Digital Commons Network^™

Ethical Leadership As An Enabler Of Organizational Culture Change, Hames Marsha Ershaghi

Theses and Dissertations

We are emerging from a decade plagued with headlines of crises that tell the narrative of the cost of organizational culture. Evolving before our eyes, the world is acutely focused on the actions of individual leaders and the organizational cultures that have cultivated low-trust and high-fear environments, dysfunctional and failing organizational cultures. Drawing from research in organizational theory, moral philosophy, psychology and sociology, the study focuses on organizational cultures, the role of leadership in enabling healthy cultures. This exploratory, qualitative study utilizing the grounded theory approach addressed the question of how organizations are establishing and reinforcing acceptable ethical leadership behaviors …

Entrepreneurial Success And The Roles Of Social Capital And Social Effectiveness: A Look Into The Young Presidents' Organization, Michael Wojciechowski

Theses and Dissertations

Previous research has indicated that social capital and social effectiveness may have positive influences on entrepreneurial venture success. While the concept of social capital has been a popular topic in research fields, including both social science and economics, few empirical studies have considered the effect of both social capital and social effectiveness in conjunction with the success of ventures created by entrepreneurs. The Young Presidents' Organization (YPO) is a worldwide organization created in 1950 to provide education and support for executives who found themselves in leadership positions with few peers. Today that organization has grown to over 18,000 members. This …

Healing Historical Trauma In Native American Communities: A Liberation Psychology Approach To Wellness, Francesca L. Parker

Theses and Dissertations

This critical analysis of the literature explores the potential of liberation psychology to address the sequelae of historical trauma in Native American communities. 21st century Native America faces significant health and wellness challenges including socio-economic disparities, interpersonal violence, substance abuse, psycho-spiritual distress, and physical health issues (Brave Heart, 2004; Dickerson & Johnson, 2010; Manson, 2000; Manson, Beals, Klein, Croy, & AI-SUPERPFP, 2005; United States Department of Health and Human Services, 2001). The literature questions the validity of mainstream psychological science to effectively conceptualize and treat Native Americans, and calls for the identification of specific, culturally relevant interventions to increase physical …

Standing Out: The Influence Of Organizational Culture And Cultural Values On A Manager's Willingness To Meaningfully Differentiate Employee Performance, Mercedes Mcbride-Walker

Theses and Dissertations

This mixed-methodology study investigates the degree to which dominant organization culture and cultural values influence a manager's willingness to differentiate employee performance for the purpose of making meaningful talent decisions. Data were collected from 26 companies and a total of 45 individual participants. The findings suggest that specific values play a significant role in influencing a manager's willingness to differentiate employee performance regardless of dominant culture. All organizations have high and low performers, yet being willing to make tough performance calls for greater talent decision effectiveness may require embodying values that are considered countercultural. We argue that these values may …

Leadership Competencies For Effective Hospital Chief Executive Officers And Chief Medical Officers In Mexico, Muñoz Alejandro García

Theses and Dissertations

This study identified a leadership competency model for developing healthcare executives in Mexico based on the National Center for Healthcare Leadership (NCHL) Model. Eleven chief executive officers and chief medical officers were interviewed. They considered 86% of the National Center for Healthcare Leadership (NCHL) competencies as very important or vital and perceived a gap in the performance of these competencies. They also identified additional vital competencies beyond the scope of the NCHL's model. Participants also reported that leadership development and succession planning programs were lacking. Recommendations are to design a leadership development program using the NCHL model as a framework …

African American Female Leaders: Resilience And Success, Shanetta Weatherspoon-Robinson

Theses and Dissertations

Women make up half of the workforce in America. Despite this, in traditional organizations, leadership roles are overwhelmingly held by men. Of the small number of African American women employed in the workforce, 30% hold professional or management positions and women in general are more educated, qualified and transformational than their male counterparts. Despite this, African American female leaders experience organizational barriers, social labeling, and biases driven by their intersectionality that hinders their career opportunities. Black feminist research suggests that social norms place women in subordinate roles in comparison to men in society. African American women face such social barriers …

Positive Deviance During Organization Change: Researcher's Social Construction Of Expanded University Goals, Claire Euline Sutherland

Theses and Dissertations

Many universities have expanded from teaching only to include research goals, requiring shifts in organization behavior. An exploratory case study method was used to examine these dynamics among positive deviant researchers at the University of Technology, Jamaica (UTech), the single case examined, from a social construction perspective. As a participant observer in the organization, the researcher engaged in marginality and its associated risks in studying UTech's transition from low to higher research outputs to answer the research questions - significant norms influencing positive deviancy patterns of the researchers and, their perceptions and experiences during transition. A qualitative case report and …

The United States Forest Service: A Qualitative Study Of Employees And The Impacts Of Collaboration, Sandra Kay Treadaway

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Social changes over the past several decades have led to an increase in legislation mandating public participation in public land management. Like most legislation there were no specific requirements on how to achieve this mandate which left the decision up to federal agencies. For the United States Forest Service, public participation models have not been overly successful. The conflict has affected both the public and USFS employees. The latest model of public participation is collaboration. For this study collaboration was compared to deliberative democracy. Deliberative democracy shares many of the same characteristics as collaboration and the theory was used to …

‘Planting The Seeds Of Educational Change’ Indigenous Voices, Multicultural Education, And The Us Democratic Ideal, Miranda Crystal Laber

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

‘Planting the Seeds of Educational Change’ Indigenous Voices, Multicultural Education, and the US Democratic Ideal An Exploration of the Potential Roles and Influences of Indigenous Voices in Education on Collective Perceptions of Truth and Democracy

Identifying Key Factors Influencing Internet Shopping Behavior For E-Satisfaction, Chris A. Meyers

AMTP Proceedings 2013

With Internet shopping gaining more attention and momentum, a better understanding of the online consumer is now in the forefront of most retail strategies. The growth of online retailing or Internet shopping has provided the apparel industry with additional avenues to reach the consumer. Previous research has shown that consumers’ intent to purchase online is highly driven by their satisfaction. Studies have touted the growth of on-line shopping and the growing purchases of those with Internet access (Lin & Sun, 2009). In fact, apparel products have been consistently ranked as one of the most frequently purchased items through the Internet …

Lawyers And Precedent, Harlan G. Cohen

Faculty Scholarship

Despite common references to the “invisible college of international lawyers,” and the doctrinal role granted to “the most highly qualified publicists of the various nations,” the role of lawyers, as lawyers, in the creation, development, and maintenance of the international legal order remains oddly underexplored. This short essay, prepared as part of a symposium on “The Role of Non-State Actors in International Law,” explores the role of lawyers as independent actors within international law. It argues that focusing on lawyers can help provide insights into how international law develops — specifically here, how and why a practice of precedent seems …

"The Worry That You Are Yourself": Darl's Unforgivable Neurodiversity In As I Lay Dying, Neal Hallgarth

EWU Masters Thesis Collection

"This paper is concerned with the character of Darl Bundren and the repeated motif of madness in William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying. Possible psychiatric explanations for Darl's madness, including linguistic evidence for his psychotic breakdown, are explored. The paper does not agree with the critical use of words such as "insane" or "crazy" as the book itself questions the verity of such labels. Critical analyses concerning Darl tend to be sympathetic but use derogatory language when defending the character. Articles related to the relatively new idea of neurodiversity will counter the backhanded sympathy with which the critics regard Darl. …

Mothering Values : An Exploration Of Generational Differences In Values, Beliefs And Attitudes, Marguerita Walsh

Theses

Maternal employment has led to an increase in the need for childcare (Horgan, 2001). In 2005, the most valuable source of childcare for children of primary school age was unpaid relatives (Share & Kerrins, 2009). 33% of grandparents are involved in childcare on a weekly basis (Jones, 2011). Therefore, childrearing tasks are shared, and children may be exposed to a variety of childrearing values.

Given the key-role grandparents, and in particular grandmothers play in childcare, this research focuses on exploring the parenting values, beliefs and roles of maternal grandmothers and mothers of children under the age of ten and how …

Othello As An Enigma To Himself: A Jungian Approach To Character Analysis, Eric Iliff

EWU Masters Thesis Collection

No abstract provided.

Slaves To Contradictions: 13 Myths That Sustained Slavery, Wilson Huhn

Akron Law Faculty Publications

People have a fundamental need to think of themselves as “good people.” To achieve this we tell each other stories – we create myths – about ourselves and our society. These myths may be true or they may be false. The more discordant a myth is with reality, the more difficult it is to convince people to embrace it. In such cases to sustain the illusion of truth it may be necessary to develop an entire mythology – an integrated web of mutually supporting stories. This paper explores the system of myths that sustained the institution of slavery in the …

Book Review Of The Integrated Church: Authentic Multicultural Ministry, By Tracy M. Lewis Giggetts (2011), David Penno

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Book Review Of Finding Faithful Elders And Deacons, By Thabiti M. Anyabwile (2012), David Penno

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Sacred Heart University Fact Sheet 2013, Sacred Heart University

News, Magazines and Reports

No abstract provided.

Stories Of Self And Other: Four In-Service Social Studies Teachers Reflect On Their International Professional Development, Timothy Patterson

Education Faculty Publications

This study is an examination of the stories four social studies teachers told after participating in one international professional development program. Drawing on theories of postcolonialism, this narrative inquiry uses interviews, observations, and artifacts to investigate if and to what degree travel to and study in China influences the understandings of one group of in-service social studies teachers. Its focus is the extent to which meeting the Other influenced the participants’ conceptualizations of global education and whether or not this experience allowed one group of American teachers to challenge their perceptual lenses with regards to their social studies curricula. An …

Social Ramifications Of Mobile Communication : Impacts Of Cellular Usage On Civility And Perceived Social Capital, James Grossman

Undergraduate Theses and Senior Projects

No abstract provided.

Financial Retrenchment And Institutional Entrenchment: Will Legal Education Respond, Explode, Or Just Wait It Out?, Ian Weinstein

Faculty Scholarship

Both markets and ideas have turned against the American legal profession. Legal hiring has contracted, and law school enrollments are decreasing. The business models of big law and legal education are under pressure, current levels of student indebtedness seem unsustainable, and a hero has yet to emerge from our fragmented regulatory structures. In the realm of ideas, the information revolution has sparked deep critiques of structured knowledge and expertise, opening the roles of the law and the university in society to reexamination. We are less enamored of the scholar-lawyer and gaze with longing at technocrats. I hope that clinical law …

Is Gun Crime Learned? Social Learning Theory And Guns, Krista Pearl Caffrey

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This study examines the relationship between specific childhood experiences and the use of guns in crime in a sample of incarcerated males in American prisons. Two specific childhood experiences are examined: exposure to violence in the home and exposure to guns in the home. Utilizing social learning theory, I argue that adult male felons who used guns in the commission of crimes will have had greater levels of exposure to violence and exposure to guns in their childhood home. Using a data set collected by sociologists James Wright and Peter Rossi, I conducted a binary logistic regression to determine the …

The Constitution Of Queer Identity In The 1972 Apa Panel, "Psychiatry: Friend Or Foe To Homosexuals? A Dialogue", Dustin Vern Edward Schneider

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This thesis offers a rhetorical criticism of two speeches delivered from a 1972 panel at the American Psychiatric Association (APA): Franklin Kameny’s “Gay, Proud and Healthy” and John Fryer’s “I am a Homosexual.” Both speeches seek to challenge heteronormative constructions of homosexuality through the construction of a positive homosexual identity. Kameny’s speech uses an extensive set of metaphors to deconstruct the sickness theory of homosexual, challenge the role psychiatrists should play in society, re-conceptualize sexuality, and empower homosexual identity. Fryer’s speech enacts a constitutive rhetoric through the use of consciousness raising strategies and a collective coming out narrative which creates …

Assessing Connections Between Young Children’S Affinity For Nature And Their Experiences In Natural Outdoor Settings In Preschools, Camilla S. Rice, Julia C. Torquati

Department of Child, Youth, and Family Studies: Faculty Publications

The purposes of this research were to: develop a reliable measure of children’s affinity for nature or “biophilia”; determine whether young children’s biophilia was related to the “green-ness” of the outdoor play area of the preschool they attend; examine whether demographic variables are associated with children’s biophilia; and determine whether demographic variables predict children’s enrollment in nature-oriented programs. We recruited children from ten early childhood education programs—six that had outdoor play spaces with many natural elements and four that had few or none of these elements. One hundred fourteen preschool-aged children completed an 11-item measure of biophilia that included preferences …

Beyond The Walls: Conceptualizing Natural Environments As “Third Educators”, Julia C. Torquati, Julie A. Ernst

Department of Child, Youth, and Family Studies: Faculty Publications

This research examined preservice early childhood educators’ perceptions of outdoor settings and their intentions to use outdoor settings in their teaching practice. Students enrolled in an early childhood education program (n = 110) at a university in the Great Lakes region completed surveys that assessed perceptions of natural settings, intentions to use natural settings in future teaching, knowledge of the benefits of nature for children, and personal nature relatedness. Participants reported relatively high intentions to use natural settings in future teaching, as well as knowledge of the benefits of nature for children, but moderate levels of personal nature relatedness. Participants …

Spiritual Well-Being And Its Relationship To Resilience In Young People: A Mixed Methods Case Study, Lindsay Smith, Ruth Webber, Erica Defrain

Department of Child, Youth, and Family Studies: Faculty Publications

Questions have arisen recently about the role of spiritual well-being in strengthening resilience of youth. To explore this association, this case study focused on the relationships and connectedness of young people who attend one religious organization as a means of enhancing their spiritual well-being. In line with the purposes of an instrumental case study, different sources of data (quantitative and qualitative) were collected on the phenomenon of interest—spiritual well-being. A theoretical purposive sample of 65 people participated in the study. A mixed methods research approach guided this case study, which incorporated both single- and multicase study techniques. Through an abductive …

A Pilot Study On Gender Disparities In The Accounting Profession: Overcoming The Disproportionate Workplace, Laury Fouche

Honors Theses

The public accounting industry was described for many years as the most difficult of all the fields or a woman to break into. Today, female accountants have made significant inroads in a traditionally male-dominated profession. While institutional barriers including informal networks and resistance to organizational changes have thwarted advancement, personal factors such as confidence and family considerations have also influenced the advancement of women's careers. This research project shows that women in public accounting are nearing parity with their male counterparts due to governmentl efforts, accounting firm initiatives, and individuals' determination to attain upper management postions.

The Implications Of Multigenerational Differences Within The Workforce, Benjamin R. Hayes

Research Papers

This paper identifies and discusses generational effects on public administration, particularly in the field of public administration and public policy. Specifically, it is the conclusion here that identifying the different perspectives, attitudes, and behaviors exhibited by the five traditional generational groups (traditionalists/veterans, Baby Boomers, Generation X, Generation Y/Millenials, and Generation Z) will assist managers in the public sector field to better communicate with their employees, thus resulting in a more effective working environment through enhancing organizational cohesion and cooperation. A phenomenological mixed method will be employed, utilizing peer-reviewed literature and governmentally issued statistics. Discussion of these aspects follows below and …

Understanding The Adoption Of State-Level Policies For Transgender Persons: Political Mediation And The Role Of Litigation, Trey Green

Research Papers

Politicians and prison officials are under increasing pressure to set policy for housing and treatment for transgender prison inmates. Despite this common need, only a handful of states have adopted a formal written prison policy that addresses transgender inmates. Furthermore, there has been little academic research on this subject. This paper seeks to determine how and why some states develop policies while others do not. Specifically, the research questions include: What are the state-level political conditions that lead to transgender policy regimes? Moreover, will these be the same conditions that are necessary for a positive outcome of transgender prison policies? …

The State Of Health And Safety Program Management As It Pertains To Osha In The Funeral Industry: A Formative Analysis, Brad William Kuchnicki

Online Theses and Dissertations

From a law perspective, contingency refers to possible events that may or may not happen, by which, when happening, some particular title may be affected. In the funeral industry, OSHA regulations govern a vast array of procedures directly related to day-to-day operations. If at any time one of these controls have or have not been implemented, enforced or altered, the organization could be influenced. This thesis will analyze the state of health and safety program management as it pertains to OSHA in the funeral industry.