Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Heart Of A Library: Getting To Know Each Other, Grace Allbaugh, Susan Franzen, Angela Yon

Faculty and Staff Publications – Milner Library

Starting a new job is overwhelming! New employees can feel isolated and disconnected without concerted effort by library colleagues, limiting their ability to create meaningful partnerships.  Milner Library grappled with these challenges when a cohort of new employees arrived in summer 2020. Milner’s new mentoring program began to organize a series of virtual information sessions to increase awareness of different library departments. In the Getting to Know Milner series, presenters highlighted partnerships and the interconnectedness of library activities. Collaborators in the audience were able to see the value of their work reflected in their colleagues' presentations. These sessions illustrated the …

Counterpoint: Laying The Groundwork For The First Geospatial Red Team, Rachel Parkin

Critical and Creative Thinking Capstones Collection

The goal of this synthesis has been to develop a set of principles or strategies to guide the establishment of a permanent red team within the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA). Over the course of a decade spent working at NGA, I discovered a passion for analytic tradecraft and looking for ways I can push the agency toward a culture that allows critical and creative thinking to thrive. This paper combines my research about organizational culture and reflective narratives about events and observations that shaped my understanding of NGA’s current organizational culture. I identify significant blind spots in our organizational approach …

Two-Way Mentoring: How Employees Can Learn From One Another, Peeyush Gupta, Michelle D. Steward, James A. Narus, D.V.R Seshadri

Asian Management Insights

Vibrant cross-generational interactions can result in strong relationships being formed, as demonstrated in the case of Tata Steel Ltd.

Organizational Dissent: The Implications Of Race And Dissent Outcomes, Siera N. Bramschreiber

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Dissent, the public expression of a minority perspective, is valuable to organizations due to its connections with improving decision-making processes within teams. The current study sought to integrate what is known about diversity in thought and diversity in people and how this influences the dissent process. Specifically, I examined if positive perceptions of dissenters (i.e., worthy of respect or courageous) differ based on the race of the dissenter. Second, I examined if stories of successful articulated dissent influence subsequent willingness to dissent. In developing a scenario to manipulate dissent outcomes ranging from negative outcomes (i.e., hostility) to positive outcomes (i.e., …

It's Not Imposter Syndrome: Resisting Self-Doubt As Normal For Library Workers, Nicola Andrews

Gleeson Library Faculty and Staff Research and Scholarship

Library workers, as with other professions, are quick to diagnose ourselves and others with imposter syndrome when we doubt or devalue our everyday work. However, methods of coping with imposter syndrome have changed little in the forty years since the term was first theorized, and often centre on feel-good fixes which do not address power imbalances between the sufferer and their workplace environment. Here, I examine the origins of imposter syndrome, and identify factors often misinterpreted as imposter syndrome but which are instead the product of oppressions such as precarious labour, racism, and sexism. By unpacking how oppression and gaslighting …

How Healthy Is Your Library? Diagnosing Culture And Curing The Patient, Emily A. Hicks

Roesch Library Faculty Presentations

Every library has a distinctive organizational culture with norms, values, rules, beliefs, and basic assumptions that have developed over time and are shared by the people who make up the organization. This culture shapes the perceptions and assumptions of the library’s personnel. A healthy culture can evoke a passion for the work, a loyalty and commitment to the organization’s mission, and a deep-seated belief in the organization’s value.

Libraries with a healthy culture are resilient, responsive, and inclusive. The health of an organization is the responsibility of every member, not just the formal leadership.

Using a combination of graphics and …

Using Needs Assessment As A Learning Tool In The Product Development Process: A Case Study Of A Quick Service Restaurant Chain, Denise Cumberland, Rod P. Githens

Benerd College Faculty Articles

Purpose– The purpose of this case study was threefold. First, to examine whether a needs assessment can work in the context of an organization’s new product development process to identify the gap between what “is” occurring and what “should” be occurring. Second, to investigate how a well-known stakeholder classification system can be adopted in a practitioner setting. Third, to identify why the new product development process derailed in a quick-service restaurant chain.

Design/methodology/approach– A Fortune 200 quick-service restaurant chain provided the setting for a case study on the new product development (NPD) process. Data were gathered from multiple stakeholder groups …

Gazing Into The Crystal Ball: Using Scenarios For Future Visioning Of A Distance Learning Library Service, Anne Marie Casey, Jon E. Cawthorne, Kathleen Citro

Staff Works - Hunt Library

This article describes the use of scenarios as a tool to assist a large distance learning library service in its strategic planning. Through a description of the scenario process from beginning to end, the authors detail the steps that the library director and the consultant took initially; their missteps; and the successful conclusion. This study of the journey through the scenario process to a new strategic plan should prove useful to library administrators interested in exploring new ways to plan for uncertain futures.

To Transform A Culture: The Rise And Fall Of The U.S. Army Organizational Effectiveness Program, 1970–1985, James Michael Young

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

In the early 1970s, following a decade of social upheaval in the US and a traumatizing military defeat in Vietnam, a group of progressive army officers, armed with recent graduate degrees in the social and behavioral sciences, created a grass roots movement that soon led to the implementation of the largest organizational development program ever conducted. Wartime atrocities and chronic careerism in the Army officer corps, along with President Richard Nixon’s promise to create an All-Volunteer Force (AVF), opened up a window of opportunity for these progressives to promote transformational leadership theories grounded in humanistic psychology. In institutionalizing OD across …

Implementing Reference Statistics Collection Software At Multiple Library Service Points, J. Gabe Gossett, Elizabeth Stephan, Rebecca M. Marrall

Western Libraries Faculty and Staff Publications

Purpose– The purpose of this article is to explore the process of implementing LibAnswers, a reference statistics collection and analysis software, at multiple service points in an academic library and to outline the benefits of the process. Design/methodology/approach– The article outlines the process used to implement a statistics software, including initial testing, development of categories and terms used to define the question types, and training of library staff. Findings– Implementing a statistics program at multiple service points takes flexibility and patience. The biggest challenge faced was developing common terms to define what each desk did and how the statistics would …

Psychological Net Worth: Finding The Balance Between Psychological Capital And Psychological Debt, Michele L. Millard

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

This multi-level study examined a proposed framework of psychological net worth that builds on the current psychological capital conceptualization of positive psychological assets provided to an organization by articulating the construct of psychological debt or those psychological liabilities in an organization. By describing psychological debt as a collection of negative attributes that occur at the individual level for individuals that hamper productivity, morale, and effectiveness in organizations, this framework of psychological net worth proposes the need to create a psychological balance sheet of psychological capital and debt. Psychological debt is described using the dimension of emotional labor, job insecurity, job …

Theory-Driven Evaluation In Action: Lessons From A $20 Million Statewide Work And Health Initiative, Stewart I. Donaldson, Laura E. Gooler

CGU Faculty Publications and Research

Despite the burgeoning literature explicating the benefits of theory-driven program development and evaluation, there remains a strong need for practical advice, written insights and experiences, and examples from evaluation practice illustrating how to implement this approach. The purpose of this paper is to move the field closer to a concrete understanding of the strengths, limitations, and challenges of implementing theory-driven program development and evaluation in modern human service organizations. This is accomplished by describing the evaluation process, resulting program theories, and lessons learned from the evaluation a five year, $20 million statewide Work and Health Initiative.

Designer Deviance: Enterprise And Deviance In Cultural Change Programs, R Badham, Karin Garrety, V. Morrigan, M. Zanko, Patrick Dawson

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

This article explores the value of investigating cultural change programmes as exercises in engineering deviance. It does so through a case study of an organizational development cultural change programme at Sprogwheels, a large Australian corporation. Drawing on and extending the classic work of Becker (1966), the article details how the programme combined a moral crusade against what it sought to have labelled as the ‘deviant conservatism’ of the existing organizational culture with social support for ‘deviant radicalism’, in the form of a counter-cultural, self-enterprising set of middle managers promoting corporate change. The article explores the complex and contradictory ideas of …