Business Commons^™

Predicting Quality Outcome.S Of Privatized Services In Local Governments Utilizing The Scott And Bruce Measure, Kenneth L. Ward

Doctoral Dissertations

Privatization has been one of the main challenges in the reform of the public service. Privatization is often regarded as an essential means of achieving improved efficiency and quality of public services, and municipalities develop novel methods to privatize their services to cope up with the financial strain. Privatization of services, however, requires a well-formulated model of decision-making that leaders can utilize to realize the most positive outcomes. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the type of decision-making style that could be used to predict a favorable outcome when making decisions to privatize government services or projects in …

Using Latent Class Cluster Analysis To Identify And Profile Organizational Subclimates: An Exploratory Investigation Using Safety Climate As An Exemplar, Amy Frost Stevenson

Doctoral Dissertations

Organizational climate refers to the shared meaning organizational members attach to the events, policies, practices, and procedures they experience as well as to the behaviors they see being rewarded, supported, and expected (Schneider, Ehrhart, & Macey, 2011). Climate scholars have most frequently used referent-shift consensus and dispersion composition models (Chan, 1998) to conceptualize and measure organizational climate. Based on these models, climate emergence has been characterized by low variance or high consensus of individual-level climate perceptions (Chan, 1998; Ehrhart, Schneider, & Macey, 2013; Hazy & Ashley, 2011; Kuenzi & Schminke, 2009) within formally defined organizational groups (e.g., work teams).

Climate …

Evaluating Indicators Of Job Performance: Distributions And Types Of Analyses, Richard J. Chambers Ii

Doctoral Dissertations

Distributions of job performance indicators have historically been assumed to be normally distributed (Aguinis & O'Boyle, 2014; Schmidt & Hunter, 1983; Tiffin, 1947). Generally, any evidence to the contrary has been attributed to errors in the measurement of job performance (Murphy, 2008). A few researchers have been skeptical of this assumption (Micceri, 1989; Murphy, 1999; Saal, Downey, & Lahey, 1980); yet, only recently has research demonstrated that in certain specific situations job performance is exponentially distributed (Aguinis, O'Boyle, Gonzalez-Mulé, & Joo, 2016; O'Boyle & Aguinis, 2012). To date there have been few recommendations in the Industrial-Organizational Psychology literature about how …

Paths To Leadership Of Ncaa Division I Female Athletic Directors, Haley Blount Taitano

Doctoral Dissertations

The focus of this study was to examine the paths to leadership of NCAA Division I female athletic directors. Over forty years after passing Title IX of the Education Amendments Act, female athletic directors still make up less than 10% of NCAA Division I athletic directors. This stagnant statistic along with a limited amount of existing research on the subject were the main catalysts for this investigation.

This study examined the career paths of eight NCAA Division I female athletic directors, paying particular attention to their personal and professional experiences that led to becoming a Division I athletic director. Critical …

The Effect Of Corporate Social Performance On Acquisition Performance, Sammy G. Muriithi

Doctoral Dissertations

In this dissertation, I investigate the impact that corporate social responsibility (CSR) engagement may have on post-acquisition performance outcomes. I argue that prospective targets are among the audiences that observe the firm's corporate social activities and make judgments out of the signals portrayed by such activity. With prospective targets being largely more successful than their counterparts, it stands to reason that they would prefer to be acquired by successful firms that would likely assure benefits in the long term. The socially responsible acquirer would likely be viewed as the more attractive suitor since the established moral and reputational capital present …

Cultural Context's Influence On The Relationships Between Leadership Personality And Subordinate Perceptions, Victoria J. Smoak

Doctoral Dissertations

Fascination with leadership and the pursuit of its understanding have been common across disciplines throughout history (Bass & Stogdill, 1990). Studying leadership in an organization provides value in understanding its relation to outcomes such as employee attitudes (Podsakoff, MacKenzie, & Bommer, 1996), individual performance (Tierney, Farmer, & Graen, 1999) and organizational performance (Day & Lord, 1988; Sully de Luque, Washburn, Waldman, & House, 2008). Leadership is suggested to be the underlying human factor key to organizational effectiveness (Hogan & Kaiser, 2005). In spite of the vast body of literature, much remains to be understood, especially understanding context (McCall & Hollenbeck, …

Bright Or Dark, Or Virtues And Vices? A Reexamination Of The Big Five And Job Performance, Christopher M. Castille

Doctoral Dissertations

Personality research in industrial/organizational psychology has been dominated by the description of personality traits and outcomes as either bright or dark. Unfortunately, research has shown that bright traits have dark outcomes and vice versa, suggesting that a paradox is plaguing the literature. To resolve this paradox, I propose that a different heuristic stemming from positive psychology be utilized: virtues and vices. Virtues refer to exercises of human excellence while vices refer to actions of human failure. Drawing on the virtue ethics concept of the Aristotelian mean, dark traits are viewed as extreme or elevated levels of bright personality traits, allowing …

Individual Adaptability As A Predictor Of Job Performance, Stephanie L. Murphy

Doctoral Dissertations

In the new global economy, organizations frequently have to adjust to meet challenging demands of customers, competitors, or regulatory agencies. These adjustments at the organizational level often cascade down to employees, and they may face changes in their job responsibilities and how work is performed. I-ADAPT theory suggests that individual adaptability (IA) is an individual difference variable that includes both personality and cognitive aspects and has both trait- and state-like properties. As a result, IA may be an acceptable alternative for traditional, stable selection tests for operating within unstable environments. The present paper examined the relationship of individual adaptability, cognitive …

Job Analysis: Measuring Accuracy And Capturing Multiple Perspectives, Deann H. Arnold

Doctoral Dissertations

Organizations rely on job analysis to provide information about the work performed and requirements needed for a position. The use of inaccurate information may have negative outcomes, such as the misallocation of human resources or inefficient training programs. Many job analysis techniques rely on averaging responses, which may oversimplify the results. Preserving idiosyncratic variance, which reflects differences in the ways in which respondents experience and evaluate the job, may increase job analysis accuracy. To assess overall accuracy, the job analysis data in the present study was examined utilizing a practical model of accuracy (Prien, Prien, & Wooten, 2003). To detect …

Pay Communication: An Overview, Scale Development, And Analysis Of Its Influence On Workplace Deviance, Shelly A. Marasi

Doctoral Dissertations

Pay communication is an important yet complex organizational practice that assists organizations in achieving their compensation systems' goals and objectives (Gely and Bierman 2003). However, the management literature has neglected the pay communication concept, resulting in a scarce and undeveloped knowledge base on pay secrecy and pay openness. Given this opportunity, this dissertation focuses on pay communication and its influence on employee behaviors.

Chapter 2 presents an overview of the pay communication literature in the management discipline. A broader analysis of pay secrecy practices is provided since it is the practice primarily focused on in the pay communication literature, including …

The Impacts Of Founding Teams' Characteristics, Types Of Opportunities, And Types Of Strategies On Firm Performance In New Business Ventures, Kyung-Moon Kim

Doctoral Dissertations

In this dissertation, I examine the impact of the characteristics of founding team on firm performance in new business ventures. In addition, this study investigates the moderating effects of the types of opportunities and the types of strategies on the relationships between founding teams' knowledge and firm performance. Although considerable research has examined the effects of founding teams' education and experience on firm performance, findings are inconclusive and disintegrated. Few studies have attempted to investigate the combined effects of these important factors on new ventures' performance and survival. As a result, this study investigates the impact of founding team knowledge …

The Relationship Between Proactive Personality And Performance: Why And When?, Khai The Nguyen

Doctoral Dissertations

In this dissertation, I developed two measures of the value congruence constructs: value congruence with organization and value congruence with supervisor. I also hypothesized that value congruence with one's supervisor and one's organization will be a function of the extent to which the subordinate and supervisor share similarity in proactive personality and that the two value congruence constructs would mediate the relationship between proactive personality and proactive behavior. I further hypothesized that the relationships between value congruence and proactive behavior would be the function of the extent to which employees perceived support from their supervisor and their organization. Finally, I …

The Effects Of Procedural Injustice, Rebecca B. Martin

Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this dissertation is to test for the existence of procedural injustice (PIJ) in the audit environment and its effect on junior auditor's reporting of time and level of skeptical action. This dissertation theorizes that the conflicting forces between junior auditors' ethical beliefs, formal firm policies forbidding the underreporting of chargeable time (URT), and implicit encouragement from managers to engage in URT result in a unique aspect of the audit environment, PIJ, because entry-level auditors perceive these conflicting beliefs and messages as unfair. In this study, PIJ is defined as the inverse of procedural justice, which is the …

Emotional Labor And Authentic Leadership, John E. Buckner V

Doctoral Dissertations

Organizational research has begun to once again focus on the importance of emotions in the workplace. In particular, the concept of emotional labor, the management of emotions at work to influence clients and customers, has recently received much attention. While research has addressed the impact of emotional labor on both employees and clients or customers, research has not examined emotional labor within the context of leadership.

Authentic leadership, an emerging construct in the study of leadership, is proposed to relate to emotional labor. Leaders' authentic behavior has been shown to positively impact followers, such as increasing trust in their leader …

Application Of Protection Motivation Theory To Study The Factors That Influence Disaster Recovery Planning: An Empirical Investigation, Shalini Wunnava

Doctoral Dissertations

In today's information intensive and networked world, Disaster Recovery Planning (DRP) is a critical and significant activity. However, DRP does not always receive the attention it deserves. Therefore, it is critical to examine the factors that influence the undertaking of disaster recovery planning. A model on disaster recovery planning was developed using the theoretical lens of Protection Motivation Theory (PMT). Drawing from PMT literature and using the information technology disaster recovery planning (ITDRP) construct developed by Shropshire and Kadlec (2009), a research model was developed in which perceived severity, perceived vulnerability, intrinsic rewards, extrinsic rewards, fear, response efficacy, self-efficacy, and …

Protection-Motivated Behaviors Of Organizational Insiders, Michael C. Posey

Doctoral Dissertations

Protecting information from a wide variety of security threats is an important and sometimes daunting organizational activity. Instead of solely relying on technological advancements to help solve human problems, managers within firms must recognize and understand the roles that organizational insiders have in the protection of information. The systematic study of human influences on organizational information security is termed behavioral information security (Fagnot 2008; Stanton, Stam, Mastrangelo, and Jolton 2006), and it affirms that the protection of organizational information assets is best achieved when the detrimental behaviors of organizational insiders are effectively deterred and the beneficial activities of these individuals …

A Forgiving Workplace: An Investigation Of Forgiveness Climate, Individual Differences And Workplace Outcomes, Susie Cox

Doctoral Dissertations

Although forgiveness has been studied for centuries, it is a relatively new area of study in organizational behavior. Organizational climate has a history of influencing individual behaviors. This dissertation considers how a climate of forgiveness may foster a willingness to forgive in individuals. A measure of forgiveness climate is developed and empirically examined. The results of this study support the hypothesis that a cohesive/supportive climate and a trustworthy/integrity climate relate to a climate of forgiveness. Furthermore, this study examines the effects of climate on willingness to forgive. A scenario-based scale to measure willingness to forgive workplace offenses is developed. Willingness …

Antecedents Of Entrepreneurial Orientation: A Contingency Approach, Laurent Stephane Josien

Doctoral Dissertations

This research was created in order to offer a better understanding of the entrepreneurial orientation construct. Based on the literature review several antecedents of the entrepreneurial orientation construct were identified: risk, achievement, innovation, locus of control, self-esteem, opportunity, autonomy, proactiveness, and competitive aggressiveness. Relying on the contingency theory developed by Burns and Stalker (1961), it was decided to use the Carland's trichotomy of entrepreneurs as a moderator variable between the antecedents and the entrepreneurial orientation construct. As a result, three main areas of research were identified. The first area deals with determining which dimensions are underpinning the entrepreneurial orientation construct, …

An Investigation Of The Impact Of The Pace Of Change In Post -Ipo Corporate Governance On Firm Performance, Son A. Le

Doctoral Dissertations

In this study, I examine the impact of changes in post-IPO corporate governance on firm performance. Changes in corporate governance affect firm performance in various ways. Some theories such as agency and resource dependence theories predict that fast-paced change in post-IPO corporate governance will enhance firm performance. Other theories such as the resource-based view offer the opposite prediction that slowpaced change is more beneficial for firm performance. I, therefore, develop competing hypotheses regarding the impact of change in post-IPO corporate governance on firm performance.

IPO firms have unique characteristics. They are often small, young firms. As a matter of fact, …

The Sales Managers' Implicit Personality Theory And Leadership Variables, Gordon Gunn Mosley

Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship of sales managers' implicit personality theory and various leadership variables provided to salespeople by their sales managers. Several bodies of literature were reviewed for this study from the educational psychology, management, leadership, and marketing/sales disciplines. More specifically, this study addressed the following research questions: (1) What effect does sales managers' implicit personality theory have on the nature of the feedback they provide to their salespeople? (2) What effect does sales managers' implicit personality theory have of the transformational leadership they provide to their salespeople? (3) What effect does sales managers' …

An Exploratory Study Of The Influence Of Life Management Strategies On Job Satisfaction And Job Performance In A Personal Selling Context, Dheeraj Sharma

Doctoral Dissertations

Extant literature on goal oriented behaviors suggests that individual goal orientation is an important determinant of a salesperson's job satisfaction and job performance. However, the present conceptualization of goal orientation suffers from flawed paradigmatic structure. There are two major disparate paradigms of goal orientation in the extant literature. The first paradigm views goal orientation as a stable personality trait and the second paradigm views it as contextually driven phenomenon. The present study proffers a new approach of conceptualizing individual goal orientation, by introducing the meta-model of Life Management Strategies (Baltes and Baltes, 1998; Freund and Baltes, 1998) in the personal …

Cultural Diversity's Impact On Firm Performance: The Moderating Influence Of Diversity Initiatives And Socialization Tactics, Amy Mcmillan-Capehart

Doctoral Dissertations

The primary purpose of this dissertation is to test the hypothesized relationships between cultural diversity and firm performance. Specifically, this dissertation examines whether or not socialization tactics and diversity initiatives moderate the relationship between diversity and firm performance. This dissertation uses ROA, ROE, and employee productivity in order to capture an accurate picture of firm performance.

My second purpose is to test competing hypotheses that are based on different theories. Theories relating to diversity suggest that there may be both positive and negative effects of a heterogeneous workforce. Therefore, it is necessary to isolate those instances in which diversity can …

An Empirical Investigation Into The Personal Value Systems Of Accounting Managers Of Cpa Firms, Morsheda T. Hassan

Doctoral Dissertations

The objectives of this dissertation were to empirically examine (i) the primary value orientation of CPA firms' managers; (ii) the value profile of these managers; (iii) the relationship between the personal value systems of CPA firm's managers and their managerial decisions, job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and managerial success; (iv) whether the personal value systems of CPA firms' differ by gender or age; (v) differences between the personal value systems of CPA firm's managers affiliated with the departments of auditing, taxation, consulting, information technology, general administration, or others, and (vi) differences between the personal value systems of CPA firms' managers and …

Religious Involvement And Dispositional Characteristics As Predictors Of Work Attitudes And Behaviors, Tami Leigh Knotts

Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this dissertation was to empirically examine the effects of (1) religious involvement on job attitudes, (2) dispositions on job attitudes, and (3) religious involvement on workplace behaviors. This study also assessed whether job attitudes mediated the effect of religious involvement an workplace behaviors or the interaction effect of religious involvement and dispositional characteristics on workplace behaviors.

Higher levels of religious involvement were hypothesized to lead to more positive work attitudes and behaviors. Conservative and self-transcendent values along with positive well-being were expected to lead to positive attitudes at work. The effect of religious involvement on work behaviors …

A Social-Cognitive Approach To Salesperson Work Motivation, Lawrence Scott Silver

Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to apply a social-cognitive model of motivation, used extensively in educational psychology, to a sales setting. The topic pertaining to work motivation and its importance is evidenced by the amount of research devoted to the topic. The literature examined for this study was selected from the fields of industrial/organizational psychology, educational psychology, and marketing/sales. Specifically, this study addressed the following research questions: (1) To what extent is salespeople's goal orientation determined by their implicit personality theory? (2) Do salespeople's goal orientation determine their behavior pattern? (3) Does optimism moderate the relationship between salespeople's implicit …

An Empirical Examination Of Individual, Issue-Related, And Organizational Determinants Of Ethical Judgments, Sean Robert Valentine

Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this dissertation was to empirically examine an ethical decision-making model that contained individual, issue-related, and organizational factors. At the individual level, the relationship between two job attitudes, job satisfaction and organizational commitment, and ethical judgments was assessed. At the issue-related level, the association between moral intensity and ethical judgments was examined. At the organizational level, the relationship between ethical context and ethical judgments was examined. The hypothesized moderating effect of ethical context on the relationship between job attitudes and ethical judgments was also tested.

A national sample of 3,000 sales professionals was used to test the hypotheses. …

Observable Outcomes And Performance Effects Of The Application Of Theory Of Constraints To Organizational Management, Martha Lair Sale

Doctoral Dissertations

The objectives of the study were to empirically examine the relationships among the three elements of the Theory of Constraints (TOC), a number of observable outcomes expected to be associated with application of TOC, and business unit performance. Measures were developed for each of the elements of TOC and a number of observable outcomes (OUTCOMES) expected to be associated with practice of TOC. TOC is defined as consisting of scheduling logistics (LOGISTICS), the Thinking Process (THINKING), and non-traditional performance measures (MEASURES). A previously developed and widely used measure of business unit performance (PERFORMANCE) was employed.

The sampling frame for this …

Moderating Effects Of Vertical Exchange Relationship On The Relationship Between Firm Market Orientation And Selected Salesperson Role Variables, Patrick Dwain Fountain

Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this dissertation is to examine the moderating effects of identified dimensions of vertical exchange relationship (VER) between firm market orientation and the salesperson role variables of job satisfaction, organizational commitment, role ambiguity and role conflict. The sample utilized in this dissertation is the salesforce of a major United States publishing company. Moderated regression analysis is used to determine moderating effects. Three dimensions of vertical exchange relationship are identified using factor analysis and are labeled work, loyalty and congruence. The results indicate that the work dimension is a moderator of the relationship between market orientation and job satisfaction. …

Consequences Of Contingent Compensation, James Herschel Turner

Doctoral Dissertations

The principal objective of this study is the explication of the impact of incentives on measures of performance. The effects of contingent compensation (commissions and bonuses) on role stress, job attitudes, and performance outcomes were studied in a multi-industry sample of 255 employees.

It was hypothesized that as compensation contingency increases, role conflict and financial anxiety also increase and the increase in stress would be negatively related to in-role performance, organizational commitment, and job satisfaction. Finally, it was hypothesized that as organizational commitment and job satisfaction are reduced, intent-to-leave will be increased and extra-role performance will be reduced. The sum …

Ethical Work Climate, Covenantal Relations, And Organizational Citizenship Behavior, Elizabeth C. Schubert

Doctoral Dissertations

The primary focus of this study was to provide an empirical evaluation of the relationship between perceptions of ethical work climate and organizational citizenship behavior. The study also investigated covenantal relations as a mediator of that relationship.

The sample for this research was comprised of subordinates and supervisors representing two locations of a national retail sales organization. Data were collected using both subordinate and supervisor responses. Subordinates reported on their perceptions of ethical work climate, covenantal relations between themselves and the organization, and their organizational citizenship behavior. Supervisors reported their perceptions of the subordinates' organizational citizenship behavior. Scales used to …