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2006

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Agenda And Reports, Juvenile Welfare Board, December 14, 2006, Juvenile Welfare Board Of Pinellas County Dec 2006

Agenda And Reports, Juvenile Welfare Board, December 14, 2006, Juvenile Welfare Board Of Pinellas County

Juvenile Welfare Board Agendas, Minutes, and Historical Audits

Agenda for the December 14, 2006, meeting of the Juvenile Welfare Board. Also included are previous meetings' minutes and documents to review before the meeting.


Volume 44, Number 33: December 14, 2006, University Of North Dakota Dec 2006

Volume 44, Number 33: December 14, 2006, University Of North Dakota

University Letter Archive

No abstract provided.


Volume 44, Number 32: December 12, 2006, University Of North Dakota Dec 2006

Volume 44, Number 32: December 12, 2006, University Of North Dakota

University Letter Archive

No abstract provided.


User Involvement And Perceived Usefulness Of Information Technology, Sanabel El-Hakeem El-Attar Dec 2006

User Involvement And Perceived Usefulness Of Information Technology, Sanabel El-Hakeem El-Attar

Theses and Dissertations

The present research investigated the extent to which users? perceived usefulness of IT was related to: (1) the user involvement in its design and implementation; (2) the user hierarchical position in the organization; (3) user years of service in the bank; and (4) user years of experience in banking business. In addition, the researcher examined the differences between males and females regarding the user involvement in design, involvement in implementation, and perception of usefulness of Information Technology (IT). The fifty-two bank users who participated in the study were volunteers from a major bank in the State of Mississippi. Seven research …


A Drive Towards Technology Girls Incorporated Of Cny Action Research Project, Lauren J. Hardee Dec 2006

A Drive Towards Technology Girls Incorporated Of Cny Action Research Project, Lauren J. Hardee

Regis University Student Publications (comprehensive collection)

When the technological system of an organization is deficient, it systematically promotes those deficiencies throughout the organization. The technical infrastructure of Girls Inc. was outdated, not standardized, and operationally deficient and hampered normal business activity. Given its practical application (French, et al.), an Action Research methodology was employed to identify the issues and solve the technological problems facing the Girls Inc. CNY organization. The result of this action research project is a framework for a technological infrastructure that prepares the Girls Inc. organization for the future.


Collaborative Co-Design: The Cal Poly Digital Teaching Library User Centric Approach, Mary M. Somerville, Navjit Brar Dec 2006

Collaborative Co-Design: The Cal Poly Digital Teaching Library User Centric Approach, Mary M. Somerville, Navjit Brar

Library Scholarship

Undergraduate students currently enrolled in US universities represent the first generations to grow up with the digital technologies developed and disseminated in the last decades of the 20th century. Having spent their entire lives using computers, videogames, digital music players, video cams, cell phones, email, instant messaging, and all the other tools and toys of contemporary technology, they think differently (Prensky, December 2001). As a consequence, today’s students are not the people that the US educational system was designed to teach (Prensky, October 2001). It is also the case that traditional design approaches are insufficient for developing enabling information management …


Editor's Introduction, Eric H. Kessler Dec 2006

Editor's Introduction, Eric H. Kessler

Organization Management Journal

No abstract provided.


“Nuts!” An Experiential Exercise In Ethics And Decision Making, D. Jeffrey Lenn Dec 2006

“Nuts!” An Experiential Exercise In Ethics And Decision Making, D. Jeffrey Lenn

Organization Management Journal

The current debate about how to address managerial misconduct in American business has renewed an interest in the role of ethics in business school curricula. The search for pedagogical tools by which to ensure effective teaching of ethics has led to experiential learning as an important method. This exercise introduces business ethics through a focus on a purchasing decision in a local grocery. It lays a foundation for understanding the interplay between ethics and everyday decision making in order to clarify the ethical dimension of decision making in business. The process of setting up the exercise as well as facilitating …


“Nuts!” An Experiential Exercise In Ethics And Decision Making, D. Jeffrey Lenn Dec 2006

“Nuts!” An Experiential Exercise In Ethics And Decision Making, D. Jeffrey Lenn

Organization Management Journal

The current debate about how to address managerial misconduct in American business has renewed an interest in the role of ethics in business school curricula. The search for pedagogical tools by which to ensure effective teaching of ethics has led to experiential learning as an important method. This exercise introduces business ethics through a focus on a purchasing decision in a local grocery. It lays a foundation for understanding the interplay between ethics and everyday decision making in order to clarify the ethical dimension of decision making in business. The process of setting up the exercise as well as facilitating …


Effective Empowerment In Organizations, Gary A. Yukl, Wendy S. Baker Dec 2006

Effective Empowerment In Organizations, Gary A. Yukl, Wendy S. Baker

Organization Management Journal

Psychological empowerment is the perception that workers can help determine their own work roles, accomplish meaningful work, and influence important decisions. Empowerment has been studied from different perspectives, including employee perceptions, leadership behaviors, and management programs. Despite positive rhetoric, programs designed to increase empowerment seldom achieve the benefits promised. Inconclusive and seemingly contradictory outcomes stem from the fact that few companies give employees significant control and access to management information. A half century of research suggests that empowerment strategies can offer real benefits. We outline facilitating conditions for effective empowerment, including characteristics of organizations, leaders, employees, and the work itself.


Effective Empowerment In Organizations, Gary A. Yukl, Wendy S. Baker Dec 2006

Effective Empowerment In Organizations, Gary A. Yukl, Wendy S. Baker

Organization Management Journal

Psychological empowerment is the perception that workers can help determine their own work roles, accomplish meaningful work, and influence important decisions. Empowerment has been studied from different perspectives, including employee perceptions, leadership behaviors, and management programs. Despite positive rhetoric, programs designed to increase empowerment seldom achieve the benefits promised. Inconclusive and seemingly contradictory outcomes stem from the fact that few companies give employees significant control and access to management information. A half century of research suggests that empowerment strategies can offer real benefits. We outline facilitating conditions for effective empowerment, including characteristics of organizations, leaders, employees, and the work itself.


Editor's Introduction, Eric H. Kessler Dec 2006

Editor's Introduction, Eric H. Kessler

Organization Management Journal

No abstract provided.


Into The Labyrinth:Excursions And Applications For Creative Process, Janice M. Francisco Dec 2006

Into The Labyrinth:Excursions And Applications For Creative Process, Janice M. Francisco

Creativity and Change Leadership Graduate Student Master's Projects

This project surveyed, analyzed and organized implicit references to creativity in labyrinth literature to assess the validity and context within which the labyrinth could be used as a creativity tool to facilitate creative change. The work discovered explicit links to the creativity concepts, processes/tools, models, and outcomes required to facilitate creative, transformational change. Implications for future studies suggest the opportunity to qualify and quantify the increased effect on creative production when Creative Problem Solving techniques are applied to the labyrinth experience; the ability to generate “in-the-moment” benefits of incubation, and the placement of the labyrinth within the full repertoire of …


Curious About Curiosity?, Sharon Walsh Dec 2006

Curious About Curiosity?, Sharon Walsh

Creativity and Change Leadership Graduate Student Master's Projects

There is a strong connection between creativity and curiosity. Curiosity is the foundation for creative people, creative process, and creative environment to foster innovation. To evaluate how curiosity stimulates creativity, this project explored the nature of curiosity and the role in creativity. The heart of this project is a review of literature, showing how psychological research has explored curiosity, and the application of curiosity as a central element in personal and business success. This literature review also unveils the key barriers to curiosity and how to overcome them using a variety of techniques.


Generating Self-Organizing Capacity: Leadership Practices And Training Needs In Non-Profits, Beverlyn Lundy Allen, Lois Wright Morton Dec 2006

Generating Self-Organizing Capacity: Leadership Practices And Training Needs In Non-Profits, Beverlyn Lundy Allen, Lois Wright Morton

Journal of Extension

Capacity building is a major goal of today's organizations (Senge, 1990). The complex problems that organizations face along with conditions of uncertainty require increased capacity to effectively respond. We propose a self-organizing capacity framework (organizational identity, information flows, and interdependent relationships) and link it to 18 leadership and organizational practices. We find that visioning, mobilizing resources, technology, and building teamwork are self-identified key training needs. Visioning and mobilizing resources are central to organizational identity; technology is necessary for information flows; and building teamwork contributes to interdependent relationships. These are shared leadership skills that build capacity within the organization.


Slovakia's Surge: The New System's Impact On Fiscal Decentralization, Phillip J. Bryson, Gary C. Cornia Dec 2006

Slovakia's Surge: The New System's Impact On Fiscal Decentralization, Phillip J. Bryson, Gary C. Cornia

Faculty Publications

Slovakia's transition history long paralleled that of the Czech Republic, but the former adopted bold new reforms early in tis decade. This paper is a comparative treatment of fiscal decentralization since 1993 and more recent reforms of public administration, the two efforts representing the foundation of the New System. Czech experience is invoked simply to provide an appropriate benchmark for the evaluation of Slovakia's New System introduced in 2004, including the 19% "flat tax" and other striking measures in local public finance. The second focus of the paper is on the macro-economic impact of the New System. It is too …


Change Leader Retention: Social Capital\, Organizational Commitment And Balancing Change Career Commitment, Zara F. Larsen Dec 2006

Change Leader Retention: Social Capital\, Organizational Commitment And Balancing Change Career Commitment, Zara F. Larsen

Student Scholarship

Organizations are challenged to attract and retain executives who can lead successful and sustainable organizational change. This study aims to: (1) explore the role of bonding social capital in affecting the turnover intention of executive leaders of large scale radical and continuous improvement change projects in organizations\, and (2) identify mechanisms which may influence whether change leaders can balance the potentially competing commitment to a career of leading change with a commitment to an organization\, therein affecting the organization’s ability to retain them longer term. This study of over 600 change leaders from for-profit\, non-profit and civil service organizations draws …


Inter-Sector Decision Making: Governance, Social Learning, Negotiated Order And Emergent Leadership As Adaptive Responses To System Complexity, Bruce C. Gockerman Dec 2006

Inter-Sector Decision Making: Governance, Social Learning, Negotiated Order And Emergent Leadership As Adaptive Responses To System Complexity, Bruce C. Gockerman

Student Scholarship

This paper examines the work of the Council of Great Lakes Governors (CGLG) from an organizational effectiveness frame of reference as the CGLG sought to develop an enforceable regional water management regime for the water resources of the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River Basin. It seeks to find both the theoretical and applied framings that tie the pieces of the applicable descriptive literature on social learning and negotiated order as decision making models together, and to draw generalized lessons about organizational effectiveness from the particular geo-politically complex venue under study. This will advance the study of collective action, collaboration, …


Women’S Health In Developing Countries, Javed Rizvi, Nadeem F. Zuberi Dec 2006

Women’S Health In Developing Countries, Javed Rizvi, Nadeem F. Zuberi

Department of Obstetrics & Gynaecology

Healthcare priorities are different in developing and developed countries. A more effective resource allocation, complemented by efforts to implement only those practices that are effective, should be a priority for improving reproductive health services in developing countries. A large burden of gynaecological disease exists in developing countries and it is difficult to envisage serious reforms and improvements without an increase in public-sector spending. However, communities themselves could assume some responsibility for women's health in ways that prioritize women's own perceptions and primary needs. In this chapter we have compiled existing evidence regarding various gynaecological problems faced by women in developing …


Challenging Transformation's Clichés, Antulio J. Echevarria Dr. Dec 2006

Challenging Transformation's Clichés, Antulio J. Echevarria Dr.

Books, Monographs & Collaborative Studies

Critical thinkers analyze and refine ideas underpinning the foundation of American defense policy and military strategy today so the defense community can apply them in strategy and force development. This is an ongoing process: new ideas emerge, are tested, and adopted, revised, or discarded. The author challenges some of the accepted notions that have become foundational to contemporary theories of military transformation. In his view, any endeavor as resource-intensive as military transformation is too important to rest on uncontested truths.


The Cost Of Negative Perceptions Of The Work Environment Among Intermediate Intensive Care Unit Nurses, Joselyn Peralta Dec 2006

The Cost Of Negative Perceptions Of The Work Environment Among Intermediate Intensive Care Unit Nurses, Joselyn Peralta

Master's Projects

This descriptive study assessed the perceptions of the work environment and the retention plans among registered nurses (RNs) who worked in the Intermediate Intensive Care Unit at a tertiary university hospital. Results from the Moos Work Environment Scale found that nurses perceived high levels of work pressure and low levels of clarity, coworker cohesion, and supervisor support. Results indicated that the intent to leave the unit was dependent on the nurses having other options in nursing, desiring further education, an undesirable scheduling process and unsafe patient care. The direct and indirect costs to hospitals could be offset by developing strategies …


The Use Of Critical Ethnography In Managed Mental Health Care Settings, Cassandra L. Bransford Dec 2006

The Use Of Critical Ethnography In Managed Mental Health Care Settings, Cassandra L. Bransford

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

How social workers in managed mental health care settings exercise their professional authority may have profound consequences for the provision of ethical and value-based services to vulnerable populations. Building upon Gidden's theory of structuration, this article describes the use of critical ethnography as a specific research methodology that may support social workers in the exercise of their authority. This article examines the historical roots of critical ethnography and provides a detailed examination of its underlying assumptions and research procedures. The article concludes with a case example of a critical ethnography conducted within a managed mental health care setting.


The Impact Of Organization Destruction On Social Capital Value, R. Drew Sellers Dec 2006

The Impact Of Organization Destruction On Social Capital Value, R. Drew Sellers

Student Scholarship

This paper links social capital dynamics and value with organization destruction. It produces the finding that organizational destruction may in some cases increase the value of social capital. A key theoretical contribution of this study is extending the metaphor of social capital to encompass asset recoverability. Based upon cases studies of 15 individuals who lived through the destruction of Arthur Andersen, this paper examines the persistence and value of an individual's social capital when an organization destructs. It explores the question, "Is the value of an individual's investment in organization-specific social capital a recoverable asset post-destruction?" Interviews with Andersen alumni …


Enabling Trust And Performance In Distributed Collaborative Teams, Eugene A. Pierce Dec 2006

Enabling Trust And Performance In Distributed Collaborative Teams, Eugene A. Pierce

Student Scholarship

Virtual teams allow organizations to bring together critical contributors who might not otherwise be able to work together due to time, travel and cost restrictions. In addition, virtual teams can enhance the available pool of resources by including people from outside the sponsoring organization, such as consultants, or members of partner organizations. Virtual teams also allow organizations to hire and retain the best people, who may be either unable or unwilling to relocate, and to facilitate dynamic membership changes as a result of changes in project requirements or the unexpected loss of team members. As such they are sometimes unable …


Integrated Phenomenological Study Of Teachers' Perceptions Of A Professional Learning Community Utilizing Senge's Five Disciplines Of A Learning Organization, Margaret Zena Stockard Dec 2006

Integrated Phenomenological Study Of Teachers' Perceptions Of A Professional Learning Community Utilizing Senge's Five Disciplines Of A Learning Organization, Margaret Zena Stockard

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine a high school's attempt at reform through implementing a component of a professional learning community to determine if Senge's five disciplines of a learning organization were present. The school was in the second year of implementing common planning time, one of the practices related to organizational learning. This study used qualitative methodology and employed an integrated phenomenological design to investigate the perceptions and lived experiences of the core-subject teachers and department heads involved in common planning time at one high school. Participant observation, document and artifact collection, semi structured interviews, photographs and …


Cornell University Presentation, Susanne M. Bruyere, Ph.D., Crc Nov 2006

Cornell University Presentation, Susanne M. Bruyere, Ph.D., Crc

Conferences, Panels, and Events

The Cornell Presentation: Workplace Flexibility, Accommodation and Disability: Tools for Workforce Productivity. Prepared by Susanne M. Bruyere, Ph.D. , CRC Employment and Disability Institute Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations Ithaca, New York on behalf of Workplace Flexibility 2010.


The Anchor, Volume 120.08: November 1, 2006, Hope College Nov 2006

The Anchor, Volume 120.08: November 1, 2006, Hope College

The Anchor: 2006

The Anchor began in 1887 and was first issued weekly in 1914. Covering national and campus news alike, Hope College’s student-run newspaper has grown over the years to encompass over two-dozen editors, reporters, and staff. For much of The Anchor's history, the latest issue was distributed across campus each Wednesday throughout the academic school year (with few exceptions). In recent years The Anchor moved to monthly print issues and a more frequently updated website. The Anchor is now published in print twice per academic semester. Occasionally, the volume and/or issue numbering is irregular.


Exemplary Design Research, T Binder, J Redström Nov 2006

Exemplary Design Research, T Binder, J Redström

DRS Biennial Conference Series

Center for Design Research, Royal Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture, Copenhagen, Denmark Many design programmes are currently under-going radical transformations as they move towards university status. Research and research-based education becomes part of the everyday of the design school. Also in design studios and design consultancies, design research is frequently heard of as a new venue of activity. But what is design research and how does it relate to design and to the more proven knowledge production of the sciences and humanities? In this paper we will suggest some answers to these questions. In particular, we will look …


What We Don't Know Can Help Us: Eliciting Out-Of-Discipline Knowledge For Work With Intractable Conflicts, Jennifer Goldman, Peter T. Coleman Nov 2006

What We Don't Know Can Help Us: Eliciting Out-Of-Discipline Knowledge For Work With Intractable Conflicts, Jennifer Goldman, Peter T. Coleman

Peace and Conflict Studies

In this article, the authors present the results of a study in which a diverse variety of experts in fields outside the traditional conflict domain were interviewed about their ideas regarding intractable conflicts. The purpose of this study was to gather frame-breaking insights and practical approaches that could shed new light on complex, persistent conflict that has been particularly resistant to resolution. The authors argue that outsiders to the field are more likely to provide fresh perspective and radical approaches to the conflict field’s most intransigent problems because they are not constrained by the field’s pre-existing normative frames. This article …


Complexity Leadership Theory: An Interactive Perspective On Leading In Complex Adaptive Systems, Benyamin B. Lichtenstein, Mary Uhl-Bien, Russ Marion, Anson Seers, James Douglas Orton, Craig Schreiber Nov 2006

Complexity Leadership Theory: An Interactive Perspective On Leading In Complex Adaptive Systems, Benyamin B. Lichtenstein, Mary Uhl-Bien, Russ Marion, Anson Seers, James Douglas Orton, Craig Schreiber

Department of Management: Faculty Publications

Traditional, hierarchical views of leadership are less and less useful given the complexities of our modern world. Leadership theory must transition to new perspectives that account for the complex adaptive needs of organizations. In this paper, we propose that leadership (as opposed to leaders) can be seen as a complex dynamic process that emerges in the interactive “spaces between” people and ideas. That is, leadership is a dynamic that transcends the capabilities of individuals alone; it is the product of interaction, tension, and exchange rules governing changes in perceptions and understanding. We label this a dynamic of adaptive leadership, and …