Business Administration, Management, and Operations Commons^™

Perceived Gender-Typing Of Successful Managerial Characteristics, Sarah Holtzen

Management Undergraduate Honors Theses

Previous research has indicated that the characteristics associated with successful business managers are more often attributed to men in general than to women in general. This paper seeks to examine the current state of perceived gender-typing of the characteristics associated with successful business managers. Using the Schein Descriptive Index (Schein, 1973), undergraduate business students (N=177) were asked to rate women in general, men in general, or successful business managers on a set of 92 descriptive terms. Intraclass correlation coefficients were computed to estimate the ANOVA between groups. Respondents were also asked to describe in their own words what they believe …

Value Capture In Global Production Networks: Evidence From The Taiwanese Electronics Industry, Namchul Shin, Alan Eisner

Cornerstone 3 Reports : Interdisciplinary Informatics

No abstract provided.

Essays On Product Acquisition For Value Recovery, Dwayne D. Cole

Business Administration - Dissertations

This dissertation studies decision problems facing the manufacturer that offers cash incentive to encourage a fraction of its install base to return end-of-use devices. Marketing managers often use such tactics as a promotion tool to motivate sales of new products. Supply chain managers often use such tactics to obtain used products for profitable recovery operations. The first essay, "Product Acquisition for Remanufacturing: A Dynamic Analysis," analyzes the performance of buyback and trade-in policies for acquiring products to be remanufactured. A key distinguishing feature of this analysis is the consideration of time dynamics. In particular, both the quantity-condition profile of used …

Management Theories In Manufacturing, James Nathan Webster

Graduate Research Papers

The principles and ideology of management have been around for thousands of years. "Before industrialization, organizations were primarily the household, the tribe, the church, the military, and government" (Wren, 1987, p. 13). It was very rare for people to gather and organize outside of these structures prior to the industrial revolution. As mankind and civilization have progressed, the power of organizations has shifted throughout time. In the time of Confucius, government positions were of the utmost respect, and Confucius taught that positions of power "should go to men of proven merit and ability" (Wren, 1987, p. 14). The ancient Egyptians …

Crafting A Career Using Cps And Foursight, Morgan E. Milovich

Creativity and Change Leadership Graduate Student Master's Projects

ABSTRACT OF PROJECT

Crafting a Career Using CPS and FourSight

The purpose of my project is to develop a case study of how I will use Creative Problem Solving (CPS) and an attention to my Foursight preferences to grow my existing craft business into a viable career, rather than having it as just a hobby.

By utilizing the CPS Thinking Skills Model and having a greater awareness of my Foursight preferences, I was able to move from a dream to a reality and come out the other end of this project with a fully functioning, profitable business rooted firmly in …

Entrepreneurial Illegality: Empirical Examination Of The Effects Of Bribery And Tax Evasion On Firm Performance, Nnaoke Ufere

Student Scholarship

We examined the nexus of entrepreneurial illegality and firm performance in an emerging market by investigating the extent to which antecedent conditions such as economic constraints, bureaucratic demands, institutional pressures and entrepreneurial agency increase the supply of illegal opportunities exploited by entrepreneurs for private gains. Using 2009 World Bank Enterprise Survey data of 2599 small and medium-sized entrepreneurial enterprises (SMEEs) in Nigeria, we demonstrate that illegal entrepreneurial behaviors in developing markets--specifically bribery and tax evasion--affect firm performance measured by sales and employment growth. Results show that illegal opportunities significantly increase with bureaucratic and regulatory intervention in entrepreneurial activities, suggesting current …

Human Resources: A Key Aspect In Company Innovation, Kristin Hall

HIM 1990-2015

Innovation is a key factor for companies. It is also essential on an individual scale for employees. To ensure they are utilizing employees to the utmost efficiency, companies must implement practices to ensure the attraction and retention of top employees. Human resource practices can help to define and explain essential techniques to help employees gain satisfaction from their work, creating intrinsic motivation, and allowing them to ultimately perform more efficiently and perhaps even creatively for the company, helping to generate significant profits. The intent of this thesis is to analyze human resource practices on an empirical study of eight companies …

Understanding Systems Experience: The Centrality Of Perception In The Context Of Healthcare Quality And Cost Management, Heather Grooms

Student Scholarship

Hospitals are increasingly challenged to improve healthcare quality while reducing costs but key actors in healthcare, specifically physicians (as leaders or clinicians) and administrators, are not always aligned in how to do it. What emerged in this qualitative analysis were three fundamental areas embedded in systems experience – people, structure, and perception, of which perception is the key driver. Additionally, processes are how people describe systems experiences and moral dilemmas are sources of system tensions. What causes a system to become a living entity – or to function with fluidity versus turbulence – is embedded in people. The centeredness of …

Entrepreneurial Innovation As A Learning System, Robert M. Gemmell

Student Scholarship

We surveyed 172 technology entrepreneurs to explore links between learning style and learning flexibility and decision making behaviors hypothesized to produce entrepreneurial innovation and success. Our findings reveal a system of entrepreneurial learning and innovation with subtle and surprising interactions between learning processes and behavioral mediators.

Entrepreneurs And Their Companies In A Post-Entrepreneurial World, Larry Griffith

Student Scholarship

The integration of an entrepreneur into another organization is considered by many to be a difficult or even impossible task. At the same time entrepreneurs are potentially valuable resources for any organization seeking to gain competitive advantage, enter new markets, or to find effective means to resolve standing managerial issues. One method of successful integration demands smooth meshing of the entrepreneur's company and its employees into the new organization. We examine conditions for such smooth transition. Two significant findings emerge. First specific entrepreneurial skills and capabilities, which allow entrepreneurs to be successful in their new role, are similar to those …

A Case Study Of The Rhetorical Styles And Content Used In Devising And Delivering A Workplace Intimate Partner Violence Awareness Program As An Example Of A Gender-Related Power Construct In A Private Sector Workplace With A Predominantly Male Workgroup, Kimberly Campbell

Communication & Leadership Dissertations and Theses

This work examines what rhetorical approaches were used in the devising and delivery of workplace training materials that address intimate partner violence and gender-related power constructs in a predominantly male workplace and why these approaches were chosen. Specifically, this study analyzes the language used throughout the discourse for the purposes of determining how language can shape the perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors of the participants. The data was obtained using the qualitative methods of rhetorical analysis and interviewing. The materials were analyzed and this data was synthesized with the results of interviews with the author of the discourse. Supporting research examines …

An Expectancy Violations Theory Study Of Employee Satisfaction, Melissa Cleland

Communication & Leadership Dissertations and Theses

This study seeks to find what drives employee satisfaction using the expectancy violations theory. An exploration of the literature including Judee Burgoon’s expectancy violations theory against leadership credibility, narcissistic communication, and use of power are fully discussed. Ethnographic research is used to study a nonprofit organization, the three employees of Nonprofit XYZ were surveyed, interviewed, and observed over a two week period. The Executive Director of Nonprofit XYZ allowed full access to her office space and employees, however, didn’t participate in the study. The results of the study showed that employee satisfaction was a direct result of specific leadership attributes …

Cracking The Case: Uncovering Key Communication Practices Of Successful Financial Professionals, Heidi Struve Currey

Communication & Leadership Dissertations and Theses

The economic events of recent years have unquestionably had an impact on the financial services industry; however the challenge to retain quality financial services professionals has been a struggle for decades. A review of the literature found that Cognitive Bias Theory, Social Judgment Theory, Cognitive Dissonance Theory and the Narrative Paradigm Theory uncovered two potentially valuable communication techniques that could be used by financial professionals: asking questions and sharing stories. The philosophical and ethical underpinning of this study assumed that all financial professionals view every client relationship as if it were personal; so that when a financial professional experiences success …

Making Sense When It Matters Most: Leadership In Extremis, Deirdre Dixon

Student Scholarship

Leading during in extremis situations when lives are in peril remains one of the least addressed areas of leadership research. In particular, although lives may depend on it, little is known about how leaders in in extremis situations make sense of their situation and communicate that sense to others. Because most of the literature on sensemaking and sensegiving in in extremis situations is theoretical, we sought empirical evidence of how it proceeds in actual practice. To address this gap in the literature, a qualitative study was conducted based on semi-structured interviews with thirty U.S. Army leaders at West Point who …

Social Responsibility, Views From Small And Medium Us Private Business Ceo/Owners, Joseph C. Thornton

Student Scholarship

Social responsibility (SR) is a topic of considerable interest to large and multinational companies--but less is known about the extent to which it is embraced by smaller organizations which constitute 99% of US firms. Most of the scant research on social responsibility and SMEs derives from Europe and demonstrates that SMEs understand and enact social responsibility differently than large companies. To address a gap in the literature about US SMEs we conducted interviews with owners/CEOs of private manufacturing firms in four regions of the US to determine how they understand and to what extent they embrace social responsibility as a …

Successful Alignment Of Mba Curriculum: A Product Of Attentional Change, Laurie A. Branch

Student Scholarship

This study examines the factors influencing business schools' decision to materially change their full-time MBA curriculum. Our qualitative study is based on 29 interviews with faculty and administrators at 14 business schools and one industry expert. We identify four domains--Constituents, Context, Constraints and Genuine Identity--which business schools consider when exploring a potential curricular change. We present a Model of Successful Curricular Change that recognizes attention to these inputs, in terms of both focus and capacity, affects the type of change the organization pursues. This model also takes into account the mediating effect of faculty tolerance for the discomfort on curricular …

Communicating Through Thick Boundaries: The Case Of Informing National Policy Making, Adrian Wolfberg

Student Scholarship

Organizations increasingly face competitive and security threats that require better intelligence to guide action. National policy makers face an especially pressing need for intelligence\, and rely on complex\, diverse information from many sources in monitoring their environment. The primary formal information system for conveying knowledge to government leaders is the system of national intelligence briefings\, which collects data from a global network of analysts that is presented by a briefer to individual government leaders\, in a short daily session. The quantity of information created by intelligence analysts far exceeds the capacity of a policy maker to assimilate\, and the briefer …

Impact On Society Versus Impact On Knowledge: Scholarly Production And Sharing In Latin American Studies, Milagros Pereyra-Rojas

Student Scholarship

Although home to 8% of the world's population (Guarda 2002), only 1.7% of the scholarly knowledge about Latin America is produced domestically (UNESCO 2010). The limited voice of Latin American scholars in Latin American studies constitutes a loss of a valuable and unique cultural perspective which is aggravated by the fact that the research object is Latin America itself. The failure of Latin American intellectuals to claim a prominent place on the international academic stage has not been explained and cannot be attributed simply to lack of academic knowledge exposure (Alperin, Fischman et al. 2008). To address this gap in …

The Affect Of Organizational And Individual Learning From Disruptive Market Events On Financial Advisor Behavior, Philipp A. Hensler

Student Scholarship

The static portfolio construction process is an efficient and rational choice to allocate clients' assets in well behaved markets. However, if markets become disruptive, like in 2008, relying on historic risk/return relationships becomes challenging and active financial advisor intervention necessary. The literature is silent about how financial advisors learn from such dislocations and how it affects their asset allocation process. Semi-structured interviews with 30 US financial advisors yielded insights into what shaped their decision making process. We identified five factors that appear to have had the strongest effect on their behavior, namely their enduring belief in recurring historic patterns, continued …

Entrepreneurial Success: Interplay Between Systemic And Individual Factors Via Networking Activities, Moraima De Hoyos-Ruperto

Student Scholarship

This study addresses Puerto Rico's unexplained stagnant entrepreneurial environment despite average or above average entrepreneurial potential, capabilities, and intentions when compared to other high-income countries (2007 GEM report; Bosma, Jones, Autio, & Levie, 2008). In our previous qualitative research, we argue that a pervasive lack of support for entrepreneurs from entrepreneurial advocates and the failure of entrepreneurs to develop networks could be partly responsible for the slow-moving entrepreneurial environment (De Hoyos, Romaguera, Carlsson, & Perelli, 2011). Building on that qualitative research, a quantitative study using PLS was conducted to determine the following: How and to what extent do systemic and …