Digital Commons Network^™

Employee Engagement Strategies Call Center Managers Use To Increase Productivity And Profitability, Deirdre N. Skinner

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

AbstractDecreased employee productivity can result in reduced organizational profitability. Call center leaders are concerned with decreased productivity as it cost call center leaders millions of dollars each year in profit loss. Grounded in leader-member exchange theory, the purpose of this basic qualitative study was to learn the employee engagement strategies nine call center managers in five different industries used to improve productivity in call centers. Data were collected using semi-structured interviews and review of company documents that included process improvement guides and publicly posted annual reports. The three themes that emerged from the thematic analysis were developing relationships, effective communication, …

Factors Of Employee Retention Within Youth-Serving Nonprofits In The Mid-Atlantic Region Of The United States, Meleny Thomas

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Factors of employee retention have been widely researched and examined. However, research on factors of retention in relation to youth-serving NPOs was limited. Turnover was an issue that many organizations face, but the impacts and implications of turnover for youth-serving nonprofits may be greater. Using Herzberg’s two-factor theory of motivation, this study identified the factors that local and national NPO employees in the Mid-Atlantic region of the eastern United States provided as to why they remained at or left NPOs. The aim of this study was to identify the motivator and/or hygiene factors that employees or former employees of NPOs …

Strategies For Implementing Critical Success Factors For Improving Information Technology Information Systems’ Performance In Financial Organizations, Sherri L. Williams

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Information technology infrastructure library (ITIL) business leaders lack strategies for implementing critical success factors (CSFs) to promote organizational effectiveness and project success. As a result, ITIL leaders may experience less project success if CSF strategies are not effectively implemented. Grounded in the balanced scorecard (BSC) theory, this qualitative multiple case study aimed to explore strategies ITIL business leaders use to implement CSFs successfully to improve organizational efficiency for project success. The participants comprised five ITIL business leaders in the financial industry located in the southwestern region of the United States who successfully implemented strategies to implement CSFs to improve organizational …

Effective Strategies To Reduce Voluntary Employee Turnover Intentions In The Retail Sector, Connie Latoyia Owens

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Voluntary employee turnover is a complex business problem that hurts organizations’ productivity and profits. High employee turnover rates require retail business leaders to implement strategies to help prevent employees from leaving their jobs. Grounded in transformational leadership theory, the purpose of this qualitative multiple-case study was to explore leadership strategies retail store managers use to reduce voluntary employee turnover. The participants included six retail managers from two mid-to-large retail food organizations in Chicago who successfully reduced voluntary employee turnover. Semistructured interviews and public company information were used for data collection. Data were analyzed using Yin’s five-step method. Four themes were …

Exploring Leadership Strategies To Enhance Worker Performance, Charles J. Oloo Kodi

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

AbstractMultiple leadership strategies have been used by some organizations in the US to improve worker performance. A literature gap still exists regarding how transformational leadership style may enhance worker performance in Connecticut state manufacturing industries. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the perceptions of organizational leaders about how best to improve the knowledge and the effectiveness of transformational leadership styles. Transformational theory and contingency theories were chosen to serve as the theoretical foundation for the conceptual framework of this study. The research question examined the perceptions of employees of a manufacturing organization located in Connecticut about how …

Design Thinking For Innovation Within Manufacturing Smes: A Multiple Case Study, Jarno Manzke

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Manufacturing small and medium enterprise (SME) leaders have sparse information on using design thinking to support their firm’s business sustainability and competitive advantage. The purpose of this qualitative multiple case study was to describe design thinking experts’ views on how manufacturing SME leaders may successfully drive design thinking within their firm as an innovation strategy to support business sustainability and competitive advantage. A multiple case study design was used to collect data from a purposeful sample of seven design thinking experts. Semistructured interviews, archival data, and reflective field notes drove credibility of the findings through data triangulation. This study was …

Millennial Leadership In The Retail Industry, Phyllis Atwood

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The retail industry contributes to the United States economy, and high turnover rates reduce the profitability of businesses, which affects their sustainability. The general problem is millennials employed in retail are not finding adequate leadership support and alignment with their career expectations or social beliefs. This qualitative single case study involved an embedded group of millennials employed as retail managers with at least three years of supervisory experience. The purpose of this study was to explore experiences and expectations involving effective leadership. The study involved using the generational theory, cognitive model of behavior, and servant leadership theory to address how …

Ethical Leadership Effects On Medical Laboratory Personnel Accountability Behaviors, Claude-Marthe Daverdine Cherizard

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Ethical scandals have continued to generate disturbances in the corporate world and have encouraged ethics studies in organizations. Research has shown there is a relationship between ethical leadership and employee accountability in a variety of organizational settings, including healthcare. However, in medical laboratories that relationship has not been explored. A quantitative study was conducted to examine if medical laboratory employee perceptions of manager ethical leadership was associated with their own accountability behavior. A total of 69 participants responded online to three instruments to measure the study variables: ethical leadership was assessed by the Ethical Leadership at Work Questionnaire, employee accountability …

Strategies To Reduce Nonconformance Of Parts In Aerospace Manufacturing, John Louis Lloyd Jr

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The cost of nonconformance of parts can impact the aerospace industry globally, resulting in revenue loss and consumer confidence degradation. Grounded in the eight disciplines of problem solving, the purpose of this multiple case study was to explore strategies aerospace manufacturing quality managers in the United States used to implement successful change initiatives to address the nonconformance of parts. Data were collected through semistructured interviews with four aerospace quality executives and supporting company documents. Data were analyzed using methodological triangulation, coding, and thematic analysis. Four themes emerged: (a) identify and implement a specific problem-solving strategy, (b) identify and mitigate employee …

How Should Bosses Lead? New Revelations From Frontline Managers, Bonnie A. Curtis

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

Strategic business change in the 21st century has been fraught with issues, resulting in failure for more than half of all attempted efforts to transform companies. Frontline managers (FLMs) are key to successful corporate change, transforming a company’s direction into action and results and the COVID-19 pandemic has presented a unique business challenge for every Consumer Products Group (CPG) company and FLM by interrupting supply chains. The aim of this grounded theory study was to create theory by conducting open-ended interviews with 20 frontline managers to determine how they viewed themselves and their roles, teams, and bosses during change. Results …

Exploring The Leadership-As-Practice Of Middle Managers Engaged In Organizational Changes In An Asia Pacific Multinational Setting, Eric Kung

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

There has been a great need for leadership studies on middle management, particularly in the Asia Pacific context. This study explored the leadership practices of middle managers engaged in leading organizational changes of multinational corporations (MNCs), within the Asia Pacific context. Organization ethnography was used as the research method. The ethnographer observed and analyzed the actual practice of middle managers of a multinational manufacturing company located in China for six months. The findings showed that middle managers played significant roles in communication and execution in leading organizational changes. The study also showed that change management could be a dynamic process …

Reframing Leadership Narratives Through The African American Lens, Marion Missy Mcgee

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

Reframing Leadership Narratives through the African American Lens explores the context-rich experiences of Black Museum executives to challenge dominant cultural perspectives of what constitutes a leader. Using critical narrative discourse analysis, this research foregrounds under-told narratives and reveals the leadership practices used to proliferate Black Museums to contrast the lack of racially diverse perspectives in the pedagogy of leadership studies. This was accomplished by investigating the origin stories of African American executives using organizational leadership and social movement theories as analytical lenses for making sense of leaders’ tactics and strategies. Commentary from Black Museum leaders were interspersed with sentiments of …

"Because God Said So": A Thematic Analysis Of Why People Denounce Black Greek-Letter Organizations, Mea Ashley

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

Today, Black Greek-letter organizations (BGLOs) struggle to use empirical data to address financial burden, elitism, hazing, relevance in social justice issues, and the anti-BGLO movement. The anti-BGLO movement frames this study. The movement stems from beliefs that secret societies, fraternities, and sororities are anti-Christian. Society will continue to question the relevance and importance of BGLOs if they cannot overcome the issues plaguing them. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to ascertain why members are leaving BGLOs, in case the organizations find the anti-BGLO movement to be a threat to organizational vitality. Through thematic analysis, 18 YouTube testimonials from denouncers …

Locating Uncertainty In Hospital Leader Sensemaking And Sensegiving Of Organizational Change: A Single Case Study, Sara E. Barry

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

Leaders planning strategic change face significant ambiguity and uncertainty due to the complex, fast-paced, and volatile nature of organizational life. What one leader sees as an opportunity, another may view as a threat depending on their past experiences, their existing mental models, and their perceptions of uncertainty. Sensemaking and sensegiving theories provide a framework for how leaders retrospectively make sense of new and disorienting information through recursive cycles of interpretation, action, and learning, and seek to influence the meaning-making of others towards a shared vision of the strategic change. Despite decades of research using these theories, studies have yet to …

Community College Employee Perceptions Of The Four-Day Schedule As A Community College Institutional Strategy, Mitchell Holder

Murray State Theses and Dissertations

In the face of enrollment declines (American Association of Community Colleges [AACC], n.d.; Barrington, 2020; Schwartz, 2020) and state funding cuts (Lorenzo, 2018), community colleges search for institutional strategies to gain competitive advantages in student recruitment and enrollment management. The four-day schedule has been used by a number of community colleges and four-year colleges as an institutional strategy to reduce costs (Cardinale, 2013; Chen, 2020; Moltz, 2008), improve employee morale (Ellen, 2011; Toppo, 2018; Wallace, 1981), and increase productivity (Bothwell, 2019; Ellen, 2011). Some institutions have adopted the four-day schedule believing it would provide a competitive advantage in student recruitment …

Experiencing The Pull And Push: Influences On Independent Contractor Motivation And Job Satisfaction, Andrew D. Miller

Dissertations, 2020-current

Over the past few decades, the number of individuals engaging in non-standard employment has been increasing. Drawing on self-determination theory (SDT), this study examines the motivation and job satisfaction of independent contractors, the largest form of these alternative work arrangements. Specifically, I examine how the rationale for workers entering contracting work arrangements affect in-role contractor motivation and job satisfaction. Based on a sample of N = 241 adjunct instructors from two universities, I find that the positive relationship between those entering contracting because the work offers autonomy, flexibility and the ability to pursue personally interesting work (pull factors) and their …

Excelling In Telework: A Delphi Study, Ashley Carlin Smith

Dissertations

Purpose: The purpose of this Delphi study was to determine the factors IT management experts identify as necessary for healthcare employees to reach positive decision outcomes in virtual workplaces, to rate the importance of the identified factors, and to determine the practices IT management experts recommend for implementation for the five most important factors. Methodology: This study used a Delphi method that consisted of three rounds to collect data from 15 IT management professionals who are experts in leading virtual teams at Southern California hospitals. In Round 1, participants were asked to identify the factors healthcare employees need to reach …

A Case Of Shifting Focus Friction: Extension Directors And State 4-H Program Leaders’ Perspectives On 4-H Lgbtq+ Inclusion, Jeremy Elliott-Engel, Donna Westfall-Rudd, Eric Kaufman, Megan Seibel, Rama Radhakrishna

Journal of Extension

Contemporary Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer/Questioning (LGBTQ+) youth are identifying and communicating their identities earlier in childhood than generations before as a result of more awareness and more acceptance of gender identity and sexual minorities by society. A qualitative study of U.S. 4-H program leaders and Extension directors generated an emergent theme around the importance of serving LGBT youth and the resulting implementation challenges. The administrators of 4-H, the largest youth serving organization in the country, recognize the presence of LGBTQ+ youth in 4-H and believe the organization must be inclusive. But challenges remain in ensuring youth experience inclusion at …

Remixed, Remastered: Investigating Organizational Adaptation In Higher Music Education, Jacob Bruce Hertzog

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Higher music education presents a unique opportunity to examine change within higher education due to the digital revolution in the music industry over the past two decades. The purpose for conducting this study was to describe, map, and explain the strategies that higher music education programs are using to adapt to the digital revolution in the music industry. This study was grounded in organizational adaptation theory, drawing upon nine well-established theories: population ecology, life cycles, strategic choice, isomorphism, symbolic action, resource dependence, cybernetics, and network theory. Critical concepts of the turbulent environment, environmental perception, and organizational adaptation strategy emerged from …

Enabling Sustainable Organizational Change: A Case Of Cognitive Diversity In The Automotive Industry, Tonja Blom, Yvonne Du Plessis, Hamid H. Kazeroony

International Journal of Applied Management and Technology

In diverse societies such as South Africa, organizations continue to face inclusion challenges when implementing change. This study proposes a different method and new dimension of diversity management within the cognitive diversity construct, namely human niche theory, to tackle the diversity dilemma of exclusivity. The research question asked whether human niche theory, as a defined concept within cognitive diversity, could be utilized by managers to enable inclusion and promote sustainable organizational change implementation. Conceptually, this paper relates human niche theory to seven themes in the change process, namely, communication, training, motivation, resources, control, monitoring, and feedback. An exploratory single case …

Leadership Engagement For Military Hospitals: A Case Study Of The Effects Of Executive Leader Engagement In Military Hospitals That Have Become High Reliability Organizations, Russell Phillips

Dissertations

Purpose: The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore and explain the leadership strategies that military hospital executive leaders used to engage hospital staff in implementing the six principles of High Reliability Organizations (HROs).

Methodology: A qualitative case study approach was selected for this study. Interviews were conducted with three executive leaders describing their experiences with initiating and managing the change development of HRO. The participants in this study were executive leaders of military hospitals across the Puget Sound Military Health System. All participants had direct experience with the implementation of HRO. Interview transcripts were analyzed and reviewed …

Successful Leadership Through Rapid, Unplanned Change, Robert "Darin" Grimm

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The studies of leadership and leadership models are voluminous, as is the work onchange within organizations. While scores of information can be found on each of these topics, the combination of the two is less ubiquitous. The grouping of specific leadership models related to corporate changes, be it structural or operational, provides an opportunity for new knowledge. Notably, the literature is scant when the added variable of rapid unplanned change is included in the combination of leadership and change. This study sought to better understand the impact of specific leadership behaviors and the impact on an organization during rapid, unplanned …

The Longitudinal Effects Of A Family And Sleep Supportive Intervention On Service Member Anger And Resilience, Shalene Joyce Allen

Dissertations and Theses

The vast majority of workplace intervention research on employee anger and resilience primarily focuses on individual-level strategies for mitigating employee anger and resilience outcomes in the workplace, with no studies having examined these outcomes with tangible occupational health interventions utilizing organizational-level techniques. Thus, the current study extends the literature on how to provide improvements in employee anger and resilience using higher system and organizational change mechanisms by providing evidence-based support for the effectiveness of a Total Worker Health® intervention, referred to as the Family and Sleep Supportive Intervention Training (FaSST). This approach employs both health protection and health promotion strategies …

Exploring And Exploiting The Dynamics Of Networks In Complex Applied Research Projects: A Reflection On Learning In Action, Paul Coughlan, David Coghlan, Clare Rigg, Denise O'Leary

Books/Book Chapters

Since 1984, the European Union (EU) has supported research and development activities covering almost all scientific disciplines through a series of multi-annual Framework Programmes. The current programme is Horizon 2020. Common across the key indicators of research project performance have been actions by companies, including introduce and test innovations new to the company or the market. Initiatives to achieve these objectives require researchers to generate transdisciplinary knowledge in partnership with practitioners as co-researchers. This paper reflects on the authors’ experience of engaging in five EU-funded complex applied research projects over 20 years. The paper locates the process of the five …

Organizational Leadership In Funeral Homes During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Lafonda L. Ehlers

Doctor of Education (Ed.D)

The purpose of this non-experimental, quantitative study was to describe the impact that the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic had on essential elements of organizational leadership in the funeral home industry. A quantitative, cross-sectional survey approach was utilized as this study was intended to be a stand-alone study to provide a snapshot of current organizational elements of funeral homes impacted after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. All the employees of a six-location, family-owned funeral home in the Midwest, with the exception of two employees the researcher had direct supervision over, were emailed a survey titled A Non-Experimental, Quantitative Study …

The Effect Of Destructive Leadership On Self-Efficacy And Counterproductive Work Behaviors: A Research On Service Sector Employees In Mersin, Turkey, Murat Aydinay, Aysehan Cakici, A. Celil Cakici

Journal of Global Business Insights

The aim of this study was to find out the effect of destructive leadership on employees’ self-efficacy and counterproductive work behaviors. The data was collected from a convenience sample of 486 service sector employees in Mersin, Turkey. Descriptive statistics, explanatory factor analysis, and regression analysis were conducted to analyze the data. The results showed that lack of competence in leadership, excessive authoritarianism, and favoritism dimensions increased the organization-oriented counterproductive work behaviors while resistance to technology and change dimension decreased these behaviors. In contrast, insensitivity to subordinates had no effect on counterproductive work behaviors. Furthermore, destructive leadership had no effect on …

Servant Leadership And Conflict Adaptivity In Local Government Leaders, June F. Mighty

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Government organizations’ focus on public service provides a fertile ground for conflict due to competing interests and goals. Conflicts exist and persist because of workplace pressures such as unstable political climates, budget restrictions, technological advances, a diverse workforce, disruptive change, and organizational transformation. Although typically risk-averse, these organizations need flexible and adaptive leaders who exhibit the appropriate behaviors in the best interests of the organization and the community. Servant-leaders seem likely to demonstrate conflict adaptivity due to their focus on serving the needs of followers and other stakeholders, which may require different conflict styles at different times and in different …

Changing An Institutional Environment Through Appreciative Inquiry: Rochester Institute Of Technology’S College Of Liberal Arts, Corinna Schlombs, Ann Howard, Caroline Delong, Jessica Lieberman

The Seneca Falls Dialogues Journal

This article introduces readers to Appreciative Inquiry as a form of feminist engagement in higher education. Appreciative Inquiry is a strength-based approach to organizational change that builds on positive psychology as well as social construction of language. At Rochester Institute’s College of Liberal Arts, a group of women faculty currently pursues an Appreciative Inquiry process to change their institutional environment to make it more beneficial to the success of women (and colleagues of all genders) rather than changing themselves to better fit into the existing environment. At the 2014 Seneca Falls Dialogues, members of this group engaged conference participants in …

The Conflict Between Generations In The Workplace., Francisca De Souza Smith

Business ETD Collections

This paper presents a study on the Conflict of Generations in the Workplace. We live in a period of rapid change, and much knowledge about the incorporation of young people into the labour force has been widely disseminated. According to literature theories, they are called Generation Y. But we must remember the existence of previous generations inserted in the same desktop, they are: Veterans, Baby Boomers and Generation X. Each generation has a perception, and different expectations which can cause conflicts, this subject has been studied by many researchers. The scientific study was based on a theoretical study by several …

Covid-19 And Mass Sections In Business Education: Adaptation And Innovation Stemming From The Emergency Online Transition, Marina Sebastijanovic, Olivia Miljanic, Emese Felvegi

Southwestern Business Administration Journal

This paper describes three instructional design cases impacting over 3,500 students annually and taught by midcareer female mass section faculty from one of the largest business schools at a tier-one public research university in the Southern region of the US. The three instructors of mass sections describe how they transitioned their face-to-face or hybrid courses from “Emergency Response Teaching” mode to considered distance learning implementation during the COVID-19 crisis. The cases include discussions of learning management system supplements, improvements to peer-to-peer interactions, course structure changes impacting student success, and remote experiential learning group projects featuring community partners. The challenges and …