<p> The world of business is changing and organizations are finding cross-border mergers are greatly different from their domestic acquisitions. The influence of national culture can be dramatic and leaders are discovering those differences can have a great impact on the success or failure of the partnership. The success of a partnership depends on many classical factors such as financial risk, legal liabilities, and capability to deliver. The participants in this study demonstrated few of the studied organizations understand the other organizations business or national culture and that inability to understand has had a tremendous cost to multinationals in both money and success. The purpose of this study was to address the shortcomings of partnership effectiveness by exploring the relationships and effects of business and national culture in partnerships and the efforts expended during due diligence to identify potential problems. The study results indicate many of the problems organizations face could have been discovered early and allowed for the establishment of programs necessary to address cultural issues before they become organizational problems.</p>

<p> Organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) are the extra-role, voluntary behaviors performed by organization members for the benefit of the organization. These behaviors have been widely studied and several dimensions have been defined. However, the majority of the work on OCBs focuses on traditional organizations where all employees are collocated and can interact on a regular basis. With the changing workplace, employees can now work remotely or across different locations and still be expected to work together. Those employees who are not collocated may not feel the need to benefit the organization, but may feel connected to the team and therefore participate in virtual team citizenship behaviors (VTCBs). </p><p> This paper reviews the current OCB literature by defining OCBs, reviewing the empirical literature, and providing a critique of the current literature. Next, a framework for studying VTCBs is developed based on virtual team literature. I define and discuss the differences between VTCBs and OCBs. Next, I develop propositions for assessing construct validity using multiple validation approaches, including convergent, and divergent, and nomological validity. I then propose and conduct three interlocking studies to generate items for the scale (Study 1), to assess the dimensionality and psychometric properties of the scale and establish convergent and divergent validity (Study 2), and to test the proposed nomological model (Study 3). The results of each study and the implications of the studies are discussed.</p>

<p> Organizational conflict manifests in misalignment of individuals and groups, and is often discussed in terms of the effect that leadership and management have on the state of affairs. It is built-in for any organization, yet its root causes are not fully understood. It is not uncommon to characterize leadership/management conflicts in terms of the style or personality type of the individuals involved; however, conflicting leadership and management objectives that are not style or personality dependent may also be a significant factor. If conflict is actually disagreement about the role-driven management objectives and leadership objectives at hand, rather than being based on style and personality, knowing how objectives-driven conflict manifests would be valuable to an organization for identifying the root cause of the conflict. </p><p> The researcher posited that a portion of organizational conflicts may be predestined by way of conflicting objectives that are intrinsic to management and leadership, and defined a perspective that utilized the historical bases for leadership and management to illuminate the possibilities. A Delphi study was conducted, which iteratively utilized a diverse group of industry experts to explore the roles, objectives, and actions of leaders and managers from a practitioner perspective. Although the study found that organizations can be in conflict due to conflicting management objectives and leadership objectives, the interchange of ideas during the study led to the conclusion that the nature of the objectives is largely conditional or subjective rather than predestined, and therefore the conflicts are also conditional or subjective.</p>

<p> In this paper, presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Business Administration/Master of Fine Arts in Theatre Management, I will examine the keys to success for collaboration between nonprofit and commercial theatrical entities in the form of an enhancement deal. I will demonstrate the defining elements of nonprofit and commercial theatrical ventures, define how they collaborate with each other in the form of enhancement deals. Then, based on my research, I will give recommendations for best practices for both parties when approaching an enhancement deal. Finally I will propose what relevance an enhancement project may have for the California Repertory Company.</p>

<p> The purpose of this study was to identify the qualities that characterize informal leadership in small organizations in the Greater Salt Lake City, Utah area and to develop a grounded theory regarding qualities that characterize informal leadership. The study involved 28 employees and 13 managers from three small organizations in the Greater Salt Lake City, Utah area. As a result of analyzing the data acquired from responses to an open-ended questionnaire and a review of peer-reviewed literature, a grounded theory and model of informal leadership were developed. The grounded theory identified individual competence, organizational structure, and situational requirements as themes related to informal leadership. Sub-themes that were identified represent informal leadership qualities. The sub-themes of confidence, ability, knowledge, willingness, example, and influence emerged from the study as qualities related to individual competence. The sub-themes of encouragement, ideas, asking, and opportunities emerged from the study as qualities related to organizational structure. The sub-themes of ability, organization, skills, goals, effectiveness, company, and teams emerged from the study as qualities related to situational requirements. Understanding gained from the current study may help leaders to realize that organizational culture will either promote or hinder the effectiveness of informal leadership. An understanding of the role that informal leadership plays in the leadership of the organization can offer leaders the opportunity to benefit from the specific qualities that individuals within the organization have to offer in an informal leadership capacity. The findings contribute to filling the gap in peer-reviewed literature related to informal leadership and to the body of knowledge relating to informal leadership as highlighted by the perceptions of employees and managers in small organizations. </p>

<p>Supply chains consist of all parties that, working together as suppliers, customers of suppliers, final customers, and logistics companies, transform raw materials into finished products for delivery to customers. Supply chain executives oversee the activities of supply chain management (SCM) professionals. Supply chain professionals coordinate efforts to ensure that products meet cost, delivery, and quality standards. Supply chain management is the coordination of activities required to purchase, transform, and deliver products to customers through coordination of efforts by suppliers, mediators, and service providers. Supply chain management performance is the degree purchased item costs, deliveries, and quality performance meet standards established by buyers and sellers. Lowering costs may contribute to profitability, but may also lead to decreased quality and thereby contribute to less profitability. The problem was that SCM executives overseeing the efforts of SCM professionals responsible for supply chain performance often did not attain the SCM performance expected by their senior executives. The purpose of the quantitative study was to determine associations among five components of SCM executive transformational leadership style and SCM performance, according to the perceptions of SCM professionals who report to those executives. Eighty-two SCM professionals completed the questionnaire. The results indicated moderate associations between (a) idealized influence behavior <i>r</i>(82) = -.338; <i> p</i> =.01, a weak correlation between (b) idealized influence attributed <i> r</i>(82) = .294; <i>p</i> = .003, a moderate correlation between (c) individualized consideration r(82) = .422; <i>p</i> &lt; .01, a weak correlation between (d) inspirational motivation <i>r</i>(82) = .313; <i>p</i> =.005, and a weak correlation between (e) intellectual stimulation, <i>r</i>(82) = .322; <i>p</i> = .010, with the criterion variable. Stepwise regression resulted in one significant model <i> R²</i> = .178; <i>F</i> (1,80) = 17.288, *<i> p</i> &lt;.01. Individual consideration was a statistically significant predictor of perceived SCM performance. For each point improvement of individual consideration, the criterion variable increased by .282, thereby, improving professionals' perceived SCM performance. Recommendations for further research include investigation of additional leadership styles and SCM performance, investigation of transactional and laissez faire styles, and investigation of large versus small businesses. Researchers may build on this study by adding members of other professional organizations such as those of the Institute of Supply Management. </p>

<p> Organizations are focused on growth, and one important means to enhance growth is inorganic growth through merger &amp; acquisition (M&amp;A). As an important component of inorganic growth, the literature spends significant time focused on human factors as a critical component supporting accomplishment of stated goals and objectives of the M&amp;A. Yet, the literature is less robust when looking at the role of leadership as one of the major aspects of human factors to consider in M&amp;As for both the acquirer and the target organization. While the literature recognizes the importance of leadership as a component of successful M&amp;As, it is largely focused anecdotal aspects of leadership and little or no focus on empirical studies of leadership in M&amp;As. For these organizations engaged in M&amp;A activities, understanding the role of organizational leadership capability as a predictor in M&amp;A success can be a key differentiator. M&amp;As generate a large amount of risk and this requires assessing and understanding variables that impact M&amp;A success in order to reduce the risk of the M&amp;A decision and enhance chances for successful integration at the conclusion of the M&amp;A deal. Within this dissertation, organizational leadership capability as determined by 360-degree leadership assessment instruments are leveraged across a wide range of M&amp;As and industry sectors to identify organizational leadership capability areas and competencies that might be predictors of M&amp;A success. Identifying organizational leadership capability profiles through these combinations of leadership areas and competencies can aid M&amp;A decision making and reduce inherent risk in those decisions.</p>

Control charts are regularly developed with the assumption that the process observations have an independent relationship. However, a common occurrence in certain industries is the collection of autocorrelated data. Two approaches are investigated that deal with this issue. The time series approach is based on modeling the data with an appropriate time series model to remove the autocorrelative structure. The EWMA approach is based on modeling the observations as a weighted average of previous data. The residuals from the two approaches are plotted on control charts and the average run lengths are compared. Both methods are applied to simulations that generate in-control data and data that have strategically located nonstandard conditions. The nonstandard conditions simulated are process change, linear drift, mean shift, and variance shift. It is proposed that the time series approach tends to perform better in these situations.

The critical nature of the venture capital-entrepreneur relationship is emphasized by the 46.4% exponential growth rate of venture capital investments throughout the 1990s. It is that time in the venture capital cycle between the time the first stage funding is made and the venture capitalist exits that the greatest opportunity exists for the venture capitalist to influence the outcome of his limited partners' investment. Theories have been offered to explain the effectiveness of the venture capitalist through agency, procedural justice, information, environment, and power theories. The first stage of this study investigates the predictive ability of the entrepreneur's attitudes toward his venture capital partner for long-term performance using entrepreneur attitudes in the light of these theories. The focus of the second and third stages of this analysis is on the ability of internal auditing and environmental factors characterizing the firm at the time of its IPO as predictors of long-term investor wealth appreciation. Data mining involves conducting all three steps in the development of a mathematical model of any phenomenon: structure generation, parameter estimation, and model confirmation, on the same set of data. In this development of a prediction scheme of firm performance we focus on model generation and preliminary model parameter estimation. The data for these analyses were obtained from a 1990 survey of top management of 145 venture capital funded enterprises, plus SEC filings on 563 Initial Public Offerings (IPOs) issued in 1997, stock market prices, and public accounting data. Both sets of data are treated according to an operational measurement theory rather than the traditional representational mode. As a result: (1) entrepreneur appreciation for strategic information, and new idea support, from his venture capitalist, are found to be predictive of subsequent business performance as successful IPO or merger/acquisition harvests; (2) routine application of non-parametric methods to wealth appreciation data for the time 1997--2001 casts doubt on the characterization of that time as a "boom," while confirming the anomaly of IPO underperformance; and (3) accounting data available at the time of IPO may be able to predict subsequent stock market performance three years out.

The distribution of products and merchandises can be done in various modes. The mode aimed by this study is the "integrated" distribution. It brings together a manufacturer and merchants who are linked by contract. The object of the latter is to oblige the merchants to buy, exclusively or not, the manufacturer's goods for reselling on their behalf. This resale is organized by the manufacturer who dictates to them the obligations concerning the sale and the maintenance of the goods. / Those obligations engender contractual relationships on a regular basis between the parties which are essential for the commercial survival of the resalers. In fact, the latter put their enterprise of distribution at the manufacturer's disposal. Thus, the parties adhere to a same procedure of distribution because the manufacturer can follow his goods from the production to the consumption stage. / The preliminary chapter of this thesis specifies and elaborates the terminology in Quebec Law on the usual terms relative to those contracts. This was rendered necessary because of the influence of American terminology on the subject. This work naturally led to an historic overview of the contracts of integrated distribution in five major juridical systems: United States, England, Canada, France and Quebec. / The first chapter's purpose is to establish a classification of those contracts which are proteiforms. To this end, we used two types of criterion of classification, namely the economical criteria and the juridical criteria. The economical criteria will study the economic activity aimed by those contracts and the form of economic concentration which they represent. Our juridical criteria will analyse the clause of exclusivity and the clause of control. / Having thus established the criteria of classification, we will then, in a second chapter, examine the obligational content of the contracts of integrated distribution. These can be divided in two main categories according to whether they possess or not a clause of territoriality. Contracts that do not have a clause of territoriality can be divided between those which have or do not have the exclusivity of supply.