Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Organizational resources'

Purpose: The purpose of this Delphi study was to identify and describe the perceptions of open educational resources (OER) higher education experts regarding the activities needed at colleges and universities in the United States in order to advance faculty adoption of OER over the next 10 years. Also, this study examined those activities that were most important and had the greatest likelihood of being implemented.

Methodology: The researcher utilized a mixed-methods Delphi study technique to identify and describe activities to advance faculty adoption of OER. The target population for the study consisted of a group of OER higher education faculty experts from postsecondary institutions within the United States. This study utilized a purposive criterion sampling method to identify 16 experts. The Delphi method employed questionnaires over 3 successive rounds to gather data from and build consensus among the expert panel. In Round 1, the researcher asked the expert panel for activities to support faculty adoption of OER. In Round 2, the expert panel rated the 35 activities for degree of importance and likelihood of implementation. In Round 3, the panel had an opportunity to revise their score, if desired, in order to move toward consensus.

Findings: Analysis of the quantitative data from the study revealed 17 OER activities that received consensus for importance and 11 OER activities that indicated consensus concerning likelihood for implementation. Finally, there were 6 OER research findings on which the expert panel came to consensus concerning equally importance and likelihood of implementation.

Conclusions: Based on the data and research findings, 6 conclusions were drawn related to faculty adoption of OER within colleges and universities over the next decade.

Recommendations: There were 8 recommendations for further research covering these topic areas: (a) replication of the study within different higher education arenas and across other stakeholder groups; and (b) examination of faculty receptivity and resistance to adopting OER, utilizing a change theoretical framework; (c) a model for open pedagogy; and (d) an examination of K-12 educators’ OER adoption practices.

Purpose: The purpose of this quantitative descriptive study was to identify transformational leadership skills exhibited by executives in mid-size companies, working in the fields of Marketing, Sales, HR, and IT. Additionally, this study also tried to identify top domains and skills for each group, and analyze the similarities and differences between groups.

Methodology: The study was structured around three research questions. As this was a quantitative study, self-rating data on 10 domains and 80 skills were collected using the Transformational Leadership Skills inventory instrument. These data were then analyzed using multiple statistical methods.

Findings: Analysis of data produced multiple findings in relation to top, middle, and bottom tier skills and domains for each group, thereby supporting the hypothesis that the situational context of job function is material for transformational leadership.

Conclusions: There were six conclusions that applied to all groups, thereby providing valuable insights in relation to similarities across job functions. Additionally, there were multiple differences found in the use of transformational leadership skills across Marketing, Sales, HR, and IT functions, leading to the creation of distinct transformational leadership skill portfolio for each group.

Recommendations: There were six implications for actions that were developed from the conclusions, ranging from hiring, to talent development, to succession planning. Additionally, eight recommendations for future research were also presented, ranging from logical extensions of this study into different verticals, to complementary new studies that would expand the body of knowledge, to longitudinal cross-sectional study that can be developed over time.

Decision making is among the chief liabilities and risks recurring foremost on a daily basis for human resources professionals in today’s workplace. Therefore, human resources professionals as decision makers are often required to be aware of, and comply with, a variety of subject matters, trends, concepts, issues, practices, and laws. For human resources professionals, decision making a core job function. The problem addressed in this study is how the absence of formal decision-making criteria specifically designed for the management of human resources can cause human resources professionals to make decisions that are above not only costly for organizations, but can increase their own personal liability and risk. The purpose of this qualitative research via multiple case study was to investigate how the absence of formal decision-making criteria specifically designed for the management of human resources can cause human resources professionals to make decisions that are often financially and perceptually costly for the organizations in which they work, and can also increase their own personal liability and risk. Additionally, the focus of this research study was to contribute new knowledge for the process of decision making as it pertained to the occupational field of human resources management. This qualitative multiple case study examined the perceptions and experiences of human resources professionals working within the public sector in state government in Georgia. The human resources professionals as participants represented varying levels of decision-making responsibility, inclusive of tax-based and revenue-generated entities from small, medium, and large organizational structures. Results from this research study provided insight for use to inform human resources professionals regarding the mostly negative impacts, effects, and outcomes as perceived and experienced by human resources professionals resulting from the absence of formal decision-making criteria specifically designed for the management of human resources. Examination of the data collected from participants regarding the actual decisions made resulting from the absence of decision-making criteria for the management of human resources highlighted evidence connecting the absence of formal decision-making criteria leading to mostly negative impacts, effects, and outcomes based upon perceptions or experiences. Such evidence via the claims by participants featured personal and organizational results that could be further studied against the backdrop of existing literature, albeit limited, to develop a formal decision-making process (i.e., model) inclusive of criteria specifically designed for the management of human resources to achieve results that lessen cost, mitigate liability, and avoid risk.

The Regional Food Bank (RFB) serves one in five residents of a large northern California county by distributing free food, providing training, and supporting about 200 food pantries. Additionally, the RFB acts as a referral service to individuals needing food assistance through its Food Help Line. The purpose of this leadership project was to investigate how the RFB can better serve communities by examining the communities the pantries serve. Two RFB staff members, the director of a food pantry, and myself used action research method in four cycles as our learning process. The first cycle attempted to determine which people do not attend pantries although they are in need of food assistance. The second and third cycles focused on changes made by the pantries and/or in the demographics of pantry clients. The fourth cycle focused on the needs of pantries from the perspective of the pantries and the perspective of the RFB. This project can be best seen as the beginning of a longer study about how to best serve communities in need.

This phenomenological study examined the lived experience of 13 active mediators who conduct mediations between individuals of differing collectives (race, gender, age, religion, etc.). These mediators were volunteers, human resource professionals, or other external professionals utilized to assist in resolving workplace conflicts. They offered experience in corporate environments, state and federal government, school systems, and the community.

Study participants met the following criteria: (1) successfully completed the 40-hour mediation training; (2) conducted a minimum of 30 mediations over the past five years; (3) conducted a minimum of 10 diversity related mediations; and (4) experience with workplace conflicts.

As a phenomenological study, interviews were the method of data gathering. Following Merriam and Tisdale’s (2016) interview structure continuum, data gathering occurred in two stages: highly structured/standardized and unstructured/informal. The first stage assessed the mediator’s appropriateness for the study. The questions focused on the mediator’s recent experience with conducting workplace and EEO mediations. The second stage was the detailed interview used to build an understanding of the lived experiences. Questions asked led to the understanding of the lived experiences of the mediators thereby supporting the research question.

Five conclusions emerged from the results of this study. (1) Communication that is poor or lacking is a major source of conflict. (2) Environmental changes have increased workplace diversity leading to more conflict. (3) Perceptions of fairness by authority and senior staff leading to conflict. (4) Parties who volunteer for mediation are more successful. (5) Mediators and the mediation process are not completely neutral.

Implications for theory are: the strengthening of the social identity literature by specifically identifying sources of conflict; expansion of the literature that explains the role management plays in conflict escalations; introduces a hybrid mediation style; and the expansion of trait theory literature by identifying which traits are prone to conflict. Recommendations for practice are workplace initiatives focusing on diversity and interpersonal skills; incremental training for mediators to ensure mediators practice in the spirit of neutrality; encouraging organizations to implement mediations for all conflicts prior to escalation of workplace chaos; and emphasizing the minimization of legal advice by licensed attorneys during mediations.

Helping someone maximizes the interaction that takes place between individuals because it provides a purpose for communication. The unique experience of exchanging information and support also results in the gratification of being able to impact another person’s life. Mentoring relationships support Buber’s I-Thou relationship of respectfully helping others when the opportunity exists. The cost and benefits shared while learning from each other also expand on Homans’ (1961) social exchange theory that suggests that the purpose behind human behavior is based from the exchange between each other. With more motivation to engage in a collaborative relationship, aspiring leaders have advanced personally and professionally from the result of a relationship with a mentor. This project strives to bring awareness of the need to develop Latina leaders through the support of a mentoring relationship. After expanding from the applied research, this project engages the use of computer mediated communication (CMC) to educate and inspire future Latina leaders to be involved in a mentoring relationship to increase their presence in top leadership roles. Project website: Mentoring Latina Leaders: Establishing and nourishing a positive mentoring relationship www.jresende1.wix.com/mentoringlatinas

Successful collaborations take effort. This study analyzed the process followed by 20 groups of diverse professions that were brought together to solve a community health problem. To this goal a four part model of conflict was adapted and used to understand how conflict emerged, was managed or resolved. The model allowed for the identification of five routes to conflict. Conflict was either averted or managed constructively by most of the groups and a set of productive behaviors is associated with this ability. Experienced collaborators utilize these behaviors at various times throughout the collaborative process to promote group cohesion and the possibility of integrating differences and transforming them into more creative outcomes. Conflict is found to be neutral; for some groups it is stagnating while others are able to use it constructively.

As more people gravitated to the city, urban areas in the United States became increasingly diverse, yet the Church missed the opportunity to reach these multicultural cities. Though there were efforts at designing a core curriculum for cultural adaptability training, there was a lack of data supporting its effectiveness.

Much of the Church’s response to the urbanization focused on cross-culturalism with the view of urban communities as mission fields. Literature revealed that cultural adaptability and cultural intelligence were needed skill sets for the workplace. Faith organizations that routinely worked among cross-cultural populations needed to ensure that their staff received proper training in cultural skills before leaving for the field.

This research centered on a small study of urban missionary candidates from World Impact. The quantitative approach followed a methodology that was exploratory, rather than hypothesis, driven. The design used a survey tool called the Cross Cultural Adaptability Inventory. The tool utilized a Likert scale and rating scale questions, as opposed to open or closed question surveys.

In determining acceptable levels of cultural adaptability in missionary candidates, this study found evidence of notable increases in adaptability as a result of training. Additionally, cultural adaptability in relation to demographics was validated. However, the linear combination of demographics predicting cultural adaptability was not found.

Literature supported the lack of consensus on the direction of cultural adaptability studies. The expectation of this study was that organizations would take a deeper look at how they were conducting cultural adaptability training. The data gathered from this research project led to the recommendation for continued study on the individual components of cultural adaptability, including additional occupations and pretesting as a best practice prior to post-testing.

Work engagement and burnout have been researched extensively through the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) stress framework; however, there are still relationships within the model that are not fully understood. Historically, job demands have been considered to be one homogenous group having similar relationships with resources, burnout and engagement. Researchers have found that job demands have been consistently positively related to burnout, and job resources have been positively related to engagement. Associations between job demands and engagement have been shown to be positive, negative, non-existent, as well as curvilinear (Bailey, Madden, Alfes, & Fletcher, 2015). However, job demands may be differentiated into challenges, which may actually be less harmful for workers, and hindrances, which may account for the majority of the negative association with burnout. Although a small amount of primary research has investigated demands differentiated into challenges and hindrances with samples outside of the U.S., no studies to date have investigated the relationship between challenge and hindrance demands with burnout and work engagement with a sample of employees in the U.S. Additionally, very little research has studied the interaction effects within a differentiated demands model on burnout and work engagement. In this study, a moderated hierarchical regression analysis was used to explore the relationships among challenge demands, hindrance demands, resources, burnout, and engagement with a sample of knowledge workers in the U.S. sourced through the Amazon Mechanical Turk system. Overall, hindrance demands were found to be positively related to burnout and negatively related to engagement. Challenge demands were not significantly related to burnout but were positively related to engagement. The interactive effects of job resources were only observed for the hindrance demand relationships. The differentiated model of job demands may provide a clearer understanding of the different mitigating and boosting relationships between challenges, hindrances, and resources. The results of this study suggest that for executives who wish to increase the positive outcomes associated with well-being, they may want to focus on reducing hindrance demands and increase access to resources across their organizations. Further implications for practice and research will be discussed.