Business Administration, Management, and Operations Commons^™

Managing For Resilience: Lessons From Ecology, Nancy E. Landrum, Ray Dybzinski, Amina Smajlovic, Brian M. Ohsowski

School of Environmental Sustainability: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Understanding and developing resilience is becoming increasingly important in business for both leaders and organizations. Resilient organizations can successfully navigate uncertainty and change. Resilience, however, is a poorly understood attribute. We thus turn to ecosystem resilience theory to understand the concept of resilience. We identify four lessons that can be adapted from management for ecological resilience to management for business resilience: 1) resilience can be positive or negative depending on the nature of the function it supports, 2) diversity of individuals, departments, flows of information, perspective, and other attributes contributes to resilience, 3) because we have imperfect knowledge about the …

Annual Report 2014-2015, Houston Academy Of Medicine - Texas Medical Center Library

Annual Reports: 1943 - Present

This file contains the Annual Report for the library from 2014-2015.

Performance Implications Of Fortune 500 Companies' Self-Interest In Corporate Social Responsibility Activities, Peter M. Neeves

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Numerous prior studies examining the relationship between Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and corporate financial performance have produced mixed results. Consumers expect alignment between corporation's CSR and business activities, yet a paucity of research examines the nature of CSR activities as related to corporate financial performance. Corporate leaders lack direction as to what CSR activities are most impactful. CSR is grounded in stakeholder theory, ethical work climate, and servant leadership theories. The relationship between self-interest in CSR activities, an index of alignment between business activities and CSR activities, and financial performance as measured by return on assets (ROA), return on equity …

The Link Between Leadership And Reduced Dropout Rates, Kathy Evans-Brown

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Urban high schools that predominantly service at-risk students have not been faring well, with disproportionate numbers of minority children and poor White children are dropping out. The purpose of this mixed methods study was to examine the relationship between leaders' successes and the number of reduced dropout initiatives in 2 urban schools. This research was guided by empirical literature that included a review of various successful leadership practices. Case study interviews were conducted with 2 principals and 3 directors and were analyzed for common themes. Quantitative survey data were collected from a purposeful sample of 195 students and 7 administrative …

An Analysis Of The Interplay Between Goal Orientation And Ethical Leadership And The Theoretical Processes Through Which Ethical Leadership Influences Work Outcomes, Dennis John Marquardt

Business Administration Dissertations - Archive

Due to recent heightened public awareness of ethics and ethical scandals inbusiness, the ethical leadership construct has become increasingly popular. However, scholars still know little about the predictors of ethical leadership and the specific processes through which ethical leaders influence their followers. Across three different papers, I contribute to the literature by addressing these gaps. The first paper consists of a theoretical review of goal orientation and ethical leadership with specific focus on the interplay between the two constructs. In the second paper I use latent path analysis with a sample of 234 supervisor/subordinate dyads and find leader trait-avoid goal …

Assessing Organizational Data Culture To Create An Ideal Data Ecosystem, Lauren M. Leary

Capstone Collection

The year 2015 marks a critical turning point in the global development arena. The Millennium Development Goals galvanized support and collaboration across sectors and now the world is recalibrating focus to prepare for the final push with the forthcoming Sustainable Development Goal Framework. We are also in the midst of a data revolution that aims to hold governments and organizations accountable to these goals and to ultimately create synergy between systems and processes in an ever-globalizing world. This paper intends to prompt discussion and learning around organizational readiness and preparedness for these imminent changes. Drawing from best practices within the …

Building Productivity In Virtual Project Teams, William Hamersly, Denise Land

Walden Faculty and Staff Publications

The steady increase in project failure rates is leaving businesses searching for better integration techniques to virtualize their project environments. Through virtualization, organizations may have positive impacts on communities across geographical boundaries and resource constraints. The focus of this phenomenological study was to explore, via the experiences of successful project management practitioners, best practice strategies for integrating virtual project teams through data analysis. The conceptual framework included von Bertalanffy’s general systems theory, decomposition model of business process and project management frameworks, and the recomposition approach. Twenty-two senior project managers with more than 5 years of experience managing virtual project environments …

An Action Plan For Implementing Responsible Management Education In Business Schools In The Uk And Ireland, Maeve O'Connell, Lorraine Sweeney

Other resources

Recent corporate scandals have resulted in criticism of business schools for graduating students who put too much emphasis on shareholder value and profit maximisation but neglect the broader social and environmental context in which businesses operate. The Principles for Responsible Management (PRME) are a set of voluntary standards developed in 2007 under the coordination of the UN Global Compact, to address weaknesses in ethical education. This paper reviews the context of the PRME principles and UK and Irish school signatories’ approaches to implementation through a review of their reports to PRME to outline the range of options available to a …

Analyzing Stakeholders Using Fuzzy Cognitive Mapping, Patrick T. Hester

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Faculty Publications

Stakeholder analysis was first explored as a methodology to assist business leaders with their strategic management functions. Stakeholder analysis has since expanded beyond the corporate arena. Stakeholders are a vital element in all complex systems problems; they are the customers, users, clients, suppliers, employees, regulators, and team members of a system. They fund a system, design it, build it, operate it, maintain it, and dispose of it. Each stakeholder contributes their own value-added perspective, as described by the systems principle known as complementarity. While many approaches exist for classifying and determining their attitudes, these approaches stop short of evaluating stakeholders …

Key Factors Driving Personnel Downsizing In Multinational Military Organizations, Ilksen Gorkem, Resit Unal, Pilar Pazos

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Faculty Publications

Although downsizing has long been a topic of research in traditional organizations, there are very few studies of this phenomenon in military contexts. As a result, we have little understanding of the key factors that drive personnel downsizing in military setting. This study contributes to our understanding of key factors that drive personnel downsizing in military organizations and whether those factors may differ across NATO nations’ cultural clusters. The theoretical framework for this study was built from studies in non-military contexts and adapted to fit the military environment.

This research relies on historical data from one of the largest multinational …

Understanding The Dynamic Behaviour Of Three Echelon Retail Supply Chain Disruptions, John Crowe, Mohammed Mesabbah, Amr Arisha

Conference papers

It is often taken for granted that the right products will be available to buy in retail outlets 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year. Challenges in achieving this continued on-shelf availability range from recession hit demand patterns to cost reduction driven strategies. Irish government initiatives to brand the country as a sustainable, reliable provider of food retail supply chains has resulted in increased importance on decision maker accuracy. The vulnerability of retail supply chain’s (RSC) to disruption is another catalyst in the complexity of the decision making process and a more robust understanding of disruption behavior is needed. …

A Stochastic Approach For Pavement Condition Projections And Budget Needs For The Mtc Pavement Management System, Rafael Arturo Ramirez Flores

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Pavement management decision-making is the most important task for officials in transportation agencies, who develop maintenance and rehabilitation programs. Information about historical pavement network performance is needed for decision-making; pavement management systems (PMS) provide means to organize road network data to improve the pavement network condition. PMS have prediction performance models to forecast the future condition of the pavement networks with information required for decision-making; these models can be deterministic or probabilistic. Pavement performance deterministic models are commonly used in PMS, but they do not consider the uncertainty in forecasting pavement performance. Pavement performance depends on many random factors like …

The Moderating Effects Of Incentives And Informal Contracts On Post-Merger Executive Turnover And Engagement, David P. Grogan

Student Scholarship

This study contributes to a better understanding of voluntary executive turnover during the post-merger integration period by extending prior research on agency, stewardship, and psychological contracts. Within the context of a post-acquisition environment we propose four new predictors of engagement, measure the mediating role of a decision to leave, and examine the moderating effects of retention incentives and perceived implicit contract violations. This inquiry was inspired by the seemingly counter-intuitive industry practice of assigning retention incentives to key talent who are not actually committed to staying and the likelihood that subsequent agent engagement in the organizational change process required for …

Strategy As Interaction:The Dynamics Between Strategy Execution Effectiveness And Organizational Interactions During Strategy Implementation, Stanley Omeike

Student Scholarship

Organizations have for long used strategy as a springboard for actualization of their strategic intent. The body of knowledge around strategy formulation is well established, but there is less clarity as to how organizations implement strategy to close the gap between their intent and reality. This research seeks to understand how organizations engage in strategy execution so as to reduce the “execution gap”. We uncover patterns in strategic practices with a view to conceptualize how gap reduction happens and what mechanisms influence it. We identify a number of dynamic environmental forces and mutually recursive organizational factors that mutually influence organization’s …

Drink, Drank, Drunk: An Analysis Of Three Possible Solutions To Urban Residential Potable Water Shortages In China, Holly C. Smith

Honors Theses

China's urban residential communities are currently facing mounting levels of water scarcity with the potential to impact social and even possibly political stability. China's central government is currently attempting to mitigate such potential risk by adopting a variety of projects aimed at combating potable water shortages. This paper sets out to analyze three of the national projects adopted by China's central government to combat critical residential water shortages currently affecting China's urban areas. The three projects are South North River Transfer Project, the adoption of tiered water pricing system, and the construction of desalinization facilities in some coastal cities. Each …

Learning Styles Across Cultures, Mai P. Trinh, David A. Kolb

Management Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

An Examination Of The Factors That Influence The Strategic Priorities Of Ireland's Public And Private Higher Education Senior Managers, Ruth O'Donnell

PhDs

Globally, higher education is experiencing transformative changes, and higher education institutions now operate in highly competitive and dynamic environments. Funders of higher education, including governments, subsequently, require the strategic spending of funding, and expect higher education institutions to deliver a satisfactory return on investment. In this landscape, and in the context of Ireland’s challenging economic environment in recent years, this research seeks to understand precisely what factors influence the strategic priorities of Ireland’s higher education senior managers. Research on strategic planning in Irish HE is limited, particularly in the context of Ireland’s volatile economic environment, in recent years, and global …

Investcorp, Jeremy Kappes, Haynes King, Jamie Mattioli, Prasad Vaze, Timothy Kyle Benusa, Sam Gottwald, Thomas Arnold, Jeffrey S. Harrison

Robins Case Network

Investcorp is a publicly traded global alternative asset management company headquartered in Manama, Bahrain. It manages a huge hedge fund, along with other assets. The case describes Investcorp’s history, investment strategies, and major competitors. The company has a highly aggressive growth strategy, but it is also facing the retirement of its CEO.

Salesforce.Com, Sean Bielawski, Charles Kempe, Austin Mcdaniel, Adam Tate, Jeffrey S. Harrison

Robins Case Network

Innovation! One of the most innovative companies, and also one of the best companies to work for, is losing money. This case traces the meteoric rise of the number one customer relationship management service provider against huge rivals such as Microsoft and Oracle. Detail regarding their highly innovative Scrum system is provided, along with detail regarding their marketing approach. How can Salesforce.com regain profitability while continuing to grow in a highly competitive industry?

The Impact Of Participative Communication On Organisational Cultural Change: Two Local Government Cases Of Change, Katie Turton

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Managing change is of critical importance in organisations. Communication during the change process has been the subject of considerable and highly contested academic and managerial debate. In this study, The Impact of Participative Communication on Organisational Cultural Change: Two Local Government Cases of Change, communication during the change process was closely examined to see how, if at all, participative processes impact upon the adoption of change. As a result of this research a ‘Ladder of Employee Participation in Change Management’ was developed, to better understand the nature of participative communication and provide clarity for change practitioners who develop change communication …

How System Complexity And Organizational Culture Affect Ais Misuse, Mohd Saiyidi Mokhtar Mat Roni, Mohamad Azmi Nias Ahmad, Hadrian Djajadikerta

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

The demands for more studies on precarious practices in the AIS environment indicate that employees pose greater threats than outsiders. Addressing internally-bred security pandemonium with external-threat-oriented solutions further complicates the matter. The real issue is obscured rather than solved. Based on theory of planned behaviour (TPB), organisational culture and complexity of an accounting information system (AIS) were introduced to see how these factors affect employees’ mal-intention when working with an organisation AIS. Using partial-least-square structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) approach, it was found that culture and complexity acting as pure moderating variables affecting certain forms of predictor-criterion relationship in TPB model. …

Examining The Social Aspects Of Enterprise Architecture Implementation: A Morphogenetic Approach, Edi Nuryatno, Philip Dobson

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

This paper argues that existing research in Enterprise Architecture (EA) tends to emphasise the technical aspects of implementation and neglects the role of ‘people’. The paper uses Archer’s Morphogenetic Approach (MA) to elaborate the social context of EA. This approach examines the relationships between agency, structure and culture to understand how stakeholders affect and are affected by EA implementation. A university just commencing an EA program is used as a case example. The case example describes the challenging university environment and provides an illustration of the important situational logics that direct agency action within the complex social context of a …

Keeping Up With New Legal Titles; Introduction To Law Firm Practice By Michael Downey, Christine Iaconeta Dulac

Faculty Publications

The inner workings of a law firm is unknown territory for new lawyers. In fact, it is only recently that law schools have begun to teach classes that discuss law firm management, running a solo practice, or technology used by practicing attorneys. Michael Downey's Introduction to Law Firm Practice provides an in-depth examination of the structure and management of today's law firms, as well as many other aspects of law firm practice, including business development strategies, risk management, and professional responsibility, to name a few. ¶59 Before delving into the text, it is important to note the

Towards A Theory Of Gis Program Management, Jochen Albrecht

Publications and Research

After a brief flurry of monographs on business and organizational aspects of GIS in the 1990s, little attention has been paid to a systematic approach in support of GIS Program management. Most existing efforts in both public and private enterprises are based on anecdotal evidence. This chapter outlines a range of research questions and the beginning efforts to study modern GIS management practices and help develop a body of knowledge that can be used for the accreditation of GIS Programs and the certification of GIS Program managers.

The Impact And Interaction Of Music Familiarity And Congruency On Responses To Advertisements, Michael Blecha

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

Music is commonly used by marketers to enhance the effectiveness of ads. Research shows that music can make ads more memorable and shape a viewer's response to the ad. This study explores the impact of three music characteristics, its likability, its familiarity and its "fit" with the ad (referred to as congruency), on consumer response to an ad. I hypothesized that all three music characteristics would positively impact responses to an ad. Additionally, I hypothesized that there would be a significant interaction between music familiarity and congruency with subjects responding the most positively to an ad when the music was …

International Management: Strategic Opportunities And Cultural Challenges, Paul B. Sweeney, Dean B. Mcfarlin

Management and Marketing Faculty Publications

As the economies of many countries become more interrelated, international managers are facing huge challenges and unique opportunities associated with their roles. Now in its fifth edition, Sweeney and McFarlin's International Management embodies a balanced and integrated approach to the subject, emphasizing the strategic opportunities available to firms on a global playing field, as well as exploring the challenges of managing an international workforce.

Integrating theory and practice across all chapter topics, this book helps students to learn, grasp, and apply the underlying principles of successful international management:

• Understanding the broad context of international business, including the critical trends impacting …

Gender Effects On Perceptions Of Individual And Corporate Social Responsibility, Courtney Droms Hatch, Sheryl-Ann Stephen

Scholarship and Professional Work - Business

There has been an increasing importance for both individuals and companies on acting in a socially responsible manner. This study demonstrates that gender plays an important role in perceptions of social responsibility, such that the effect of an individual’s social responsibility on their perceptions of a company’s social responsibility is moderated by the gender of the respondent. Specifically, we find that women have higher levels of Internalized Moral Identity than men. Moreover, we find that women believe that organizations should be more beneficial to society than men, which translates into a higher quality of corporate social responsibility. The theoretical and …

Procurement In Property And Construction - A Review Of Practises Under Taken By A Medium Size Contractor In Ireland, Charles Mitchell

Other Resources

3B Contracting Limited is a privately owned building and civil engineering firm on the east coast of Ireland. The company works predominately within the east Leinster region. The company falls into the category of being a small to medium size contracting company.

The procurement function is carried out by a number of small departments. Procurement is a key function for securing value for money and ensuring the successful continuation of the company.

Most projects tendered are done so using the traditional method of design-bid-build and as a result the subsequent sub-contract packages are secured in a similar manner. All plant …

Global Delivery Models: The Role Of Talent, Speed And Time Zones In The Global Outsourcing Industry, Stephan Manning, Marcus Larsen, Pratyush Bharati

Management Science and Information Systems Faculty Publication Series

We investigate antecedents and contingencies of location configurations supporting global delivery models (GDMs) in global outsourcing. GDMs are a new form of IT-enabled client-specific investment promoting services provision integration with clients by exploiting client proximity and time-zone spread allowing for 24/7 service delivery and access to resources. Based on comprehensive data we show that providers are likely to establish GDM configurations when clients value access to globally distributed talent pools and speed of service delivery, and in particular when services are highly commoditized. Findings imply that coordination across time zones increasingly affects international operations in business-to-business and born-global industries.

Designing An Effective Information Security Policy For Exceptional Situations In An Organization: An Experimental Study, George S. Antoniou

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

An increasing number of researchers are recognizing the importance of the role played by employees in maintaining the effectiveness of an information security policy. Currently, little research exists to validate the relationship between the actions (behaviors) taken by employees in response to exceptional situations (antecedents) regarding an organization’s information security policy, the impact (consequences) those actions have on an organization, and the motives that prompt those actions. When these exceptional situations occur, employees may feel compelled to engage in behaviors that violate the terms of an information security policy because strict compliance with the policy could cause the organization to …