Business Commons^™

Leaders, Followers, And The Space Between: A Three Dimensional View Of Leader Attention And Decision-Making, Karen T. Macmillan

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

A quasi-experimental field study explores how follower voice, leader regulatory focus and leader-member exchange (LMX) affect leader attention and decision-making. The model responds to calls for more work into the interplay between leaders and followers and the effect on leadership (Avolio, 2007; Howell & Shamir, 2005), the integration of top-down and bottom-up processes that affect attention (Ocasio, 2011; Rerup, 2009); and the types, tactics, targets, and outcomes of follower voice (Morrison, 2011). Twenty-seven established leaders and their followers completed on-line instruments in a time-lagged fashion. Leaders were asked to respond to common …

Addressing The Challenges Of Cross-Cultural And Virtual Communication In The Workplace, Sarabjit Sundar

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

The move toward a more global or geographically dispersed organization, together with the technology that is being used to enable this, has dramatically changed work and the workplace in the United States and United Kingdom within the last few decades (Ouye, 2011). This is prompting leaders to communicate with teams consisting of vastly different backgrounds, languages and styles, and to essentially ‘work at the same table’ in the absence of physical cues, such as facial expressions and gestures. Leaders of such teams are challenged to create a smooth operation despite the many differences; the possibilities for misunderstandings and cultural blunders …

Gay, Straight, Or Slightly Bent? The Interaction Of Leader Sexual Orientation And Gender On Leadership Evaluations, Fred George Macoukji

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Abstract

Existing research has shown that gender stereotypes regarding characteristics of men and women influence others' perceptions of their fit with organizational roles, including leadership roles (cf. Eagly & Karau, 2002). However, little research has examined stereotypes regarding other demographic characteristics (e.g., race, sexual orientation) and how they may interact with gender stereotypes to influence leadership evaluations. The current study examined whether leader gender and sexual orientation interact to influence subordinates' evaluations of leader effectiveness, likability, and boss desirability using an experimental design. In addition to examining whether leader gender and sexual orientation interacted to predict leader evaluations, the present …

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 Relationship Of Personality To Entrepreneurial Performance: An Examination Of Openness To Experience Facets, Adam R. Smith

Doctoral Dissertations

The role of personality has resurfaced in entrepreneurship research. The results surrounding the broad personality traits have varied. Although openness to experience has been found to generally have a positive relationship with entrepreneurial intentions and performance (e.g., Zhao, Seibert, & Lumpkin, 2010), conflicting and inconsistent results have emerged (e.g., Baron & Markman, 2004; Ciaverella, Buchholtz, Riordan, Gatewood, & Stokes, 2004). Therefore, an in-depth look at the facets of openness to experience may offer additional information.

The present investigation used a sample of founder/owners and examined the facets of openness to: fantasy, aesthetics, feelings, actions, ideas, and values. Specifically, it was …

Nonprofit Board Members' Self-Perception In The Role Of Organizational Governance And The Balanced Scorecard, Jeffrey John Aulgur

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative case study examines the gap between expectations of board performance held by the senior leadership and the governing board's self-perception of their role in the governance of the nonprofit organization. The primary research question is: Is an analysis of the gap between governance expectations and the board members' self-perception of governance performance an effective methodology for enhancing the efficacy of the governing board of directors? Nonprofit governance and its effectiveness are difficult concepts to define, given the wide disparity in organizational sizes, structures, and missions. While the academic literature does not identify a dominant methodology for organizational effectiveness …

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 …

From Inclusion For Some To Inclusion For All: A Case Study Of The Inclusion Program At One Catholic Elementary School, Emily Marie Paz

LMU/LLS Theses and Dissertations

Catholic schools in the United States have grappled with how to serve students with disabilities without the funding sources available to public schools. This mixed methods case study examines the driving forces, restraining forces, and social justice issues that influenced the development of an inclusion program at one Catholic elementary school.

The case analyzed is the inclusion program at “St. Ignatius” Elementary School. Fourteen interviews with individuals heavily involved in the program were triangulated with qualitative analyses of the content of artifacts from the inclusion program and quantitative data from a rating scale on ideal inclusive practices completed by ten …

A Tale Of Two Trusts: A Case Study Of The Consolidation Of Two Community Land Trust Affordable Housing Organizations In Vermont, Isaac I. Wagner

Capstone Collection

Between early 2010 and May 2011 the Windham Housing Trust conducted a feasibility analysis to study the possibility of merging with or acquiring the Rockingham Area Community Land Trust, a similar community land trust organization providing affordable housing in an adjacent county.

This study analyzed the one year feasibility study and merger negotiation process between the two organizations, and explored the complex set of relationships between financial partners, communities, residents, and funding stakeholders. The methodology for this work included reviewing current literature about nonprofit mergers and acquisitions, funder involvement, and community impact of consolidating services. In addition the author interviewed …

An Integrated View Of Personal, Relational, And Organizational Resources: How They Ignite Creative Behavior At Work, Dilek Gulistan Yunlu

Theses and Dissertations

Individual creativity is an important antecedent of organizational innovation (Amabile, 1988; Woodman, Sawyer, and Griffin, 1993; Shalley, Zhou, & Oldham 2004). In the current hypercompetitive, global work environment, more managers recognize that in order to remain competitive, they need their employees to be engaged in their work and demonstrate creative behaviors (Mumford, Scott, Gaddis, & Strange, 2002). Therefore, it is important to understand the mechanisms by which individuals demonstrate creative behaviors at work, especially by utilizing the resources that are available to them to facilitate creativity and overcoming the demands that hinder their creative behavior at work.

Employing the Job …

Communicating Creativity: A Workshop And Communication Tools For Teaching And Consulting In Creativity, Stephen J. Hammond

Creativity and Change Leadership Graduate Student Master's Projects

This project developed tools to support a consulting practice integrating the author’s interests in creative process, design and organizational strategy. The focus is on educating students and clients about creativity, creative thinking, design and innovation. Design thinking concepts of user feedback and rapid prototyping were used during the project. The resulting products are materials for a multi-day graduate level workshop for design students, a creativity website including blogging capability and a four minute educational video aimed at helping establish an Aerospace Technology Center in Northern Illinois.

Marketing Opportunities For Small-Scale Organic Wine Producers In Slovenia: Proposing A Wine Cluster Model, Maja Djorcev

Masters Theses

The organic wine sector provides high quality artisan products as well as public goods and services and is gaining an importance in a global context. As such, this approach to wine production is seen as a potentially significant source of economic development and an initiator of change in local, rural areas. However, despite recent growing public and scientific interest in alternative approaches farming, organic wine production is still poorly researched.

This thesis focuses on examining the characteristics, challenges, and goals of the organic wine sector in Slovenia through the eyes of ten participant winemakers. Each participant winemaker is a small-scale …

Workplace Health Promotion Programs: An Assessment Of Factors Influencing Participation, Tomeka Lashell Harbin

Dissertations

Increasing health care costs are indicators of a major threat to short and long term viability of American businesses. As leaders in American businesses and industries face rising health insurance and medical care costs, interest in disease prevention and health promotion increases. Decreasing health care costs coupled with a greater public interest for addressing health issues has led to the workplace health promotion movement. This study utilized quantitative research methods to examine employee perceptions of workplace health promotion in the Mississippi Delta, a rural area identified as one of the three unhealthiest places to live in the United States.

Electronic …

Differential Relationships Of Internal And External Networking Behaviors With Turnover, Caitlin M. Porter

Open Access Theses

Although networking behaviors are proven to be beneficial for career success, less is known about how networking influences organizational outcomes such as turnover. Using a professional and an academic sample of "stayers" and "leavers", the present study addresses how two types of networking behaviors, networking focused either internal or external to the organization, differentially influence the voluntary turnover process. Data gathered from "stayers" suggested that internal networking behaviors were positively associated with perceived desirability of movement (i.e., job satisfaction), whereas external networking behaviors were associated with perceived (i.e., perceived employment opportunity) and actual (i.e., job offers) ease of movement. For …

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 Influence Of Social Networking Technology In An Engineering Organization, Derrick Marcus Tepaske

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Projects for D. Eng. Degree

Computer facilitated Social Networking (SN) is becoming more prevalent in our society, both in our personal and professional lives. As its use grows, there is a desire to determine how it will impact an organization. If it can positively impact an organization then it is an initiative that could be embraced and leveraged for any number of business related activities from marketing to engineering. This project develops and implements a social networking treatment for an engineering organization in order to determine how it impacts the responsiveness and performance of the organization. The treatment includes an online tool, a training package, …

Female Authority In A Globalizing Market, Megan R. Mccann

Honors Theses and Capstones

No abstract provided.

An Epistemological Inquiry Into The Incorporation Of Emergency Management Concept In The Homeland Security With A Post-Disaster Security Centric Focus, Mehmet Secilmis

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The historical roots of the Emergency Management concept in the U.S. date back to 19th century. As disasters occurred, policies relating to disaster response have been developed, and many statuary provisions, including several Federal Disaster Relief Acts, conceptually established the framework of Emergency Management. In 1979, with the foundation of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), disaster relief efforts were finally institutionalized, and the federal government acknowledged that Emergency Management included mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery activities as abbreviated 'MPRR.'

However, after 2000, the U.S. experienced two milestone events - the September 11 terrorist attacks in 2001 and Hurricane Katrina …

Analysis Of Effects Of Organizational Behavior On Evolving System Of Systems Acquisition Programs Through Agent Based Modeling, Klayton S. Bobsein

Theses and Dissertations

Every weapon system operates in context with one or more system of systems (SoS). It is the SoS that provides warfighting capability. Each system is managed independently by a program office with program-centric priorities. These systems must be interconnected and interoperable, so the program office must collaborate across the SoS. The SoS are always changing and evolving, triggered by variety of stimuli. Acquisition program offices can be characterized with a set of organizational behaviors that respond to the environment, are influenced by SoS architecture, and can be described by their fitness and contribution to SoS. Using Geert Hofstede's cultural dimensions, …

Consumer Perception Of Organic Milk, Christina Puetz

Dairy Science

The objective of this study was to determine the potential factors, reasons and beliefs that contribute to college aged consumers’ choice to purchase organic milk. The data were from survey of students using questions that were modeled after consumer issues and concerns over conventional milk as discussed in the literature review. This study was particularly interested in exploring differences between students in agriculture classes and non-agriculture classes. The literature referenced came from a variety of sources, including scientific journals, online articles, milk advisory boards, and governmental agencies. According to the literature review, consumer concerns and reasons for purchase of organic …

Appreciative Inquiry Summits And Organizational Knowledge Creation: A Social Systems Perspective, Emi Makino

CGU Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of this exploratory study is to develop alternative models for analyzing the systems dynamics of a large group conference format called appreciative inquiry (AI) summits. I apply Luhmann’s social systems theory to the strategizing activities of AI summits to examine how this particular format is capable of generating organizational knowledge. An AI summit is a strategic planning conference in which hundreds of internal and external stakeholders collectively design the future of the organization through structured activities. It applies the principles of AI, a consulting method used in organizational development that attends to the positive aspects of an organization …

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 …

Impact Of Team Citizenship Behaviors On Performance In Women's Sports Teams, Rachael Nichole Martinez

Dissertations

In organizational psychology literature, organizational citizenship behaviors (OCB) have demonstrated a significant relationship with performance outcomes. However, the existing research has shown some inconsistencies in the strength and direction of this relationship. Moreover, research has not yet explored the actual relationship between OCB and sports team performance (individual- and team-level), nor has research investigated potential moderators of this relationship. The current study examined the relationship between OCB and sports team performance and whether this OCB-performance relationship was moderated by task interdependence (i.e., sport). Two types of collegiate teams--softball and tennis--were utilized to represent two different levels of task interdependence with …

Illegitimate Tasks And Employee Well-Being: A Daily Diary Study, Erin Eatough

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation focuses on an occupational stressor that has been recently introduced to the literature, illegitimate tasks, or tasks that seem unreasonable or unnecessary at work. Previous work has demonstrated the relationship between illegitimate tasks and a narrow set of discrete emotions as well as negative employee performance behaviors. The current research contributes to the literature by expanding the nomological network associated with illegitimate tasks and uses a rigorous daily diary methodology in a full-time working sample. It was expected that illegitimate tasks reduce state levels of self-esteem as well as other employee well-being indicators including anger, depressive mood, fatigue, …

Variance In Faking In High-Stakes Personality Assessment As An Indication Of Job Knowledge, Timothy Ryan Dullaghan

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether the personality trait elevation between honest and applicant contexts that has been widely seen throughout the personality and selection research is merely universal, blatant trait elevation, or whether something else is underlying this faking behavior. By obtaining both honest and applicant context personality responses in which respondents were provided with focal job knowledge, this study determined that while there is near-universal trait elevation across seven personality traits, there is, in fact, some trait differentiation between jobs. As such, this study provided some evidence of knowledgeable faking, defined as distortion of personality …

Changes In Auditing: A Three Part Investigation, Denise R. Hanes

2013

This dissertation consists of three studies investigating changes in auditing. This abstract summarizes each study, including purpose, methodology, and findings.

The first study synthesizes the extant literature examining geographically distributed work arrangements in other disciplines such as management and social psychology. Focusing on communication and coordination, knowledge sharing, work design, and social identity in geographically distributed teams, I identify opportunities for future research to expand our understanding of how geographically distributing audit work impacts auditors, the audit process, and audit quality.

My second paper explores a key contributor to the success of geographically distributed work highlighted in my literature review: …

Engineering Problem Solving And Sustained Learning: A Mixed Methods Study To Explore The Dynamics Of Engineering Knowledge Creation, Rachel Itabashi-Campbell

Wayne State University Dissertations

This dissertation research explores processes by which engineering problem solving (EPS) results in sustained organizational learning. Approaching from a constructionist perspective, the study empirically examines the knowledge creation dynamics instigated by product-related problems using a mixed methods research approach. The research has identified the Japanese concept of ba, defined in this study as "shared experiential space," as a key construct that explains the phenomena of interest. A new framework that the study has developed, which interprets EPS as an epistemic journey to attain system-wide improvements, is highly complementary to the traditional structured routine based approaches to engineering operations and …

A Tale Of Two Envys: A Social Network Perspective On The Consequences Of Workplace Social Comparison, Christopher M. Sterling

Theses and Dissertations--Management

My dissertation examines how individuals respond to workplace social comparisons. I measure the explicit set of referent others that individuals compare themselves against in order to evaluate their own level of performance. I examine how the social context of these comparisons impact discretionary performance related behaviors by examining how an individual’s position within a social network and the structural characteristics of an individual’s reference group influences the experience of discrete emotions. Specifically, I examine how malicious envy and benign envy mediate the relationship between social comparison and workplace behavior in a field setting. Results indicate that social network structure plays …

An Exploration Of Determinants Of Organizational Commitment: Emphasis On The Relationship Between Organizational Democracy And Commitment, Boya Chen

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

In public organizations, organizational commitment plays a significant role in determining both efficiency and efficacy of the organization. Organizational commitment is just like an invisible hand affecting the performance of staff. The degree of organizational commitment can also be a double-edged sword, by which performance outcomes can either be promoted dramatically or impaired greatly. The purpose of the paper is to examine the determinants of organizational commitment, especially the relationship between organizational commitment and organizational democracy.

From the literature review, I build a model including several variables. The dependent variable in my model is organizational commitment. Independent variables in my …

The Heart Of Social Networks: The Ripple Effect Of Emotional Abilities In Relational Well-Being, Virginie Lopez-Kidwell

Theses and Dissertations--Management

To better understand the effect of emotions on formal and informal interactions in the workplace, I focus on emotional dynamics, the exchange and experience of emotions occurring within repeated interpersonal interactions. Emotional Ability (EA; how individuals perceive, use, understand, and manage their own or others’ emotions) is a key component in emotional dynamics. Specifically, I focus on the role of EA on individuals’ choices of coworkers for gaining emotional support (the receipt of empathy, caring, trust, and concern), and in turn, their occupational well-being and task performance. In addition, I investigate the “ripple effects” of EA, how the EA of …