Business Administration, Management, and Operations Commons^™

Staff Matters: Should I Negotiate A Starting Salary With A Final Candidate?, Jodi Schafer Sphr, Shrm-Scp

The Journal of the Michigan Dental Association

This article provides guidance for dental practice owners on handling salary negotiations with final job candidates. The author emphasizes the need for a well-defined salary structure based on market data to avoid internal pay inequities and budget strain. It recommends that employers communicate their compensation philosophy transparently and broaden the discussion beyond base pay to include the value of the total benefits package, such as health insurance, retirement plans, and professional development.

Generations At Work: Examining Differences In The Nonprofit Sector, Cory J. Bergeron

Dissertations

This non-experimental quantitative dissertation examined generational differences among non-management employees in the United States nonprofit sector, where multiple generational cohorts work side by side. The problem addressed is that nonprofit leaders’ limited understanding of how distinct generational experiences shape employees’ work-related attitudes and preferences can contribute to conflict, reduced engagement, and costly turnover in already resource-constrained organizations. Grounded in Mannheim’s generational theory and Becker’s human capital theory, the study conceptualized generational cohorts as groups whose shared formative experiences influence what they value in their work context and how those values translate into human capital that affects organizational outcomes.

Using a …

Editorial: Grateful And Thankful, Michelle C. Dziurgot

The Journal of the Michigan Dental Association

Dr. Michelle Dziurgot reflects on her concluding three-year term as the Editor-in-Chief of the Michigan Dental Association Journal. She describes her personal growth through volunteerism, starting as a local component editor and advancing to the MDA Board of Trustees. The author emphasizes that the most value from membership comes through immersion and service, encouraging others to volunteer their time and talent to the association. She credits the MDA’s mentorship with shaping her professional career and practice.

Mda At Your Service: What Are The New Features On The Mda Member Compass?, Rachel Sinacola Dds, Ms

The Journal of the Michigan Dental Association

This Q&A column assists members in utilizing association resources. It highlights the new MDA Member Compass, which allows for online practice management, staff roster updates, and event registration. It also offers critical advice for new graduates regarding state licensure, mandatory insurance policies, and contract review services. Furthermore, it describes the MDA Peer Review System, a confidential process for resolving patient-dentist disputes through impartial committee evaluation rather than litigation.

Mda Services: Don’T Get Bogged Down: Regulatory Compliance, Reva Darling

The Journal of the Michigan Dental Association

This column encourages dental practice owners to utilize MDA-endorsed vendors to simplify business operations and ensure regulatory compliance. It specifically recommends Eagle Associates for HIPAA and OSHA training and Complete Dental IT for managing technology-related security risks. The author argues that using these pre-vetted services saves members time on vendor interviews and negotiation while providing favorable pricing that individual practices could not achieve on their own.

A Creative Climate Framework For Developing Leaders Who Can Navigate Complexity, Uncertainty, And Change Now And Over Time, Christa M. Heydt-Hernandez

Creativity and Change Leadership Graduate Student Master's Projects

As organizational environments grow increasingly volatile and complex, leaders face a widening gap in the skills hardest to cultivate in adults: creative thinking, systems thinking, and human-centered design thinking. Yet leadership development has prioritized culture over climate, overlooking a more direct lever for change. This project argues the gap is fundamentally developmental: the skills most demanded of today's leaders are best introduced across childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood—long before the workplace—through what the author terms the Long Game of Leadership Development. In response, this project introduces the Creativity Steward™ framework, a longitudinal model grounded in developmental psychology, creative climate research, …

A Behavior Analytic Blueprint For Rapport-Building: Investigating The Key Elements For Success, Nelmar Jacinto Cruz

Theses and Dissertations

Rapport can be defined as a positive relationship between people built through specific actions. Building rapport can benefit organizations by improving performance and increasing work satisfaction. Despite these benefits, research on rapport remains scarce. Curry et al. (2019) completed the most recent rapport study and found that rapport-building led to increased productivity and discretionary effort. The present study replicated and extended Curry et al. (2019) and addressed three limitations of their research: the lack of a control group, the large disparity in time spent with the experimenter, and the rigidity of their rapport conversation script. The study was completed in …

Brick-By-Brick: Incorporating Lego Bricks To Increase Engagement In Managerial Accounting, Bonnie R. Albritton, Jennifer Bannister, Amy Foshee Holmes

School of Business Faculty Research

In this case study, students apply managerial accounting concepts through a business simulation as two friends use a LEGO competition to jumpstart their business. The real-world setting and kinesthetic learning increase engagement in managerial accounting as students create a unique LEGO product, estimate revenue and costs, conduct financial analyses, and prepare a presentation to pitch their business to potential investors. Implementing this project as a holistic overview to connect managerial concepts reinforces understanding and knowledge retention. Following the case study, students reported a perceived increase in engagement in the course and the ability to understand and think critically about the …

Program Factors Influencing Investment In Nhri Leadership Mentoring Relationships, Elizabeth A. Kenes

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

The purpose of this study was to examine how specific programmatic factors influence levels of investment within mentoring relationships in a collegiate leadership mentoring program. Previous research has demonstrated the benefits of mentoring; however, much of this work has relied on self-reported data and has not directly linked program factors to clearly defined mentoring outcomes. This study addresses this gap by examining how relationship duration, meeting consistency, and training and learning predict mentoring investment using observational program data.

Using the Investment Triangle framework and an integrative theoretical framework as guiding foundations, this study examined mentoring investment within NHRI Leadership Mentoring …

The Dynamics Of Trust: Exploring The Unique Antecedents Of Firm Versus Executive Level Trust, Hameeda Sharifi

Executive DBA Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Unlocking Innovation: The Impact Of Psychological Safety, Organizational Structure, And Rigidity On The Pursuit Of Innovation Within The Firm, Robert Kyle Rudd

Theses and Dissertations

Innovation is often a competitive advantage generator, growth, and organizational success. However, there is relatively little empirical literature that describes how organizations may be designed such that employees also feel significant freedom to innovate. This dissertation investigates the role of psychological safety and organizational design conditions, perceived organizational structure and perceived organizational rigidity as joint predictors of perceived freedom to innovate (PFTI) of employees.

The quantitative, cross-sectional survey design was used to gather data of 425 full-time U.S.-based employees who were recruited through CloudResearch. Respondents undertook validated scales of psychological safety, perceived organizational structure, perceived organizational rigidity and perceived freedom …

Building Collaborative Capacity For Coexistence With The Montana Beaver Working Group, Shane Randle

Graduate Student Portfolios, Professional Papers, and Capstone Projects

Despite beavers’ recent surge in popularity, prevailing negative attitudes and the persistence of beaver removal practices remain obstacles for those advocating living with beavers. The Montana Beaver Working Group (BWG) advances beavers’ role in ecological and community resilience through members’ collaborative efforts, including beaver-related restoration and conflict resolution projects. Bringing together people with diverse values and perspectives, the BWG builds collective understanding, develops a holistic vision for beavers in Montana, and supports members in pursuing it. As the group’s impacts and membership have grown, so too has their need to adapt. For my Civic Engagement Project, I strengthened the BWG’s …

From Clicking To Committing: Psychological Distance And Persuasion In Online Animal Adoption Platforms To Enhance Shelter Visitation, David Goodweather

Graduate Theses and Dissertations (2019 - present)

Online animal shelter platforms have become a primary channel through which potential adopters view and evaluate adoptable animals, yet many users do not progress from online engagement to visiting a physical shelter. The dissertation examines how online pet viewing translates into intention to book a shelter visit by focusing on the roles of psychological distance and persuasive influence cues within a high-involvement decision context. Drawing on Construal Level Theory and persuasion research, a sequential process is proposed in which sustained interaction with pet profiles reduces distance-related abstraction, increasing receptivity to influence cues that facilitate movement from initial assessment to action. …

May 2026 Endorsed Programs News, Reva Darling

The Journal of the Michigan Dental Association

This source details several MDA-endorsed services intended to improve practice efficiency and profitability. Key topics include selecting a fiduciary financial adviser, the regulatory requirements for surcharging credit cards to offset processing fees, and the cost-competitive benefits of the MDA Health Plan. It also promotes iCore solutions for Revenue Cycle Management, which automate insurance verification and billing to reduce administrative friction and enhance financial performance.

Your New Mda President: Dr. Melanie Mayberry, David Foe

The Journal of the Michigan Dental Association

This feature introduces Dr. Melanie Mayberry, the 2026-27 president of the Michigan Dental Association. An interview details her extensive background in private practice, DSOs, academia, and public health. Dr. Mayberry discusses the primary challenges facing dentists, specifically workforce gaps and flat reimbursement models. Her agenda for the upcoming year includes finalizing a new strategic plan, modernizing the Annual Session, and enhancing member engagement through mentorship programs for new graduates.

Biodiversity Risk And Firm Valuation: Regional Heterogeneity And Value-Chain Exposure In Global Capital Markets, Madelein Wentzel

Doctoral Dissertations (DBA)

This study examines whether biodiversity-related risks are priced in global equity markets and whether that pricing varies across regions, using a cross-sectional sample of more than 10,000 globally listed firms with biodiversity and financial data drawn from the fourth quarter of 2025. Consistent with a regional heterogeneity hypothesis, the results show that biodiversity risk is significantly negatively associated with firm valuation in developed markets such as the United States and OECD countries, while the relationship is weaker, insignificant, or even positive in certain emerging regions including Latin America and the Middle East and Africa. The analysis further distinguishes between value-chain …

From Reactive To Predictive: A Hybrid Trust-Mediated Adoption Framework For Data-Driven Maintenance In Distributed-Authority Aviation Environments, Dustin J. Foote

International Journal of Aviation, Aeronautics, and Aerospace

Modern aviation maintenance operates within increasingly data-intensive technological environments, yet the operational integration of predictive maintenance into routine decision-making remains inconsistent across sectors. Contemporary aircraft incorporate centralized maintenance computers and condition monitoring architectures capable of fault aggregation, exceedance capture, and trend-based data collection. Although prognostics and health management research continues to advance detection and prediction methods, implementation outcomes often depend on factors beyond analytical performance alone.

This paper examines predictive maintenance adoption in distributed-authority aviation environments and argues that constraints emerge less from sensing capability than from organizational structure, decision authority dispersion, and institutional trust dynamics. For purposes of analysis, …

Impact Of Currency Volatility In The Automotive Import-Export Procurement, Adelaide De-Heer

Master of Public Administration for Senior Leadership

Automobile import and export trade is a global venture and thus affected by global issues including cross border issues and currency volatility. Since it is a major in the economic field, it is vital that some risks be evaded in the initial stages of this trade to ensure sustainability. As a result, this research paper aims to assess how currency volatility as a key procurement risk impacts this business and why it is important to understand these dynamics. Currency volatility significantly influences automobile import and export procurement by shaping cost structures, competitive positioning, and financial stability within the global automotive …

What Happens When Leaders Don’T Live Up To The Ideal? How The Leadership Perception Gap Can Undermine Leader Development And Intentions, Julia Macgregor-Peralta

Theses and Dissertations

Despite decades of research on leadership development, we know surprisingly little about why capable, confident people choose not to pursue leadership. This study introduces the Leadership Perception Gap (LPG), a construct that captures discrepancies between ideal leader views and the leaders people actually observe, and tests whether those discrepancies reduce the desirability of leadership roles. LPG was assessed using latent congruence modeling (LCM) to compare ideal leader ratings with vignette-based leader evaluations. The vignettes manipulated leadership style (agentic, communal, balanced) and team composition (all-male, all-female, balanced). Participants were randomly assigned to one condition and evaluated their interest in joining the …

One For All, All For Innovation: Transforming The Indonesia’S Public Sector Through Ambidextrous Leadership, Dian Mulia Sari, Elok Savitri Pusparini

International Conference on Business and Management Research (ICBMR)

In an era defined by volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA), public sector organizations face increasing pressure to innovate. This study examines how ambidextrous leadership influences innovative work behavior (IWB) among civil servants, with psychological ownership (PO) serving as a mediator. Using a quantitative approach, data were collected from 152 structural and functional officials within Indonesia’s State Finance Organization (OKN) and analyzed using PLS-SEM. The results indicate that ambidextrous leadership has a significant direct effect on IWB. More importantly, psychological ownership mediates this relationship through two distinct pathways: promotive PO strengthens IWB by fostering confidence and proactive contribution, while preventive …