Digital Commons Network^™

Information Technology’S Influence On Productivity, Jason Smith

Student Work

Previous research has had mixed results correlating information technology investments to increases in productivity. This research surveyed the perceptions of information technology managers to determine the impact that information technology, decentralized decision making, and improved business processes have on productivity. It concluded that information technology’s influence on productivity is to magnify the effect of decentralized decision making and improved business processes.

Transforming The Library: The Case For Libraries To End Incremental Measures And Solve Problems For Their Campuses Now, Janice Simmons-Welburn, Georgie Donovan, Laura Bender

Library Faculty Research and Publications

In an article published in the Chronicle of Higher Education, University of Texas System Chancellor Mark Yudof wrote, "Mark Twain would recognize the situation. Everyone talks about the governance and financing of higher education, although, as in the case of the weather, few feel that they can do anything about it"' Much agony has been expressed over higher education's immediate future in the United States and elsewhere, given the movement to regulate academic and financial management from the outside. Many colleges and universities respond to societal pressures by pursuing change in small, incremental steps. Yet those same pressures for accountability, …

The New Securocracy And The "Police Concept" Of Public Sector Worker Identity, Cliff Oswick, Stephen Matthias Harney, Gerard Hanlon

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

In recent years we have seen the emergence of a "new securocracy," a generalization of responsibility for fighting terror within the public sector. Here we consider the nature and extent of this securocratic shift. In particular, the identity implications for the public sector worker are explored and we contend that there is an inherent tension between "serving" and "policing" the public in many public sector jobs. We also discuss the way in which a securocratic identity is simultaneously embraced and resisted. Finally, we present some tentative insights into an alternative way of thinking about identity work, which offers a means …

Best Practices Of High School Principals For Improving Student Achievement In Urban Schools, Anthony Wayne Smith

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine the best practices of high school principals for improving student achievement in eight urban high schools in the Metro Atlanta area. Specifically, the best practices of urban Georgia high school principals in the areas of vision, risk-taking, human development, belief in others and integrity were explored through an interview process. Each participant was asked five open-ended questions since these allow for participants to answer questions in a more complete manner. The qualitative, phenomenological research design was employed. Qualitative analysis was used to determine recurring themes related to the research questions. The recurring …

Gender Difference In Transformational Leadership: A Comparison Of Liberian Male And Female Leadership Styles From 1986 Through 2006, Anthony Ansumana Kanneh

Theses and Graduate Projects

The goal of this study was to investigate the leadership styles of Liberian male and female leaders by examining five hypotheses, as measured by the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ: Form 5X; Bass & Avolio, 1999) administered to 119 leaders and 360 raters. The samples investigated were selected from Liberian male and female leaders in the State of Minnesota and the Republic of Liberia. Few of the transformational leadership dimensions as measured by MLQ were found to be positively and significantly correlated with leadership behavior of both genders of Liberians. Overall, the results revealed no significant differences between the genders, in …

Board Of Trustees Minutes, June 26, 2008, Eastern Washington University

Board of Trustees Minutes

No abstract provided.

Explaining The Impact Of Work Interference With Family: The Role Of Work-Family Psychological Contract And Cultural Values, Xian Xu

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study aims to further understand the mechanisms through which work interference with family (WIF) influences important attitudinal, behavioral, and well-being outcomes. First, the study expands the content of employees' psychological contract through creating a measure of Work-Family Psychological Contract Breach (WFPCB). The study also examines the mediating role of WFPCB in the relations between WIF and work-related outcomes. Finally, the study explores potential cultural influences by looking at the moderating role of individualism-collectivism on the relations between WIF and WFPCB as well as between WFPCB and the outcomes. Research was carried out in three stages: 1) telephone interviews were …

Graduate Schedule Of Classes For 2008, Fall [Graduate Online Courses] | Academic Calendar | Class Schedule, Office Of The Registrar, Stony Brook University

Calendars

No abstract provided.

Internal Executive Coaching Program: Exploring The Experiences, Benefits, And Recommendations For Participants And Organizations, Susan D. Poulos

Theses and Graduate Projects

Organizations are searching for ways to enhance leadership skills to meet strategic goals. Executive coaching is one method used by organizations to improve communication, job satisfaction, staff retention and overall productivity. While external coaching programs have been used for years, internal coaching programs are a more recent development and little research has been conducted to examine their effectiveness. The purpose of this study is to examine the experience of managers who participated in an internal executive coaching program in order to explore the benefits and recommendations for participants and organizations. A case study of one organization's Internal Executive Coaching Program …

Determining The Quality And Impact Of An E-Mentoring Model On At-Risk Youth, Diane W. Culpepper

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this research was twofold. Since e-mentoring is relatively new, there have been very few studies that have explored the impact of an e-mentoring program on both the academic and psychological outcomes of its participants. In addition, there is little research on the quality of implementing, or what we will call the working quality, of an e-mentoring model. This study addressed both.

First, the study examined whether or not e-mentoring had an academic and psychological impact on 32 high school students who were at-risk of dropping out of school. The students were enrolled in a GED Exit Option …

Two Essays On The Conflict Of Interests Within The Financial Services Industry-- Financial Industry Consolidation: The Motivations And Consequences Of The Financial Services Modernization Act (Fsma) And “Down But Not Out” Mutual Fund Manager Turnover Within Fund Families, Lonnie Lashawn Bryant

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The objective of this paper is to examine the impact the Financial Services Modernization Act (FSMA) of 1999 has on the consolidation of the banking industry. The FSMA allows banks to simultaneously offer commercial banking, investment, and insurance services. I find a strong positive market response to the announcement of bank acquisition of brokerage firms (10.2 percent) and insurance companies (9.3 percent), but no significant response to bank acquisitions. I also find support for two complimentary hypotheses that explain the long-run returns to the acquiring banks. The "product-market spillover hypothesis" states that the post-consolidation returns of the acquirer are directly …

Narratives And Sensemaking In The New Corporate University: The Socialization Of First Year Communication Faculty, Andrew F. Herrmann

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

I examined what brand new Ph.D.s in Communication experience when they start their first, entry-level, tenure-track assistant professor position at a new university. Through the lens of scocial construction, I review vocational and organizational socialization, individual agency by newcomers, academic socialization processes, and the concept of the academic career in the current climate of university change and transformation. Then, I present the method of research, including the population and sampling method, and rationales for utilizing a narrative approach, interactive interviewing, and autoethnographic writing. After presenting the participants' narratives, I revisit both within- and between-case issues, beginning with socialization from the …

2008 Commencement Program, Richard Pimentel

Commencement Archives 2000-09

The program for the PSU Commencement ceremony on June 14, 2008.

Richard Pimentel, author, trainer, speaker, and disability rights advocate, delivered the commencement address and was awarded an honorary doctorate by PSU Interim President Michael Reardon. Tamam W. Waritu, Class of 2008, delivered the student address.

The Lived Experience Of A Patient While Receiving Treatment On An Orthopedic Unit After A Hip Fracture: Integrating Research And Theory To Improve Patient Care, Margaret A. Kaser

Theses and Graduate Projects

A hip fracture is a devastating injury for an older person, often resulting in long-term or permanent loss of mobility and independence. Although research has been conducted on various aspects of hip fractures, little research has described the experience of a patient with a hip fracture. This phenomenological study explored the lived experience of a patient receiving treatment on an orthopedic unit after a hip fracture. A purposeful sample of two participants who were hospitalized at Saint Mary's Hospital following a hip fracture were interviewed after surgical repair of the fracture. The interviews were analyzed using Giorgi's descriptive phenomenology. The …

Meeting Minutes, Wku Council Of Academic Deans

Council of Academic Deans

Meeting regarding space allocation, enrollment, reorganization, budget cuts, retreat, University College and Bowling Green Campus designation.

An Exploration Of The Sensemaking Process During The Implementation Of Academic Tracking Systems At Three Public Universities, Jean Mccarthy Gonzalez

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Policy tends to be formulated at the upper level of an organization and handed down to policy actors on the frontline for enactment. Since policy can be vague, ambiguous, or send conflicting messages, it can create uncertainty about its meaning. Moreover, policy is rarely accompanied by explicit instructions for implementation. Therefore, when frontline workers, or streetlevel bureaucrats, are pressed to make sense of policy's meaning in realistic terms, they engage in what Weick describes as sensemaking (1995). Sensemaking is a cognitive process entered into during times of uncertainty or change. Streetlevel bureaucrats engage in sensemaking by drawing on cues in …

A Qualitative And Quantitative Assessment Of Readiness For Organizational Change Literature, Andrew B. Burris

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this thesis is to take a step in integrating the change literature and accumulate the empirical results using meta-analytic techniques. First, a literature review of existing research on organizational change was conducted. Second, existing models of organizational change were integrated to create a theoretical structure. Third, a meta-analysis was performed to derive the corrected correlation values for each relationship in that structure. Finally, the readiness for change literature was qualitatively assessed. In addition, a quantitative review was done by accumulating the results across 25 studies in an effort to provide a current quantitative assessment of change management …

How Do Academic Libraries Manage Change In The 21St Century?, Patrick Lo

Journal of East Asian Libraries

No abstract provided.

Factors That Influence Informal Learning In The Workplace, Shelley A. Berg, Seung Youn Chyung

Organizational Performance and Workplace Learning Faculty Publications and Presentations

Purpose – The purpose of this study was to investigate factors that influence informal learning in the workplace and the types of informal learning activities people engage in at work. More specifically, the research examined (1) the relationship between informal learning engagement and the presence of learning organization characteristics, and (2) perceived factors that affect informal learning engagement.

Methodology – Workplace learning and performance improvement professionals were invited to respond to an anonymous online survey, and 125 professionals volunteered to participate in the study.

Findings – This study did not find a significant correlation between informal learning engagement and the …

On The (Legal) Study Methods Of Our Time: Vico Redux, Marianne Constable

Chicago-Kent Law Review

This essay draws on the form and spirit of Vico's On the Study Methods of Our Time to comment on intellectual and institutional approaches to U.S. legal studies today. It compares rhetoric to the many disciplines—philosophy, economics, sociology, political science, anthropology, poetry, and history—that take law as their subject matter. It argues that law is only partly understood by those who characterize it as command or as morality, as coercive system or as system of rules. It is only partly understood by those who reject law-on-the-books in favor of the empirical study of social behavior. It argues instead that attending …

The Development Of Day-Night Differences In Sleep And Wakefulness In Norway Rats And The Effect Of Bilateral Enucleation, Andrew J. Gall, William D. Todd, Baisali Ray, Cassandra M. Coleman, Mark S. Blumberg

Faculty Publications

The suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) exhibits circadian rhythmicity in fetal and infant rats, but little is known about the consequences of this rhythmicity for infant behavior. Here, in Experiment 1, we measured sleep and wakefulness in rats during the day and night in postnatal day (P)2, P8, P15 and P21 subjects. As early as P2, day-night differences in sleep-wake activity were detected. Nocturnal wakefulness began to emerge around P15 and was reliably expressed by P21. We hypothesized that the process of photic entrainment over the first postnatal week, which depends upon the development of connectivity between the retinohypothalamic tract (RHT) and …

Organizational Culture And Change: Understanding The Western Herald's Newsroom Culture, Sarah Ling Wei Lee

Masters Theses

The purpose of this study is to explore organizational culture and change in a college newspaper's newsroom. Student journalists often use college newspapers as a means to get editorial experience and also to get published. Even so, the college newspaper newsroom is unlike a typical metropolitan or local community newspaper's newsroom in the way that it experiences change. College newspapers encounter organizational change as part of the newsroom's inner workings constantly because of frequent turnover and other factors. As a result, they are suitable for understanding how staff members make sense of newsroom culture in a dynamic, changing environment. Two …

Student Characteristics, Academic Self-Concept And Language Arts Literacy Performance In Traditional And Block Scheduling In Two Urban Schools, Luana Gipson-Bruce

Graduate Student Dissertations, Theses, Capstones, and Portfolios

The effectiveness of language arts literacy (LAL) block scheduling on student achievement atid self-efficacy is a strategy of education reform. Language arts skills in urban schools is noted in the 1983 report "A Nation at Risk", which documents the seriousness of urban school literacy difficulties. In addition, state standardized requirements have attested to poor language arts performance in many minority schools.

The purpose of this study is to describe the demographic, health, academic self concept and student achievement of a 6& grade sample of 62 students in two urban schools, one which implements a traditional scheduling language arts program and …

Developing A Predictive Metric To Assess School Viability, John T. James, Karen L. Tichy, Alan Collins, John Schwob

Journal of Catholic Education

This article examines a wide range of parish school indicators that can be used to predict long-term viability.

Collaboration To Institutionalize Service-Learning In Higher Education Organizations: The Relationship Between The Structures Of Academic And Student Affairs, Joanne A. Dreher

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

Higher education organizations are distinguished by a structural divide between academic affairs and student affairs. Specific to this separation is the divide between the formal curriculum created and managed by faculty and the informal 'hidden' curriculum developed and delivered to students by student affairs professionals. This divide prompts questions about the role of structure and the cultures that are reinforced by those structures to influence collaboration to integrate new pedagogies such as service-learning.

Case study design was used to analyze three institutions in New England to understand the influence of organizational structures to institutionalize service-learning and to determine the degree …

Perception Gaps And The Adoption Of Information Technology In The Clinical Healthcare Environment, Karen Hare

Dissertations

Implementation of information systems has lagged in many areas of clinical healthcare for a variety of reasons. Economics, data complexity and resistance are among the often quoted roadblocks. Research suggests that physicians play a major part in the adoption, use and diffusion of information technology (IT) in clinical settings. There are also other healthcare professionals, clinical and non-clinical, who play important roles in making decisions about the acquisition of information technology. In addition to these groups there are information technology professionals providing the services required within the healthcare field. Finally within this group are those IT professionals who have sufficient …

The Washington State Patrol, Accountability-Driven Leadership, And The Organizational Factors That Propelled Their Success: An Organizational Analysis, Timothy Carl Winchell

Dissertations and Theses

In January 2002, Washington State Patrol (WSP) Chief Ronal Serpas, Ph.D., implemented his Accountability Driven Leadership (ADL) philosophy throughout the entire statewide public safety agency. The initiative was intended to re-focus personnel on agency strategic goals, objectives, and performance. ADL stressed Computer Statistic (CompStat) management tenants, decentralized decision-making, and efficiency and effectiveness performance measures.

Most CompStat research has been anecdotal in nature, meaning little empirical analysis has scrutinized the implementation of these initiatives in policing. Additionally, the principal researcher could not locate any research that examined these changes in a statewide law enforcement agency. Therefore, this case study contributes to …

Illinois State University Report, May 2, 2008, Illinois State University

Illinois State University Report (1966-2012)

Illinois State University bi-weekly employee newsletter.

2008. Our Dreams And Our Deeds: Reflection At The Heart Of Service-Learning, National-Louis University

Service-Learning Symposium

No abstract provided.

Beyond “The Total Organization”: A New Adaptation Of A Great Exercise, Kathleen Kane

Organization, Leadership, and Communication

“The Total Organization”, a Cohen, Fink, Gadon, and Willits’(1992) exercise, has great possibilities for inclusion in a variety of current courses covering a range of topics with a variety of outcomes. We have successfully adapted the exercise for our required MBA Leadership course. The participants must self-organize, choose leadership, determine roles, and develop the structure for an entrepreneurial (and should they choose, high tech) venture. With few instructions, they must struggle with the ambiguity of multiple organizational challenges including: innovation, creativity, team building and organizational design. We will demonstrate the exercise and give participants overheads and exercise instructions on CD …