Digital Commons Network^™

Succession Planning In Smes: An Empirical Analysis, Jaideep Motwani, Nancy M. Levenburg, Thomas V. Schwarz, Charles Blankson

Peer Reviewed Articles

This study reports the results from a survey of 368 family-owned small to medium size enterprises (SMEs) with regard to the importance, nature, and extent of succession planning. By categorizing SMEs according to their annual revenues, total number of employees, and number of family members employed within the firm, significant differences were found between larger and smaller firms. Consistent with extant literature, the findings reveal that most family members join the firm for altruistic reasons. Issues related to family relationships were rated as significantly more important in firms in which more family members were employed within the firm. Moreover, for …

Human Resources Management: An Exploration Of Strategic Human Resources Management In Michigan Police Organizations, Jason L. Hunt

Masters Theses

There exists in the law enforcement community an antiquated notion that reactive management policies and practices are sufficient for the day-to-day operations of police organizations (Tafoya 1986,1990; Manning, 1997; Anderson, 2000). The law enforcement community remains highly resistant to change and unfortunately maintaining the ‘status quo’ inhibits the ability of police organizations to prepare for the uncertainties of an ever-changing environment (Tafoya, 1990; Manning, 1997; Anderson 2000).

The research presented here demonstrates the need for the law enforcement community to evaluate management strategies and move toward proactive management practices that are promoted from within the organization rather than from outside …

Grand Valley Forum, Volume 030, Number 17, November 21, 2005, Grand Valley State University

2005-2006, Volume 30

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

Evolution Of Leadership Theories, Ann M. Maslanka

Masters Theses

Evolution of Leadership Theories is a comprehensive study of leadership trends over the years, and in various contexts and theoretical foundations. This study presents the history of dominant leadership theories and research, beginning with the Great man thesis and Trait theory, to the Transformational and Transactional leadership styles to various leadership characteristics. This thesis also offers an example of how a current health care organization utilizes leadership knowledge through an employee satisfaction survey. The researcher took questions from an employee satisfaction survey that directly related to leadership and analyzed how questions as such are beneficial for improving employee job satisfaction. …

Grand Valley Forum, Volume 028, Number 39, June 7, 2004, Grand Valley State University

2003-2004, Volume 28

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

Grand Valley Forum, Volume 028, Number 30, March 15, 2004, Grand Valley State University

2003-2004, Volume 28

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

Transnational Activist Networks And The Emergence Of Labor Internationalism In The Nafta Countries, Joel Stillerman

Peer Reviewed Articles

Recent accounts of transnational activism have examined a variety of social movement organizations (SMOs) but have paid little attention to labor transnationalism. This article utilizes and adapts this new transnational social movements scholarship to understand contemporary labor activism in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) countries. Exploring the preexisting networks and intramovement cleavages that helped spawn labor opposition to NAFTA, it focuses on labor activists' complaints under the treaty's labor side accord. I explore how rising political opportunities associated with the treaty and its new institutions created new political arenas, targets for activists, and incentives for cross-border collaboration. The …

Grand Valley Forum, Volume 027, Number 03, July 29, 2002, Grand Valley State University

2002-2003, Volume 27

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

Satisfied Correctional Staff : A Review Of The Literature On The Correlates Of Correctional Staff Job Satisfaction, Eric G. Lambert, Nancy L. Hogan, Shannon M. Barton

Peer Reviewed Publications

During the past decade, there has been increasing pressure on correctional agencies to attract and keep quality staff. Raising worker job satisfaction is seen as a fundamental way of decreasing turnover. There has been a considerable amount of research in the area of the possible causes of correctional staff job satisfaction and, to a lesser extent, the possible consequences of job satisfaction. However, due to the numerous studies, some with conflicting results, it is difficult to understand clearly the factors associated with job satisfaction. A review of the literature is presented to provide a better understanding of correctional staff job …

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.

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.

A Community Of Voices: Using Allegory As An Interpretive Device In Action Research On Organizational Change, Joseph W. Grubbs

Peer Reviewed Articles - Public, Nonprofit, and Health Administration

Organizational change involves patterns of engagement across organizational lines and thus carries important cultural implications for participants and groups within communities of organizations. This article proposes using allegory as an interpretive device in the study of organizational change. Allegory allows organizational research to appreciate the way “characters” introduce distinct qualities into the change experience. Based on an action research program with public organizations in the state of Delaware, the article reveals the promise of allegory both for explicating theory and informing reflexive practice.

Perceived Knowledge Of Heart Failure And Adherence To Self-Care Recommendations, Cheryl Lynn Van Ess

Masters Theses

During the last decade, research has indicated that patient education is an essential component in the comprehensive management of heart failure. However, few data are available that evaluate how effective that education is and the relationship between knowledge and self-care adherence. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between patients’ perceived knowledge of heart failure and their reported self-care adherence with diet, exercise, and medication in the management of their chronic disease. Orem’s self-care theory provided the framework for this study.

This study was a secondary analysis of the baseline data collected from a self-reporting questionnaire …

Performance Improvement In International Environments: Designing Individual Performance Interventions To Fit National Cultures, Carol M. Sanchez

Peer Reviewed Articles

This article examines how internationalization might affect the design of individual performance improvement approaches in organizations. It begins by examining knowledge that has been learned principally from the North American context of what improves an individual's performance. Then, we discuss motivators, attitudes. and behaviors of workers and how they may vary among workers in different national cultural contexts. In short, we examine individual performance improvement for its cross‐border effectiveness, using various models of national cultural differences. By doing this, we hope to provide an understanding of how performance improvement systems might require modification to fit with non‐North American work environments.

Different Minds And Common Problems: Geert Hofstede's Research On National Cultures, Carol M. Sanchez, Dawn M. Curtis

Peer Reviewed Articles

This article discusses Geert Hofstede's work on national cultural differences. It explains how Hofstede's model of the dimensions of national culture might be of use to performance improvement professionals as they try to solve familiar, and perhaps not so familiar, problems in international settings. Hofstede's work, first published in 1980, argues that many management theories, such as those of Herzberr, Mausner, and Snyderman (1959), Maslow (1970), and McGregor (1960), are not valid worldwide be cause the authors are subject to cultural bias that is manifested in their own cultural makeup. Hofstede's research has shown that national cultures tend vary on …

Therapeutic Touch For Treatment Of Chronic Pain Related To Fibromyalgia, Lois M. Christian

Masters Theses

Therapeutic touch (TT) has been used to treat persons with many different illnesses, especially those with chronic pain. The purpose of this study was to determine if TT reduces fibromyalgia pain.

In this study five TT treatments were given to each of 10 female subjects with fibromyaIgia from 36 to 59 years old using a quasi-experimental single-subject design.

Using a visual Analogue Scale (VAS) to measure the subject's pain before and after each of 5 TT treatments, a repeated measures ANOVA was employed to analyze the data. .A significant difference in pain levels was found between the pre- and post-test …

Ambulatory Surgery Nurses' Perceptions Of Their Ability To Provide Individualized Patient Care, Rebecca L. Brown

Masters Theses

This descriptive correlational study examined the extent to which nurses in an ambulatory surgery practice environment perceive their ability to individualize patient care. As patients shift to the outpatient setting, it is important to look at the effect this may have on individualizing patient care, a concept rooted in the foundation of the profession of nursing. Registered nurses from four ambulatory surgery sites within one large health care system in western Michigan were asked to rate the frequency which they performed select nursing care actions using the 45-item .Ambulatory Individualized Care Index (AICl). modified from van Servellen's (1988a) Individualized Care …

Resource Consultation Model In Gifted Education To Support Talent Development In Today's Inclusive Schools, Robert J. Kirschenbaum, Dorothy Ciner Armstrong, Mary S. Landrum

Peer Reviewed Articles

This article discusses the advantages and challenges that educators of gifted, talented, and creative students may encounter when taking on the new role of classroom consultant rather than, as they have typically done previously, directly providing programming and services to the students themselves. A discussion of the use of the consultation model within a gifted education program concludes the article.

Environmental Change And Management Staffing: An Empirical Examination Of The Electric Utilities Industry, Ram Subramanian, Carol M. Sanchez

Peer Reviewed Articles

This paper examines the relationship between environmental change, changes in competitive dynamics, and top management staffing in the electric utilities industry during the period surrounding the passage of the Energy Policy Act of 1992 (EPAct 92). The findings suggest that following the passage of the EPAct 92, competition in the electric utilities industry intensified placing greater emphasis on achieving internal, firm-level efficiencies. This external environmental change and the corresponding shift in the competitive context resulted in an adjustment in the composition of the top management coalition in these firms. The dominant coalition following the EPAct 92 consisted of older managers …

Environmental Regulatory Influence And Product Innovation: The Contingency Effects Of Organizational Characteristics, Carol M. Sanchez, William Mckinley

Peer Reviewed Articles

This paper examines the relationship between environmental regulatory influence and product innovation in a multi-industry sample of manufacturing organizations. Our theory argues that the influence of environmental regulation on the level of product innovation in a manufacturing organization is at least partially contingent on the organization's internal characteristics -- in particular, its structural flexibility and production process flexibility. Hypotheses are derived from our theory and tested, and the results are consistent with the conclusion that structural flexibility and production process flexibility moderate the environmental regulatory influence-product innovation relationship. Whether environmental regulation inhibits or promotes product innovation seems to depend at …

Organization Redesign: A Case Study, Ceasar Douglas

West Michigan Business Review

No abstract provided.

Lanthorn, Vol. 31, No. 17, January 9, 1997, Grand Valley State University

Volume 31, July 18, 1996 - April 17, 1997

Lanthorn is Grand Valley State's student newspaper, published from 1968 to the present.

Diversity Management: An Administrative Case Study In A Tax-Exempt Human Service Organization, Jerry L. Johnson

Masters Theses

Diversity management is a business strategy that is intended to create an organizational climate where people from diverse backgrounds can succeed based on their work performance and not their personal similarities or differences with the organization's leadership. Diversity management programs are intended to help business remove barriers resulting from discrimination.; The present study investigated the need for a diversity management program in a tax-exempt human service organization. The perceptions and attitudes of organization employees, measured by survey instruments, in conjunction with an employee compensation study, provided the data for this investigation.; The instrument designed for this study and the random …

The Relationship Between Locus Of Control, Powerlessness, And Job Satisfaction Among Registered Nurses, Evelyn C. Wirsing

Masters Theses

A cross-sectional descriptive correlational design was used to investigate the following research questions: (a) How much variation in nurses' satisfaction can be predicted from locus of control and powerlessness? and (b) are there statistically significant (p {dollar}<{dollar}.05) differences in job satisfaction among nurses based upon their primary area of practice, highest earned degree, length of employment in current position, and employment status? A random sample of 300 staff nurses from a large acute care teaching hospital was surveyed utilizing a four-part questionnaire. The response rate was 51% (N = 152). Powerlessness accounted for 29% of the variance in job satisfaction scores and locus of control accounted for none of the variation in job satisfaction. Secondly, a weekly significant difference (F(5, 146) = 2.29, p {dollar}<{dollar}.05) in job satisfaction scores existed among clinical specialty groups, however no significant differences in job satisfaction were found for the remaining professional characteristics.

What Is The Relationship Between Perceived Job Stress, Job Satisfaction, And Psychological Symptoms Of Critical Care Nurses?, Barbara L. Hooper

Masters Theses

House's Stress Paradigm provided the theoretical framework for this study which examined the relationship between job satisfaction and job stress, and the correlation of job stress with the experience of psychological symptoms in a sample of 32 critical care nurses from an urban midwestern hospital. The Brief Symptom Inventory and Atwood and Hinshaw's Nursing Job Satisfaction and Job Stress Scales were used to measure the variables. A moderately strong correlation (r = {dollar}-{dollar}.63, p =.001) was found between job satisfaction and perceived job stress. No significant relationship was found between perceived job stress and psychological symptoms. These findings suggest that …

Grand Valley Forum, Volume 015, Number 18, December 3, 1990, Grand Valley State University

1990-1991, Volume 15

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

Grand Valley Forum, Volume 013, Number 37, June 5, 1989, Grand Valley State University

1988-1989, Volume 13

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

Lanthorn, Vol. 23, No. 01, May 4, 1988, Grand Valley State University

Volume 23, May 4, 1988 - May 31, 1989

Lanthorn is Grand Valley State's student newspaper, published from 1968 to the present.

Becoming A Writing Teacher: From Confusion To Confidence, Julie A. Devers

Language Arts Journal of Michigan

No abstract provided.

The Effect Of A Change Intervention Within The Framework Of Organization Development On The Frequency Of Use Of Nursing Diagnosis, Sandi Nuberg Gladstone

Masters Theses

Although 64% of the 32 registered nurses who comprised the staff of a pediatric unit had been formally educated in the use of nursing diagnosis, only 27.4% of individualized additions to the nursing care plans were accepted nursing diagnoses. An intervention based on Change Theory as incorporated in an Organization Development framework was initiated to increase the addition of accepted nursing diagnoses to the standard nursing care plans. The effect of the process was followed through the audit of 229 nursing care plans over a thirteen month period using a time series design. Following the intervention, 74.4% of individualized entries …