Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Two-Year And Four-Year Tertiary Education: Measuring Human Capital Effects On Economic Growth In Developing And Developed Countries With The Uzawa-Lucas Model, Darryl M. Tyndorf

Educational Foundations & Leadership Theses & Dissertations

Tertiary education is believed to be a driver of economic development through the relationship between human capital development and economic output. Global massification efforts of tertiary education have led to increased global demand. Countries with limited tertiary education systems, like developing countries, have employed policies to increase domestic tertiary education opportunities instead of sending students abroad. Many tertiary education policies have focused on importing tertiary education from countries with established tertiary education systems. Import efforts first emphasized university models, but limited success prompted the import of more flexible short-cycle education modeled after the United States’ community college system. Limited empirical …

Examining The Relationship Between Leadership Decision Making Styles And Personality Type Within The Department Of Defense, Antoine Lamont Prince Sr.

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Leadership is perhaps the single most important function within the Department of Defense. While the old cliché “everyone is a leader regardless of position” may hold moral meaning, personnel in leadership positions are key. Under the umbrella of leadership is decision making. What leadership is to an organization, decision making is to leadership. Yet, despite this knowledge, unsound decisions are readily conducted. There are various theories as to why this holds true, one of which is personality type. Research however, shows that there is a limited amount of relevant knowledge to determine if there is in fact a …

Honor, Courage, Commitment: Understanding Sexual Assault In The United States Navy, Caitlin Veronica Muldoon

Sociology & Criminal Justice Theses & Dissertations

Recently, sexual assault within the military community has been drawing the attention of the media, military leaders, politicians and every day citizens. Criminologists however have traditionally not addressed this crime, and have specifically not addressed sexual assault within the US Navy. This dissertation seeks to address the current gap in literature by examining the sociocultural workplace climate of the US military and its possible contribution to the occurrence of sexual assaults. Utilizing original data obtained by NCIS, regression models were ran to evaluate sexual assault victim and offender demographics. The surprising findings were then discussed within the context of possible …

Communication Support And Religious Support In Managing Occupational Stress In Military Careers: A Career-Span Approach, Shantonee' Malee Mitchell

Communication & Theatre Arts Theses

This thesis reports an exploratory and descriptive study of communication support and religious support used by military personnel to manage occupational stress over the course of a career and their perceived effectiveness at helping to manage occupational stress. Drawing on a lifespan communication approach, this study employed a careerspan perspective where occupational stressors and sources of support (human and religious) are examined over the course of military careers. Results find three different groups of sources of communicative support were used in different ways to help manage military occupational stress: sources within the military, sources outside of the military, and religious …

An Examination Of Factors That Influence Teacher Adoption Of Bring Your Own Device In The Classroom, Shawn Patrick Lloyd Hirano

School of Public Service Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of this research is to examine if and how Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) is implemented in secondary public schools by focusing on teacher adoption of BYOD in the classroom. Given the newness of BYOD, there is little research on how school districts have implemented this policy or why and how teachers have adopted the practice in their classroom. Using both Innovation Diffusion Theory (IDT) and the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), this research investigated several key elements that could influence teacher adoption of BYOD: teacher characteristics, school culture, and professional development. The population for this mixed method study …

Path Dependence In Intrastate Conflicts: Resources, Regimes, And Interventions, Ivan Medynskyi

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation investigates the patterns of path dependence in intrastate conflicts. It is motivated by three research questions: What factors determine a particular outcome of a civil war? How strong is their impact? What are the causal mechanisms in play? To examine these questions, this study introduces a theory of path dependence to the study of intrastate conflicts that bridges the gap between analyses of the phases of contention.

First, it examines the broad understanding of path dependence that highlights the impact of initial conditions on civil war outcomes. Then, this dissertation explores the narrower notion which focuses on the …

The Role Of Diversity On Team Effectiveness In A Multinational And Multicultural Military Environment, Mustafa Utoglu

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The trend of deploying multinational coalition or alliance forces to respond to emerging threats in the past two decades has become a conventional approach. Beyond the advantages presented by coalitions and alliances, the literature suggests that multinational forces have raised a new set of challenges in achieving their mission: managing the demographic, functional, and cultural diversity introduced by the individuals from various nations that compose the coalition/alliance.

A large number of researchers have considered diversity a "double-edged sword" as they discovered that diversity could pose risks, as well as benefits, to teamwork. Although extensive research effort has been dedicated to …

Exploring Conceptualization And Operationalization Of Interorganizational Interactions: An Empirical Study, Andrew Paul Williams

School of Public Service Theses & Dissertations

Collaboration and other forms of interaction between complex arrangements of private, nonprofit, and public organizations to address challenging policy problems now occurs routinely. In many cases collaboration is mandated by law, and often disbursement of grants to nonprofits is contingent upon demonstrating collaboration with other organizations. To understand this contemporary landscape of public administration and develop cumulative knowledge, theory requires reliable and valid constructs of collaboration and other forms of interorganizational interaction. Theoretical rigor then underpins practice, including the growing discipline of evaluating the level of interaction between organizations or an organization’s “collaborative capacity,” and to understand more broadly how …

A Framework To Simplify The Choice Of Alternative Analysis And Selection Methods, James Paul Lewis Holzgrefe

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation contributes a framework for analysts and engineering managers to investigate and choose alternative analysis and selection methods based upon their problem and its context. It began as an investigation into the alternative analysis and selection methods used in military planning. The existing military methods were inconsistent, violated the decision science body of knowledge, and provided no guidance to the practitioner on matching methods to problems. These challenges made it necessary to conduct this investigation.

This research used a three-phase mixed methods approach. The first phase applied the general inductive method to the decision making body of knowledge to …

U.S. Military Aid And The Role Of Foreign Armies In Civil Politics, Jennifer Jones Cunningham

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

The recent expansion of the Egyptian military's role in civil politics has led to uncertainty regarding the relationship between U.S. military aid and democratization. However, studies focusing on the link between foreign aid and democratization often exclude military aid from their analyses. This omission is particularly problematic given that civilian control over the military is a vital precondition for democratic consolidation, and a high percentage of U.S. military aid recipients are not yet consolidated democracies. Proponents of military aid point to the role security cooperation can play in diffusing democratic norms of professionalism. Critics worry military aid strengthens an institution …

Armed Humanitarian Intervention: The Role Of Powerful Leaders In Framing And The National Security Decision Making Process, John Marshall Callahan

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

This study identifies and analyzes the decision making and framing processes for selected cases of armed humanitarian intervention by the United States in the post-Cold War Era. It fills a gap in the literature on decision making, focusing on the role of the powerful individual leader in national security decision making and the framing of interventions to the U.S. public and other stakeholder audiences. An examination of extant literature on the subject of U.S. foreign policy decision making, and development and implementation of framing strategies is used to determine the role of the individual leader in those processes using three …

Determining If Development Capacity Leads To The Attainment Of Redevelopment Goals For Six Communities Affected By Base Realignment And Closure (1988, 1991, And 1993), Paula J. Loomis

School of Public Service Theses & Dissertations

The McGuire et al. model (1994) showed that development of a strategic plan led to higher development capacity, but did not address the relationship between development capacity and redevelopment success. This study examined the link between development capacity and redevelopment success.

This study examined six base realignment and closure communities. Following the Yin Multiple Case Study Method, each community was evaluated on its own merits before being compared with other communities. In this study the McGuire et al. model was expanded to fourteen variables in three categories; citizen participation, community structure, and development instruments. Redevelopment success was measured by attainment …

Analyzing Driver Behavior And Traffic Flow Breakdowns At The Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel, Michelle L. Allen

Civil & Environmental Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel (HRBT) is a major link for activity in Hampton Roads. The eastbound direction also suffers from congestion during both morning and peak hours. During these periods of congestion, the flow rate varies in regards to the location of the congestion. This study focuses on investigating driver behavior during these different conditions and briefly investigates the cost of delay due to the different capacities. To accomplish this, per vehicle record data (PVR) is used. This data, collected at the exit of the tunnel, provides information on arrival time, speed, lane location, vehicle class, and time headway. …

The Relationship Between Emotional Intelligence And Ethical Behavior: A Case Study Of Administrative Employees At A Mid-Atlantic University, Najwa Mordhah

School of Public Service Theses & Dissertations

The current study examined the relationship between emotional intelligence and ethical behavior in one of the large-sized public universities. Approximately 270 administrative employees working at Mid-Atlantic University (MAU) were asked to complete surveys that assessed their emotional intelligence dimensions as well as their level of ethical behavior. This study examined three hypotheses to investigate the relationship between each dimension of emotional intelligence and level of ethical behavior.

Results of the statistical analyses revealed that some of the four dimensions of emotional intelligence are significantly correlated, some positively and other negatively, with different levels of ethical behavior. Even though the first …

Street-Level Bureaucratic Discretion: An Investigation Of Disproportionality In The Child Welfare And Juvenile Justice Systems, Nina Frola Joyner

School of Public Service Theses & Dissertations

This study seeks to provide a structural explanation for a poorly understood administrative and policy phenomenon: the problem of minority overrepresentation or disproportionality in the child welfare and juvenile justice systems. Disproportionality is a pressing policy and practice concern regarding how to halt the continual over representation of African American and other minority youth in the child welfare and juvenile justice systems. It has social and policy implications at the national, state and local level. Disporportionality affects the lives of youth who are unnecessarily removed from their families or adjudicated and detained as well as state and local budgets when …

Key Factors Driving Personnel Downsizing In Multinational Military Organizations, Ilksen Gorkem

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Although downsizing has long been a topic of research in traditional organizations, there are very few studies of this phenomenon in military contexts. As a result, we have little understanding of the key factors that drive personnel downsizing in military settings. This study contributes to our understanding of key factors that drive personnel downsizing in military organizations and whether those factors may differ across NATO nations' cultural clusters. The theoretical framework for this study was built from studies in non-military contexts and adapted to fit the military environment.

This research relies on historical data from one of the largest multinational …

Nato Educational Readiness For The Millennials, John Patrick Kelley

Educational Foundations & Leadership Theses & Dissertations

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), formed in 1949 and described as the most successful alliance in history, is facing change. By 2020, the majority of students in the NATO educational institutions will be Millennium Generation students. To best meet this student group's educational needs, changes to the delivery of educational content may be needed. This study determined how Millennial Generation characteristics may change as Millennials mature, how military service may change Millennials, confirmed the international nature of Millennial characteristics across the 28 nations of NATO and predicted the state of educational technology in 2020.

This qualitative study investigated these …