Organizational Behavior and Theory Commons^™

Symptomatic Leadership In Business Instruction: How To Finally Teach Diversity And Inclusion For Lasting Change, Linda L. Ridley

Publications and Research

Are business faculty complicit in mythologizing business concepts by ignoring historical precedence?

The refusal to examine in totality the history of discrimination and racism allows us to perpetuate a mythology of white supremacy that is enhanced through impotent diversity programs repeated throughout corporate America. This paper examines the importance of demythologizing the business curriculum through symptomatic thinking, which allows faculty and students to untangle the quagmire of diversity and inclusion in corporate America. Students are thereby equipped with tools for behavior transformation in the workplace that uses a symptomatic, rather than symbolic approach, to decision making and problem solving.

Cyber Counterproductive Work Behaviors: Measurement, Prediction, And Means For Reduction, Brittany K. Mercado

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Although counterproductive work behaviors (CWB) have received intense attention by both researchers and practitioners over the past few decades, this body of literature has yet to address the many novel avenues for employee counterproductivity resulting from modern technologies. For example, with the current ubiquity of electronic devices and Internet access, employees can conveniently engage in personal tasks while they should be working or even damage organizational data with unprecedented ease. Beyond reputational concerns and productivity losses, firms’ reliance on electronic storage of critical information also produces novel security risks. Measures of CWB and, therefore, investigations into the construct do not …

How Should We Motivate Effort, Shamima Khan

Theses and Dissertations

This research uses an experimental design to study if the pattern and positioning of rewards influence the amount of effort participants put in. The three key hypotheses tested here are: 1) are people more likely to complete a task if the incentives are given in more regular intervals, 2) do uncertainty of reward timing hurt or help in maintaining motivation, 3) is intrinsic motivation more influential than the patterns in which incentives are structured? The treatments in this experiment are created by varying the reward structure of candies and pens in exchange of a simple math test completion. Among the …

Symptomatic Leadership: The Impact Of Changing Demographics On Global Business, Linda L. Ridley

Publications and Research

The past several decades have displayed a focus on diversity in the workplace throughout the corporate environment. Questions remain: has the effort been at all impactful – or, due to its symbolic nature, has it only been a distraction? What behaviors would have been better emphasized to achieve full participation and opportunity by all actors in a firm?

Considerable research has revealed that attempts at diversity are clumsy at best; and spurious at worst. [i] The challenge for firms has been to develop a “business case” for why those contributing groups represented by women and people of color should be …

Leadership And Decision-Making Styles, Oluremi Alapo

Publications and Research

Generation X: The Role of Culture on the Leadership Styles of Women in Leadership Positions' goal is to assist organizational leaders to view Generation X women in positions of power from a different perspective. Women leaders are capable of leading a 21st century organization because of their scope of knowledge about growing businesses, and their ability to blend and incorporate new technologies and innovations in the business environment. Generation X: The Role of Culture on the Leadership Styles of Women in Leadership Positions is relevant to the fields of business, cultural, human relations, leadership, management, and cross-cultural leadership and women …

Supply Chain Organizational Infrastructure For Promoting Entrepreneurial Emphasis And Innovativeness: The Role Of Trust And Learning., Divesh Ojha, Jeff Shockley, Chandan Acharya

Publications and Research

Research has argued that inter-organizational trust and learning are critical factors associated with successful supply chain innovation and long-term competitiveness. In this paper, we develop and test a proposed model of supply chain organizational design using survey data collected from 128 decision-makers across diverse sample of supply chain decision-makers across many industries. Our analysis provides evidence that both trust and supply chain learning play important, but distinctive roles in developing an entrepreneurial and innovative supply chains. Moreover, our research findings add critical insight into existing resource-based perspectives of supply chain innovation by illuminating the roles and progression of the different …

The Innovation Makerspace: Geographies Of Digital Fabrication Innovation In Greater New York City, Kathryn Dickerson

Theses and Dissertations

Desktop digital fabrication technology has the potential to powerfully alter the economics, geography, and sociology of production. The desktop technology cannot reach its potential for widespread impact until it improves in quality and decreases in price. Makerspaces have emerged in the United States in the last eight years as informal social organizations where innovation in this technology may be occurring. This study examines whether innovation in digital fabrication technology has occurred, or has the potential to occur, at makerspaces in the New York City area.

Imperatives In Informal Organizational Resource Exchange In Central Europe, David Jancsics

Publications and Research

This paper challenges the mainstream social scientific approach that emphasizes “moral inferiority” in corruption and bribery in Central and Eastern Europe. We argue that in many cases, people participate in informal organizational resource exchanges not because of immorality or greed but rather because of powerful external forces. By using the case of contemporary Hungary to support this argument, this paper provides a systematic analysis of such imperatives. The findings of 50 in-depth qualitative interviews suggest that two main imperatives can be distinguished; macro-level social and meso-level organizational forces. Macro-level forces may be linked to historical paths, Hungary's socialist and pre- …

Bicultural Social Identity: Do Biculturals Assess Workplace Deviance Differently Across Different Ethnicities?, Andy Y. Chiou

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Research on biculturals has informed us much regarding their cognition and identity integration, however little as to the bicultural perception of in- and out-groups, and whether it can be primed. I examined this question in a workplace setting using the black sheep framework, specifically: Given the activation of one of a bicultural's specific cultural identities, will he or she allocate punishment to deviant employees of different cultural backgrounds differently based on whether he or she views them as an in-group or out-group member? In Study 1, I show that Asian-American biculturals do assess deviant employees of different cultural backgrounds differently …

Bureaupathology And Organizational Fraud Prevention: Case Studies Of Fraud Hotlines, Chelsea Ann Binns

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examined the effect of organizational bureaucracy on fraud hotline performance. Fraud hotlines are used to receive anonymous fraud tips from employees in all sectors to prevent and detect fraud. This work contributes to the research on fraud hotlines, which today is very light. This work also examined individual hotline performance against organization theory, which is absent in the literature. The literature also doesn't include studies using social media data to determine organizational climate. This work contributes to that literature by providing a collective case study examination of the fraud hotlines in six organizations. Their hotline performance was examined …

An Approach To Understanding Through Practice: Contextual Analysis Of A High School--College Latina/O And Latin American Studies Collaborative Program, Gabriel Antonio Higuera

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Collaborative, interdisciplinary, multigenerational, and culturally-rooted educational programs benefit students of historically marginalized groups in the United States. This paper employs critical race theory (CRT) as a means to better understand the greater dynamics undergirding the achievement gap. CRT also serves as a basis for the narrative description of the high school-college collaborative program I created and developed in Phoenix, Arizona, from 2002 to 2006. The program model features 2-year and 4-year college students co-facilitating dialogues on Latina/o and Latin American Studies at participating high schools. Collaborative program structures are analyzed with a focus on their ability to invite community input …

Appropriation Or Participation Of The Individual In Knowledge Management, Isabel D. W. Rechberg, Jawad Syed

Publications and Research

Purpose- This review paper examines whether there is a tendency towards appropriation or participation of the individual in the literature of knowledge management (KM).

Design/methodology/approach- This is a literature review paper. In terms of approach, appropriation in this paper is referred to as the KM tasks assigned to individual employees by the management whereas participation is referred to as KM tasks determined jointly by individuals and management.

Findings- The review suggests that while the participation of individuals is seen as important for KM, the KM discourse and practice is visibly oriented towards the appropriation of individual employees and their knowledge …

Knowledge Management Practices And The Focus On The Individual, Isabel Rechberg, Jawad Syed

Publications and Research

This paper reviews the current knowledge management (KM) practices to examine the attention (or lack thereof) paid to the individual in managing knowledge in organisations. It identifies and reviews four key practices of KM - i.e., information technology, organisational culture and structure, communities of practice, and human resource practices - to examine how knowledge is interpreted, processed and managed, and the role individuals play in such interpretations, processing and management. The review shows that existing KM practices may be improved through an increased focus on the role of individuals (an individual-centric approach) in designing and implementing KM in organisations.

The Role Of Power In Organizational Corruption: An Empirical Study, David Jancsics, István Jávor

Publications and Research

This article concerns the extent to which corrupt behavior is dependent on the organizational power structure and the resources available for illegal exchange. This qualitative study is based on 42 in-depth interviews with organizational actors in different organizations in Hungary. Four core themes emerged from the analysis of the interviews: (a) isolated corruption at the bottom, (b) the middle level’s own corruption, (c) “technicization” when middle-level professionals and expert groups are used to legalize the corruption of the dominant coalition, and (d) “turning-off controls” when organizational elites intentionally deactivate internal and external controls to avoid detection.

Ethical Issues In Knowledge Management: Conflict Of Knowledge Ownership, Isabel D. W. Rechberg, Jawad Syed

Publications and Research

Purpose: This paper reviews ethical issues inherent in the theorisation and practice of knowledge management (KM) with specific attention to the conflict of knowledge ownership between organisations and individual employees.

Design/methodology/approach: Relevant literature was identified and reviewed via EBSCO host and ISIWeb.

Findings: The paper notes that knowledge, although rooted in individuals, is often claimed or treated as owned by organisations, creating a conflict of knowledge ownership. The paper argues that such an approach to appropriation and management of knowledge leads to tension in knowledge processes between organisations and individuals, and also among individuals. This situation may, in turn, jeopardise …

The Intellectual And Curricular Spaces Of Knowledge Studies, Jay H. Bernstein

Publications and Research

The words “knowledge” and “information” are sometimes used interchangeably, but the connection between them is complex and problematic. Knowledge is a mental product gained from engaging with information. All educational subjects, scholarly disciplines, occupations, and activities produce knowledge as well as information. Because libraries encompass potentially all subjects, professional vision in librarianship would benefit from an examination of knowledge that transcends the methods and topical concerns of individual disciplines. An interdisciplinary (or transdisciplinary) framework in which to view knowledge was pioneered in the post-Sputnik age by Fritz Machlup and Michael Polanyi. Their insights have stimulated scholars to develop research, publications, …

Making Change Happen In The Middle (Approaches To Innovation For Library Middle Managers), Robert Farrell

Publications and Research

This paper seeks to provide library managers with a theoretical framework for thinking about how change is effected by those in middle management positions. Starting from the principles that change takes place within socio-culturally bounded contexts and is most successful when approached indirectly, two scenarios characteristic of many situations requiring change middle managers commonly face are then put forward. Following each scenario, a possible solution or path towards change is advanced in order to provide the reader with models for putting into practice the theoretical ideas presented. A methodology that combines theoretical frameworks and practical scenarios is adopted in order …

The Data-Information-Knowledge-Wisdom Hierarchy And Its Antithesis, Jay H. Bernstein

Publications and Research

The now taken-for-granted notion that data lead to information, which leads to knowledge, which in turnleads to wisdom was first specified in detail by R. L. Ackoff in 1988. The Data-Information-Knowledge-Wisdom hierarchy is based on filtration, reduction, and transformation. Besides being causal and hierarchical,the scheme is pyramidal, in that data are plentiful while wisdom is almost nonexistent. Ackoff’s formulalinking these terms together this way permits us to ask what the opposite of knowledge is and whether analogous principles of hierarchy, process, and pyramiding apply to it. The inversion of the Data-Information-Knowledge-Wisdom hierarchy produces a series of opposing terms (including misinformation,error, …