Business Commons^™

09. Group Dynamics, Illinois Mathematics And Science Academy

CORE

The Group Dynamics module focuses on informing students about inter/intra group interactions, while also demonstrating the role of an individual within a group. As individuals become a part of a group, they lose a certain distinction between their personal identity and their group personality, or prototype. Individuals become part of a social categorization and comparison, and require the skills of empathy and relations to successfully communicate with not only their ingroup, but also their outgroup. An absence of awareness of the feelings around them can develop the negative effects of groupthink, as individual ideas are unheard. As fitting into the …

The Power Of Happiness, Sarah R. Romney

Marriott Student Review

This article synthesizes research and psychological principles to explain the impact that one’s attitude can have oneself and others. A positive attitude is contagious and can help one perform better, be more motivated, and earn a higher wage. It can also increase team performance and help others be happy to receive the same benefits. By focusing on their expressions and attitude, people can greatly impact the organizations they are a part of.

The Relationship Between Personality Traits And The Income Of Small Business Owners, Staci Lashawn Parker

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Abstract

Researchers have found that the Big Five personality trait of conscientiousness correlated consistently with high performance across industries. However, previous research was limited to self-reported data collected based on the opinions of the participants and did not include the subtraits of conscientiousness (achievement and dependability). Previous studies also did not provide data specific to entrepreneurs operating as small business owners and did not compare them to their peers. Thus, the purpose of this quantitative, correlational study was to explore whether or not there was a relationship between the personality traits of achievement and dependability and the income of U.S. …

A Quantitative Examination Of The Relationship Between Leadership And Organizational Commitment In Employees Of Faith-Based Organizations, Kimberly Ann Maiocco

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The objective of this research was to examine the relationship between leadership practice and organizational commitment in employees in faith-based organizations. The research utilized Bass and Avolio's Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ) Leader Form and Meyer and Allen’s Three-Component Model (TCM) Employee Commitment Survey. The purpose of the research was to determine whether there was a relationship between leadership style and organizational commitment. Attributed idealized influence (IIA), behavioral idealized influence (IIB), inspirational motivation (IM), and contingent reward (CR) predicted affective commitment. Attributed idealized influence (IIA), inspirational motivation (IM), intellectual stimulation (IS), individual consideration (IC), active management-by-exception (MBEA), and transactional leadership predicted …

Project Manager Motivation: Job Motivators And Maintenance Factors, Thomas G. Henkel, James W. Marion Jr, Debra T. Bourdeau

Publications

The present study explored the applicable motivation factors that contribute to job satisfactory in terms of job motivators and maintenance factors when working projects. Students enrolled in a university advanced project management leadership course were asked to respond to a job motivators and maintenance factors self-assessment which is a useful framework to determine the factors that contribute to their motivation when working projects (Lusser & Achua, 2016). A chi-square test was conducted to determine if the observed values were significantly different from an expected value of 18. The chi-square goodness of fit test led to the rejection of H10 and …

Pay For Performance: What Type Of Pay Scheme Is Best For Achieving Business Results?, Fermin Augusto Diez

Dissertations and Theses Collection

Much has been written, for and against, about compensation as a driver of performance. Two main theoretical constructs deal with this subject: extrinsic theory, including agency theory, whereby money is a main motivator to performance, and intrinsic theory which proposes that money does not motivate, and in fact may hinder, performance. However, corporations spend considerable effort in designing compensation packages with the objective of linking remuneration to performance. Practitioners have developed a variety of mechanisms to deliver pay packages, but heretofore there has been no attempt to validate which, if any, of these various approaches is better able to drive …

Learning From Others' Failures: The Effectiveness Of Failure Stories For Managerial Learning, Ronald Bledow, Bernd Carette, Jana Kuehnel, Daniela Pittig

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School of Business

We argue that other peoples' failures provide a neglected source of managerial learning that is associated with enhanced learning transfer. Due to their negative valence, stories about other peoples' failures as compared to stories about other peoples' successes should elicit a more pronounced motivational response, such that people elaborate the content of failure stories more actively. As a consequence, the knowledge gained from failure stories will more likely be applied on a transfer task. We expect this motivational response to failure stories and its benefits for learning to be most pronounced for people who view failures as valuable learning opportunities. …

Individual Differences And Their Measurement: A Review Of 100 Years Of Research, Paul R. Sackett, Filip Lievens, Chad H. Van Iddekinge, Nathan R. Kuncel

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This article reviews 100 years of research on individual differences and their measurement, with a focus on research published in the Journal of Applied Psychology. We focus on 3 major individual differences domains: (a) knowledge, skill, and ability, including both the cognitive and physical domains; (b) personality, including integrity, emotional intelligence, stable motivational attributes (e.g., achievement motivation, core self-evaluations), and creativity; and (c) vocational interests. For each domain, we describe the evolution of the domain across the years and highlight major theoretical, empirical, and methodological developments, including relationships between individual differences and variables such as job performance, job satisfaction, and …

Getting Old At The Top: The Role Of Affective Abilities And Leadership Role Characteristics In The Relationship Between Age And Leadership Behaviors, Greg Thrasher

Wayne State University Dissertations

Leadership behaviors and the outcomes they foster have historically been a central issue to organizational researchers and practitioners alike. Interestingly, though, as the workforce continues to age, research on leadership from a lifespan perspective has been surprisingly rare. The current dissertation aims to address this gap in the literature through two main contributions. First, the main effect of age on the dimensions of task, relational, and change-oriented leadership behaviors is examined. Second, I examine how characteristics of leadership roles interact with of age-related changes in affective abilities in the relationship between age and leadership behaviors. Results suggest that there is …

Engagement Strategies For Catalyzing It Sales Team Performance In Asia, Jeb Stephen Hurley

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Sales leaders who can foster sales team engagement drive an organization's sales performance. Some information technology sales leaders lack team engagement strategies that support revenue results above market growth rates. The purpose of this qualitative, single-case study was to explore the team engagement strategies of 6 sales leaders, in various offices in the Asia-Pacific region of a single, public information technology company, who demonstrated the ability to support year-on-year revenue results above market growth rates. Participants demonstrated the ability to foster team engagement and consistently deliver year-on-year revenue results above market growth rates. The conceptual framework for this study was …

How Should We Motivate Effort, Shamima Khan

Theses and Dissertations

This research uses an experimental design to study if the pattern and positioning of rewards influence the amount of effort participants put in. The three key hypotheses tested here are: 1) are people more likely to complete a task if the incentives are given in more regular intervals, 2) do uncertainty of reward timing hurt or help in maintaining motivation, 3) is intrinsic motivation more influential than the patterns in which incentives are structured? The treatments in this experiment are created by varying the reward structure of candies and pens in exchange of a simple math test completion. Among the …

Management And Telework, Arlene J. Nicholas

Faculty and Staff - Articles & Papers

This chapter discusses telework as a desirable option for workers and a valuable tool for employers to attract and retain employees. Telework's many benefits are appealing to technologically competent and confident workers. Managers may be concerned with employee accessibility, productivity and possible loss of management roles (Arnold, 2006). When Yahoo CEO Marissa Meyer banned working from home, it was described as a step backward that countered studies of increased productivity, retention and job satisfaction that could demoralize the workers (Cohan, 2013; Gaudreau, 2013). An overview of benefits, incentives, organizational examples as well as possible deterrents and management resistance are identified.

Disability Visibility And Stigma Threat: Effects On The Performance, Stress, And Self-Control Of Disabled Workers, William Brice

Open Access Theses

Having a stigmatized disability is a depleting experience. For those with a disability, there are many factors that contribute to potential performance decrements in any given situation. Visibility of the disability, and the stigma connected to the disability are two such factors—which I argue based on research on motivation, regulation, and stress, contributes to the regulatory depletion experienced by disabled individuals. I conducted an experimental study where participants took part in a workplace simulation. Participants were given an artificially simulated disability and both the visibility of the disability and the stigmatizing nature of the disability were manipulated. I found a …

The Impact Of Age On Workplace Motivation: A Person-Centered Perspective, Keith Lynn Zabel

Wayne State University Dissertations

The present study used the person-centered approach to examine how profiles based upon six different age conceptualizations differentially impact workplace motivation. In the first known study to examine all conceptualizations of age simultaneously, results suggested the age conceptualizations of subjective age and health significantly impact growth motives for older workers, but not social or security motives. Results suggest social motives are influenced more by chronological age as opposed to other conceptualizations of age. Implications for practitioners in designing and implementing HR activities (e.g., succession planning) and researchers in utilizing all the conceptualizations of age and studying workplace interventions are discussed.

Absenteeism In An International Custom Software Engineering Company, Jennifer M. Mudek

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Absenteeism has a negative impact on organizational output in the form of lost productivity and profit reduction for software engineering companies. The purpose of this qualitative descriptive case study was to explore the strategies that software engineering managers utilize for reducing absenteeism. The theory of planned behavior formed the conceptual framework for this study. Data were collected through semistructured interviews from a purposeful sample of 11 managers at an international custom software engineering company. Data collection also included organizational data on employee absences for the past 5 years (2011-2015), e-mail memos, newsletters, employee handbook, and employee performance reviews. Based on …

Exploring Generation Y Leaders' Motivation And Retention Within The Service Industry, Jason Earl Wiggins

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The retention of millennial leaders continues to be a concern for executive leadership. The problem addressed in this study was the gap in research regarding how the motivation of Generation Y leaders affects employee satisfaction and retention factors. The purpose of this phenomenological inquiry was to explore the retention rate for 20 Generation Y service leaders in the southwestern United States to illuminate patterns of satisfied millennial leaders by drawing from employers' role in motivating and retaining millennial leaders in the service industry. Herzberg's 2-factor theory, Vroom's expectancy theory, Adams's equity theory, and Maslow's hierarchy of needs comprised the conceptual …

Strategies To Improve Employee Performance In The U.S. Aerospace Industry, Nicole Therese Balderrama

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Outsourcing is a sought out practice within business and, in particular, the U.S. aerospace industry; however, some outsourced firms cannot meet client expectations. The purpose of this single case study was to explore what strategies outsourced firm company leaders use to improve the performance of employees. The sample comprised 4 senior managers employed with a firm that has been producing parts for 109 years for a major aerospace company in Southern California. The conceptual framework for this study built upon systems thinking to identify the structure of the outsourcing and supplier relationship and Herzberg's motivation-hygiene theory to understand work motivation …

Individual Traits And Entrepreneurial Intentions: The Mediating Role Of Entrepreneurial Self-Efficacy And Need For Cognition, Chao Miao

Theses and Dissertations

The field of entrepreneurship is rapidly advancing and matures as a discipline that receives substantial amount of attention. One popular area of research in the discipline of entrepreneurship is to investigate one’s intent to start a business, which is entrepreneurial intention. This is an important construct that warrants ongoing research because entrepreneurial intention is not only a great predictor of entrepreneurial behavior but also an important step in the process of becoming an entrepreneur. The present study, based on a sample of 321 subjects along with 264 observers, makes five contributions to the entrepreneurship literature. First, I examined the psychometric …

Perceptions Of Leadership: Impact Of Leadership Style And Gender On Employee Motivation, Kristin Marquette Walker

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Researchers suggest that individuals in Corporate America have stereotypes about the ways in which men and women lead. They also have found that a leader's style and gender can impact employees' job satisfaction, performance, and engagement. However, researchers have provided little empirical evidence about the specific relationship of leadership style and gender on employee motivation. The purpose of this quantitative study was to examine the effects of leadership style, as measured by the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ), and a leader's gender on employee motivation, as measured by the Work Preference Inventory (WPI). Because it was assumed that small organizations would …

A Client-Vendor Relationship Perspective Of Cultural Differences On Cross-Border Information Technology Outsourcing, John Kennedy Bosire

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Cross-border information technology (IT) outsourcing continues to rise due to the demand for business process outsourcing. Issues such as miscommunication and management problems have emerged because of cross-cultural disparities between clients and vendors across national borders. The theoretical framework of this study was based on the organizational culture model studies of Meek, Spradley, Smith, and Draft for examining and understanding complex organizational practices. The purpose of this mixed-methods explanatory sequential case study was to qualitatively identify and quantitatively determine the management approaches that are effective in managing cross-cultural differences and the constitution of the elements of global adjustment, motivation, mindset, …

Explaining The Effects Of Pay Variation On Individual Outcomes, Samantha A. Conroy

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Compensation is an area of research rife with debate among experts. These debates are primarily concerned with the effectiveness of pay-for-performance. The pay variation and performance relationship is a subset of this research where disagreement and inconclusive findings are common. Is pay variation conducive to higher performance or is pay compression ideal? This study contributes to the pay variation and performance debate by focusing on performance-based pay variation and addressing fundamental assumptions of prior work. Past research has treated pay variation as a proxy for allocation rules and incentive intensity. Separating these two constructs rather than confounding them provides a …

The Effects Of Group-Level And Individual Contributions On Business Simulation Team Performance, Kristen Backhaus, Karl Heiner

Organization Management Journal

Studies of team performance in business simulations have not investigated the effect of a “star member” of the team on team performance outcomes. This article reports the findings of a study examining the role of team composition variables, team function variables and the effect of a star player on team score in an undergraduate business simulation. As hypothesized, team performance is associated with the performance of a single outstanding player. Among team composition variables, only intrinsic motivation of team members is associated with team score. A composite measure of team function that included team trust, communication and goal clarity was …

A Three-Stage Process Model Of Self-Initiated Expatriate Career Transitions: A Self-Determination Theory Perspective, Yu-Ping Chen

Theses and Dissertations

With more than 31 percent of employers worldwide having difficulty filling positions due to the lack of suitable talent available in their home markets (Manpower, 2010), talent shortage has become a global problem. Thus, many employers are seeking and recruiting skilled employees worldwide. Echoing this trend is the emergence of self-initiated expatriates (SIEs), a growing breed of expatriates that is responding to global talent shortages. Unlike corporate expatriates who are sponsored by organizations to take an international assignment, SIEs independently choose to expatriate and their expatriation experiences are riskier and more unpredictable. Thus, SIEs' motivations pertaining to their decisions to …

An Investigation Into The Relationship Between An Engineering Manager's Purpose-Seeking Beliefs And Behaviors And The Engineering Manager's Perception Of Employee Creativity, Initiative And Purpose-Seeking Behavior, Charles Burton Daniels

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Organizations have placed an overwhelming emphasis on extrinsic motivation of its workforce, normally in the form of financial incentives, in an attempt to assure individual and organizational high performance. While a significant level of financial resources is expended in this attempt to predict and influence employee behavior, no objective evidence exists of a favorable return of investment. In fact, the primary impact of most extrinsic motivation might actually be demotivation – the opposite of the intended use.

In this research the prevailing literature was examined and a conclusion about the power of both extrinsic and intrinsic motivation was synthesized to …

Weiser Carrots And Sticks: Motivation Beyond Money At The Shakedown Café, Julian A. Martinez

CMC Senior Theses

It is generally assumed that monetary incentivization is the most effective means of motivating organizationally-beneficial behaviors. Individuals, under this line of thought, pursue their own objective self-interest above all else. However, evidence is being uncovered that indicates that human motivation may be a much more complicated facet of the human psyche. The purpose of this study is to examine the deeper underpinnings that drive people work that might lie beyond financial rewards. In order to do this, the Shakedown Café, a student-run restaurant on Pitzer College’s campus, will be examined. This specific organization is of particular interest because it does …

An Empirical Examination Of Self-Development Activities : Integrating Social Exchange And Motivational Lens, Kanchan Vasant Deosthali

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

In today's competitive global environment, organizations are continuously seeking out ways to motivate employees to learn new skills and update existing skills. One way that employees are updating their skills are through voluntary self-development activities. The current research focuses on these behaviors, and extends prior research by developing and empirically examining a model of self-development behaviors that integrates two theoretical lenses: social exchange and motivation. The social exchange component of the model included distributive justice, procedural justice, trust, and organizational identity and the motivational component of the model focused on subjective norms, self-efficacy, need for achievement, conscientiousness, resources, and attitudes …

"Time To Lead" Motives-Attributes-Skills Knowledge (Mask) Base In Leadership Performance, Chris D. Bellamy

Dr. Chris D. Bellamy

In today’s business environment, executives are seeking ways to identify new leaders which are well rounded in terms of their motivations, attributes, skills, knowledge and abilities to manage people. Companies invest in skill development of existing managers and often in potential managers. The Motivations-Attributes-Skills-Knowledge (MASK) model establishes the framework for baselining leadership behaviors and competencies for assessment and measurement verses a subjective annual performance evaluation. The model establishes behavior patterns that can be used to quantify and qualify as predictors of present and future leadership performance. This model is the standard by which business leaders can use to significantly improve …

The Effects Of Technical Difficulties On Learning And Attrition During Online Training, Traci Sitzmann, Katherine Ely, Bradford S. Bell, Kristina N. Bauer

Bradford S Bell

Although online instruction has many potential benefits, technical difficulties are one drawback to the increased use of this medium. A repeated measures design was used to examine the effect that technical difficulties have on learning and attrition from voluntary online training. Adult learners (N = 530) were recruited online and volunteered to participate in a four-hour training program on using computer spreadsheets. Technical difficulties were inserted in some of the training modules in the form of error messages. Using multilevel modeling, the results indicated that the presence of these technical difficulties impaired learning, such that test scores were lower in …

Reactions To Skill Assessment: The Forgotten Factor In Explaining Motivation To Learn, Bradford S. Bell, J. Kevin Ford

Bradford S Bell

This study examined the effects of trainees’ reactions to skill assessment on their motivation to learn. A model was developed that suggests that two dimensions of trainees’ assessment reactions – distributive justice and utility – influence training motivation and overall training effectiveness. The model was tested using a sample of individuals (N = 113) enrolled in a truck driving training program. Results revealed that trainees’ who perceived higher levels of distributive justice and utility had higher motivation to learn. Training motivation was found to significantly predict several measures of training effectiveness. Trainees’ performance on the pre-training assessment and trait goal …

Antecedents Of Servant Leadership: A Mixed Methods Study, Curtis D. Beck

Department of Agricultural Leadership, Education and Communication: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Scholarship

The purpose of this mixed methods study was to explore the antecedents of servant leadership. The sequential explanatory research design consisted of two distinct phases: quantitative followed by qualitative.

The Phase One quantitative survey collected data from 499 leaders and 630 raters from community leadership programs in the United States using the Servant Leadership Questionnaire (Barbuto & Wheeler, 2006).

During Phase Two, selected leaders from phase one (N = 12) were interviewed to explain those results in more depth. The data were coded and analyzed for possible themes. Triangulation was used to analyze the quantitative and qualitative data to validate …