Organizational Behavior

Evidence in literature suggests that factors of personality are theoretically and empirically linked to counterproductive work behavior (CWB). This paper advances that personality is related to CWB through the prediction of a relationship between personality trait neuroticism factors volatility and withdrawal and CWB factors deviance and withdrawal. Further, workplace stressors are tested as moderators for personality and CWB dimensions. Useful data were provided by 542 working participants. The study affirms a personality-behavior connection between subscales of Neurotic personality, volatility, and withdrawal, with the two behavioral manifestations of counterproductive work behavior, deviance, and withdrawal. Moderating results are modest, with results indicating a moderating effect limited to only organizational constraints on the volatility-deviance relationship.

This dissertation presents an analytical framework based on the processes of social identification
and self-categorization as mechanisms through which team-focused leadership and group affective tone
separately and jointly contribute to team outcomes at both the team and team member levels A review of
relevant literature supported the development of the research hypotheses The hypotheses were tested using
multilevel structural equation modeling and single level path analysis to tease out significant effects of
team leadership and affective processes in teams
The results of single level path analyses demonstrated that leaders and team members contribute to
the affective tone of a team through the sharing of emotions and processes of emotional contagion and
norms of emotional expression via identification and self-categorization processes Both individual leaders
(vertical team-focused leadership) and team members sharing in leadership processes (shared team-focused
leadership) were found to distinctly contribute to group affective tone and the important team outcomes of
team performance, creativity, trust, team member engagement, team member identification, and team
member citizenship behaviors The results further demonstrated that the affective tone of a team (group
affective tone) has direct effects on team member outcomes, and mediates direct effects on outcomes of
team-focused leadership Group affective tone was found to mediate the effects of both vertical and shared
team-focused leadership on team member engagement, identification, citizenship behaviors, and team trust The results are relevant to both researchers interested in studying leadership and affective
processes in teams and to management practitioners interested in understanding contributions to team
effectiveness The consideration of both team-focused leadership and the affective tone of a team matter in
team effectiveness The emotional climate of a team appears to be important to team member outcomes
more so than team-level outcomes Therefore, what managers consider to be important indicators of team
effectiveness (either team-level or team member-level) determine the actions of a manager to monitor and
strengthen the positive affective tone of a team Limitations are discussed and future research directions are
provided to extend the observations of this study

Animal rights organizations, in attempting to affect institutional change in industrial
animal agriculture, face an institutional mountain. I show how these organizations,
though contesting institutions which are highly reified, tacitly endorsed, and historically
inertial, leverage emotional experiences and regulation to incrementally move this
mountain. Using a grounded qualitative study of interview data from animal rights
advocates and archival data generated by animal rights organizations, this study finds that
animal rights organizations have encoded both response- and antecedent-focused emotion
regulation into two distinct strategies used to garner support for their institutional change
project: transgression mining and seed planting. Furthermore, this study expounds upon
the role of moral emotional experiences in the individual-level process by which persons
alternate into support for animal rights organizations and their goals, here labeled
autodidactic frame alignment. Drawing on Goffman’s backstage/frontstage distinction,
this study illustrates how emotion’s role in institutional change efforts varies across both level of analysis and areas of interactive life. In doing so, this research adds empirical
weight to and extends recent theoretical work expounding upon the emotionally-charged
nature of the lived experience of institutions.

The focus of this study was to determine if university student leaders’ cognitive and behavioral agility is related to organizational member commitment and if this relationship is moderated by alterable and non-alterable variables. The empirical results from this study are based on the responses of 37 student leaders who occupy leadership positions in organizations and clubs in their respective university. Cognitive agility was measured by the student leader’s use of systems thinking, reframing, and reflection. Student leader behavioral agility was assessed by a minimum of three organizational members rating the student leader’s use of leader influence actions (transforming, managing, bonding, bridging, and bartering) in carrying out their functions. Organizational member commitment was measured by organization member’s level of commitment with the goals and values of the organization using the Organizational Commitment Questionnaire (OCQ).

Research has shown that women are reluctant to act as or perceive themselves as leaders over men (Eagly & Karau, 1991, Snodgrass & Rosenthal, 1984). Other research has shown how expectations about behavior can elicit such behavior (Rosenthal & Rubin, 1978). This thesis combines these two bodies of research in an attempt to create an environment where women emerge as leaders over men. Mixed- and same-sex dyads were given bogus leadership expectancies, and then interacted in a team task. Leadership performance, perceptions, and predictions were measured after the task. It was hypothesized and found that expectancies can overcome sex role stereotypes regarding leadership.

This thesis involves the results of a questionnaire distributed
to a random sample of chief staff executives who are
members of the American Society of Association Executives.
It pertains to the perceived degree of influence exhibited
by past chief elected officials on association policy-making
decisions, as well as their place in the association organizational
structure. It was concluded that certain organizational structures and titles do predominate when dealing with
past chief elected officials; that conflict appears to exist
between the chief staff executive's visions; the past chief
elected officials appear in substantial numbers on policymaking
bodies, whether they be perceived or actual, and
staff satisfaction with the past chief elected official appears
to be high.

The impact of executive cognitive bases and values on corporate strategic change was examined in a longitudinal study of the computer hardware industry. Corporate strategic change was separated into pattern and magnitude dimensions as suggested by Ginsberg (1988). These dimensions complement the logic of Tushman and Romanelli (1985) who suggest that organizations proceed through long periods of stability or adjustment, punctuated by periods of metamorphic change or reorientation. I proposed that executive cognitive bases and values would be associated with strategic reorientation but not strategic adjustment since executive perceptions and responses are the internal driving forces that direct and redirect organizations (Romanelli & Tushman, 1988). Panel data analysis techniques were used to test the hypotheses developed in this study. Corporate strategic reorientation and adjustment were operationalized by changes in unrelated and related diversification, and changes in between-stage and within-stage vertical integration, respectively. The mean organization tenure and functional background heterogeneity of top management teams were used as proxies for executive cognitive bases and values. Results provided overall support for the hypotheses. Mean organization tenure was negatively related to unrelated diversification change, while neither mean organization tenure nor functional background heterogeneity were associated with related diversification change. Functional background heterogeneity was positively related to between-stage vertical integration change, however, contrary to expectations, it was negatively related to within-stage vertical integration change. These findings confirm and extend the literature which relates managerial characteristics to strategic change.

This two-part study included two procedures: (1) the development of an instrument to assess gender-related attitudes among male and female managers, and (2) the collection and analysis of data on gender-related attitudes among male and female managers. Male and female managers (n = 165) responded on a Likert scale to 30 gender-related statements about male and female managers from their own perspective and then based on their opinions of how other male and female managers might respond to the statements. The topic addresses the undercurrents of conflict and dissension that are accompanying paradigmatic changes in traditional management practices and the integration of women into all aspects of management. Although women have demonstrated managerial capability in the workplace, the existence of gender differences warrants further investigation into gender factors influencing co-managing. An extensive review of the literature relating the changes in gender studies over the past 30 years is included. Statistical treatment of the data included the use of paired t-tests, independent samples t-tests or ANOVAs for 20 hypotheses. Through the hypotheses, male and female managers' perspectives on 30 gender-related statements were explored. In addition, male and female managers' responses were compared across different levels of specific demographic data. Ten of the hypotheses showed statistical significance at p <.05. For the gender-related statements, male and female managers rated female managers more positively than males; male and female managers each rated their own gender more positively than did the opposite gender. Male managers rated female peers more positively and other males less positively than they perceived other male managers would; they rated female managers less positively and male managers more positively than they perceived female peers would. Female managers rated their own gender more positively than they perceived males would and rated male peers less positively than they perceived other females would; their own ratings of females were similar to their perceptions of the ratings of other females. When the managers' mean responses for the gender-related statements were compared across different levels of demographic data, no significant relationships were found with level of management, size of company, training experiences, and female managers' preferences for working with male or female managers. However, male managers who stated a preference for working with male managers rated the statements about male managers more positively than did those who had no gender preference. In addition, male managers who stated no preference for the gender of peer managers rated statements about female managers more positively than those who stated a preference for working with male managers.

This dissertation assessed two aspects of entrepreneurial scanning related to new ventures. The first was the information search and analysis these entrepreneurs performed when they made certain basic decisions necessary to start most business prior to commencement of operations. The second was the ongoing information search activities of entrepreneurs who had started childcare businesses and were managing them in their first few years of operation. In addition, this dissertation assessed the extent these scanning activities were consistent with a dual process theory of reasoning. Finally, the limitations of the study and suggested future research directions for research of entrepreneurial scanning were discussed. The results suggest an entrepreneur's scanning behavior at the start of the business may be different from scanning behavior that occurs once the business has been operating for a period of time. The need for cognition, exposure to statistical thinking and intelligence (operationalized in this study as the amount of formal education) were positively related to the kind of information search and analysis undertaken by the entrepreneur at the startup of the business that Kahneman (2003) and others describe as System 2 reasoning. The accessibility of information and the amount of formal education were positively related to scanning that was done in periods subsequent to startup by these childcare entrepreneurs. Work-family conflict was negatively related to scanning during this period.

This study focuses on goal congruence between faculty and administrators, and how that congruence, negative or positive, is related to faculty productivity and faculty job satisfaction. Specifically, this study (a) examines and assesses goal congruence among faculty and administrators, (b) examines and assesses relationships between goal congruence and faculty productivity, and (c) determines how goal congruence was related to faculty job satisfaction. Finally, this study examines and assesses relationships between faculty productivity and faculty job satisfaction. The population for this study was the faculty, and college and departmental administrators in four of the ten public universities in Florida (USF, FAU, UCF, and FIU). College deans, associate deans, chairpersons, program directors, and tenured or tenure track faculty members were identified in eight disciplines (business administration, computer engineering, computer science, electrical engineering, English, mathematics, physics and teacher education) from each of the universities that were selected. The researcher designed the instrument used for this study. The instrument was pilot-tested in departments and colleges not examined in the dissertation study. Research findings and conclusions were that there is goal congruence between personal importance and perceived university importance of institutional mission goals for both faculty and administrators. This research found goal congruence between faculty and administrators for five, highly important "quality" goals. Faculty reported relationships for four institutional mission goals, while administrators reported congruence in common with those of faculty, and an additional four university mission goals. There were significant differences between faculty and administrators' personal importance for only one goal, while differences between faculty and administrator perceived importance were significant for four institutional mission goals. There is a relationship between faculty productivity and faculty job satisfaction for three mission goals. Congruence between faculty's and administrators' personal importance and perceived university importance of institutional mission goals is related to faculty job satisfaction and faculty productivity.