Digital Commons Network^™

Action Research: A Review And Proposal For Application In Marketing Inquiry, Sereikhuoch Eng, Nikhilesh Dholakia

The Qualitative Report

Action research has a very limited track record in marketing. We take an applied and practical approach and begin with a review of action research as a method, then turn to a more focused review of action research in marketing contexts, discussing the plausible constraints and advantages. Based on these reviews, we offer a conceptual framework and several application areas for marketing action research. We summarize case study examples from three market locations that have used action research as a method of inquiry to illustrate and encourage researchers and practitioners to further integrate action research in their research endeavors. We …

Cooperation In Community Colleges, Frederic S. Gore

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

With the mounting pressures on institutions of higher education to do more with limited resources, the opportunity to collaborate with other colleges has emerged as a viable tool to create efficiencies and obtain valuable knowledge otherwise unattainable by an institution, even if that collaboration takes place with a competing institution. Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems are critical to managing student information and college operations, but can be challenging for colleges to implement. Consortia present a unique solution to colleges to address gaps in their expertise and skills needed to achieve a successful ERP implementation. This study explores the factors that …

The Modern Face Of Workplace Incivility, Devi Akella, Vance Johnson Lewis

Organization Management Journal

No abstract provided.

Incivility And Beyond At The Top Management Team Level, Joanne O. Martinez, Julia Eisenberg

Organization Management Journal

Although incivility has been gaining increasing attention in the literature as well as in the industry, academic studies have not examined the effects on top management team (TMT) members. TMT members are different from employees at other levels because they are officers of their organizations who are held to a much higher level of responsibility than those in lower echelons. They are crucial in setting the norms of an organization and have far-reaching influence. This article seeks to uncover the mechanisms that explain what happens when TMT members are targets of uncivil leadership behavior. Semistructured interviews were conducted with 15 …

The Underutilized Tool Of Project Management - Emotional Intelligence, Gerald C. Lowe

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Previous research has typically focused on singular attributes that impact a leader’s effectiveness. This study, instead, looks at whether emotional intelligence moderates the anticipated negative effect of distributed presence on engagement and influence, and ultimately, leader effectiveness. Buttressed by emotional intelligence, engagement, and influence theories, the research question focused on how emotional intelligence skills moderate the impact of a project manager’s distributed presence to render the leader effective. The study sample for this research came from voluntary participants who work for a U.S. government agency comprising leaders co-located with their teams and distributed presence leaders. Descriptive statistics showed that leaders …

An Empirical Study About The Impact Of Internet In Smes, Albert Aliu

Theses and Dissertations

The aim of this research was to find out the current trends of usage of new technologies, with a special focus on the impact of the Internet based on chosen variables. The target group of the current research were small to medium size enterprises – SMEs, which are considered as the most-influential entities within a country. This is due to their influence on economy and employment opportunities they offer in every country. The results of this research show a better image about the current technological trends in Kosovo and no other research with identic approach was found out by the …

Innovation Practices Of Entrepinays From Camarines Sur, Ma.Cresilda M. Caning, Divina M. Edralin

DLSU Business & Economics Review

Innovation as an output and as a process is the result of new combinations created by the entrepreneur (Schumpeter, 1934). In this exploratory study, we investigated the case of four women entrepreneurs from Camarines Sur to determine their innovation strategies and their implication to their business performance. We compared the degree by which these Entrepinays implement innovation practices based on the OSLO Innovation Measurement Framework. This framework specifies four types of innovation, namely: product, process, marketing, and organizational innovation. Based on the content analysis of our data gathered from the one-on-one interview, our results revealed that the Bicolana entrepreneurs implemented …

A Study Of The Effectiveness Of Growing Leaders Through Team Building And Continual Learning, Bruce Robert Lotarski

Doctor of Education (Ed.D)

Team building and continual learning methods have become transdisciplinary, and the effectiveness of these approaches have yet to be fully appreciated across industries. Training, coaching, and team building may alleviate many of the challenges for positioning talent with organizational change. Organizational leaders should provide direction and support with team building by clarifying and prioritizing goals before inducing innovative initiatives (Peralta, Lopes, Gilson, Lourenço, & Pais, 2014). Setting transparent goals and commitment is characteristic of mature groups, which team building may help develop (Peralta et al., 2014). Four goals for team members at the group level are to set goals, assign …

Ibm Cloud Strategic Audit, Jack C. Johnson

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

An examination of IBM Cloud's strategy and history and a recommendation for what to do moving forward.

Reappraising International Business In A Digital Arena: Barriers, Strategies, And Context For Internationalization Of Digital Innovations, Noman Ahmed Shaheer

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation builds on the eclectic paradigm to explore internationalization strategies in the burgeoning digital economy through a rigorous empirical analysis of a unique big data archive tracking international penetrations of more than 1.5 million mobile apps across 58 countries. While traditional firms internationalize by internalizing physical assets to reap location advantages from foreign markets, many digital businesses internationalize by orchestrating networks of information flows across borders. Such digital internationalization may not be constrained by cross-national distance or lack of resources as digital businesses leverage globally disperse knowledge and innovation networks to develop scale free digital innovations and seamlessly transmit …

Communication As Constitutive Of Organization: Practicing Collaboration In And English Language Program, Ariadne Miranda

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation is about collaboration as an organizational practice that is communicatively constituted. Specifically, I examine how members of a team in an English language program located in a large southeastern university in the United States make sense of what they define as a collaborative work environment and materialize it in their meetings in spoken and written discourse, and in their mention and use of organizational artifacts. Though the study examines the practices of one organizational setting, the insights generated illuminate broader organizational and discourse dynamics and speak to important issues in the discipline of communication such as authority, leadership, …

The Convergence Of Engagement Leadership And Leader-Driven Retrenchment Business Strategies: A Phenomenological Approach, Larry Mitchel Hill

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Scholars and practitioners have studied employee engagement extensively since the late 1990s. Because engaged employees can create a competitive advantage for business enterprises, academics and practitioners have emphasized the need for further research into the relationship between leadership, context, and engagement. There is a gap between knowledge of employee engagement and leaders’ ability to directly engage employees through decisions, actions, and behaviors. Researchers have suggested that employees’ situational assessment also influences their engagement. The purpose of this study was to explore how leader-driven retrenchment strategies during a severe and protracted economic downturn interacted with business leaders’ ability to engage their …

Exploring Workplace Spirituality And The Benefit It Has On Teams, Tracey Kimberly Johnson

Dissertations

Purpose: The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore and understand the perception of nonprofit leaders on how spirituality in the workplace fosters a positive workplace culture.

Methodology: In this phenomenological qualitative study, data were collected using interviews of 12 nonprofit leaders. The essential data collection method for this study was in-depth, semi-structured, open-ended interview questions, key informant interviews, and pilot study data interviews. After the data were collected and transcribed, the coding process began, and themes were identified.

Findings: The research on spirituality in the workplace and spiritual intelligence of nonprofit leaders has been completed. There is still …

A Cost-Benefit Analysis Of Pilot Training Next, Talon M. Pope

Theses and Dissertations

The United States Air Force (USAF) is currently facing a 2,400-pilot shortage in an increasingly constrained budgetary environment. Without pilots to engage the enemy, deliver weapons, and provide logistics support for operations, the USAF could lose the ability to fly, fight, and win global engagements and defend the homeland. This study focused on Undergraduate Pilot Training (UPT) as a means of producing the USAF’s pilots to offset the current shortage. Specifically, this study compared UPT to the recently initiated Pilot Training-Next (PTN) program through a cost-benefit analysis. Like any new technology integration, PTN’s virtual reality training will require further study …

An Analysis Of Profit Margin In Relation To The Better Buying Power Initiative, Jerry (Trey) L. Baker Iii

Theses and Dissertations

Recent Better Buying Power (BBP) initiatives have sought to better contractually align contractor profit with performance. Profit should incentivize efficiency in cost and schedule and only be awarded when earned. The current research seeks evidence that BBP has been effective in improving performance. The first part of the research examines the trends of profit margin and cost growth both before and after the implementation of the first BBP initiative. BBP recommended the use of incentive type contracts over award fee contracts, where appropriate. This research found an increased use of incentive type contracts and a reduced use of award fee …

Milwaukee Selects A Workforce Intervention: Organizational Culture & Climate, Quality Improvement Center For Workforce Development

Other QIC-WD Products

The Division of Milwaukee Child Protective Services (DMCPS) of the Wisconsin Department of Children and Families (DCF) will be implementing and testing an organizational culture and climate intervention called ARC, which stands for Availability, Responsiveness, & Continuity. ARC is an organizational change process that has improved outcomes in mental health settings by: 1) introducing core principles to guide service improvement efforts, 2) embedding research-based organizational components for service improvement, and 3) fostering attitudes necessary for ongoing service improvement. DMCPS employs approximately 185 State employees. These employees conduct initial child protective service assessments, oversee ongoing case management services delivered by private …

Challenges And Opportunities In Philanthropic Organizational Learning: Reflections From Fellow Grantmakers, Jennifer Chubinski, Kelley Adcock, Susan Sprigg

The Foundation Review

As the field of philanthropy has matured, increasing attention has been paid to evaluating the impact of philanthropic investments. In recent years, the scope of evaluation has expanded to include an intentional focus on organizational learning with the goal of learning from ongoing work, informing decision-making, and ultimately improving impact.

With this momentum to carry out organizational learning strategies and share successes, the sector has not yet stopped to reflect on challenges and lessons learned in the process of building the capacity for organizational learning — the messy yet meaningful middle between a desire for learning and the implementation of …

Building Principle-Based Strategic Learning: Insights From Practice, Kelci M. Price, Chera Reid, Suzanne Kennedy Leahy

The Foundation Review

Strategic learning is a powerful tool for foundations to achieve greater impact, yet foundations have struggled to create practices and behaviors that effectively support them in learning about strategy. Given that many foundations are engaged in strategic philanthropy, where they have specific conditions in the world they are trying to change, it is critical that they have the capacity to effectively learn about and improve their strategies.

This article offers three principles for strategic learning, informed by the field of strategic learning and insights from practice across three foundations. Each principle is explored in terms of what it means and …

Agility In Responding To Disruptive Digital Innovation: Case Study Of An Sme, Calvin M. L. Chan, Say Yen Teoh, Adrian Yeow, Gary Pan

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

Disruptive digital innovation (DDI) often creates hypercompetitive market environment that forces firms to be agile to survive and remain competitive. Whereas most studies have focused on larger firms' effort to be agile, few have looked at how small‐ and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) respond to DDI. The study attempts to answer the research question of how SMEs achieve agility to respond to DDI. Drawing on a case study of an innovative SME, our study develops a framework on agility based on the processes of mitigating organizational rigidity, developing innovative capabilities, and balancing the tension of organizational ambidexterity. Specifically, our findings show …

Gamification Of Enterprise Systems, Fiona Fui-Hoon Nah, Brenda Eschenbrenner, Craig C. Claybaugh, Perry B. Koob

Business and Information Technology Faculty Research & Creative Works

Enterprise systems have become an integral part of an organization's operations. However, they also pose many challenges to organizations from the perspective of implementation, user training, as well as use and acceptance. Without effective usage, enterprise systems may not be able to provide the strategic or competitive advantages that organizations desire. Therefore, organizations may consider gamification to enhance training, acceptance, and usage. We discuss the various ways in which enterprise system challenges can be addressed through the lens of gamification and present a framework for gamification of enterprise systems. The framework is comprised of basic principles and key design elements …

Ethical Leadership And Ethical Behavior In The Large Publicly Traded United States-Based Banks, Gerald R. Rowe Iii

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Unethical behavior in business and banking has cost Americans significantly throughout the past several decades. Ethical lapses in banking contributed to the financial disaster of 2008-09, resulted in thousands of families losing their homes, cost consumers millions in bogus overdraft fees, resulted in millions of phony accounts customers did not agree to open, and cost end users billions in credit card fees, just to name a few of the transgressions. This study utilized Brown, Harrison, and Travino’s (2005) Ethical Leadership Scale (ELS) to measure ethical leadership and Kaptein’s (2008) Measure of Unethical Behavior in the Workplace to measure ethical behavior …

Austerity For All Seasons: Communicating On The Economy In Ireland, Brendan O'Rourke, John Hogan, Joseph K. Fitzgerald

Conference papers

What is clear is that in Ireland it has been a good crisis for economists, in the sense that the status and power of the profession has increased, especially in public discourse and state bureaucracy. This is not to deny that the academic critique and public questioning of the status of economics, that has followed the failure of the profession internationally prior to the crisis. It would be interesting to see if the rise of economists status has taken place in other countries and if there is a pattern to the profession’s fortunes in its different fields across, for example …

Dominant Coalitions Directing Acquisitions: Different Decision Makers, Different Decisions, Cyndi Man Zhang, Henrich R. Greve

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Coalitions are important in organizational decision making, but the question of how coalitions are built and make decisions in response to firm performance is still not sufficiently explored. In this study, we develop and test theory on how potential coalitions are built through shared experience and recruitment of allies. When organizations respond to performance relative to aspiration levels, either as problemistic search following low performance or opportunity exploration following high performance, members form coalitions to influence decisions. We develop theory of coalition formation that builds on upper echelons theory and the theory of dominant coalitions to predict how past experience …

Organizational Spirituality And Its Implications For Organizational Performance: A Survey Of The Opinions Of Employees Of The General Company For Food Industries In Abu Ghraib (Baghdad), Maha Fadel Ibrahim

Journal of Economics and Administrative Sciences

The research discusses with organizational spirituality and its implications on the organizational performance in the General Company for Food Industries in Abu Ghraib (Baghdad). The aim of the research was to determine the contribution of organizational spirituality in the organizational performance of the surveyed company. In order to achieve the objectives of the research، two main hypotheses were adopted. Several sub-hypotheses centered on the relationship between organizational spirituality and organizational performance in terms of its dimensions (Meaning work، self-esteem، community affiliation، and the alignment of individual and organization values). The research was based on the analytical descriptive approach in presenting …

The Principles Of Organizational Inaction, Roger A. Lohmann

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

Organization inaction and the absence of change are seriously understudied topics. This article (a spoof) reports on a research problem that identifies and studies four principles of organizational inaction: The time, subject matter, group size and controversy theorems together and separately explain a great deal of committee and organizational inaction. The article also introduces innovative techniques of invariant statistics and mystery sampling. The article is an extensive rewrite of a 'research report' that originally appeared in a peer-reviewed administrative humor journal, The Bureaucrat, in 1979.

Unethical Leadership And Followers’ Deviance: The Mediating Role Of Perception Of Politics And Injustice, Zeleke Asnakew, Yibeltal Mekonnen

The Journal of Values-Based Leadership

This paper posits that unethical leadership behavior increases followers’ deviance by increasing perception of injustice and politics in organizations. More specifically, perception of politics and injustice mediates the relationship between unethical leadership behavior and followers’ deviance. By using data from 262 employees of various public organizations in Ethiopia, we confirmed our hypothesis. Further, the result of multiple regression confirmed that the relationship between unethical leadership behavior and followers’ deviance would be stronger when followers develop a perception of politics in the workplace.

The Way Of The Servant Citizen: Building, Mindfulness And Reverence For Work (Bmw): A Thematic Synthesis Of Servant Attributes From Servant Leadership, Organizational Citizenship Behavior And The Servanthood Of Jesus, Ramon Ma. Nicolas V. Molano

The Journal of Values-Based Leadership

The servant-first is central in writings on servant leadership and the biblical Jesus on becoming servants. A servant-first on its own volition seeks to serve, and to serve first the welfare of others before their own, and it does not necessarily hold a formal leadership position. The study introduces the term servant citizen to refer to one who is servant-first and an ordinary member of community. The study aimed to provide leaders, educators and trainers with teachable content that aids in the formation of servant citizens ─ more than nominal service-providers ─ from organization members. The study’s starting reference was …

Celebrating Diversity Through Spirituality In The Workplace: Transforming Organizations Holistically, Satinder K. Dhiman, Sanjay Modi, Varinder Kumar

The Journal of Values-Based Leadership

Managing diversity effectively is the key to attract and retain a productive workforce. Research demonstrates that celebrating diversity leads to greater productivity, increased creativity, and heightened morale and motivation. Organizations often benefit from the differing perspectives and rich experiences a diverse workforce provides. Similarly, organizations can enhance their creativity by encouraging diverse perspectives and opinions. Thus, issues of managing diversity, valuing diversity, and celebrating diversity have assumed added importance. This paper suggests that diversity is not a problem, but rather a solution to most of the challenges organizations face such as employee engagement and participation. Managing workforce diversity effectively transcends …

Improving Human Rights Compliance In Supply Chains, Kishanthi Parella

Scholarly Articles

Corporations try to convince us that they are good global citizens: “brands take stands” by engaging in cause philanthropy; CEOs of prominent corporations tackle a variety of issues; and social values drive marketing strategies for goods and services. But despite this rhetoric, corporations regularly fall short in their conduct. This is especially true in supply chains where a number of human rights abuses frequently occur. One solution is for corporations to engage in meaningful human rights due diligence that involves monitoring human rights, reporting on social and environmental performance, undertaking impact assessments, and consulting with groups whose human rights they …

News From The Graduate School - Masters Of Business Administration, Otterbein Office Of Graduate Programs

Graduate School

Newsletter that provides updates from the Graduate School and the MBA Graduate Program.