Organizational Behavior and Theory Commons^™

Working Mothers Of Children With Disabilities: Professional And Social Identity Negotiation, Christy D. Boyles

Dissertations

Women who have children with disabilities may struggle with both employment and childcare, and have barriers to re-entering the workforce. One struggle is the role identification and negotiation that occur when one transitions from one role to another. This research sought to answer the following questions: RQ 1. How does professional identity influence the “return to work” decisions for mothers who have children with disabilities? RQ 2. How do working mothers of children with disabilities negotiate their identities as caregivers and professionals? RQ 3. What other emerging factors affect women’s decisions to return to the workforce? A purposeful sample of …

How Leaders Build Employee Trust In Artificial Intelligence: Voice Opportunities, Humility, And Trust Transfer, Jack Mcguire, David De Cremer, Devesh Narayanan

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Artificial intelligence is increasingly central to organizational work, yet employee trust in AI remains fragile. Although prior research has primarily explained trust in AI through technological characteristics such as transparency, reliability, and accuracy, we argue that trust in AI is also shaped by the social context in which employees encounter these systems. Drawing on affect-as-information theory and social information processing theory, we develop and test a model in which leader-provided voice opportunities reduce employees’ negative affect about AI-related work experiences, thereby enhancing perceptions of leader trustworthiness and, in turn, trust in AI. We further propose that this indirect effect depends …

Growth, Governance, And Organizational Crisis In Nonprofit Rowing Club: Failures In Leadership In A Growing Organization, Noah Legendre, Ehren R. Green

The COSMA Journal

This case explores governance and leadership challenges within a growing nonprofit sport organization governed by a volunteer board of directors. Within this case, the Litchberg Valley Rowing Club (LVRC), a rowing organization in a small community, experienced rapid growth in membership, financial resources, and competitive success. Despite this growth, the organization maintained informal governance structures and policies to guide its decision-making. In this case, the board of directors elected to terminate the head coach because of difficult contract negotiations and other issues at hand. This decision was met with public backlash, raising concerns about club leadership and the future of …

Repairing Workplace Trust: A Process-Based Classroom Exercise For Management Education, Luke A. Langlinais Ph.D.

Posters

Trust is essential in every workplace, but conflicts, mistakes, and broken promises are inevitable. This project develops an experiential classroom exercise in which students diagnose workplace trust violations, examine the perspectives and emotions of both parties, and practice selecting and communicating evidence-based reparative actions. The exercise translates organizational behavior research into a practical learning experience that develops not only managerial competence but also the character, empathy, and relational wisdom needed to build healthy organizations and promote human flourishing.

I gratefully acknowledge peer review feedback on this project, and I am accountable for writing of this product without generative AI and …

A Philosophy Of Communication Response To Bullying In Corporate America, Chris A. Phillips Dr.

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This philosophy of communication response to bullying in corporate America follows the structure of posing research questions, synthesizing relevant literature, and offering advice to practitioners. It invites the reader to have hope in continuing the conversation through a constructive hermeneutic approach to the problem. By building on literature in oppression, silencing, bullying, incivility, and communication ethics, this dissertation reveals how (rhetoric) and why (philosophy) the problem occurs in corporate America today. This dissertation offers a new angle to an old problem, or, a rhetoric and philosophy of bullying. It responds to the following questions:

RQ 1: As a destructive communication …

How Followers Respond To Leader Differentiation: The Importance Of Considering All Leader Differentiation Properties, Yuchuan Liu, Gary John Greguras

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

A central tenet of many leadership theories is that leaders treat their followers differently. Although leader differentiation is ubiquitous, its effects on leaders and followers are not well understood and theory and research have not simultaneously considered its three key properties: Leader–member exchange (LMX) differentiation, LMX quality, and LMX social comparison. We developed a theoretical model in which these three properties interact to influence followers’ supervisory interactional justice perceptions and subsequently their supervisor-directed deviance and supervisor-directed organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs). To test our model, we conducted a pre-registered experiment (Study 1), a single-level, multi-wave study (Study 2), and a multilevel, …

A Correlational Study Exploring The Influence Of Organizational Climate On Job Satisfaction Of Non-Faculty Staff At Texas Community Colleges, Tamesha M. Hilliard-Daniels

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

As U.S. higher education institutions face increasing challenges related to employee morale and retention, understanding the drivers of workplace satisfaction is critical for institutional stability. This research investigates the relationships between organizational climate factors and job satisfaction among staff within Texas community colleges, applying Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and Herzberg’s motivator-hygiene as the theoretical framework. Specifically, this study explores the influence of institutional communication, employee well-being, and organizational mission and pride on staff job satisfaction. Utilizing a quantitative correlational design, the study analyzed secondary data from ModernThink’s Higher Education Insight Survey©. The sample consisted of 2,265 higher education professionals collected …

From The Editor's Desk, Heather S. Mcmillan

Journal of the North American Management Society

No abstract provided.

Charismatic Leaders Role And Challenges During Crises, Tamer Hassan Abutahoun Phd

Journal of the North American Management Society

Since the first article about charismatic leadership by Weber was issued in 1946, numerous pieces of research have been published discussing several aspects of charismatic leadership. One of these aspects is the role of the charismatic leader during crisis and whether it is being impacted by crises or emerged during crises. Several articles have been published to investigate the role of charismatic leadership during crises along with how individuals perceived charismatic leadership during crises. Most of these articles utilized case studies to investigate the former mentioned relationship. However, each of these studies investigated the relationship between crises and charismatic leadership …

Navigating Ai Landscape In Management Education Through Wu-Wei (無為), Maria Ll Lam

Journal of the North American Management Society

Artificial intelligence (AI) is challenging how knowledge is produced, validated, and taught in higher education. This creates both new opportunities and acute tensions in management education. While management educators aim to foster critical thinking and character development, many students are increasingly relying on AI tools and focusing on developing AI-related skills for the labor market. The required market skills often exceed what current business curricula provide. As higher education seeks to cultivate transferable habits of critical reflection, a central question arises: How can management educators prepare students to engage in ongoing moral reflection about their experience with evolving AI systems …

Potential Discriminatory Practices Related To Working Remotely, David M. Savino, Danielle C. Foster

Journal of the North American Management Society

There are numerous implications of the recent "return to the office" push, including evolving influences on corporate culture, job redesign, the role of technology, and the significant potential for unequal treatment and discrimination. Recent research and studies indicate that the workers involved in remote work are most likely to be women, workers of color, and the disabled. While remote work is not a protected classification under state or Federal law, these individuals are members of protected classes as determined by fair employment law. Therefore, disputed and evolving policies regarding the use of remote work related to these individuals could easily …

Through The Lens Of Clarity: Perceived Organizational Tightness Boosts Creativity For Men, But Not For Women, Grace J. H. Lim, Roy Y. J. Chua

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

A commonly held perspective in the cultural tightness literature is that cultural tightness tends to negatively impact creativity. Yet some findings indicate that this relationship is not strictly negative and that a more nuanced perspective should be considered. Drawing on social information processing (SIP) theory and social role theory, we build theory on how the perception of organizational cultural tightness can increase creativity for some employees, but not for others. Specifically, we propose that perceived organizational tightness—the extent to which one perceives that an organization is characterized by strong norms and sanctions for deviation—increases clarity on creativity evaluation standards and …

The Power And Peril Of Awe In Leadership: Transforming Follower Identity And Behavior, Jack Mcguire, Daniel Mcallister, Jochen Menges, David De Cremer

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Awe is a profound emotion that has captured significant attention within psychological research. While the potential for leaders to inspire awe in followers has received some recognition, systematic research on the nature and effects of awe in leadership—and within organizational contexts more broadly—remains limited. In this article, we offer a conceptual framework that explains the multifaceted and transformative nature of leadership through the power of awe. Specifically, we identify four leader behaviors—charismatic leadership tactics, exceptional performance, problem reframing, and self-sacrificial behavior—that elicit awe among followers. We further propose three variants of awe-inspiring leaders, describing how variation in a leader’s self-construal …

How Cultural Homogeneity Couples With Organizational Climate In Public School Environments, Steven R. Peterson

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This quantitative study examines how cultural homogeneity influences teachers’ perceptions of school climate in Indiana public schools. Grounded in systems thinking and organizational theory, the study analyzes how shared values and norms shape teachers’ responses to leadership practices and stakeholder demands. Data were collected from educators using the School Culture Survey and a custom scenario-based climate instrument capturing reactions to organizational challenges. Statistical analyses explored relationships between cultural homogeneity and teachers’ perceptions of stability, workload, and adaptive capacity. Results indicate that alignment in key cultural dimensions—particularly Collaborative Leadership—significantly shapes climate experiences, while overall homogeneity alone does not predict workload pressures. …

Algorithmic Monocultures In Hiring, Rishi Bommasani, Sarah H. Bana, Kathleen A. Creel, Dan Saul Jurafsky, Percy Liang

Economics Faculty Articles and Research

Many employers screen job applicants with algorithms built by the same few algorithm vendors. We hypothesize that algorithmic monoculture leads to the same individuals and members of the same racial groups facing rejection. We acquire and analyze a novel dataset of 3 million applicants submitting 4 million applications where all the applications are screened by algorithms built by the same vendor. We find clear racial disparities in applicant outcomes. Of all applications submitted by Asian and Black applicants, 14.74% and 25.87% are submitted to positions that adversely impact Asian and Black applicants, respectively, according to U.S. employment discrimination standards. Individuals …

Balancing Our Capacity To Serve: A Phenomenological Exploration Of Black Women Navigating Personal, Professional, And Community Leadership Roles, Shemeka K. Brathwaite

Student Theses

This phenomenological study explores the lived experiences of Black women community leaders as they navigate a balance between their professional, personal, and community leadership roles. The research design uses the theoretical frameworks of Black Feminist Intersectionality and Role Theory, specifically addressing the cultural burdens imposed by the Strong Black Woman archetype, which adds additional role strain. The study began with a questionnaire completed by 54 Black women community leaders, followed by 20 in-depth, semi-structured interviews selected from this pool. The study’s key findings are illustrated in a Black Women’s Sustainable Community Leadership Framework. Black women community leaders exude high self-efficacy, …

The Role Of Project Managers And Pmp Principles In Improving Operational Efficiency In Healthcare Organizations, Karan Thakkar

Harrisburg University Dissertations and Theses

Healthcare organizations operate in increasingly complex, regulated, and resource-constrained environments while managing a growing volume of projects tied to digital transformation, process improvement, regulatory compliance, and infrastructure development. Despite the project-intensive nature of healthcare operations, many organizations do not formally employ trained project managers or consistently apply Project Management Professional (PMP) principles; project responsibilities are frequently absorbed by clinical or administrative leaders whose primary expertise lies outside formal project management. This qualitative study examined how the project manager role and PMP principles contribute to operational efficiency in healthcare organizations. The study was conducted as a qualitative document analysis and thematic …

The Effect Of Positive Communication On Leadership Development: A Qualitative Phenomenological Study, Philip J. Lowe

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative phenomenological study explores the lived experiences of Christian college professors in the Midwest who utilize positive communication within mentoring relationships to develop leadership capabilities in students preparing for ministry. The research addresses the development of leadership capabilities in Christian colleges and examines how mentoring relationships serve as a sustainable alternative to costly and often ineffective formal programs. Following a descriptive phenomenological approach informed by the methods of Husserl and Giorgi, the researcher conducted semi-structured interviews with faculty members who have at least five years of teaching experience at a Christian college in the Midwest. The study utilized Bowlby’s …

When God Lifts The Veil: Transformational Leadership And Political Skills Model As Counters To Machiavellianism And Organizational Politics In The Los Angeles City Council, John Sandy Campbell

The Scholarship Without Borders Journal

This paper examines how Machiavellianism and Organizational Political Behavior contribute to destructive organizational politics and applies Transformational Leadership Theory and the Political Skill Model as countervailing frameworks to the Dark Triad. Grounded in leadership and organizational behavior research, this theory-based conceptual paper provides a theory-driven analysis that synthesizes established models to explore how power and unethical governance erode public trust. This paper examines the relationship between leadership behavior and power dynamics in a contemporary political context. Rather than relying on empirical data collection, it draws on Transformational Leadership Theory, the Political Skills Model, the Dark Triad, Organizational Politics, and Organizational …

Burning Out: A Narrative Exploration Of The Adaptive Challenge And Scaffolds Built Toward Sustenance Among Immigrant Rights Activists In San Diego County, Anna C. Runion

Dissertations

Activist burnout has been identified as one of the greatest threats to social movement sustainability, and the lived experience of paid immigrant rights activists remains undertheorized. This narrative inquiry explored activist burnout among 10 San Diego County immigrant rights activists, revealing how this community understands burnout, what factors contribute to its production, and how activists sustain themselves within it. Using Clandinin and Connelly’s (2000) narrative inquiry methodology, the researcher conducted in-depth individual interviews with ten activists representing a range of intersectional identities and roles. Narrative profiles were analyzed through holistic narrative reading, narrative reporting, structural and emergent coding, and cross-narrative …

“I Have A Voice”: Bridging The Communication And Sensemaking Gap Between Restorative Justice Practice And Program Implementation, Stefan Cocorelis

Dissertations

Restorative justice (RJ), a philosophy, practice, and movement inspired by local, largely Indigenous traditions, has increasingly been introduced in modern criminal justice systems as an alternative process to more comprehensively address harmful incidents, heal harms, and meet victim’s needs. While RJ implementation growth is encouraging for its advocates, there remain significant questions around formalized RJ practice. Specifically, little is known about the decision-making process in implementing and administering RJ programming within criminal justice. This dissertation aimed to contribute to the understanding of RJ practice and implementation efforts within criminal justice systems by putting emphasis on practitioners already working directly in …

Implicit Bias In Hiring: Leveraging Avatars To Foster More Inclusive Hiring Practices, Alexa Trifilo, Gary Blau, Crystal Reeck

Engaged Management ReView

This research investigated implicit racial in-group bias in hiring and examined extended reality (XR) as a mechanism for masking visual identity cues during the interview process. By introducing avatars that obscure physical characteristics, such as race, the study extends the concept of “blind” hiring into immersive virtual environments. In our experimental design, randomly assigned participants evaluated job candidates represented by avatars that had three variations of racial identifiability (White, Asian, or racially unidentifiable avatar) and two qualification levels (strong and ambiguous). We controlled for gender by including only experienced, full-time female professionals as participants in the evaluation of female avatars …

The Offense-Defense Balance And The Modern System In Ukraine, Daniel Hogestyn

Master in Public Policy Theses

This thesis evaluates whether the Russo Ukrainian war represents a revolution in military affairs (RMA) by testing Stephen Biddle’s "modern system" theory of battlefield outcomes against recent combat operations. Applying Biddle’s formal model to the 2023 Ukrainian offensive in Zaporizhia, the thesis finds that the offensive's failure conforms closely to Biddle’s causal logic, with force employment variables drawn from 20th century combat sufficient to account for the outcome. Biddle's model in military power argues that force employment has explained victory and defeat since World War I, rather than technology or numerical preponderance alone. Many commentators claim that proliferation of small …

The Drive Diaries: How Motivation Shapes Work And Performance, Christian D. Diaz

Masters Theses, 2020-current

Employee motivation remains central to organizational research, yet less is known about how employees personally experience the relationship between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation and performance. Grounded in Self-Determination Theory and Expectancy Theory, this qualitative narrative inquiry examined how employees describe their motivational experiences and their influence on workplace effectiveness. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 3 employees across diverse industries and analyzed using thematic analysis.

Four themes emerged: (1) autonomy as a primary driver of sustained performance, (2) recognition as a reinforcing factor, (3) organizational culture as either amplifying or diminishing motivation, and (4) motivation as evolving across career stages. Findings …

The Motivation Tapes: Employee Narratives Of Leadership That Matters, Jessica Gray

Masters Theses, 2020-current

This qualitative phenomenological study explored how employees describe their lived experiences at work. The purpose of the research was to understand the relational, emotional, and developmental dimensions that shape employees’ day-to-day workplace realities and the meanings they assign to those experiences. Four participants from diverse occupational backgrounds were interviewed using semi-structured protocols designed to elicit rich, descriptive accounts of their work environments, relationships, and sense-making processes. The findings reveal that participants shared experiences of supportive and hands-on leadership, opportunities for autonomy and ownership, and moments of connection, meaning, and long-term growth. Participants also described disruptions to these experiences. The implications …

The Efficacy Of Emotional Reframing As An Intervention To Promote Adult Transformational Growth, Linda Rossetti

Educational Studies Dissertations

This study investigates the underexplored relationship between adult developmental growth and emotions. Developmental growth requires an individual to respond to self-concept instability by adopting new meaning structures and navigating oppositional emotions. This quantitative study examined the relationship between an emotional reframing intervention and perspective shifts, an indicator of developmental progression. Data collected on three college campuses in the 2024-2025 academic year revealed a strong positive relationship between the intervention and perspective shifts, as evidenced by differences in pre- and post-assessment responses within the studied population, both in aggregate and in specific use cases. The findings contribute to three academic arenas: …

The Impatience Of Winning: An Analysis Of Time Discounting, Predictive Modeling, And The Nba Draft, Alec R. Plante

Business and Economics Honors Papers

This paper examines whether NBA draft decisions can be better explained by incorporating non-geometric time discounting into a model of general manager decision making. Using a dataset of 285 NBA draft prospects over a 12-year period, the impact of college statistics on Value Over Replacement Player (VORP) is determined, and these impact values are then used to create a “predicted” VORP for the first 4 seasons of each player’s career: a projection of what a general manager might think of a prospect’s future value given their college statistics. Following this, geometric and hyperbolic time discounting models are applied to estimate …

Trust Migration In The Digital Era: Information Regimes And The Transformation Of Buyer–Seller Relationships, Stephen C. Carlson

Atlantic Marketing Journal

Business-to-business selling is being reshaped by rapid advances in digital platforms, enterprise systems, analytics, and artificial intelligence. Organizational buyers increasingly rely on algorithmic tools, peer communities, institutional certifications, and automated evaluation systems before engaging directly with sales representatives. Yet much of the buyer–seller trust literature continues to emphasize interpersonal communication quality, listening behaviors, and individual credibility as primary drivers of relational success.

This article argues that the central transformation in contemporary selling is not the erosion of trust, but its relocation. As technological infrastructures evolve, trust progressively migrates from individual sales representatives to organizational systems, platforms, governance mechanisms, and algorithmic …

Neurodiversity In The Workplace: Organizational Approaches To Supporting Neurodiverse Employees, Madison Vasquez

M.S. in Leadership

Despite growing conversation around neurodiversity in the workplace, many organizations lack clear understanding and structured strategies to support neurodivergent employees. This study examines existing research on how organizations can more effectively support neurodiverse employees across the employee lifecycle. Using a qualitative literature review, this study addresses the research question by examining literature on neurodiversity within workplace contexts. This includes investigating common representations of neurodiversity and reviewing the strengths and challenges of neurodiverse individuals, including those who have autism, ADHD, and other forms of neurodivergence. The study also reviews workplace barriers, support strategies, and organizational outcomes identified across the literature. Key …

Exploring The Transformative Effects Of Executive Coaching On Leaders: A Qualitative Study, Dwayne Norman

Theses & Dissertations

This qualitative dissertation examines the transformative effects of executive coaching on leaders’ development, personal growth, decision-making, and overall effectiveness across varied organizational contexts. Grounded in authentic leadership theory and employing a generic qualitative inquiry design, the study investigated how leaders who completed executive coaching describe changes in their behavior and mindset. Eleven experienced leaders participated in semi-structured interviews selected through purposive sampling. Thematic analysis, guided by the cyclical and inductive coding methods of Saldana (2021), generated 187 initial codes, which were distilled into 72 final codes. These final codes were then further refined into twelve categories and four overarching themes: …