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Articles 391 - 420 of 1196

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

Investment Consumer Satisfaction: Discovering Lasting Loyalty In Financial Advisory Relationships, Betty A. Moon May 2006

Investment Consumer Satisfaction: Discovering Lasting Loyalty In Financial Advisory Relationships, Betty A. Moon

Student Scholarship

The Baby Boom generation's peak earning years are rapidly coming to a close as its members approach age sixty. The reduction of defined benefit pension plans, minimal retirement savings, and greater life expectancies has created a looming economic crisis. The need for Boomers to save more and prepare better is well-researched and publicized. And while an ever-increasing amount of investment and financial information is available to the public, this wealth of information seems to overwhelm consumers into inaction. Clearly they could use some good advice. What has not received much academic research attention is the value Boomers place on professional …

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Practicing Pragmatic Collaboration: The Challenge Of Recognizing And Managing Rational Divergence, Surendra S. Khambete May 2006

Practicing Pragmatic Collaboration: The Challenge Of Recognizing And Managing Rational Divergence, Surendra S. Khambete

Student Scholarship

Collaboration is widely studied and continues to draw attention from academics and practitioners alike. This paper builds on an everyday practitioner’s puzzle: Why are good collaborative practices difficult to duplicate? This paper uses an existing theoretical framework to explore the concept of pragmatic collaboration, and introduces the concept of rational divergence, which can weaken collaboration. Clearly the ever­changing economic, political, social, and technical world requires managers to continuously align incentives for individuals, firms, and the industry by way of policy to create a “winning” environment. Let us suppose that all incentives to collaborate are aligned, a culture of trust is …

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Immigrants Transnational Activities For Home Community Development: The Nigerian Immigrants In The United States Of America, James B. Ogundule May 2006

Immigrants Transnational Activities For Home Community Development: The Nigerian Immigrants In The United States Of America, James B. Ogundule

Student Scholarship

Immigrant's remittances represent a substantial flow of capital from developed economies to their countries. Unfortunately, the efforts have negative consequences because the recipients take advantage of the asymmetric information dilemmas and divert the resources for personal use against the immigrants' desires (Chami, Fullenkamp, & Jahjah, 1989). Nigerian immigrants in the United States have been engaged in various social, ethnic, professional networks to maintain their cultural heritage and identity. Over the years, they have transformed their efforts into generating and transfer economic capital for the development of their home communities. In a qualitative research study, by the author (Ogundele, 2005), several …

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Reporting Medical Error: A Behavioral Perspective, Anna H. Gibson May 2006

Reporting Medical Error: A Behavioral Perspective, Anna H. Gibson

Student Scholarship

A current problem in practice in the medical industry is the underreporting of medical errors. Accordingly, there is no way of knowing whether the harm from medical errors is accurately calculated. Rates of error reporting in high reliability organizations (HROs) exceed those in other industries, including health care. HROs and error reporting have traditionally been examined through a lens of organizational culture and but not from the perspective of individual variations. To study the effect of individual variations on medial error reporting, we build on existing social cognitive theory, specifically adapting Albert Bandura's Triadic Reciprocality Model. The adapted model explores …

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Bridging The Governance/Management Gap: A Study Of Effectiveness In Cooperative Organizations, Brian L. Newton May 2006

Bridging The Governance/Management Gap: A Study Of Effectiveness In Cooperative Organizations, Brian L. Newton

Student Scholarship

Academicians and practitioners continually reexamine the performance and interaction between nonprofit cooperative boards and managements as they relate to organizational effectiveness. Despite the volumes of academic research and the scores of practitioner-based "how-to" journals, neither present theory nor practice seems to have it rights. Perhaps the paradox is due to the difficulties of governance and the role that boards perform- or fail to perform- or maybe it fall squarely on the shoulders of management and the complexity of leadership. Regardless of the reasons, a performance gap exists (Nicholson & Kiel, 2004). If left unheeded, this gap will cause ineffectiveness and …

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Framing Social Change Management: A Conflict Resolution Praxis With An Economic Correlate, Maurice Apprey May 2006

Framing Social Change Management: A Conflict Resolution Praxis With An Economic Correlate, Maurice Apprey

Student Scholarship

Development or transition economists are generally not part of the interdisciplinary team of clinicians, historians and diplomats that engage in ethno-national social change management. A model is presented that now includes an economist in a specific sub-species of social change management, namely, ethnonational conflict resolution. A SOCS model that considers the Situation, Options, Consequences and Simulation of the best option chosen has been deployed to link non-economic decision making to economic decision making using observations of variations in human development in the face of such macroeconomic issues as external debt, corruption, economic freedom and rate of growth of GDP. Interdisciplinary …

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Adaptational Proximity And The Innovation Process: An End-User Focus, Robert M. Krug May 2006

Adaptational Proximity And The Innovation Process: An End-User Focus, Robert M. Krug

Student Scholarship

Organizations promote widely ranging workplace programs and initiatives with the goal of instituting change or maintaining previously adopted change. Often these programs and initiatives are designed to establish global standards through consistent member behavior. Using data from over 400 members of diverse organizations, this study examines several factors that affect program commitment and usage. Drawing upon innovation theory, I focus on the concept of end-user adaptation, or, as used herein, adaptation proximal activities. With regard to this mechanism, I propose and establish the mediating role that personal engagement plays in employee propensity to adopt adaptation proximal activities with regard to …

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Bridging The Governance/Management Gap: A Study Of Effectiveness In Cooperative Organizations, Brian L. Newton May 2006

Bridging The Governance/Management Gap: A Study Of Effectiveness In Cooperative Organizations, Brian L. Newton

Student Scholarship

Academicians and practitioners continually reexamine the performance and interaction between nonprofit cooperative boards and managements as they relate to organizational effectiveness. Despite the volumes of academic research and the scores of practitioner-based "how-to" journals, neither present theory nor practice seems to have it rights. Perhaps the paradox is due to the difficulties of governance and the role that boards perform- or fail to perform- or maybe it fall squarely on the shoulders of management and the complexity of leadership. Regardless of the reasons, a performance gap exists (Nicholson & Kiel, 2004). If left unheeded, this gap will cause ineffectiveness and …

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What Factors Influence High Technology Entrepreneurial Activity On A Regional Basis: A Look At Utah And Colorado, Randall I. Bambrough May 2006

What Factors Influence High Technology Entrepreneurial Activity On A Regional Basis: A Look At Utah And Colorado, Randall I. Bambrough

Student Scholarship

Regional economies, not only in the United States but throughout the world, are looking for ways to increase high-technology (high-tech) entrepreneurial activity so that they can be home to the next Microsoft, Yahoo or Google. Successful enterprises such as these have historically created jobs with wages that, according to one study, were 95% higher than the nation’s average private sector salary. In addition, tremendous individual wealth has been generated in the past by stock option grants to the “rank and file” employees of these companies. Since most highly successful high-tech companies had venture capital funding at some point, an analysis …

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Leveraging Social Capital As Public Policy Resource In Pennsylvania School Districts, Suzanne K. Moore Apr 2006

Leveraging Social Capital As Public Policy Resource In Pennsylvania School Districts, Suzanne K. Moore

Student Scholarship

This study bridges literature and methods in several fields including public finance, social science and public administration. Survey and archival data were utilized to examine social capital of school board members in 170 Pennsylvania school districts. Specifically this study examined the impact of board member internal and external social capital on two organizational outcomes--community support for school spending and student performance. In addition to measuring external social capital leveraged in the board members' official capacity, an additional dimension was measured to capture the transferability of social capital through board member relationships in the community outside of their role as public …

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Emotional Contagion By Branch Managers On Performance In A Financial Sales Setting: The Positive Deviant 'Infectious' Branch Manager, Raymond Massa Apr 2006

Emotional Contagion By Branch Managers On Performance In A Financial Sales Setting: The Positive Deviant 'Infectious' Branch Manager, Raymond Massa

Student Scholarship

This paper examines the factors that could influence moving up the median productivity and decreasing the transaction costs involved with building and maintaining a commission based financial sales team. The prime initiating influence, it is hypothesized, is the Positive Deviant Branch Manager who in his/her capacity as the leader can 'infect' individuals within the branch so as to generate better results. This paper will review Emotional Intelligence, Leadership, Emotional Contagion, Self-Efficacy, Optimism and Development and relate these to the findings from an exploratory field work consisting of six pilot interviews. This preliminary research suggests that as a method of selection, …

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Reciprocal Learning: An Application To Achieve Better Home Care Effectiveness, Margo Kraft Mar 2006

Reciprocal Learning: An Application To Achieve Better Home Care Effectiveness, Margo Kraft

Student Scholarship

The proposed research will investigate homecare giver practices that employ reciprocal learning in home healthcare settings. A conceptual framework will be presented in order to explore the effectiveness of healthcare practitioners who implement and utilize the reciprocal learning processes. These processes include theories of performance, learning, and relationships. The thesis is that these patients experience greater homecare results than those who do not receive reciprocal learning care. The researcher's conceptual framework will provide basis for a study to gain insight into the precursors of reciprocal learning practices, the nature of reciprocal learning relationships between caregivers and patients, and how these …

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Corporate Governance In The Era Of Sarbanes-Oxley: Regulation, Governance, And Performance, Larry W. Ettner Mar 2006

Corporate Governance In The Era Of Sarbanes-Oxley: Regulation, Governance, And Performance, Larry W. Ettner

Student Scholarship

The results of governance research are mixed concerning the financial consequences of externally induced regulations. The debate hinges on the assumption that adoption of regulation is an exogenous factor in determining performance. Drawing on basic insights from institutional theory and innovation studies, I argue that response to regulation is in fact a mediator of the relationship between 'quality of governance' and financial performance. Focusing on the adoption of Sarbanes-Oxley (Sarbox) regulation by publicly traded companies, I hypothesize that governance quality is likely to affect financial success by influencing organizational responses to Sarbox. Using multiple year data from two large datasets, …

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Organizational Renewal: Using Appreciative Inquiry To Build Network Capital, Thomas H. Carlson Feb 2006

Organizational Renewal: Using Appreciative Inquiry To Build Network Capital, Thomas H. Carlson

Student Scholarship

The intention of this research project is to explore linkages which exist, both in theory and in practice, between Appreciative Inquiry and social network theory. The approach employed here is to design a multidimensional organizational intervention using socialconstructionist concepts and approaches from appreciative inquiry, positive psychology and social network theory. The intention of this study is to explore the proposition that social innovation, as opposed to traditional problem solving techniques, can be an effective means of addressing challenges of team building, group learning, and organizational renewal and performance improvement. The intervention will be conducted with a newly formed unit of …

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Closing The "Equity Gap" In Startup/Seed Investment For Ict Ventures (Israeli Experience), Jimmy Schwarzkopf Jan 2006

Closing The "Equity Gap" In Startup/Seed Investment For Ict Ventures (Israeli Experience), Jimmy Schwarzkopf

Student Scholarship

In Israel\, an innovative program called Entrepreneur/ Executive in Residency (EIR) was initiated by venture capital firms to increase the probability that ICT startup/seed ventures will be funded. EIR programs help VCs to maintain 6%-10% of their portfolio (measured in invested dollars per year) in ventures in the startup/seed stage. This research\, based on qualitative interviews with Israeli VC executives and entrepreneurs who participate in EIR programs\, promotes understanding about how EIR programs work to increase the perceived confidence coefficient of the VC partners until it overcomes the “equity gap” that exists in assessing startup/seed entrepreneurial deals. Variant types of …

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Silence Please: The Case For Cell Phone Rejection, Nina Aversano Dec 2005

Silence Please: The Case For Cell Phone Rejection, Nina Aversano

Student Scholarship

Cell phone density in G8 countries ranges between 80 and 90 percent – except in the US where some 35 % of Americans have failed to adopt the technology. The relative reluctance of US consumers to embrace cellular technology is puzzling given that the barriers for use appear to be low and the benefits high. If rejection was the simple inverse of adoption, we would expect people to reject cellular telephony based on negative evaluations of usefulness and ease of use, dominant constructs in technology acceptance models. This research suggests, however, that barriers to cell phone rejection transcend those traditionally …

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Collaboration Between Competitive Firms In The Upstream Oil Industry: The Effect Of Operational Control On Valve Creation, Arun K. Sharma Dec 2005

Collaboration Between Competitive Firms In The Upstream Oil Industry: The Effect Of Operational Control On Valve Creation, Arun K. Sharma

Student Scholarship

In this study I investigate the relationships between oil company competitors as they collaborate to develop mutually owned oil-field projects. Using fundamental theoretical principles derived from Transaction Cost Theory and Property Rights Theory\, I have analyzed fourteen interviews with oil company leaders in an attempt to better explain partnership behavior. The typical oil-field partnership governance model (the Joint Operating Agreement – or JOA) is designed to minimize transaction costs and equitably distribute profit in accordance with Transaction Cost Theory. Property Rights Theory\, however\, more accurately describes JOA partner behavior by accounting for residual rights of control\, which are a more …

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Collaboration And Competition Tensions In Multi-Unit Organizations Facing Volatile Business Environments, Baldev Singh Dec 2005

Collaboration And Competition Tensions In Multi-Unit Organizations Facing Volatile Business Environments, Baldev Singh

Student Scholarship

Today’s volatile business environment with unpredictable and shifting customer demands is forcing units within the hierarchy of the organization to respond collectively. But these very units are in competition for corporate support and resources in pursuit of their own interests – expand\, enhance their position\, and ensure differentiation – or their conception of the organization’s interest. This research explores the tensions among inter-unit competition and collaboration and the collective ability of the units to effectively cope with shifting demands of turbulent business environment while optimizing the overall organizational performance. The research findings extend our understanding of collaboration beyond mutual gains\, …

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Barriers And Enablers Of A Successful Transition To Nurse Manager, Pamela C. Hudson Dec 2005

Barriers And Enablers Of A Successful Transition To Nurse Manager, Pamela C. Hudson

Student Scholarship

The transition from staff nurse to nurse leader is a natural promotional pathway in a nursing career. Yet seldom are staff nurses who are promoted to management prepared--either practically or psychologically--for the job. This study, based on semi-structured qualitative interviews with 13 nurse leaders, describes from their perspectives, the perils of ill-prepared promotion to management. Our findings suggest that nurse leaders often "do" management but continue to "be" nurses. The schism between doing and being, as seen in previous research in other contexts, impacts nurse leader's attitude, job satisfaction and performance. In an era where the nurse leader is seen …

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"Retained Equity": Understanding The Impact Of Self Service Technology On Brand Trust Within The Context Of Financial Aid Administration, Matthew J. Gymer Dec 2005

"Retained Equity": Understanding The Impact Of Self Service Technology On Brand Trust Within The Context Of Financial Aid Administration, Matthew J. Gymer

Student Scholarship

Investment in self service technology (SST) is transforming the customer service encounter in virtually all industry sectors, pushing interpersonal service to a more automated and self initiated process. While firms are more familiar with operational implementation and customer acceptance factors of SST, there is much to learn concerning the cumulative implications of shifting customers from an interpersonal to a SST based service encounter. Of particular importance is what happens to trust between student and school the more students use self service technology to meet their financial aid service requests. Two groups of undergraduate students – some predisposed to SST based …

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A Qualitative Study Of Employee Self-Limiting Behaviors In Non-Dominant Culture Organizations, Monika L. Hudson Dec 2005

A Qualitative Study Of Employee Self-Limiting Behaviors In Non-Dominant Culture Organizations, Monika L. Hudson

Student Scholarship

In this qualitative research paper, social/ethnic identity (Tajfel & Turner, 1979; Berry, 1993) and relative deprivation theories (Dion, 2001) and their application to organizational identity are used to look at “self-limiting” behaviors – conscious or unconscious acts of non- cooperation and/or lower work effort (Metayer, 2003). The intent is to identify how management practice can be improved by better understanding the derivation and reasons for these behaviors in one type of non-dominant culture workplace – organizations where African Americans constitute the majority of the employee base. Among the major findings of this segment of the research is that while managers …

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Social Change - Making The Improbable Possible Through Collaboration: Barriers And Enablers To Ngos Working Together In South Africa To Tackle Hiv/Aids, Jane Cooke-Lauder Dec 2005

Social Change - Making The Improbable Possible Through Collaboration: Barriers And Enablers To Ngos Working Together In South Africa To Tackle Hiv/Aids, Jane Cooke-Lauder

Student Scholarship

Three intersecting trends create an interesting arena for this study – collaboration is increasingly being portrayed as the way to solve wicked problems at a time when significant cross-border social issues are ever more pressing and when the number and level of activity of Non Government Organizations (NGOs) is on the increase. The result is a world where NGOs are working together differently, more collaboratively, to address these intractable social issues. But results indicate that their collaboration efforts are not always successful. This study was based on interviews conducted with 19 leaders of NGOs working collaboratively to tackle the HIV/AIDS …

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Social Entrepreneurship: Pattern-Changing Entrepreneurs And The Scaling Of Social Impact, David A. Sherman Dec 2005

Social Entrepreneurship: Pattern-Changing Entrepreneurs And The Scaling Of Social Impact, David A. Sherman

Student Scholarship

This paper presents findings from an investigation of pattern-changing social entrepreneurs. We examined the efforts of fifteen entrepreneurs and sought to understand the factors that enable successful ones to scale their social impact. All the entrepreneurs were operating in capital constrained environments and scaling required overcoming funding constraints. The findings indicate that pattern-changing social entrepreneurs are more concerned with scaling their impact than with growing their enterprises. Hence, many were pursuing both direct scaling where they grew their own enterprises and indirect scaling where they pursued impact through influencing other organizations. Social entrepreneurship is not a linear process; rather it …

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Change Leader Career Development: The Interplay Of Social Capital\, Sponsorship And Self Identity During Planned Organizational Change, Zara F. Larsen Dec 2005

Change Leader Career Development: The Interplay Of Social Capital\, Sponsorship And Self Identity During Planned Organizational Change, Zara F. Larsen

Student Scholarship

This paper describes how in absence of strong sponsorship and often regardless of project outcome\, leaders of high impact corporate change initiatives must simultaneously develop bonding social capital to become sustainable members of the enterprise’s leadership team. This particularly holds for executives brought in from outside the firm to lead change. We present the findings of a qualitative research study of 42 projects led by 30 executive leaders from a diverse portfolio of primarily manufacturing companies\, leaders who were either Insiders (those established within their firms) or Outsiders (leaders brought in as fulltime employees from outside the firm specifically to …

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The Rx For Electronic Health Care Records: Time, Not Incentives, Edward W. Wright Dec 2005

The Rx For Electronic Health Care Records: Time, Not Incentives, Edward W. Wright

Student Scholarship

Despite promotion as a national objective, information technology remains relatively underutilized in US healthcare. To better understand this reluctance by physicians to implement technology that will arguably improve the efficiency and effectiveness of American healthcare, we studied fifteen family medical practices - interviewing decision makers about the adoption of electronic health record systems. A resulting conceptual model provides a pragmatic explanation of the variables that influence adoption. Prior adoption theories that rely upon intention to use as a predictor of adoption proved inadequate to our purpose. These theories tend to ignore the decision to acquire technology--the heart of the EHR …

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Startup/Seed Stage Investment By Venture Capital Funds (In Israel): Entrepreneurs In Residency And Executive In Residency Programs, Jimmy Schwarzkopf Nov 2005

Startup/Seed Stage Investment By Venture Capital Funds (In Israel): Entrepreneurs In Residency And Executive In Residency Programs, Jimmy Schwarzkopf

Student Scholarship

What constitutes venture capital and what constitutes angel financing is a natural question. In the time period after the bubble burst in 2000 it became easy to differentiate: 1. Angel investors: usually high status individuals, former successful technology entrepreneurs who use their financial wealth, which financed birth and initial growth of ventures. 2. Venture capital (VC): independently managed, dedicated pools of capital that focus on equity-linked investments in privately held, high growth companies needing mid stage financing. Startup/seed financing were usually not acceptable VC funding phases, because of the greater risks involved. The growth in Startup/Seed Financingby VCs (almost 100% …

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Technology Rejection Of Mobile Telephones, Nina Aversano Sep 2005

Technology Rejection Of Mobile Telephones, Nina Aversano

Student Scholarship

Over 40% of all consumers in the United States reject mobile telephones. Exploring this puzzling question becomes all the more interesting given that mobile telephones clearly meet the criteria of the prevailing Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and Technology Acceptance Model 2 (TAM2). Perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness, social influence, and cognitive instrumental processes all influence user acceptance or adoption behavior, yet there are still a large number of people who do not accept this innovation. There is a dearth of academic research on why consumers reject technology; specifically mobile telephone technology. The review of the literature and the …

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Asian Drama: Discovering And Unleashing The Mobile Services, Amit K. Maitra Sep 2005

Asian Drama: Discovering And Unleashing The Mobile Services, Amit K. Maitra

Student Scholarship

Telecommunications privatization, competition, liberalization, and regulatory independence in several countries have been embarked with the goals of maximizing universal access to telecommunications services as a developmental goal, promoting efficiency through competition and establishment of world class telecommunications networks. Using interview data from India and China--the two countries that have very different governments and policies, leading to differing approaches to the introduction of telecommunication competition and infrastructure development--this paper provides analyses of privatization, competition, liberalization processes and legal frameworks governing telecommunications. India has set policy via recommendations of publicly visible independent regulatory authority while China has pursued a strategy of competition …

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Trust, Education And Development In Jamaica, 1950-2000, Beverley J. Morgan Aug 2005

Trust, Education And Development In Jamaica, 1950-2000, Beverley J. Morgan

Student Scholarship

Education is considered to be the greatest predictor of social capital which, in turn, is said to be the greatest predictor of socio-economic development. In order to contribute to a more nuanced understanding of this apparent chain of causation the study looked closely at the variables of interest among a population of highly educated Jamaicans. Certain highly educated members of the cohorts who graduated from high school in Jamaica between 1950 and 2000 show a high propensity for Generalised Trust that finds expression in the extent of their sociability, the range and heterogeneity of the groups to which they belong …

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Growth, Adaptation And Success In Mid-Career Leaders Experiencing Disruptive Midelife Transitions: An Exploration Of Self-Awareness, Self-Management, Hope And Resilience, Kathryn V. Kamisnky Aug 2005

Growth, Adaptation And Success In Mid-Career Leaders Experiencing Disruptive Midelife Transitions: An Exploration Of Self-Awareness, Self-Management, Hope And Resilience, Kathryn V. Kamisnky

Student Scholarship

This study explores the experience of disruptive, midlife transition among mid-career leaders. The genesis of life cycle theory, over the past fifty years provides an important foundation to the exploration of midlife transition. While theses theories offer an explanation of the types, expected timing and frequency of transitions in life, they do not address the core competencies that the mid-career leader leverages to achieve success through disruptive periods of transition. The central hypothesis of this research is that there are four independent variables or competencies within leaders that affect the outcome of their experience and management of disruptive life transitions. …

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