Digital Commons Network^™

Strategies For Providing Loans To Small Businesses, Linda Faye Evans

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Between 2007 and 2013, the number of loans banks provided to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) declined. The purpose of this single case study was to explore the strategies that senior bank lending officers used to improve lending to SMEs. The sample size consisted of 4 senior small business lending officers who have in lending for 5 or more year in Houston, Texas. The conceptual framework used was agency theory. Data were collected using semistructured interviews with 4 senior bank lending officers from a bank in the Houston, Texas area, a review of documents from lending officers, and other artifacts …

Music, Embodied Cognition, And Anti-Semitism In Wagner’S Ring Cycle: An Analysis Of Musical Gestures And The Social Structures They Reinforce, Elijah Weiss

Theses & ETDs

Music has the ability to evoke complex and ambiguous feelings in listeners. Many of these feelings are facilitated by the mirror neuron system, with which individuals process and internally mirror musical movements and gestures via neural motor pathways to simulate empathy. As a result, music has been used by countless organizations to influence social behavior, ranging from the construction of identity through musical propaganda to resistance music against state-enforced definitions of national identity. Focusing primarily on Wagner’s use of operatic scores to spread anti-Semitism, this thesis explores music’s role in promoting social conformity alongside its potential for expanding or manipulating …

Strategic Intelligence Strategies For Improving Performance In The Nonprofit Sector, Iglika Kirilov

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Nonprofit leaders face competition, rapid changes, increasing complexity in their operating environments, and diminishing financial support, all of which threaten achievement of their organizational missions. The purpose of this single case study was to explore strategies nonprofit leaders used to develop plans for performance improvement based on strategic intelligence. The research sample was composed of 3 leaders of a nonprofit organization located in the midwestern region of the United States who implemented nonprofit strategic initiatives to improve their organization's performance. The conceptual framework used for this study was Maccoby and Scudder's strategic intelligence conceptual system for leading change. Data were …

Administrators' And Teachers' Perceptions Of Factors Influencing Veteran Teachers' Professional Practice, Mary Frances Mollway

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Teachers and administrators have different perceptions regarding the importance and validity of various factors that influence veteran teachers' professional practice. Herzberg's 2-factor motivation-hygiene theory was used as the conceptual framework for this basic qualitative study. The purpose of the study was to gain an understanding of veteran teachers' and administrators' perceptions about motivating and hygiene factors and their influences on veteran teachers' professional practice in a southern California suburban school district. One-on-one semistructured interviews were conducted with 8 veteran high school teachers and 4 high school administrators. The interview responses were audio recorded and transcribed, then coded using open and …

Human Trafficking Crime Awareness Among Remote Communities In Central Vietnam, Ngoc Tb Nguyen

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Human trafficking crime is rising globally at an alarming rate, and Vietnam is one of the nations with the highest prevalence of trafficking female victims for forced sex services and forced marriages. This study explored human trafficking awareness in remote communities of central Vietnam and the factors for young girls dropping out of school for work at an early age. The study also investigated the link between gender inequality and the child labor problem in these communities. There is no extant empirical research pertaining to human trafficking awareness in the remote communities of central Vietnam. This research fills this gap …

Veterans Affairs Employees’ Perceptions Of Financial Incentives, Organizational Justice, Satisfaction, And Performance, Kingsley Chigbo Ihekwoaba

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Veterans Affairs (VA) inconsistently distributes financial incentives, which might affect how VA employees perceived organizational justice, affecting employees’ job satisfaction and performance. The purpose of this qualitative transcendental phenomenological study was to explore the lived experiences of VA employees that informed their perceptions of their workplaces’ levels of organizational justice, their job satisfaction, and their performances due to inconsistent distribution of financial incentives by gathering data through interviews with 13 VA employees from the Southeastern United States. The research question concentrated on the lived experiences of VA employees with respect to the inconsistent distribution of financial incentives, and how these …

Barriers Encountered By African American Women Executives In Fortune 500 Companies, Sonia Marlene Greene

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

African American women's (AAW) presence has increased in the corporate workforce, but this increase has not transferred to a comparable rise in leadership positions. The purpose of this transcendental phenomenological study was to explore the lived experiences AAW faced relating to race and gender differences that influenced their leadership development and limitations on advancement in Fortune 500 corporations. The research problem addressed in this study was the underrepresentation of AAW in senior leadership positions within Fortune 500 corporations and what can increase their representation and retention in senior level positions. The 10 participants included African American women holding senior level …

Should We Read Bavinck's The Philosophy Of Revelation As An Apologetic-Of-Despair Work?, Isaias D'Oleo Ochoa

CTS Student Publications and Creative Works

In dealing with arguments against the Christian faith in his book The Philosophy of Religion, Herman Bavinck uses a series of argumentative strategies. One of these strategies is the apologetic of despair. This study tries to figure out whether this strategy tends to be observed in most essays of the book or its use is only circumstantial.

Putting Human Rights Up Front: Implications For Impartiality And The Politics Of Un Peacekeeping, Emily Paddon Rhoads

Political Science Faculty Works

This article traces the origins, development and implications of Human Rights Up Front (HRuF), a bold and visionary initiative launched by former Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon in 2013. While HRuF is part of a broader continuum of human rights-related reforms, its scope and focus is distinctive. HRuF puts the imperative to protect people from serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law at the core of the UN’s strategy and operational activities, and obliges staff to speak out about abuses and looming crises. Using the case study of South Sudan and drawing on over 150 interviews conducted in-country, this article …

When Alternative Dispute Resolution Works: Lessons Learned From The Bashingantahe, Alexander J. Buszka

Buffalo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Annual Report Of Research And Creative Productions By Faculty And Staff, January To December, 2019, Office Of Research And Sponsored Programs. Morehead State University.

Office of Research and Sponsored Programs Reports and Publications

Annual Report of Research and Creative Productions by Faculty and Staff, January to December, 2019.

Bodies And Heroes (Chapter In Heroic Bodies In Ancient Israel), Brian R. Doak

Faculty Publications - George Fox School of Theology

Excerpt: "In this book I make three overarching arguments about what I am calling the “heroic body” in ancient Israel, particularly as it is represented in the Hebrew Bible but also including relevant iconography and with comparative gestures toward the Bible’s larger Mesopotamian context to the east and also the Greek Mediterranean context to the west."

Undergraduate Catalogue 2019-2020, Seton Hall University

Undergraduate Catalogues

No abstract provided.

Internet Utopianism And The Practical Inevitability Of Law, Julie E. Cohen

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

"Writing at the dawn of the digital era, John Perry Barlow proclaimed cyberspace to be a new domain of pure freedom. Addressing the nations of the world, he cautioned that their laws, which were “based on matter,” simply did not speak to conduct in the new virtual realm. As both Barlow and the cyberlaw scholars who took up his call recognized, that was not so much a statement of fact as it was an exercise in deliberate utopianism. But it has proved prescient in a way that they certainly did not intend. The “laws” that increasingly have no meaning in …

The Archaeology Of The Postindustrial: Spatial Data Infrastructures For Studying The Past In The Present, Daniel Trepal

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Postindustrial urban landscapes are large-scale, complex manifestations of the past in the present in the form of industrial ruins and archaeological sites, decaying infrastructure, and adaptive reuse; ongoing processes of postindustrial redevelopment often conspire to conceal the toxic consequences of long-term industrial activity. Understanding these phenomena is an essential step in building a sustainable future; despite this, the study of the postindustrial is still new, and requires interdisciplinary connections that remain either unexplored or underexplored. Archaeologists have begun to turn their attention to the modern industrial era and beyond. This focus carries the potential to deliver new understandings of the …

Design And Development Of Personal Protective Equipment Products To Reduce The Impacts Of Machete Injuries For Indigenous Ngäbe Subsistence Farmers In Bocas Del Toro, Panama, Micah Koller

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Design and development of personal protective equipment products for workers using machetes (MPPE) is considered in the specific context of indigenous Ngäbe subsistence farmers in a small, rural community in Bocas del Toro, Panama where the author spent two years as a Peace Corps volunteer from 2017-2019. People in this community regularly suffer significant health and economic impacts due to accidents with machetes, which are essential tools in their farm work and daily lives. The history, criticisms, and recent frameworks related to product design and development in resource-poor markets is examined, and specific details of the problem of machete injuries …

Gendered Recreational Fisheries Management And North American Natural Resource Policy, Erin Burkett

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

This dissertation applies feminist theory to investigate women’s participation in wildlife-based recreation and how natural resource management organizations conduct stakeholder engagement in a North American context. Gendered social processes, including norms and expectations, as well as gendered cultures, can constrain women’s participation in recreation through social sanctions and disenfranchisement. Gender and leisure scholars have studied these dynamics in sport and leisure contexts, but how individuals negotiate these constraints is understudied in a wildlife-based recreation context. Social constructions of gender also contribute to imbalances of power within formal natural resource management organizations and influence how stakeholder engagement policies and programs are …

Intemperate Men: Alcohol And Autonomy Within The Lumber Camps Of Michigan’S Upper Peninsula, Tyler D. Allen

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

In industrial settings of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, capital often instilled discipline through control of social behaviors. Among those, alcohol consumption was most often targeted due to its effects on worker productivity. Although many industrial settings of this time enforced sobriety policies, the Cleveland Cliffs Iron Company (CCI) never enforced sobriety within their lumber camps. CCI took a hands-off approach to managing their lumber camps, which allotted their workers a great deal of autonomy. These lumber camps provide the opportunity to explore how workers used alcohol within an industrial setting when given autonomy. Looking at bottle remains and …

Mining The Evidence: Public Comments, Evidence-Based Policymaking, And A Controversial Mine, Sun V. Nguyen

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

In policymaking, evidence-based policymaking is an essential method for influencing policies and decisions by telling decision-makers “what works” (Head, 2008). Western sciences typically make up most of the evidence decision-makers use, but because people are boundedly rational in understanding and incorporating it—politics, values, and beliefs impact thought processes— scholars and policymakers also include other types of knowledge to make decisions. One way for decision-makers to incorporate other types of knowledge into policies is through public comments. Although public comments may provide different types of knowledge to improve policy decisions, decision-makers face challenges with valuing different types of knowledge as evidence. …

The Case Against Expanding Defamation Law, Yonathan A. Arbel, Murat Mungan

Articles

It is considered axiomatic that defamation law protects reputation. This proposition--commonsensical, pervasive, and influential-- is faulty. Underlying this fallacy is the failure to appreciate audience effects: the interaction between defamation law and members of the audience.

Defamation law seeks to affect the behavior of speakers by making them bear a cost for spreading untruthful information. Invariably, however, the law will also affect members of the audience, as statements made in a highly regulated environment tend to appear more reliable than statements made without accountability. Strict defamation law would tend to increase the perceived reliability of statements, which in some cases …

Situational Judgment Tests As Measures Of 21st Century Skills: Evidence Across Europe And Latin America, Gary Burkholder, Filip Lievens, Emily Solberg, Jan Harbaugh

Walden Faculty and Staff Publications

Over the years, various governmental, employment, and academic organizations have identified a list of skills to successfully master the challenges of the 21st century. So far, an adequate assessment of these skills across countries has remained challenging. Limitations inherent in the use of self-reports (e.g., lack of self-insight, socially desirable responding, response style bias, reference group bias, etc.) have spurred on the search for methods that could complement or even substitute self-report inventories. Situational judgment tests (SJTs) have been proposed as one of the complements/alternatives to the traditional self-report inventories. SJTs are low-fidelity simulations that confront participants with multiple domainrelevant …

Effect Of Religious Legislation On Religious Behavior: The Ramadan Fast, Hannah M. Ridge

Political Science Faculty Articles and Research

State laws compelling citizens to comply with elements of religious law – also known as religious legislation – are globally pervasive. Previous research has well documented the incidence of myriad examples of religious legislation. These laws’ practical effect on citizens’ behavior, however, has been less examined. This article looks at the effect of one piece of religious legislation: state laws enforcing the Ramadan fast. It demonstrates that the use of state power to sanction violations of religious law significantly increases citizens’ compliance with this religious law.

Critical Perspectives On The Scholarship Of Assessment And Learning In Law: Preface, Craig Collins, Vivien Holmes, Paul Maharg

Articles & Book Chapters

In this Preface to the first volume of the series Assessment in Legal Education, we outline the scope of the series, the reasons for its development and the ways it may assist those involved with legal education generally.

Can Soft Regulation Prevent Financial Crises?: The Dutch Central Bank's Supervision Of Behavior And Culture, John M. Conley, Cynthia A. Williams, Lodewijk Smeehuijzen, Deborah E. Rupp

Articles & Book Chapters

Financial regulation has traditionally been “hard”: national legislatures and regulators (and sometimes international bodies) require certain kinds of behavior and forbid others, on pain of business sanctions, fines, or even criminal penalties. When a financial crisis happens, the usual after-the-fact response is more hard regulation. That pattern goes back at least to the 1929 market crash that precipitated the Great Depression.

But financial crises still occur, leading many observers to wonder if what the financial world needs is a way to identify those pathological risk-takers in advance and, perhaps more importantly, to make sure that the financial institutions that employ …

Ending Sexualized Violence: International Jurisprudence, Nicole Greenberg

Scripps Senior Theses

Sexualized violence continues to threaten the autonomy of individuals and violate human rights. Scholars debate the effectiveness of international treaties in addressing this problem. The Convention on Elimination and Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) of 1979 requires ratifying countries to uplift equality and denounce discrimination of women nationally, in public and private spheres. Examining Bosnia and Herzegovina as a case study shows the effectiveness CEDAW has in creating political and social change. In addition, the Bosnian War illustrates the threat sexualized violence has on individual autonomy. Findings show that CEDAW and grassroots feminist activism are successful together in advocating for social …

Equitable Engagement In Stem: Using E-Textiles To Challenge The Positioning Of Non-Dominant Girls In School Science, Kristin A. Searle, Colby Tofel-Grehl, Janet Breitenstein

Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences Faculty Publications

This paper examines how working with sewable, programmable electronics embedded in textiles (e-textiles) impacted the self-perceptions and actions of two middle school girls from non-dominant communities as they navigated their place within science class. Using analytic induction (Erickson, 1986), we explore the phenomena around their experiences and the influence of their teachers’ perceptions. Findings indicate that the personalizable nature of e-textiles created a meaningful opportunity for students to engage in science class in a new way.

Beyond Integration: Forward Through Ferguson/Backward Through Brown, Anders Walker

Saint Louis University Law Journal

No abstract provided.

"I Don't": A Look At Attitudes Towards Delaying Marriage In A Traditional Community, Abbi Halkola

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

This sociological research study was designed to explore the attitudes of women in their late twenties and thirties about marriage and how geography (physical and sociological) impacts decisions. This research looks at women in a politically and religiously conservative area in the central Midwest. The research is meant to be exploratory in nature in order to grasp an understanding of how not only educational and career aspirations affect attitudes toward marriage but also at how leisure activities and the sexual revolution play a major role in the desire to delay marriage. Interviews were conducted to expose women’s attitudes, opinions, choices, …

Mock Trials In The Music Theory Classroom, Angela Ripley

Journal of Music Theory Pedagogy

Mock trials can help music theory students analyze compositions whose thematic, formal, or tonal ambiguities invite multiple interpretations. In this article, I outline the four phases of a music theory mock trial (investigation, evidence, verdict, and discussion), present sample cases, and discuss student responses and pedagogical benefits of using mock trials in the music theory classroom. Music theory mock trials work well for a wide variety of analytical topics and repertoires, as demonstrated by three sample cases. In these cases, students investigate motivic material in Bach’s Invention in B-flat Major (BWV 785), confront cadential ambiguity in Schumann’s “Aus meinen Thränen …

Ranging And Behavior Of Black And Gold Howler Monkeys In Formosa, Argentina, Claire Rossi De Leon

Library Map Prize

Howler monkeys (Alouatta spp.) are known for their adaptability, allowing them to inhabit a large range of forest types and driving high levels of variation in ranging and behavioral patterns. I address a series of hypotheses relating these relationships: 1) If an energy minimizing lifestyle is an adaptation to eating high quantities of leaves, then howler groups that have a high proportion of leaves in their diet will occupy smaller home ranges, have shorter daily path lengths, and spend more time resting, 2) if temperature is the primary driver of high levels of resting, then howlers will conserve energy and …