Organizational Behavior and Theory Commons^™

Effective Strategies Used By Restaurant Managers To Reduce Employee Absenteeism, Dawn Renita Johnson-Tate

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Employee absenteeism costs organizations in the U.S. restaurant industry more than 15% of profits each year. Some restaurant managers lack strategies to reduce employee absenteeism. Using the expectancy theory, the purpose of this single case study was to explore effective strategies that restaurant managers use to reduce employee absenteeism. The target population was managers of a single restaurant, known for successfully implemented strategies to reduce employee absenteeism, located in the Baltimore-Washington, DC, metropolitan area. Data collection included semistructured face-to-face interviews with 3 managers and a review of company archival documents such as memorandums, training documents, employee records, and employee performance …

Rhetoric And Authority In A Polarized Transition: The Development Of China’S Stock Market, Yuan Li, Sandy E. Green, Paul M. Hirsch

School of Economics and Business Administration Faculty Works

How do actors in positions of authority attempt to justify their right to rule while introducing controversial institutional practices that potentially delegitimate their authority? China’s reform leaders have found themselves in a legitimacy conundrum when they established and developed the stock market, yet have been able to assert a central role for the party-state in managing the stock market. Using a critical rhetorical perspective, we analyze how actors use “rhetorical genres,” that is, argumentation and narration with differing content and style, to construct new roles of the speaker and speaker–audience relationships that imply new bases of authority, and how these …

From Play To Performance: Building An Effective Organization, Jessica N. Selee, Jade Johnson, Jocelyn N. Murray, Anna Samuelson, Jasmine Li, Andrew Lacanienta, Mat D. Duerden, Mark Widmer

Marriott Student Review

Under the Mentored Experience Grant, six students studies the impact that non-work activities (recreation or leisure) have on individual contributors or organization. Some employees refrain from participating in Leisure-at-Work (LAW) due to lack of time or skill, to cliques, to differing preferences, or fear of negative connotations. Employees report that LAW increases productivity, establishes and enriches social interactions, improves communication, attracts and retains employees in a company, and facilitates a culture of engagement, trust, and camaraderie. At the conclusion of our analysis, we identified areas of future research and recommendations for best practice.

Market Analysis, Management Consulting, And Miscommunication, Brian W. Stout

Marriott Student Review

This article attempts to inform the audience of the importance of market analysis in management consulting. The article states that consulting firms can utilize the power of market analysis as they commit to understand technology, collaborate with researchers to conduct action research, and align market strategies within the consulting firm. This article concludes that by doing these steps consulting firms will lead in their market.

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 …

Secret Conversation Opportunities Facilitate Minority Influence In Virtual Groups: The Influence On Majority Power, Information Processing, And Decision Quality, Roderick I. Swaab, Katherine W. Phillips, Michael Schaerer

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We examined the impact of secret conversation opportunities during virtual team discussions on majority opinion holders’ motivation to attend to minority opinion holders. Studies 1a and b showed that majorities were more motivated to process others’ arguments when secret conversation opportunities were available (vs. not), provided these arguments contained unique (vs. shared) information and this information was offered by the minority (vs. majority). Study 2 demonstrated that this effect occurs because secret opportunities made majorities feel less powerful after being exposed to unique information from the minority (Study 2a), especially when majority members expected others to use these channels (Study …

Strategies For Increasing Employee Engagement In The Service Industry, Tonia Ann Walker

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The annual loss to U.S. organizations consequential to a lack of employee engagement was approximately $300 billion in 2013. Employee engagement is vital to the business sustainability of an organization. The purpose of this qualitative single case study was to explore successful strategies that business leaders of a service organization used to increase employee engagement. The conceptual framework guiding this study was the behavior engineering model theory developed by Gilbert. A purposeful sample of 6 engineering managers was selected based on their success in creating strategies resulting in increased employee workplace engagement in a monopoly service organization in Connecticut. Semistructured …

Upward Communication In Organizations: The Connection To Company Culture And Employee Engagement, Janet K. Clancy-Feliciano

Communication & Leadership Dissertations and Theses

In today’s American society, effective upward and downward communication between supervisors and subordinates is lacking now more than ever before. The importance of effective downward communication from organizational leaders receives ongoing attention, but more attention needs to be given to the importance of open reception to upward communication. It is critical that leaders in organizations build trust and encourage upward communication from employees in order to maintain organizational wellbeing and to avoid employee dissatisfaction. To help close the gap in this area of communication, this study focused on and collected data utilizing on-line surveys and employee interviews in order to …

Trust In People And Trust In Technology: Expanding Interpersonal Trust To Technology-Mediated Interactions, Evgeniya Evgenieva Pavlova Miller

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Trust is necessary for human interactions. It provides the ability to participate in risky behaviors without engaging in a laborious risk-benefit analysis about the situation at hand. The introduction of information and communication technologies has brought about new ways of communicating (e.g., text messaging, video conferencing). Despite the benefits stemming from the ability to communicate through technology, the lower quality and quantity of communication cues exchanged during a technology-mediated interaction can hamper the development of trust.

This study examined the relationship between interpersonal trust and trust in technology during a technology-mediated dyadic interaction and aimed to determine whether interpersonal trust …

College Students Use Social Networking Sites For Sharing With Friends, But Guess Who Else Is Looking?, Liz Alexander, Fred Mader, Deanna Mader

Atlantic Marketing Association Proceedings

Jobvite, a recruiting platform for the social web, reports from their annual 2012 survey of recruiters that 92% of U.S. companies are using social networking sites (SNS) for hiring purposes (Jobvit, 2012). Career Builder reported in 2009 that 45% of employers were using SNS to screen and research applicants (CareerBuilder, 2009). It is important that faculty and support staff working to place students, and the students themselves, understand the developments and practices in the use of social networking sites for job search and recruiting and the best methods, as well as detriments when marketing themselves. This study examines corporate recruiters’, …

Workplace Dignity: Communicating Inherent, Earned, And Remediated Dignity, Kristen Lucas

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

Extant research on dignity at work has revealed conditions that contribute to indignity, employees’ responses to dignity threats, and ways in which employees’ inherent dignity is undermined. But while dignity – and specifically indignity – is theorized as a phenomenon subjectively experienced and judged by individuals, little research has privileged workers’ own perspectives. In this study, working adults reveal how they personally experience and understand meanings of dignity at work. I describe three core components of workplace dignity and the communicative exchanges through which dignity desires commonly are affirmed or denied: inherent dignity as recognized by respectful interaction, earned dignity …

Boomers Vs. Gen Y—The New Communication Gap, Sara Bennett

White Papers

A key issue between Baby Boomer managers and Generation Y employees is a difference of opinion on how often feedback regarding performance should be administered and the mode of feedback that is appropriate. Effective communication is essential for performance and productivity.

Effective Methods Of Communicating Organizational Values: A Case Study, Caralin B. Mchan

Master's Theses

Organizational values affect business success, and employee satisfaction and commitment. Value training begins during socialization. This qualitative case study of Adventist Frontier Missions explored effective methods the organization’s trainers used to communicate and motivate newcomers to assimilate organizational values during the2015 short-term missions training. Through observation, surveys, focus groups and interviews, I found that newcomers were motivated by seeing a connection between the organization’s values and its mission, and by seeing the values enacted by the trainers. I also found that newcomers perceived nonverbal communication of organizational values to be integral to their value-assimilation process. These findings should be useful …

The Impact Of Generational Differences On Organizational Relationships: A Communication Perspective, Mecca M. Salahuddin

Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of this mixed methods sequential explanatory study was to investigate the relationship between an individual’s generation and the communication styles used with other generations, and explore the influence of intergenerational communication styles on organizational relationships. The study utilized the Global Perceptions of Intergenerational Communication (GPIC) survey to assess participants’ perceptions of others and one’s own communication styles on three factors: accommodation, nonaccommodation, and respectful avoidance. Three hundred and eighty-five participants of staff and administrators employed at five community colleges located in South Texas completed the survey. Principal component analyses and multiple analysis of variance analysis results showed the …

Addressing The Challenges Of Cross-Cultural And Virtual Communication In The Workplace, Sarabjit Sundar

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

The move toward a more global or geographically dispersed organization, together with the technology that is being used to enable this, has dramatically changed work and the workplace in the United States and United Kingdom within the last few decades (Ouye, 2011). This is prompting leaders to communicate with teams consisting of vastly different backgrounds, languages and styles, and to essentially ‘work at the same table’ in the absence of physical cues, such as facial expressions and gestures. Leaders of such teams are challenged to create a smooth operation despite the many differences; the possibilities for misunderstandings and cultural blunders …

You Can't Put Old Wine In New Bottles: The Effect Of Newcomers On Coordination In Groups, Matthew Mccarter, Roman M. Sheremeta

Business Faculty Articles and Research

A common finding in social sciences is that member change hinders group functioning and performance. However, questions remain as to why member change negatively affects group performance and what are some ways to alleviate the negative effects of member change on performance? To answer these questions we conduct an experiment in which we investigate the effect of newcomers on a group's ability to coordinate efficiently. Participants play a coordination game in a four-person group for the first part of the experiment, and then two members of the group are replaced with new participants, and the newly formed group plays the …

Paralinguistic Cues And Their Effect On Leader Credibility, Monte Brian Reid

Communication & Leadership Dissertations and Theses

Paralinguistic cues are powerful non-verbal communication elements that have the ability to make even good news sound horrible or bad news more palatable. Drawing upon the hermeneutical phenomenology communication theory of Dilthey (1961) and Shannon’s (1949) communication channel model, this thesis targeted the six primary paralinguistic cues of fluidity, articulation, sonority, tempo, emotion, and dynamic intensity to discover how these cues interact and affect the credibility and palatability of a leader’s message. To facilitate remembrance of these cues, the acronym F.A.S.T.E.D. was coined and used. Three different groups consisting of managers, non-managers, and media and public relations professionals were surveyed …

Communication In A Traditional Organization, Nidia Haydee Marichalar

Communication & Leadership Dissertations and Theses

This study examines if a mismatch exists between the traditional structure of communication, and the communication needs and expectations of teachers and staff in a rapidly growing and changing charter school system, which in turn contributes to the burgeoning turn-¬‐over and the perceived plummeting morale amongst teachers and staff at the school. Anonymous surveys were administered, and interviews and focus groups were conducted at one school, seeking to gauge teacher and staff perceptions of 1) How well leaders communicated about the school’s and teachers’ mission, strategy, and goals; 2) How well were these ideas and expectations matched to the experiences …

The Impacts Of Multiple 360 Feedback Projects Utilizing Coaching And Follow-Up: A Quantitative Longitudinal Exploratory Descriptive Research Study, Jeremy Unruh

Communication & Leadership Dissertations and Theses

360 degree feedback is a great tool for organizational development, however many organizations don’t include coaching and follow-up to maximize impact for long term results. This quantitative longitudinal exploratory descriptive research study explores the impact of conducting the same 360 feedback survey within the same organization over a 3 year time frame utilizing coaching and follow-up. Data from 6 individuals indicate an improvement of self-awareness and an increase of set goals and completed goals. Theories of self-awareness and self-perception are discussed as well as the development of a new communication channel between manager and employee for organizational development purposes.

Multitasking And Communication In The Organization, Cayla A. Stephenson

Communication & Leadership Dissertations and Theses

Because communication is an intricate part of how an organization works, and because organizations and employees alike are stressing the importance of multitasking on the job, studying the interaction of communication and multitasking is increasingly important. Studies relating to multitasking have revealed primarily negative impacts: doubling task completion time, overstimulating our brains to the point of dysfunction, generally diminishing our productivity, and extinguishing our stimuli filters and damaging our memories. Other studies show that we can use multitasking in a positive way by utilizing task trainings and practicing focused task completion. The study here completed two focus groups with 12 …

The Intrapersonal Phenomenon: The Interactional Effects Of Intrapersonal Adjustments In The Organizational Change Of A Small Business, Jennifer Wilkes

Communication & Leadership Dissertations and Theses

It is inevitable that change involves varying levels of communication. A relationship may consist of an individual's communication with one's self or with one or more persons. The functionality of a relationship depends on the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of the communication of those individuals involved. When change is necessary in any form of organization, the level of communication for each member plays a vital role, especially in a small company. Based on literature and theory, intrapersonal development and influence relies on the structure of one's cultural language. Language structure shapes one's inner speech and self-talk through processes of internalization. The …

Examination Of Employee Work-Life Balance Within Healthy Organizational Cultures, Cari Ann Lyle

Communication & Leadership Dissertations and Theses

This study examined the work-life balance of employees within the U.S. communications industry, specifically focusing on how employees can build collaborative relationships with their colleagues while maintaining active lifestyles outside the office. The effects of a healthy work-life balance on organizational culture has become a popular topic in American organizations during the past decade, and this research used focus groups and interviews to help determine how leaders can encourage employees to prioritize their professional and personal obligations. Study participants were asked questions developed around Edgar Schein’s organizational culture research, Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, and communication theories about balance and …

Listening To Organizational Change: Exploring Dialogue During Sensemaking, Dianna L. Stratton

Communication & Leadership Dissertations and Theses

This qualitative study explored the role of dialogue during sensemaking and how that affects receptivity to organizational change. The philosophical framework for this study comes from Buber’s (1958) I and Thou dialogue theories concerning the value of existential acknowledgement. Both communication and organizational study theories grounded this research. Bohm (1996) and Isaacs’ (1999) dialogue theories converge with Weick’s (1995) sensemaking theories as a means to explore the role of listening during organizational change. Data was obtained through ethnographic observation and interview. A cultural research framework provided the means to explore the relationships between dialogue, sensemaking and organizational change. The results …

Art And Space: Impacting The Workplace, Erin V. Mccool

Senior Honors Theses

Art in its various forms and applications has always been a part of the human experience. Art can be intrusive, thought provoking, or simply beautiful. Although art comes in many different styles and forms, art continues to capture our imagination. The purposes of this thesis are to discover how art affects human activity in the workplace as well as the qualities that make artwork in the workplace successful. Based on the findings of this study, artwork will be created for the Center for the Advancement of Faculty Excellence at Liberty University in order to create a lively, creative environment. By …

The Effect Of Virtuality On Individual Network Centrality And Performance In On-Going, Distributed Teams, Priscilla Arling, Mani Subramani

Scholarship and Professional Work - Business

For distributed teams to succeed, individuals must interact successfully within team social networks. To understand individual performance in distributed teams, we consider a multi-dimensional view of individual virtuality and its relationship with centrality in the team’s face-to-face network and ICT network. We leverage social network theory and hierarchically analyze data from 254 individuals in 18 teams. We find that members with higher dispersion are less central in the face-to-face network while those with higher ICT use are more central in the ICT network. Centrality in the ICT network, but not centrality in the face-to-face network, is positively related to performance. …

Coaching Efficacy With Academic Leaders: A Phenomenological Investigation, Deanna Lee Vansickel-Peterson

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The purpose of this psychological phenomenological research was to understand the efficacy of life coaching from the perspective of academic leaders. To date, not one investigation or attempt has been made towards the above stated purpose. This study includes a theoretical overview and a review of the coaching literature from Socrates (469-399 BC) to current day Humanistic theory presented in part by Roger (1902-1987). This process included data collection from five academic leaders who have been coached for at least two years. Levels of analysis of 365 statements, quote and/or comments produced finding of efficacy in life coaching with academic …

Studying Organisational Culture : Hicom India, Abinash Panda, R K Gupta

IIMB Management Review

A strong culture facilitates coordination and communication and distinguishes successful organisations from others. In a market characterised by continuous innovation and swift imitation, a strong and productive culture can be an important source of sustainable competitive advantage because it is difficult to imitate. Managers need to learn that where culture may matter most is in its impact on the ‘hard’ stuff, such as strategy and structure. Practitioners and academics in India and abroad have been systematically attempting to understand organisational culture. Although the study of organisational culture gathered momentum in the early 80s, researchers by and large conceptualised culture from …

The Effects Of Communication Modality On Teamwork Processes, Thomas D. Fletcher

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Since the onset of the digital age, organizations have been able to make use of teams of individuals distributed geographically to remain competitive. While strides have been made to understand the effectiveness of collocated teams, research has yet to sufficiently explore the effects of emerging technologies on team processes and effectiveness. A laboratory study, where dyads were asked to create a spreadsheet by following a set of explicit instructions (i.e., a psychomotor task), was conducted to manipulate the communication modalities most commonly used between collaborators (i.e., face-to-face vs. audio) and compare the effects of adding a shared workspace application. The …

Leading Organizations Through Transition : Communication And Cultural Change By Stanley A Deetz, Sarah J Tracy And Jennifer Lyn Simpson, Sage Publications., Puneet Arora

IIMB Management Review

No abstract provided.