Business Administration, Management, and Operations Commons^™

Guest Editorial: Who’S Special Now?, Michael Maihofer Dds

The Journal of the Michigan Dental Association

This editorial discusses a controversial change in Michigan's dental specialty advertising law, which occurred in 2020. Previously, only state-recognized specialists, undergoing rigorous advanced training, could advertise their specialty status. However, a new rule, resulting from an out-of-court settlement, paradoxically allows general dentists not recognized as specialists to advertise as such without following advertising rules. This change is criticized for undermining public protection and creating unethical, misleading situations where general dentists advertise as pediatric dentists, for instance. The Michigan Dental Association (MDA) is actively working to revert this law by supporting House Bills 4593 and 4594 to ensure only recognized specialists …

Mda At Your Service: What’S The Mda Doing To Help The Hygienist Shortage?, Rachel Sinacola Dds

The Journal of the Michigan Dental Association

This article details the MDA's efforts to address Michigan's dental hygienist shortage, which saw about 3,000 licensed RDHs leave the workforce since 2020. Initiatives include paid social media campaigns targeting potential and former RDHs, although enrollment impacts have been minimal. The MDA is also collaborating with hygiene schools, helping Ferris State University secure funding to double its size and working with North Central Michigan College to establish a new school. Discussions are underway to explore allowing internationally trained dentists to perform hygiene duties. Additionally, the MDA endorses MEDVA for virtual assistant staffing, promoting HIPAA-compliant human professionals who handle remote administrative …

The New Professional: Tracking Success: Essential Kpis For Owners And Associates, Amrita Patel Dds

The Journal of the Michigan Dental Association

This article underscores the importance of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for data-driven success in modern dental practices. For new practice owners, essential KPIs include production, collections, and overhead ratio to ensure financial stability and operational efficiency. Patient flow metrics, such as new patient numbers and retention rates, are vital for growth. For both owners and associates, case acceptance rate reflects treatment plan conversion, and chair time utilization measures clinical efficiency. Other critical KPIs encompass hygiene production, patient satisfaction scores, online reviews, and accounts receivable aging. Associates can also track personal production and referral patterns for career development.

Polymathy: The Foundational Source Of Creativity And Innovation., Michael Araki

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In an era of mounting complexity and a growing need to transcend siloed thinking, this dissertation advances polymathy as a critical yet underexplored construct in the management and behavioral sciences. Polymathy is framed as an expansive approach to the pursuit, development, and application of knowledge, marked by the conjunction of breadth, depth, and integration. Building on a thought lineage that stretches from Ancient Greece through the Renaissance to the present day, this work shows that polymathy is neither a relic of the past nor an achievement reserved for a few—but a mode of being, thinking, and acting in the world …

Engaging In Movement At Work: Exploring Engagement And Physical Activity., Spencer A. Cavan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

High levels of employee engagement provide organizations competitive advantages such as increased customer satisfaction, profits, and employee productivity. Despite potential benefits, the number of engaged employees is declining and organizations need to find innovative ways to enhance engagement. Emerging evidence suggests workplace physical activity may generate organizational benefits extending beyond health improvement. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate perceptions of engagement among employees participating in a physical activity intervention at work. A qualitative design, guided by phenomenology, examined perceptions of workplace physical activity and perceived levels of engagement, as well as constraints related to involvement among university …

From Pencil To Pixel: How Leadership Shapes Organizational Responses To Competence-Destroying Technological Change, Jennifer Underwood

All Dissertations

This dissertation examines how managerial leadership enables organizations to overcome inertia during competence-destroying technological change through a historical comparative case analysis of the animation industry's transition from hand-drawn to computer-generated imagery (CGI) between 1980-2000. Drawing on archival data from Disney, Pixar, and Don Bluth Studios, I identify three distinct leadership approaches—pioneering, bridging, and preserving—that differently influenced how workforces adjusted their views of identity, process, and change. These adjustments led to three different outcomes: transformative integration, constrained adoption, and entrenched resistance. This research makes three theoretical contributions and develops a novel framework that explains how leadership can constrain or enable transformation, …

Like Footprints In The Sand: How Founders Imprint Organizational Culture Through Nonverbal Cue Signaling, Dirk M. Roskam

All Dissertations

Despite growing recognition of the significance of founders’ behaviors in shaping organizational culture, limited research has explored how founders’ non-verbal cues (NVCs) imprint culture during a venture’s formative stages. This qualitative case study examines how a founder’s NVCs, ranging from physical environment design to gestures and demeanor, are interpreted by employees and contribute to the imprinting of organizational culture. Drawing on imprinting theory, signaling theory, and the Organizational Culture Profile (OCP), the study triangulates data from semi-structured interviews, a focus group, and a literature review. Findings reveal that employees interpret 24 salient NVCs, grouped into themes of environmental values, people-centric …

Transforming Childhood Adversity Into Executive Excellence: Impact On Firm Performance, Kimberly Byars

All Dissertations

Many successful business leaders have overcome difficult childhoods, yet little research has examined how early hardships might actually contribute to leadership effectiveness. This study investigated whether CEOs who experienced childhood adversity can transform these difficult experiences into strengths that improve their companies' performance.

The research surveyed 165 business owners across two groups: general business owners and automotive dealership owners. Participants answered questions about their childhood experiences, their ability to grow from trauma, and various psychological traits like grit, mental toughness, resilience, and growth mindset. Company performance data was also collected.

The findings challenge conventional wisdom that difficult childhoods necessarily harm …

Organizational Metamorphosis: When Artificial Intelligence Transforms Companies Into New Economic Life Forms, Allan M. Glass

All Dissertations

Traditional theories of organizational change fall short in explaining how artificial intelligence (AI) transforms organizations. This grounded theory study, based on interviews with 34 organizational leaders, identifies a novel phenomenon: organizational metamorphosis - the irreversible transformation of organizations into fundamentally new entities through deep integration with AI as a cognitive partner.

The metamorphosis process unfolds in three phases. Individual Awakening occurs when leaders experience powerful interactions with AI, prompting a rapid shift from skepticism to advocacy. Once a critical mass of leaders undergo this shift, it initiates Organizational Restructuring, characterized by reimagined work design, boundary dissolution, and altered temporal rhythms. …

The Dark Side Of Great Lmx Relationships: Why Your Best Employees Might Be Burning Out, Ryan Toole

All Dissertations

While workplace relationships are widely considered beneficial for employee well-being, a paradox emerges when employees with the strongest leader relationships experience burnout despite receiving excellent support. This contradiction suggests that these very same relationships may create psychological pressure to reciprocate support and result in employee burnout. Drawing on Social Exchange Theory and Conservation of Resources theory, I examine whether felt obligation resulting from Leader-Member Exchange (LMX) relationships contributes to employee burnout across the full spectrum of LMX quality relationships. I argue that LMX quality creates felt obligation to reciprocate leader support. This obligation, in turn, depletes emotional resources and leads …

The Role Of Microfinance In Improving Global Economy, Khamphou Milayome

Doctoral Dissertations (DBA)

This study investigates microfinance’s role in enhancing the global economy by examining its impact on economic growth, unemployment, and political stability. Secondary data from MIX Market and WDI were used in this study to assess these relationships. Multiple regression was conducted with EViews software to test regression models with the independent variables related to microfinance and microfinance institutions (MFIs). Using the data from South Asia and Southeast Asian countries, this study finds that microfinance significantly improves economic growth, reduces the unemployment rate, and strengthens political stability. Microeconomic variables used in the study are borrowing amounts and the cost per borrower. …

Two Essays On Firms’ Reactions To Major Events In Rival Companies, Alireza Askarzadeh

Theses and Dissertations in Business Administration

The first essay of this dissertation examines the influence of peer credit rating downgrades on firms’ financial decisions. The results show that firms respond to a rival’s downgrade by increasing excess debt capacity, excess cash holdings, excess net working capital, and the excess cash conversion cycle. They also accelerate their speed of adjustment (SOA) toward target capital structures. These adjustments are motivated by a desire to mitigate the higher costs and risks associated with financial distress and to preserve competitive advantage. Moreover, firms with more capable managers, and those operating in environments with greater market competition, higher information asymmetry, and …

Systems Statistical Engineering – Hierarchical Fuzzy Constraint Propagation, Hengameh Fakhravar

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Driven by the growing need in the 21st century for integrating rigorous statistical analysis into engineering research, there is a movement to develop an integrated statistical engineering science within statistics and quality communities (Hoerl & Snee, 2010; Anderson-Cook et al., 2012). Systems Statistical Engineering research seeks to integrate the Causal Bayesian hierarchical modeling (Pearl, 2009) and cybernetic control theory within Beer’s Viable System Model (1972, 1979, 1985) and the Complex Systems Governance framework (Keating, 2014; Keating & Katina, 2015, 2016) to produce multivariate systemic models for robust dynamic systems mission performance. Cotter & Quigley (2018) set forth the Bayesian systemic …

Two Essays On Lottery-Like Stocks, Reihaneh Haghighi Zadeh

Theses and Dissertations in Business Administration

Essay 1: Momentum and Investors' Lottery-like Preference

Previous empirical studies have consistently shown that lottery-like stocks exhibit unconditionally low average returns due to investor overreaction to extreme short-term gains. However, the results show when the momentum strategy is jointly conditioned on stocks with high maximum daily returns (MAX), high-MAX stocks yield significantly higher future returns than their low-MAX counterparts. For value-weighted portfolios, a momentum strategy applied within the high-MAX category generates an average monthly return of 2.5%, compared to only 0.25% in the low-MAX category. This return premium exceeds that of the standard momentum strategy proposed by Jegadeesh and Titman …

Service With A Smile Or Salesperson Mirroring? Understanding The Flow Of Emotional Contagion In Sales Encounters, Vinh Quoc Trong Luong

Theses and Dissertations in Business Administration

This study examines the directionality of emotional contagion in sales interactions, addressing a critical gap in understanding whether emotions flow primarily from the salesperson to the customer, from the customer to the salesperson, or bidirectionally. While prior research emphasizes customer-driven emotional flow or bidirectional alignment, this study challenges these assumptions by employing categorical Cross-Recurrence Quantification Analysis (CRQA) to assess temporal emotional synchronization in sales dialogues. Leveraging automated sentiment analysis and multi-agent AI evaluation for performance metrics, the research analyzes 166 sales interactions to quantify emotional influence dynamics. Results reveal that salespeople predominantly lead emotional exchanges, exhibiting stronger and more stable …

Perceived Leadership Behaviors And Workplace Motivation: The Predictive Role Of Generational Cohorts In The U.S. Construction Industry, Leslie D. Klinegardner

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine the extent to which perceived leadership behaviors predicted workplace motivation among construction workers across generational cohorts in the Greater Houston, Texas area. Grounded in self-determination theory, the research explored how transformational, transactional, and passive-avoidant leadership behaviors predicted the satisfaction and frustration of psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness. The analysis also considered whether leadership behaviors and generational cohort served as significant predictors of workplace motivation outcomes. The study followed a quantitative, predictive, cross-sectional design using survey methodology. Data were collected using the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ) and the Basic Psychological Need …

Direct And Indirect Associations Of Childhood Adversities With Functional Impairment And Life Stress Among Military Personnel, Laura Campbell-Sills, Emily R. Edwards, Sam D. Strizver, Karmel W. Choi, Jason D. Kautz, Santiago Papini, James A. Naifeh, Pablo A. Aliaga, Paul B. Lester, Ronald C. Kessler, Robert J. Ursano, Murray B. Stein, Paul D. Biese

Faculty Publications

Background

Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are associated with physical and mental health difficulties in adulthood. This study examines the associations of ACEs with functional impairment and life stress among military personnel, a population disproportionately affected by ACEs. We also evaluate the extent to which the associations of ACEs with functional outcomes are mediated through internalizing and externalizing disorders.

Methods

The sample included 4,666 STARRS Longitudinal Study (STARRS-LS) participants who provided information about ACEs upon enlistment in the US Army (2011–2012). Mental disorders were assessed in wave 1 (LS1; 2016–2018), and functional impairment and life stress were evaluated in wave 2 …

So Much Fun, They Don't Realize They're Learning: Creating & Implementing Experiential Activities, Steven Austin Stovall

Journal of the North American Management Society

One of the challenges of teaching business students is meaningfully driving home the concepts in a course. Certainly, this can be achieved through lectures, but many instructors want to engage the students in a more active manner. This is where experiential activities come into play. An exercise can be not only an opportunity to reinforce course material, but it can be fun as well. This paper presents a roadmap for developing one’s own experiential activities and is written by an author who has written a casebook on human resources and is a regular contributor to Cengage, Prentice Hall, Sage, and …

Editorial Note, Heather S. Mcmillan

Journal of the North American Management Society

No abstract provided.

Web-Based Data Collection Application Development At Pt Hidup Selalu Sejahtera Using Fuzzy Algorithm, Yulius Eka Agung Seputra

Jurnal Administrasi Bisnis Terapan

This study focuses on designing and developing a web-based data collection application at PT Hidup Selalu Sejahtera utilizing fuzzy algorithms. The research method involves analyzing sales data to identify consumer behavior patterns and enhance marketing strategies. The application is developed using the Software Development Life Cycle to ensure efficiency and effectiveness. Findings show that the application improves decision-making accuracy based on sales data and offers deeper insights into consumer preferences. Furthermore, it enhances data management, leading to increased productivity within the organization. However, the study acknowledges limitations related to the volume of data analyzed, which may impact the generalizability of …