Education Commons^™

An Organization’S Ability To Improve Outsourcing Outcomes In Information Technology Outsourcing Initiatives By Increasing Organizational Knowledge: A Case Study, John Michael Mello

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The problem addressed in this study was the literature gap regarding how internal organizational knowledge can be increased effectively within outsourcing projects. The study was a qualitative social constructionist case study composed of senior technology leaders. The purpose this study addressed was to understand the current structure of technical outsourcing contracts and how future contracts could be structured to address the problem of this study. The research incorporated how a reconceptualized absorptive capacity model, sociocognitive theory, and digital leadership mindsets could improve knowledge transfer outcomes between a vendor and client. Research shows that increasing an organization’s knowledge during an outsourcing …

Kid Smart: Relief Effort Through The Arts, Adam Leblanc

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this internship report is to analyze the nonprofit organization KID smART through the lens of my Arts Administration education and training. I will provide a breakdown of the organization’s structure and the components of my internship that occurred during KID smART’s programmatic response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Through my S.W.O.T. analysis, I connect KID smART’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats to best practices of the Arts Administration industry. In conclusion, I offer recommendations of how KID smART can improve as it grows and continues to serve the New Orleans community

The Ripple Effect: ‘Training The Trainer’ On The Impact Of Body Image Through A Dance/Movement Therapy Technique, Marina Gearhart

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

This thesis describes the capstone project which was a psychoeducation and experiential workshop for fitness trainers. The workshop investigated the impact trainers’ work may have on the body image of their clients through a dance/movement therapy (DMT) technique. The aim was to enhance the trainers’ sensitivity around body image issues of their clients and to create a space for vulnerable movement conversation that may in turn lead to better mental health advocacy for their clients within the scope of ethical practice. The participants of the workshop were six white female identifying trainers ranging from 24 to 35 years of age. …

The Environmental Mandate Of Heaven: Confucian Global Governance And Environmentalism In Chinese Policies, Wanchu Changliao

Master's Projects and Capstones

Environmental degradation is a contemporary issue that has gained a lot of attention in recent history for China. The developing country’s industrial revolution has led to unprecedented carbon emissions, and despite efforts to curb population growth, China’s expanding and aging population has presented the country with numerous challenges. In this essay, I examine China’s environmental issues and the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) policy decisions through the lens of Confucian role relations. Through this lens, and given the multitude of challenges China is facing, it may be argued that the PRC is acting out its role as the leader and …

Virtually Constructed Leadership: A Study Of Accountability In An International Non-Profit Organization, Kristopher Ph Tharris

The Dissertation in Practice at Western University

Through the eyes of a leader within a virtual non-profit organization (referred to as the Centre), this Organizational Improvement Plan (OIP) explores the lack of formal accountability amongst an international team of volunteers. The lack of formal accountability has the potential to hinder all interactions of the team, decreasing efficiency of the organization and ultimately decreasing its impact on beneficiaries. The relationship between the volunteer leaders and the Centre is described as organizational volunteerism, where organizations are voluntarily contributing their human resources to benefit the international community. This improvement plan examines a combination of complementary leadership approaches that form a …

Using Scrum To Teach Standards-Based K-12 Computer Science: A Prosepectus For A Master’S Level Methods Class At Buffalo State, Noah M. Pierce

Career & Technical Education Theses

Computer Science has been increasingly prevalent in K-12 education in recent decades. Most Americans believe that Computer Science is as important as other skills taught in school; further, parents are putting pressure on districts to offer Computer Science programs (1.1). To meet this demand, many teacher preparation programs are adding Computer Science Education to their offering of degrees. This thesis investigates Agile and Scrum product development as a potential method of Computer Science instruction, explores the standards relevant to a Computer Science teacher, and offers a prospectus for a new Graduate Level Methods class to prepare Computer Science teachers to …

Social Media Preferences Of Individuals Seeking Graduate Business Degrees, Peyton N. Boxberger, Hannah C. Lee

Management Undergraduate Honors Theses

The purpose of this thesis is to provide actionable insight to the Walton MBA Programs Office for a cohesive social media strategy that is inclusive of all audiences. This research hopes to help the Walton MBA program better understand potential and current students based on their social media behavior and learn how social media use has changed due to the global COVID-19 pandemic. This report will analyze the results of a survey crafted to better understand the social media preferences of individuals seeking graduate business degrees. From these, a social media marketing strategy can be created to tailor content to …

Increasing The Importance Of Sleep Education In College Students, Mireya Ysena Cortez

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

What is sleep education? How can one take accountability in teaching college students the importance of sleep and the effects on their overall health and wellbeing? By implementing sleep knowledge in school curriculums, especially in emerging adults, will aid gaps within the educational system. In a culture of "pulling all nighters," university students risk detrimental health risks and psychological issues during college and throughout the rest of their life. The purpose of this project is to shed light on the issue of Increasing the importance of sleep education in college students. In an environment that entails a high degree of …

Higher Education Business And Technology Leaders’ Behaviors That Drive Outcome Alignment, Katherine Lynch-Holmes

Dissertations

Higher education institutions (HEIs) face unprecedented challenges, including capacity alignment, financial sustainability, and even public confidence (Grajeck & Brooks, 2020; Grawe, 2019; Oblinger, 2019; Simone, 2020, Wheeler, 2020, Witt & Coyne, 2019). Financial challenges force HEIs to reduce costs by making decisions like cutting programs, laying off staff or merging institutions to reduce operating costs (Chen et al., 2019; Sellingo, 2017; Witt & Coyne, 2019). Higher education leaders (HELs) must act as trusted partners and broker technology to align processes, support, and outcomes (Luftman 2000; Petkovics, 2018; Reinitz, 2019). Unfortunately, higher education’s business-technology (BITA) alignment remains lower than other national …

A Podcast Designed To Discuss The Lives Of Students, Faculty, And Alumni In The San Luis Obispo Community, Sienna Addison

Journalism

This project was developed to describe the process of creating and launching a podcast for students, faculty and staff of California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo to educate and inspire endeavors in entrepreneurship. The research began with the growing use of podcasting in higher education, as well as the increase in popularity and accessibility of podcasts in the last 20 years. The project was first developed by David Kozuch, a student at California Polytechnic State University in the fall of the 2019 school year and has continued to grow in the years since. Polycast is the published resulting …

Agreement Success Plan, Miranda Holtz

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

Monterey County Health Department’s Administration Bureau works with contracts and agreements for the Public Health Bureau, which detail what services programs will complete so that they can receive funding or maintain a partnership with the County. The problem was that a large portion of the management analyst’s time was dedicated towards technical support for agreements. The Agreement Success Pan is aimed to increase efficiency by aiding program staff with agreements through a Prezi, which is similar to a self-paced webinar. The project had three phases; interviews of program supervisors or managers, gathering supporting documents, and final launch. Afterward, a questionnaire …

Central Appalachia Severance Taxation And Policies For Future Economic Growth, Nathan Frisbie

Honors Theses

Central Appalachia is a region in the United States that has been referred to as a paradox by researchers who have studied it. The area is rich with natural resources, yet the region lacks economic development. The mineral extraction industry has been the center of the economy for over a hundred years. The reliance on the industry has caused Central Appalachia to fall behind in several categories. The region has unusually high concentrations of poverty and low high school graduation rates. The revenue from the taxation of coal is the primary source of income for many of the rural counties. …

A Novel Design Of Vitual And Mixed Reality Scenarios For Automation Training, Andres Salinas-Hernandez

Morehead State Theses and Dissertations

A thesis presented to the faculty of the College of Business and Technology at Morehead State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree Master of Science by Andrés Salinas-Hernández on April 23, 2021.

Venturing Into Virtual: A Study Of The Impact Of Virtual Alumni Engagement On The Alumni- Alma Mater Relationship In Higher Education, Leah B. Downey

School of Professional and Continuing Studies Nonprofit Studies Capstone Projects

The arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States prompted an unanticipated change in the fundamental ways in which alumni relations offices at higher education institutions engage their alumni populations. It necessitated a transition into virtual programming and engagement efforts. The impact of this shift into operating almost exclusively online is relatively unknown, with little scholarly research currently existing on the topic. Following a comprehensive review of the existing literature, this study compared the five-year historical trends in alumni engagement at a small, private liberal arts institution to survey feedback provided by alumni volunteers. Seeking to understand the impact …

A Study On The Federal Reserve’S Influence On The Stock Market, Patrick Mcfarland

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Projects

With the growing age of the tech economy, post housing crash financial market, and unprecedented challenges like a global pandemic with a death toll in the millions, major financial institutions in the United States have been forced to reconsider many aspects of the old ways of doing things. The most influential institution in the U.S., the Federal Reserve (the Fed), has become more involved with the financial markets over the past several decades. Using a sample of 134 publicly-traded companies, I analyzed variables to assess the effects of the Fed’s new influence on market expectations from the past ten years. …

Forensic Accounting At Bgsu: A Proposal, Allison Mishka

Honors Projects

Forensic accounting is a field utilizing accounting and investigative knowledge to detect and examine financial fraud. There is growing demand for professionals in the field. Currently Bowling Green State University (BGSU) does not offer a forensic accounting course. To determine if introducing a forensic accounting to BGSU is appropriate at this time, I have researched other accounting programs and forensic accounting courses. I have also conducted surveys of Schmidthorst College of Business students and faculty as well as forensic accounting professionals to determine if implementing a forensic accounting course would be beneficial to the university and to students. Based on …

Cultivating Change: Creating A Business Proposal For The Office Of Innovation At Morehead State University, Alan M. Rucker

Morehead State Theses and Dissertations

A capstone submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Education in the College of Education at Morehead State University by Alan M. Rucker on April 5, 2021.

Enhancing Engineering Change Management Processes Of Small Manufacturing Enterprises (Smes): A Case Study, Michael Alan Schemel

Morehead State Theses and Dissertations

A thesis presented to the faculty of the College of Business and Technology at Morehead State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science by Michael Alan Schemel on April 2, 2021.

Relationship Between Working With Professional Evaluators And An Organization’S Evaluation Culture, James M. Wharton

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Mission-based organizations like zoos and aquariums are investing in evaluation capacity to help them improve their mission performance, but are these resources improving their professional culture, or merely creating evaluations? This study surveyed the leadership from 100 programming departments at accredited U.S. zoos and aquariums to learn how work with professional evaluators might be related to the nature of an organization’s evaluation culture. Survey results showed no statistically significant relationships between a self-reported measure of evaluation culture and either institutional demographics or work with professional evaluators. Follow-up interviews with nine case study organizations, however, were more supportive of the role …

Elements Of Effective, Engaging, And Enjoyable Education Environments, Ivan Harjehausen

Senior Theses

I explore three elements of effective education that promote student development. First, a classroom culture that encourages students to be responsible for managing their own learning rather than relying on the teacher can boost student learning. Two ways of accomplishing this are teachers communicating high expectations for students and teachers normalizing the concept of failure by acknowledging that making mistakes is an essential part of learning.

Second, teachers can model the skills and attitudes they hope to cultivate in students. Children learn by observing behavior of parents then imitating; these same learning mechanisms do not stop in childhood but rather …

Carolina Consulting Scholars Cohort: Enabling Students To Be Stronger Analytical Thinkers And Problem Solvers, Alexis Mcconomy, Justin Farley

Senior Theses

Undergraduate students at the Moore School currently have limited avenues to pursue management consulting upon graduating from the University of South Carolina. The Darla Moore School of Business has academic excellence initiatives that have led to great success from certain programs and centers; however, there lacks a formalized support system to help students looking for internships or full-time roles in consulting. Our proposed Consulting Scholars cohort seeks to gather top students from all majors and offer them a cohort that will educate and prepare them for success as future consultants. By leveraging existing classes within the Management department and the …

I’Ve Got The Power! Agency, Empowerment, And Motivation In Career Management, Mirit Kastelman Grabarski

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Careers are increasingly understood to be agentic. Therefore, individual motivation is now critically important to career development. Yet, the motivational, agentic, aspect of career development is still under-theorized. Existing concepts that refer to agentic control combine motivation, values, behaviours, emotions, and even contextual factors. These compound constructs are effective for predicting career outcomes, but they do not allow a direct examination of motivation alone. By conceptualizing motivation as a strictly cognitive construct following the established understanding of psychological empowerment, I develop a new scale of career empowerment that predicts additional variance above and beyond several existing career scales.

Based on …

Navigating The Murky Middle: Understanding How Career Aspirations And Experiences Influence The Career Progression Of Women Identifying, Student Affairs, Middle Managers, Lindsey Gilmore

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Capstones

Even though women have made tremendous strides in many facets of education, ascending the administrative and leadership ranks within universities at a proportionate ratio to the number of women who peak as middle managers is not one of them. In the past 40 years, the number of women serving as presidents of universities across the nation has increased less than 10% from 21.1% in 1975 to 30.1% in 2016 (ACE, 2018). If a woman does find herself serving at the helm of an institution, it is more than likely at a “private, liberal arts schools rather than at doctoral granting, …

Stakeholder Experiences With Arts-Based University-Community Partnerships In General Education, Veronica Leone Matthews

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

University-community partnerships (UCPs) have significant potential as a way for universities to connect with communities and provide students with High Impact Practices (HIPs). Despite over 20 years of literature calling for increased community engagement, institutions of higher education have been slow to integrate UCPs into the General Education curriculum. Certain components have been identified as necessary for the effectiveness and sustainability of UCPs. However, little is known about the experiences and perceptions of key stakeholders including students, faculty, and community partners who participate in arts-based UCPs. This study investigated these stakeholders’ perceptions regarding participating in arts-based UCPs as part of …

Phenomenological Study On The Lived Experience Of Black Women In Positions Of Leadership In California State Government, Tonia Burgess

Dissertations

Purpose: The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore the lived experiences of Black women in their roles as leaders in the California state government with respect to support received and barriers encountered.

Methodology: The phenomenological qualitative study involved exploring the lived experiences of 12 Black women in positions of leadership in northern California state government with regard to the supports they received and the barriers they encountered during their careers in California state government. Patton (2015) asserted that phenomenology's philosophical interpretation occurs when individuals only know what they experience. Additionally, "to fully understand the phenomenon, it must be …

Dames Paving Pathways To Directorships. A Study About Female Leaders In Art Museums In The United States, Mechele Manno

Dissertations

Purpose: The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study was to examine and describe the career pathways of female art museum directors in the United States

Methodology: This phenomenological study described lived experiences of eight female art museum directors with over five years of directorship experience from museums with operating budgets over $10 million and in states that receive the highest private funding: CA, DC, IL, MA, NY, OH, PA, and TX. Data collection consisted of in-depth interviews using a scripted interview guide in research categories: a) motivation; b) career advancement; c) barriers; and d) support.

Findings: All major findings were …

Generational Giving In Public Higher Education, Christine Bernot

Murray State Theses and Dissertations

Abstract

Competition for donors and dollars between higher education and the non-profit sector has never been greater, with Americans giving nearly $450 billion in philanthropic support to charitable organizations in 2019 (IUPUI, 2020). Alumni of higher education institutions are a natural constituency group with a history of giving back to support student needs and programs.

New research in fundraising for higher education analyzing generational giving behaviors of alumni graduate donors could help universities better understand their giving results and support the innovation of new fundraising strategies and best practices. This quantitative research study used historical giving data to examine the …

Influencing Employee Retention Through Recruitment, Selection, And Onboarding Practices, Monica Gillette

Education Projects

According to the Society for Human Resource Management (2019), 47% of human resource managers cite employee turnover as their biggest organizational challenge. This is a critical issue within most organizations and can directly affect overall business effectiveness as teams lose internal knowledge centers and see a decrease in productivity when they have vacancies. Moreover, employee turnover can cost the organization as much as three times the employee’s salary (Maurer, 2019) in recruitment efforts and lost productivity. There are three key areas in which hiring managers can proactively influence employee retention: employee recruitment methodology, the interview and selection process, and employee …

Mission Possible– Engaging Partners, Participants, And Patrons, Jewel Harrington

Education Projects

The purpose of this project was to lead the Tall One Outreach Ministries through a strategic revision of its mission statement. The revision yielded the organization to Mission Possible–Engaging Partners, Participants, and Patrons. Our goal was to serve and expand the purpose of Tall One Outreach Ministries. In addition, our goal was to seek to align the mission with result-driven outcomes of the three-fold outreach pursuits categorized as arts and entertainment, educational outreach, and business services. The focus of the consultancy project devoted time to the Arts and Entertainment sector as initiatives were established for Wilson Idol, Spare the Rod …

Método De Enseñanza De Valores Lasallistas Por Medio Del B-Learning En La Universidad De La Salle De Bogotá, Carolina Arévalo Rodríguez

Doctorado en Educación y Sociedad

La universidad se enfrenta a la flexibilidad del tiempo y el espacio en la enseñanza de valores. Se hace necesario el diseño de nuevos métodos de enseñanza a través de las TIC y apoyar las diferentes modalidades de educación a pesar de los desafíos de la universidad: la resistencia al cambio, la habilidad tecnológica de los docentes y estudiantes, la motivación de los estudiantes y el acompañamiento permanente. Esta investigación doctoral tuvo como objetivo determinar el alcance formativo de un método de enseñanza de valores (lasallistas) bajo la modalidad b-learning en estudiantes de pregrado de la Universidad de La Salle …