Digital Commons Network^™

Effects Of Substance Abuse Services On Child Reunification, Peter Charles Shorts

Theses Digitization Project

The purpose of this study was to conduct a descriptive and inferential analysis of the effect of substance abuse treatment upon the family reunification process. The research revealed a significant relationship between the median age of custodial parents whose parental rights were terminated and the median age of parents whose parental rights were not terminated.

Face-To-Face Communication Versus Memo Communication To Announce Mergers And Acquisitions The Importance Of Media Richness, Janell Marie Hopeck

Theses Digitization Project

The purpose of this study was to examine the current research on mergers and acquisitions which includes organizational factors, such as communication processes, and their impact on employee reactions. The current study addresses this issue through a simulated M&A announcement laboratory experiment with 156 CSUSB undergraduate students.

The Effects Of The Attacks Of 9/11 On Organizational Policies, Employee Attitudes And Workers’ Psychological States, Amy E. Hurley-Hanson, Cristina M. Giannantonio, Heidi Carlos, Jessica Harnett, Melanie Jetta, Madeline Mercier

Business Faculty Articles and Research

Problem statement: The attacks of September 11, 2001 (9/11) on the United States have had a profound effect on organizations and their employees. These effects occurred in the days and weeks immediately following the attacks, as well as in the years since the attacks occurred. In commemoration of the tenth anniversary of 9/11, this study focuses on the impact that the attacks of September 11, 2001 have had on organizational policies, employee attitudes and workers’ psychological states. Approach: Managers were surveyed regarding the effects of 9/11 on these issues. Results: The results of the study indicate that …

Quality Of Service And Treatment Adherence In Individuals With End Stage Renal Disease, Kyle Joseph Fraga

Theses Digitization Project

The purpose of this study will focus on the patient's attitudes about their treatment. There is a certain stigma attached to dialysis that makes it an undesirable form of treatment. Individuals on dialysis may feel dependent and vulnerable. In addition, hospitals and dialysis clinics can be an unwelcoming and intimidating place. A person's belief about their treatment will influence how well they adhere to it.

Communities As Allies, Joseph Schafer, Sean P. Varano, Nicholas Libby

Justice Studies Faculty Publications

A popular axiom attributed to British policing is the police are the public and the public are the police. Inherent in this term is a blurring of the distinction between the police and the public they serve; the police are cast as being little different from the citizenry and citizens are cast into a role of responsibility for the safety and well-being of the community. In effect, communities are framed as allies in the fight to ensure safe and secure neighborhoods. Across space and time this idea has held uneven sway within American policing ideologies. This essay considers the relationship …

Justice And Forgiveness: Self-Responsibility And Human Dignity In The Midst Of Confiict, Rakiya Farah

International Journal of Servant-Leadership

Amartya Sen (2006) notes, "The world in which we live is not only unjust, it is, arguably, extraordinarily unjust" (p. 237). We live in an imperfect world. Of that, there is no doubt. One of the defining features of the last century has been the sheer extent of social disintegration, economic turmoil, and human violence made more potent by technological advancement. It is no surprise, then, that the role of leadership has been placed under increasing scrutiny as the world seeks new ways to address its problems. The question of justice in an imperfect and conflict-ridden world is a fundamental …

Immigration And The Extreme Right: An Analysis Of Recent Voting Trends In Western Europe, Andrew Walchuk

Inquiry: The University of Arkansas Undergraduate Research Journal

Western European politics have been marked over the last couple of decades by a fierce debate about the place of Europe’s increasingly large immigrant population in society. Across the continent, far-right parties campaigning on nationalistic platforms opposing immigration have seen great electoral success. The debate is undoubtedly becoming more heated as more immigrants pour into the area, and these anti-immigrant parties seem to have established themselves in the political arena. Immigration does not appear to be slowing down at any point in the near future, so what is going to happen to these far-right parties as we move into the …

Servant-Leadership And Life Satisfaction: The Mediating Role Of Justice, Job Control, And Burnout, Jari Hakanen, Dirk Van Dierendonck

International Journal of Servant-Leadership

When it comes to identifying and meeting the psychological needs of people in an organization, it is servant-leadership that emphasizes this aspect most, more than any other leadership theory. Servant-leadership theory positions the leader as worker-centered, personal growth-oriented, and focused on providing a sense of purpose. This holistic approach to leadership helps people find an intrinsic satisfaction in their job by emphasizing their sense of work as a calling (Correia de Sousa & Van Dierendonck, 2010). It promotes a sense of community, empowerment, and autonomy. It is, therefore, to be expected that the influence of servant-leadership extends beyond the direct …

Leadership Program Outcomes Study: Essential Elements Of Leadership Trainings Offered To Marginalized Populations, Emily Halbur

Theses and Graduate Projects

ln order to better understand the purpose of and best practices associated with non-profit organizations offering leadership trainings to their constituents, 14 participants from two different organizations were interviewed about their experiences. These organizations work with two unique populations, those with intellectual disabilities and at-risk teens. The individuals interviewed were asked the same questions and their responses were compiled to help find themes within these two leadership trainings. Based on their responses, a list of seven criteria was assembled regarding what makes a leadership training successful from the perspective of the participants. For organizations looking to offer similar programs to …

The Role Of Conflict Management On Virtual Team Performance And Satisfaction, Pilar Pazos, Anil Ustun, Rolando Delaguila

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Faculty Publications

The role that input factors from project planning processes play on conflict emergence and conflict resolution in virtual teams is not well understood. Of particular interest for this paper is the role that factors during planning stages play in preventing interpersonal conflict, supporting conflict resolution and ultimately enhancing team outcomes in virtual team settings. This study examines the relationships among commitment to team goals, conflict management and team outcomes in virtual teams. First we provide an in depth review of relevant empirical findings. Next, we describe a study examining the relationships between three sets of variables: 1) goal commitment, 2) …

A Cultural Analysis Of Information Technology Offshore Outsourcing: An Exercise In Multi-Sited Ethnography Of Virtual Work, Tara Eaton

Wayne State University Dissertations

This study is an exploration of how ethnography and anthropological analysis can provide new understanding of transnational, multi-sited research phenomena. Research focused on the work activities of one American client organization and its Indian IT service provider situated in the global virtual field of Information Technology (IT) offshore outsourcing. The Principal Investigator adapted and applied an ethnographic approach for her fieldwork in order to understand the norms, beliefs, and values about work, as well as the relationship between cultural differences and virtual communication. Dissertation findings offer new insight for anthropological discussions of globalization as well as suggest further development of …

Don’T Be Such A Downer: Using Positive Psychology To Enhance The Value Of Negative Feedback, Allison L. O'Malley, Jane B. Gregory

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

Effective developmental feedback promotes a balanced and authentic view of employees' current state, thereby addressing strengths and weaknesses of employees. The authors address how organizations' increased emphasis on positivity can be reconciled with the delivery of negative feedback. Drawing on principles from positive psychology, the authors outline strategies managers can implement to increase the likelihood that negative feedback interventions will yield improved performance while promoting employee well-being.

Discovering The Potential Of Service Learning In Perugia, Italy: An Evaluation Of The Umbra Institute’S La Famiglia Italiana Project, Julie Falk

Capstone Collection

Today, American study abroad programs are increasingly shifting their focus to students’ community engagement efforts, one approach of which is service learning (Stone, 2008). Service learning principles and approach, however, are not always quickly and easily transported into other cultures. As an American pedagogical export, service learning in the study abroad context has the potential to overlook essential factors such as reciprocity, sustainability, and evaluation of student, faculty, and community partner experiences. This type of learning remains unexplored territory in many countries including Italy (Tosi, 2000). As the only American study abroad program of its kind in Perugia, Italy, The …

Transforming Lives And Communities: A Case Study On Building Partnerships In The Philippines Through Appreciative Inquiry, Rizalina L. Ababa

Capstone Collection

The growing number of poor in the Philippines is alarming. Neither the national government nor any individual organization acting alone has been able to alleviate the rising percentage of poverty. With this prevalent need in the country, networks, alliances and partnerships among several organizations, including faith-based organizations, have been established to help respond to the needs of those living in poverty.

OM Philippines–Cebu Ministries, a faith-based Christian organization was started in 2001. It has worked specifically among the poor through children’s programs in partnership with local Protestant churches. Like many NGOs, OM Philippines has been exploring new strategies to expand …

What Drives Productivity Growth At The Firm Level And Why Is It That Some Firms Outperform Their Peers?, Julie Ann Potter

Masters Culminating Experiences (1993-2011)

Firms appear to outperform their peers when defined as exhibiting increased productivity growth. Specific factors have been shown to have a causal effect upon increased total factor productivity and thus the firm level with the implementation of: the use and diffusion of technological progress; diversification of firm assets through the acquisition of high productivity growth plant assets; the integration of information technology and information communications technology and the creation of innovative capacities and efficiencies. Likewise, specific factors have been shown to have a causal effect upon increased labor productivity and thus firm level productivity growth: the sharing of employee experiences …

Blue-Collar Discourses Of Workplace Dignity: Using Outgroup Comparisons To Construct Positive Identities, Kristen Lucas

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

People generally possess a strong desire to construct positive, dignified work identities. However, this goal may be more challenging for some people, such as blue-collar workers, whose occupations may not offer qualities typically associated with workplace dignity. Interviews with 37 people from a blue-collar mining community reveal three central identity discourses about workplace dignity: All jobs are important and valuable; dignity is located in the quality of the job performed; and dignity emerges from the way people treat and are treated by others. Participants communicated these themes by backgrounding their own occupations and drawing comparisons between two outgroups, low-status, low-paid …

Female Drug Offenders Reflect On Their Experiences With A County Drug Court Program, James C. Roberts, Loreen Wolfer

The Qualitative Report

This paper examines the experiences of a group of female drug offenders who successfully completed a county drug court program in northeast Pennsylvania. Using the constant comparative method, we analyzed interviews with these women for thematic patterns in order to provide an evaluation of this program based on participants' subjective perceptions of its strengths and weaknesses. While other drug court evaluations identify rewards for good behavior and compassionate program staff as important contributing factors to participants' success, women in this study credited their recovery and successful completion of the program primarily to fear of punishment and program structure. Our analysis …

Optimization Strategies For Successful Ehr Adoption, Erin Faverty

Communication & Leadership Dissertations and Theses

The healthcare industry is experiencing a shift in care delivery and documentation as the nation moves toward electronic health record adoption (EHR). This project examines the benefits and hurdles to adoption faced within the industry and provides a detailed curriculum guide of strategies, approaches and materials for consultants assisting healthcare organizations in EHR implementation. The recommendations provided by this project are grounded in the theories of organizational culture as presented by Clifford Geertz (1977) and Michael Packanowsky (Griffin 2009, p. 252), as well as insights on the impacts of computer-mediated communication, as discussed by Joseph Walthers (Barrow, 2010). Materials presented …

Emergent Leadership In Virtual Work Teams, Natalie Learned

Communication & Leadership Dissertations and Theses

This dual method (quantitative and qualitative) study sought to discover the perceptions of leadership in virtual work teams. The ability to communicate among team members, in this environment, becomes increasingly difficult. Specifically, this study analyzed emergent leadership characteristics, as identified by participants, in a virtual work environment. The philosophical framework for this study is based on Boster’s (2006) concept “communication results in social influence.” This study is grounded in the theoretical work of Walther’s (1992) Social Information Processing CMC model, and Graen and Uhl-Bien’s (1995) relationship-based LMX model. The data obtained for this study was achieved through a survey of …

“Success Stories” As An Evidence Form: Organizational Legitimization In An International Technology Assistance Project, Cheryl Klimaszewski, Gail E. Bader, James M. Nyce

Library Staff Research and Scholarship

This paper looks at how evidence and success were constructed in Biblionet - Global Libraries Romania, an NGO-led, technology-based project in Romania. The main focus of Biblionet is to provide public access to computers and the internet in public libraries throughout Romania. Here, we discuss how project staff relied on one particular set of measures to legitimatize, validate and "sell" their project to audiences in Romania and in the West. This NGO tended to "demonstrate" success using relatively weak measures. Perhaps the most suspect of these were, paradoxically, appeals to" science," that is to say, "hard" numbers and and one-time, …

Faith-Based Organizations In A System Of Behavioral Health Care, Mark Dekraai, Denise Bulling, Nancy C. Shank, Alan J. Tomkins

Nancy Shank Publications

Through community service activities, and ministries to members within their congregations, faith communities will encounter individuals with behavioral health needs. This article suggests that faith communities have inherent resources that can enhance the reach and effectiveness of behavioral health systems. A framework is presented that will create a bridge of understanding about how behavioral health can leverage faith organization assets and how faith organizations can actively assist adults, children and families with behavioral health needs within the context of their faith and their community.

Job Demands, Social Support, And Work-Family Conflict: A Comparative Study Of Immigrant And Native Workers In The United States, Mamta U. Ojha

University of Kentucky Doctoral Dissertations

Over the last five decades, there has been an increase in the number of immigrants coming to and settling in the United States (U.S.). Limited research has explored the job and workplace characteristics that contribute to work-family conflict among immigrant workers. To fill this gap in knowledge this study examines the relationship of job demands, social support and worker characteristics to work-family conflict among immigrant and native workers in the U.S.

Using the 2002 National Study of Changing Workforce (NSCW), this exploratory study identifies the job demands, social support and socio-demographic factors related with time-based, and strain-based, work-family conflict among …

Finding The Right Fit: How Alternative Staffing Affects Worker Outcomes, Françoise Carré, Brandynn Holgate, Helen Levine

Center for Social Policy Publications

This report reviews our findings from two and one-half years of monitoring and evaluating the activities of four alternative staffing organizations (ASOs). ASOs are worker-centered, socialpurpose businesses created by community-based organizations and national nonprofits. These fee-for-service organizations use the model of temporary staffing services to help job seekers who face labor market barriers access work experience and potential employers. They place job seekers in temporary and “temp-to-perm” assignments with customer businesses, charging their customers a wage-based markup fee. This field of practice first emerged in the 1970s and grew rapidly in the 1990s; it now includes over 50 ASOs. Alternative …

Communicating Vision : A Linguistic Analysis Of Leadership Speeches, Debrah J. Martin

Dissertations

Leadership literature contains ample recommendations that leaders need to have a vision and be competent in visioning. A small subset of that literature recommends that leaders communicate their visions. There are few resources, however, that guide leaders how to communicate their visions. This study consists of an application of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), including Genre Theory, and an extension of SFL, Appraisal Theory, on four visionary speeches in the field of political discourse—Lincoln‘s Gettysburg Address, Churchill‘s ―We Shall Fight on the Beaches,‖ Kennedy‘s inaugural, and Martin Luther King Jr.‘s ―I Have a Dream‖—to discover how these leaders were able to …

Exploiting Borders: The Political Economy Of Local Backlash Against Undocumented Immigrants, Jamie Longazel, Benjamin Fleury-Steiner

Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work Faculty Publications

Four years prior to Arizona's passage of one of the most far-reaching pieces of anti-Latino immigrant legislation signed into law in decades,3 demands to "seal off the border"4 were being made thousands of miles from the U.S.-Mexico divide. In 2006, Hazleton, Pennsylvania, passed equally harsh legislation aimed at keeping undocumented immigrants out of their community. During this time, commentators described the local backlash in Hazleton and other small cities across the United States as akin to "the opening of a deep and profound fissure in the American landscape" 5 wherein "all immigration politics is local." 6 Yet, as the so-called …

A Public Marriage: A Comparison Of Organizational Change Communication Between Two Cultures Involved In A Municipal Government Facilities Merger, Sharon Michaela Dollar

Communication Theses - Archive

This study compares the change communication of two public organizations (a City and School District) during a municipal government facility merger as well as the effects of the merger on the organizations' cultures. It is unique in that the organizations merged only their facilities and not their business operations or organizational cultures. Therefore, the two organizations remained distinctly separate institutions. Data for this study consisted of 14 in-depth interviews. The results revealed that due to the separation in communication before the change, the School District had less formal communication with their employees as did the City. The limited communication resulted …

Religion, Politics, And Polity Replication: Religious Differences In Preferences For Institutional Design, Joshua D. Ambrosius

Political Science Faculty Publications

This article presents a theory of polity replication in which religious congregants prefer institutions in other realms of society, including the state, to be structured like their church. Polities, or systems of church governance and administration, generally take one of three forms: episcopal (hierarchical/centralized), presbyterian (collegial/regional), or congregational (autonomous/decentralized). When asked to cast a vote to shape institutions in a centralizing or decentralizing manner, voters are influenced by organizational values shaped by their respective religious traditions‘ polity structures. Past social scientific scholarship has neglected to explicitly connect religious affiliation, defined by polity, with members‘ stances on institutional design. However, previous …

Unionists, Loyalists, And Conflict Transformation In Northern Ireland, Lee A. Smithey

Sociology & Anthropology Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

The Relationship Between Spirituality And Personality, Kimberly C. Koessel

Dissertations

Current literature is lacking a theoretical framework for understanding spirituality within the context of psychological functioning. Despite empirical support for the potential psychological benefits of spirituality, conceptual differences underlying definitions and measurements of spirituality have impeded theory development. Additionally, very few studies have explored spirituality from a secular perspective. The purpose of this dissertation is to examine the relationship between spirituality and personality within a population of undergraduate and graduate students. This research obtains sample data through a demographic questionnaire, a measure of humanistic spirituality, and an inventory of normal personality. Quantitative statistical analyses are employed to explore a variety …

Exploring Justice For Crime Victims: Characteristics And Contexts Of Crime Victims' Experiences With The Criminal Justice System, Phillip James Stevenson

Dissertations

During the last three decades, crime victims have increasingly been recognized by the criminal justice system as more than just witnesses for the prosecution. For example, in all 50 states crime victims are afforded specific statutory rights ranging from being treated with dignity and respect to having the opportunity to participate in the justice process, the latter most commonly seen during the sentencing phase where victims address the court and their offenders and describes how the crime has impacted their lives. Additionally, an increase in the number and type of programs based on the philosophy of restorative justice in recent …