Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Organizational Perspectives'

This study examined organization development (OD) practitioners' perspectives on the relative importance of the five domains of a neuroscience-based motivation framework that categorizes common issues that trigger toward or away responses in the brain. The SCARF Model's five domains include Status, Certainty, Autonomy, Relatedness, and Fairness (Rock, 2008). This study sought to understand if practitioners' perspectives are in line with existing research and ultimately to identify the most effective practices that provide the highest level of benefit relative to reducing threat responses and increasing rewards. The first phase of this study employed an online survey using pairwise comparison, or forced choice, of each domain on a weighted scale. This methodology required explicit choices be made among each of the SCARF domains in order to answer a single question: Active management of which reward/threat trigger poses the greater benefit to a change effort, and by how much? The survey methodology resulted in a prioritization by 48 OD practitioner respondents that depicts the magnitude of each domain's benefit and ultimately implies that active management of the highest ranking domain (Fairness) offers significantly greater benefit than the other four. The second phase of this study included interviews of eight OD practitioners during which the survey results were presented. This phase of the study discovered a dominant theme of communication as a means of threat trigger mitigation and reward trigger maximization for all of the SCARF domains.

This exploratory research increases knowledge and understanding of blame in the workplace. Attribution theory, moral philosophy, and social cognition provided a theoretical framework to understand individual blame determination as a precursor to understand systemic blame. Systemic blame is informed by complex systems theory and research on "no blame" cultures in a healthcare setting.

Interpretive description, supported by applied thematic analysis, provided the methodological framework for this qualitative study. The 17 senior leaders interviewed for this research study were selected through purposive sampling, and individually had an average 28 years of experience in healthcare. The semi-structured interviews were designed to gather experiences and stories that informed the participants' perspectives on blame in the workplace.

Constant comparative thematic analysis of the data resulted in four main findings. First, blame is prevalent in the workplace. Second, blame begets blame through a vicious cycle of blame. In this cycle there is often unwarranted blame. Blame feels bad, which results in fear of blame and avoidance of blame. One way to avoid blame is to blame someone else. This positive reinforcing feedback loop of blame creates a culture of blame. Third, a culture of blame includes characteristics of risk aversion and mistrust. Risk aversion decreases innovation, and mistrust decreases transparent communication. Fourth, blame has an inverse relationship to accountability, where less blame may result in more accountability. These findings both confirm and contradict the current literature. The resulting conclusion is blame is not a game.

As Internet technologies have grown, virtual employees have become a large part of many sectors of business. The problem is that virtual team members may have lower job satisfaction than counterparts in traditional roles and virtual workers may suffer from turnover. Transformational leadership is associated with higher employee job satisfaction and performance; however, it remains unclear how particular leadership styles may affect virtual employees. The purpose of this generic qualitative study was to describe the perceptions of virtual employees concerning their perceptions of extraversion/introversion of leaders and how they perceive the attributes of leaders when using different modes of communication, and how these issues affect their job satisfaction. A generic qualitative design was used with a purposeful sample from the population of virtual employees. The data were collected using an online questionnaire and qualitative methods were used to code and develop subthemes and themes. The results contained several themes: differences in interactions with introverts and extraverts; effectiveness and motivation driving communications with leaders; participants’ perceived congruence between preferred leader and current leader and the follower’s satisfaction level. The study’s novelty was revealed in details of perceived leadership style and personality, and virtual communication modes. The participants indicated they perceive and interact distinctively with introverts versus extroverts, including an expectation to use different communication modes and preferences or bias toward introverts and extroverts. Context of communications tended to be functionally or relationally motivated for most participants. However, participants’ motive and communication choices were often accommodating to the perceived leader personality types and aligned with follower’s congruence and satisfaction with their leader. Conclusions and recommendations were that virtual workers’ preconceptions about introversion and extraversion are relevant to virtual communication choices with leaders should be explored for research and for practice. Congruence between an ideal and current leader has been studied quantitatively but few contextual details were available in those studies. An unexpected finding was that some participants were congruent with their leader but were unsatisfied. Another conclusion and recommendation was that qualitative results found are consistent with other studies and based on these results can be further explored qualitatively.

2018-06-27

The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study which evolved into a collective case study was to gain a deeper understanding of knowledge retention and transfer practices within an information technology (IT) interorganizational community of practice. The study involved analyzing structured interview responses from six trainee, seven leaders and two government leader participants in the Bermuda-based program who had experienced knowledge retention and transfer within the social environment, as well as an analysis of relevant documentation to identify emergent themes. Eight themes identified through the data were learner, role model, relevance, learning environment, communication, opportunity, networking, and modeling. The research revealed many elements in the interorganizational IT community of practice contributed to knowledge retention and transfer, including the environment, differing perspectives of those involved, personal development of participants, the career boost perceived by participants, and the complexity of the IT industry. The findings include suggestions for expanding and strengthening the community of practice through partnerships with educational institutions, IT organizations, and alumni of the program, in addition to program enhancements and the replication of the program in other jurisdictions, which might lead to enhancing the value of participation in the IT interorganizational community of practice to the constituent groups involved.

Managerial behavior often differs between individuals and situations. To understand this variation the manager’s own interpretation of the role, context and role behavior is especially important. In this thesis several managers’ subjective views and understandings of their role during an organizational change period were investigated in great detail. The organizational changes were assumed to put pressure on the managerial role, exposing adaptive and dynamic role aspect and thereby shed light on differences in behavior. The general purpose was to thoroughly investigate the concept of ‘subjective managerial role’ by two contrasting approaches. One was influenced by concepts and methods used in social constructivism and constructionism (Study 1-3), and the other was a rational/cognitive approach influenced by theories and methods used in cognitive psychology (Study 4-5). Multiple case studies with subjective reports from five managers during a period of sixteen months were chosen as the empirical base. In the constructivist approach three judges were used to interpret the managers’ verbal reports during the beginning of the change period, focusing on indications of ‘subjective role projects’. ‘Subjective role projects’ involved reflections on situations, actors, purposes/goals and action strategies, all within a time frame of the past, present and future. This qualitative content of the role was investigated, and support for the existence of subjective role projects was tested (Study 1). The variation between the managers’ subjective role projects and their general project strategies were explored (Study 2). The judgment and construction process pursued by the three judges was analyzed (Study 3). In the rational/cognitive approach the focus was on role problems. A control model was used to represent subjective role conflicts, on both group and individual levels. Difficult situations described by the managers were complemented with goals and actions strategies, and the managers rated conflicts between these role components, while thinking-aloud (Study 4). Role conflict patterns and dimensions were further analyzed using two quantitative data models (Study 5). Finally, the subjective role construct was compared with a contextual interpretation of the role, based on information from the organizational and social role context (Study 6). The results supported the basic components in both the project model and the control model of the subjective role, but the latter approach would benefit from a more elaborated stimulus sampling. In both approaches the differences between the managers were assessed, but in the constructivist approach it was difficult to separate variation stemming from managers from variation between judges. In the rational/cognitive approach the variation was restricted to conflicting aspects in a specific model. The control model features and the quantitative conflict data made it easier to estimate variance. A major conclusion was that the two approaches complemented each-other in their descriptions of the subjective role. The project model was adequate for investigating the first sense-making phases in the organizational change process, while the control model approach could describe role conflicts and problems, especially on individual levels. However, they both could fit within a framework of a subjective role process model. Using these two approaches in role analysis can provide more information on the subjective role processes of the role incumbent.

This study examined the experiences of Pentagon employees who survived the September 11, 2001, terrorist attack on their workplace. Six participants provided individual stories of their human experiences. One-on-one interviews were used to gather data, which was analyzed using thematic analysis. Findings indicated that survivors who did not sustain physical injuries also had not received psychological evaluation or care. Social trauma of that magnitude required my awareness of the impact on participants to revisit elements associated with the experience. Unexpected traumatic experience through survivors' stories added to literature descriptions and meanings of individual employees in the United States. Trauma experience stories by people of various cultural development uncovered their support systems, coping techniques, and delved into stories which surfaced questions about the psychological and sociological impact of unexpected trauma on human life beyond this study. Patriotism, employee group cohesiveness, family support, and grief, duty, and dedication to the employees who died and were physically injured were responsible for Pentagon employee survivors' resilience to immediately pick up the pieces after the attack and beyond to continue to carry out the mission of the United States government.

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.

People with disabilities face discrimination around the world. This has a negative impact on society, individuals and the economy. In Saudi Arabia, people with physical disabilities face serious challenges. This research addressed the negative perceptions and attitudes toward disability in Saudi Arabia that resulted in discrimination against people with disabilities, create challenges for them and prevented them from participating in society equally. This mixed- method study investigated the challenges that face the physically disabled in Saudi Arabia in their personal, political, economic and professional paradigms. This research used quantitative and qualitative methods, to reflect the sentiment and impressions of both the disabled and non- disabled populations in Saudi Arabia on the topic of physical disability. There were 14 participants in the interview component of this research and 403 participated in the survey. This research identified the main challenges facing people with disabilities in Saudi Arabia as inaccessible environments, judgmental society, family and self-image, health care services and enforcement of existing laws and regulations. Furthermore, the results highlighted a number of steps needed for people with disabilities to overcome the challenges in their personal and professional lives.

This study utilized a qualitative approach to examine academic leaders’ perceptions of the impact of the changes occurring in the higher education environment on leader development and the faculty governance model. Interviews were conducted with academic leaders in four regionally accredited, 4-year, private, similarly-sized, religiously affiliated institutions in a rural region of a Midwestern state. The interviews explored the perceptions of academic leaders on the impact of changes within the context of the social construct of the higher education environment, the contextual influence on leaders and leadership development, and the faculty governance model. The results suggested that individuals socially reconstruct their environments by revisioning the challenges in the context of the mission of the institution. The results further revealed the philosophies of trust, support, mentoring, followership, and decision making as critical to shared leadership in the higher education environment. Academic leader development, the faculty governance process, and shared governance were influenced by the changes occurring in the environment. These findings have important implications suggesting the need to examine the construct of leadership in the higher education environment and academic leaders’ influence on faculty governance and shared governance. The findings also raise interesting possibilities for advancing an augmented view of leadership in the higher education environment.