Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Convergence Of Engagement Leadership And Leader-Driven Retrenchment Business Strategies: A Phenomenological Approach, Larry Mitchel Hill

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Scholars and practitioners have studied employee engagement extensively since the late 1990s. Because engaged employees can create a competitive advantage for business enterprises, academics and practitioners have emphasized the need for further research into the relationship between leadership, context, and engagement. There is a gap between knowledge of employee engagement and leaders’ ability to directly engage employees through decisions, actions, and behaviors. Researchers have suggested that employees’ situational assessment also influences their engagement. The purpose of this study was to explore how leader-driven retrenchment strategies during a severe and protracted economic downturn interacted with business leaders’ ability to engage their …

Let's Take A Selfie! Living In A Snapchat Beauty Filtered World:The Impact It Has On Women's Beauty Perceptions, Angelina Cruz

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Snapchat's beauty filters have become a prominent force in the social media realm. It's vital in understanding the impact in how Snapchat's beauty filters shape beauty standards among young women. This became the primary motivation of conducting this qualitative study. Six focus groups were conducted to explore the depths of why female college students between the ages of 18-25 decide to post either selfies with Snapchat's beauty filters applied or natural images. Dialectical tensions theory was used as the foundation for this study to explore both the internal and external discursive struggles young women face when deciding to post natural …

Nike's Corporate Social Advocacy (Csa) Practices As Related To Strategic Issues Management (Sim) And Threats To Organizational Legitimacy, Eve Heffron

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This research examined how corporate social advocacy (CSA) and corporate social responsibility (CSR) efforts impacted perceptions of authenticity. Using an experimental survey, participants were randomly exposed to Nike's actions related to the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement via mock-online news articles. Participants completed a survey that contained Likert-type scale items regarding attitudes (perceived corporate intent, perceived authenticity, brand trust, and brand credibility) and behavioral intentions (word of mouth intentions (WOM), and purchase intention (PI)). Results indicated that positive attitudes significantly increased when Nike implemented an action step after taking a public stance on a controversial social-political issue. Further, results revealed …

The Unacceptable Rise: An Investigation Of School Shootings In The United States, Tracy Gulliford

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This research study examined teachers' understanding of risk factors and characteristics of potential perpetrators of school shootings, as well as the steps to take when they are identified in students. Participants completed a survey that contained Likert-type scale items regarding self efficacy and open-ended questions regarding school violence experiences. A mixed methods analysis revealed three primary conclusions. First, teachers have high levels of self-efficacy regarding the importance of and ability to deal effectively with troubled students. This conclusion suggests that teachers do internalize the relevance of this issue to them. Second, this study revealed a gap in terms of the …

Brief Behavioral Health Intervention Program For Patients With Stable Coronary Artery Disease, Chelsea Wiener

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Healthy eating, physical activity, stress management, and smoking cessation are widely recognized as essential for preventing and treating coronary artery disease (CAD). Research on lifestyle programs for patients with CAD has largely focused on long-term interventions (e.g., several months to one-year in duration). Further, many studies have recruited patients immediately post-cardiac event. By contrast, evaluation of brief lifestyle interventions for stable patients treated in outpatient cardiology is lacking. The present study evaluated the feasibility, acceptability, and efficacy of a 3-session behavioral health lifestyle program for patients with stable CAD being treated in an outpatient cardiology clinic. Thirty-three patients were randomized …

Cognitive And Vascular Risk Factors For Depression: Testing An Integrated Theoretical Framework, Rosanna Scott

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Objective: Theoretical models that have guided the study of later-life depression include the vascular depression hypothesis, depression-executive dysfunction syndrome, and the CaR-FA-X model. Evidence suggests these can be integrated into a single developmental model of disordered mood (and its associated overgeneral memory feature) in later-life to delineate a mechanism of the vascular depression effect and identify modifiable intervention targets. Methods: In older adults, four serial mediation models evaluated the relationships between (1) vascular burden and depressive symptoms via executive control and rumination, and (2) vascular burden and autobiographical memory specificity (AMS) via executive control and rumination. In younger adults, four …

Contrasting Chicago School And Kaleckian Theories: Industrial Organization, Income Distribution, And Historical Policy Significance In The United States, Henry Aaron Dobbs

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this paper is to identify the role that long-run industry concentration plays in determining the distribution of income, particularly in the past four decades in the United States, as well as examining how industry concentration has developed during that period. The paper is especially focused on the fall in labor’s share of income. First, I examine current literature regarding trends in industry concentration and its relation to the distribution of income. Next, I examine the historical impact of the Chicago School of Economics on this subject, focusing on the school of thought’s propositions regarding industry concentration, their …

Don't Let Their Future Blow Away: An Integrated Methodology To Inform School Leaders Of The Dimensions And Determinants Of School Vulnerability Leading To Disaster Learning Loss, Kaleen Daneil Weiland

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

School leaders play a key role in the critical functions of emergency response in a school system, including purposefully sustaining safe, secure, and healthy learning environments for all students before and after a disaster. Despite these values, school leaders remain underprepared and often unaware of the vulnerabilities associated with weather, climate, and other disaster events and the potential threat that climate change poses to both student achievement and access to education. This study presents school-leaders with a landscape-scale geospatial vulnerability assessment of school districts exposed to, or threatened by, hurricanes in order to improve mitigation efforts in schools. In this …

Social Aspects Of Food-Sensitive Adults, Jean Elizabeth Duane

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

People living with food-related illnesses find themselves subjugated by commonly held ideologies causing awkwardness in social situations. The current study is a qualitative analysis addressing how people with celiac disease (CD) navigate social situations in light of dominant beliefs that influence behaviors. Initially, I identify macro-level patriarchal, religious, sexist, ableist and etiquette-related commensality ideologies that disadvantage those with CD. Drawing from the communication narrative sense making (CNSM) theory that supports storytelling and memorable messages as a sense-making tool for individuals diagnosed with chronic illness and their family members, this work highlights retrospective stories and memorable messages from 20 randomly selected …

Museum To Museum Collaboration: Exploring The Relationships Between Museums And Cultural Organizations In Denver, Colorado, Leah Zavaleta

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Collaboration has become a cornerstone of contemporary museum practice. In the United States, the anthropological literature on collaboration and museums has tended to be dominated by discussions on collaboration between museums and Indigenous communities in the course of implementing the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990. To date, little has been written on how collaboration is enacted among museums. This thesis explores the relationships among four museums in Denver, Colorado. By exploring how collaboration is defined, what a collaboration between museums looks like, and identifying the benefits and challenges of inter-museum collaboration, this study attempts to provide …

Exploring Early Temperament Predictors Of Maladaptive Behavior In A Group Of Elementary School Age Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder, Caren D. Rhodes-Doudna

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The current study is an ex post facto nonexperimental design analyzing archival data collected from previous trials of a large-scale longitudinal study conducted by researchers at JFK Partners, Center of Excellence in Autism and Neurodevelopmental Disabilities in collaboration with the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical School (Principal Investigator: Susan Hepburn, Ph.D.). Specifically, the study looked at the temperament characteristics of mood, intensity, adaptability, and approach measured within early childhood and how they relate to later maladaptive behavior within a group of elementary age children diagnosed with ASD. Maladaptive behavior is a particularly salient outcome, as it impacts the child and …

"We Were Queens": Historical Loss Among Native Hawaiians: Exploring Historical Trauma-Informed Suicide Prevention, Antonia Rose Garriga Alvarez

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Native Hawaiian people, and especially lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, māhū and/or queer (LGBTQM) Native Hawaiians, face health and mental health disparities that are disproportionate when compared with other racial/ethnic minorities in Hawai`i, and when compared to the United States as a whole. Native Hawaiians have the highest mortality rates for numerous biomedical diseases, including higher rates of substance abuse, diabetes, and even asthma, of any ethnic group in the state of Hawai`i (Andrade et al., 2006; Liu & Alameda, 2011). Suicide rates, in particular, have been rising since Hawai`i began collecting data in 1908 (Else & Andrade, 2008), and continue …

Development And Validation Of The Family-School Partnering And Collaboration Scale, Carly Anne Sorenson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

There are many positive effects that family, school, and community partnerships (FSP) have on student achievement, behavior, and social-emotional development (Desforges & Abouchaar, 2003; Epstein, 1994, 2011; Graham, 2011; Henderson & Mapp, 2002; Jeynes, 2005, 2007; Ulugag, 2008). Due to the many benefits FSP have on student educational outcomes, current education reform efforts and legislation have mandated the implementation of FSP practices in schools. Additionally, legislation has called for increased accountability efforts to ensure that educators have appropriate levels of FSP skills and competencies (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Department of Education, 2016). As such, …

The Effects Of Fundamentals, Speculation, Government Policies, And International Capital Flows On China's Stock Market, Yanshen Qi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This paper, based on the relationship between the economy, policy and the financial market seeks to explore the leading force in China's stock market and identify how the government policies affect the stock market, through an analysis of the performance of the Shanghai Stock Exchange Index over the past 10 years. Comparing the stocks' intrinsic value to their market price can present an aerial view of China's stock market. When the market prices deviated from fundamentals, we can find what government did to respond to the market and lead market opinions.

Through our estimation, comparing the sample fundamental prices with …

Oppositional Politics And Gramsci's Civil Society: Patron-Clientelism In Jordan And Value-Centered Scholarship, Stephen James Preisig

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Patron-clientelism or wasta in Jordan is a historically engrained institution that crosses social, political and economic spheres. For those with sufficient resources to enter into its system of exchange, patron-clientelism grants access to university admissions, government privileges and employment. For those without sufficient resources, patron-clientelism creates a barrier to entry that sustains the marginalized status of persons from low socio-economic backgrounds.

Most scholarship about patron-clientelism portrays it as something dynamic, inherently neither morally constructive nor problematic but with the potential to be both. By focusing on various historical manifestations of patron-clientelism, such scholarship detracts attention from its reprehensible effects. Posing …

The Size Of The Multiplier: Comparing Alternate Views After The Great Recession, Daniel Focht

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis reviews the major theoretical frameworks and their outlook on the government spending, its effectiveness, the implied size of the multiplier and how they differed in empirical studies. This is followed by an estimation of the government multiplier for the major U.S. fiscal policy, namely the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), after the Great Recession of 2007-2009. Own estimation of the size of the multiplier is presented using a standard SVAR model based on New Keynesian approach for time period between 2009 and 2018. In addition, following the classical economic theory, the multiplier is recalculated in the absence …

Shoulder To Shoulder Yet Worlds Apart: Variations In Women's Integration In The Militaries Of France, Norway, And The United States, Kyleanne Hunter

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Women have become an essential part of Western militaries. Particularly concerning the experience of NATO militaries in Afghanistan, there has been much public attention on the role of women in the military. While Western militaries are often studied as a whole with regards to military operations, there is variation in both how women are employed in the military and the experience they have as service members. This dissertation seeks to understand the cause of this variation by examining three critical cases: France, Norway and the United States.

In this dissertation, I argue foundational beliefs about gender equality affect the institutional …

Financial Crisis And Bank Lending Behavior In Nigeria, Michael A. Oyakojo

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Bank lending is an important monetary policy transmission channel with significant impact on economic growth in Nigeria. The research was conducted to test the hypothesis that given the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) / government financial intervention, there is a significant increase in the lending behavior of Nigerian bank during and post 2008 financial crisis. Total loan ratio is the proxy for bank lending behavior while the dependent variables are bank specific characteristics like total assets, core deposit ratio and macroeconomic variables like the 91-day Treasury bill rate and inflation rate.

Using the fixed effects regression technique, it was observed …

An Hgis Approach To Land-Use/Land-Cover Change In The Blanice Watershed, Czech Republic, Kelly J. Measom

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In the South Bohemian region of the Czech Republic, the landscape is distinguished by a network of long narrow fields bordered by hedgerows clustered in small groups. These unique clusters of hedgerows have been interacting with their environment, effectively mitigating erosion, since they were first established in the High Middle Ages. In this research project I used historical maps to characterize land-use and land-cover (LULC) change relating to hedgerow features in one cadastral territory in the Blanice Watershed. Using georeferenced historical maps from 1837 and 1952, and unreferenced historical maps from 1837 to 1953, I compared the historical LULC to …

Corporate-Community Mining Conflicts In Guatemala: Unsettling Hegemonic Power Relations In Environmental Struggles, Anna Guðbjört Sveinsdóttir

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation analyzes corporate-community conflicts around extractive industries in Guatemala with the purpose of better understanding how environmental struggles emerge and take shape. The study uses environmental governance as a framework to analyze the processes, institutions, actors and discourses that shape the conditions of possibility of political action and mobilization in environmental struggles. The dissertation argues that to understand the conditions of possibility of political action and mobilization in environmental struggles we must study the interplay between political actions 'from above' and 'from below', which are seen as dialectically interrelated, with dynamic and contested interactions between actors within and between …

Exploring The Role Of Relapse For Women In Recovery From An Eating Disorder, Britney Tibbits

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Eating disorders are serious mental health problems with high relapse rates (Arcelus, Mitchell, Wales, & Nielsen, 2011; Herzog et al., 1999). Research has demonstrated that eating disorder populations show interpersonal deficits at baseline compared to comparison groups (Arcelus, Haslam, Farrow, & Meyer, 2013; Grissett & Norvell, 1992; Ivanova et al. 2015; Tiller at al., 1997), specifically in assertiveness (Behar, Manzo, & Casanova, 2006; Constantino & Smith-Hansen, 2008; Duchesne et al., 2012; Hartman et al., 2010). The goal of this research was to explore the variables related to relapse and make the social and interpersonal growth that occurs in recovery visible …

A Dyadic Perspective On Young Adult Dating Aggression, Ann Lantagne

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Guided by the dynamic developmental systems theory (Capaldi, Knoble, Shortt, & Kim, 2012), the present studies examined individual and relationship level risk factors for dating aggression. A series of Actor Partner Interdependence Models (APIM; Kenny, 1996; Kenny & Cook, 1999) were used to assess associations between males' and females' risk factors and dating aggression within 137 young adult couples. Findings indicated that both partners' reports of a number of relationship characteristics were associated with aggression, including negative interactions, satisfaction, jealousy, and anxious and avoidant relational styles. Moreover, there were actor partner interactions between male and female jealousy, anxious styles, and …

Self-Compassion Versus Self-Esteem For An Experience Of Ostracism, Russell S. Anderson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Self-compassion refers to an adaptive way of responding to the self when in distress and consists of three main components: mindfulness, common humanity, and self-kindness. Self-compassion offers a promising alternative to the construct of self-esteem for predicting and influencing responses to ostracism, a specific type of social exclusion in which an individual is ignored for unknown reasons. The present study examined the differential associations of trait self-compassion and trait self-esteem with attribution, emotion regulation, shame, and prosocial responses following an experience of ostracism using the Cyberball ostracism paradigm. Undergraduate participants (n = 219) completed trait self-esteem and trait self-compassion …

How Informational Imperfections Lead To Sub-Optimal Solutions In Health Savings Plan And Potential Remedies In A Competitive Marketplace, Jacob Gene Dengg

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In the growing trend of consumer-driven health insurance, more consumers than ever have access to a high-deductible health plan paired with a health savings account, where consumers can save pre-tax income for healthcare but also face higher out-of-pocket prices, in hopes that consumers will become smarter shoppers. The Health Savings Plan is successful at lowering costs, but at the expense of consumers lowering their adherence to healthcare, raising health risk. Even in a competitive market, HSP plan designs require smart shoppers and more active healthcare self-management, but without dealing with the informational imperfections that need to be overcome to encourage …

Transgender Experience Depicted Through Memes: An Ethnographic Investigation Of Minority Stress And Resilience, Ashley Lorraine Blewitt-Golsch

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This work identifies transgender oriented image memes as a dataset that reflects transgender lived experience, minority stress, and resilience. In this analysis of transgender memes, four themes were identified: Community, Bodies, Transgender Experience, and The Broken System of Gender. Memes about bodies dealt not only with medical transition, but discussed the distinction between euphoria and dysphoria, as well as cisgender expectations of transgender bodies and bodily narratives. Memes about community included depictions and acts of validation, discussions of reclamations of power, and the queering of media to form senses of community representation. Transgender experience memes discussed the ways being transgender …

The Medieval Borderland: Geophysical Analysis Of A Later Medieval Deserted Settlement And Cultural Landscape From Western Ireland, Andrew Ryan Bair

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis investigates the archaeological remnants of an early 14th century settlement at Ballintober, Roscommon County, Ireland. An innovative methodology combining ground-penetrating radar, magnetic gradiometry, and archaeological excavations is utilized to reconstruct the medieval built environment, which was comprised of a masonry castle, nucleated settlement and wider arable agricultural landscape. By integrating the archaeological and historical records, I pose hypotheses related to the differential statuses of people at the settlement, their domestic and agricultural practices, and a timeline of their occupation and abandonment of the site. The Ballintober settlement offers a unique case study to investigate the colonial dynamics of …

Julia De Burgos, Embodied Excess, And (Un)Silenced Memory: A Decolonial Feminist Analysis Of Performances Of Resistance, Sara Johanna Baugh

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

My dissertation makes an argument for a decolonial move in rhetorical memory studies to more ethically account for the ways in which colonized women in the Global South, like Puerto Rican poet and revolutionary Julia de Burgos, have resisted the trauma colonization has systemically wrought against gendered, raced, and classed bodies. Building from a decolonization methodology, and theoretically situating my argument in Chicana, Latina, and decolonial feminisms, I argue Burgos's poetry both bears faithful witness to the violence of US imperial rule and articulates the dangers of a Puerto Rican nationalist movement built on a Spanish colonial foundation. Approaching Burgos …

The Intersection Of Mindfulness, Teacher Efficacy And School Climate: A Pilot Study, Sarah K. Killion

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Burnout, teaching self-efficacy, and school climate are hot topics in education. Daily stressors create feelings known as burnout, including emotional exhaustion, detachment from teammates, and a decline in feelings of professional competence. The alarmingly high rate of educator turnover illustrates a critical juncture in education. Therefore, interventions are required to improve a teachers' ability to manage student behaviors, provide quality instruction, maintain student engagement, and sustain an atmosphere of collegiality with teammates and administrators.

Mindfulness is a concept that is best understood as moment-to-moment, non-judgmental awareness cultivated through the practice of meditation and calming activities. These interventions are being utilized …

Telling Our Stories: Exploring The Path Toward Successful Mathematics Degree Attainment At An Under-Resourced Predominantly Black Institution, Lauren E. Mckittrick

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The under-representation of Blacks in mathematics related professions stems from an American educational system of inequity. Many Black students, including a substantial proportion of those who enroll at Predominantly Black Institutions, attend elementary and secondary schools in under-resourced districts with limited access to quality teachers and rigorous, culturally-relevant instruction that would adequately prepare them for college attainment in mathematics.

The primary research question guiding this study was: What are the challenges and opportunities associated with building and sustaining a successful mathematics degree program at an under-resourced Predominantly Black Institution? Concurrently, this interpretive case study examined and documented the experiences of …

Storytelling And Self In Public Broadcast: A Visual Ethnography Of Rocky Mountain Pbs, Emily Baker

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Embodied storytelling in Denver's public broadcast media establishes how the intersectional identities of storytellers influence narrative practices in Denver's public sphere. Five approaches to communicating identity informed my theoretical background: embodiment, visual anthropology, the public sphere, practice theory, and phenomenology. Rocky Mountain PBS, a 60-year-old broadcast institution, served as my research site during the summer of 2018. In my thesis, I overviewed the history of RMPBS and observations of production activities performed by the creators of the show Colorado Memories. Using a phenomenological methodology, the research design and data collection included filmed participant observations, semi-structured interviews guided by a …