategies To Sustain Profits From Tourism Following A Hurricane, Kevin C. James

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Hurricanes have caused billions of dollars in damage to the hotel industry in Florida, significantly affecting tourism flow. The unpredictable impact of hurricanes makes sustaining profits challenging. The purpose of this multiple case study was to explore strategies that hotel leaders use to sustain tourism profits following a hurricane. The theory of image restoration provided the conceptual framework for the study. Data were collected from company documents and semistructured interviews with 5 hotel leaders in Central Florida. Transcribed data were coded then validated using member checking during the data analysis, which revealed 5 themes: storm impact, accommodations, operations, communications, and …

Strategies For Virtual Sales Leaders To Increase Productivity Of Remote Employees, Tamera Monai Gaines

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

An employee's contributions toward the success of organizational results and objectives are essential to how virtual sales leaders implement strategies to improve productivity. In 2014, 21% of virtual leaders received formal training to manage remote employees, and 17% of remote employees received formal training on how to work productively. The purpose of this single qualitative case study was to explore strategies virtual sales leaders used to improve remote sales employees' productivity. The population included 6 virtual sales leaders in 1 staffing organization located in Michigan. The conceptual framework for this study included the job demands-resources model. Data were collected through …

Patient Satisfaction Management In Office Visits And Telehealth In Health Care Technology, Todd Price

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Telehealth and remote medical treatments have begun to be more commonly used in healthcare systems. Researchers have theorized that providers' abilities to treat patients are not directly tied to the proximity of the patient to the doctor, but by the identification and treatment of the patient's symptoms. Although the treatment and cure rates are being established within individual health systems and professional medical associations, empirical research is lacking regarding patient satisfaction with this remote treatment situation. The purpose of this quantitative study was to address this gap by examining satisfaction ratings of patients between virtual provider visits and face-to-face provider …

Factors Affecting Employee Persistence In An Online Management Development Certificate Program, Todd D. Chester

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

An important approach to prepare new managers for increased responsibility is participation in online management development programs; however, there is a lack of information about the factors that affect employee completion of these programs. This study addressed how chief executive officers (CEOs) can implement these programs to rapidly develop new managers who are qualified to serve in the leadership roles left behind by many retirees. This qualitative descriptive case study explored employees' perceptions about persistence in an online management development certificate program at a U.S. nonprofit organization. Herzberg's motivation-hygiene theory and Rovai's composite persistence model provided the conceptual framework for …