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Comic Art And Humor In The Workplace: An Exploratory Study ...Zzzzzz, Kella Brown

Theses and Dissertations

This study is a qualitative, exploratory examination of the phenomena of humor in the workplace. The purpose is to derive a better understanding of how real people enact humor in the workplace by examining the humor depicted by and through fictional characters in comic art. The body of work of cartoonist, Scott Adams, was the primary source of data. The study relies on what the imaginary characters of Dilbert find absurd, funny, and ridiculous about an imaginary workplace, the employee-employer relationship, the content of the characters' jobs, or in the social relationships of fictional characters. It involves analyzing specific cultural …

A Phenomenological Case Study Of Finding Meaning Through The Developmental Nature Of A Doctoral Program In Organization Change, Joseph C. Holler

Theses and Dissertations

This phenomenological case study of finding meaning explored the developmental nature of Pepperdine University’s Doctor of Education in Organization Change (EDOC) program through graduates, who as students, found deep, visceral, and life changing meaning. The primary request of participants, identified as co-inquirers, was to: describe in as much detail as possible how meaning was found through their participation in the EDOC program. Detailed storied descriptions from 10 graduates were gathered through interviews. Anecdotes were gathered by email from other graduates concerning the meaning found, relational experiences, and vivid program experiences. In my analysis of data, I explicated the structure (the …

The Leadership Process: An Analysis Of Follower Influence On Leader Behavior In Hospital Organizations, Shawn M. Warren

Theses and Dissertations

The healthcare environment, specifically hospitals, face a turbulent environment and external forces that present difficult challenges to leaders. Hospital leaders are required to do more with less and navigate to ensure a profitable bottom line and high ratings of patient satisfaction. However, viewing solutions, such as developing a new force of leaders, to navigate through such a hostile environment may not be the only answer. This study seeks not to understand the leader solely, but is focused on the leadership process and the effect followers create due to their behaviors and attributes that influence leaders. The study draws from the …

Leadership Lessons From Entrepreneurial Failure: A Phenomenological Study, Yang Zou

Theses and Dissertations

Small businesses are the backbones of the American economy and contribute nearly 46% of the U.S. gross domestic product. However, the failure rate for small businesses is high. Only half of all small businesses will be able to survive for 5 years, and only 20% of small business can survive 10 years. Failure is a common phenomenon among entrepreneurs of small businesses. This qualitative phenomenological study involved examining entrepreneurs’ perceptions of their failure experiences. The study involved exploring the impacts of failure on entrepreneurs, the valuable lessons that entrepreneurs have taken from their failure experiences, and how they have applied …

A Phenomenological Study Of Counselors Helping Underrepresented Students From Los Angeles Charter High Schools Access And Persist In Higher Education, Margarita Landeros

Theses and Dissertations

There were dual purposes of this qualitative phenomenological study. The first purpose was to describe and compare the goals, design, implementation, and outcomes of college counseling programs in college preparatory charter high schools in Los Angeles as experienced and shared by high school college counselors. The second purpose was to explore what college preparatory charter high school college counselors perceive to be the most important components in a charter high school college-going culture to assist underrepresented students with access to college and preparation to persist in higher education. This phenomenological study utilized interviews to collect data. The one-on-one interviews were …

Apology As A Leadership Behavior: A Meta-Analysis With Implications For Organizational Leaders, Matthew W. Brubaker

Theses and Dissertations

Leaders are frequently called to apologize on behalf of their organizations, in some cases skillfully resolving episodes of failure while meeting the unique, competing needs of diverse stakeholders. However, too often leaders handle apology poorly, exacerbating tense situations and alienating key constituents. This study is an examination of the practice of apology as a leadership behavior in an organizational context. To answer the question, How might the existing literatures on apology be examined, integrated and refocused to apply specifically to leaders operating within an organizational context? the study provides a meta-analysis of the diverse literatures that address the practice of …

Blended Learning In Context: An Exploration Of The Effectuality Of Math Blended Learning Programs On Minority Students' Standardized Test Scores, Shannon Jennifer Verrett

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this quantitative research study was to determine whether or not adopting a school-wide math blended learning (MBL) model led to significant differences in the Algebra I math standardized test scores on the California Standards Test (CST), between underrepresented minority students from Title I high schools in Los Angeles who had a school-wide MBL program during the 2011-2012 school year compared to underrepresented minority students from Title I high schools who did not have a school-wide MBL program. This study focused on the efficacy of the math intervention program, and was intended to further research in the area …

Does Professional Development In A Los Angeles Charter School Produce Teacher Leaders?, Nykia Smith

Theses and Dissertations

Do professional development sessions in charter schools produce teacher leaders? This is the main question examined in this study. Professional development was established to help with the leadership process and increase teachers’ capacities overall. Teacher leaders have been deemed as incredibly important to student success and school reformation. Knowing these facts, the researcher sought to probe the utility of professional development in terms of teacher leadership at a charter school whose main intent was reformation. Through a review of the literature, the defining factors for complicated matter such as professional development and teacher leadership were outlined. The literature review helped …

The Implications Of Moral Injury Among African American Females With A History Of Substance Abuse: A Preliminary Study, Jaimee Silvera Hartman

Theses and Dissertations

Moral injury is a concept that has been applied to the challenges facing veterans returning from combat due to the discrepancy between their moral values and the behaviors they engaged in due to war. In recovery women have expressed similar challenges due to the illicit behavior they engaged in while in their addiction as well as the prevalence of trauma that has impacted their transition into substance use. Thirteen female participants in treatment for substance abuse participated in this qualitative study. The majority of the women experienced a history of childhood and/or adult trauma that perpetuated their use of substances …

Authentic Leadership: Demonstration Of Authentic Leader Behavior From The Perspective Of High School Wrestling Coaches In Successful Wrestling Programs, Angel Rubio

Theses and Dissertations

Authentic leadership emphasizes the role of ethics and trust a leader displays and which can be a natural and inherent part of a leader’s behavior (Robbins & Judge, 2010). Leaders who are authentic know who they are, know what they believe in and value, and behave in a way that reinforces those values and beliefs openly and candidly (2010). Authenticity is inward-focused and reflects on the behaviors that a leader believes are virtuous and true, from which they project a self-perception that is consistent with their self-concept (Sosik & Cameron, 2010). Studies within the spectrum of sports have identified that …

Women Leaders In Healthcare: Going Beyond The Glass Ceiling, Cortney Baker

Theses and Dissertations

Between 2004 and 2014, healthcare jobs were among the fastest growing occupations in the U.S., adding 4.3 million positions and expected job growth of 30.3%. The majority of the healthcare workforce is overwhelmingly dominated by women. However, when it comes to leadership positions, especially executive and board levels, females are considerably underrepresented. Interestingly, though, women, more than men, are reported to demonstrate traits such as transparency, compassion, and support for teamwork, which would benefit organizations as they venture into the future of healthcare delivery. In recent years, women have made minimal entry into the highest ranks of managerial positions of …

Produce & Achieve: A Case Study Of Inner-City Education, Daryl A. Tate

Theses and Dissertations

Despite efforts at narrowing the achievement gap, ethnicity-based disparities in achievement are an enduring and pervasive issue in American education. Holy Angels, a high achieving, African American, urban, elementary school in Chicago, Illinois offers a model for successful education of ethnic minority children. Despite coming from predominantly welfare supported, single-mother homes, located in crime ridden inner-city Chicago, during the period bounded by this study, Holy Angels’ students produced test scores among the highest in the nation. Previous research indicates that characteristics of schools that support academic achievement particularly among ethnic minority students are high teacher expectations, academic emphasis, and culturally …

The Motivational Factors Of Higher Educated Iranian Immigrant Women: A Phenomenological Study Of Iranian Women And Influences On Academic Achievement And Work-Life Integration In The United States, Maryam Rostami

Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative study provides information on the experiences and perceptions of women who immigrated to the U.S. after the 1979 Iran Islamic Revolution to pursue higher education and professional careers. The study offers new understanding of strategies used to overcome obstacles in completing academic goals in the U.S., pursuing professional careers, and negotiating balance between home-life and career. The study focused on 3 research questions: 1. How did family expectations and Iranian culture influence Iranian women’s academic goals and family-life balance decisions? 2. What experiences (motivations and drives) shaped the life course of high-achieving Iranian women, and how did these …

Relationship Between Negative Social Reactions To Sexual Assault Disclosure And Mental Health Outcomes Of Ethnically Diverse Female Survivors, Dehnad Hakimi

Theses and Dissertations

Negative social reactions that sexual assault survivors receive upon disclosure have been correlated with psychological distress such as posttraumatic stress disorder, depression, and problem drinking. However, the impact of ethnicity in the relationship between unsupportive reactions to assault disclosure and the psychological sequelae remains unclear. Using hierarchical linear regressions and a sample of 665 African-American, Latina, and Caucasian female adult sexual assault survivors, the present study examined the role of ethnicity in that relationship. The results suggest that ethnicity moderates the influence of negative disclosure reactions on psychological symptoms, however, the moderation impact was not similar across races and psychological …

Tributes To Kent Greenawalt, Barbara Aronstein Black, Vincent A. Blasi, Elizabeth F. Emens, H. Jefferson Powell, Susan P. Sturm, William F. Young

Faculty Scholarship

There are some tasks that present themselves as, at the same time, an opportunity and a challenge. Crafting a brief tribute to Kent Greenawalt is just such a task. It is first – and I should say foremost – an opportunity to express in a public forum one’s high regard for an esteemed colleague and valued friend, and, then, it is a challenge to do justice to his extraordinary accomplishments, to the man, and to his work.

In dedicating this issue to Kent, the Columbia Law Review honors one of its own, whose association with Columbia Law School and the …

Legal Institutionalism: Capitalism And The Constitutive Role Of Law, Simon Deakin, David Gindis, Geoffrey M. Hodgson, Kainan Huang, Katharina Pistor

Faculty Scholarship

Social scientists have paid insufficient attention to the role of law in constituting the economic institutions of capitalism. Part of this neglect emanates from inadequate conceptions of the nature of law itself. Spontaneous conceptions of law and property rights that downplay the role of the state are criticized here, because they typically assume relatively small numbers of agents and underplay the complexity and uncertainty in developed capitalist systems. In developed capitalist economies, law is sustained through interaction between private agents, courts and the legislative apparatus. Law is also a key institution for overcoming contracting uncertainties. It is furthermore a part …

Postmarital Family Law: A Legal Structure For Nonmarital Families, Clare Huntington

Faculty Scholarship

Family law is based on marriage, but family life increasingly is not. The American family is undergoing a seismic shift, with marriage rates steadily declining and more than four in ten children now born to unmarried parents. Children of unmarried parents fall far behind children of married parents on a variety of metrics, contributing to stark inequality among children. Poverty and related factors explain much of this differential, but new sociological evidence highlights family structure — particularly friction and dislocation between unmarried parents after their relationship ends — as a crucial part of the problem. As the trend toward nonmarital …

Destination Marketing Organizations’ Stakeholders And Best Practices, Bonifacio Lopez Torres, Godwin-Charles Ogbeide

Discovery, The Student Journal of Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences

As marketing practices continue to advance, the tourism industry is constantly evolving in terms of marketing strategies and in the shifting duties of its stakeholders. Different organizations plan the advancement of their marketing strategies differently, and Destination Marketing Organizations (DMOs) are no exception. With so many destination options, travelers may find themselves with too many destinations and too much information to easily make the decision on their own. The main role of the DMOs is to sell the destination using different marketing strategies and various incentives to make their destination more appealing, and by working with all of their stakeholders …

Comparing Student Assessments And Perceptions Of Online And Face-To-Face Versions Of An Introductory Linguistics Course, David M. Johnson, Chris C. Palmer

Faculty Articles

This article examines the issue of whether linguistics is better suited for a face-to-face (F2F) environment than an online teaching environment. Specifically, it examines assessment scores and student perceptions of the effectiveness of an introductory linguistics course at an undergraduate state university that has been taught multiple times in both online and F2F modes. To study this issue data was collected about the types of students enrolled in either version of the course, including their GPAs and course grades. A survey with both closed- and open-ended questions was also used to ask students about their experiences and perceptions of the …

Separate Phonemes /Ɔr/ Merging? The Cord-Card Merger In Real-Time, Joseph A. Stanley

Faculty Publications

In sociolinguistics, when analyzing language change across time, studies in apparent time are the norm with the assumption that language does not change in adult speech (Chambers & Trudgill 1998). However, some research has provided evidence that change does occur within the individual during their lifetime (Prince 1987; Harrington, Palethorpe & Watson 2000). This study shows further evidence by analyzing the cord-card merger over 40 years of speech from a Utah native.

Two mergers combine what was historically a three-way distinction of /or/, /ɔr/, and /ɑr/ to just two, with /ɔr/ either merging upward in the hoarse-horse merger, or downward …

Beyond Instrumentalism: A Relational Approach To Negotiation, Marc-Charles Ingerson, Kristen Bell Detienne, Katie A. Liljenquist

Faculty Publications

Instrumentalism, the philosophy that rational people will behave in ways that promote self-interest, is often the default assumption that scholars and practitioners rely upon when interpreting and predicting human behavior in negotiations. Instrumentalism, however, need not be the only lens through which negotiators and negotiations are viewed. In this article, we discuss some of the problems associated with too heavy a reliance on instrumentalism and propose an alternative relational approach, one in which negotiators see themselves as agents embedded in a system of relationships, who are motivated to understand and advance the welfare of others. We discuss some of the …

The First 50 Years And The Next 50 Years Of A Behavioral Theory Of The Firm: An Interview With James G. March, Chengwei Liu, David Maslach, Vinit Desai, Peter Madsen

Faculty Publications

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the 1963 publication of A Behavioral Theory of the Firm (BTF) by Richard Cyert and James G. March, we interviewed Professor James G. March. The purpose of this article is to disseminate the full text of that interview.

The Robust Beauty Of “Little Ideas”: The Past And Future Of A Behavioral Theory Of The Firm, David Maslach, Chengwei Liu, Peter Madsen, Vinit Desai

Faculty Publications

This introductory and the following nine articles reflect comments made by panelists during a symposium honoring A Behavioral Theory of the Firm by Richard Cyert and James G. March at the 2013 Academy of Management meeting. Not surprisingly, what emerged from these comments is that the Behavioral Theory of the Firm (BTF) was enormously influential to the creation of many “little ideas” that have a big impact on a number of social sciences. More surprising is the potential for many new “little ideas” that build on the BTF. The panelists detail what these new “little ideas” may be in future …

Who Should Bring Home The Bacon? How Deterministic Views Of Gender Constrain Spousal Wage Preferences, Catherin H. Tinsley, Taeya M. Howell, Emily T. Amanatullah

Faculty Publications

Despite the rise of dual-income households in the United States and a narrowing of the nation’s gender wage gap, we find that many men and women still prefer the husband to be the primary breadwinner. To help explain intra-marital wage preferences, we argue for a new construct, gender determinism, which captures the extent to which a person believes gender categories dictate individual characteristics. We show that deterministic views of gender increase both intra-marital wage gap preferences and work choices that may perpetuate the gender wage gap. Our results hold in both student and non-student samples, suggesting some endurance of these …

Authenticity Matters More Than Intelligence And Personality In Predicting Metacognition, Dan S. Chiaburu, Inchul Cho, Richard G. Gardner

Faculty Publications

Purpose – Metacognition – or learning how to learn – is an important competence in business and academic settings. The purpose of this paper is to examine individual difference predictors of metacognition, including two traditional (general mental ability (GMA), five-factor model (FFM) personality traits) ones, and a novel one, individual authenticity.

Design/methodology/approach – Volunteers (n¼243) were asked to rate the extent to which they agreed with the respective statements on a seven-point Likert-type scale for GMA, FFM personality traits, and authenticity measures. Data were collected at different points in time to introduce psychological separation among the study measures.

Findings – …

Playing To Win: The Surprising Power Of Play In Innovation, Suzanne M. Piotrowski, Kalle Lyytinen, Richard Boland, James Gaskin

Faculty Publications

Organizational teams are the primary mechanism by which ideas are birthed and recombined into innovations for maintaining or achieving competitive advantage. We know that resources of people, time and funding impact team effectiveness in innovating. We also know that factors such as individual traits of talent, expertise, and collaboration skills also matter greatly. What is less known, and less studied, is the role of team characteristics, in particular, team play and team playfulness on innovation results. Our two-part study examined 145 teams and discovered that team playfulness is present on all successful innovation teams and emerges as divergence and deep …

Proposing The Multi-Motive Information Systems Continuance Model (Misc) To Better Explain End-User System Evaluations And Continuance Intentions, Paul Benjamin Lowry, James Gaskin, Gregory D. Moody

Faculty Publications

Information system designers must consider the influence of users’ intrinsic motivations, in addition to commonly studied extrinsic motivations, to ensure that users will want to continue using the system. In an attempt to acknowledge this need, several studies have extended models of extrinsic motivation to include intrinsic variables. However, these studies largely downplay the role of users’ intrinsic motivations in predicting system use and how this role differs from the role of extrinsic motivation. The role of met or unmet expectations, as a result of system use, is often left out of extant models, and their function as co-creators in …

Predicting Social Networking Site (Sns) Use: Personality, Attitudes, Motivation And Internet Self-Efficacy, Jin-Liang Wang, Linda A. Jackson, Hai-Zhen Wang, James Gaskin

Faculty Publications

Few studies have considered the personal characteristics that may predict the use of Social Networking Sites (SNSs). We examined the prediction of SNS use from distinct personality traits (i.e., sociability and shyness), attitudes toward SNS use, motivations for SNS use and Internet self-efficacy. Participants were 352 Chinese college students who used the QQ zone. Results indicated that sociability, shyness, attitudes, motivations and self-efficacy predicted SNS use, prediction depending on the function of SNS use. Specifically, sociability, attitudes, social interaction motivation, entertainment motivation and self-efficacy were significant predictors of SNS’s social function. In contrast, shyness, attitudes, relaxing entertainment motivation and self-efficacy …

The Role Of Stress And Motivation In Problematic Smartphone Use Among College Students, Jin-Liang Wang, Hai-Zhen Wang, James Gaskin, Li-Hui Wang

Faculty Publications

Although numerous studies have examined factors that influence problematic smartphone use, few have investigated the interactions between different types of motivation and psychosocial well-being factors in facilitating problematic smartphone use. Thus, this study analyzed the moderating role of perceived stress on the relationship between entertainment or escapism motivation and problematic smartphone use. Using a sample of 600 typical smartphone users (Chinese college students) we found: (1) Perceived stress moderates the relationship between entertainment motivation and problematic smartphone use, and between escapism motivation and problematic smartphone use among users scoring high on problematic use; (2) perceived stress moderated the relationship between …

Conceptualizing Structured Experiences: Seeking Interdisciplinary Integration, Mat D. Duerden, Peter Ward, Patti A. Freeman

Faculty Publications

While consensus exists around the importance of providing structured experiences, the industries interested in offering such experiences lack a common body of shared knowledge about how most effectively to do so. Potentially complementary research on structured experiences remains fragmented across multiple fields such as leisure, tourism, and marketing. The purpose of this paper, therefore, was first to review and then integrate this scattered literature into a structured experience framework in order to facilitate experience-related research with broader applicability for both commercial and public organizations interested in providing structured experiences.