Business Administration, Management, and Operations Commons^™

Being Student And Practitioner Centered: Lessons Learned From Integrating A Recreation Management Department Into A Business School, Patti A. Freeman, Mat D. Duerden, Brian J. Hill

Faculty Publications

In July 2009, Brigham Young University’s Recreation Management (RecM) Department moved to the Marriott School of Management (MSM), beginning its integration into a nationally ranked business school, including the transition from a college with little coordination between departments to one where all majors share a common core of classes. Despite initial feelings of uncertainty, many insights over time emerged as to how the RecM department could better serve students and professionals. This paper shares some of the lessons the RecM Department learned that hold applicability for other recreation departments, including the (1) influence of names on external perceptions and curriculum, …

The Role Of Journaling In Reflective Writing In Experiential Education: A Case Study Intervention, John Bennion, Mat Duerden, Anne Whitehouse

Faculty Publications

Research suggests that journaling will increase reflection and improve program outcomes (Bain, et al, 1999; Duerden, et al, 2012) This study involved a partnership with a non-profit, Global Explorers (GEx), which provides international immersion experiences for youth. Their programs are designed to teach youth participants principles of leadership, environmental awareness, service, and science. This study, which tested whether teaching journaling techniques to youth program facilitators would have a positive impact on participant outcomes, addressed the following hypotheses: 1) Greater training in reflective thinking among participants would be associated with higher outcome scores, and 2) Participants in the intervention group (facilitators …

The Function Of Field Study: Comparison Of Limited And Full Field Experience Courses, Lauren Fine, Telyn Peterson, Mat Duerden, Riley Nelson, John Bennion

Faculty Publications

Fieldwork, an experiential and outdoor component of a traditional lecture class, has been effective in improving students’ content knowledge and attitudes. However, most studies of these courses use a full lecture course as the comparison group rather than comparing amounts or types of fieldwork. This study compares two classes that incorporate fieldwork (n = 18 and 12 participants, respectively) and uses both quantitative and qualitative methods to analyze changes in content knowledge, self-efficacy, and perceived value of the subject (entomology). Pre-and post-test scores suggest that information memorization is best taught in a traditional classroom environment. Qualitative data illustrate that the …

The Mediating Effects Of Autonomy, Competence, And Relatedness During Couple Leisure On The Relationship Between Total Couple Leisure Satisfaction And Marital Satisfaction, Miriam Puerta Amato, Neil Lundberg, Peter Ward, Bruce G. Schaalje, Ramon Zabriskie

Faculty Publications

This study tested Self-Determination Theory as a possible explanatory framework to understand the relationship between total couple leisure satisfaction and marital satisfaction. The three psychological needs of autonomy, competence, and relatedness—fundamental components of Self-Determination Theory—were measured through the Fulfillment of Psychological Needs during Couple Leisure (FPNL) scale and were tested as mediators. The analysis of five structural equation models confirmed the relevance of the Self-Determination Theory in explaining the relationship between couple leisure satisfaction and marital satisfaction. Although autonomy and competence were significant mediators, relatedness consistently appeared as the strongest mediator suggesting that the fulfillment of this psychological need is …

What Is Organizational History: Toward A Creative Synthesis Of History And Organization Studies, Paul C. Godfrey, John Hassard, Ellen S. O'Connor, Michael Rowlinson, Martin Ruef

Faculty Publications

As a synthesis of organization theory and historiography, the field of organizational history is mature enough to contribute to wider theoretical and historiographical debates and is sufficiently developed for a theoretical consideration of its subject matter. In this introduction to the Special Topic Forum on History and Organization Studies, we take up the question, “What is organizational history?” and consider three distinct arguments that we believe frame the next phase of development for historical work within organization studies. First, we argue that following the “historic turn,” organizational history has developed as a subfield of organization studies that takes seriously the …

Organizational Correctives For Improving Recognition Of Near-Miss Events, Robin L. Dillon, Catherine H. Tinsley, Peter M. Madsen, Edward W. Rogers

Faculty Publications

Despite decades of research on organizational disasters, such events remain too common. Scholars across a wide range of disciplines agree that one of the most viable approaches to preventing such catastrophes is to observe near-misses and use them to identify and eliminate problems before they produce large failures. Unfortunately, these important warning signals are too often ignored because they are perceived as successes rather than near-misses (or nearfailures). In this article, we explore the effect of a climate for safety on improving near-miss recognition by observers, hypothesizing that safety climate increases the level of attention that observers pay to the …

My Family Made Me Do It: A Cross-Domain, Self-Regulatory Perspective On Antecedents To Abusive Supervision, Stephen H. Courtright, Richard G. Gardner, Troy A. Smith, Brian W. Mccormick, Amy E. Colbert

Faculty Publications

Drawing on resource drain theory, we introduce self-regulatory resource (ego) depletion stemming from family–work conflict (FWC) as an alternative theoretical perspective on why supervisors behave abusively toward subordinates. Our two-study examination of a cross-domain antecedent of abusive supervision stands in contrast to prior research, which has focused primarily on work-related factors that influence abusive supervision. Further, our investigation shows how ego depletion is proximally related to abusive supervision. In the first study, conducted at a Fortune 500 company and designed as a lagged survey study, we found that, after controlling for alternative theoretical mechanisms, supervisors who experienced FWC displayed more …

Micro-Enterprise Education: The Academy For Creating Enterprise, Barry West, Gibb Dyer

Journal of Undergraduate Research

In developing countries throughout the world, one often-used approach to alleviating poverty has been to encourage entrepreneurship among the poor. Micro-credit is a highly popular solution to encourage the poor to launch new enterprises, but has somewhat mixed results (Field et al., 2013; Banjeree et al., 2009; Karlan and Zinman, 2011; Kaboski and Townsend, 2011). Current literature suggests that simply giving loans to those who start businesses out of necessity is not the best approach to encourage entrepreneurial success. These writers argue that these “necessity entrepreneurs” need education in the form of business knowledge and tools to help them succeed …

The Humility Effect: Mitigating Intergroup Conflict, Reese Haydon, Dr. Kurt Sandholtz

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Prior techniques for solving intergroup prejudice have shown limited practical application. Common to these techniques is an emphasis on understanding and appreciating the competencies of the out-group members (i.e., disconfirming the in-group’s stereotypes of the out-group). The purpose of our research is to build a case for a different approach—one that emphasizes in-group humility, or recognition by in-group members of their own strengths and weaknesses.

Who Gets Credit For Input? Demographic And Structural Status Cues In Voice Recognition, Taeya M. Howell, David A. Harrison, Ethan R. Burris, James R. Detert

Faculty Publications

The authors investigate the employee features that, alongside overall voice expression, affect supervisors’ voice recognition. Drawing primarily from status characteristics and network position theories, the authors propose and find in a study of 693 employees from 89 different credit union units that supervisors are more likely to credit those reporting the same amount of voice if the employees have higher ascribed or assigned (by the organization) status— cued by demographic variables such as majority ethnicity and full-time work hours. Further, supervisors are more likely to recognize voice from employees who have higher achieved status— cued by their centrality in informal …

Family Leisure: An Integrative Review Of Research From Select Journals, Camilla Hodge, Jason N. Bocarro, Karla A. Henderson, Ramon Zabriskie, Toby L. Parcel, Michael A. Kanters

Faculty Publications

Understanding the relationship between leisure and families has been and will continue to be an important area of study. The purpose of this study is to review existing family leisure research from four select journals between 1990 and 2012. Articles are examined for sample characteristics, methods, analytical approaches, and thematic trends. Overall, 181 articles regarding family leisure, leisure in context of family life or roles, and individual experiences of family leisure are identified. Findings suggest scholars made strides toward expanding methods, analyses, and sampling diversity, though more diversity in sampling and analytical approaches is needed. Three major research themes are …

Lost (But Not Missing) At Work: Organizational Lostness As An Employee Response To Change, Lisa Jones Christensen, Scott C. Hammond

Faculty Publications

This article draws from the psychology of lost person behavior, established from wilderness search and rescue missions, to suggest that employees experience the condition of being lost within organizations. Data from wilderness searches, survivors, and organizational actors suggests that lessons from lost person behaviors apply in organizations. Reactions to being lost in an organization follow predictable patterns and include five specific stages: separation, isolation, deviation, deprivation, and realization. In defining the construct of organizational lostness and differentiating it from stress, coping, and resistance, we suggest an organizing framework to understand employee behaviors that would previously seem idiosyncratic. This article offers …

Normative Stakeholder Capitalism: Getting From Here To There, Marc-Charles Ingerson, Bradley R. Agle, Thomas Donalson, Paul C. Godfrey, Jared D. Harris, Jeffrey S. Harrison, Adrian Keevil, Ronald K. Mitchell, Robert A. Phillips

Faculty Publications

The capability of normative declarations to alter outcomes is well accepted. 'We hold these truths to be self-evident ... ,' 'inalienable rights, ... life, liberty, ... pursuit of happiness, .. .' and similar statements contain within them social energy that inspires the mind, justifies new modes of thought, and enables change .... Normative discourse, we therefore believe, must continue to be endemic to stakeholder theory and research if scholars want this theory to flourish and fulfill its aims as a theory of the firm-not the least of which is attending to the long-run interests of both the business corporation and …

Conceptualizing Structured Experiences: Seeking Interdisciplinary Integration, Mat D. Duerden, Peter Ward, Patti A. Freeman

Faculty Publications

While consensus exists around the importance of providing structured experiences, the industries interested in offering such experiences lack a common body of shared knowledge about how most effectively to do so. Potentially complementary research on structured experiences remains fragmented across multiple fields such as leisure, tourism, and marketing. The purpose of this paper, therefore, was first to review and then integrate this scattered literature into a structured experience framework in order to facilitate experience-related research with broader applicability for both commercial and public organizations interested in providing structured experiences.

Impact Of Conservation Corps Experience On Corps Members, Mat D. Duerden, Michael B. Edwards, Robin Lizzo

Faculty Publications

This study examined the impact of conservation corps experiences on participants. Based upon existing gaps in the conservation corps literature and drawing from research on other comparable programs, this study addressed the following research questions: did involvement in a conservation corps program increase participants' (a) intention to pursue natural resource management related careers or education, (b) positive attitudes towards public lands, and (c) environmental activism? A quasi-experimental design was used to answer these questions. The participant group for the study came from IO different Public Lands Service Coalition corps in the Western United States during the 2011 season. The comparison …

Fortifying Leisure: Adolescent Perspectives Of Family Leisure In Uganda, Rachel A. Mcgovern, Stacy Taniguchi, Julie M. Hite, Steven J. Hite, Mark A. Widmer, Christopher B. Mugimu, Yusuf K. Nsubuga

Faculty Publications

This study examined family leisure patterns and meanings of family leisure from the perspective of adolescents living in the Mukono District of Uganda. Sixty-eight secondary students were interviewed. Results indicate Ugandan adolescent definitions of leisure reflect leisure as free time and leisure as a means to an end. Students mentioned three primary family leisure outcomes (enjoyment/fun, personal development, and family development) that point toward a core theme. Fortifying describes the importance Ugandan youth place upon family leisure outcomes that strengthen the individual to overcome inevitable challenges they will face throughout their lives and enable them to succeed, especially through family …

Adaptation Of An Adolescent Coping Assessment For Therapeutic Recreation And Outdoor Adventure Settings, Melissa S. Russell, Mark A. Widmer, Neil Lundberg, Peter Ward

Faculty Publications

This study addresses the need for sound assessments to measure adolescent coping in therapeutic recreation, wilderness and adventure therapy settings. Although consideration was given to developing a new measure, a well-developed general coping measure exists, and the authors indicated a need to adapt it to specific settings. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to adapt the Response to Stress Questionnaire (RSQ) for use in adventure-based therapeutic settings. Appropriate content was identified and items were adapted to create RSQ Outdoor Adventure Version (RSQ-OAV). These items were then evaluated for representativeness and relevance to provide content validity. An expert panel conducted …

I Tie Flies In My Sleep: An Autoethnographic Examination Of Recreation And Reintegration For A Veteran With Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, Warren D. Price, Neil R. Lundberg, Ramon Zabriskie, Keith W. Barney

Faculty Publications

This autoethnographic account details the author's ongoing struggle with combat-related posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and how leisure was integral in his journey toward recovery. By showing the mental and emotional struggles of life with the disorder, this paper offers an alternative viewpoint from the traditional scientific studies of PTSD, which bury soldiers' voices under layers of analysis. The purpose of this paper is to deepen and expand an understanding of both combat-related PTSD and the power of leisure in an individual's recovery from combat trauma.

Consumer Behavior Change At The Base Of The Pyramid: Bridging The Gap Between For-Profit And Social Responsibility Strategies, Lisa Jones Christensen, Enno Siemsen, Sridhar Balasubramanian

Faculty Publications

This longitudinal field experiment compares two different for-profit market entry strategies with a philanthropic strategy in terms of how each influences consumer behavior in base-of-the-pyramid communities. We analyze reactions to a water purification product offered at three price points (moderate discount, deep discount, and free) in rural Malawi. We find that those who paid the deeply discounted price remain more likely to re-obtain and use the product than do those who paid the moderate price or who took it for free.

Faster-Better-Cheaper Projects: Too Much Risk Or Overreaction To Perceived Failure?, Robert L. Dillon, Peter M. Madsen

Faculty Publications

From1992 until 1999,NASA adopted a Faster-Better- Cheaper (FBC) paradigm—i.e., smaller low-cost spacecraft—for its unmanned missions. When many early missions met their objectives at much lower cost than traditional flagship missions, the FBC approach seemed successful. However, after the failures of two Mars spacecraft in 1999, the FBC paradigm was viewed as a failed experiment. We reflect on the legacy of FBC. In particular, we focus on the organizational learning literature to explore whether FBC, a stretch goal, was a good step for NASA. Previous examinations of FBC have focused on failure rates rather than on cost effectiveness. We revisit the …

The First 50 Years And The Next 50 Years Of A Behavioral Theory Of The Firm: An Interview With James G. March, Chengwei Liu, David Maslach, Vinit Desai, Peter Madsen

Faculty Publications

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the 1963 publication of A Behavioral Theory of the Firm (BTF) by Richard Cyert and James G. March, we interviewed Professor James G. March. The purpose of this article is to disseminate the full text of that interview.

The Robust Beauty Of “Little Ideas”: The Past And Future Of A Behavioral Theory Of The Firm, David Maslach, Chengwei Liu, Peter Madsen, Vinit Desai

Faculty Publications

This introductory and the following nine articles reflect comments made by panelists during a symposium honoring A Behavioral Theory of the Firm by Richard Cyert and James G. March at the 2013 Academy of Management meeting. Not surprisingly, what emerged from these comments is that the Behavioral Theory of the Firm (BTF) was enormously influential to the creation of many “little ideas” that have a big impact on a number of social sciences. More surprising is the potential for many new “little ideas” that build on the BTF. The panelists detail what these new “little ideas” may be in future …

Who Should Bring Home The Bacon? How Deterministic Views Of Gender Constrain Spousal Wage Preferences, Catherin H. Tinsley, Taeya M. Howell, Emily T. Amanatullah

Faculty Publications

Despite the rise of dual-income households in the United States and a narrowing of the nation’s gender wage gap, we find that many men and women still prefer the husband to be the primary breadwinner. To help explain intra-marital wage preferences, we argue for a new construct, gender determinism, which captures the extent to which a person believes gender categories dictate individual characteristics. We show that deterministic views of gender increase both intra-marital wage gap preferences and work choices that may perpetuate the gender wage gap. Our results hold in both student and non-student samples, suggesting some endurance of these …

Authenticity Matters More Than Intelligence And Personality In Predicting Metacognition, Dan S. Chiaburu, Inchul Cho, Richard G. Gardner

Faculty Publications

Purpose – Metacognition – or learning how to learn – is an important competence in business and academic settings. The purpose of this paper is to examine individual difference predictors of metacognition, including two traditional (general mental ability (GMA), five-factor model (FFM) personality traits) ones, and a novel one, individual authenticity.

Design/methodology/approach – Volunteers (n¼243) were asked to rate the extent to which they agreed with the respective statements on a seven-point Likert-type scale for GMA, FFM personality traits, and authenticity measures. Data were collected at different points in time to introduce psychological separation among the study measures.

Findings – …

America’S Transition To New Healthcare Policy: Applying Airline Pricing Models To Healthcare Providers, Westin Leavitt, Dr. Mark Hansen

Journal of Undergraduate Research

As America’s healthcare industry becomes increasingly regulated under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the economic effects of regulation are still in question. One of the most puzzling questions is the price at which hospitals and clinics will charge for treatment. Because hospitals’ costs and prices are usually proprietary knowledge, we suspect that hospitals are participating in first-degree price discrimination* to maximize profits. In addition, we seek to explain how the ACA’s partial reimbursement rates cause greater financial stress on hospitals by forcing them to cost shift**.

Difference In Degrees: Ceo Characteristics And Firm Environmental Disclosure, Ben W. Lewis, Judith L. Walls, Glen W. S. Dowell

Faculty Publications

We contribute to the literature on firms’ responses to institutional pressures and environmental information disclosure. We hypothesize that CEO characteristics such as education and tenure will influence firms’ likelihood to voluntarily disclose environmental information. We test our hypotheses by examining firms’ responses to the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) and find that firms led by newly appointed CEOs and CEOs with MBA degrees are more likely to respond to the CDP, while those led by lawyers are less likely to respond. Our results have implications for research on strategic responses to institutional pressures and corporate environmental performance.

Ethical Consistency And Courage Scale, Matthew Moen, Dr. Brad Agle

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Integrity matters. If a person says one thing and then does something else, then that person is being ethically inconsistent. If that same person is ethically inconsistent over time, then her/his moral performance will eventually suffer. If an organization is filled with ethically inconsistent employees, then that organization’s moral performance will also suffer over time. Sadly, examples of this fact are replete in the business world (e.g. Bear Stearns, Enron, Tyco, WorldCom). Thus, it’s important for business firms of all sizes to assess the ethical consistency of their current and future employees. Currently, there is no good measure of ethical …

Maintaining Routine By Co-Authoring Repair And Reinforcement, Lyndon Garrett, Dr. Curtis Lebaron

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Routines within organizations enable members to execute their work plans and achieve their strategic objectives. Because routines involve replication and repetition, some researchers have regarded them as rather mindless patterns of action, but recently scholars have begun to view routines as “mindful” accomplishments—especially routines that are changeable and open to variation1. Although there has been widespread attention to evolution and variation in routines, few studies have specified how routines actually stay the same, or how they are maintained2. Empirical studies increasingly conclude that routines are not objectively given, but are constantly in the process of being accomplished in a particular …

Autobiographical Life Experiences: Counterfactual Thinking And Meaning, Weston Hadlock, Dr. Katie Liljenquist

Journal of Undergraduate Research

The initial goal of this study was to explore the different effects of counter-factual thinking on one’s assignment of meaning to life. The creation of these ‘what-if’ scenarios for many people has often been associated with regret. We, however, hypothesized that constructing these mental alternatives may instead lead to the perception that the path life took was meaningful because the contrast underscores the opportunities, relationships, and achievements that would not have occurred without these key elements in one’s life narrative.

The Earlier The Longer: How Disproportionate Time Is Spent On Patients Discussed Early In Attending Physicians’ End-Of-Week Handoffs, Lyndon Garrett, Dr. Curtis Lebaron

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Hospital handoffs have been recognized by both regulators and researchers as a locus of potential communication failure with risks to patient safety and quality of care. The initial objectives of my orca grant research were to explore the roles of both the incoming and outgoing physicians in the successful accomplishment of a shift-change patient handoff. As we got into our study, we realized an important oversight in the literature. While most empirical studies on shift-change have been done in settings where multiple patients are transferred, theoretical discussions in the literature have focused on how best to hand off a single …