Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

How Political Elite Leverage Twitter To Polarize America, Woodson Morris Hobbs V

Theses and Dissertations

While social media has changed how humans use the internet, Twitter has drastically reformed how individuals worldwide receive their news. As news outlets fail to keep up with the rapid dissemination of information online, Twitter has become a sounding board for the political elite who leverage the platform's immediacy and virality. This study, using Quantitative Ethnography's Epistemic Network Analysis, seeks to determine if the political elite, specifically members of Congress, are leveraging Twitter to spread polarizing information to strengthen their base. In this study, extensive coding of select members of the 118th Congress was completed and compared to Voteview.com's DW-Nominate …

The Trials And Tribulations Of Informal Diversity Workers And How Leadership Can Help: A Qualitative Analysis, Sierra Renee Kane

Theses and Dissertations

A crucial part of including diversity, equity, and inclusion within the workplace involves the efforts of diversity workers (Ahmed, 2017) who introduce equitable and inclusive measures, policies, rituals, and customs into the workplace. Informal diversity workers voluntarily or involuntarily conduct this unpaid labor within their organizations to enact inclusive and equitable measures. This dissertation analyzes informal diversity workers’ experiences and the unique communication challenges they encounter, how they overcome these challenges, and how leadership can aid them in DEI efforts.Informal diversity workers offer unique perspectives as company employees with insight into the organizational culture while conducting informal DEI procedures. This …

Seeking Justice And Effecting Organizational Change: Kategoria As A Form Of Rhetorical Leadership, Marnie Lawler Mcdonough

Theses and Dissertations

Organizational scandals at both the institutional and leadership levels abound in society, and, with growing platforms and forums to level allegations, public accusations by myriad individuals have increased. As an understudied genre, kategoria, or speeches of accusation, should be considered for their ability to influence change. In this study, I argue that kategoria can be employed as a form of rhetorical leadership and utilized as a tool to disrupt value hierarchies and, thus, effect organizational change. This investigation assumes a genre analysis to move beyond establishing accusation simply as a classification of forensic rhetoric but to illustrate that the generic …

Yay Or Nay? A Media Analysis Of How Deception Is Utilized As A Leadership Tactic In The Television Show Sons Of Anarchy, Bruce T. Lanigan

Theses and Dissertations

Deception is a tactic that is seen by individuals on a daily basis. One of the places most people endure deception is in the workplace. This thesis analyzes how leaders utilize deception in the workplace through the television show Sons of Anarchy. Throughout the show, both transformational and transactional leadership styles are present. Various story arcs portraying deceptive actions will be analyzed through the lenses of leader-member exchange theory and interpersonal deception theory. This thesis reveals that transformational leaders utilize deception more effectively, while transactional leaders use deceptive measures more frequently.

Cross Cultural Meta-Analysis Of Personality And Leadership Effectiveness And Evaluation Of Changes Over Time, Laura Lynn Motel

Theses and Dissertations

The research integrates and expands upon trait theory and culturally-endorsed leadership theory by performing a meta-analysis of the big five personality traits relationships with leadership effectiveness through a cultural and temporal lens. Using only organizational and military/government samples, this investigation delivers three important contributions; corroborates support for trait theory, reveals trait variability, and identifies trends in global leadership. In order to be a “Great Man”, a person needs to be born with the right traits at the right time in the right place. Consistent with prior meta-analytical research, big five traits consistently predicted leadership effectiveness, further supporting trait theory. While …

The Rhetorical Ties That Bind (Or Divide): President Barack Obama's Attitude Of Tolerance In An Age Of Ultra-Partisanship, Thomas Archie Salek

Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation, I explore how President Barack Obama’s rhetoric seeks to shift conversations away from traditional notions of the political and into more localized discussion and forms of civic engagement. Using three case studies from his second presidential term, I stress that Obama’s rhetoric illustrates how a leader can use speech as the incipient act for fomenting a new attitude toward civic engagement. For Obama, this involved shifting the locus for political change away from Washington and lawmakers and onto the American electorate themselves. To empower individuals, Obama’s rhetoric stressed that ultra-partisanship was a contagion facing America in the …

Exploring The Relationship Between Faculty Perceptions Of Chairperson-Faculty Member Communication Exchanges And Department Climate, Jodi Lynn Hallsten Lyczak

Theses and Dissertations

Leadership communication has many consequences: those that affect an organization and its outcomes, and those that affect the followers. In academia, one of the most important leadership roles is that of the departmental chairperson. Through her or his communication, the academic chairperson influences nearly every aspect of departmental life for faculty, including organizational climate. In fact, it can be argued that the chairperson helps both create and sustain the department climate for faculty.

One perspective of leadership and communication posits that leadership is enacted in the dyadic communication that occurs between the leader and the follower. According to Leader Member …

The Positive Impact Of Negative Feedback, Mark B. Richey

Theses and Dissertations

While feedback is an essential element of performance, there is little theory explaining the effects of negative feedback. Disagreement exists as to whether negative feedback is good or bad and this impacts its use. Fortunately, control theory provides scholars with an opportunity to better understand negative feedback and the conditions necessary to support its intended function. This study examined the relationship between negative feedback and task performance in a leadership development environment. This work asserts that performance is contingent on perceived feedback usefulness, such that the relationship is stronger when feedback usefulness is high and weaker when it is low. …

Manager Tools Podcast: A Study Of Podcasting's Effectiveness With Profit Potential, Quincy Frodesen Beal

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis seeks to understand further the effectiveness and profit potential of podcasting. The study combines the theories of uses and gratifications and subjective theory of value to create a model for podcasting's value. The model is put to the test using the Manager Tools podcast as the subject. Data suggest the three main drivers behind perceived podcast effectiveness are pleasure, habit, and information gathering. Relaxation proved to have a negative influence on perceived effectiveness. The audience's willingness to pay was determined by perceived effectiveness, scarcity, and habit. Though not a generalizable study, the conclusion discusses the findings' implications on …

Leadership In Groups: Social Networks And Perceptions Of Formal And Informal Leaders, Mitchell D. Stratton

Theses and Dissertations

The labors of organizational and behavioral science researchers have resulted in a literature robust in the study of leadership and social networks. Empirical examination of both topics has shown significant organizational outcomes, but breadth is lacking both within and between the disciplines. Studies of leadership have seen the preponderance of the effort focused on formal leaders, while most social network studies examine only one informal structure. Moreover, there exists a paucity of studies, which have sought to examine the interrelationships between leadership and social networks. In an effort to address these voids, this thesis investigated: 1) The concurrent existence of …