Organizational Behavior and Theory Commons^™

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. …

Aligning Strategy And Execution: The Role Of Senior Leaders In Project-Driven Organizations, Kenneth J. Boff

M.S. in Leadership

Strategic alignment remains a persistent challenge in project‑driven organizations, where shifting priorities and distributed execution often create gaps between strategic intent and project‑level action. This study examined how Senior Leadership Communication Practices influence Strategy–Execution Alignment and tested whether Organizational Culture for Alignment and Change Management Readiness mediate that relationship. A quantitative, cross‑sectional survey was administered to 54 senior leaders in project‑driven environments. All constructs demonstrated strong reliability, and correlation & regression analyses confirmed significant positive relationships among leadership communication, cultural alignment, readiness, and strategic alignment. Leadership communication significantly predicted culture (R² = .444), readiness (R² = .431), and alignment (R² …

Are Less Hierarchical Firms Organized Around Stronger Cultures? Evidence From Big Data, Arianna Marchetti, Phanish Puranam

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Research Summary: Are less hierarchical firms organized around stronger cultures instead? We analyze 1.5 million employee reviews on Glassdoor.com from 23,000 US-based firms, alongside data on managerial hierarchy estimated from 42 million professional social media profiles. Our findings confirm a negative association between managerial hierarchy and organizational culture strength. We explore two potential explanations for this association: Functional equivalence between the two, and culture fragmentation caused by managerial hierarchy. Multiple correlational tests show support for functional equivalence as a plausible explanation for the observed negative correlation. Our findings enhance our understanding of the complex relationships between organizational structure and culture …

Is Doing-Good-Enough (Dge) Related To Quitting Or Thriving: Organizational Support Moderates The Link Between Dge And Employee Well-Being, Job Satisfaction And Job Crafting, Yun Zhuo

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

This research introduces the construct, Doing-Good-Enough (DGE), a work strategy in which employees consciously meet, but do not exceed, core job expectations. It is a satisficing approach aimed at prioritizing well-being and managing work demands. Three studies were conducted to build the DGE scale and examined its outcomes. Study 1 developed the new measurement scale of DGE by integrating its initial work definition with the existing Quiet Quitting (QQ) scales. Items composing the DGE scale were identified through an exploratory factor analysis (EFA). Study 2 validated the DGE scale as unidimensional via confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and established its discriminant …

Crafting Ethical Problem-Solving Cultures: A Leader’S Role In Complex Adaptive Systems, Elizabeth A. Luckman

The Journal of Values-Based Leadership

In today’s complex and interconnected world, leaders play a critical role in fostering ethical problem-solving cultures within organizations. To enable leaders to succeed in this evolving landscape, this paper advocates for a necessary paradigm shift: a transition in mental models about how organizations function. Historically, organizations have been viewed as mechanistic systems, but there is a substantial opportunity to improve our work by viewing organizations as complex adaptive systems. This shift alters fundamental assumptions about organizational operations and redefines leadership as the creation of conditions for effective and ethical problem-solving. In this paper, I examine the changing mental models that …

Orchestrating Complexity: The Art Of Virtual Leadership In System Modelling, Vijay Kumar Sonawane, Bipllab Roy, Purnendu Bikash Acharjee, Indu Pv

Northeast Journal of Complex Systems (NEJCS)

This paper explores the dynamics of virtual leadership within global remote work environments, focusing on the application of complex system modelling to understand and enhance leadership efficacy. The application of computational modelling has been a regular feature in economics, science and technology fields, however its application in virtual leadership with linkage to sport leadership appears to be a novel concept. Adopting a multidisciplinary approach, this paper incorporates Game Theory as a conceptual framework to make the leadership model more relevant and applicable that can offer simpler understanding of complex play of leadership drivers. The model incorporates five key leadership dimensional …

Using Multiculturalism To Combat The Negative Creativity Effect Of Cultural Tightness: How It Is Done Matters, Jung Kiu Choi

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

This study investigates the multifaceted influence of cultural tightness and multiculturalism on the global commercial success of pop music. Addressing an under-explored moderating effect of multicultural factors on creative output under tight culture, this research analyzes Billboard Global 200 and Spotify Top 50 chart data from 2013-2021. The empirical analysis reveals that cultural tightness negatively impacts pop song’s success. Conversely, multiculturalism, specifically through diverse languages and performance teams, generally enhances global success. A key finding is that while multicultural production teams do not directly correlate with success, they critically moderate the detrimental effects of cultural tightness, a buffering effect unique …

Stress Reactivity And Sociocultural Learning: More Stress-Reactive Individuals Are Quicker At Learning Sociocultural Norms From Experiential Feedback, Shilpa Madan, Krishna Savani, Pranjal H. Mehta, Desiree Y. Phua, Ying-Yi Hong, Michael W. Morris

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

When interacting with others in unfamiliar sociocultural settings, people need to learn the norms guiding appropriate behavior. The present research investigates an individual difference that helps this kind of learning: stress reactivity. Interactions in an unfamiliar sociocultural setting are stressful, particularly when the actor fails to follow its rules. Although stress is typically considered a liability, more stress-reactive individuals may be more motivated to improve, and, thus, quicker to learn these rules. Consistent with this idea, a pilot study found that people genetically inclined to stress reactivity, as computed by a genetic profile score across 59 single nucleotide polymorphisms on …

Creating A Regenerative Organizational Culture, Sukanya Nagfernandes, Jennifer Mowery

Beyond the Project Horizon: Journal of the Center for Project Management Innovation

Abstract

The review article aims to explore the concept of creating a regenerative organizational culture through the application of transformational practices. The study investigates the potential benefits of integrating regenerative practices within an organization's cultural framework to foster adaptability, innovation, and sustainability. By examining the literature on regenerative culture and digital transformation, this study provides an overview of the key components and strategies necessary for building a regenerative organizational culture in the digital era and proposes an innovative approach to predicting regenerative cultural practices required within stages of a project’s life cycle.

Organizational culture works as a lifeline. It is …

Formal Versus Informal Supervisor Socio-Emotional Support Behaviours And Employee Trust: The Role Of Cultural Power Distance, Jaee Cho, S. Arzu Wasti, Krishna Savani, Hwee Hoon Tan, Michael W. Morris

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This research investigates how formal versus informal supervisor support behaviours shape employees' affect- and cognition-based trust across cultures of varying power distance. Using data from in-depth interviews, Study 1 found that trust-enhancing supervisor behaviours were more formal, status conscious and imposing in India (a high power distance culture) than in the Netherlands (a low power distance culture); unlike in India, supervisors acted more like friends or equals with their subordinates in the Netherlands. Using vignettes, Study 2 found that, compared to informal support behaviours, formal support behaviours increased both affect- and cognition-based trust among Indian participants, but among US participants, …

A Systematic Literature Review Exploring How The Diversity Of National Cultures Impact The Transformation Success In Organisations, Mark Searing, A.Omar Portillo-Dominguez

Other

The purpose of this study is to investigate current academic thinking regarding how cultural differences impact transformation success. It analyses cultural dimensions and other factors and how they correlate to project management. Using SCOPUS as a search engine, peer-reviewed academic papers from the period 2019-2023 were analysed as part of a systematic literature review. Results were gathered and grouped into themes as well as cultural dimensions for in-deep analysis and discussion. The results of this study found consensus on the negative impact of cultural diversity on project outcomes, but a significantly lower level of agreement with respect to the specifics …

Breaking The Transactional Mindset: A New Path For Healthcare Leadership Built On A Commitment To Human Experience, Kirsten Krull, Jerry Mansfield, Jennifer Gentry, Karen Grimley, Barbara Jacobs, Jason Wolf

Patient Experience Journal

Numerous health care publications have focused on the compelling need to improve patient experience and the associated improvements necessary to address workforce well-being. The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated and illuminated long-standing problems in health care including workforce shortages, inequity in health care delivery outcomes, care provider burnout, and overall societal structural racism.^1,2 The Beryl Institute’s Nursing Executive Council (NEC) manuscript Rebuilding a Foundation of Trust: A Call to Action in Creating a Safe Environment for Everyone³ focused on actions and behaviours to heal relationships and build trust between care providers and leaders with commitments to safety, empathy, shared decision …

Effective Leader Development Within A Church-Planting Organization For A Changing And Chaotic World, Jeremy Davis

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A challenge in cross-cultural church planting is developing leaders. Cross-cultural church-planting organizations like Latin American Mission (LAM; pseudonym) that lack a leadership development strategy struggle to form lasting leaders, sending missionaries with Biblical training but not leader development training. Additionally, developing leaders in a volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) environment creates specific challenges that missionaries must address. The purpose of this qualitative, Delphi method study was to investigate the leadership development perceptions and experiences among existing LAM missionaries in the regions of Latin America (Colombia, Cuba, Mexico City, Peru, Brazil, and Ecuador) to provide suggestions for improving effective leadership …

The Impact Of Working From Home On Employee Creativity: A Cross Cultural Comparison Of Germany And China, Andrew Heng

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

The rise of work-from-home (WFH) arrangements has brought significant changes to how employees work and interact with each other. This dissertation aims to examines the potential impact of WFH arrangements on employee creativity and investigates whether this impact varies across high-context and low-context cultures, with a particular focus on how demographic characteristics such as gender, age, and education may affect this relationship. The study is conducted within a top 10 global automotive supplier with associates in China (high-context culture) and Germany (low-context culture). As individual creativity often arises from collaboration and interaction with others, I hypothesised that as WFH frequency …

The Mutual Constitution Of Culture And Psyche: The Bidirectional Relationship Between Individuals’ Perceived Control And Cultural Tightness-Looseness, Anyi Ma, Krishna Savani, Fangzhou Liu, Kenneth Tai, Aaron C. Kay

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

According to the theory of mutual constitution of culture and psyche, just as culture shapes people, individuals’ psychological states can influence culture. We build on compensatory control theory, which suggests that low personal control can lead people to prefer societal systems that impose order, to examine the mutual constitution of personal control and cultural tightness. Specifically, we tested whether individuals’ lack of personal control increases their preference for tighter cultures as a means of restoring order and predictability, and whether tighter cultures in turn reduce people’s feelings of personal control. Seven studies (five preregistered) with participants from the United States, …

Understanding The Interactions Between Conservation Agencies And Rangers: A Mixed-Methods Approach, Christina M. Burton

Graduate Thesis and Dissertation 2023-2024

Research describing conservation agencies has generally been exploratory and limited in the use of theory. Similarly, organizational theories can provide an understanding for how organizations change and adapt to their given environments, but they have not been applied to conservation agencies with unique challenges and strains from other public bureaucracies or private corporations. In expanding this body of literature, not only were these theories applied conservation agencies, but they were also explored in what Powell and Colyvas (2008, p. 276) called "microfoundations" of organizations, which focuses on the interplay between individuals and organizations. To explore this, a convergent mixed-methods design …

E Pluribus Unum: Increasing A Shared Understanding Of Mission At Marine Corps University, Edward Greiner, Kirstin Pantazis, Christopher Reid, Dominick White

Doctor of Education Capstones

E PLURIBUS UNUM: INCREASING A SHARED UNDERSTANDING OF MISSION AT MARINE CORPS UNIVERSITY

By Edward Greiner, Kirstin Pantazis, Christopher Reid, and Dominick White

A capstone project submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Education in the Department of Educational Leadership at Virginia Commonwealth University

Virginia Commonwealth University, 2023.

Capstone Chair: Beth E. Bukoski, Ph.D., Department of Educational Leadership

Mergers between higher education institutions present unique challenges to creating and maintaining a shared understanding of mission. Additionally, professional military education institutions with civilian faculty and staff must blend military and civilian cultures in the workplace. …

The Breadth Of Normative Standards: Antecedents And Consequences For Individuals And Organizations, Shilpa Madan, Shankha Basu, Sharon Ng, Krishna Savani

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Normative standards refer to ideals to which people, products, and organizations are held. The present research (N = 2,224) investigates a novel construct—the breadth of normative standards, or the number of criteria that normative standards need to meet. Using archival and primary data in both organizational and consumer contexts, Studies 1–2 found that Indians’ and Singaporeans’ normative standards in several domains (e.g., a good job, a good body wash) needed to satisfy more criteria than those of Americans and the British. Using incentive-compatible designs, Studies 3–5 identified two downstream consequences of broader normative standards; decision-makers with broader standards pay greater …

Teamwork That Affects Outcomes: A Method To Enhance Team Ownership, Brian Carlson, Richelle Graham, Brad Stinson, Jordan Larocca

Patient Experience Journal

Healthcare is the ultimate team sport, and this case study explores how to build teamwork across teams. The ability for nursing, environmental services and food and nutrition services to work collaboratively to benefit patients is paramount to a patients experience and outcomes. The case study describes how the work was done to build teams and then improved outcomes in both patient and employee experiences. The learnings are applicable to any team setting not just those described in this case study.

Experience Framework

This article is associated with the Staff & Provider Engagement lens of The Beryl Institute Experience Framework ( …

Culture And Covid-19: Impact Of Cross-Cultural Dimensions On Behavioral Responses, Nisha Nair, Patturaja Selvaraj, Ranjeet Nambudiri

Management Faculty Publications

The global pandemic of COVID-19 has impacted every sphere of human life across all nations of the world. Countries adapted and responded to the crisis in different ways with varied outcomes and different degrees of success in mitigation efforts. Studies have examined institutional and policy-based responses to the pandemic. However, to gain a holistic understanding of the pandemic response strategy and its effectiveness, it is also important to understand the cultural foundations of a society driving its response behavior. Towards that end, this entry focuses on a few key cultural dimensions of difference across countries and proposes that national culture …

When "First, Do No Harm" Fails: A Restorative Justice Approach To Workgroup Harms In Healthcare, Pedro L. Flores

Dissertations

In healthcare, workgroup mistreatment is a pervasive problem that begins during medical education (medical and nursing school) and becomes embedded in the “hidden curriculum of professionalism,” which dissuades and even punishes learners for talking about abuse they witness. Furthermore, the mistreatment of healthcare providers (HCPs) pervades all disciplines in the healthcare delivery chain due to a combination of cultural factors, systemic pressures, dysfunctional hierarchies, and leadership’s tolerance of intimidating and disruptive behaviors. Not surprisingly, 18% of U.S. HCPs have left the medical field since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, and burnout, stress, anxiety, and increased workloads have been identified …

Strategies To Create And Sustain Work-Life Balance In The Hospitality Industry, Elizabeth Balbickram

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Employee turnover results in adverse business outcomes. Hospitality industry leaders who do not encourage an organizational culture supportive of work-life balance risk reduced profitability resulting from employee turnover. Grounded in path-goal theory, the purpose of this qualitative single case study was to explore strategies hospitality industry leaders use to create and sustain organizational cultures supportive of employee work-life balance. The participants were eight upper-level leaders of one lodging chain in Orlando, Florida, who successfully implemented strategies to create and sustain work-life balance for their employees. Data were collected from semistructured interviews and a review of organization personnel handbooks and training …

Locating Uncertainty In Hospital Leader Sensemaking And Sensegiving Of Organizational Change: A Single Case Study, Sara E. Barry

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

Leaders planning strategic change face significant ambiguity and uncertainty due to the complex, fast-paced, and volatile nature of organizational life. What one leader sees as an opportunity, another may view as a threat depending on their past experiences, their existing mental models, and their perceptions of uncertainty. Sensemaking and sensegiving theories provide a framework for how leaders retrospectively make sense of new and disorienting information through recursive cycles of interpretation, action, and learning, and seek to influence the meaning-making of others towards a shared vision of the strategic change. Despite decades of research using these theories, studies have yet to …

Reframing Leadership Narratives Through The African American Lens, Marion Missy Mcgee

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

Reframing Leadership Narratives through the African American Lens explores the context-rich experiences of Black Museum executives to challenge dominant cultural perspectives of what constitutes a leader. Using critical narrative discourse analysis, this research foregrounds under-told narratives and reveals the leadership practices used to proliferate Black Museums to contrast the lack of racially diverse perspectives in the pedagogy of leadership studies. This was accomplished by investigating the origin stories of African American executives using organizational leadership and social movement theories as analytical lenses for making sense of leaders’ tactics and strategies. Commentary from Black Museum leaders were interspersed with sentiments of …

Should I Stay Or Should I Go? Compassion Organizing And The University Advancement Workplace, Christina Marie Smith

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Compassion organizing has been described within positive organizational scholarship as an organization’s response to pain and suffering in organizational behavior and also the ability for organizations to flourish and promote joy and fulfillment in the workplace. Compassion organizing has been examined in organizational life through the four areas of noticing, feeling, acting, and sense-making. Previous research has focused on business and healthcare workplaces and has shown that compassion organizing is both an organizational and interpersonal social process. Because of the limited existing research on compassion organizing in the higher education workplace (and none with respect to the university advancement workplace), …

Unlocking The Creativity Potential Of Dialectical Thinking: Field Investigations Of The Comparative Effects Of Transformational And Transactional Leadership Styles, Roy Y. J. Chua, Jia Hui Lim, Wannwiruch (Fon) Wiruchnipawan

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

In a digital economy characterized by high volumes of information and ideas, many of which could be contradictory to one another, employees high in dialectical thinking should be well poised to connect disparate ideas to generate creative solutions for business problems. Yet, it is unclear whether dialectical thinking as a creativity-relevant skill can be realized in naturalistic workplace settings, given past mixed findings and the lack of field studies. We propose that supervisors’ leadership styles are important moderators that can unlock employees’ creativity potential in dialectical thinking. Additionally, we compare the activating effect of transformational leadership and the inhibiting effect …

What Makes Employees Feel Empowered To Speak Up?, Shilpa Madan, Kevin Nanakdewa, Krishna Savani, Hazel Rose Markus

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Most managers understand that empowering employees to voice their opinions can help companies innovate and uncover their own shortcomings. However, this understanding does not seem to translate into action. Research shows that over 85% of employees remain silent on crucial matters because they worry about being viewed negatively. How can managers encourage employees to speak their minds at work? The authors’ new research identified a novel method to encourage employees to exercise their voice: creating a company culture that emphasizes the idea of choice. They found that employees were more likely to share their ideas and opinions at a company …

Advancing Workplace Diversity: Weathering The Storm To Create A Path Toward Diversity, Equity, And Inclusion, Lisa T. Toler

All Faculty and Staff Scholarship

The inherent culture communicated within an organization influences and affects the practices the organization takes, and, in turn, employee performance (Ritchie, 2000). The purpose of this book chapter is to identify what characteristics can bring visibility to the career experiences of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) through a critical examination of the literature on organizational culture, leadership, and organizational behavior in the context of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI). The resulting outcome of such an outlook on career experiences for the BIPOC community is important in creating and sustaining fair practices in diversity, equity, and inclusion in order …

Business Education: How Culture And Leadership Impact Organizational Outcomes, Joyce Lemay, Chris Kaiser

Business Faculty Publications

Leadership and organizational culture influence the outcomes of any business. Many companies look at various information to measure results but may not know how to manage the information or interpret it in a way to make ethical and effective decisions. Many organizational cultures are broken and leadership needs to better understand how culture impacts the required outcomes. This article reviews the demands of a broken culture and creative ways to impact culture to ensure effective organizational outcomes. In times of crisis, like COVID-19, organizational culture can direct, redirect, or worsen the desired outcomes. The ability to analyze, understand and positively …

Development And Reliability Of A Patient Experience Inventory Tool For Hospitals, Agnes Barden, Nicole Giammarinaro, Natalie Bashkin, Larry Lutsky

Patient Experience Journal

This study explores the development and reliability testing of the newly developed Patient Experience Inventory for Hospitals (PXI-H). Created as an organizational self-assessment patient experience tool, it guides healthcare leaders in evaluating attitudes and behaviors as well as structures and programs impacting patient experience within a hospital setting. The PXI-H is organized within four pillars: Leadership, Education and Development, Data and Analytics and Patient-and-Family Centeredness, which were determined to be internally consistent based on examining coefficient alphas and the item-total correlations. Principal component analysis also determined items with highest loadings aligned onto the pillars in which there were assigned, confirming …