Business Commons^™

The Impact Of Positivity And Transparency On Trust In Leaders And Their Perceived Effectiveness, Steven M. Norman, Bruce Avolio, Fred Luthans

Department of Management: Faculty Publications

A critical challenge facing today’s organizational leaders is gaining their followers’ trust and having them view leaders as effective in addressing turmoil and change. Using a downsizing scenario as the context, this field experiment examined how a leader’s positivity and transparency impacted followers’ perceived trust, defined in terms of willingness to be vulnerable, and effectiveness of their leader. To test the hypotheses, 304 participants were randomly assigned to one of the four conditions of high (low) leader positivity × high (low) leader transparency. Results of our mixed methods study indicated both the leader’s level of positivity and transparency impacted followers’ …

Be: Bookstore, Cafe, And Lounge, Melanie Boone

Interior Design Program: Terminal Projects

The re-design of the P.E. lier building located in downtown Omaha, Nebraska at 1113 Howard Street will challenge the way that a bookstore is typically portrayed. My goal is to create a unique and interesting space combining the bookstore with a cafe and bar/ lounge space.

Typically a bookstore is designed for experiences for single individuals, unlike lounge spaces that are designed for interaction between multiple people.

This space will create a connection between various artistic aspects of Omaha including: art, literature, music, dance, etc. The first level will be a combined bookstore and cafe. The second level will be …

Managing Bpo Service Workers In India: Examining Hope On Performance Outcomes, Gwendolyn M. Combs, Rachel Clapp-Smith, Sucheta Nadkarni

Department of Management: Faculty Publications

Much attention has been given to the explosion in business process outsourcing (BPO) operations in India. Little concern, however, has been paid to the performance of Indian service workers in these fast-paced and sometimes turbulent environments. Using a sample of 160 service workers from a privately held BPO firm in India, we examine the relationship between Indian service workers’ hope and their performance outcomes. Regression and structural equation model analyses indicated a significant positive relationship between Indian service workers’ levels of hope and their performance. These promising results highlight the importance of measuring and managing employee hope to maximize employee …

Aksarben: Boutique Hotel, Nicole Elam

Interior Design Program: Terminal Projects

The Project Intent

At the height of its time, Aksarben was the best place in omaha to go for entertainment and social gatherings. The large space allowed for many events such as concerts, world championships, road shows, and the most popular, horse races. Unfortunately in the 1990s, there was a decline in such attractions, particulary in horse racing, and Aksarben’s ownership went to Aksarben future trust.

Today, developers are using this historical essence to reclaim the once thriving area and bring it back to what it used to be with new current trends.

I propose to take the currently vacant …

Exploring Social Constructions Of Followership: A Qualitative Study, Melissa K. Carsten, Mary Uhl-Bien, Bradley J. West, Jaime L. Patera, Rob Mcgregor

Leadership Institute: Faculty Publications

This study adopts a qualitative approach to deconstruct the meaning of followership. Interviews were conducted with employees in various industries to examine how individuals socially construct their roles as followers and to explore followership schemas and contextual influences that relate to these constructions. Results suggest that while some individuals socially construct definitions around passivity, deference and obedience, others emphasize the importance of constructively questioning and challenging their leaders. With regard to personal qualities that are thought to make followers effective, major themes such as obedience, expressing opinions, and taking initiative were found to be most disparate across different groups of …

Determining The Relationship And Influence Organizational Culture Has On Organizational Trust, Mindy S. Genetzky-Haugen

Department of Agricultural Leadership, Education, and Communication: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The present research examines the influence of organizational culture on organizational trust. Leaders in the present and future will try to create a culture of trust, but leaders who do not examine and understand their current culture will not be successful in changing their organizational culture. The study shows constructive behavioral norms are both predictors and influencers of trust. The results suggest that companies that want to create a culture of trust need to instill into their culture achievement, self-actualizing, humanistic-encouraging and affiliative behavioral norms. Leadership needs to make sure avoidance behaviors are reduced in order to create and instill …

Two Essays On Health Care Costs And Asset Returns, Brian C. Payne

College of Business: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The first essay investigates whether health care is a priced factor in asset returns. Specifically, in the search for empirical relationships between macroeconomic factors and asset returns, health care appears to be a significant US economic force receiving less attention than others such as (aggregate) inflation, production, or consumption measures. We use the medical care component of the Consumer Price Index to measure medical inflation shocks as a candidate macroeconomic factor whose riskiness the market rewards. Incorporating multiple model specifications during the period 1967-2009, we find this inflationary component to be a relatively robust source of priced risk in US …

Leadership And Innovation Program, Connie I. Reimers-Hild

Kimmel Education and Research Center: Presentations and White Papers

No abstract provided.

Departure Boutique, Melissa Heitmann

Interior Design Program: Terminal Projects

Proposal

The following proposal is a design contract for the master planning, development and interior design services for the building on the corner 8th and P in the Haymarket District in Lincoln, Nebraska. The Haymarket District is an active, vibrant, historical area within the city of Lincoln and draws in people of all ages and cultures to this neighborhood. Local gift shops, restaurants, bars, and small businesses culminate this area. To attract more people to this district, I propose to add a boutique salon/spa, a boutique retail store, office space, and loft-style apartments.

The boutique salon/spa will target those of …

Testing The Impact Of Global Mindset On Positive Organizational Outcomes: A Multi-Level Analysis, Joana S. Story

Department of Agricultural Leadership, Education, and Communication: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This multi-level study examined the relationship between leaders’ global mindset with followers’ rating of trust in leader, quality of the leader-member relationship (LMX), and organizational commitment. Complexity of global role and leader distance were also examined as moderating variables. Data were collected from 78 leader participants and 240 raters from one Fortune 100 multinational organization. A multilevel data analysis was conducted using Hierarchical Linear Modeling. No significant relationships were found between global mindset and ratings of follower trust in leader and quality of the leader-member-relationship. A significant negative relationship was found between global mindset of leaders and follower organizational commitment. …

Entrepreneurship In Nebraska, Steve Carlson, Eric Thompson, Hanna Hartman, William Walstad

Business in Nebraska

Introduction

Entrepreneurship can be an important process in stimulating economic growth. While it is not the sole determinant of economic prosperity, it can be a way for a state such as Nebraska to outperform other states. In Entrepreneurship in Nebraska: Conditions, Attitudes, and Actions, Eric C. Thompson and William B. Walstad developed an entrepreneurship index that acts as a benchmark to compare Nebraska with the other forty-nine states. The index in their publication was constructed using 2005 data. The latest data available needed to calculate this index now exists for 2008. In this report, we use the method developed …

Economic Outlook 2010: Innovation, Connie I. Reimers-Hild

Kimmel Education and Research Center: Presentations and White Papers

This article discusses the importance of innovation to individuals and the overall economy.

An Entrepreneurial Approach To Career Development, Connie I. Reimers-Hild

Kimmel Education and Research Center: Presentations and White Papers

This article explains how people can use an entrepreneurial approach to career development in and effort to advance their careers and employment opportunities.

Sustainability Through Profitability: The Triple Bottom Line, Connie I. Reimers-Hild

Kimmel Education and Research Center: Presentations and White Papers

Today’s highly competitive, globalized world requires organizations and businesses to think differently about how they are going to stay in business. Businesses can no longer afford to focus on profits as their sole purpose for existence. Organizations must instead think about the “Triple Bottom Line” and its implications for their ability to grow their brand, customer loyalty and profits.

Impact Of Positive Psychological Capital On Employee Well-Being Over Time, James B. Avey, Fred Luthans, Ronda M. Smith, Noel F. Palmer

Department of Management: Faculty Publications

The recently recognized core construct of psychological capital or PsyCap (consisting of the positive psychological resources of efficacy, hope, optimism, and resilience) has been demonstrated to be related to various employee attitudinal, behavioral, and performance outcomes. However, to date, the impact of this positive core construct over time and on important employee well-being outcomes has not been tested. This study meets this need by analyzing the relationship between a broad cross-section of employees’ (N = 280) level of PsyCap and two measures of psychological well-being over time. The results indicated that employees’ PsyCap was related to both measures of well-being …

Everyday Sensegiving: A Closer Look At Successful Plant Managers, Anne D. Smith, Donde Ashmos Plowman, Dennis Duchon

Department of Management: Faculty Publications

The authors conducted in-depth interviews and on-site visits with successful plant managers to understand similarities in their management approaches. Across 11 different plants, representing nine different industries, the authors found each plant manager actively engaged in shaping how employees viewed the organization and its values through what the authors call “everyday sensegiving.” From themes inductively identified from the interviews and on-site visits, four central values—”Here, we value people, we value openness, we value being positive, and we value being part of a larger community”— were identified. In this article, the authors link everyday sensegiving of these middle managers and extend …

Return To Growth, Eric Thompson, University Of Nebraska-Lincoln

Business in Nebraska

U.S. Macroeconomic Outlook

After 18 months of decline, the United States economy returned to growth in mid-2009. Growth was tepid at first, with U.S. gross domestic product rising by just 2.2% in the 3^rd quarter. But, growth was much more rapid in the 4^th quarter, portending a solid recovery in 2010 and 2011. Economic expansion will be broad-based, with both household consumption and business investment rising, and employment increasing in most industries. The reasons for recovery are typical of other recoveries. Initially, the recovery is powered pent-up consumer demand among households who have retained spending power. Later, there …

2009-2010 Annual Report, Bureau Of Business Research, Eric Thompson, Department Of Economics - College Of Business Administration - University Of Nebraska-Lincoln

Bureau of Business Research Publications

About the Bureau of Business Research...... 3

Selected Research Report Summaries

An Action Plan for Growing Nebraska...........6
Prepared for The Nebraska Renaissance Group

The Economic Impact of the Rowe Sanctuary and Sandhill Migration on the Central Nebraska Region .... 12
Prepared for The Rowe Sanctuary

The 2008 Economic Deveopment of the Nebraska Wine and Grape Growing Industry........13
Prepared for The Nebraska Wine and Grape Growers Association

Economic and Fiscal Impact of Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo on Omaha and Nebraska: The 2009 Update..............14
Prepared for The Omaha Zoo Foundation

Business in Nebraska Reprints

Return to Growth ..... 16
Nebraska Business Forecast …

2010 Nebraska Business

College of Business: Trade Publications

2010 Nebraska Business

Perceiver Effects As Projective Tests: What Your Perceptions Of Others Say About You, Dustin Wood, Peter D. Harms, Simine Vazire

Department of Management: Faculty Publications

In three studies, we document various properties of perceiver effects—or how an individual generally tends to describe other people in a population. First, we document that perceiver effects have consistent relationships with dispositional characteristics of the perceiver, ranging from self-reported personality traits and academic performance to well-being and measures of personality disorders, to how liked the person is by peers. Second, we document that the covariation in perceiver effects among trait dimensions can be adequately captured by a single factor consisting of how positively others are seen across a wide range of traits (e.g., how nice, interesting, trustworthy, happy, …

Team Identification, Trust, And Conflict: A Mediation Model, Guohong (Helen) Han, Peter D. Harms

Leadership Institute: Faculty Publications

Purpose — The current study aims to address the relationship between trust, team identification, and team conflict. Specifically, it aims to examine whether trust in peers mediates the relationship between team identification and team conflict.
Design/methodology/approach — This is an empirical paper based on two field studies. In Study 1, 241 employees in a US Fortune 500 company distributed in various and mostly R&D teams were surveyed. In Study 2,205 employees in a health care organization in the Midwest were surveyed.
Findings — Team identification was related to lower levels of both task conflict and relationship conflict. This relationship, however, …

Emotional Intelligence And Transformational And Transactional Leadership: A Meta-Analysis, Peter D. Harms, Marcus Credé

Leadership Institute: Faculty Publications

The purpose of this study is to evaluate claims that emotional intelligence is significantly related to transformational and other leadership behaviors. Results (based on 62 independent samples) indicated a validity estimate of .59 when ratings of both emotional intelligence and leadership behaviors were provided by the same source (self, subordinates, peers, or superiors). However, when ratings of the constructs were derived from different sources, the validity estimate was .12. Lower validity estimates were found for transactional and laissez-faire leadership behaviors. Separate analyses were performed for each measure of emotional intelligence. Trait measures of emotional intelligence tended to show higher validities …

Perceived Fairness Of Pay: The Importance Of Task Versus Maintenance Inputs In Japan, South Korea, And Hong Kong, Tae-Yeol Kim, Todd J. Weber, Kwok Leung, Yukiko Muramoto

Leadership Institute: Faculty Publications

This study compares East Asians’ evaluations of task and maintenance inputs in reward allocation decisions and examines the effects that inequity in various types of inputs and rewards have on fairness judgments. Based on a sample of 587 employees from various organizations in Hong Kong, Japan, and South Korea, we find that Hong Kong Chinese and South Korean employees are more likely to want their organizations and supervisors to emphasize maintenance inputs, while Japanese employees value task inputs in reward allocation. Results also show that there are significant country differences in fairness judgments associated with various types of inputs. For …

Commanding Board Of Director Attention: Investigating How Organizational Performance And Ceo Duality Affect Board Members' Attention To Monitoring, Chris S. Tuggle, David G. Sirmon, Chris R. Reutzel, Leonard Bierman

Department of Management: Faculty Publications

Boards of directors’ attention to monitoring represents an understudied topic in corporate governance. By analyzing hundreds of board meeting transcripts, we find that board members do not maintain constant levels of attention toward monitoring, but instead selectively allocate attention to their monitoring function. Drawing from the attention-based view, prospect theory, and the literature on power, we find that deviation from prior performance and CEO duality affect this allocation. Specifically, while negative deviation from prior performance increases boards’ attention to monitoring, positive deviation from prior performance reduces it. The presence of duality also reduces the boards’ allocation of attention to monitoring. …

The Development And Resulting Performance Impact Of Positive Psychological Capital, Fred Luthans, James B. Avey, Bruce J. Avolio, Suzanne Peterson

Department of Management: Faculty Publications

Recently, theory and research have supported psychological capital (PsyCap) as an emerging core construct linked to positive outcomes at the individual and organizational level. However, to date, little attention has been given to PsyCap development through training interventions; nor have there been attempts to determine empirically if such PsyCap development has a causal impact on participants’ performance. To fill these gaps we first conducted a pilot test of the PsyCap intervention (PCI) model with a randomized control group design. Next, we conducted a follow-up study with a cross section of practicing managers to determine if following the training guidelines of …

The Role Of Ceo Statements Of Aggressiveness And The Competitive Aggressiveness Of Firms: What Is The Impact On Performance?, Benjamin Blackford

College of Business: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This research examines the impact of a CEO’s statements of aggressiveness on his or her organization’s competitive moves and subsequent performance. Hypotheses were developed based on previous work in Upper Echelon Theory and competitive dynamics. Based on this prior literature, it was hypothesized aggressive statements by CEOs will be associated with more aggressive organizations. It was also hypothesized these more aggressive organizations would display better performance than less aggressive organizations. A content analysis of letters to shareholders and trade publications was performed. This data was analyzed using multiple regression in SPSS 17 to test the hypotheses that aggressive statements by …

An Experimental Study Of The Impact Of Psychological Capital On Performance, Engagement, And The Contagion Effect, Timothy Daniel Hodges

College of Business: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Psychological Capital, or PsyCap, is a core construct consisting of the positive psychological resources of efficacy, hope, optimism, and resilience. Previous research has consistently linked PsyCap to workplace outcomes including employee attitudes, behaviors, and performance. Further research has explored the ways in which PsyCap can be developed through relatively brief workplace interventions. The present study focuses on PsyCap development and the relationship to employee engagement and performance. In an experimental design with random assignment of subjects to control group (n = 52 managers and 152 associates) and treatment group (n = 58 managers and 239 employees), a field sample of …

Reflecting On Experience For Leadership Development, Adrian Chan

College of Business: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This study proposes that being reflective or ruminative about one's leadership experience can have differential effects on one's leadership efficacy, implicit leadership theories and psychological capital. Specifically, through the aid of an event history calendar, conscript military trainees of high and low military experience from a SE Asian military organization were randomly assigned to recall and reflect or ruminate on his past leadership experience. Results show that type of reflection interacts with level of military leadership experience to differentially affect one's leadership efficacy, implicit leadership theories and leadership self-awareness. Reflection triggers produced significantly higher levels of implicit leadership theories under …

Regulation And Mindful Resident Care In Nursing Homes, Cathleen S. Colón-Emeric, Donde Ashmos Plowman, Donald Bailey, Kirsten Corazzini, Queen Utley-Smith, Natalie Ammarell, Mark Toles, Ruth Anderson

Department of Management: Faculty Publications

Regulatory oversight is intended to improve the health outcomes of nursing home residents, yet evidence suggests that regulations can inhibit mindful staff behaviors that are associated with effective care. We explored the influence of regulations on mindful staff behavior as it relates to resident health outcomes, and offer a theoretical explanation of why regulations sometimes enhance mindfulness and other times inhibit it. We analyzed data from an in-depth, multiple-case study including field notes, interviews, and documents collected in eight nursing homes. We completed a conceptual/thematic description using the concept of mindfulness to reframe the observations. Shared facility mission strongly impacted …

What Do Conscientious People Do? Development And Validation Of The Behavioral Indicators Of Conscientiousness (Bic), Joshua J. Jackson, Dustin Wood, Tim Bogg, Kate E. Walton, Peter D. Harms, Brent W. Roberts

Department of Management: Faculty Publications

Typical assessments of personality traits collapse behaviors, thoughts, and feelings into a single measure without distinguishing between these different manifestations. To address this lack of specification, the current study develops and validates a measure that assesses a number of broad behaviors associated with the personality trait of conscientiousness (the Behavioral Indicators of Conscientiousness; BIC). Findings suggest that the lower-order structure of conscientious behaviors is mostly similar to the lower-order structure in extant trait measures. Furthermore, a daily diary method was used to validate the BIC against frequency counts of conscientious behavior. Overall, the results identify specific behaviors that conscientious individuals …