Business Administration, Management, and Operations Commons^™

Strategies Software Company Sales Managers Implemented To Reduce Voluntary Employee Turnover, Pete Taylor

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The high rates of voluntary employee turnover in software sales organizations have forced business leaders to search for strategies that reduce voluntary employee turnover. The purpose of this multiple case study was to explore the strategies of a small group of sales managers who had demonstrated reduced voluntary employee turnover in their software manufacturing companies. Ten managers from 5 software manufacturing companies who had a minimum of 5 years of management experience were recruited and participated in semistructured, face-to-face interviews. The conceptual framework included Herzberg's 2-factor theory for exploring the relationship between job satisfaction and voluntary employee turnover. Open and …

Law Enforcement Employees' Experiences Of Skillful Recognition By Leaders, Dimitra Patterson Cornelius

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The performance of public agency employees and their management teams have long been subject to critical comments and public doubt. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore the experiences of police leaders and staff with regard to skillful recognition of excellent performance within the profession. Twenty law enforcement employees, including leaders, sworn officers, and nonuniformed civilian employees in southwestern North Carolina, consented to in-depth, semistructured interviews concerning their lived experiences. Leader-member exchange (LMX) theory was the conceptual framework for this study. A modified van Kaam analysis resulted in the identification of 5 significant, but broad, themes. The themes …

Strategies To Improve Employee Performance In The U.S. Aerospace Industry, Nicole Therese Balderrama

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Outsourcing is a sought out practice within business and, in particular, the U.S. aerospace industry; however, some outsourced firms cannot meet client expectations. The purpose of this single case study was to explore what strategies outsourced firm company leaders use to improve the performance of employees. The sample comprised 4 senior managers employed with a firm that has been producing parts for 109 years for a major aerospace company in Southern California. The conceptual framework for this study built upon systems thinking to identify the structure of the outsourcing and supplier relationship and Herzberg's motivation-hygiene theory to understand work motivation …

Absenteeism In An International Custom Software Engineering Company, Jennifer M. Mudek

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Absenteeism has a negative impact on organizational output in the form of lost productivity and profit reduction for software engineering companies. The purpose of this qualitative descriptive case study was to explore the strategies that software engineering managers utilize for reducing absenteeism. The theory of planned behavior formed the conceptual framework for this study. Data were collected through semistructured interviews from a purposeful sample of 11 managers at an international custom software engineering company. Data collection also included organizational data on employee absences for the past 5 years (2011-2015), e-mail memos, newsletters, employee handbook, and employee performance reviews. Based on …

Exploring Generation Y Leaders' Motivation And Retention Within The Service Industry, Jason Earl Wiggins

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The retention of millennial leaders continues to be a concern for executive leadership. The problem addressed in this study was the gap in research regarding how the motivation of Generation Y leaders affects employee satisfaction and retention factors. The purpose of this phenomenological inquiry was to explore the retention rate for 20 Generation Y service leaders in the southwestern United States to illuminate patterns of satisfied millennial leaders by drawing from employers' role in motivating and retaining millennial leaders in the service industry. Herzberg's 2-factor theory, Vroom's expectancy theory, Adams's equity theory, and Maslow's hierarchy of needs comprised the conceptual …

Individual Traits And Entrepreneurial Intentions: The Mediating Role Of Entrepreneurial Self-Efficacy And Need For Cognition, Chao Miao

Theses and Dissertations

The field of entrepreneurship is rapidly advancing and matures as a discipline that receives substantial amount of attention. One popular area of research in the discipline of entrepreneurship is to investigate one’s intent to start a business, which is entrepreneurial intention. This is an important construct that warrants ongoing research because entrepreneurial intention is not only a great predictor of entrepreneurial behavior but also an important step in the process of becoming an entrepreneur. The present study, based on a sample of 321 subjects along with 264 observers, makes five contributions to the entrepreneurship literature. First, I examined the psychometric …

Factors That Motivate Millennial Public Servants In The Workplace, Lisa Maria Mallory

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

There is an abundance of scholarly literature examining the Millennial generation's characteristics and their uniqueness in the workforce, but few studies have examined the lived experiences of Millennials and what motivates them in the public sector workplace. Given the size of the Millennial cohort, the largest and most educated in history, this generation of public servants merits more research. This phenomenological study sought to determine what factors motivate Millennial public sector workers through a criterion sample of 20 District of Columbia government employees. Data obtained from interviews were analyzed through use of NVivo10 allowing for the identification of themes, findings …

A Client-Vendor Relationship Perspective Of Cultural Differences On Cross-Border Information Technology Outsourcing, John Kennedy Bosire

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Cross-border information technology (IT) outsourcing continues to rise due to the demand for business process outsourcing. Issues such as miscommunication and management problems have emerged because of cross-cultural disparities between clients and vendors across national borders. The theoretical framework of this study was based on the organizational culture model studies of Meek, Spradley, Smith, and Draft for examining and understanding complex organizational practices. The purpose of this mixed-methods explanatory sequential case study was to qualitatively identify and quantitatively determine the management approaches that are effective in managing cross-cultural differences and the constitution of the elements of global adjustment, motivation, mindset, …

Physician Participation In Crowdsourcing: Effect Of Intrinsic And Extrinsic Motivation, Rod Gene Brace

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Physicians must participate in developing medical protocols to ensure that medical best practices are adopted for patients' social benefit. Healthcare leaders have struggled to gain sufficient physician participation in developing medical protocols. Using technology-based crowdsourcing to assimilate knowledge from physicians may help healthcare managers improve medical protocol development. Using self-determination theory, this quantitative causal-comparative design aimed to determine whether differences in intrinsic and extrinsic motivation existed among the 132 participating physicians who did or did not participate in developing medical protocols in a crowdsourcing environment. Participants were recruited by e-mail through an independent physician association. Motivation levels were measured by …

The Impact Of Symbiotic Visions: Increasing Engagement And Motivation Through Vision Alignment, Jodi Berg

Student Scholarship

It is believed that symbiotic visions can drive employees and organizations toward a common objective based on the premise that people will attain a higher level of motivation and engagement when they are working toward a personal purpose. The field of organizational development has been aspiring to help organizations and people align their vision for decades without much, if any, empirical support for the assumption that alignment helps. This qualitative study examines the impact of a company's aspirational vision statement, or higher purpose, on motivating and engaging employees. The presence and lack of congruency between senior managers' personal callings and …

Is It Really All About The Money?: Motivating Employees In The 21st Century, Joshua Randall, Stacy Novotny, Seth Larson

Journal of Undergraduate Research at Minnesota State University, Mankato

Motivation has been defined as an emotion or desire operating on the will and causing it to act. In this respect, ‘motivations provide the motor for behavior,’ and according to Pincus, motivation as a psychological construct has played many roles as paradigms have risen and fallen over the decades (2004). To obtain a better understanding of motivation in the twenty-first century, this paper focuses on what motivation is, the role goals play in motivation, how motivation can be maintained, the impact of technology on motivation, the practical implications of needs-based motivation theories, and the concept of over-motivation.

Explaining The Effects Of Pay Variation On Individual Outcomes, Samantha A. Conroy

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Compensation is an area of research rife with debate among experts. These debates are primarily concerned with the effectiveness of pay-for-performance. The pay variation and performance relationship is a subset of this research where disagreement and inconclusive findings are common. Is pay variation conducive to higher performance or is pay compression ideal? This study contributes to the pay variation and performance debate by focusing on performance-based pay variation and addressing fundamental assumptions of prior work. Past research has treated pay variation as a proxy for allocation rules and incentive intensity. Separating these two constructs rather than confounding them provides a …

Developing Leadership Talent In Family Businesses: Embracing Risk Or Playing It Safe, Stephen P. Miller

Student Scholarship

On-the-job experiences are emphasized as powerful developers of leadership talent in leadership and family business literature. Our qualitative study of 37 family business leaders from mid-market privately held family firms found that it is not just having experiences but the nature of those experiences that determines whether or not authentic leadership talent is actually developed, particularly in next-generation family enterprise leaders. The "family effect," the extent to which actors in a family firm embrace risk in the development of nextgeneration leaders, is identified as central to the development of leadership competencies. We propose a conceptual framework with four factors that …

An Empirical Examination Of Self-Development Activities : Integrating Social Exchange And Motivational Lens, Kanchan Vasant Deosthali

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

In today's competitive global environment, organizations are continuously seeking out ways to motivate employees to learn new skills and update existing skills. One way that employees are updating their skills are through voluntary self-development activities. The current research focuses on these behaviors, and extends prior research by developing and empirically examining a model of self-development behaviors that integrates two theoretical lenses: social exchange and motivation. The social exchange component of the model included distributive justice, procedural justice, trust, and organizational identity and the motivational component of the model focused on subjective norms, self-efficacy, need for achievement, conscientiousness, resources, and attitudes …

Weiser Carrots And Sticks: Motivation Beyond Money At The Shakedown Café, Julian A. Martinez

CMC Senior Theses

It is generally assumed that monetary incentivization is the most effective means of motivating organizationally-beneficial behaviors. Individuals, under this line of thought, pursue their own objective self-interest above all else. However, evidence is being uncovered that indicates that human motivation may be a much more complicated facet of the human psyche. The purpose of this study is to examine the deeper underpinnings that drive people work that might lie beyond financial rewards. In order to do this, the Shakedown Café, a student-run restaurant on Pitzer College’s campus, will be examined. This specific organization is of particular interest because it does …

The Mediating Role Of Regulatory Focus In The Relationship Between Transformational/Transactional Leadership And Follower Work Outcomes, Erin J. Walker

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this research was to integrate the areas of leadership and motivation by examining how leaders' behaviors affect their followers' regulatory foci. Specifically, a separate laboratory experiment and field survey were conducted to determine whether leader transformational and transactional behaviors shape followers' work-based promotion and prevention regulatory foci, which in turn affect followers' outcomes at work. Overall, there was limited evidence that inspirational motivation and contingent reward leader behaviors were related to follower work-based regulatory focus, and work-based regulatory focus was related to several work-related outcomes. The moderating role of chronic regulatory focus on the relationship between leader …

Motivation To Train For Creativity, Nina Sacco

Honors Scholar Theses

Creativity among Unites States citizens is on a steady decline despite the overwhelming evidence that creativity is a crucial skill in the professional world (Zacko-Smith, Puccio, Mance, 2010). Educational organizations, such as the Connecticut Invention Convention (CIC) and other non-profit educational organizations, have been dedicated to increase the presence of creative problem solving and innovation through STEM-based learning and inventions in various schools in Connecticut. To promote the existence of these organizations in hopes of countering the current nations lack of focus on creativity, this thesis examines teacher's motivation to be involved in their programs and to train their students …

Antecedents Of Servant Leadership: A Mixed Methods Study, Curtis D. Beck

Department of Agricultural Leadership, Education, and Communication: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The purpose of this mixed methods study was to explore the antecedents of servant leadership. The sequential explanatory research design consisted of two distinct phases: quantitative followed by qualitative. The Phase One quantitative survey collected data from 499 leaders and 630 raters from community leadership programs in the United States using the Servant Leadership Questionnaire (Barbuto & Wheeler, 2006). During Phase Two, selected leaders from phase one (N = 12) were interviewed to explain those results in more depth. The data were coded and analyzed for possible themes. Triangulation was used to analyze the quantitative and qualitative data to validate …

Explaining The Lack Of Strategic Planning In Smes: The Importance Of Owner Motivation, Calvin Wang, Elizabeth Walker, Janice Redmond

Research outputs pre 2011

Considerable evidence shows that strategic planning leads to increased firm performance. Yet, the majority of SMEs do not plan and the reasons why are not well understood. This article questions the common approach to understanding this problem based on identifying business barriers to planning. For the majority of SME owner operators, business performance often ranks far behind intangible goals such as autonomy, personal satisfaction and lifestyle. Strategic planning may therefore have little value to owner-operators driven by such motivators. This article presents an alternative perspective to the issue by arguing that owner aspirations are integral to whether or not SMEs …

Gaining Compliance And Losing Weight: The Role Of The Service Provider In Health Care Services, Stephanie Dellande, Mary C. Gilly, John L. Graham

Business Faculty Articles and Research

This research provides and empirically tests a conceptualization of health care services in which customer compliance outside of the service organization is necessary for successful health outcomes. Using data from service providers and customers in a weight-loss clinic, the authors examine the provider's role in gaining customer compliance. They find that provider expertise and attitudinal homophily play a role in bringing about customer role clarity, ability, and motivation. This study demonstrates that compliance leads to goal attainment, which results in satisfaction. More important, compliance also leads to satisfaction directly; consumers who comply with program requirements have greater satisfaction with the …

Salespersons’ Perceptions About Sales Contests: Towards A Greater Understanding, William H. Murphy, Ravipreet S. Sohi

Department of Marketing: Faculty Publications

Aims to improve understanding of an important and widely used management tool for motivating the salesforce – sales contests. Begins by introducing the question: what factors are associated with salespeople's feelings towards a sales contest? Several potentially relevant characteristics that are expected to be associated with various feelings towards contests are discussed. To test the hypotheses, data were collected through verbal protocols and surveys from salespeople belonging to a division of a Fortune 100 firm. Results indicate that salespeople's self-esteem, commitment level, and career stage play a role in influencing feelings towards the sales contest.

The impetus for this research …

A Preliminary Study Of A Job Analytic Inventory Derived From A Behavioral Consistency Method For Assessing Intrinsic Motivation, William John Banis

Theses and Dissertations in Urban Services - Urban Management

The research question for this study asked if the Job Specifications Inventory (JSI) had acceptable internal reliability and an ability to differentiate among occupational groups. The JSI was designed to have subject matter experts rate the importance of skill, content, context, relationship and work focus requirements of jobs or occupations. The JSI used a taxonomy of 268 behavioral elements derived from the content analyses of satisfying achievements reported by a large, diverse clientele. A clinical-type behavioral consistency method was used to extract performance dimensions from clients' achievements to build the taxonomy. The achievement-based taxonomy was seen as potentially enhancing productivity …

A Study Of Job Satisfaction And Motivation, Carl Franklin Martin

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations (1964–2006)

No abstract provided.