Business Commons^™

The Integral Of Education Technology In The Society, Prof. Iwasan D. Kejawa Ed.D

School of Computing: Faculty Publications

Abstract

Are there ways people can better utilize technology to suit their needs in the society of ours? It has been inferred that without technology, our lives would be miserable. The societal factors of using technology are an important area of the technical education system in the world. Are we really learning and using technologies to our advantage? Does technology provide the necessary ingredients or proper ways for the education of all in the society? A look into what constitutes the means and how technology education can be improved and be implemented is explored and emphasized in this work. The …

Evaluating Policy Approaches Towards Undeclared Work: Some Lessons From Fyr Of Macedonia, Colin C. Williams

Colin C Williams

Change Management And Guided Pathways: Creating A Plan For Implementation At A Washington State Community College, Sandra Spadoni, Saovra Ear

Ed.D. Dissertations in Practice

Objective: This article addresses a problem of practice in community college leadership: how to effectively use change management strategies to implement a guided pathways model at a community college. Guided pathways is a recent national movement to create more structured and better coordinated academic pathways within community colleges. Using the case study of one Washington State community college looking to implement this model, we identified change management strategies for community college leaders seeking to implement the guided pathways model. Methods: We conducted interviews with national consultants, state system leaders, and college leaders around the country who have effectively …

Labor And Urban Crisis In Buffalo, New York: Building A High Road Infrastructure, Ian Greer, Lou Jean Fleron

Ian Greer

With inequality growing and competitive market forces on the march, can unions play a constructive role in solving the problems of capitalist economic development? Should they try? In this study of coalition building in Buffalo, New York we find that regular procedures of problem solving involving multiple coalition partners – what we call a high-road social infrastructure – have developed in the city. We discuss the progression of union approaches to economic development, including in-plant and regional labor-management partnership, community coalitions and the creation of labor-led nonprofit organizations. In response to long-term economic and social crisis, a group of union …

Innovation In Isolation: Labor-Management Partnerships In The United States, Kirsten S. Wever, Rosemary Batt, Saul Rubinstein

Rosemary Batt

In the United States, as in other advanced industrial countries, worker participation in management has taken on increasing importance, placing pressures on employers and unions to change how they deal with employees/members, and with each other. This paper examines two of the most impressive cases in the U.S.: the partnerships between General Motors (G.M.) and the United Autoworkers union (U.A W.) at Saturn and between BellSouth and the Communication Workers union (C.W.A.). We outline the evolution and the basic features of these innovations, as well as highlighting certain ongoing problems. These problems, we argue, confront the parties to employment relations …

Women In The Workforce: An In-Depth Analysis Of Gender Roles And Compensation Inequity In The Modern Workplace, Rebecca L. Ziman

Honors Theses and Capstones

This paper explores the increase in participation and education of American women in the workforce with a special focus on women in business and accounting roles. The paper then goes on to discuss the wage gap between genders, how to remedy inequality in the workplace, and highlights several reasons why pursing a solution to gender inequality is beneficial for both the employee and the company.

The Great Regression’S Impact On Construction Training Programs: Multi-Level Analyses Of Recruiting & Retention Concepts, John S. Gaal Edd

Online Journal for Workforce Education and Development

The intent of this practitioner-based research study is to determine if there is a difference in the attitudes of construction industry professionals—at local and international levels—towards various training-related recruiting and retention concepts. In light of the global economic malaise, training programs are being held to higher standards and, thusly, different metrics than in the past. In today’s environment, outcomes-based designs (versus outputs-based) have gained attention from both private and public funders of such training programs. Thusly, programs must adapt to the needs of the industry rather than rely on outdated materials and methods. To this end, a survey was designed …

The Dialectics Of Staff Unionism And University Management; Critical Discourse For Effective Educational Service Delivery, Olukunle Saheed Oludeyi, Adebayo Olatunde Akinsanya

Olukunle Saheed, OLUDEYI

This paper was poised by the lingering lamentations about the acute fall in standard of education and rapid knowledge declination among Nigerians today. The problem has become so intense that Nigerian ivory towers are now accused of producing ill-prepared and unemployable graduates who seriously lack the skills and competencies needed to positively assist the nation in its quest for growth and development. Unfortunately apart from poor university management, suspicious and insincere, if not selfish relationship between leadership of staff unions and leadership of university management is another factor impeding adequate and effective educational service delivery in Nigeria today. With pluralist …

Corporate Social Responsibility, Daniel H. Brown

Senior Honors Theses

This paper will address Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and its far-reaching implications. Initially, the term CSR will be introduced and defined to provide the backbone for the following discussions. The paper will address the theoretical constructs of CSR, managerial strategies for implementing CSR and the application of stakeholder theory. The thesis is built upon Dr. Archie Carroll’s four-part CSR construct. In addition, international standards of CSR, with a focus on Nike, Inc.’s actions, will be evaluated.

Collective Bargaining In American Industry: A Synthesis, Clifford B. Donn, David B. Lipsky

David B Lipsky

The preceding eight chapters deal with the current status of collective bargaining in eight U.S. industries. The differences between collective bargaining for police officers and auto workers or between professional athletes and college professors are obvious and illustrate the richness and variety of contemporary collective bargaining. Despite that diversity, however, the eight industries exhibit important similarities in collective bargaining. The common themes that link most, if not all, of the industries examined in this volume are perhaps less obvious, but a careful reading of the preceding chapters reveals that there have been a number of common factors affecting collective bargaining …

Introduction To [Collective Bargaining In American Industry: Contemporary Perspectives And Future Directions], David B. Lipsky, Clifford B. Donn

David B Lipsky

[Excerpt] Of course, collective bargaining in this country has always been an institution rich in diversity. The nature of each collective bargaining relationship came about through a variety of influences both internal and external to the bargaining process. The internal factors include such things as the ideology of labor and management, the way the unions and employers were organized, and the history of the relationship between the parties. The external factors include the state of the economy and the nature of the laws and court decisions that regulate bargaining practices. Nonetheless, this diversity has never been more in evidence than …

Students’ Attitudes Towards Career In The Tourism Industry – Implications For Tacit Knowledge Management, Marlena A. Bednarska, Marcin Olszewski

Journal of Entrepreneurship, Management and Innovation JEMI

The success of tacit knowledge management lies in firms’ capabilities to attract and retain employees possessing unique knowledge. The purpose of the paper is to investigate students’ attitudes towards career in tourism in the context of tacit knowledge management. The study was conducted on the group of 345 undergraduates and graduates enrolled in tourism and hospitality studies in Poznan. Research revealed that majority of students plan short-term career in tourism, which entails tacit knowledge leakage outside the tourism industry. It was also found that students’ attitudes towards tourism careers are significantly influenced by previous work experience and satisfaction with the …

Risk Analysis & Management In Student-Centered Spacecraft Development Projects, Jeremy Straub, Ronald Fevig, James Casler, Om Yadav

Jeremy Straub

Student involvement in any engineering project introduces an element of risk. This risk is particularly pronounced with small spacecraft projects, as a failure of the spacecraft on-orbit can result in a complete failure of the mission. However, student involvement in these projects is critical to allow research aims to be accomplished, in a university setting, and to train the next generation of spacecraft engineering professionals. The nature of risks posed by student involvement is discussed and a framework for assessing and mitigating these risks presented.

Managing Union Management, Ken Margolies

Ken Margolies

[Excerpt] Management is a function, as well as a class of people. In this article, network member Ken Margolies discusses the management function within unions. It’s a subject he knows pretty well, having written a thesis about it. However, despite some great work by Ken and others, we are still a long way from a union theory of management. We know that command-and-control leads to endless problems, but we are still scratching our heads over what to do instead. Perhaps one place we could start is within our own organisations – labor unions. It seems unlikely that we can meet …

Absenteeism And The Overtime Decision, Ronald G. Ehrenberg

Ronald G. Ehrenberg

[Excerpt] Upon reading the congressional hearing on the Overtime Pay Penalty Act of 1964, one cannot fail to be impressed by the emphasis that management places on absenteeism as a primary cause of overtime. The argument given is basically quite simple: Large firms, it is claimed, attempt to account for absenteeism by hiring standby workers; however because of the stochastic nature of the absentee rate, it is impossible for them to have replacements always available. Hence overtime must be worked by existing employees in order to meet production schedules. One concludes from this argument that the randomness of absenteeism is …

Flexibility And Fairness In Liberal Market Economies: The Comparative Impact Of The Legal Environment And High Performance Work Systems, Alexander Colvin

Alexander Colvin

This paper compares management flexibility in employment decision-making in the United States and Canada through a cross-national survey of organizations in representative jurisdictions in each country, Pennsylvania and Ontario respectively, that investigates the impact of differences in their legal environments. The results indicate that, compared to their Ontario counterparts, organizations in Pennsylvania have a higher degree of flexibility in employment outcomes, such as higher dismissal and discipline rates, yet do not experience any greater flexibility or simplicity in management hiring and firing decisions. One explanation for this result may lie in the finding that organizations in Pennsylvania experience greater legal …

[Review Of The Book Labour History And The Labour Movement In Britain], George R. Boyer

George R. Boyer

[Excerpt] While this volume contains some important pieces, it is uneven in quality, and several of the papers, in my opinion, should have been omitted. Given the very high price of the book, the fact that it omits Pollard's important papers on factory discipline and his chapter from the Cambridge Economic History of Europe, and the ready availability in journals of the best papers, I cannot recommend it to anyone but librarians who happen to have unlimited sources of money. One can only hope that in the future Ashgate or another publisher will reprint, at reasonable prices, Sidney Pollard's excellent …

[Review Of The Book Personnel Economics], Gary S. Fields

Gary S Fields

[Excerpt] What is personnel economics? Despite its name (non-economists may be put off by the use of the word “personnel,” which was left behind by what is now called human resource management about a quarter century ago), personnel economics deals with issues of fundamental importance in the workplace. As the editors explain in the introduction, “The literature is distinguished from other parts of labour economics primarily by its focus on problems that are central to business.” Thus, personnel economics is economics, it is that part of economics that deals with workplace issues, and it is firmly grounded in labor economics. …

Aspirations To Manage: A Comparison Of Engineering Students And Working Engineers, Sara L. Rynes, Pamela S. Tolbert, Pamela G. Strausser

Pamela S Tolbert

Many, perhaps most, individuals who are trained as engineers eventually become managers. However, the reasons for this occupational transition are unclear. The present study examines the occupational aspirations (technical versus managerial) of two groups of engineers with varying work experience: current engineering students and engineering alumni with 10-15 years of experience. Results suggest that managerial aspirations are as common among students as among engineers with work experience. However, the aspirations of experienced engineers are more reliably predicted by their values, beliefs about engineering, and career management strategies. Implications and future research needs are noted.

The Impact Of Ehr On Professional Competence In Hrm: Implications For The Development Of Hr Professionals, Bradford S. Bell, Sae-Won Lee, Sarah K. Yeung

Bradford S Bell

[Excerpt] Information technology has been cited as a critical driver of HR’s transition from a focus on administrative tasks to a focus on serving as a strategic business partner. This strategic role not only adds a valuable dimension to the HR function but also changes the competencies that define the success of HR professionals. Interviews were conducted with HR representatives from 19 firms to examine the linkage between electronic human resources (eHR) and the reshaping of professional competence in HRM. Based on the findings, we draw implications for the development of HR competencies and identify learning strategies that HR professionals …

The Lost Arts: Changing Times Bring New Rules, Linda Niemann

Linda G. Niemann

Remote control locomotives bring change to working the yard.

Business And Non-Profit Organizations Facing Increased Competition And Growing Customers' Demands (Vol. 10), Anna Ujwary-Gil

Anna Ujwary-Gil

The major issues analyzed in the papers referred to: • business and non-profit organizations as an object of scientific research, • business and non-profit organizations in market economy, • modern tools for business and non-profit organizations management • business and non-profit organizations – global and regional aspects, • financial aspects of managing business and non-profit organizations.

Managing Nigeria’S Transformation Agenda: The Leadership Challenge, Professor Ben C Osisioma, Professor Hilda Osisioma

Prof Ben Chuka Osisioma

Nigeria’s President won the 2011 Federal Government elections on the groundswell of popular support and the promise of a transformation agenda. Transformation is a strong word that portends a radical, structural and fundamental reappraisal of the basic assumptions that underlie our reforms and developmental efforts. The challenge before government is how to move the nation away from an oil-dominated economy, institute the basics for a private-sector driven economy, build the local economy on international best practices, transform a passive oil industry to a more pro-active one, and restructure the country along the lines of a more decentralized federalism. But beyond …

A Moral Contractual Approach To Labor Law Reform: A Template For Using Ethical Principles To Regulate Behavior Where Law Failed To Do So Effectively, Zev J. Eigen, David S. Sherwyn

Faculty Working Papers

If laws cease to work as they should or as intended, legislators and scholars propose new laws to replace or amend them. This paper posits an alternative—offering regulated parties the opportunity to contractually bind themselves to behave ethically. The perfect test-case for this proposal is labor law, because (1) labor law has not been amended for decades, (2) proposals to amend it have failed for political reasons, and are focused on union election win rates, and less on the election process itself, (3) it is an area of law already statutorily regulating parties' reciprocal contractual obligations, and (4) moral means …

Not So Black And White: The Color Of Perception In Corporate Layoffs, Carole A. Isom

Antioch University Full-Text Dissertations & Theses

This research addressed the question of whether or not the perception exists that African Americans are disproportionately impacted during layoff periods within corporations. Portraiture was the selected method of inquiry for this research as it captures the experience of the participants and enables storytelling which is based upon perception as opposed to hard, quantitative data. Additionally, portraiture’s autobiographical roots supported my autoethnographic position, encouraging the artistic process while including aesthetic aspects. Portraiture allowed for the voice of the researcher everywhere: in the assumptions, preoccupations, and frameworks brought to the inquiry; in the questions asked; in the data gathered; in the …

Are National Exit Examinations Important For Educational Efficiency?, John H. Bishop

John H Bishop

“This paper analyses effects of national or provincial exit examinations on education quality. On theoretical grounds, the paper argues that such examinations should increase high school achievement, particularly in examination subjects, and that teachers and students and parents and school administrators should focus more on academic achievement when making school-quality decisions. On the negative side, exit examinations may lead to a tendency to concentrate on learning facts, rather than understanding contexts.”

Labor Pains: Change In Organizational Models And Employee Turnover In Young, High-Tech Firms, James N. Baron, Michael T. Hannan, M. Diane Burton

M. Diane Burton

[Excerpt] Organizational theories, especially ecological perspectives, emphasize the disruptive effects of change. However, the mechanisms producing these effects are seldom examined explicitly. This article ex-amines one such mechanism-employee turnover. Analyzing a sample of high-technology start-ups, we show that changes in the employment models or blueprints embraced by organizational leaders increase turnover, which in turn adversely affects subsequent organizational performance. Turnover associated with organizational change appears to be concentrated among the most senior employees, suggesting "old guard disenchantment" as the primary cause. The results are consistent with the claim of neoinstitutionalist scholars that founders impose cultural blueprints on nascent organizations and …

A Descriptive Analysis Of Layoffs In Large U.S. Firms Using Archival Data Over Three Decades And Interviews With Senior Managers, Kevin F. Hallock

Kevin F Hallock

This paper uses data on over 4,600 layoff announcements in the U.S., covering each firm that ever existed in the Fortune 500 between 1970 and 2000, along with 40 interviews of senior managers in 2001 and 2002 to describe layoffs in large U.S. firms over this period. In order to motivate further work in the area, I investigate six main issues related to layoffs: timing of layoffs, reasons for layoffs, the actual execution of layoffs, international workers, labor unions, and the types of workers by occupation and compensation categories. The paper draws on literature from many fields to help further …

Bridging Cultural Differences, Ken Margolies

Ken Margolies

[Excerpt] How you say it can matter as much as what you say.

The Steward’S Role In Bargaining, Ken Margolies

Ken Margolies

[Excerpt] Bargaining a new contract is one of the biggest events in the life of a union, and one that offers stewards many opportunities to build a stronger organization. For many stewards, though, the bargaining process consists of responding the three big questions from the members.