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Articles 271 - 300 of 1196

Full-Text Articles in Business Administration, Management, and Operations

Surgeon Acceptance Of Computer Assisted Surgery, Jonathan B. Brewster Dec 2008

Surgeon Acceptance Of Computer Assisted Surgery, Jonathan B. Brewster

Student Scholarship

The advancement of modern medicine would not be possible without the development, diffusion, and adoption of medical technologies. Few studies have measured technology adoption at the level of the individual physician and fewer of surgeons per se. Computer assisted surgery (CAS), an example of clinically oriented technology, has experienced slow adoption by orthopedic surgeons. Our inquiry, based on semi-structured interviews with practitioners trained to use CAS in knee replacement surgeries, sheds light on how surgeons make decisions to adopt or reject clinical technologies. Findings suggest that classic technology acceptance models, TAM, TAM2 and TAM3, insufficiently explain clinical technology choice. Our …

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Bridging The Great Divide - Moving From Outsider To Insider: How For Profit Executives Become Effective Nonprofit Ceos, Antoinette E. La Belle Dec 2008

Bridging The Great Divide - Moving From Outsider To Insider: How For Profit Executives Become Effective Nonprofit Ceos, Antoinette E. La Belle

Student Scholarship

A leadership crisis in the nonprofit sector is portended by sector growth, turnover at the top and a smaller cohort of leaders coming up from behind. Crossovers from the corporate sector present an alternative source of CEO talent, but a dearth of empirical research about top executives who cross the boundaries of sector, organization, and, at times role, stymies our understanding of the transition process of for-profit to non-profit leaders. In depth interviews with U.S. nonprofit leaders--both crossover CEOs and CEOs hired from within the nonprofit sector--compared and contrasted transition experiences. Rather than significant differences between the two groups, our …

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How Does Emotional Intelligence And Shared Vision Affect Teamwork Performance?, Ed Mahon Dec 2008

How Does Emotional Intelligence And Shared Vision Affect Teamwork Performance?, Ed Mahon

Student Scholarship

There is a vast literature on the emotional intelligence (EI) of individuals, but comparatively little on team EI. We report findings of a qualitative inquiry involving 36 members of twelve IT teams – half of them effective and half less so – to explore the relationship between team EI and team performance. Trust, conflict resolution skills and team communication are seen to differentiate effective and less effective teams, as is the ability to adapt shared vision to changes in project specification. The research supports that the teams possess emotional intelligence and that it powerfully influences how they function and to …

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Conversational Learning And Performance: Interpreting Great Strategic Conversations, Ann Kowal Smith Dec 2008

Conversational Learning And Performance: Interpreting Great Strategic Conversations, Ann Kowal Smith

Student Scholarship

We interviewed seventeen successful leaders to explore their experience of effective strategic conversations yielding innovative outcomes. Although these organizational leaders uniformly espoused emergent conversation, whereby they prefer to collaborate with their teams in an experiential learning process, their conversations were primarily leader-driven directed discussions with specific outcomes in mind. Moreover, they described not single events, but multiple strategic conversations distributed over time, with varied participants and purposes. Successful strategic conversations appear to develop, over time, in a dialectic space formed by the leader's desire for authentic contributions by participants and the experience of organizational and cultural forces that inhibit emergent …

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Ostensive And Performative Routines And Strategies For Institutional Adaptation And Innovation, Jaime Chua Dec 2008

Ostensive And Performative Routines And Strategies For Institutional Adaptation And Innovation, Jaime Chua

Student Scholarship

Using critical realist research, we sought to understand how nonprofit organizations blend deliberate and emergent strategizing to cope with neoinstitutional dilemmas posed by donors’ competing logics. To gain organizational legitimacy and access to resources, international nonprofits must conform to donors’ normative processes and practices which tend to be ineffectual. An international nonprofit operating in the highly complex international development field provided an ideal setting for investigating how routines blend and moderate deliberate and emergent strategies. Consistent with the view that strategic insights come from different organizational levels, we examined key patterns of interactions and routines between middle and top-level managers. …

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Outsider To Insider: Contrasting Routes And Transition Experiences Of New Nonprofit Leaders, Anotinette E. La Belle Dec 2008

Outsider To Insider: Contrasting Routes And Transition Experiences Of New Nonprofit Leaders, Anotinette E. La Belle

Student Scholarship

A leadership crisis in the nonprofit sector is portended by sector growth, turnover at the top and a smaller cohort of leaders coming up from behind. Crossovers from the corporate sector present an alternative source of CEO talent, but a dearth of empirical research about top executives who cross the boundaries of sector, organization, and, at times role, stymies our understanding of the transition process of for-profit to non-profit leaders. In depth interviews with U.S. nonprofit leaders – both crossover CEOs and CEOs hired from within the nonprofit sector − compared and contrasted transition experiences. Rather than significant differences between …

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The Relationship Between Reproducing Ownership And Sustaining Non-Profit Collaboration, Nonie Brennan Dec 2008

The Relationship Between Reproducing Ownership And Sustaining Non-Profit Collaboration, Nonie Brennan

Student Scholarship

Semi-structured interviews with 21 partners of three long-standing, non-profit collaborations in the health and human services sector emphasize the role of constituents’ sense of “ownership”– and their continuous reproduction of it − on collaboration sustainability. The data suggests that enduring collaborations are characterized, on the one hand, by employee behaviors typically considered aberrant – including rule breaking and rule making – and on the other, “appreciative” participant behaviors. Findings imply non-profit governance and leadership can purposefully foster environments in which collaboration ownership can reproduce.

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The Private Sector And The Questionable Role Of Social Responsibility In Securing The Nation's Infrastructure, James K. Hayes Dec 2008

The Private Sector And The Questionable Role Of Social Responsibility In Securing The Nation's Infrastructure, James K. Hayes

Student Scholarship

Society faces many common challenges that the corporate sector can play a large role to help address. Security against terrorism is one such challenge and is an important pre-condition to sustainable development. Moreover, since terrorism often operates outside of the jurisdiction of state authorities, it is becoming clear that governments cannot address this issue alone. In the United States, for example, there is a large portion of the nation's infrastructure that owned by the private sector. Using data obtained from 158 survey responses from security professionals in the public and private sector, our structural equation model determined that while prior …

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The Relation Between Management's Perception Of Causal Ambiguity In Firm Competencies And Firm Performance: An Empirical Examination In Chile, Richard I. Araya Dec 2008

The Relation Between Management's Perception Of Causal Ambiguity In Firm Competencies And Firm Performance: An Empirical Examination In Chile, Richard I. Araya

Student Scholarship

Ambiguity about firm and competitor competencies and resources challenges managerial decision making − especially in developing countries where asymmetric information is higher than in the developed ones. Although a number of scholars have addressed “causal ambiguity” and its relationship with firm resources and competencies, and theorists have suggested a positive relationship between it and organizational performance, these links remain unclear. On one hand, ambiguity may protect a firm because competitors cannot easily imitate it (Alvarez & Antolin, 2005). On the other hand, causal ambiguity may impede imitation of valuable resources within the firm, limiting management ́s ability to manage resources …

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Emotional Intelligence, Shared Vision, And Teamwork Performance: A Qualitative Study, Ed Mahon Dec 2008

Emotional Intelligence, Shared Vision, And Teamwork Performance: A Qualitative Study, Ed Mahon

Student Scholarship

There is a vast literature on the emotional intelligence (EI) of individuals, but comparatively little on team EI. We report findings of a qualitative inquiry involving 36 members of twelve IT teams--half of them effective and half less so--to explore the relationship between team EI and team performance. Trust, conflict resolution skills and team communication are seen to differentiate effective and less effective teams, as is the ability to adapt shared vision to changes in project specification. The research supports the that teams possess emotional intelligence and that it powerfully influences how they function and to what effect. Our findings …

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Investor Views Of Financial Reporting: Recent Evidence Of The Expectation Gap, Chester H. Brearey May 2008

Investor Views Of Financial Reporting: Recent Evidence Of The Expectation Gap, Chester H. Brearey

Student Scholarship

Calls for the reformation of financial reporting have exacerbated in recent years in light of a rapidly changing global investment climate and in the wake of financial crises such as Enron. This study explores the existing model of financial reporting, and the characteristics that are identified with investor confidence, and whether they meet their primary objective: providing information that helps users to make resource allocation decisions. The study examines current literature and conducts interviews to determine the types of information that users find relevant. The evidence suggest that the current financial reporting system is overly complex; that there is lack …

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The Impact Of Product Stigma On Consumer Behavior: The Effects Of Self Concept And Attitudes, Al Darwan May 2008

The Impact Of Product Stigma On Consumer Behavior: The Effects Of Self Concept And Attitudes, Al Darwan

Student Scholarship

Qualitative research is proposed to study the derivation and effect of stigma in the marketing domain where it has been observed as an underexposed theoretical construct. The study seeks to build on previous research in the social domain by considering how product stigma derives and if it can be characterized similarly in the marketplace. The study is designed to discover, for example, if consumers, in their responses to product stigma, engage in the same stigma development processes that sociologists and psychologists have described operate in social situations. And we are motivated to shed light on how and to what extent …

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Decision Making In Complex Environments: The Role Of The Pathfinder Leader, Bruce C. Gockerman May 2008

Decision Making In Complex Environments: The Role Of The Pathfinder Leader, Bruce C. Gockerman

Student Scholarship

In a world of increasingly complex environments decision making processes become ever more important. This research examines the role of the pathfinder leader in a specific collective action of a complex galaxy of actors seeking to develop an enforceable water resources regime and extends that examination to a more general population engaged in complex civic collective actions within the context of municipal governance. This work extends emergent leadership research within governance structures, with implications for research and practice. The research also develops quantitative measures for collective action costs, benefits and outcomes.

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Encouraging Entrepreneurial Intentions: The Role Of University/College Environments And Experiences, Rosemary Kamau-Maina May 2008

Encouraging Entrepreneurial Intentions: The Role Of University/College Environments And Experiences, Rosemary Kamau-Maina

Student Scholarship

The importance of entrepreneurship to economic development is widely debated and acknowledged. With rising unemployment and growing disenchantment with corporate employment, more policy makers and scholars are turning to entrepreneurship and self employment as a solution to youth unemployment. College experiences and learning have the potential to change attitudes, beliefs and focus not only in a student's general life outcomes but also in career orientation. Colleges therefore provide a window of opportunity for creating positive attitudes towards entrepreneurship and influencing students' entrepreneurial self efficacy making careers in entrepreneurship more feasible and desirable. The manner in which these factors inter-relate is …

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From Conversation To Learning To Performance: Understanding Great Strategic Conversations, Ann Kowal Smith May 2008

From Conversation To Learning To Performance: Understanding Great Strategic Conversations, Ann Kowal Smith

Student Scholarship

To develop, maintain and retain competitive advantage, organizations must learn new skills and adapt to rapidly changing environments. My research is focused on the means by which individuals come together to learn from each other, and to collectively advance the objectives of the organization in a fast-paced, changing environment. In particular, I am interested in the power of the conversation and the conversation space as tools to facilitate this learning, to permit individuals to share their own experiences, build on the experiences of others and catalyze innovation. Increasingly, people are called to together to innovate, to solve thorny problems and …

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High Tech Entrepreneurial Activity: What Really Matters?, Randall I. Bambrough May 2008

High Tech Entrepreneurial Activity: What Really Matters?, Randall I. Bambrough

Student Scholarship

This study was designed to investigate what potential factors affect high-technology entrepreneurial activity (HTEA) on a regional basis. The fifty largest Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) in the United States in 2005 were examined. The total population covered by these MSAs was 156.1 million of a total United States population of 288.4 million or 54 percent of the entire country. The study is operationalized as a multivariate regression where the dependent variable of HTEA is measured as the per capita amount of high-tech jobs in the region. There are four major independent variables analyzed in the study: financial capital, human capital, …

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Learning Style Influence On Relationship Sales Success, Betty A. Moon May 2008

Learning Style Influence On Relationship Sales Success, Betty A. Moon

Student Scholarship

This research seeks to explore the use of Kolb's experiential learning theory as a framework for understanding salesperson success in relationship selling. Augmenting previous research, we investigate the influence of advisor learning styles and advisor adaptive flexibility on sales performance. Building on David Kolb's (Kolb, 1976, 1977, 1985) and Richard Boyatzis' (Boyatzis & Kolb, 1993) previous experiential learning research, we selected the Learning Style Inventory and Adaptive Style Inventory as the instruments to gather this data. The results of this research suggest that relationship sales success is influenced by flexibility, regardless of learning style preference.

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Promises To Keep: Exploring The Impact Of Procedural Equity On The Restoration Of Trust In Stakeholder-Firm Relationships, Rachel Y. Daniel May 2008

Promises To Keep: Exploring The Impact Of Procedural Equity On The Restoration Of Trust In Stakeholder-Firm Relationships, Rachel Y. Daniel

Student Scholarship

In November of 2001, Wall Street and Main Street were rocked as Enron filed for bankruptcy protection. This was followed by financial and ethical implosions at Arthur Anderson, WorldCom, Tyco, Adelphia, and more recently, Bear Sterns. Today, increased stakeholder distrust is routine. This paper presents a grounded theory research agenda to examine the impact of procedural equity on the restoration of trust with primary stakeholders. Given different levels of trust, the exit, voice, loyalty and neglect (EVLN) typology is used as a framework to understand stakeholder options in the face of distrust. Despite the growing body of literature devoted to …

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Sustaining Non-Profit Collaboration: The Relationship Between Governance And Leadership, Nonie Brennan May 2008

Sustaining Non-Profit Collaboration: The Relationship Between Governance And Leadership, Nonie Brennan

Student Scholarship

More and more, not-for-profit health and human service organizations are turning to collaboration to address serious community problems. Understanding the role of governance and leadership within a collaborative structure is critical. This research proposal focuses on governance and leadership within interorganizational collaboration addressing health and human service issues. We propose an examination of three collaborations sharing the same lead agency. The intention is to explore the governance structure and the elements of leadership that provide the infrastructure and lay the ground work for a sustained collaboration. The research question is: How do governance structures and leadership practices facilitate sustained collaboration …

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Breakthroughs: Examining The Conditions In Which Highly Regulated Government Funded Programs Generate Innovative Practices, Marilyn Ayenew Hosea May 2008

Breakthroughs: Examining The Conditions In Which Highly Regulated Government Funded Programs Generate Innovative Practices, Marilyn Ayenew Hosea

Student Scholarship

In the study of government-nonprofit power relationships, influence, authority, and accountability are often thought to be the purview of government and the burden of nonprofit service providers. A concern during this era of scarce financial resources and tight regulatory oversight is that the acceptance of public funds will impede the nonprofit's ability to implement local innovations that build upon and support the expectations of a variety of key stakeholders (governing boards, service consumers, the public-at-large, and government/private funders). This paper examines the conditions under which federally funded nonprofit organizations exercise autonomy by pursuing ventures that resist conforming influences of government …

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Breakthroughs: Examining The Conditions In Which Highly Regulated Government Funded Programs Generate Innovative Practices, Marilyn Ayenew Hosea May 2008

Breakthroughs: Examining The Conditions In Which Highly Regulated Government Funded Programs Generate Innovative Practices, Marilyn Ayenew Hosea

Student Scholarship

In the study of government-nonprofit power relationships, influence, authority, and accountability are often thought to be the purview of government and the burden of nonprofit service providers. A concern during this era of scarce financial resources and tight regulatory oversight is that the acceptance of public funds will impede the nonprofit's ability to implement local innovations that build upon and support the expectations of a variety of key stakeholders (governing boards, service consumers, the public-at-large, and government/private funders). This paper examines the conditions under which federally funded nonprofit organizations exercise autonomy by pursuing ventures that resist conforming influences of government …

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How Family Firm Members Understand Success And Its Influence On The Family Firm, John E. Neff May 2008

How Family Firm Members Understand Success And Its Influence On The Family Firm, John E. Neff

Student Scholarship

Family owned businesses are a significant and important component of our economic landscape. However, to date, a full understanding of family firm members' perception of success and the implications for ultimate firm performance has not been articulated. Investigations into family business goals and notions of success have not utilized a multi-stakeholder approach. An improved understanding of how family firm members understand success may provide the basis for evaluating ultimate firm performance from the perspective of family firm stakeholders. Using systems theory as an organizing framework this research proposal seeks to explore how family firm members understand and work to achieve …

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Cleaner Technologies And Competitiveness: Evidence From The Pulp And Paper Industry In Nigeria, Joseph Akinkugbe Adelegan May 2008

Cleaner Technologies And Competitiveness: Evidence From The Pulp And Paper Industry In Nigeria, Joseph Akinkugbe Adelegan

Student Scholarship

The instrument for industrial pollution control in Nigeria is the “command and control” approach. It specifies the adoption of technology for a firm’s compliance with statutory permissible levels of wastewater effluent parameters. However\, the industrial pollution laws are poorly enforced. Previous studies indicate there has been some adoption of cleaner technologies by some industries. However\, it is uncertain whether the driver of the eco-innovation is the environmental policy or whether other factors are involved. The pulp and paper industry is a sector in which environmental developments will significantly affect future economic performance. This sector depends on forest resources and recycled …

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Computer Assisted Surgery: A Study In Technology Discontinuance, Jonathan B. Brewster May 2008

Computer Assisted Surgery: A Study In Technology Discontinuance, Jonathan B. Brewster

Student Scholarship

Computer assisted surgery has not been overwhelmingly adopted by surgeons even after extensive formal training in the technique. Physician technology adoption behavior is not well understood, particularly technology that changes clinical practice. Within technology adoption research there are limited studies in discontinuance. The traditional research states that discontinuers tend to be less educated and of a lower socio-economic status. This is clearly not the case with surgeons who experiment with but subsequently discontinue using computer assisted surgery. This paper is a proposal to research this discontinuance phenomenon.

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Lack Of Data Never Prevented Us From Making Decisions: An Anatomy Of Resource-Allocation Decisions In The Durable Consumer Goods Industry, Martin Zummersch May 2008

Lack Of Data Never Prevented Us From Making Decisions: An Anatomy Of Resource-Allocation Decisions In The Durable Consumer Goods Industry, Martin Zummersch

Student Scholarship

Why do some work teams make more efficient resource-allocation decisions than others? Why are some organizations considered more innovative than others? These were the questions that led us to investigate decision-making processes in organizations of the durable consumer goods industry. This paper will test our theory that information-processing capabilities, information sharing through appropriate communication channels, combined with inclusive decision-making processes will create what we have called alignment or congruence in decision making, allowing organizations to make more effective and efficient resource-allocation decisions in innovation. Using data from our quantitative-research study conducted within a holding company in the Midwest, we created …

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The Effect Of Leader Attitude On Traditional Vs. Social Entrepreneurial Nonprofit Business Models, J. Martin Ireta May 2008

The Effect Of Leader Attitude On Traditional Vs. Social Entrepreneurial Nonprofit Business Models, J. Martin Ireta

Student Scholarship

The research proposed will examine the differences and similarities between the mindsets of people who lead nonprofit Social Entrepreneurial Enterprises (SEEs) and those who manage traditional non-for-profit organizations (NFPs) in Mexico. In particular, the study will seek to identify the extent to which risk orientation, opportunity recognition, selfefficacy, innovativeness, and social capital influence social entrepreneurial behavior. By comparing these two types of leadership roles, we can further our understanding of how some social leaders in Mexico, despite diminishing traditional revenue streams, are able to scale up and sustain their nonprofit organizations.

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Shift Happens: Understanding Commitment Shifts In Mergers And Acquisitions, Byron C. Clayton Apr 2008

Shift Happens: Understanding Commitment Shifts In Mergers And Acquisitions, Byron C. Clayton

Student Scholarship

Existing research has failed to find answers to improve the continuing high failure rates of mergers and acquisitions (M&A). The most frequently studied variables have offered no consistent explanations why some firms succeed and others fail. The unpredictability of M&A outcomes remains a mystery. Because mergers and acquisitions are most often associated with large-scale and sudden organizational change, we searched the broader field of organizational change for insight. The resulting conceptual model was used to explore the first-hand M&A experiences of managers, executive managers, employees, and change consultants. What emerged was evidence of significant shifts in commitment to change caused …

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The Impact Of The Internet On Airline Fares: Part Ii: Understanding The "Internet Price Effect", William G. Brunger Apr 2008

The Impact Of The Internet On Airline Fares: Part Ii: Understanding The "Internet Price Effect", William G. Brunger

Student Scholarship

Customers who use Internet-based online travel agencies (OTAs) to purchase “Clearly Leisure” trips (defined as trips that were booked at least 14-days in advance, where the customer stayed over the weekend) pay significantly less (more than 10 percent less in our sample) for similar itineraries in the same markets than those who purchase through traditional travel agencies. This difference persists even though the fares and inventory offered by the airline through each channel are identical because of contractual arrangements and airline marketing strategies. The purpose of this study is to examine this Internet Price Effect (IPE). Specifically, this study uses …

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Cross-Ideology Management In Transition Economies: The Effect Of Incentives And Leadership Attributes On Management Practice In Vietnam, Christian Kamm Apr 2008

Cross-Ideology Management In Transition Economies: The Effect Of Incentives And Leadership Attributes On Management Practice In Vietnam, Christian Kamm

Student Scholarship

In recent years, globalization has promoted one of the most momentous changes in economic history, the demise of the communist-based command economies. One of these transition economies, Vietnam, has experienced vast and dramatic political and economic change since the country embarked on its policy to open its markets and create a market-driven economy. Specifically, the country has authorized-the operation of joint-ventures and privately-owned firms and has equitized (sold to investors) many previously state-owned firms. Senior management of these firms have had to respond to market incentives--both challenges and opportunities--in order to remain competitive and be successful. This paper proposes qualitative …

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Role Engagement In Co-Operative Organizations: A Relational Framework For Understanding Board Commitment, Brian L. Newton Apr 2008

Role Engagement In Co-Operative Organizations: A Relational Framework For Understanding Board Commitment, Brian L. Newton

Student Scholarship

How board and chief executive officers (CEOs) engage to govern nonprofit organizations is not universally understood nor has such engagement been closely examined. The dialectic suggests that boards are either apathetic in governance (nannies of the CEO), or so operationally focused that they have lost sight of their mission. Likewise, CEOs have been accused of either running the board or as being enslaved to them. Much of the literature tries to separate the roles and responsibilities that the board and CEO have in governance. Other literature attempts to define what the board should do (versus what the CEO should do) …

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