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Yes / Over the past 30 years, the term the ‘glass ceiling’ has come to be known as a metaphor for vertical segregation, symbolising an invisible barrier that prevents women from progressing in their careers. Increasingly women are found in higher level positions and mentoring has often been touted as an important way to help women break through the glass ceiling. This paper explores the continued relevance of the glass ceiling and the use of mentoring programs as a means to help women to overcome it. The findings suggest that although some women have penetrated the glass ceiling, further work is needed if a more equitable number of women are to advance to senior level positions. Whilst mentoring can play an important role in helping women to achieve more senior positions, mentoring is not a panacea but only one of many strategies that must be adopted to effectively address the phenomena of glass ceiling.

The empirical evidence is rather weak and sometimes inconsistent as to what predicts an individual's decision to start a business. Among many possible causes, this study attempts to disentangle the effects of individual differences and context. I propose to use a framework involving an individual's entrepreneurial intent, entrepreneurial orientation and four individual difference factors as a means to isolate individual difference determinants of entrepreneurial intent. These are captured in new construct called entrepreneurial orientation. Samples of entrepreneurs and college students from the United States and China were used to test the relationships. The empirical results show that entrepreneurial orientation is positively related to individual differences factors and entrepreneurial intent. Even more, it fully or partially mediates the relationships between the individual differences and entrepreneurial intent. Among the four individual differences listed, opportunity recognition seems to be the best predictor of an individual's entrepreneurial orientation and entrepreneurial intent. Future research should further examine opportunity recognition and entrepreneurial orientation. It appears that attempting to isolate effects of individual differences from context can be a viable strategy for studying determinants of new venture creation. / Ph. D.

The present study explored the relationship between God schema and work place perceptions, specifically perceptions of equal opportunity (EO) climate and indicators of organizational effectiveness (OE). The first aim of this research was to investigate the impact of God schema (i.e., God schema patterns) on EO climate (i.e., collective EO climate patterns). The second aim of this research was to explore the impact of God schema, race, gender, and EO climate on indicators of organizational effectiveness, such as job satisfaction, organizational commitment, perceived work-group cohesion, and perceived work-group effectiveness. The final aim of this study was to examine the impact of group heterogeneity in terms of God schema, race, and gender, on group perceptual agreement. Data was collected and analyzed from 1,622 United States Navy personnel who completed the DEOMI Equal Opportunity Climate Survey (DEOCS) and attached God schema research module. Using a pattern approach (i.e., cluster analysis and configural frequency analysis), the results provided clear support for a relationship between God schema and perceptions of EO climate and OE. The findings suggested the influence of God schema was expressed differently depending on an individual's race/gender identity. Lastly, the results provided support for the predictive power of God schema (i.e., God schema heterogeneity within a unit) on unit-level agreement. Taken as a whole, these findings highlighted a dynamic relationship between God schema and perceptions of EO climate and related indicators of OE. The research findings affirmed individuals’ conceptions of God are powerful cognitive schema. In addition, the research findings illustrated individuals’ conceptions of God and variations among these conceptions are measurable, and can be investigated in an objective and scientific manner. Above all, the findings supported a meaningful relationship between God schema and work-place perceptions. / Ph. D.

This study examined the relationships between opportunity to learn (OTL), science engagement, and science achievement in students' middle school level. This study used the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) data from the 2003 wave. The data were analyzed using structuring equation modeling and hierarchical linear modeling. It was hypothesized that students' engagement in science is a mediator between opportunity to learn and science achievement. Moreover, class and school level variability was also examined since the organization of the data was nested. The study examined the effects of OTL on students' emotional, cognitive, and behavioral engagement in science and subsequently on science achievement controlling for family socioeconomics status. The results of structural equation modeling supported some theoretical formulations of the conceptual model, and showed significant effect of OTL factors on students' science engagement, especially the behavioral engagement. Furthermore, science emotional and cognitive engagement showed positive effects on science achievement, but the effect of behavioral engagement on science achievement was complex. Detailed exploration and discussions were included in this study. The findings from hierarchical linear models suggested that students' science achievement was not only related to students' engagement, but also varied by class and school level OTL factors. The study had both theoretical and practical significances, providing valuable insights for the pedagogy of science. / Ph. D.

Data for this study were age-adjusted linear scores on all cows scored between 1980 and 1993. Lifetime production information on these cows and their herdmates was used to calculate Relative Net Income adjusted for opportunity cost (RNIOC) for the 2,249,835 cows with an 84 month herdlife opportunity. The effect of inbreeding was analyzed using both a fixed and animal model, with little difference in results. Inbreeding depressed RNIOC by $12.69 in a fluid market and $11.53 in a manufacturing market per 1% increase in inbreeding. Addition of somatic cell information in the profit function had little effect. Heritabilities of profit functions were .16 and .14 for a fluid and manufacturing market, respectively. Animal model estimates of inbreeding depression were +.16 days, -6.7 days and -5.1 days for age at first freshening (AFF), days of productive life (DPL) and days in milk (TDIM), respectively. Inbreeding decreased first lactation mature equivalent milk, fat, and protein by 23.7 kg, .85 kg, and .76 kg, respectively and lifetime milk, fat, and protein production by 176.9 kg, 6.4 kg, 5.6 kg, respectively per 1% increase in inbreeding. Inbreeding had little effect on conformation traits. Effects of inbreeding were cumulative, exacting a larger effect on lifetime profit functions than on individual traits, when expressed as a percent of additive standard deviation. This study gives evidence that though not alarming, inbreeding has a deleterious effect on the lifetime performance of dairy cattle. / Master of Science

This research analyzes private and social costs of forest conservation in Yaque del Norte watershed, DR. It calculates private costs as average annual income from farming activities and social costs as the externalities from erosion and CO2 emissions. Social cost estimates are based on the difference in erosion and CO2 between conserved forest and other land use categories. The effect of soil erosion on the wellbeing of people is measured by its effect on reduced space at Tavera dam for water availability to generate electricity and to irrigate agricultural lands downstream. The social cost of increased annual carbon emission from potential land use change is estimated using IPCC default emission factors and social cost of carbon estimates. Private costs are inferred from a nonlinear binary response model that estimates the relative importance of factors affecting forest conservation decisions of households. Results show that payment level, measured through rental value, is not significant for landholders' decisions to sign a PES contract. Annual cropland is the most profitable land use in the area. Other important, but less profitable, land covers are pasture, coffee and managed forest. Cropland also generates the highest cost for society in terms of erosion and CO2 emissions. The comparison of private and social costs shows that only livestock generates a social cost that exceeds average private income. If forest conservation were to be justified based on social benefits, the analysis must include a more comprehensive assessment of what people value from conserved forest in YNW, such as the effect of erosion for water treatment costs. Any proposal to retain forests social benefits, such as REDD+ initiative, should take into account the high cost forgone by forest owners when deciding the distribution of benefits of carbon sequestration. / Master of Science / Environmental services generate benefits for both private and public entities, which increases the complexity of calculating optimal levels for payment for environmental services (PES). A pilot PES project in the Yaque del Norte watershed of the Dominican Republic is an excellent example of this complexity; with benefits from upland forest conservation accruing to a hydroelectric company, a water supply company, and society at large. Reducing soil erosion through forest conservation can preserve dam capacity for hydro-electric power generation, preserve water quality and lower treatment costs, and reduce the global economic costs of CO₂ emissions. This study evaluates the socio-economic costs of forestland conservation in the Yaque del Norte catchment. The social benefits of carbon stored under forest land are compared to benefits under alternative land uses. In addition, forest land benefits from erosion prevention are estimated using a Universal Soil Loss Equation. Calculated benefits from forestland conservation are then compared to landuse opportunity cost estimates generated through a farm-level survey in the area. Study results show that the opportunity cost of forest conservation in the Yaque del Norte is high; ranging from between RD$10,000 and RD$200,000 per hectare per year. If society values carbon and soil retention as the direct benefits drawn from conserved forest, only lands with low very opportunity costs will be conserved. However, inclusion of the indirect external benefits of forestland conversion suggests that in many cases forest conservation generates greater social benefits than the private benefits associated with alternative land uses from conversion. PES payment levels of RD$5,000/ha/yr that internalize these external social benefits to forest land holders appear to be sufficient to preserve a significant share of current land and generate net social benefits. Further, part of the costs of these PES payments can be borne by hydro-electric and water companies, as they benefit directly from forest land conservation.

This dissertation investigates the My Stealthy Freedom (MSF) movement, an online movement against mandatory hijab laws in Iran, building on two leading lead social movements' theories, political processes and framing processes theories. Study 1 explores the utility of a tactical approach for explaining the movement's pace of insurgency. I employ a conceptual repertoire focused upon the political process model's core concepts of tactical innovation and tactical adaptations, supplementing these older concepts with the more recently proposed concept of tactical freeze and a newly proposed concept of tactical hashtags that is of particular relevance to online movements. Study 2 focuses on extracting hidden patterns and emotional characteristics in the MSF movement by conducting a topic modeling study on the text appearing in the captions of the main account of the movement on Instagram. It was shown that the actions of Masih Alinejad, the founder of the movement, represented by her online activity and extracted by means of topic modeling, is directly affected by the sequence of important events happening in Iran concluding to a transformation of a social movement to political one. Study 3 models how social movements use social media in the formation of affective publics and apply this model to Instagram post data from the MSF movement. Thematic analysis applied to samples of posts and comments revealed six main themes, one of which, aggression, includes three subthemes related to verbal aggression and physical violence. As the level of aggression increased in Instagram videos, the level of aggression in the comments increased as well, and videos containing verbal aggression and physical violence had more likes and comments than did non-aggressive and non-violent videos. In the conclusion, I consider implications of the three studies for social movement framing research and research on emotions and social movements.