Digital Commons Network^™

Using Complexity Theory To Select Between Leaders And Managers, Michael W. Jordan

Theses and Graduate Projects

Several authors have attempted recently to extend Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS) theory to organizations and business management (Wheatley, 1992; Lind, 1994; Beccone, 1998; Zimmerman, Lindberg & Plsek, 1998, Eoyang & Olson, 2001). The theory might be useful for practitioners, but it cannot provide detailed scientific predictions. The following questions are posed for analysis: Could CAS theory be applied to hiring and promoting leaders and managers? Would it be possible, and would it make sense, for organizations to identify emergent leaders as management prospects given Beccone's analysis of the distinction between leaders and managers? How might the procedures and results likely …

Discipleship: Empowering Followers For The Modern Church, Gordon Thomas

Theses and Graduate Projects

The modern church finds itself under increasing pressure as the number of individuals entering the ministry continues to fall short of the number accepting vocational calls outside of ministry or retiring. Churches of all denominations are looking for creative ways to re-engage their members into accepting a broader range of responsibility in the church. The term many are using is 'discipleship'.

This study will first examine the stewardship theory developed by Peter Block - the choice of service over self-interest. This theory will then be contrasted with the work done by Pastor Michael Foss in his recent book Power Surge. …

Training Practices In School Consultation: Twenty Years Later, Terri Owens

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Consultation has long been noted in the literature as a preferred role of school psychologists (Curtis & Zins, 1980; Gutkin & Curtis, 1982). Yet, few studies have examined University training practices in the area of consultation. This study, in part, replicated a study conducted by Meyers, Wurtz, and Flanagan (1981) that examined training practices 20 years ago. Currently, Program Directors from school psychology training programs in the United States were asked to describe how their training program addressed consultation. The number of courses offered in consultation, the methods used to teach consultation, and the models of consultation taught to school …

The Sustaining Factors Of Service-Learning At A National Leader School: A Case Study, Bruce J. Pontbriand

Thesis, Dissertations, Student Creative Activity, and Scholarship

This case study examines the sustaining factors of a fully implemented and nationally recognized high school service-learning program. More specifically, it investigates why Community Service Learning has sustained itself for nine years at a New England high school recognized as a National Service-Learning Leader School by the Corporation for National Service. The study describes the process of adoption, design, implementation, and paths to institutionalization. It also considers the organizational conditions that promoted institutionalization at this site. The research approach was primarily qualitative. The study exposes the broad narrative of the case from the perspective off Our data sources: observations, documents …

Genre Studies: Temporary Homogeneous Grouping To Improve Reading Or Merely Another Form Of Tracking?, Brenda Wright Campbell Edd

Dissertations

For the last fifty years, raising the achievement levels of students thought to be “at-risk” has proven to be one of the most difficult and vexing problems facing educators. Although many different strategies have been tried with varying levels of success, no single at-risk solution has emerged that both promotes significant achievement gains and helps to narrow the achievement gap between people of color and whites. This study examined the effectiveness of a particular district-wide literacy strategy in its first year that focused on literacy to educate students identified as “at-risk”. Specifically, this study used data gathered from two measures …

Leadership For Inter-Organization Collaboration, Dawn Cvengros

Theses and Graduate Projects

This work related project implemented strategies of leadership behavior designed to assist representatives from organizations that represent state and local government agencies, nonprofit organizations, and industry make advancements to develop a sustainable collaboration among these organizations. The representatives voluntarily convene to improve the nutritional wellness of low income people in Minnesota. The dynamics of strategic leadership theory as it was applied to this project are illustrated. The purpose of this project was to identify ways to assist them inter-organization collaboration (IOC) achieve the goal: to develop and sustain a cohesive, visible, inclusive, and productive collaboration among member organizations. The objective …

Cultivating Purpose & Meaning In Health Care Employees: A Case Study Of Spirituality Integrated Within An Organization, Denise Cleveland

Theses and Graduate Projects

This case study explores the impact of spirituality between an organization and employee. The literature supports a growing interest among leaders in the idea of integrating spirituality into the workplace. Many leaders are recognizing the role of spirituality in fostering the human spirit to create relationships and systems that allow people to feel valued and supported. These values contribute to a sense of community within the work environment. This study seeks to understand more about the attributes, characteristics and outcomes of an organization that integrates spirituality throughout its organizational culture.

Southeastern Law Librarian Spring 2002, Seaall

Newsletters

No abstract provided.

Financial Performance Of Insurance Companies Following Initial Public Offerings, Kulkanya Napompech

Doctoral Dissertations

The quality of insurance companies is a very significant societal issue. Policyholders pay premiums assuming indemnity of their potential losses. It is essential that an insurer be able to meet its contractual obligations when a loss occurs. An initial public offering provides an infusion of capital and an expansion of resources available to a firm. Thus, the objective of this study is to examine the financial and operating impacts of initial public offerings during 1980–2000 on insurance companies.

Chapter 2 examines changes in operating performance of property/casualty insurance companies following initial public offerings. I find that following initial public offerings, …

Organizational Alignment: A Tool For Obtaining Greater Organizational Efficiency And Effectiveness In A State Government Agency, Patricia A. Collins

Dissertations

This study focuses on the modem day use of TQM, reengineering and privatization initiatives to gain efficiency and effectiveness in government operations, and the impact of alignment on the successful implementation of these three initiatives. A large state government agency which is currently using TQM, reengineering and privatization was used as a case study. Two-hundred-and-twenty-four employees were voluntary participants. This study examined three research questions: 1. Could the level of alignment, as hypothesized by Labovitz and Rosansky, be replicated with a sample of public agency employees? 2. Is the agency aligned, based on the Labovitz and Rosansky model, to successfully …

Communication Tactics For Empowering Employees: A Guidebook For Organizations And Managers, Todd Michael Pasley

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to establish communication tactics that apply to various communication situations in an empowerment context. The creation of such a reference source will offer a valuable resource for organizations and managers that wish to implement or change empowerment initiatives.

The completion of the study has yielded a guidebook consisting of case studies that offer solutions to communication problems based on literary research. The case studies will act as a guide for effective communication tactics when implementing or altering an empowerment initiative.

A non-scientific content analysis of relevant literature was completed to ascertain communication tactics and …

Grand Valley Forum, Volume 026, Number 29, March 4, 2002, Grand Valley State University

2001-2002, Volume 26

Grand Valley Forum is Grand Valley State's faculty and staff newsletter, published from 1976 to the present.

Ministry Formation Program Newsletter, Spring 2002

Ministry Formation Program Newsletter

A newsletter published for Deaf Catholics in Chicago, IL

Ministry Formation Program Newsletter Finding Aid

Race, Welfare Reform, And Nonprofit Organizations, Michael Reisch, David Sommerfeld

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

This article presents research on the impact of welfare reform on 90 nonprofit organizations in Southeast Michigan. Utilizing a refined survey instrument, in-depth interviews and focus groups with agency executives and staff, and the analysis of agency documents, it assesses how the racial characteristics of agencies' client populations affected the organizational consequences of welfare reform. The study confirmed that welfare reform has affected the ability of nonprofit organizations to meet the increased expectations generated by recent legislation. These effects have been particularly pronounced among agencies serving a high proportion of racial minority clients.

The Deaf Catholic, March-April 2002

ICDA The Deaf Catholic

A newsletter published for Deaf Catholics in USA

ICDA The Deaf CatholicFinding Aid

Spartan Daily, February 26, 2002, San Jose State University, School Of Journalism And Mass Communications

Spartan Daily (School of Journalism and Mass Communications)

Volume 118, Issue 23

The Yakunin Vs. Dvorkin Trial And The Emerging Religious Pluralism In Russia, Marat S. Shterin Ph.D., James T. Richardson Ph.D.

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

This article examines the sociological and historical context of an important legal case which took place in 1997 in Moscow and involved so called "sects and cults" operating in Russia. The case was a libel action brought against Alexander Dvorkin, a functionary of the Moscow Patriarchy of the Russian Orthodox Church, who had published some extremely damning material about a number of newer and smaller faiths in Russia. The plaintiff was the Committee for Protection of Human Rights, headed by noted Soviet dissident, Father Gleb Yakunin. The article discusses the court proceedings in a wider socio-historical context, showing the ways …

Grand Valley Forum, Volume 026, Number 22, January 14, 2002, Grand Valley State University

2001-2002, Volume 26

Grand Valley Forum is Grand Valley State's faculty and staff newsletter, published from 1976 to the present.

Comparing Job Component Validity To Observed Validity Across Jobs, David Charles Morris

Theses Digitization Project

Five hundred and eighteen observed validity coefficients based on correlations between commercially available test data and supervisory ratings of overall job performances were collected in 89 different job titles. Using Dictionary of Occupational Title Codes, Job Component Validity (JUV) estimates based on similar job titles residing in the PAQ Service database were collected and averaged across the General Aptitude Test.

Achieving Alignment Through Adaptive Leadership, Susan Schultze

Theses and Graduate Projects

This application project will focus on achieving strategic alignment through adaptive leadership. It will look at intrinsic motivation as a means for adaptive leadership to develop the entrepreneurial spirit within an organization. It will develop the intrinsic motivation building blocks as a means of working through alignment frameworks. The emphasis will be on components that can be used at the workgroup level, as individuals and as a team. The Five Disciplines of the Learning Organization support the concept of connectivity across an organization that achieves alignment through iterations of the alignment model. This project will also refer to complex adaptive …

Service-Learning On American Campuses: Challenges For Pedagogy And Practice, Sandra Enos

Higher Education

Over the past twenty years, there has been a steady increase in the number of students involved in community service and service-learning programs on college campuses. A recent report by Campus Compact (2003) noted that 33 percent of college students on its member campuses were engaged in community service programs during the last academic year. Surveys by Compact found that eleven percent of higher education faculty offered an average of 30 service-learning courses on campuses (Campus Compact 2003, 2003a). Increasingly, institutions of higher education are supporting these efforts by establishing community service and service-learning offices, staffing them, and by providing …

Handling Competing Values In Ethics, Economics, & Management: A Cross-Cultural Empirical Study Of American & Danish Managerial Attitudes, Annemette Kruse Jensen

Masters Culminating Experiences (1993-2011)

This empirical cross-cultural research was conducted to confirm four hypotheses. The hypotheses included: 1) For American managers there will be at least a 0.55 correlation or more among their ethics, economic, and management attitudes; 2) American managers more than Danish managers will tend to emphasize control in their ethics, economic, and management attitudes; 3) Danish managers more than American managers will exhibit emphasis and correlation among Virtue Ethics, Community Capitalism, and Human Relations theories and attitudes; 4) Danish managers more than American managers will exhibit extreme managerial practice attitudes according to the Competing Values Framework. The limits of the research …

Book Review

Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology

No abstract provided.

African Americans’ Perceptions Of Workplace Equity: A Starting Point, Dan K. Hibbler Ph.D.

School of Continuing and Professional Studies Faculty and Staff Works

For the past several decades, leisure researchers have investigated

the impact that race has on leisure behavior and preferences, but

there remains a paucity of research that addresses the issue of race in the leisure services workplace. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate the perceptions of inequity, discrimination, and promotion opportunities among African Americans in the field of public parks and recreation. The study was conducted in multiple phases, and all included African Americans who were working for public recreation agencies in a midwestern state. First, telephone interviews were conducted with 11 African American middle managers. A …

2002 Rosabeth Moss Kanter Award For Excellence In Work-Family Research Publication, Center For Families, Center For Work And Families

Center for Families Publications

No abstract provided.

Veteran Teacher Perceptions Of The Grossmont Model Of Peer Assistance And Review. Is It A Viable Alternative To Traditional Evaluation?, Edwin L. Basilio Edd

Dissertations

This study looked at factors that influenced veteran teacher perceptions of the newly implemented Peer Assistance and Review (PAR) program in the Grossmont Union High School District. More specifically, the study explored (1) reasons why teachers with at least five years of successful teaching experience voluntarily chose to forfeit their regularly scheduled traditional evaluation and substitute it with a peer review, (2) factors that contributed to positive perceptions of the PAR program, (3) factors that contributed to negative perceptions of the PAR program, and (4) perceived differences between the traditional and PAR methods of teacher evaluation. This study incorporated multiple …

Impact Of Transformational Leadership On Follower Development And Performance: A Field Experiment, Taly Dvir, Dov Eden, Bruce Avolio, Boas Shamir

Department of Management: Faculty Publications

In a longitudinal, randomized field experiment, we tested the impact of transformational leadership, enhanced hy training, on follower development and performance. Experimental group leaders received transformational leadership training, and control group leaders, eclectic leadership training. The sample included 54 military leaders, their 90 direct followers, and 724 indirect followers. Results indicated the leaders in the experimental group had a more positive impact on direct followers' development and on indirect followers' performance than did the leaders in the control group.

Building Bridges And Crossing Borders: Using Service Learning To Overcome Cultural Barriers To Collaboration Between Science And Education Departments, Kevin Carr

Service Learning, General

Science faculty and teacher education faculty need to coordinate in order to prepare teachers to teach science. This article describes several successful and unsuccessful collaboration efforts between scientists and educators that took place during the creation of an interdepartmental service learning project, Science Outreach, at George Fox University.

The Roles And Attributes Of Human Resource Leaders During Organizational Restructuring, Alison Anne Brown

Dissertations

Problem. As the number of organizations involved in major restructuring increases, Human Resource (HR) leaders find themselves in a labyrinth of evolving roles. How might they facilitate the organization's desire to successfully wed human needs and experiences to profit expectations and strategies?

Purpose. This qualitative study seeks to increase understanding of the dual role played by human resource leadership, as they are both survivors and facilitators of organizational restructuring. It answers the overarching question: What are the unique contributions made by HR leaders to the organizational restructuring process?

Methodology. Through a purposive sampling process, 11 HR leaders were identified who …

Policing Guns And Youth Violence, Jeffrey A. Fagan

Faculty Scholarship

To combat the epidemic of youth gun violence in the 1980s and 1990s, law enforcement agencies across the United States adopted a variety of innovative strategies. This article presents case studies of eight cities' efforts to police gun crime. Some cities emphasized police-citizen partnerships to address youth violence, whereas others focused on aggressive enforcement against youth suspected of even minor criminal activity. Still others attempted to change youth behavior through "soft" strategies built on alternatives to arrest. Finally, some cities used a combination of approaches. Key findings discussed in this article include:

• Law enforcement agencies that emphasized police-citizen cooperation benefited …