Training and Development Commons^™

How A Professional Describes Reasons For Working In And Ultimately Leaving The Foster Care Field In The State Of Missouri: A Case Study, Lauren Williams

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

The foster care field continues to have a high turnover rate of the professionals working in the field. While support and work balance are available for some professionals, many face the challenges of heavy workloads, unrealistic expectations, and health sacrifices that lead to many professionals leaving the field. This case study of one former foster care professional’s description of reasons they worked in the field, and reasons they ultimately left the field provides insight of the challenges and support as a foster care professional. The findings of this study are organized into three major themes including “Challenges for Foster Care …

Removing The Masc: Dismantling Gendered Occupations Through Social Work Education, Austin M. Raines

DSW Capstone Projects

The “Masculine mystique” refers to a psychological mask that men wear, enabling them to maintain power and distance themselves from traits associated with femininity” (Kahn, 2009, p. 283). This capstone project seeks to solve the Social Work Grand Challenge of improving the lives that hegemonic masculinity harms and limits. It emphasizes the relationship between the two areas of life (work-home), once thought to exist in different realms but are today more interwoven than ever (Lin & Burgard, 2018; Sok et al., 2014). Men have higher rates of traumatic injuries and exposure to significant physical risks, violence hazards, and stricter normative …

The Role Of Inclusive Leadership In Fostering Organisational Learning Behaviour, Mehran Nejati, Azadeh Shafaei

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Purpose: Organisational learning is fundamental in establishing a fearless organisation, creating a competitive advantage and maintaining a sustained growth. While research suggests that leaders can influence organisational learning, there is currently no empirical evidence on how inclusive leadership fosters organisational learning behaviour. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between inclusive leadership and organisational learning behaviour. It also seeks to explore the mediating role of psychological safety and climate for initiatives in the mentioned relationship. Design/methodology/approach: The study used a two-wave quantitative examination with 317 respondents. Online survey was used to collect data from randomly selected …

The Impact Of Racism: Experience Of Black Women Leaders In The Public Sector, Maisha Inaya Giles

School of Business Student Theses and Dissertations

Despite the Civil Right Act and a myriad of DEI initiatives that claim to create an anti-discrimination and antiracism environment, Black women leaders still experience racism, discrimination, and disrespect in the workplace. Black women are less likely to be promoted than their White counterparts, and over 25% of Black women reported that their social identities led to a missed advancement opportunity (McKinsey & Lean In, 2022). Society is in the midst of a unique time in history where government institutions, willingly or forced, are having difficult conversations regarding institutional racism. The national movement that declares racism as a public health …

Emotional Intelligence Training And Professional Salespeople, Tracey Honeycutt Sigler, Charles D. Shepherd Ph.D

Atlantic Marketing Journal

Emotional intelligence (EI) has long been considered a significant success factor, especcially in careers like personal selling that involve considerable social. contact (Goldman, 1995). As a result, a series of studies have investigated the link between EI and sales performance. The results of these studies indicates that EI can positively impact sales performanace. As a result, researchers (Deeter-Schmelz & Sojka, 2003) have called for its integration into sales training programs. However, to this point, no research has established an effective approach to EI training in sales. This study begins to rectify that shortcoming by indentifying best practices in general EI …

What Does It Look Like For Mental Healthcare Organizations To Be Healthy Places To Work? An Action Research Study, Stephanie L. Fox

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

Mental healthcare organizations have a reputation for being unhealthy places to work. The irony of this reputation is keenly felt by its workforce who report unsustainable workloads, high levels of stress, and lack of support or engagement from higher-level leadership. As a mental healthcare provider now in a position of leadership, who has worked across all levels of care within the sector, it was of interest to me to explore how a mental health organization can become a healthier and more sustainable place to work. I approached this study with the assumption that if an organization was healthy and intentional …

The Impact Of The Covid-19 Pandemic On Employee Engagement And Performance In The Teleworking Context In The U.S. Public Sector: A Phenomenological Case Study, Elizabeth Nesuda

Human Resource Development Theses and Dissertations

The global shift to telework during the COVID-19 pandemic has redefined work environments and created challenges and opportunities for the public sector. This study addressed a significant gap in the existing literature by exploring the relationship between employee engagement and performance in the context of COVID-19. This study explores employee engagement and performance in teleworking environments within the federal public sector. This study adopted a phenomenological case study design focused on understanding the experiences of public sector employees who shifted to telework during the COVID-19 pandemic. Research and interview questions were developed to uncover employee engagement and performance experiences in …

Evaluating Healthcare Student Learning Performance During The Initial Year Of The Covid-19 Pandemic: A Case Study, Maria D. Garcia-Villarreal

Human Resource Development Theses and Dissertations

The COVID-19 pandemic caused a mass interruption to daily life lasting almost an entire academic year. Return to normalcy was hard won and phased over the following academic year. Neither time-period offered “traditional” learning experiences in academic institutions. The extent to which the operational shut-down affected academic institutions and their learners is just now beginning to be elucidated. Human resource development (HRD) is uniquely positioned to apply established and newly developed theories and applications to the study of this phenomenon. One particular case lends itself to observation. A major academic medical center launched a technology-driven state-of-the-art simulation education center mere …

It Takes Heart: Building Peer-Driven Training Initiatives Through Workers' Stories, Deborah Lynne Moy

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

My research inquiry is centered on the larger project of building a transformational, empowerment model of worker voice in workplaces. The purpose of my research is to explore/illuminate the question, “How can I use workers’ stories to center and advance collaborative worker voice on the job through peer-driven training initiatives?” I frame this general research inquiry around two key questions: (a) How do I create authentic spaces for workers’ stories to emerge from the heart? (b) How do I use workers’ stories to create the environment needed for workers to become peer teachers/leaders of their own training initiatives? This study’s …

The Perspectives Of Saudi Arabian Professionals Regarding The Most Important Soft Skills For Leaders To Possess In Telecommuting Environments During Crisis: A Q Methodology Study, Shatha Abdulghani Khalifah

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this Q methodology study was to explore Saudi Arabian professionals’ perspectives regarding the soft skills they considered most important for leaders to possess in telecommuting environments during crises.

Q methodology was developed to study human subjectivity and uses both quantitative and qualitative procedures to do so. As is the convention for a Q methodology study, a single question guided the research: What are the perspectives collectively held among Saudi Arabian professionals regarding the soft skills they consider most important for leaders to possess in telecommuting environments during crises?

The researcher developed a 44-item Q sample of opinion …

Cultivating Authentic Leaders: Toward Conceptual Coherence And Sustainable Practice, Yoshie Tomozumi Nakamura, Elizabeth Nutt Williams, Lori Pyle, Steven E. Grande

The Journal of Values-Based Leadership

The purpose of this paper is twofold. One is to better understand the contested construct of authentic leadership and its cultivation and practice. The other is to offer a conceptual framework for practicing sustainable authentic leadership. Based on a review of authentic leadership literature with a focus on its sustainability, we introduce a conceptual framework through a lens of an ecological model to capture the dynamics of individual and systems perspectives. Practicing sustainable authentic leadership is not a simple act; rather authentic leaders need to embrace paradoxes to navigate today’s complex systems and to find new ways to create positive …

Psychological Capital And Perceived Employability: Exploring Women Veterans’ Military-To-Civilian Career Transition, Tundra Gatewood

Dissertations

The veteran human capital remains integral to the U.S. workforce and sustainment of its competitive advantage (Carter, Schafer, et al., 2017). Women constitute 17% of 1.4 million servicemembers and 10% of 18.4 million veterans, with a projected population growth of 18% by 2040 (Defense Manpower Data Center [DMDC], 2021; U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2020a). Each year, an estimated 30,000 ex-servicewomen enter the national labor force (National Center for Veterans Analysis and Statistics, 2019; U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2020a). Most of these ex-servicemembers turned veterans must navigate the military-civilian divide and negotiate their economic worth in highly divergent and …

Training Transfer, Sarah Stepanek, Megan Paul

Umbrella Summaries

What is training transfer?

Training transfer is formally defined as “the degree to which trainees effectively apply the knowledge, skills, and attitudes gained in a training context to the job” (Baldwin & Ford, 1988, p. 63). Training transfer has been conceptualized based on three main factors, which are detailed further below.

► Maintenance versus generalization: Maintenance consists of the degree to which knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) from the learning environment are able to persist over time, whereas generalization consists of being able to take KSAs acquired from a learning environment and apply them to situations or settings that are …

Professional Development Newsletter, December 2022, Odu Career Pathways Program, Old Dominion University

Career Pathways

December 2022 issue of ODU Career Pathways Professional Development Newsletter.

Help Or Hindrance: How Social Media Affects The Selection And Hiring Processes Of Businesses, Alexandra Krska

Management Undergraduate Honors Theses

Continually, young people have been advised to be conscientious of the imagery they put on social media regarding their personal lives in preparation for employment selection. However, the use of social media in the selection process may cause Human Resource professionals to have inadvertent biases toward candidates among other moral and ethical issues. Through extensive research of the thoughts and actions of a plethora of different corporate professionals, I will analyze whether using social media as a tool in the selection process authentically produces positive unbiased results, or whether social media poses more ethical issues. With the hopes to create …

Social Class And Employability: Equalizing Perceived Competence And Warmth To Control Biased Decision-Making During Resumé Screening, Mindy Gambino

Dissertations

Implicit bias during the resumé screening process can adversely impact the ability of an organization to achieve a competitive advantage through human capital (Coff & Kryscynski, 2011). The purpose of this study was to determine if teaching resumé screeners how to control biased decision-making during resumé screening results in equal employability ratings for upper-middle and lower-middle-class applicants. The study used a quantitative, causal, quasi-experimental, single-group pretest-post-test design. The target population was people in the United States who screen resumés as part of their current job duties (Thomas, 2018). The researcher used Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) to recruit participants.

Participants received …

How Can Supervisors Support New Employees?, Quality Improvement Center For Workforce Development

QIC-Tips

When the Quality Improvement Center for Workforce Development (QIC-WD) recently asked public child welfare agency staff and leaders about their concerns related to improving the workforce, one of the questions was, “How do we support new employees?” This QIC-Tip aims to answer this question with research-informed recommendations and practical advice from the field.

The process by which newcomers make the transition from being organizational outsiders to being insiders is known as onboarding, or organizational socialization (Bauer et al., 2007). The overall goal of onboarding is to facilitate newcomer adjustment, meaning that new employees understand the key tasks of …

An Investigation Of Tax Assessors’ Perception Of The Relationship Between Proactive Career Management Behaviors (Pcmbs) And Career Success: Determining The Most Valuable Career Management Behaviors, Daniel K. Berry

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to investigate government and private-sector tax assessors’ perceptions of the relationship between proactive career management behaviors (PCMBs) and career success. The findings of the study established a foundation to assist government and private-sector tax assessor organizations with developing the human capital within and the careers of their employees. The study’s findings revealed that all four of the PCMBs (career planning, career self-exploration, environmental career exploration, and voluntary human capital development) had significant relationships to career success when tested with a multiple regression model. The study’s findings also revealed that there was no significant difference …

Employer Development Of Professional Capabilities Among Early Career Workers And Implications For The Design Of Work-Based Learning, Denise Jackson, Hairong Shan, Stephanie Meek

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Professional capabilities, particularly enterprise behaviours, are increasingly sought after in the labour market, enabling new workers to perform effectively in complex and diverse contexts. Capability deficits among new graduates have prompted the growth of work-based learning (e.g., internships) in tertiary programs to better prepare students for transition to work. There is, however, a lack of understanding of how students learn at work, leading to this investigation of employer approaches to capability development among early career workers, including tertiary graduates and youth workers. Survey data were gathered from 306 business owners, managers, and human resource practitioners from diverse organisational settings. Respondents …

Organizational Support Factors For Minor League Baseball Player Development, Christopher M. Mcleod, Nola Agha, Simon Rosenblum-Larson

Journal of Athlete Development and Experience

This study examines organizational support in the context of minor league baseball to better understand how organizations can support athletes’ development. Exploratory results show that English and Spanish players identify salary/pay, off-season training opportunities, and nutritious food as their most important unmet development needs. English and Spanish respondents differently prioritized playing opportunities, communication with front office staff, health care, and equipment as unmet needs. Explanatory results show that organizational support factors (private problem support and second career support) explain 17% of the variation in minor league baseball players’ self-perceptions of development. The results provide guidance for Major League Baseball and …