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U.S. doctoral program completion rates have remained persistently low in the humanities and biomedical sciences despite educators' efforts. A variety of factors, including stress and dissitation advisor-related issues, were associated with high attrition rates and extended time-to-degree for PhD candidates. The purpose of this correlational study was to examine relationships among life stressors, advisor-related factors, and time-to-degree for a convenience sample of 74 online social sciences doctoral degree holders. Holmes and Rahe's work on stress and Tinto's framework for education program attrition provided the framework for the study. Linear regression and Pearson's correlation statistics were used to examine the relationships between Social Readjustment Rating Scale (SRRS) scores, Advisor-Related Factor scores, and time-to-degree after controlling for covariates of age, ethnicity, and gender. Key findings included: a) SRRS significantly (p < .01) predicted time-to-degree after controlling for age, ethnicity, and gender; and b) no significant relationship was found between advisor-related factors. By identifying at-risk students, early intervention could reduce the time need to complete a PhD program and reduce financial and university resources required to finish. Doctoral program administrators could provide closer supervision with PhD candidates and make adjustments based on an accumulation of extraordinary stressors to help PhD candidiates adjust and finish their programs.

A Study on the relationships between financial advisors¡¦ perceived quota difficulty, customer orientation, job satisfaction and turnover intention- Using Kaohsiung area wealth management banking sector as an example Abstract: In retrospect over the changes of past few decades, service industry has gradually become the largest industry in Taiwan and wealth management banking services has become the most desired financial services over the past few years. Despite that wealth management service has already been in existence in the western world for a long period of time, it is still in its infant stage for the domestic banking sector. In the face of fierce competition, gaining highest profit with lowest risk has been the objective of every bank in Taiwan. How to strengthen the service quality, enhance productivity and retain qualified financial advisor has been financial players¡¦ utmost goal. Thus, this study aims to study the relationships between financial advisors¡¦ perceived quota difficulty, customer orientation, job satisfaction and turnover intention. This research utilizes questionnaire study method and using SPSS for Windows as the tool to conduct statistical analysis, including reliability test, descriptive analysis, ANOVA test, correlation and regression analysis. The research findings are as follow: 1. There has been partial significant difference for individual variables¡¦ with respect to their perceived quota difficulty, customer orientation, job satisfaction and turnover intention 2. There are significant negative correlations between financial advisors¡¦ perceived quota difficulty and customer orientation as well as job satisfaction. 3. There are significant positive correlations between financial advisors¡¦ perceived quota difficulty and turnover intention. 4. There are significant positive correlations between financial advisors¡¦ customer orientation and job satisfaction. 5. There are significant negative correlations between financial advisors¡¦ customer orientation and turnover intention. 6. There was no significant evidence of mediation for customer orientation with respect to perceived quota difficulty and job satisfaction. Given the research results, the financial institutions should seriously look into setting up a reasonable sales quota while simultaneously stress the importance of customer oriented service. The human resources department should establish a comprehensive and thorough benefit policy and training program to enhance employee job satisfaction and reduce turnover intention. On balance, customers and employees are the two most valuable assets for a firm. Only happy employees and excellent service quality can create utmost value and profit for a firm. Key words: wealth management, salespeople (financial advisor), perceived quota difficulty, customer orientation, job satisfaction, turnover intention.

With the rapidly increasing demand for energy and the increasing prices for oil and gas, the role of unconventional gas reservoirs (UGRs) as energy sources is becoming more important throughout the world. Because of high risks and uncertainties associated with UGRs, their profitable development requires experts to be involved in the most critical development stages, such as drilling, completion, stimulation, and production. However, many companies operating UGRs lack this expertise. The advisory system we developed will help them make efficient decisions by providing insight from analogous basins that can be applied to the wells drilled in target basins. In North America, UGRs have been in development for more than 50 years. The petroleum literature has thousands of papers describing best practices in management of these resources. If we can define the characteristics of the target basin anywhere in the world and find an analogous basin in North America, we should be able to study the best practices in the analogous basin or formation and provide the best practices to the operators. In this research, we have built an advisory system that we call the Unconventional Gas Reservoir (UGR) Advisor. UGR Advisor incorporates three major modules: BASIN, PRISE and Drilling & Completion (D&C) Advisor. BASIN is used to identify the reference basin and formations in North America that are the best analogs to the target basin or formation. With these data, PRISE is used to estimate the technically recoverable gas volume in the target basin. Finally, by analogy with data from the reference formation, we use D&C Advisor to find the best practice for drilling and producing the target reservoir. To create this module, we reviewed the literature and interviewed experts to gather the information required to determine best completion and stimulation practices as a function of reservoir properties. We used these best practices to build decision trees that allow the user to take an elementary data set and end up with a decision that honors the best practices. From the decision trees, we developed simple computer algorithms that streamline the process.

Skirtingose šalyse naudojami saviti vadybinio kompetentingumo modeliai. Pavyzdžiui, modelis vadovų kompetencijai vertinti (Jucevičienė, 2001), modelis vadovų rezultatyvumui matuoti (MCI modelis), vadybinės kompetencijos modeliai smulkių ir vidutinių organizacijų vadovams (Boyatzis, 1982), pedagogų vadybinio kompetentingumo modelis (Rodzevičiūtė, 2006). Tačiau profesijos patarėjo vadybinis kompetentingumas apima specifinius profesijos ypatumus, atspindinčius profesinio informavimo veiklos sudėtingumą. Todėl svarbu sukurti naują profesijos patarėjo vadybinio kompetentingumo modelį, kuris atskleistų specifinius šios veiklos aspektus bei būtų pagrįstas pačių profesijos patarėjų požiūriu. Vadinasi, bendrojo lavinimo mokyklų profesijos patarėjų vadybinio kompetentingumo turinys ir struktūra yra aktuali mokslinė problema. Sprendžiant šią problemą, ieškoma atsakymo į svarbų tyrimo klausimą: Koks turi būti bendrojo lavinimo mokyklos profesijos patarėjo vadybinio kompetentingumo turinio ir struktūros modelis, kurį galima būtų rekomenduoti rengiant profesijos patarėjų kvalifikacijos tobulinimo programas ? Tyrimo objektas - bendrojo lavinimo mokyklos profesijos patarėjo vadybinis kompetentingumas. Tyrimo tikslas - teoriškai ir empiriškai pagrįsti bendrojo lavinimo mokyklos profesijos patarėjo vadybinio kompetentingumo turinį ir struktūrą. Atliktas kiekybinis tyrimas – apklausti Vilniaus apskrities bendrojo lavinimo mokyklų profesinio informavimo taškų (PIT) 156 profesijos patarėjai... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / A professional advisor is a person who gives high quality imformation to aimed groups about professions, qualifications and career possibilities. Seeking to acquire neccessary qualities in the sphere of advisability specific skills are especially needful. The Standard of Giving Professional Information (2006) does not underline the aspect of wanted abilities in the management of professional advisability. Furthermore, the question of management competence of the advisor in choosing a profession was not analysed in scientific resourses available in Lithuania. Summarising common atittudes about competent management, theoretically it is proved that the conseption of an advisor in choosing profession is obviously tied to the ability to use all competences to reach effectivness and quality in giving information. To solve the problem of today it is urgent to answer the main question: What kind of structure and content as a competent manager has to be acquired by a professional advisor to help to prepare programmes for his/her improvement ? The object of the research – competent management in a position of a professional advisor in a secondary school. The aim of the research – theoretical and empiric approach to base content and structure of management competence of a professional advisor. In the quantative research 156 ( PIT ) Professional advisors of secondary schools in Vilnius district surveyed. The concusion is made on the backgound of the empiric investigation: the... [to full text]

Företagsförvärv är i dagens samhälle vanligt förekommande när företag har som målsättning att växa. Det finns en del tidigare forskning kring detta området, däremot finns det inte lika mycket forskat kring aktiva aktörer vid förvärvsprocessen. Vi har valt att inrikta oss på en specifik aktör i denna studien, revisorn. Detta för att revisoryrket kan innebära flera olika roller och arbetsuppgifter, till exempel revisorn som granskare, revisorn som rådgivare samt en roll där revisorn har en legitimerande funktion. I denna studie är det framförallt revisorn som rådgivare som behandlas och det vi vill undersöka är var i förvärvsprocessen revisorn är delaktig samt vad den då bidrar med. Syftet med denna studie är att öka förståelsen för processen vid ett företagsförvärv samt vad revisorn bidrar med i denna. I denna studie har fem fallstudier genomförts där semistrukturerade intervjuer har gjorts med revisorer som har eller har haft koppling till företagsförvärv. Teorin från referensramen användes vid vår analys av de empiriska resultaten, detta gjordes för att se hur tidigare teori förhåller sig till vår empiri. Studiens resultat visar att revisorns roll under förvärvsprocessen fungerar som en rådgivare, det är däremot ovanligt att revisorn är delaktig under hela processen. Den del i processen där revisorn bidrar med mest är vid företagsbesiktningen, som även kan nämnas som due diligence. Vidare kan vi konstatera att ett företagsförvärv oftast innebär en väldigt stor och komplex process där det kan uppstå problem dock är det väldigt ovanligt att ett företagsförvärv avbryts. / Background: Acquisitions are a common occurance today as a means for corporation growth. Various research has previously been conducted in this field, however a focus on the actors participating in the acquistation process is uncommon. In this study we focus on one specific actor, the auditor. Our focus on the auditor is due to this actor's variety of roles and assignments, e.g. the auditor as a reviewer , as an advisor or the auditor with a legimitising role. In this study we are predominately concerned with the auditor as an advisor, thus what we examine is at which point in the acquistion process the auditor partakes and how the controller contributes to the process. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to increase the understanding of the acquistion process and the auditor's role in this process. Method: In this study we have conducted five case studies based on semi-structured interviews with auditors who currently are or previously have been involved with acquisitions. We have applied the theory from our frame of reference in the analysis of our findings in order to examine how our findings relate to this theory. Conclusions: This study's results indicate that the auditor's role during the acquisition process is mainly as an advisor and that it is rare for the auditor to partake during the entire process. The part of the process where the auditor contributes the most is in the due diligence process. Furthermore we can conclude that an acquisition in most cases is an extensive and complex process where various problems can arise. Despite these aggravating factors it is very rare for an acquisition to be cancelled.

This thesis explores the management of cross-cultural conflict by Resident Advisors (RA) at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada. A total of twelve RAs were interviewed on the policies and expected practices of RAs, how these policies are implemented and whether these policies are effective in resolving cross-cultural conflict. This research analyzes and demonstrates that besides conflict itself, the discourse of conflict--how one speaks about conflict--and its representation are equally important. In many circumstances, the cultural discourse and its representation are not only a major part of the problem, but even a source of it. I argue that a narrow conceptualization of culture in the expected dispute resolution practices of RAs constrains the management of disputes between residents. Examples of disputes pertaining to nationality, racial and sexual discrimination, drugs, and alcohol illustrate the use of culture as a controlling factor in conflict, defining culture as bounded and discrete. This neglects the underlying structural issues at play, serving only to reproduce conflict and to ensure that social and economic inequities are passed on.

This thesis explores the management of cross-cultural conflict by Resident Advisors (RA) at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada. A total of twelve RAs were interviewed on the policies and expected practices of RAs, how these policies are implemented and whether these policies are effective in resolving cross-cultural conflict. This research analyzes and demonstrates that besides conflict itself, the discourse of conflict--how one speaks about conflict--and its representation are equally important. In many circumstances, the cultural discourse and its representation are not only a major part of the problem, but even a source of it. I argue that a narrow conceptualization of culture in the expected dispute resolution practices of RAs constrains the management of disputes between residents. Examples of disputes pertaining to nationality, racial and sexual discrimination, drugs, and alcohol illustrate the use of culture as a controlling factor in conflict, defining culture as bounded and discrete. This neglects the underlying structural issues at play, serving only to reproduce conflict and to ensure that social and economic inequities are passed on.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 1999. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 109-113). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

Research has shown that adolescent students' sense of connection to adults and peers and sense of belonging to school are important for academic achievement, social-emotional growth and well-being, and overall success at school. One key mechanism schools have implemented to foster such relationship building is advisory. Much of the advisory research has focused on advisory programming and best practices. While some scholarship has found advisory programs to improve students' sense of connectedness to their advisor and peers and to increase students sense of belongingness to their school, the advisory literature also indicates that a number of schools and educators have experienced challenges to making advisory work for them and their students. The purpose of this mixed-methods study is to explore how and to what extent enhanced advisory fosters ninth grade students' development, as characterized by the Five Cs of positive youth development. The sample was comprised of 55 ninth grade students participating in enhanced advisory (EA), seven EA advisors, and a previous cohort of 96 ninth grade students who participated in traditional advisory (TA). Pre-post surveys were used to measure the development of students in EA over the course of one academic year and end-of-year surveys were used to compare the positive development of students in EA to that of a previous cohort of ninth grade students in TA. Interviews with EA students and advisors were used to investigate and illuminate the quantitative data on students' sense of connectedness to each other, their advisory groups, and their advisors. Major findings revealed that enhanced advisory (EA) students' end-of-year mean scores on 12 of 16 positive development measures surpassed those of students in traditional advisory (TA), indicating that enhanced advisory played a role in fostering students' positive development. Qualitative data revealed that almost all interviewed students built a positive relationship with their advisors and benefitted academically, socially, and psychologically from that relationship. Many--but not all-- students also described the role of advisory in strengthening their connections to peers and sense of belonging to their advisory group.