Business Commons^™

Executive Summaries

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

Front Matter

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

Back Matter

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

If You Build It, They Will Come: Creating The Space And Support For Real-Time Strategic Learning, Jewlya Lynn, Rebecca Kahn, Phillip Chung, Scott Downes

The Foundation Review

· Learning is a key tool for foundations seeking to improve their effectiveness, and they are beginning to use evaluation to learn about and improve their strategies. The Colorado Trust took this a step further and integrated strategic learning into a grant strategy, including supporting learning coaches for 14 of their grantees.

· The strategic learning framework consisted of three steps: systematic data collection, collective interpretation of information, and the use of that interpretation to improve strategies.

· This article reviews four of the cases, including three grantees and the foundation as a case, identifying methods of learning and resulting …

Navigating The Health Care Labyrinth: Portraits Of The Socioeconomically Disadvantaged, Thomas C. Crawford Phd

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

In 2010, an estimated population of the 311,212,863 Americans generated approximately 1,014,688,290 physician office encounters (Moore, 2010). The frequency and number of professional interactions between caregivers and patients/family members in medical office settings equated to a staggering 1,931 visits per minute. Based on the massive volume of interactions that occurred between patients of different races, ethnicities, genders, sexual orientations, and socioeconomic standings that generated an average household income of $49,445 in 2010 (United States Census Bureau, 2010a) with a physician workforce that the Association of American Medical Colleges (2010) captured as being 75% White that earned (primary care specialties) in …

Leading At The Edge Of Uncertainty: An Exploration Of The Effect Of Contemplative Practice On Organizational Leaders, Stephen D. Romano

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

The purpose of the study is to investigate how organizational leaders cultivate focus and calm in moments of uncertainty. There is significant literature discussing how individuals manage stress and enhance well-being through formal meditative practices, but few studies investigate informal strategies. Through single subject with multiple subject design, the research examines how specific mind body practices affect an individual's ability to pay attention, connect with others, manage stress, and enhance perspective-taking. This study suggests that being a leader, and by extension, leadership, is not merely a series of actions; rather, it is a way of thinking and being. The capacity …

Understanding The Future Of Native Values At An Alaska Native Corporation, Gail Cheney

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

This dissertation frames the first step on a journey toward understanding the current and future place that Native values have in an Alaska Native Corporation, a context of value conflict, resolution, adaptation, and change.My dissertation strives to answer the question, "What is the future of Native Values at Sealaska?" To carry out this study, I utilized the Ethnographic Futures Research Method (EFR) developed by Dr. Robert Textor.EFR, as a method, asks individuals to envision a pessimistic, optimistic, and probable future along with strategies to move the probable future more toward the optimistic vision.EFR is an innovative and unique way to …

The Nature And Influence Of Relationship On Success In A Virtual Work Environment, Carol Locher Ransone

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

The evolution of technology in the 21st century has led to a greater understanding of the benefits and the challenges of expanding work relationships across geographical boundaries. This expansion has contributed to the development of a global society with over three million employee teleworkers (Global Workplace Analytics and the Telework Research Network, 2013). In spite of the advances in connecting across the globe technologically, the importance of successfully working together in a virtual work environment is grounded in relationships that foster individual growth and group cohesion. The human elements of connectivity are primary to the success of organizations as well …

Spirituality And Leadership: Integrating Spirituality As A Developmental Approach Of Improving Overall Leader Effectiveness, George Gregory Houston

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

The role of leadership continues to be a consistent topic of discussion whether you are considering the seminal work of Stogdill (1974), Burns (1978), Kouzes and Posner (1995), or Van Hooser's (2013) Leaders Ought to Know, one of Amazon's 2013 Top Ten Leadership books. A consistent question in leader development circles is-how can leaders be more effective in their role given the current state of leadership? One dimension of leadership development that is often overshadowed, downplayed, minimized, or completely ignored is the concept of spirituality. If the spiritual development of individual leaders can be integrated with other accepted leadership …

Understanding Relational Agility: Exploring Constructs Of Relational Leadership Through Story, David M.I. Mclean

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

Organizational storytelling was used within Tri Fit, a Canadian health promotion and fitness company, to explore relational leadership practices. Through 27 confidential one-on-one interviews and an interview of the four-person leadership team, the research attempted to examine how relational agility, a new leadership construct, exists, how it is defined, and to describe its organizational impacts. Two hundred and forty unique stories were shared through this process, out of which nine storylines emerged. The distillation of these revealed three cultural themes: a culture of relational connection; a culture of nice and a culture that values positivity. Demonstrations of transformational leadership, authentic …

Wise By Design: A Wisdom-Based Framework For Innovation And Organizational Design And Its Potential Application In The Future Of Higher Education, Juan Francisco Suarez

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

A wiser socio-economic system, by design and not by chance, may well benefit from a series of design principles drawn from the well of wisdom. This dissertation focused on a refined set of eight components of wisdom through research designed to explore if, how, and when they are invoked by a group of experts participating in a futures discussion about organizations in their field of practice, American higher education. The aim was to explore a set of wisdom-centered design principles (denoted as Wise By Design [WBD]) for social innovation, specifically in the design of organizations that would thrive in the …

Professional Hurt: The Untold Stories, Ruby Macksine Brown

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

The purpose of this study is to examine professional hurt across the public services of the Commonwealth Caribbean with a view toward creating what could probably be the first body of knowledge that will offer insights into its nature and relationship with the practice of leadership. The study also sought to explore an understanding of professional hurt that could inform the design of leadership development programs to help develop leaders who can navigate or avoid hurt. I utilized the biographical research approach to access the lived experiences of 20 public sector leaders across 9 independent Commonwealth Caribbean islands. Narrative thematic …

Effective Networked Nonprofit Organizations: Defining The Behavior And Creating An Instrument For Measurement, Andrea Leigh Hernandez

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

This correlational research design, which included a convenience sample of 157 nonprofit staff and board member responses to a Likert-type survey, was used to conduct a principle components analysis (PCA) to develop subscales related to networked nonprofits. As defined in the study, a networked nonprofit has a set of intentionally built trusting relationships and has systems and strategies that engage various stakeholders in meaningful conversations. They achieve their missions by developing strong partnerships where they invest in the goals of other organizations to mobilize resources for a common shared mission and values. While there were correlations between the level respondents …

Relational Leadership, Devops, And The Post-Pc Era: Toward A Practical Theory For 21st Century Technology Leaders, Moudy E. Elbayadi

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

This theoretically oriented scholarly personal narrative (SPN) explored how the constructionist view of relational leadership might be applied in a post-PC technological era marked by fast-paced innovation and an always ontechnology organization and infrastructure. Through reflecting on my personal and professional experience, I hope to offer the reflective scholar-practitioner new ways of thinking, present relational practices and suggest ways of being a leader participating in the fast-paced technology driven world. This new way of being combined both relational leadership and new DevOps practices that reduce organizational friction, break down departmental silos, and increase employee engagement in technology operations. Through …

From Bonding To Bridging: Using The Immunity To Change (Itc) Process To Build Social Capital And Create Change, Froswa' Booker-Drew

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

A group of diverse women from various ethnic, religious, socio-economic and generations were brought together over the course of four months to determine if the Immunity to Change (ITC) process (Kegan & Lahey, 2009) would create bridging social capital as well as individual change. The group sessions included a process of assigned readings, discussions, and completion of ITC maps allowing women to reveal their identities and journeys through the sharing of their personal narratives. As a result, many experienced perception transformation regarding issues of gender, leadership, race, and class. The dissertation explores topics of power and privilege, relational leadership, and …

Information Technology Sourcing Across Cultures: Preparing Leaders For Cross-Cultural Engagements And Implementing Best Practices With Cultural Sensitivity, Wayne Gordon Moran

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

This research exercised a mixed method exploratory sequential design inquiry into the topical area of leadership behaviors and cross-cultural awareness that permeate successful global information technology (IT) outsource alliances. When IT is aligned with an entity's objectives, strategic technology leadership is actively engaged in governance, infrastructure architecture, planning, and cross-cultural collaboration. Bilateral contracting foster and forge interactive organizational cultures however, the advent of right shoring has introduced cultural complexity for IT leadership roles born of national, international, and sub-culture global dimensions. This research surfaced significant variations in IT professional opinions as to the leadership practices, cultural compatibility and service fulfillment …

Economic Empowerment Through Income Generating Activities And Social Mobilization: The Case Of Married Amhara Women Of Wadla Woreda, North Wollo Zone, Ethiopia, Belete Deribie Woldegies

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

Wadla Woreda is located in North Wollo Zone, Amhara Regional State, Ethiopia. The woreda is predominantly agrarian and the population produces mainly subsistence food crops with small amounts of cash crops. Access to basic social and economic services such as health, education, and employment for rural communities is limited due to poor development of rural infrastructure. Wadla is one of the food insecure woredas in the region. As a result some of the people are internally displaced and a portion of the population is included in safety-net programs. The Wadla Woreda is prone to famine due to severe droughts, soil …

Message Matters: Application Of The Theory Of Planned Behavior To Increase Household Hazardous Waste Program Participation, Amy Dyer Cabaniss

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

Removing household hazardous waste (HHW) from the municipal solid waste stream is important to protect health, safety and the environment. Communities across the U.S. separate HHW from regular trash for disposal with hazardous waste, however nationally, participation rates are low with only five to ten percent of households estimated to participate in any given collection. This two-part study used the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) to understand individuals’ beliefs and attitudes toward HHW collections, and to develop a print message intervention to increase participation. In Study 1, respondents (N = 983) completed a survey administered to homeowners in the Connecticut …

To Transform A Culture: The Rise And Fall Of The U.S. Army Organizational Effectiveness Program, 1970–1985, James Michael Young

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

In the early 1970s, following a decade of social upheaval in the US and a traumatizing military defeat in Vietnam, a group of progressive army officers, armed with recent graduate degrees in the social and behavioral sciences, created a grass roots movement that soon led to the implementation of the largest organizational development program ever conducted. Wartime atrocities and chronic careerism in the Army officer corps, along with President Richard Nixon’s promise to create an All-Volunteer Force (AVF), opened up a window of opportunity for these progressives to promote transformational leadership theories grounded in humanistic psychology. In institutionalizing OD across …

Implicit And Explicit Training In The Mitigation Of Cognitive Bias Through The Use Of A Serious Game, Norah E. Dunbar, Claude H. Miller, Bradley J. Adame, Javier Elizondo, Scott N. Wilson, Brianna L. Lane, Abigail Allums Kauffman, Elena Bessarabova, Matthew L. Jensen, Sara K. Straub, Yu-Hao Lee, Judee K. Burgoon, Joseph J. Valacich, Jeffrey Jenkins, Jun Zhang

Faculty Publications

Heuristics can interfere with information processing and hinder decision-making when more systematic processes that might lead to better decisions are ignored. Based on the heuristic-systematic model (HSM) of information processing, a serious training game (called MACBETH) was designed to address and mitigate cognitive biases that interfere with the analysis of evidence and the generation of hypotheses. Two biases are the focus of this paper—fundamental attribution error and confirmation bias. The efficacy of the serious game on knowledge and mitigation of biases was examined using an experiment in which participants (N = 703) either played the MACBETH game or watched an …

Hykss: Hybrid Keyword And Semantic Search, Andrew J. Zitzelberger, David W. Embley, Stephen W. Liddle, Del T. Scott

Faculty Publications

Keyword search suffers from a number of issues: ambiguity, synonymy, and an inability to handle semantic constraints. Semantic search helps resolve these issues but is limited by the quality of annotations which are likely to be incomplete or imprecise. Hybrid search, a search technique that combines the merits of both keyword and semantic search, appears to be a promising solution. In this paper we describe and evaluate HyKSS, a hybrid search system driven by extraction ontologies for both annotation creation and query interpretation. For displaying results, HyKSS uses a dynamic ranking algorithm. We show that over data sets of short …

The Buck Stops There: The Impact Of Perceived Accountability And Control On The Intention To Delegate To Software Agents, Nathan Stout, Alan R. Dennis, Taylor M. Wells

Faculty Publications

Software agents with the ability to recommend actions, aid decision-making, and actually make decisions are becoming increasingly common. In many situations, users now choose whether or not to delegate tasks to these agents. While some research has examined software agents, relatively little is known about the factors that influence the intention to delegate decisions to them. An experiment was used to examine the influence of perceived accountability, extent of control, and trust in the agent on the intention to delegate a travel arrangement decision. Users were more likely to delegate to agents that gave them greater control by requiring them …

The Effect Of Product Category On Consumer Brand Relationships, Marc Fetscherin, Michèle Boulanger, Gustavo Q. Souki, Cid Goncalves Filho

Faculty Publications

Purpose - This paper aims to investigate the effect of product category on consumer brand relationships. Design/methodology/approach - Based on a total of 800 consumers, respondents evaluated their relationship with their favorite brand in one of the four product categories studied (soft drink, mobile phone, shoes, cars). EFA, subsequent CFA, SEM and ANOVA were used to assess these relationships and the product category effect. Findings - The authors find that brand love positively influences brand loyalty and both, influence positively WOM and purchase intention. Looking at the directionality of these relationships, the results show no product category differences. However, the …

Editorial, Teresa R. Behrens

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

Implementation And Evaluation Of A Multidimensional Nutrition And Physical Activity Initiative Funded By A Community Health Foundation, James Pann, Angela Yehl, Peter Wood, Janisse Schoepp, Gabrielle Solomon, Craig Enders

The Foundation Review

· Poor diet and physical inactivity have been estimated to account for nearly 400,000 deaths a year in the U.S. and are contributing factors to obesity. Nearly one-third of children and two-thirds of adults are overweight or obese. Therefore, in early 2007 Health Foundation of South Florida (HFSF) embarked on a five-year responsive grantmaking initiative, Healthy Eating Active Communities.

· The initiative's aim was to improve healthy eating habits and physical activity levels through two major approaches: individual-level programs grounded in an educational approach and organizational, environmental, policy, and systems-change interventions. As additional research has emerged in the field, policies …

Paying Attention To White Culture And Privilege: A Missing Link To Advancing Racial Equity, Gita Gulati-Partee, Maggie Potapchuk

The Foundation Review

· Racial disparities are driven and maintained by public- and private-sector policies that not only disadvantage communities of color but also over-advantage whites. Foundation processes aimed at racial equity change often overlook the privileged side of inequity.

· Through our experience as racial equity practitioners, we have encountered at least three challenges to engaging foundations in exploring white privilege and white culture in their internal and external racial equity work.

· For foundations to work toward racial equity through their philanthropic investments and leadership, they must shine a light on white privilege and white culture both internally and externally.

· …

Support For Sister-Affiliated Ministries During Challenging Times: Understanding A Foundation Initiative In Two Regions, Mark Small, Robert L. Fischer, Lynn Berner, Stephanie Kripa Cooper-Lewter

The Foundation Review

·This article describes the efforts of two foundations to sustain the ministries of Catholic sisters in two regions: northeast Ohio and South Carolina.

· Spanning more than 10 years, the initiative has drawn on multiple strategies – including convening, grantmaking, communicating, and research – in partnership with sisters themselves to sustain a diverse set of ministries.

· The work informs foundation practice by illuminating an approach to capacity development in very different regional contexts.

· Key lessons include being sensitive to the context, paying attention to both individual and organizational capacity, and the need for data.

Back Matter

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

Difficult Conversations: Lessons Along The Journey Toward Inclusion, Carrie Pickett-Erway, Susan Springgate, Suprotik Stotz-Ghosh, Tom Vance

The Foundation Review

· This paper documents one foundation’s work to become a more diverse and inclusive foundation.

· The Kalamazoo Community Foundation adopted a diversity policy and established a Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) Equality Fund in 2000. In 2003 the foundation established an ad hoc diversity committee; the committee was formalized in 2007.

· An inclusion statement was adopted for unrestricted grantmaking in 2004, and was strengthened in 2012 along with the words “for all” added to the foundation’s mission statement. The inclusion statement was further modified in 2013.

· The foundation proclaimed itself an antiracist organization in 2010.

· …

Goal-Free Evaluation: An Orientation For Foundations’ Evaluations, Brandon W. Youker, Allyssa Ingraham

The Foundation Review

· Goal-free evaluation (GFE), in program evaluation, is a model in which the official or stated program goals and objectives are withheld or screened from the evaluator.

· Several obstacles must be overcome in persuading foundations and programs to consider GFE as a viable option, because both tend to view goal attainment as intuitively and inextricably linked to evaluation.

· This article presents the case for GFE as a perspective that belongs in a foundation’s toolbox. In particular, this article demonstrates GFE’s actual use, highlights aspects of its methodology, and details its potential benefits.