Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Effectiveness Of Religion-Affiliated Nonprofit Organizations In Social Services: A Survey Study Of Nursing Homes In Virginia, Bulent Ucar

Theses and Dissertations

The primary purpose of this study is to determine whether being a church affiliated nursing home influences performance. Performance is measured based on criterion put in place by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). The secondary purpose is, regardless of ownership type - religiously affiliated or secular- to investigate if more religiously involved nursing homes perform better than their less religiously involved counterparts. These two purposes are hypothesized with six different hypotheses each of which are tested by utilizing OLS regression analysis. This study extensively discusses the arguments surrounding the Charitable Choice Initiative, which allowed faith-based organizations (FBOs) …

Development And Initial Validation Of The Managerial Success Factors Inventory: Transportation Version (Msfi: Tv), Michael Robert Durr Ii

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to develop and initially validate the Managerial Success Factors Inventory: Transportation Version (MSFI: TV), a scale generated to more accurately assess managerial competence in transportation than general managerial competence and leadership scales. The literature on managerial competencies, leadership, and the state of transportation management is summarized. Reigning models of general managerial competency were used with focus group and cognitive interview data to develop the scale. The conventional three-phase scale development research design was followed (exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, and validation phases) by administering the instrument to a sample of 287 managers from …

Performance, Benchmarking And Quality Service. University Libraries In The 21st Century: Threats? Challenges?, Margie Jantti, Felicity Mcgregor

Margie Jantti

No abstract provided.

The Performance Of Intercultural Communication: China's "New Face" And The 2008 Beijing Olympics, Patrick Shaou-Whea Dodge

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explores Chinese communication practices. I focus on the performance of intercultural communication and how the "New Face" of China was performed to the world and in day-to-day intercultural communication encounters during the 2008 Olympics. I analyze the Olympic Volunteer Training Manual as performative text as well as interviewed Beijing Olympic volunteers about their encounters with international visitors. Specifically, I discuss why the Olympics were a crucial moment for China to unveil its "New Face" to the world, what the "New Face" of China entails, and the reasons why China is in need of a new image on the …

Scamp Anti-Personnel Mine Roller Performance Testing, Erik De Brun, Scott Poff

The Journal of Conventional Weapons Destruction

Humanistic Robotics Inc, a U.S.-based designer and manufacturer of mechanical demining machines and roboticsupport equipment, hypothesized that a well-designed roller utilized in the appropriate environments would be an important part of the mechanical demining toolkit. To test this hypothesis, HRI designed, developed and tested a novel anti-personnel mine roller—the Specialized Compact Automated Mechanical Clearance Platform Roller. This article highlights the SCAMP Roller’s unique design features, describes two testing events performed to evaluate effectiveness and discusses the test findings.

Slippage In The System: The Effects Of Errors In Transactive Memory Behavior On Team Performance, Matthew Pearsall, Aleksander Ellis, Bradford Bell

Bradford S Bell

[Excerpt] Although researchers have consistently shown that the implicit coordination provided by transactive memory positively affects team performance, the benefits of transactive memory systems depend heavily on team members’ ability to accurately identify the expertise of their teammates and communicate expertise-specific information with one another. This introduces the opportunity for errors to enter the system, as the expertise of individual team members may be misunderstood or misrepresented, leading to the reliance on information from the wrong source or the loss of information through incorrect assignment. As Hollingshead notes, “information may be transferred or explicitly delegated to the ‘wrong’ individual in …

Work Teams, Bradford S. Bell, Steve W. J. Kozlowski

Bradford S Bell

[Excerpt] Teams serve as the basic building blocks of modern organizations and represent a critical means by which work is accomplished in today's world. Therefore, significant research during the past few decades has been focused on understanding work team effectiveness. This entry looks at the history of this research and what it says about team types, team composition, team development, team processes, and team effectiveness.

Relation-Specific Creative Performance In Voluntary Collaborations: A Micro-Foundation For Competitive Advantage?, Terence Ping Ching Fan, Duncan Robertson

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

A fundamental question in the strategy literature is how sustainable competitive advantage can be generated within one firm and yet difficult to copy by another. We offer one solution to this conundrum by way of relation-specific performance that is developed in creative projects – where the individuals involved have significant latitude on the intended objectives as well as their collaborators on these projects. Because higher-level cognition is involved in navigating such projects from conception to implementation, there is heightened relation-specificity in their performance – as measured by how widely they are adopted by third-party users. This relationspecificity means that any …

Advances In Technology-Based Training, Bradford Bell, Steve Kozlowski

Bradford S Bell

[Excerpt] There is a growing utilization of technology-based training in the workplace. The 2005 State of the Industry Report published by the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD) revealed that in the average organization, technology-based training accounted for 28.1 percent of all training hours in 2004 (Sugrue and Rivera, 2005). The report also revealed that the utilization of technology-based training has almost doubled since 2002 and is projected to further increase to 32.5 percent in 2005. In this chapter, we examine this trend and explore recent advances in technology-based training. We begin by discussing the environmental factors pushing companies …

Active Learning: Effects Of Core Training Design Elements On Self-Regulatory Processes, Learning, And Adaptability, Bradford S. Bell, Steve W. J. Kozlowski

Bradford S Bell

This research describes a comprehensive examination of the cognitive, motivational, and emotional processes underlying active learning approaches, their effects on learning and transfer, and the core training design elements (exploration, training frame, emotion-control) and individual differences (cognitive ability, trait goal orientation, trait anxiety) that shape these processes. Participants (N = 350) were trained to operate a complex computer-based simulation. Exploratory learning and error-encouragement framing had a positive effect on adaptive transfer performance and interacted with cognitive ability and dispositional goal orientation to influence trainees’ metacognition and state goal orientation. Trainees who received the emotion-control strategy had lower levels of state …

Fragmented Liveness / Mediated Moments, Kristen Lovell

Kristen R Lovell

No abstract provided.

Adaptive Guidance: Enhancing Self-Regulation, Knowledge, And Performance In Technology-Based Training, Bradford S. Bell, Steve W. J. Kozlowski

Bradford S Bell

Considerable research has examined the effects of giving trainees control over their learning (Steinberg, 1977, 1989; Williams, 1993). The most consistent finding of this research has been that trainees do not make good instructional use of the control they are given. Yet, today’s technologically based training systems often provide individuals with significant control over their learning (Brown, 2001). This creates a dilemma that must be addressed if technology is going to be used to create more effective training systems. The current study extended past research that has examined the effects of providing trainees with some form of advisement or guidance …

Goal Orientation And Ability: Interactive Effects On Self-Efficacy, Performance, And Knowledge, Bradford S. Bell, Steve W.J. Kozlowski

Bradford S Bell

This study examined the direct relationship of goal orientation – and the interaction of goal orientation and cognitive ability -- with self-efficacy, performance, and knowledge in a learning context. The current paper argues that whether a particular type of goal orientation is adaptive or not adaptive depends on individuals' cognitive ability. Results indicated that the direct associations of learning and performance orientations were consistent with previous research. Learning orientation was positively related to self-efficacy, performance, and knowledge, while performance orientation was negatively related to only one outcome, performance. The interactions between goal orientation and ability also supported several hypotheses. As …

Work Groups And Teams In Organizations, Steve Kozlowski, Bradford Bell

Bradford S Bell

[Excerpt] Our objective in this chapter is to provide an integrative perspective on work groups and teams in organizations, one that addresses primary foci of theory and research, highlights applied implications, and identifies key issues in need of research attention and resolution. Given the volume of existing reviews, our review is not intended to be exhaustive. Rather, it uses representative work to characterize key topics, and focuses on recent work that breaks new ground to help move theory and research forward. Although our approach risks trading breadth for depth, we believe that there is much value in taking a more …

A Typology Of Virtual Teams: Implications For Effective Leadership, Bradford S. Bell, Steve W. J. Kozlowski

Bradford S Bell

As the nature of work in today's organizations becomes more complex, dynamic, and global, there has been an increasing emphasis on far-flung, distributed, virtual teams as organizing units of work. Despite their growing prevalence, relatively little is known about this new form of work unit. The purpose of this paper is to present a theoretical framework to focus research toward understanding virtual teams and, in particular, to identify implications for effective leadership. Specifically, we focus on delineating the dimensions of a typology to characterize different types of virtual teams. First, we distinguish virtual teams from conventional teams to identify where …

[Review Of The Book The Mismanagement Of Talent: Employability And Jobs In The Knowledge Economy], Bradford S. Bell

Bradford S Bell

[Excerpt] In The Mismanagement of Talent, Brown and Hesketh argue that rooted within the dominant discourse of the "war for talent" are several core assumptions that have shaped our perspective on employability in the KBE. The most central of these is that there is a limited pool of talent capable of rising to senior managerial positions, which creates fierce competition to recruit the best and brightest. The perception of talent as a limited commodity is seen as driving organizations to diversify their talent pools and adopt more rigorous recruitment and selection tools in an effort to get the right people, …

The Language Of Bias: A Linguistic Approach To Understanding Intergroup Relations, Quinetta M. Roberson, Bradford S. Bell, Shanette C. Porter

Bradford S Bell

[Excerpt] This chapter explores the role of language in the relationship between diversity and team performance. Specifically, we consider how a linguistic approach to social categorization may be used to study the social psychological mechanisms that underlie diversity effects. Using the results of a study examining the effects of gender, ethnicity and tenure on language abstraction, we consider the potential implications for team processes and effectiveness. In addition, we propose a revised team input-process-output model that highlights the potential effects of language on team processes. We conclude by suggesting directions for future research linking diversity, linguistic categorization and team effectiveness.

Improving Business Performance Through Effectively Managing Employees, Ross E.L. Poquette

Academic Symposium of Undergraduate Scholarship

Businesses in today’s highly competitive environment need to be aware of the best methods for motivating, training, developing, and promoting a diverse environment in an organization. These methods will be examined in order to gain an understanding of what works well and how the ideal organization implements the methods.

The more motivated an employee is, the better he or she will perform. Therefore, it is essential for management to continuously motivate its workforce. Training and development also play an important role in overall performance. The more an employee is trained, the better he or she can complete tasks. Development decreases …

Social Networking And Individual Performance: Examining Predictors Of Participation, Michael Anthony Brown Sr.

School of Public Service Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation addresses relationships between social networking and individual performance. The "act" of social networking is a process and practice by which people and organizations are drawn together by family, work or hobby to interact via websites. The explosion of these new network connections in the workplace suggests the need for an exploration of the various ways organizations can affect and improve performance and productivity.

This dissertation suggests a social networking participation model that may help organizations predict and understand the value proposition that affects acceptance or rejection of participation. Innovation adoption, governing by network and social capital are important …

What The Heart Remembers: The Women And Children Of Darfur, Barbara Lewis, Audrey Powers

Barbara Lewis

The University of South Florida Tampa Library received and digitized original materials created by refugee children depicting the atrocities of genocide in Darfur. The development of a performance piece inspired by these materials to promote the Library’s resources and initiatives was proposed; thus, the project What the Heart Remembers: The Women and Children of Darfur was born. This presentation focused on digital image management, technology related to the visual arts, faculty outreach, and collaboration within disciplines such as the Library, Theatre and Dance.

Stress And Coping Style: An Extension To The Transactional Cognitive-Appraisal Model, Kerry A. Newness

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of the current research was to integrate multiple theories of stress appraisals and to empirically test two separate transactional cognitive-appraisal models. It was predicted that the core self-evaluation personality characteristics and motivation orientation would moderate the relationship between challenge and hindrance stressors and coping style. Furthermore, it was predicted that coping would buffer the adverse effects of stress on domain performance and satisfaction. A series of multiple regression analyses were conducted to investigate the predicted moderators. Results suggest that core self-evaluations moderate the relationship between challenge stress and problem-focused coping as predicted in the challenge model but not …

Decolonizing Texts: A Performance Autoethnography, Hari Stephen Kumar

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

I write performance autoethnography as a methodological project committed to evoking embodied and lived experience in academic texts, using performance writing to decolonize academic knowledge production. Through a fragmented itinerary across continents and ethnicities, across religions and languages, across academic and vocational careers, I speak from the everyday spaces in between supposedly stable cultural identities involving race, ethnicity, class, gendered norms, to name a few. I write against colonizing practices which police the racist, sexist, and xenophobic cultural politics that produce and validate particular identities. I write from the intersections of my own living experiences within and against those cultural …

Geo-Graphies: Performing City Space And Economic Possibility And The Storyteller Of Cairo, Miriam C. Maynard-Ford

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

Albert Cossery, known as the ‘story teller of Cairo’, weaves tales of the marginalized living in a city of the global South whose geographies have been impacted by colonial and neocolonial legacy. Cairo’s city and economic spaces have often been theorized as determined and dominated by the forces of neoliberalism, an approach that obscures the experience of residents who contest and evade these forces daily. For example, in “Les Couleurs de l’infamie”, the main character is a robin-hood archetype that revels in observing the resourcefulness of the city’s residents. ‘Alternative’ occupations and spatial uses abound: an unemployed philosopher teaches secretly …

Do Major League Baseball Hitters Come Up Big In Their Contract Year?, Heather M. O'Neill, Matthew J. Hummel

Business and Economics Faculty Publications

In sports, especially baseball, there is a lot of talk about contract year performance. Beginning in spring training and continuing throughout the season, sports journalists and fans converse about how players in the last year of their contract will perform. Experts in the media, often ex-baseball players themselves, speculate contract year players will have break-out seasons in order to secure a better contract in upcoming contract negotiations. This leads to the question: do baseball players increase their effort and performance during their contract year to increase the value of their next contract?

Organizational Support, Organizational Citizenship Behavior, And Perceived Performance Analysis Of Crime Scene Investigation Units Of Turkish National Police, Aykut Tongur

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Policing is more difficult than ever before in today’s world since types of crime and criminal profiles change as a result of technological development and globalization. Police organizations should review their organizational and operational strategies to improve the fight against contemporary crimes and criminals. Behaviors and performance of police officers are very important in fighting crime. In this struggle, especially today, officers should exhibit organizational citizenship behaviors and perform better. One of the most important factors affecting these two concepts in organizations is organizational support. The literature stresses the social exchange cycle and reciprocity rules in the relationships of organizations …

Cross Product Generalizability Of Shopping Site Judgments, Steven G. Given

ETD Archive

The purpose of this study was to examine the generalizability of attribute performance and attribute importance ratings across product classes. Data were collected, with the use of an online survey, from 313 respondents of which 287 were U.S. college students and 26 were close acquaintances of the research team. Seventy-four percent of respondents were male, all respondents had at least four years of internet use experience, and 44 claim to make at least one online shopping purchase per month. Twenty-six web site attributes were selected from the Variegated Inventory of Site Attributes (VISA) (Blake, Hamilton, Neuendorf & Murcko, 2010) to …

Race Matters: Whether We Know It, Or Like It, Or Not: Implicit Racial Attitudes And Their Effect On Accounting-Based, Balanced Scorecard Performance Evaluations, David R. Upton, Cecil E. Arrington

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

One of the dominant themes in critical accounting theory over the past two decades has to do with the relation between the construction of human identities and accounting discourse and practices. Though with strong antecedents in Marxist –inspired critique of ideology, genealogical studies (e.g., Miller & O’Leary, 19XX), deconstructive studies (e.g., Shearer & Arrington, 19XX), and critical-rational studies (e.g., Power & Laughlin, 19XX) are examples of different theoretical and methodological ways to probe the constructive force of accounting over human identity and subjectivity. This paper offers a fourth approach grounded in social-cognitive concerns with ways in which implicit attitudes, or …

A Novel Bath Lily-Like Graphene Sheet-Wrapped Nano-Si Composite As A High Performance Anode Material For Li-Ion Batteries, Jun Chen, Jun Yang, Zi-Feng Ma, Pengfei Gao, Yu-Shi He, Xiao Zhen Liao, Xiaowei Yang

Faculty of Science - Papers (Archive)

"A novel bath lily-like graphene sheet-wrapped nano-Si composite synthesized via a simple spray drying process exhibits a high reversible capacity of 1525 mAh g(-1) and superior cycling stability, which could be attributed to a synergistic effect between highly conductive graphene sheets and active nanoparticles in the open nano/micro-structure."

Performance Analysis Of Numerical Integration Methods In The Trajectory Tracking Application Of Redundant Robot Manipulators, Emre Sariyildiz, Hakan Temeltas

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part A

Differential kinematic is one of the most important solution methods in robot kinematics. The main advantage of the differential kinematic method is that it can be easily implemented any kind of mechanisms. Also, an accurate and efficient kinematic based trajectory tracking application can be easily implemented by using this method. In differential kinematic method, we use Jacobian as a mapping operator in the velocity space. Inversion of Jacobian matrix transforms the desired trajectory velocities, which are the linear and angular velocities of the end effector, into the joint velocities. The joint velocities are required to be integrated to obtain the …

Evaluating Mediated Perception Of Narrative Health Messages: The Perception Of Narrative Performance Scale, Jeong Kyu Lee, Michael L. Hecht, Michelle Miller-Day, Elvira Elek

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Narrative media health messages have proven effective in preventing adolescents' substance use but as yet few measures exist to assess perceptions of them. Without such a measure it is difficult to evaluate the role these messages play in health promotion or to differentiate them from other message forms. In response to this need, a study was conducted to evaluate the Perception of Narrative Performance Scale that assesses perceptions of narrative health messages. A sample of 1185 fifth graders in public schools at Phoenix, Arizona completed a questionnaire rating of two videos presenting narrative substance use prevention messages. Confirmatory factor analyses …