Organizational Behavior and Theory Commons^™

An Analysis Of Scholarship Distribution By Division I Softball Coaches, Donovan James Nelson

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to explore fairness factors used by NCAA Division I head softball coaches in scholarship distribution. Research by Hums & Chelladurai introduced Distributive Justice principles to intercollegiate athletics; indicating need was a popular distribution principle. Continued research by Mahony, Hums, & Riemer determined need as a common distribution principle in athletics. Prior to this study, no research has been done to examine distribution principles by NCAA Division I softball coaches based on distributive justice principles. This study used a single scenario of grant-in-aid distribution with six possible decisions coaches make to determine fairness of grant-in-aid …

Creating Sustainable Supply Chains: Influencing Sustainable Practices In The Supply Chain, Saif Mir

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Organizations worldwide are reporting their commitment to create sustainable supply chains. Ultimately, supply chain professionals are the drivers of change within their respective organizations, so this dissertation examines the role of communication as a tool to persuade supply chain professionals to create sustainable supply chains. The three studies within this dissertation employ different methodologies to examine the role of communication in the development and implementation of sustainability initiatives. The first study, a grounded theory investigation, highlights the network, communication, and structural factors that provide a strong business case for the development of sustainability initiatives. A strong business case influences the …

Assessing Organizational Health Literacy At An Academic Health Center: A Quantitative Research Study, Latrina Y. Prince

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Inadequate health literacy is a national health problem that affects about 90 million Americans. Health literacy is the degree to which a person is able to make good health decisions based on his/her ability to read, understand, and use health information and services. Organizational Health Literacy (OHL) is the degree to which an organization considers and promotes the health literacy of patients by providing easy to read, understand, and use health information and services. Since it is difficult to determine which patients have inadequate health literacy, a recommended intervention for addressing health literacy is to use OHL practices at all …

The Disclosure Of Organizational Secrets By Employees, Danny Franklin

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Organizational secrets enable firms to protect their unique stocks of knowledge, reduce the imitability of their capabilities and achieve sustained competitive advantages (Hannah, 2005). In today’s business environments, the loss of valuable proprietary organizational knowledge due to intentional employee disclosure represents a substantial threat to firm competitiveness. Anecdotal evidence suggests that firms in the United States lose more than $250 billion of intellectual property every year, with intentional employee disclosure accounting for a significant portion of these losses (Dandliker, 2012; Heffernan & Swartwood, 1993). Thus, understanding factors that influence such intentional secret disclosure is a key concern, especially in knowledge-intensive …

Understanding Employees’ Reactions To Sexual Harassment Training: Interactional Disruptions, Identity Threats, And Negative Training Outcomes, Shannon L. Rawski

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Sexual harassment training is a common organizational activity. Yet, we do not have very much knowledge about why sexual harassment training is effective or ineffective. There is evidence that employees often react negatively toward sexual harassment training, and these negative reactions may help explain inconsistent findings regarding whether sexual harassment training improves employees’ knowledge, attitudes, and transfer of training to the job context. This dissertation draws from Social interactionism and identity theory to suggest that employees may experience threats to their valued identities at the announcement of sexual harassment training and during the administration of sexual harassment training. Interactional characteristics, …

Does Who We Are Influence What We Say? The Impact Of Organizational Identity On Responses To Ethical Issues, Amy J. Guerber

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Business organizations frequently face ethical issues which may lead stakeholders to question the competence or integrity of organizational actors. In such cases, the way the organization communicates with its stakeholders can play a critical role in preserving or restoring organizational reputation, financial performance, and trust. Thus, understanding factors that influence organizational communication in the wake of ethical issues is important. Previous research has focused on the impact of situational characteristics on organizational responses and stakeholder reactions to those responses but has not explored the role that organizational characteristics play in shaping firms' responses to ethical issues.

The current study seeks …

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 …

The Relationship Of Goal Focus To Physical Distance, Job Title And Years Served Within The University Of Arkansas Division Of Agriculture, Christina Miller

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to determine the relationship between physical distance from the headquarters, number of years working within the Division of Agriculture, and job title compared to mission statement and goal focus. The Division of Agriculture as part of the University of Arkansas System is a unique organization because many of its employees are not physically located at the headquarter locations of Little Rock and Fayetteville. The Cooperative Extension Service, part of the Division of Agriculture, has at least one office in each of Arkansas's 75 counties as well as faculty and staff members located at five …

Theory And Practice: A Historical Examination Of The Assumptions And Philosophy Of Human Resource Development, Matthew Wayne Gosney

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The history of Human Resource Development (HRD) is the history of human organizational growth and development. A review of the history of western civilization, with particular focus on the Industrial Revolution to the modern era, demonstrates a distinct interaction between the predominant philosophy of the time, theory, and practice. A better understanding of seminal events in HRD's history thus provides insight into informing philosophies of HRD and the assumptions upon which current HRD theory and practice rest. Research was conducted to explore this interplay between philosophy, theory, and practice. The research was thematic and historical in nature, including the evaluation …

Donor And Grantor Reactions To Ceo Compensation In Nonprofit Organizations, Stacey Renee Kaden

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Nonprofit organizations often rely on donations and grants to accomplish their mission. This study examines whether nonprofit organizations with high CEO compensation receive less in donor and grantor support compared to nonprofit organizations with lower CEO compensation. I find strong evidence that both donors and grantors give less to organizations that spend a larger percentage of total expenses on total CEO compensation. I also find that the reactions of donors and grantors differ based on the type of CEO compensation. While donors and grantors react to CEO base compensation, grantors also react to other CEO compensation and nontaxable benefits.

In …

Nonprofit Board Members' Self-Perception In The Role Of Organizational Governance And The Balanced Scorecard, Jeffrey John Aulgur

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative case study examines the gap between expectations of board performance held by the senior leadership and the governing board's self-perception of their role in the governance of the nonprofit organization. The primary research question is: Is an analysis of the gap between governance expectations and the board members' self-perception of governance performance an effective methodology for enhancing the efficacy of the governing board of directors? Nonprofit governance and its effectiveness are difficult concepts to define, given the wide disparity in organizational sizes, structures, and missions. While the academic literature does not identify a dominant methodology for organizational effectiveness …

Family Policies And Institutional Satisfaction: An Intersectional Analysis Of Tenure-Track Faculty, Heather Lee Schneller

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Gender and faculty career advancement have been examined with a focus on academic work environment, including faculty workloads, mentoring relationships, access to research networks, and work-life balance. Previous studies concerned with gender, employment, and care work only have considered child care. Additionally, the exploration of faculty and care work focused specifically on gender instead of examining the interaction of race and gender. To date, no study on academic work-life policies includes faculty perceptions of their importance and effectiveness nor has the faculty assessment of eldercare policy been examined in relation to career success.

Guided by an intersectional perspective, this study …

Time Waits For No One: Using Time As A Lens In Information Systems Research, Christopher M. Conway

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Despite considerable research interest, IT projects still fail at a higher rate than other projects. Primary causes for these failures are relational, motivational, and scheduling issues on the team. Using the concept of time as a lens, the four essays in this dissertation examine how the ways that individuals and teams structure time can help explain these failures. The essays formulate the concept of temporal dissonance at the individual and team level, and explore how temporal dissonance causes negative consequences for IT workers and IT teams.

Essay one synthesizes temporal dissonance from concepts of temporal congruity and cognitive dissonance. It …

Development And Implementation Of It-Enabled Business Processes: A Knowledge Structure View, Rick Brattin

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

As competitive pressures mount, organizations must continue to evolve their business processes in order to survive. Increasingly, firms are developing new IT-enabled business processes in response to rising competition, greater customer expectations, and challenging economic conditions. The success rate of these projects remains low despite much industry experience and extensive academic study. Managerial and organizational cognition represents a potentially fruitful lens for studying the design and implementation of IT-enabled business processes. This view assumes that individuals are information workers who spend their days absorbing, processing, and disseminating information as they pursue their goals and objectives. Individuals develop cognitive representations, called …

Organizational Citizenship Behaviors In Higher Education: Examining The Relationships Between Behaviors And Performance Outcomes For Individuals And Institutions, Kevin Jimmy Rose

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) have been described as employee behaviors that are not required by job descriptions, are not formally rewarded, and contribute positively to the organization. Previous research has shown that OCBs are related to both individual and organizational performance. Given the importance of OCBs to individual and organizational effectiveness, the purpose for conducting the study was to describe OCBs in the higher education context, describe the relationships between OCBs and various aspects of faculty and staff performance, and explore the extent to which institutional leaders should be concerned with the OCBs of both faculty and professional staff. The …

The Construct Development Of Spiritual Leadership, Emily Rachael Lean

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Although the past decade has shown a growing interest in workplace spirituality in the leadership and organizational literature, research in the area of spiritual leadership, is still in its infancy. The goal of this study was to delineate the construct of spiritual leadership and to provide theoretical guidelines for future research. A conceptual definition of spiritual leadership is offered in addition to a list of behaviors relevant to a spiritual leader. This study was the first of its kind to take into account the knowledge and opinions of both academic and practitioner subject matter experts. Furthermore, with regard to developing …

The Importance Of Management Philosophy To The Success Of Pay-For-Knowledge Systems: An Empirical Test, Timothy P. Schweizer

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In recent years, pay-for-knowledge compensation systems have received serious attention from practitioners and organizational researchers. Some have hypothesized that the specific mechanics of pay-for-knowledge systems are critical to success while others have suggested that contextual factors determine whether or not these systems will be successful. Empirical research has not been very supportive of these hypotheses, however.

Another hypothesis is that management philosophy is important to the success of pay-for-knowledge systems. The purpose of this study is to test this hypothesis by addressing three questions: 1) Are the components that make up management philosophy related to the successes experienced by companies …

A Managerial Planning Model: An Application To The Farm-Cultured Catfish Industry In Determining The Characteristics Of Processed Farm-Cultured Catfish Consumers In Little Rock And North Little Rock, Arkansas, Argus Kenneth Pippin

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The objectives of the study were: (1) to evaluate the processed farm-cultured catfish business in its embryonic stage during 1968 in terms of a systematic managerial planning model (MPH); (2) to focus on the managerial strategy of market segmentation and determine the relationships between the number of processed farm-cultured catfish sales and selected economic and socio-economic determinants or consumer market behavior. From the evaluation of the processed farm-cultured catfish business as it existed in 1968, it was suggestive that the planning process was not implemented thoroughly. Several areas exhibited weaknesses or unfavorable influence that were deterrents to the success of …