Leadership Studies Commons^™

Can Leading Change Catalyze Innovation In The Workplace, Rebecca L. Smithwick

Theses and Graduate Projects

This paper focuses on the importance of change in business in the twenty-first century, looking primarily at how to obtain effective change, sustain change, and enable the possibility of change Ieading to innovation within one device manufacturing company. I will present evidence from various theories from the mid-1900s to the present day which recommend how to effectively implement Iasting change. This article will discuss the possibility of a two-day workshop being able to influence the likelihood of change needed to catalyze innovation based upon response from recent workshop attendees. Recommendations will be made on additional steps the company may need …

The Effect Frequent Organizational Restructure Has On Employee Perceptions, Lisa Sabasteanski

Theses and Graduate Projects

This qualitative study investigates the effect frequent organizational restructure has on employee perceptions. Frequent is defined as two or more restructures in less than eighteen months. For this study, I evaluated findings from ten employees who worked in various industries throughout the Midwest who had experienced at least two restructures in less than eighteen months. Interviews were conducted with individuals to understand their perspective of organizational restructures they've participated in at their company. Findings from this study suggested when leaders clearly articulate the rationale for the organizational restructure and when they are honest and transparent about what is going on …

How To Successfully Recruit Students In The Rapidly Changing World Of Higher Education: Ethical Leadership For Enrollment Managers Of Private Non-Profit Institutions, Charles R. Abbott

Theses and Graduate Projects

Throughout the history of Post-Secondary education in the U.S. private non-profit institutions have played a vital and leading role in helping to shape and prepare the youth of the nation intellectually, socially and emotionally. However the landscape of higher education has changed significantly over the past few decades with the entire purpose and focus of this education coming into question. By noting the importance of obtaining a higher education and defining the differences between non-profit and for-profit institutions This paper focuses on examining these changes. Furthermore, in particular this work will examine ethical leadership and concentrate on the techniques necessary …

Executive Turnover In The Chamber Of Commerce Industry, Lori R. Higgins

Theses and Graduate Projects

The purpose of this action research project was to design an executive director retention plan for chambers of commerce. A literature review was conducted, reviewing inf,ormation on executive turnover, Ieadership traits and skills, and nonprofit executive challenges. A qualitative survey was emailed to 103 current chamber of commerce executive directors of whom 55 responded. A similar survey was emailed to 19 former chamber of commerce executives of whom 14 responded. The results of the surveys showed that executive directors of chambers tend to be visionary leaders who enjoy effecting change, serving businesses, and having leadership opportunities. Overall, executives are satisfied …

A Qualitative Study On How Dialogue, Discussion, And Debate Manifest In A Corporate Setting, Lisa Wocken

Theses and Graduate Projects

How do dialogue, discussion and debate occur in the workplace? I explored this question through qualitative interviews of 14 high potential leaders at a Fortune 50 company, by asking them about their conversations at work.

Through in-depth transcript analysis, I identified and quantified behavioral themes for each form of conversation. Each response was labeled as effective or ineffective and counted to determine the frequency with which it was cited. The results indicated that discussion behaviors were effectively and prevalently exhibited in 86% of examples. Dialogue behaviors were effective and common, and cited in 36% of examples. Debate behaviors were ineffective …

Collegiate Athletic Leadership Model For Ncaa Athletic Teams: Context, Leadership Behaviors, And Outcomes Mediated By Leader-Member Exchange Theory, Neil A. Sinclair

MALS Final Projects, 1995-2019

The purpose of this paper is to propose the Collegiate Athletic Leadership Model (CALM) for National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) athletic teams. The CALM will provide clarity on the interaction and range of transformational and transactional behaviors that may be able to foster positive outcomes at the team and individual level. A review of the literature will suggest that the CALM behaviors be placed in three tiers. The first tier or "Foundation behaviors" are contingent reward, articulating a vision, fostering acceptance of group goals, and providing an appropriate role model. The second tier or "Supporting behavior" is individual consideration which …

Youth Leadership Development In The Activism Context: A Case Study Of The Wilder Youth Leadership Initiative, Susan Marie Phillips

Theses and Graduate Projects

In conducting this research I investigated the effectiveness of youth leadership development programming in the Wilder Youth Leadership Initiative (YLI), a program located in St. Paul, Minnesota. For this qualitative case study, I used participant observation, semi-structured interviews and a survey to explore the development and demonstration of specific leadership capacities and skills (communication and interpersonal skills, analytical and critical functioning, decision making skills, personal identity, project management, reflection, and sense of empowerment) among youth participants. I also explored the programmatic structures that facilitate Youth Leadership Development (in the context of a cause chosen by youth, explicit outcomes, developmentally appropriate …

The Lived Experiences Of 3rd Generation And Beyond U.S.-Born Mexican Heritage College Students: A Qualitative Study, Richard Galvan Edd

Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to describe the psychosocial and identity challenges of 3rd generation and beyond U.S.-born (3GAB-USB) Mexican heritage college students. Alvarez (1973) has written about the psychosocial impact "hybridity" can have on a U.S.- born (USB) Mexican individual who incorporates two distinct cultures (American and Mexican) in order to succeed in U.S. society, and yet, few empirical data is available beyond the 1st and 2nd generation on USB Mexican college students. As an example, there is no mention in the literature of two distinct and different worldviews present between immigrant and 3GAB-USB Mexican college students, which …

Trials, Tribulations, And Triumphs: Writing The Major Paper Or Thesis As A Graduate Student With Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, Judy L. Chucker

Theses and Graduate Projects

Graduate students with attention deficit disorder or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (AD/HD) are at risk for failure to complete their graduate programs. Skills used in writing a major paper or thesis requirement incorporate those that are particularly compromised by the disorder. The literature does not address the problems facing graduate students with AD/HD, and disability service programs do not appear to offer support tailored to the needs of this population. This phenomenological study probes the experience of five graduate students with AD/HD who were in the process of writing, or had completed a major paper or thesis. This paper hopes …

A Study Of The Impact Of The Workplace Learning Function On Organizational Excellence By Examining The Workplace Learning Practices Of Six Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award Recipients, Cynthia J. Lewis Edd

Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the role the learning function plays in the pursuit of organizational excellence with the goal of identifying key factors, models and descriptions of successful workplace learning practices. A total of six Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award Recipients, one from each Baldrige sector participated in this study. Data was collected through in depth, semi-structured, face-to-face interviews with the person responsible for workplace learning or their representative in each organization. The findings indicated that workplace learning professionals should be part of the strategic planning process within an organization and that workplace learning benefits strongly …

Implementing A Discernment Phase For Those Nominated In The Shepherd Selection Process At The Cinco Ranch Church Of Christ, Aaron Walling

Doctor of Ministry Theses

This doctor of ministry thesis presents the results of a project that implemented a discernment phase for those nominated in the shepherd selection process at the Cinco Ranch Church of Christ. Occurring in the fall of 2010, this project involved nominees in a series of six one-hour, thirty-minute sessions designed to establish the theological foundations for shepherding and to explore its practical expression at Cinco Ranch. For the theological component, this project primarily utilized Ephesians 4:11-16, and for the practical side, it incorporated group interactions with those serving as shepherds along with the review of guiding leadership documents. The project‟s …

The Effectiveness Of A Personalized School-Wide Crisis And Trauma Management Training Program On Sense Of Preparedness For School Counselors-In-Training, Elizabeth Keller-Dupree

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of the study was to investigate the effectiveness of a personalized school-wide crisis and trauma management training program for master's-level school counselors-in-training. The study began with Pilot Study 1: Crisis Training Need Assessment which sought to best identify the crisis training needs for a specific geographic region. Results from Pilot Study 1 supported that unexpected student and teacher death was the crisis category which affects students the most and is in need of further training at the master's level. Next, Pilot Study 2: Crisis Training Feedback sought to obtain comments and suggestions from masters- and doctoral-level counselors-intraining regarding …

Perceptions Of Leadership: An Analysis Of College Students' Understandings Of The Concept Of Leadership, Paige Haber Phd

Dissertations

Colleges and universities increasingly have embraced the goal of developing students' leadership capacity. Diverse curricular and co-curricular leadership programs currently exist and continue to be developed to address leadership development outcomes. There is, however, limited understanding of how college students think about and define leadership. This study sought to fill this gap in the research by examining the ways in which college students understand the concept of leadership. In this mixed methods study the researcher analyzed data from the Multi-Institutional Study of Leadership (MSL) project, a national research study on college student leadership and the college experience. Data for the …

A Comparative Content Analysis Of Five Spelling Programs In The 1st, 3rd, And 5th Grade, Katherine N. Davis Edd

Dissertations

This study investigated the content of five widely used spelling programs at three grade levels. Five spelling programs, Houghton Mifflin, Scholastic Spelling, Sitton Spelling, Words Their Way, and Treasures were analyzed. The following questions guided the study: To what extent do current spelling series reflect research-based practices and what underlying theoretical framework is stated or implied in each series? What types of spelling strategies, activities, and techniques are represented in student workbooks and teacher edition books? Two sub questions included: Do they reflect current research and/or the theoretical frameworks stated or implied in each series and do spelling programs provide …

Experiential Education Approaches In Nonprofit Management And Leadership Education: An Examination Of Master's Degree Programs Associated With The Nonprofit Academic Centers Council, Heather L. Carpenter Phd

Dissertations

University programs that prepare students to assume professional positions must be concerned with helping students link their work in university classrooms to their work in organizations outside of the academy. This concern often translates into incorporating experiential education into application-oriented university programs. Professional preparation is a central concern of nonprofit leadership and management programs. Prior to this study, however, there was no systematic attempt to document the various experiential education strategies employed in nonprofit leadership and management master's-degree programs in the United States. Documentation was not even available for master's degree programs associated with the Nonprofit Academic Centers Council (NACC), …

Parental Support Of Latinos In Higher Education, Maria Lorena Meza Phd

Dissertations

Many universities grapple with Latino student retention issues. Latinos are the largest and fastest-growing ethnic group in the United States, yet they also are the group that has the least amount of formal education. The literature suggests that parental support helps Latinos succeed academically in elementary, middle, and high schools. However, there has been little research on how or even whether Latino parental support influences academic success at the postsecondary level. Consequently, there is a lack of knowledge about (a) Latino parental behavior and attitudes during the years their children attend college and (b) the relationship between parents' behavior and …

Exploration Of The Impostor Phenomenon In Law School Students, Owen Glenn Smith Phd

Dissertations

Law schools compel students to think like lawyers by using intensive Socratic dialogue built around voluminous case readings. This method sometimes pushes students to feel overwhelmed, to lose self-confidence, and even to wonder whether law school was the right choice for them. To some extent, such outcomes are intended because the articulated goal of law school pedagogy is to tear law students down so they can be rebuilt to think like lawyers. Unfortunately, this demanding and competitive atmosphere prompts some law students to develop the impostor phenomenon (IP). The IP hampers students' leadership abilities because the students persistently feel like …

Exploring The Growth Of Text-Reading Fluency In Upper-Elementary English Language Learners During Instruction Based On Repeated Reading, Katharine Staub Harrison Edd

Dissertations

For the large population of school-age English language learners in California and the United States, the challenge of learning a second language while learning academic content is formidable. Learning to read English skillfully is key to their success. Reading instruction focused on development of oral text-reading fluency has shown strong potential for accelerating the general reading achievement of native-English-speaking children, but there is a lack of concomitant research on English language learners. This dissertation describes a formative experiment with the goal to improve, in 9 weeks, the general reading achievement of 17 English language learners in Grades 3, 4, 5, …

How Working Mothers Negotiate Work-Family Conflict: An Exploration Of Work Satisfaction, Home Life Satisfaction, And Partner Supportiveness, Karen Kramer Horning Phd

Dissertations

The demographics of the American workforce and family structures have shifted dramatically over the past 60 years, but traditional work and domestic roles have evolved only slightly. Women are more impacted than men by fixed interpretations of gender roles due to their assumption of professional positions in the workplace without relief from domestic responsibilities. For many women who are engaged in the professional realm while raising a family, the result is often a work-family conflict. Despite significant research and some governmental policy and organizational policy changes, limited progress has been made in resolving the conflict. Some dimensions of work-family conflict …

What Do They Say? Students From A Private, Faith-Based, Four-Year University Share Their Perspectives On College As A Mentoring Environment, Jeffrey Andrew Bolster Edd

Dissertations

Research indicates that the term mentor in the context of higher education currently has multiple definitions and is used to describe a variety of programs, efforts, and formal as well as informal activities. In recent years, interdisciplinary perspectives on traditional undergraduate students have been converging around the idea that the functions and characteristics of mentoring students could be shared across the institution, creating what Daloz Parks (2000) has called a mentoring environment. This sharing of responsibility has the possibility to address what Baxter Magolda (2009) has recently identified as missing in higher education, a "holistic, theoretical perspective to promote the …

Tapping The Hidden Job Market Through Informational Interviews: A Qualitative Examination Of Students' And Professionals' Perspectives, Kimberly S. Hogelucht Phd

Dissertations

A growing body of literature suggests that networking promotes not only learning about one's field of interest but also employment opportunities, without requiring a formal job search. Considering three-fourths of job openings are never advertised (Koss-Feder, 1999), it appears networking is a powerful strategy in successful job attainment. This study focuses on a less-than-obvious networking strategy, the informational interview. An informational interview is an interview with a professional that is conducted by a student or job seeker with the intention of finding out more about the professional's occupation or career field. In this study, informational interviews were examined, not only …

Crafting A Congregational Narrative For The College Church Of Christ In Fresno, California, Jason W. Locke

Doctor of Ministry Theses

This thesis describes a ministry project in the College Church of Christ in Fresno, California. In this project I led the congregation through a narrative crafting process in order to clarify the church’s identity and increase its capacity for mission. In recent decades, the College Church moved away from some of its founding characteristics yet failed to clarify a new sense of identity. It subsequently had difficulty acting with a unified sense of purpose and instead moved increasingly toward fragmentation.

Data for crafting the new narrative came from three weeks of group interviews. My research team conducted these interviews in …

Discerning A Vocational Theology Of Marriage For The Smyrna Church Of Christ, Daniel F. Camp

Doctor of Ministry Theses

The goal of this project was to discern a vocational theology of marriage for the Smyrna Church of Christ in Smyrna, Tennessee. Through a group discernment process, the participants studied Genesis 1-3 and 2 Corinthians 5 as a basis for understanding God’s design for marriage at creation, the effects of sin on the vocational aspect of the marriage relationship, and the call of Christ for husbands and wives to participate in the resurrection life through the ministry of reconciliation. At the end of the discernment process, the participants articulated a theology statement for the church that examined our current context …

Innovation Through Social Networking In Communities Of Practice, Patricia K. Brill

Theses and Graduate Projects

Innovation helps bring competitive advantage to organizations. Without competitive advantage organizations are in danger of not surviving. Two initiatives have recently emerged to support innovation: Communities of Practice (CoPs) and Social Networking. Communities of Practice provide an opportunity to organizations where innovation is created through the knowledge-sharing and informed ways of working. Social Networking is being utilized in organizations to foster collaboration and expose expertise for employees to tap into.

The purpose of this study is to determine the value of combining CoPs with social networks. This will be done by studying communities in the MIX (Medtronic Information Exchange) social …

Leadership Criteria Under Maximum Performance Conditions, Aaron J. Pauli

Theses and Dissertations

Since the seminal work investigating the relationship between typical and maximum performance by Sackett, Zedeck, and Fogli in 1988, there has been a marked increase in research in this area. Although much research has furthered the relationship between typical and maximum performance, none have attempted to identify which leadership effectiveness criteria are considered most important to an individual’s maximum performance, or assessment of one’s potential. Thus, this empirical study seeks to identify the leadership effectiveness criteria under maximum performance conditions as it relates to entry and middle level managers. Using an exploratory factor analysis, the results suggest an interesting comparison …

Complexity Theory And Local Government Application, Scott A. Brink

Theses and Graduate Projects

Local governnent agencies are experiencing changes that are making the delivery of essential services more challenging. These changes can largely be attributed to increasing demands for more services while budgets are reduced. That trend, combined with globalization, rapid advancements in technology, changing demographics, and other factors limit the ability of agencies to adapt and react to change fast enough. In more recent years, the rate of change has accelerated to the point that traditional methods of planning and adapting to change no longer work. Many organizations feel overwhelmed and helpless. The factors driving change influence each other in complex ways …

Anchoring Change In Higher Education : Narratives From Senior Executives At Malcolm Baldrige Award-Winning Institutions, Cheryl H. Kisunzu

Dissertations

Purpose. The purpose of this study is to explore Kotter’s (1996) eighth stage for leading change. Specifically, it is to identify strategies for anchoring planned change in institutions of higher education.

Design. This is a qualitative multiple case study. Each of the participating organizations is an institution of higher education uniquely distinguished as a recipient of the United State’s highest recognition for progressive excellence—the Malcolm Baldrige Award. A narrative design is used to conduct in-depth exploration of leading planned change, specifically anchoring this planned change into the culture of academic institutions of higher learning. Purposeful sampling was used to identify …

The Bible And The Ballot: The Christian Right In American Politics, Terence L. Burns

Theses and Graduate Projects

The year was 2004. It was late October in Minnesota and winter was corning. So was an election. The Presidential election of 2004 pitted the sitting President George W. Bush against Senator John Kerry. As a self-described "political junkie", I had been watching the debates and developments during the long campaign with great interest. Of particular interest to me was watching the political involvement of Evangelical Christians and their leaders develop and grow. On this particular Sunday in 2004, I was at my post as musician at an evangelical "mega" church in the western suburbs of Minneapolis. The church was …

An Investigation Of How Elementary School Teachers Make Data-Driven Instructional Decisions In Literacy, Cheryl Carangian Pham Edd

Dissertations

The purpose of this mixed methods phenomenological study was to explore the data-driven instructional decisions that elementary teachers make in literacy. Educators have moved towards a culture of being data-driven, and have declared data use in schools to be significant to school improvement and accountability. Yet, as school districts make great strides in creating a culture of data-driven decision making – collecting, analyzing and interpreting data – little is known about how individual teachers make sense of data and how they use the data to inform instruction. To explore the data-driven instructional decisions made by classroom teachers using literacy assessment …

Communication In A Digital Age, Natalie M. Miller

Theses and Graduate Projects

The inundation of technology over the past twenty-five years in the form of desktop computing, cell phones and the Internet has transformed how we communicate with one another. Traditional communication such as face-to-face meetings, although critical to our everyday dialogue, has fallen flat within organizations. At this point, we lean towards advanced methods of communication provided in a digitally mediated format. Digitally mediated communication (DMC) provides us with a multitude of ways to communicate and has freed us from the boundaries of time and place. This study researches the transformation of communication with its progression into the digital age by …