Organizational Behavior and Theory Commons^™

Millennial Integration: Challenges Millennials Face In The Workplace And What They Can Do About Them, Chip Espinoza

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

There is a monumental changing of the guard that is currently taking place in organizations due to demographic metabolism. One of the largest birth cohorts or generations in history (Baby Boomer) is beginning to retire while their predecessor (Builder) is almost completely out of the workforce. Gen X is hitting stride and on the cusp of inheriting the proverbial organizational mantle. The three aforementioned age cohorts have learned to play in the organizational sandbox together. However, a new age cohort (Millennial, a.k.a. Gen Y), equal or greater in size to the Baby Boomer cohort started entering the playground approximately ten …

Enhancing Training Outcomes In The Context Of E-Learning: The Impact Of Objective Learner Control, Training Content Complexity, Cognitive Load, Learning Goal Orientation, And Metacognitive Strategies, Benjamin P. Granger

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Learner-controlled e-learning has become a preferred medium for the delivery of organizational training. While e-learning offers organizations and trainees many advantages, it also comes with several potential disadvantages. The aim of this study was to explore the relative efficacy of learner- and program-controlled e-learning for content that differs in its complexity. This study also explored cognitive load as a differential mediator of the interaction between learner control and training content complexity for predicting cognitive and behavioral learning outcomes. Finally, learning goal orientation was explored as a motivational individual difference that helps learners cope with complex, learner-controlled e-learning environments. Results suggest …

A Search For Home: Navigating Change In Battlestar Galactica, Kimberly S. Yost

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

This dissertation explores the various ways in which the multiple leaders portrayed in the science fiction television series Battlestar Galactica (2003-2009) navigate extreme conditions of continual change. In addition, the dissertation contains a discussion of the larger narrative themes of love, forgiveness, redemption, and embracing the Other as principles effective leaders must cultivate. Through an interpretation of this specific popular media text, a deeper emotional sensitivity to and understanding of leadership, positive and negative, during extreme crises is gained. Furthermore, the series serves as a vehicle through which viewers can reflect on and engage in their own self-awareness about issues …

Role Of Foundations In The Changing World Of Philanthropy: A Houston Perspective, Ronnie Hagerty

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

From the earliest days of the American nation, philanthropy has had a defining role in leading change. Philanthropy has provided vision and voice for nascent social movements ranging from civil rights and the women’s movement to AIDS research and environmentalism. As the 21st century has moved into its second decade, philanthropy finds itself facing significant pressures that threaten to compromise its ability to innovate and advocate for issues and individuals whose voices cannot be heard over the public rhetoric of the day. Once perceived as the purview of the rich and well connected, modern philanthropy cuts across social, economic, and …

Downsized Survivors: Areas Of Loss And Work Behaviors, Cyndi J. Schaeffer

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

This research design used factor analysis to develop subscales related to areas of loss, and subscales related to work behaviors of survivors following a downsizing. Five loss subscales were revealed as a result of factor analysis. They were loss of sense of justice and supervisory support; loss of security and support; loss of positive outlook; loss of territory; and loss of control and identity. There were two work behavior components identified through factor analysis. They were lack of productivity and sabotage; and intention for flight. The loss components, sense of justice and supervisory support; security and competence; and territory, were …

The Tangled Web: How Nonprofit Board Members Experience Organizational Crisis, Elizabeth A. Valicenti

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

The purpose of this grounded theory study was to develop an understanding of what board members experience during a time of organizational crisis. Major corporate and nonprofit failures of previously successful organizations in recent years have raised questions and led to speculation about the role of boards of directors through the crises. In this study twenty board members of nonprofit organizations who had experienced an organizational crisis during their board service were interviewed. Participants were asked to share their perceptions and explore how they identified and made meaning of the events and board processes that went on as the crisis …

Facilitating Emergence: Complex, Adaptive Systems Theory And The Shape Of Change, Peter Martin Dickens

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

This study used Principal Component Analysis to examine factors that facilitate emergent change in an organization. As organizational life becomes more complex, today’s dominant management paradigms no longer suffice. This is particularly true in a health care setting where multiple sources of disease interacting with each other meet with often-competing organizational priorities and accountabilities in a highly complex world. This study identifies new ways of approaching complexity by embracing the capacity of complex systems to find their own form of order and coherence. Based on a review of the literature, interviews with hospital CEOs, and my organization development practice experience …

Faculty Work: Moving Beyond The Paradox Of Autonomy And Collaboration, Mark A. Hower

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

Freedom to pursue one's intellectual interests, known as professional autonomy, is a valued and longstanding faculty tradition. Profound changes in society and the academy, however, suggest new values may be emerging. Collaboration, for example, is increasingly vital to success outside of the academy, and faculty culture, long an individualistic domain, may be shifting in response. This multiple case study explores how faculty members experience the relationship between professional autonomy and collaboration within the context of their department work. Faculty members in four departments were interviewed and both qualitative and simple quantitative data collected. The study found faculty members satisfied with …

Why Corporate Social Responsibility Will Emerge As A Driver Of Effective And Compelling Differentiation For Chinese Brands, Joseph Baladi

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Although the responsibility and role of business within society have evolved over the past two decades, they remain issues that retain conceptual dimensions. This means that instead of consensus over form and function, both are surrounded by a persistent cloud of disagreement and confusion. Too many people remain unsure about what they represent, the importance they play and the impact they have (or should have) on business as well as society. For one thing, different interpretations of what defines business responsibility to society exist. These range from concern over business’ environmental impact and contribution to climate change, to sustainability practices, …

Building Situational Stimuli In Assessment Center Exercises: Do Specific Exercise Instructions And Role-Player Prompts Increase The Observability Of Behavior?, Eveline Schollaert, Filip Lievens

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Little is known about how assessment center exercises might be designed to better elicit job-relevant behavior. This study uses trait activation theory as a theoretical lens for increasing the number of behaviors that can be observed in assessment centers. Two standardized exercise stimuli (specific exercise instructions and role-player prompts) are proposed, and their effects on the observability of candidate behavior are examined. Results showed a significant effect of role-player prompts in increasing both the general number of behavioral observations and the number of behavioral observations related to three out of four dimensions. Specific exercise instructions did not have effects on …

Repairing Trust With Individuals Vs. Groups, Peter H. Kim, Cecily D. Cooper, Kurt T. Dirks, Donald L. Ferrin

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This study incorporates insights from research on group decision-making and trust repair to investigate the differences that arise when alleged transgressors attempt to regain the trust of groups as compared to individuals. Results indicate that repairing trust is generally more difficult with groups than individuals, and both groups and individuals were less trusting when trustees denied culpability (rather than apologized) for a competence-based violation or apologized (rather than denied culpability) for an integrity-based violation. However, the interaction of violation-type and violation-response also ultimately affected the relative difficulty of repairing trust with groups vs. individuals, with the greater harshness of groups …

The Relationship Between Interaction Patterns On An Online Idea Generation Community And The Implementation Of Ideas, Michael D. Jacobson

Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of the study was to investigate a socially-networked online idea-generation community. Specifically, the study examined the specific interaction patterns on an online social network and the emergence of ideas. Using social-network analysis, the interaction among the network participants was studied. This analysis included examining the relationships among the network participants in the generation and implementation of ideas. Comparisons were made between networks with ideas that were implemented and those that were not. The findings revealed that activities on the community can be expressed from a network perspective and that insights were found about participant relationships and positions in …

A Phenomenological Study Of The Experiences Of Women In Leadership And Community At Old Dominion University From 1970 To 1990, Ann E. Wendle Barnes

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Theses & Dissertations

During the 1970s college campuses in the United States were often the venue through which change occurred. Female faculty and students were assertive in their efforts to influence equality between men and women across the country (Morris, 1984). This historical phenomenological study examined the oral history of several women who advocated for women's rights at Old Dominion University (ODU) by establishing the Women's Caucus, Women's Studies Program, and Women's Center during the late 1970s through the 1990s.

Participants selected for this study took part in semi-structured interviews, and the results of the interviews were triangulated with archived documents available at …

Three Essays On Strategic Risk Taking, Krista Burrill Lewellyn

Theses and Dissertations in Business Administration

The three essays that comprise this dissertation collectively explore strategic risk taking. The dissertation is underpinned by the notion that corporate executives take strategic risks not randomly, but based on the expectation that outcomes are more likely to be positive rather than negative. Each essay examines how and why decision makers come to vary in their cognitive evaluation of the acceptability of strategic risk taking.

Essay 1 draws from the approach/inhibition theory of power, to explore how power not only provides the means for CEOs to exert their risk preferences, but actually affects what the risk preferences are. Power is …

Strategic Discourse Across Organizational Meetings:Towards A Systems Perspective., Brendan K. O'Rourke, Martin Duffy

Conference Papers

Strategic Discourse across Organizational meetings: Towards a Systems Perspective Abstract This paper presents a tentative theoretical conception of how organizational meetings may be viewed as a system rather than as individual events. Perspectives from process metaphysics(Langley and Tsoukas, 2010), meso-discourse analysis (Alvesson and Karreman, 2000, 2011) and systems thinking (von Bertalanffy, 1969) are adopted, to explore and expand the theoretical resources available to conceptualise a ‘system of meetings’. The primary data draws from 130+ hours of recorded meeting proceedings, spanning 58 meeting events, from multiple sub-groups within a medium sized company.

Harnessing Social Capital : An Exploratory Investigation Of Stakeholder Disposition In Boundary Spanning Networks, Brett Martin-Smith

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

This thesis confronts existing bilateral models of stakeholder management. It is based upon the premise that existing models place insufficient value upon the mediating power of individuals and small groups imbued with social capital within an organisational stakeholder environment. Initially, this study explores and maps the complex theoretical relations between organisations, stakeholders and social capital to construct an argument for addressing stakeholder management from a more plural and holistic perspective. The thesis suggests that rapid advances in social media and social interconnection now enables the sentiment of individual stakeholders to aggregate and rapidly form issue-specific interest groups that harness social …

Trust Development In Distributed Teams: A Latent Change Score Model, Evgeniya Pavlova

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Advances in collaborative work tools and communication technologies have made computer-mediated teams a part of virtually every organization. One of the challenges for members of virtual teams is the development of trust. This study examined the reciprocal relationship between trust and effectiveness in virtual teams, employing an input-process-output-input approach. Data were collected from 183 individuals comprising 61 teams. Teams participated in a computer-simulated search and rescue mission. Three alternative latent change score structural equation models were fit to the data to examine the bidirectional relationships between trust and effectiveness. Results revealed that the two

factors of trust, cognition-based trust and …

Community As Metaphor: Dialectical Tensions Of A Racially Diverse Organization, Joseph Jacob Jenkins

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In recent years, a sense of community has declined throughout the United States. Common Point Community Church has responded to this trend by prioritizing "community" as an organizational metaphor. The present study explores how this metaphor is co-constructed through the communication practices of current organizational leaders and members. I begin this process, first, by positioning the study within existing literature on institutional theory, institutional legitimacy, community, community of practice, social construction of race, sensemaking, organizational metaphor, tension-centered approach, and dialectic theory. Building upon more than three years of ethnographic field work, I then outline the study's context and methodology. Next, …

The Effects Of Scenario Planning On Participant Perceptions Of Learning Organization Characteristics, Melissa Haeffner, Deanna Leone, Laura Coons, Thomas Chermack

Environmental Science and Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

Scenario planning is often used by organizations to think about future uncertainties. However, what it does in terms of changing perceptions is diffi cult to assess and quantify. To address this need, this article builds on previous studies documenting the effectiveness of scenario planning. Specifi cally, this article contributes to the data on perceptions of learning organization characteristics. This study compiles quantitative data gathered from 133 individuals working in 10 United States companies who participated in scenario planning. The Dimensions of the Learning Organization Questionnaire (DLOQ) instrument was used in a pre- and post-test research design and differences were analyzed …

Understanding How Timing Of Alliance Formation Affects New-Venture Survival: The Dynamics Of Temporal Congruence And Contingency, David Gomulya

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

New-venture survival has greatly interested many scholars. While alliances have been shown to increase survival, the literature remains silent regarding the effect of timing of alliance formations. Related literatures regarding timing of other types of actions have also been unable to theoretically explain their conflicting empirical findings, which suggest that the effect of timing can range from positive to negative. To fill critical theoretical gaps, I develop a novel model based on temporal changes during the pre- and post-formation phases of an alliance. I show the effect can indeed range from positive to negative. I delineate further boundary condition.

Don't Blame Me: The Effects Of Ceo Power, Board Affiliation, And Sarbanes-Oxley On Ceo Turnover Following Financial Misrepresentation, David Gomulya

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

I examine the conditions under which CEOs are terminated as an outcome of firm financial restatements. I find that chief executive‘s power acts to limit terminations,especially in cases of more severe restatements, while board members most closely affiliated with the CEO appear to avoid the stigma of financial restatements by deflecting blame to the CEO, increasing terminations. I also examine the effectiveness of regulatory remedies such as Sarbanes-Oxley, aimed at strongly penalizing CEOs for financial misrepresentation. Sarbanes-Oxley significantly alters the relationship between CEOs and their board. My context is restating U.S. public firms before (1995-1998) and after Sarbanes-Oxley (2003-2006).

Winter Issue Introduction: A New Publisher For Omj And Articles Completely Dedicated To Current Empirical Research, William P. Ferris

Organization Management Journal

No abstract provided.

Traditional Organizational Behavior Concepts Viewed Through New Lenses, Donald E. Gibson

Organization Management Journal

No abstract provided.

The Relative Importance Of Organizational Justice Dimensions On Employee Outcomes: A Critical Reanalysis Using Relative Weights Analysis, Scott J. Behson

Organization Management Journal

This study examined the collected research on the four dimensions of organizational justice (i.e., distributive, procedural, interpersonal, and informational) by reanalyzing data taken from Colquitt, Conlan, Wesson, Porter & Ng’s (2001) meta-analysis. First, this study uses Relative Weight Analysis (RWA) to assess the relative predictive utility of the four justice dimensions on a set of employee outcomes; this analytic technique is better suited to examine this research question than traditional regression-based techniques. Second, this study examines how different operationalizations of procedural justice can lead to different patterns of results. For analyses using an expansive operationalization of procedural justice, the results …

Introduction To Reviews And Research Of Note, Devi Akella

Organization Management Journal

No abstract provided.

Affective Organizational Commitment And Organizational Citizenship Behavior: Examining The Relationship Through The Lens Of Equity Sensitivity, Richard S. Allen, W. Randy Evans, Charles S. White

Organization Management Journal

The main purpose of this study was to test the relationship between affective organizational commitment (AOC), organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), and equity sensitivity, which heretofore has not been examined. Results revealed an interaction between AOC and equity sensitivity such that persons with an entitled orientation exhibited higher levels of OCB as their degree of AOC increased. Individuals with an entitled orientation and lower levels of AOC exhibited the lowest levels of OCB. This research suggests that organizations should focus on improving the level of AOC in order to increase the citizenship behavior of their entitled members. The moderating effect of …

Key Concepts In Critical Management Studies, Raza Mir

Organization Management Journal

No abstract provided.

Leadership In “Confucian Asia”: A Three-Country Study Of Justice, Trust, And Transformational Leadership, Rajnandini Pillai, Jeffrey S. Kohles, Michelle C. Bligh, Melissa K. Carsten, Glen Brodowsky

Organization Management Journal

Increasing globalization and the economic uncertainty inherent in the recent financial crisis have strained the already tenuous commitment of many employees, making followers’ perceptions of justice and trust more critical now than ever before in retaining a loyal workforce. A model of leadership, organizational justice, trust, and work outcomes such as commitment and satisfaction, similar to the one tested in the US, was extended to three countries in the so-called “Confucian Asian Cluster” in the Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness (GLOBE) study. Data were collected from executives in: Mainland China (N¼131), Singapore (N¼246), and Taiwan (N¼99). Results indicate that …

Leadership Tactics: Enabling Quality Social Exchange And Organizational Citizenship Behavior, Unnikammu Moideenkutty, Stuart M. Schmidt

Organization Management Journal

We examined the relationship between leaders’ positive and negative influence tactics and their subordinates’ organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) directed toward them as well as the quality of the social exchange with them in westernized Middle Eastern organizations. In this study, we used data from 202 supervisor–subordinate dyads in the Sultanate of Oman. Our findings supported the hypothesis that positive leader influence tactics would be positively associated with affirmative social exchange (represented by a combination of leader–member exchange (LMX) and trust) and subordinates’ OCB directed toward supervisors. However, while negative leader influence tactics were related negatively to social exchange, they were …

Hiring And Recruitment As Rhetorical Strategies: An Analysis Of The Way Businesses Approach Graduating University Students And Influence Their Choices, Sean D. Gibson

Communication Studies

To answer the question, which rhetorical strategies are most persuasive to university graduates regarding hiring and recruitment, I surveyed three classrooms with a questionnaire that gauged university graduates attraction to three different types of rhetorical strategies. The rhetoric came from three major businesses that recruit university graduates: College Works Painting, Peace Corps, and Hewlett Packard.

Each one of these businesses uses a different type of strategy to recruit university graduates. College Works Painting uses an Experience Illusion strategy based on the premise that the company will help train university graduates to become managers and leaders in business. Peace Corps’ uses …