Dissertationen zum Thema „Political Science, Public Administration|Education, Business|Sociology, Organizational“

There is a limited knowledge on the meanings, experiences, and perceptions of organizational members regarding performance appraisal and how the various experiences and perceptions are perceived to bear on organizational outcomes. With this qualitative study, I explored the experiences and perceptions of organizational personnel regarding performance appraisal systems and how these are perceived to bear on work outcomes. Using case study as research design, a detailed analysis of semi-structured interview involving organizational personnel (leaders, managers, and frontline employees) who lived in northeastern New York, and working in various disciplines and professions was conducted and recorded. NVivo software was used in generating the major thematic links and invariant constituents of the study. Results of the study revealed five significant themes: (a) essential descriptions of performance appraisal, (b) perceived rewards of performance appraisal, (c) differences and similarities of performance appraisal systems across different organizations, (d) perceived association of performance appraisal systems and work outcomes, and (e) recommended changes in performance appraisal systems. Employees who have positive experiences with the system associate performance appraisal with something equally beneficial to employees’ improvement and the operational performance of the organization. These employees reported experiences of motivation, loyalty, commitment, and productivity as they received their feedback. The study identified human resource development activities that could further achieve the real and genuine objectives of performance appraisal system.

Disasters are increasing in intensity and frequency throughout the world, causing public safety organizations to become more involved in disaster management. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to examine county emergency managers' perspectives of recruiting, training, and integrating volunteers for a disaster. Research has shown when disaster volunteers are not properly recruited, trained, and integrated into disaster planning they can negatively impact efforts to save lives and protect property. This qualitative case study is likely the first study to examine county emergency managers' perspectives of recruiting, training, and integrating volunteers for a disaster to save lives and protect property. This study used POSDCORB as the theoretical framework and the concepts of disaster management and volunteer management to answer the principal research question, "How do county emergency managers recruit, train, and integrate volunteers for a disaster?" This study also used one-on-one, face-to-face, semi-structured interviews to gather data about county emergency managers' perspectives on how they recruit, train, and integrate volunteers for a disaster. During the course of the study there were eight emergent themes: (a) planning for volunteers, (b) organizing volunteers, (c) staffing volunteers, (d) directing, (e) legal issues, (f) coordinating and integrating volunteers, (g) directing volunteers, and (h) training volunteers.

Since 2010, 2,000 U. S. leaders spent $150 billion on return on investment (ROI) training, yet questions still exist on how to measure the benefits of organizational change. The purpose of this embedded single-case study was to explore how business leaders could use ROI to characterize the benefit of intervention strategies for organizational change. Stakeholder theory and Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory formed the conceptual framework for this study. A purposive sample of 20 civilian personnel managers located at a medical facility for veterans in central Texas participated in semistructured interviews. The 5 primary themes that emerged using thematic analysis were (a) training, (b) leadership, (c) communication, (d) recognition, and (e) consistency. Implications for positive social change include the possibility of organizational leaders applying these findings to develop better intervention strategies. Such interventions could improve processes for stakeholders and create an open dialogue with business leaders within the government sector.

No matter how well an organization is managed, we face some inevitable failures such as deficient volunteers, excess demands for service, unstable grants, etc. Paradoxically however, successful organizations have been using their failures creatively. Beyond such successful use of failure, can benefits of failure be systematically described? What would be the generic ways to benefit from failure? In order to answer that question, three essays were written with the following details.

Essay 1 is an attempt to explore the ways to systematically describe benefits of failure in general management context. To make a preliminary conceptual framework of failure management, grounded theory and literature review were employed as the methods. As a result of analysis, sixteen propositions that represent the sixteen different ways to benefit from failure were identified.

Essay 2 and 3 are confirmatory studies to test the internal and external validity of the failure management framework especially in nonprofit contexts. As a first stage of such validation, Essay 2 used secondary data of nonprofit cases to test if nonprofits' failure management can be systematically described through the failure management framework. Essay 3 went one more step from Essay 2 to validate the failure management framework by using primary data on nonprofits' failure management.

By following the research procedure as above, it turned out that nonprofits' failure management can be systematically described by using the failure management framework. And the empirical analyses on nonprofits cases also revealed some significant patterns of how nonprofits use their failures and challenges. Finally this study concludes with the research questions that address some emerging patterns and underlying mechanisms of failure management behind the sixteen propositions of failure management.

Poor and inadequate customer service is prevalent in the public sector of emerging economies. Also, limited leadership roles are ascribed to frontline employees in the sector. Improving customer service and empowering frontline employees could increase organizational effectiveness. The goal of this qualitative phenomenological study was to explore the problem of inadequate customer-service delivery skills and limited leadership roles for court personnel in the Lagos State Judiciary, Nigeria. The research was guided by two research questions: In what ways could the servicing experience of customers by court personnel/leaders in the Lagos State Judiciary be improved upon? and What are the lived experiences of leaders and customers in the Lagos State Judiciary System? The study participants’ were 25 court users of the Lagos State Judiciary. The data were subjected to analysis using the 4 step modified Van Kamm method by Moustakas to identify themes through exhaustive data coding and data distillation The 14 interview questions resulted in the emergence of 34 primary themes. Five overall themes emerged from thematic clusters and they were capacity building, attitude of court officials, policy changes, interaction with stakeholders and leadership training. The findings showed strong similarities between the participants’ lived experiences and experiences presented in relevant literature. The implication was that the management (leaders) of the Judiciary might benefit from this study by adopting the Folami Model for Improving Customer Servicing in the Lagos State Judiciary (FMICS – LSJ) to achieve customer service improvements. Researchers may wish in the future to explore the twin concepts of customer service and leadership styles in other contexts further to add further insight to existing literature.

From the beginning of women’s entry into government and politics, namely the suffrage movement, the male lead political system did not embrace women’s involvement. While women have played an influential role in the political system, they were largely relegated to supporting roles. However, within the past century, women have become a stronger force in policy making and continue to shatter the stereotypes that has persisted through the years.

The purpose of this study was to examine how specific leadership traits and characteristics have contributed to the career progress of 6 elected women who represent California constituents within the local, state, and federal levels of the U.S. legislative system. By exploring the leadership traits and characteristics of women political leaders, this research can (a) contribute to the scholarly studies of women political leaders, (b) provide information for women who aspire to serve in a political office, (c) offer an oral history and a rare personal perspective of current-day women political leaders, and (d) further the dialog regarding women’s participation in the political arena.

This study used a qualitative design and an ethnographic research methodology to evaluate and elicit information on the shared experience of the elected women. The researcher used a purposive sampling strategy to select the participants who were women currently seated in elected positions at the local, state, and federal level of California government.

Semi-structured interviews were conducted. Each participant was videotaped and the transcripts of the videotape, along with the notes were the data source for the study. The information was analyzed and grouped by themes. The data yielded 7 themes the participants self reported as the key traits, skills, and characteristics that are important to their political success: (a) responsibility, (b) sociability, (c) relationships, (d) consensus building, (e) self-confidence, (f) cooperativeness, and (g) persistence. The video analysis produced results that showed participants’ nonverbal mannerisms were consistent with the themes they identified as important in their success.

This non-experimental quantitative study using structural equation modeling and the theory of planned behavior examined the relationships between latent variables, affective commitment and continuance commitment, and manifest variables, career intent and retention incentive decision behavior. The sample consisted of 598 U.S. Army Captains (14% of population) who met inclusion criteria of being commissioned in 2005 and answered all questions on the archival U.S. Army Research Institute's 2007 Survey of Officer Careers. Using fit indices such as RMSEA at 0.068 and the Bentler CFI at 0.93 the final model was considered an acceptable-to-good fit, where each increase of 1 point in career intent significantly predicted increased retention incentive decision behavior by 1/7 of a point (b = 0.142,p < .0001, β = 0.409). An increase in 1 point in affective commitment predicted increases in career intent by almost 2 points (b = 1.86, p < .0001, β= 0.457) and each point increase of continuance commitment increased career intent by a little over 1/2 a point ( b = 0.612,p < .0001, β = 0.234). There were three conclusions from this study. First, the final model extended the theory of planned behavior to the attitudes and intentions of Captains who were presented a retention incentive lending insights into remuneration for retaining entry-level employees for continued service in closed personnel systems. Second, affective commitment and continuance commitment were significant predictors of increases in career intent, and high career intent was a significant predictor of a taking a retention incentive, as the theoretical model predicted. Third, Army senior leaders were successful in retaining Army Captains with higher organizational commitment and career intent than those Captains who did not take an incentive. Four recommendations were made for Army practice: a.) continue the longitudinal survey, b.) continue to monitor external conditions and the effects on retention, c.) link leadership climate to retention, d.) tailor retention programs on retaining mid-grade officer talent. Three recommendations for future research include: a.) add non-native commitment to the longitudinal study, b.) consider the effects of remuneration on the profession of arms, and c.) analyze additional intervening variables in the model.

Military organizations are often called upon to assist with emergency management missions, so it is critical that they have appropriately established and well understood organizational perceptual factors. Military organizations are often unique within a nation, which increases the challenge for scholars to effectively analyze how organizational factors are influenced by the dynamics of national use of military forces for emergency management missions. There are several disparate theories of government organization, but the most recent and relevant is Keith James' organizational science of disaster and terrorism prevention and response theory. James' theory identified several important organizational factors specific to emergency management organizations. These factors include organizational structure and networks, processes, teams, leadership, and technology. James' organizational factors guided the development of this qualitative comparative case study's interview protocol with 24 members from the strategic, operational, and tactical levels of the United States National Guard and Israeli Homefront Command. Results revealed why two nations use their military forces for disaster response as well as provided a description of how each organization is used within their respective nation. The data affirmed aspects of James' theory, including relevant structural, networking, and procedural factors and identified the other organizational factors within James' theory as possible areas for future research. Finally, based upon interview participant perceptions, recommendations were made to the leadership of the Homefront Command and National Guard regarding areas of potential organizational emphasis to include internal messaging, additional doctrine, and clarified organizational structures for disaster response.