Business Commons^™

Groupthink Among German, British, American, And Soviet Leaders During The Holocaust, Alan Woolf

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Understanding the psychology behind the perpetrators of the Holocaust has been difficult because experiments on conformity and obedience cannot readily simulate the reality of the Holocaust. There exists historical documentation surrounding the leaders of the Nazi organization instrumental for the perpetration of the Holocaust, but the underlying motives of Hitler's leaders relating to governmental policies of systematic extermination of the Jews in Europe, are not known, as the strategy and operationalization of the actions were kept extremely secret, disguised by euphemisms, or only discussed verbally. This research study was to further understand the thought processes behind the manipulation tactics applied …

Nigerian Banks' Compliance With The Code Of Corporate Governance, Aderonke Alberta Tayo-Tiwo

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Frequent incidences of bank failures in Nigeria resulting in enormous losses of investments and jobs have raised questions about the level of banks' compliance with the code of corporate governance. This single exploratory case study shifted attention from the banks to the regulators of banks in Nigeria, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), to find out the problems they may be encountering in getting the banks to be fully compliant. Purposeful sampling was used to select 25 senior participants who were directly involved with the monitoring of banks from CBN. The agency theory served as the conceptual framework. The sources …

A Bibliometric Analysis Of The Proceedings Of The Association For Educational Communications And Technology (Aect) For The 1979-2009 Period, Vandy L. Pacetti-Donelson

Theses and Dissertations

Traditional journal analysis for the identification of disciplines is limited in developing areas of study due to the lack of journals specific to that area of study. Identifying knowledge domains worthy of study for the identification of developing disciplines has been difficult.

Conferences are at the forefront of building knowledge in scientific communities, particularly in technology related sectors, but less than 10% of conference proceedings are available in conventional knowledge databases. As a result, conference proceedings as a previously unconsidered knowledge domain, may provide the knowledge domain worthy of analysis to identify developmental and incremental change within developing areas of …

Influence Of Psychological Capital And Thinking Perspectives On Construction Safety Climate And Performance, Anne-Perrine Pascale Cades

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Understanding safety factors in construction is critical to reducing accident frequency and severity. Grounded in the safety performance model, this study was conducted to examine the impact of psychological capital (PsyCap), which consists of the shared variance of hope, efficacy, resilience and optimism, and Past, Present, and Future thinking perspectives, on safety climate and performance. A nonexperimental quantitative design was used to determine whether PsyCap and thinking perspectives of construction project employees predicted safety performance and/or moderated the relationship between safety climate and performance across construction sites in different countries. 411 construction employees were recruited via a multistage and clustering …

Long-Term Retention Among Child Welfare Workers In Michigan: A Phenomenological Study, Andrea Vajdic-Pena

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

High turnover of child welfare workers is a problem to the children and families that receive services and the child welfare organizations that lose their staff. For children and their families, turnover of their assigned worker may interrupt their ability to achieve their permanency goals. Child welfare organizations encounter high costs for hiring staff due to the turnover and the staff that remain suffer with higher caseloads and not being able to provide the quality of services that they should be able to offer. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to understand the lived experiences of child welfare workers …

Relationships Between Job Satisfaction, Organizational Commitment, And Teacher Engagement, Chakita Jackson

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Educational researchers contend that high-quality, sustaining teachers are critical to student success. However, few policymakers agree on the best way to improve teacher quality. Researchers outside of education found associations between employee engagement and job performance, which suggests that improving teacher work engagement may potentially improve teacher productivity. Engagement theories framed this correlational study; Kahn's engagement theory, Spector's job satisfaction theory and Meyer and Allen's organizational commitment theory. These theories contributed to examining relationships between job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and teacher work engagement. Additionally, this study further examined how these relationships mediated teacher demographics ( gender, age, educational level, and …

Hotel Manager Strategies To Reduce Voluntary Employee Turnover, Christl Arwen Kroeten

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The voluntary turnover rate in the United States hotel industry is among the highest of all industries, resulting in lost revenue. The purpose of this multiple case study was to explore strategies hotel managers use to reduce voluntary employee turnover. The targeted population consisted of 6 managers from hotel businesses operating in the MidAtlantic region of the United States who successfully used strategies to reduce voluntary employee turnover. Job embeddedness theory, this study's theoretical framework, was used to describe reasons employees remained in organizations. Data were gathered via semistructured interviews, observational notes, and public business records regarding turnover or retention …

The Effects Of Cultural Dissimilarity On Employee Job Attitudes And Productivity, Sherrice Olithia Lyons

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Organizations in Jamaica have been impacted by globalization and the opportunities and challenges of cultural incompatibilities. Most previous studies on cultural incompatibilities have focused on the impact on expatriates leaving a gap in the literature with respect to the implications for host country nationals, and specifically Jamaicans. This quantitative study focused on employees of 2 companies in Jamaica, an energy company and a hospitality company. It examined cultural dissimilarity with respect to host country nationals and expatriates, and its effect on the productivity, job satisfaction, affective commitment, and normative commitment of these employees (N = 110). In addition to the …

New Approaches To Selection System Design In Healthcare: The Practical And Theoretical Relevance Of A Modular Approach, Filip Lievens, Jan Corstjens

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This chapter presents a modular approach to healthcare selection system design. Contrary to the traditional holistic view on selection procedures, a modular approach highlights the components underlying selection procedures. Our framework identifies seven key design components of selection procedures (The stimulus format, contextualization, stimulus presentation consistency, the response format, response evaluation consistency, information source, and instructions) and reviews studies in the healthcare selection literature that compared the effect of these components on key selection outcomes. A modular approach allows (1) gaining insights into how the different components underlying selection procedures affect selection outcomes and (2) drawing conceptual similarities between components …

When Corporate Social Responsibility Motivates Employee Citizenship Behavior: The Sensitizing Role Of Task Significance, Madeline Ong, David M. Mayer, P. Tost Leigh, Ned Wellman

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Scholars have proposed that organizations’ corporate social responsibility (CSR) efforts are often positively associated with employees’ organizational citizenship behaviors (OCB) and have invoked identity-based mechanisms to explain this relationship. Complementing these perspectives, we develop a CSR sensitivity framework that explains how task significance, a micro-level job characteristic, can sensitize employees to their organizations’ macro-level CSR efforts, thereby strengthening the association between CSR and OCB. Across three field studies, we find that CSR and task significance interact to predict OCB, such that an organization’s CSR is more positively associated with OCB among employees who report higher task significance than among those …

Evaluation Of An Adaptive Reading Program At A Title I Public Elementary School, Monica M. Gordon

Theses and Dissertations

This applied dissertation was designed to evaluate the I-station adaptive reading program and determine its impact on reading proficiency of third-grade students. The school of study was a Title I school with proficiency rates for third-grade students of about 40% annually. The district recommendation for student usage mirrored the recommended minutes per week established by Imagination Station, the I-station parent company.

The program evaluation utilized the context-input-process-product model components, measuring process and product. There were two research questions underpinning the study: 1. Process: Is the I-station program being used with fidelity at the school of study to achieve program intended …

Contextualizing Social Power Research Within Organizational Behavior, Michael Schaerer, Alice J. Lee, Adam D. Galinsky, Stefan Thau

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Although there has been tremendous scientific interest in social power, much of this recent research has relied on experiments in context-poor settings. However, organizations – a context in which power differences emerge naturally – are more complex and dynamic. The current review discusses whether and how defining organizational features at the intrapersonal level (multiple dimensions of hierarchy, dynamics over time, attentional demands), interpersonal level (interdependence, repeated interactions), and organizational level (accountability, culture, virtual work) moderate the effects of power. We also discuss ways to systematically incorporate organizational complexities into the study of social power and recommend fruitful avenues for future …

We’Re Less Likely To Collaborate In Bad Economic Times, Nina Sirola

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

In the fall of 1930, the U.S. economy was on a path to recovery following a contraction that occurred the year before. However, worries about the state of the economy, and the banking system in particular, prompted an increasing number of bank customers to attempt to withdraw their funds, an event known as a bank run. Because banks normally keep only a small proportion of deposits in cash, bank runs create a self-fulfilling prophecy such that initial concerns about banks’ possible insolvency ultimately cause insolvency. The bank run of 1930 resulted in the worst economic downturn in the modern history, …

Heads Will Roll! Routes To Effective Trust Repair In The Aftermath Of A Ceo Transgression, Donald L. Ferrin, Cecily D. Cooper, Kurt T. Dirks, Peter H. Kim

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

CEO transgressions are a common storyline in today's business press. Such incidents result in the need to repair trust for both the CEO and the organisation that the CEO leads. Existing empirical research on trust repair has focused primarily on interpersonal trust, resulting in a body of knowledge that provides many insights to the errant CEO but few insights for those who aim to repair trust in the organisation. Since organisations also need to regain the trust of stakeholders after a CEO transgression, research on organisational trust repair is clearly warranted. Organisations have options for trust repair that are not …

When The Tables Are Turned: The Effects Of The 2016 Us Presidential Election On In-Group Favoritism And Out-Group Hostility, Burak Oc, Celia Moore, Michael R. Bashshur

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The outcome of the 2016 U.S. Presidential election was a big surprise to many, as the majority of polls had predicted the opposite outcome. In this two-stage cross-sectional study, we focus on how Democrats and Republicans reacted to this electoral surprise and how these reactions might have influenced the way they allocated resources to each other in small groups. We find that, before the election, Republicans showed greater in-group favoritism than Democrats, who treated others equally, regardless of their political affiliation. We then show that Democrats experienced the election outcome as an ego shock and, in the week following the …

Sleep And Work: The Interactive Mechanism [睡眠与工作：相互作用机制], Xiaotian Sheng, Zihan Liu, Xichao Zhang, Heng Guo, Shu Da, Shiyi Zhou

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Sleep-related problems are becoming increasingly severer for workers, which draws great attention from researchers. Based on important empirical researches in recent years, we finish a systematic summary of the conceptualization, measurement, antecedents and consequences of sleep in the workplace. In general, researches measure individual’s sleep from two dimensions including sleep duration and sleep quality. Objective records and subjective reports are both used to collect data. Antecedents of sleep problems can be classified as environmental factors, cognitive factor and behavioral factors. Unsatisfactory sleep also has a negative influence on the psychological state and behaviors of workers, which may lead to workplace …

Understanding Knowledge Sharing Motivation In The Public Sector: Application Of Self-Determination And Person-Environment Fit Theories, Jaeyong Lee

Theses and Dissertations

Knowledge has been recognized as an important resource that should be carefully managed in order to enhance organizational competitiveness. Therefore, it is important to manage knowledge resources that have been learned and stored in organizations. Several scholars in the public administration literature have examined whether public service motivation (PSM) can help employees share their knowledge in ways that contribute to the effective functioning of public organizations. However, the mechanisms by which PSM influences individuals’ propensity to share knowledge have not been clarified by past research.

Against this background, at first, this study contributes to understanding the relationship between PSM and …

Recovering From Workplace Offenses: Understanding The Roles Of Resilience And Forgiveness, Francisca Saldanha

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Workplace transgressions have been shown to have pervasive and detrimental consequences for employees and organizations. Given these negative consequences, past research has examined how managers and organizations can prevent transgressions from occurring in the first place (i.e., preventive approaches) and how transgressions can be fixed when they do eventually occur (i.e., remedial approaches). However, it is unlikely that transgressions can ever be fully eradicated from organizations and it is doubtful that providing remedies can fully redress the harm that was caused. Accordingly, it is important to complement the preventive and remedial approaches with a deeper understanding of how employees can …

Intercultural Relationships And Creativity:Current Research And Future Directions, Fon Wiruchnipawan, Roy Y. J. Chua

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

In the global economy, individuals have to engage in cross-cultural interactions when tasked to develop creative new products or services. Research on the effects of cultural diversity on creativity, however, has been equivocal. One stream of research champions that cultural diversity in relationships broadens ideas and resources for creative thinking, whereas skeptics counter that intercultural tensions and conflicts hurt rather than help. This chapter discusses both sides of the argument. We examine the effects of intercultural relationships on creativity from three perspectives: (a) how a culturally diverse social environment (including social networks) influences individuals’ creativity; (b) how individuals can successfully …

Employer Branding: A Brand Equity-Based Literature Review And Research Agenda, Christian P. Theurer, Andranik Tumasjan, Isabell M. Welpe, Filip Lievens

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Over the past two decades, scholarly interest in employer branding has strongly increased. Simultaneously, however, employer branding research has developed into a fragmented field with heterogeneous interpretations of the employer branding concept and its scope, which has impeded further theoretical and empirical advancement. To strengthen the foundation for future work, this paper takes a brand equity perspective to review the extant literature and create an integrative model of employer branding. Using an analytical approach, the authors identify 187 articles, which they integrate along different employer brand dimensions and branding strategies: (i) conceptual; (ii) employer knowledge dimensions; (iii) employer branding activities …

Determinants, Consequences, And Functions Of Interpersonal Trust: What Is The Empirical Evidence?, Serena C. Lyu, Donald L. Ferrin

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The objectives of this review are to systematically review and succinctly summarize the empirical evidence concerning determinants, outcomes, and functions of interpersonal trust within organizational settings. Our review aims to provide a distinct contribution in that it (1) focuses only on what has been found empirically (rather than summarizing theoretical perspectives); (2) is focused only on interpersonal trust within organizational settings; and (3) has a clearly defined empirical base (clearly delineated body of past research to be reviewed). We begin by describing our review methodology, starting with the definition of interpersonal trust that guided our review.

Crisis Communication And Ethics: The Role Of Public Relations, Yan Jin, Augustine Pang, Joshua Smith

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the veracity of the contingency model of ethical crisis communication by examining the factors of influence in a time of crisis including what constitutes ethics in a time of crisis; the role of public relations (PR) practitioners as the “moral conscience” of an organization and perceptions of the PR’ role within top management. Design/methodology/approach: In-depth interviews were conducted among ten senior PR managers with crisis communication experience in North America. Findings: This research identifies and investigates six ethical variables – the nature of the crisis, the role of top management, the …

A Broad Stroke Or Different Strokes For Different Folks? Examining The Subtleties In Crisis Management Approaches Between State-Owned Enterprises And Privately-Owned Enterprises In China, Augustine Pang, Yang Hu, Eugene Woon

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Several previous studies have been conducted to examine China’s management of internal crises, but few have investigated the approaches to crisis management used by domestic Chinese organizations. It is critical to study these organizations because their approaches exemplify the intricacies of crisis management at the local level. In China, there are two main types of organizations: state-owned enterprises (SOE) and privately owned enterprises (POE). This study aimed to determine how their business orientations led to different styles of crisis management in terms of media relations, government relations, and crisis responses. The findings showed that SOEs sought shelter from the government, …

Building Relationships Through Dialogic Communication: Organizations, Stakeholders, And Computer-Mediated Communication, Augustine Pang, Wonsun Shin, Zijian Lew, Joseph B. Walther

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Online media are integral to daily life, and while many organizations use them to reach broad audiences, others still appear to be uncomfortable with online media because they do not understand how to maximize their potential to interact effectively with stakeholders. Numerous organizations use online media for one-way communication to disseminate information, despite the affordances of the media platforms for two-way, dialogic communication. This article draws on two dominant interpersonal theories of computer-mediated communication—social information processing theory and the hyperpersonal model—to propose dialogic strategies that organizations can use to improve their online communication with their stakeholders. We illustrate the application …

Imaginary Alternatives: The Impact Of Mental Simulation On Powerless Negotiators, Michael Schaerer, Martin Schweinsberg, Roderick I. Swaab

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The present research demonstrates that negotiators can act powerfully without having power.Researchers and practitioners advise people to obtain strong alternatives prior to negotiating toenhance their power. However, alternatives are not always readily available, often forcingnegotiators to negotiate without much, or any, power. Building on research suggesting thatsubjective feelings of power and objective outcomes are disconnected and that mental simulationcan increase individuals’ aspirations, we hypothesized that the mental imagery of a strongalternative could provide similar psychological benefits to having an actual alternative. Ourstudies demonstrate that imagining strong alternatives causes individuals to negotiate moreambitiously and provides them with a distributive advantage: negotiators …

The Illusion Of Transparency In Performance Appraisals: When And Why Accuracy Motivation Explains Unintentional Feedback Inflation, Michael Schaerer, Mary Kern, Gail Berger, Roderick I. Swaab

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The present research shows that managers communicate negative feedback ineffectively because they suffer from transparency illusions that cause them to overestimate how accurately employees perceive their feedback. We propose that these illusions emerge because managers are insufficiently motivated to engage in effortful thinking, which reduces the accuracy with which they communicate negative feedback to employees. Six studies (N = 1883) using actual performance appraisals within an organization and role plays with MBA students, undergraduates, and online participants show that transparency illusions are stronger when feedback is negative (Studies 1–2), that they are not driven by employee bias (Study 3), and …

The Macroeconomic Environment And The Psychology Of Work Evaluation, Nina Sirola, Marko Pitesa

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This research tested the idea that the perception of the state of the macroeconomic environment impacts the psychology underlying an essential organizational function: The evaluation of employees’ work and the associated promotion and demotion decisions. We predicted that when the macroeconomic environment is perceived to be more (less) prosperous, people’s generalized sense of the extent to which individuals have control over outcomes increases (decreases), leading them to attribute more (less) responsibility for work outcomes to individuals rather than contextual influences. In Study 1, we tested this theory using data from 124,400 respondents surveyed across 57 countries and 19 years and …

Understanding Emotions In The Workplace: A Critical Examination Of The Role Of Emotions In Justice And Negotiation, Annika Hillebrandt

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The central role of emotions in organizations, once underrecognized and underappreciated by organizational scholars, has attracted a great amount of research interest in recent years. Despite this important development, I argue that a number of critical questions have remained unaddressed, which limits our ability to predict the outcomes of emotions for individuals and organizations as well as describe employees’ subjective experiences at work. In this dissertation, I contribute to the understanding of the role of emotions in the workplace by identifying critical gaps in the emotions literature, integrating theories from different literatures to address these gaps, empirically comparing the interpersonal …

Mandatory Quotas For Women On Boards Of Directors In The European Union: Harmful To Or Good For Company Performance?, Monika Leszczynska

Faculty Scholarship

Impact assessments are an important component of a better regulation programme—an initiative of the European Commission launched to improve the quality and transparency of the EU (European Union) law-making process. In the current article, I take a closer look at the Impact Assessment (IA) issued by the European Commission together with a Directive proposing a 40% obligatory female representation on the boards of directors in European public companies. In the IA, the Commission defined an improvement of corporate governance as one of the objectives to be achieved by the Directive. The Commission claimed that the more gender-diverse a corporate board …

Theoretical Principles Relevant To Assessment Center Design And Implementation, George C. Thornton, Filip Lievens

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Decades ago, assessment centers (Acs) originated by applying the best available evidence and theory to the assessment of managerial performance dimensions. The objectives of this chapter are to take stock of these existing theoretical principles, present additional theoretical principles that have emerged in recent times, and describe the practical implications of these principles for effective Ac design and implementation. Thus, while all Acs include several essential elements, developing and implementing a specific Ac involves a complicated set of choices. This chapter shows how these choices can be guided by theories relevant to the Ac method as a whole and each …