Business Commons^™

Funding Allocations Strategies For Improving Nonprofit Organizations' Effectiveness And Sustainability, Jaime L. Friedel

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Nonprofit organizational leaders (NOLs) face laws that require increased transparency and more oversight on funding allocations. Grounded by a conceptual framework of Hersey and Blanchard's situational leadership theory, Burns's transformational leadership theory, and Greenleaf's servant leadership theory, this multiple case study was developed to explore the leadership strategies of NOLs who implemented requirements of New York's Non-Profit Revitalization Act to increase funding allocations to support fulfillment of the organizational mission and achieve sustainability. The study population comprised NOLs from the Northeastern United States, who implemented requirements of the Non-Profit Revitalization Act requirements. Face-to-face semistructured interviews with 5 NOLs, a review …

Strategic Working Capital Sourcing Strategies For The Survival Of Small Businesses, Gregory Smith

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Fifty percent of small businesses fail before attaining their 5-year anniversary. The lack of sufficient working capital is one of the major reasons for small business failure. Pecking order theory was employed as the conceptual framework for this multiple case study to explore the working capital sourcing strategies of 6 purposely selected successful small business owners in the Southeast region of the United States used to sustain their businesses beyond 5 years. Data sources included semistructured interviews and company documents. Data analysis included thematic coding of the material using statistical software. The modified Van Kaam method was used to analyze …

Strategies For Motivating Sales Employees' Performance Within Small Businesses In The United States, Wesley Chikwanda Chishimba

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The loss of revenue, profits, brand, and corporate sustainability are possible for companies whose managers do not use strategies to motivate employee sales performance. The purpose of this multiple case study was to explore the strategies managers use to motivate sales employees' performance. A purposeful sample of 3 managers from U.S. companies with sales employees shared their strategies to motivate sales employees' performance. Methodological triangulation was used to review and analyze information from semistructured interviews, journal notes, member checking data, and review and analysis of relevant company documents. Additionally, coding indicated 4 main themes supporting the benefits of strategies to …

Organizational Leadership Activities That Positively Influence Virtual Employee Engagement, Milton Jones Perkins

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Considering the growing virtual workforce, it is important for people-managers to understand whether traditional management techniques produce increased engagement and greater productivity with a virtual population. Guided by James Heskett, W. Earl Sasser Jr., and Leonard Schlesinger's conceptual Service Profit Chain framework, this study focused on addressing the gap in contemporary literature related to management techniques that influence virtual employee engagement. Much of the current research provides a foundation for managing and engaging traditional office-based employees. To better understand which experientially-based management techniques influenced traditional employee engagement for a group of virtual employees, a qualitative descriptive phenomenological methodology was used …

The Performance Implication Of Obsessive Work Passion: Unpacking The Moderating And Mediating Mechanisms From A Conservation Of Resources Perspective, Dejun Tony Kong, Violet T. Ho

Management Faculty Publications

Work passion is an important determinant of work performance. While harmonious work passion (HWP) shows its consistent predictive value, obsessive work passion (OWP) appears to have a mixed relationship with work performance. To address this puzzle, we integrate research on OWP and emotional exhaustion with conservation of resources (COR) theory. Specifically, we argue that OWP determines emotional exhaustion, whose relationship with work performance is attenuated by leader-member exchange (LMX). By conducting a field study with a sample of 262 U.S. employees, we found supportive evidence, even when controlling for psychological detachment from work. The findings somewhat reconcile the inconsistent results …

Leisure At Work And Employee Flourishing, Andrew Lacanienta, Mat D. Duerden, Mark A. Widmer

Faculty Publications

The purpose of this study was to examine the efficacy of Duerden, Courtright, and Widmer’s leisure at work (LAW) model and explore the relationship between LAW and employee flourishing (i.e., resilience, work engagement, organizational identification). In a sample of 266 computer software employees, structural equation modeling revealed that LAW and leisure as a state of mind (i.e., intrinsic motivation, perceived freedom, positive affect) had positive relationships with personal expressiveness (b ¼ .704, p < .001) and organizational identification (b ¼ .164, p < .01). In addition, LAW had a positive relationship with resilience mediated by personal expressiveness (b ¼ .157, p < .01). Results suggest that LAW can provide added value to the workplace by facilitating personal expressiveness, resilience, and organizational identification. This study contributes to the discussion on LAW-related benefits and provides recommendations for practical application and future research.

Shared Team Experiences And Team Effectiveness: Unpacking The Contingent Effects Of Entrained Rhythms And Task Characteristics, Margaret M. Luciano, Amy L. Bartels, Lauren D'Innocenzo, M. Travis Maynard, John E. Mathieu

Department of Management: Faculty Publications

This study explores the conditions under which shared team task-specific (STTS) experiences in crew-based arrangements may negatively influence team effectiveness.We suggest that the entrained rhythms featured in social entrainment theory act as a dual-edged sword with the potential to generate complacency detriments in addition to the commonly cited synchronization benefits. We argue that the manifestation and influence of the countervailing forces (i.e., synchronization and complacency) on the STTS experience—team effectiveness relationship will depend on salient task characteristics (i.e., frequency and difficulty). More specifically, frequently performed tasks create conditions for complacency tomanifest (generating an inverted-U shaped relationship between STTS experience—team efficiency), …

“Optimizing The Performance Of Mean-Variance Portfolios In Various Markets: An “Old-School” Approach”, Roberto Stein, Orlando E. Contreras-Pacheco

Department of Management: Faculty Publications

The authors study the performance of mean-variance optimized (MVO) equity portfolios for retail investors in various markets in the U.S. and around the world. Actively managed equity mutual funds have relatively high fees and tend to underperform their benchmark. Index funds such as exchange traded funds still charge appreciable fees, and only deliver the performance of the benchmark. The authors find that MVO portfolios are relatively easy to manage by a retail investor, and that they tend to outperform their benchmark or, at worst, equal its performance, even after adjusting for risk. Moreover, they show that the performance of these …

Ripping Off The Band-Aid: Scrutiny Bundling In The Wake Of Social Disapproval, Varkey K. Titus Jr., Owen Parker, A. Erin Bass

Department of Management: Faculty Publications

Activities that hazard the possibility of increased scrutiny are an unavoidable reality for many firms. While managers may face the need to engage in these activities, there is little research on when managers decide to do so. Existing theoretical perspectives on status quo deviations have not sufficiently addressed how managers order the firm’s essential activities that differ primarily in terms of the scrutiny those activities engender. Drawing from concepts in the accounting and political science literatures, we advance a “scrutiny- bundling” perspective that suggests that firms engage in scrutiny-hazarding action in the wake of social disapproval, assessed in this study …

Examining Follower Responses To Transformational Leadership From A Dynamic, Person–Environment Fit Perspective, Bennett J. Tepper, Nikolaos Dimotakis, Lisa Schurer Lambert, Joel Koopman, Fadel K. Matta, Hee Man Park, Wongun Goo

Department of Management: Faculty Publications

We invoke the person–environment fit paradigm to examine on a daily basis follower affective, attitudinal, and behavioral responses to transformational leadership needed and received. Results from two experience sampling method (ESM) studies suggested that positive affect was higher on days when transformational leadership received fit follower needs (compared to days when the amount received was deficient or in excess of follower needs) and on days when absolute levels of fit was higher. We also found that positive affect mediated the within-person effects of transformational leadership needed and received on subordinates’ daily work attitudes (Studies 1 and 2) and organizational citizenship …

Bang For The Buck: Understanding Employee Benefit Allocations And New Venture Survival, Jake G. Messersmith, Pankaj C. Patel, Christopher Crawford

Department of Management: Faculty Publications

Providing employee benefits is costly for new ventures, yet offering such inducements is often essential to developing human capital. While a broad combination of employee benefits could yield synergistic effects, adopting a large number of benefits may not be feasible for resource constrained ventures. To ensure survival, while limiting misallocation of scarce resources towards benefits that have lower returns, entrepreneurs must be selective in choosing the benefits that generate the most ‘bang for the buck’. Our study assesses the effects of employee benefit offerings on venture survival odds. Based on a longitudinal sample of 1012 US-based ventures from the Kauffman …

The Meaning-Making Structures Of Outsatnding Leaders: A Comparison Of Conative Capability At Conventional And Postconventional Leader Development Levels, Aidan Patrick Harney

PhDs

The majority of managers and leaders do not advance to postconventional stages of ego development (Boyd & Laske 2018), yet increased leader effectiveness has been correlated with the quality of personal meaning-making acquired at postconventional levels of maturity. This dissertation provides an original contribution to knowledge regarding the differences in personal meaning-making structure which are found by comparing conventional- with postconventional-stage leaders. This study focuses on the elements which make up a leader’s conative capability i.e. their conative intelligence and their conative complexity. Along with cognition and affect, conation is one of the three traditionally identified components of mind (Vandenbos …

Understanding The Potential Of University Teachers To Become Unit Coordinators, Karim.Salhani Rafic Salhani

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Current reports estimate that 1 in 5 unit coordinators at universities resign each year. When it comes to management of talent, universities lag behind other industries. The problem is university leaders lack empirical ways of identifying future leaders to ensure the survival and growth of the institution. The purpose of this study was to understand how university teachers demonstrate formal leadership potential by uncovering the main behavioral patterns, personal characteristics, tasks, and relationship-building activities of teachers that enable them to become excellent candidates for leading a department. With the Leadership Potential BluePrint as a conceptual framework, a multiple-case study design …

The Impact Of Transformational Leadership On Nonprofit Volunteer Engagement And Commitment, Victoria Bohannon Buck

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Nonprofit leadership attributes exert a significant effect on the nonprofit volunteer workforce to provide optimal service delivery to communities. Meeting the local community demands challenges nonprofit leadership to model inspirational behavior and attitudes that may motivate workers to transcend personal aspirations to support organizational goals more effectively. The purpose of this quantitative, correlational study was to determine whether transformational leadership influences the level of commitment and engagement of volunteer workers in nonprofit organizations. A theoretical framework based on transformational leadership guided the research. The research questions addressed the relationships between transformational leadership and nonprofit volunteer engagement and commitment. A sample …

Motivation Strategies For Improving Consistency In Live-Entertainment Employees' Performances, Anthony G. Ricotta

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The lack of discrete motivation strategies to improve the consistency of employees' performances was the problem that instigated this research. The purpose of this single-case study was to explore the motivation strategies live-entertainment artistic directors (ADs) use to improve consistency in the artists' performances. Data were collected within an international live-entertainment company to uncover whether artists self-determined the approach to improving consistency in performance or whether consistency occurred from strategies developed by the ADs. Data were collected from face-to-face interviews with ADs and senior ADs and performance evaluations of employees, and then analyzed using Miles, Huberman, and Saldana's data analysis …

Leadership Strategies To Improve Volunteer Retention, Rudene Pauline Glass

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Nonprofit leaders face challenges retaining volunteers to support their organizations' human resources. The shortage of volunteers threatens nonprofit sustainability with increasing personnel cost for maintaining quality services. Grounded by Burns's transformational leadership theory, the purpose of this multiple case study was to explore strategies nonprofit leaders from southeastern Michigan used to improve volunteer retention. Data were collected through face-to-face semistructured interviews with 3 nonprofit leaders and a review of organizational documents such as volunteer implementation plans, strategic plans, and volunteer committee notes. Data were analyzed using a methodological triangulation process of sorting comments, which involved a chronological review of the …

Strategies Business Managers Use To Engage Employees In The Chemical Industry, Akeem A. Adeyemi

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Lack of employee engagement in the workplace is one of the leading causes of lost productivity in the United States, estimated to cost organizations between $450 to $550 billion per year. The purpose of this single case study was to explore the strategies that some business managers in the chemical industry use to engage employees and increase productivity. The population for the study consisted of 5 small chemical business managers of a chemical company in the northeastern United States that demonstrated success in engaging employees. The conceptual framework for the study was social exchange theory. Data were collected from small …

Strategies For Selecting And Individualizing Training For Employee Positioning, Reba Michelle Royster

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Lack of effective selection and training of employees for positioning within a business can have extensive financial repercussions. Fostering mentoring relationships between leaders and employees increases competitive advantage and institutional financial growth. However, there is limited research that supports the role of mentoring leadership styles for improving organizational productivity. The purpose of this single case study was to explore strategies used by business managers to select and individually train employees for opportunities within the organization to achieve job-person fit. The sample included 5 business managers employed within a medium-sized organization in a consultation firm in the mid-Atlantic region of the …

Effective Strategies For Building Trust In Virtual Teams, Alphonse Shefa Kwaye

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Virtual teams often fail to achieve their objectives because virtual team leaders lack strategies for nurturing trust among dispersed team members. The purpose of this single case study was to explore strategies virtual team leaders in large corporate banks use to build trust among virtual team members. The population of this study included 6 virtual team leaders from a large corporate bank located in the northeast region of the United States. The interpersonal trust theory was the conceptual framework of this study. Data were collected via semistructured telephone interviews and review of company documents. The data analysis process included content …

Leadership Styles Manufacturing Business Managers Use To Reduce Workplace Injuries, Joe Sparks

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The cost of workplace injuries is a major concern for business managers. Business managers in the production, transportation, and material moving industries experience the highest injury rate with an annual average of 198.5 lost days away from work. The purpose of this single case study was to explore transformational leadership skills and strategies used by manufacturing business managers to reduce workplace injuries. The conceptual framework for this study was Bass and Burns's transformational leadership theory. Data collection included semistructured interviews to elicit narratives from 3 managers from a metal manufacturing company located in the southeastern United States about the leadership …

Compliance Strategies To Reduce The Risks Of Money Laundering And Terrorist Financing, Cassandra Nottage

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Ineffective compliance programs expose banking and trust companies to increased risk of money laundering (ML) and terrorist financing (TF). Using risk management theory, the purpose of this multiple case study was to explore compliance strategies that Bahamian bank and trust company managers use to reduce ML/TF risks. Study participants comprised 7 senior risk and compliance managers experienced in risk strategy development and implementation. Semistructured interview data were triangulated with data collected from internal policy and procedural documents, publicly available papers of the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering (FATF), the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS), and the Central …

Increasing Known Performance Indicators Using Andragogy-Based Models, Jacqueline Conroy

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Variety of training models are used in large retail organizations in South Carolina. Large retail organizations have leaders educating their employees using multiple methods of training without regard as to how adults learn. Leadership of large retail organizations in South Carolina may be investing in training materials, concepts, and facilitation methods that may not have substantive impact on known performance metrics. Knowles' theory of andragogy has been at the forefront of adult education theory as it has led many researchers to explore new methods for adults to learn effectively. A quasi-experimental study was designed to determine if an andragogy based …

Strategies To Combat Tenant Fraud In The Rental Housing Market, Dr. Gwendolyn B. Dawson

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Many business executives lack strategies to detect and eliminate tenant fraud in subsidized rental housing. The purpose of this multicase study was to explore strategies some business executives used to detect and eliminate tenant fraud in subsidized rental housing. The conceptual framework used to guide this study was the theory of planned behavior. Data were gathered using semistructured interviews with 6 purposively selected business executives of public housing authorities, supplemented with a review of policies and procedures that business executives used. Yin's 5-step analysis, which entails examining, categorizing, tabulating, creating a data display, and testing the data, guided the process …

Turnover: A Case Study Of Middle Managers In The Landscape Industry, Jason Richard Stroman

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The landscape industry in the United States suffers higher turnover among middle management positions. Upper management does not know why this is occurring and currently has no strategy to deal with it. The purpose of this study was to investigate the reasons for high turnover among middle managers and explore the ways to reduce turnover. Reducing turnover may help with the stability of the landscape industry and increase employee retention. Conceptual framework for this study included Maslow's hierarchy of needs, Herzberg's two factor theory, situational theory, and contingency theory. This qualitative exploratory case study addressed the reasons for high turnover …

Strategies For Pharmacy Managers To Increase Profit By Reducing Prescription Errors, Alphonsus I. Nwambie

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The costs attributed to prescription errors negatively affect the profits of retail pharmacy businesses. The U.S. prescription error rate since 2010 was 0.1%, yet with more than 3.5 billion prescriptions filled annually in the United States, the outcome is more than 3.5 million prescription-dispensing errors and an annual cost of more than $16 billion. Using the performance prism theory, the purpose of this multiple case study was to explore strategies retail pharmacy managers used to increase profit by reducing prescription errors. Using purposeful sampling, 5 retail pharmacy managers in Miami, Florida, were selected as participants because they had implemented strategies …

Strategies For Employee Turnover Of Southeastern Wisconsin Manufacturing Workers, Jonathan Singer

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Voluntary employee turnover is a challenging problem for manufacturing leaders. Leaders today are challenged to find and retain human capital to remain competitive. The lack of strategies to reduce voluntary turnover among manufacturing leaders has contributed to high turnover rates and increased costs for manufacturing firms. The purpose of this multiple case study was to explore the strategies that some southeastern Wisconsin manufacturing leaders used to reduce voluntary turnover. The conceptual framework supporting the study was Herzberg's 2-factor theory. Results for the study were derived from the analysis of semistructured interviews of 6 manufacturing leaders across 4 manufacturing locations, as …

The Three Creeks Allotment Consolidation: Changing Western Federal Grazing Paradigms, Taylor Payne

Human–Wildlife Interactions

The federal government owns approximately 47% of all land in the western United States. In the state of Utah, about 64% of the land base is managed by the federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the U.S. Forest Service (USFS). The government has historically issued permits to owners of private lands to allow the owners to graze their livestock on public lands. The permits (allotments) are generally of 10-year duration and allow for an annual season of use. In some cases, continued and repeated historical annual grazing practices may not be ideal for permit holders and their communities nor …

It's A Dangerous World In There: Leadership Methods And Actions Of School Administrators During Emergency Situations And Times Of Crisis, James J. Drake

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Over the past twenty years, shootings and other violent incidents, acts of terrorism such as the attacks of September 11, 2001, and natural disaster events such as hurricanes or floods have occurred with increasing frequency. Situations like these pose significant challenges for school administrators when a normally-peaceful educational environment is quickly transformed by significant acts of aggression from within, or by external threats that impact the educational domain with little or no advance warning.

Contingency-based, situational leadership has proven to be effective when used in both educational and non-educational settings during normal, non-emergency periods. The purpose of this study is …

Microfinance: Combating World Poverty One Small Business At A Time, Alison Basney

Senior Honors Theses

Poverty is a major problem that reaches millions of people around the world. Although many organizations and individuals work daily to combat this, much of the work done to reduce poverty lacks sustainability and serves only to remedy to the effects of poverty, rather than create a solution to the causes of poverty. Microfinance can be very basically defined as the provision of banking to the impoverished who would not otherwise have access to these services. This purpose of this thesis is to show that microfinance is the ideal solution to the poverty problem by using research and evidence from …

Business Stressors, Family-Business Identity, And Divorce In Family Business: A Vulnerability-Stress-Adaptation (Vsa) Model, Paul Sanchez-Ruiz, Ileana Maldonado-Bautista, Matthew Rutherford

Management Faculty Publications

A considerable amount of research focuses on how divorce in enterprising families influences family business outcomes. Yet, the impact that family businesses have on the divorce of enterprising families remains relatively under-researched. We contribute to the emerging enterprising family heterogeneity literature by building upon the Vulnerability-Stress-Adaptation (VSA) model and explore two questions regarding the influence of family businesses on divorce: Do family business-related stressors influence divorce? And, if so, what adaptive processes help enterprising families to cope with family business-related stressors? We hypothesize that high levels of debt and high sales revenue levels (as stressors) positively and significantly affect the …