<p> Past research has suggested that telecommuters can balance their work and personal lives more efficiently than their office counterparts. Researchers had not explored how telecommuters who worked for a private health insurer balanced their work and personal lives. The following aspects of telecommuting were investigated: (a) telecommuters&rsquo; expectations, (b) structure of work and home environment, and (c) handling obstacles at work and home. This qualitative phenomenological study consisted of interview data collected from a convenience sample of 19 full-time telecommuters self-selected from a population of 5,819 people who worked for a private health insurer located in the United States. The theoretical framework for the study was Herzberg&rsquo;s two-factor theory and Maslow&rsquo;s hierarchy of needs theory. Seven themes emerged: (a) maintaining a separate office in the home; (b) setting family expectations; (c) remaining task oriented and disciplined and maintaining a normal routine; (d) communicating with managers and colleagues; (e) juggling work and personal life; (f) taking breaks and lunches; and (g) taking personal time off. The results indicated that work&ndash;life balance can be achieved by (a) creating structure in the working environment, (b) gaining organizational and management support, (c) limiting personal obstacles during working hours, and (d) limiting work-related tasks during personal time.</p>

<p> Na (2013) identified human capital as one of the important resources Professional Service Firms (PSFs) use to stay successful. This study examined the past and current literature on skill underutilization, perceived job match, perceived overqualification and perceived overeducation. The relationship that exists between these concepts and skill underutilization was also examined to help understand how the Big Four accounting consultants in the United States perceive skill underutilization. This study adopted a quantitative study to examine how accounting consultants perceive skill underutilization. Survey responses from 119 accounting consultants were used to examine how Big Four accounting consultants perceive skill underutilization. The results of the research reveals that perceived skill utilization was positively related to perceived job match (<i>r</i> = .76, <i>p</i> &lt; .001) while being negatively related to perceived overeducation (<i> r</i> = -.42, <i>p</i> &lt; .001) and perceived overqualification (<i>r</i> = -.50, <i>p</i> &lt; .001). The three independent variables Perceived Job Match, Perceived Overeducation and Perceived Overqualification together account for 61.5% of the variance in the dependent variable Perceived Skill Utilization. Perceived Job Match accounted for 36.6%, Perceived Overeducation accounted for 0.04% and Perceived Overqualification accounted for 1.2% of the variance. The remaining variance, 23.7% (61.5% - 37.84%), is shared variance among the three independent variables. The variables, Perceived Overeducation and Perceived Overqualification actually contributed very little to the variance in Perceived Skill Utilization beyond that provided by Perceived Job Match, despite being significantly significant. Much of this contribution is due to the inter-correlation of these variables with Perceived Job Match.</p>

<p> The military faces unprecedented limitation of resources due to fiscal cuts through all branches of service. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore succession planning (SP) strategies used by Air National Guard leaders to retain skilled workers. The target population consisted of 5 leaders of the Washington Air National Guard (ANG) with a minimum of 5 years of experience in the ANG. The five tenured candidates were selected given proven leadership performance, ability to influence the organization, and they provided institutional knowledge and corporate insight of SP efforts spanning nearly a century. Additionally, these leaders had direct first-hand experience with local selective retention process and successful force management practices. The conceptual framework included organizational leadership theory, succession theory, and employee retention. Semistructured interviews were conducted and relevant documents collected. All interpretations from the data were subjected to member checking to ensure trustworthiness of findings. Coding, clustering, and thematic analysis were methods used for data analysis. Prominent ideas and actions taken were coded, common codes were clustered and themes evolved. Based on the methodological triangulation of data, 5 themes surfaced: (a) skills focus verses strategic, (b) informal verses formal SP, (c) individual verses organizational, (d) priority for retention verses recruitment, and (e) limited skill leads to mission gaps. The application of the findings from the study may contribute to social change by inspiring military leadership to adopt more strategic succession planning and ensure business sustainability by changing existing SP from a recruitment-based technique to culture of retention.</p>

<p> The current study asks four primary research questions to address several questions about the psychometric properties of emotional intelligence (EI) assessments; is there a statistically significant difference in (a) the predictive validity of a participant&rsquo;s EI scores for their leadership performance as measured by Charismatic/Transformational Leadership (CTL) behavior occurrence when EI is measured using an assessment based on the ability-based as compared to an assessment based on the mixed model; (b) the predictive validity of a participant&rsquo;s EI scores for their leadership performance as measured by CTL behavior occurrence when EI is measured at different levels of leadership within the organizational hierarchy; (c) the predictive validity of a participant&rsquo;s EI scores when measured using an assessment based on the abilities-based model for their leadership performance as measured by CTL behavior occurrence when EI is measured at different levels of leadership within the organizational hierarchy and; (d) the predictive validity of a participant&rsquo;s EI scores when measured using an assessment based on the mixed model for their leadership performance as measured by CTL behavior occurrence when EI is measured at different levels of leadership within the organizational hierarchy? The goals were to determine (a) if there is a difference in how well the ability-based and mixed models each predict the self-reported CTL and (b) if this predictive relationship is affected by a leader&rsquo;s position within the organizational hierarchy. Current supervisors from all levels within their organization&rsquo;s hierarchies completed the MSCEIT, Genos EI, MLQ, and a demographic questionnaire which asked for their leadership level. 168 current leader&rsquo;s data was obtained from Qualtrics, LLC. Stepwise multiple linear regression analysis showed no statistically significant difference in the predictive validities of the abilities-based and mixed models of EI for self-reported CTL. Regression-based tests for moderation effects showed a statistically significant difference in the regression coefficients between front-line leaders and other leadership levels for the MSCEIT, but no statistically significant differences for the Genos-EI. Possible artifacts and confounding variables were discussed, with particular focus on the use of self-report versions of the assessments.</p>

<p> The general business problem is that competitive advantage suffers because of the lack of employee engagement and employee innovative work behavior. Inability of business to determine methods or opportunities to affect levels of work engagement and innovative work behavior of employees limits the ability of the business to gain competitive advantage. The purpose of this quantitative correlational study is to examine the relationship between levels of resilience and levels of work engagement, and levels of resilience and levels of innovative work behavior. The body of literature in these three areas fails to identify a relationship between resilience and work engagement or between resilience and innovative work behavior. This proposal examined the concepts of resiliency, work engagement, and innovative work behavior to determine if a relationship exists between the three constructs building on Fredrickson&rsquo;s 1998 broaden and build theory. Data was collected using an online survey tool. Participants were employed by large, for-profit U.S. based companies. The researcher employed River Sampling to collect data. Results were analyzed for completeness and incomplete surveys were not used in the data analysis. Raw data was translated into two categories of resilience (low and high), and three categories each for work engagement and innovative work behavior (low, medium, and high). The findings show a significant, positive relationship between levels of resilience and levels of work engagement, and between levels of resilience and levels of innovative work behavior. This study provides meaningful contributions to the body of literature in the areas of resilience, work engagement, and innovative work behavior by establishing a significant relationship between resilience and work engagement and between resilience and innovative work behavior. Practitioners can use the results of this study to develop new methods for improving levels of work engagement and levels of innovative work behavior by developing efforts to improve resilience.</p>

abstract: Online product ratings offer consumers information about products. In this dissertation, I explore how the design of the rating system impacts consumers’ sharing behavior and how different players are affected by rating mechanisms. The first two chapters investigate how consumers choose to share their experiences of different attributes, how their preferences are reflected in numerical ratings and textual reviews, whether and how multi-dimensional rating systems affect consumer satisfaction through product ratings, and whether and how multi-dimensional rating systems affect the interplay between numerical ratings and textual reviews. The identification strategy of the observational study hinges on a natural experiment on TripAdvisor when the website reengineered its rating system from single-dimensional to multi-dimensional in January 2009. Rating data on the same set of restaurants from Yelp, were used to identify the causal effect using a difference-in-difference approach. Text mining skills were deployed to identify potential topics from textual reviews when consumers didn’t provide dimensional ratings in both SD and MD systems. Results show that ratings in a single-dimensional rating system have a downward trend and a higher dispersion, whereas ratings in a multi-dimensional rating system are significantly higher and convergent. Textual reviews in MDR are in greater width and depth than textual reviews in SDR. The third chapter tries to uncover how the introduction of monetary incentives would influence different players in the online e-commerce market in the short term and in the long run. These three studies together contribute to the understanding of rating system/mechanism designs and different players in the online market. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Business Administration 2018

abstract: Recognizing that CEOs are less capable of diversifying their employment risks than shareholders who could diversify their investment risks through portfolio investments, agency theory assumes that CEOs tend to be risk averse compared with shareholders. Based on this assumption, agency theory scholars suggest that to align the risk preference of CEOs with that of shareholders, CEOs need to be closely monitored and have less power. SEC regulators have been adopting the suggestion and accordingly CEO power has been reduced in the past decades. However, the empirical results are mixed and cannot provide solid support for the suggestion that reducing CEO power could lead the CEO to take more risks. Considering that managerial risk taking is an important issue in strategic management research and agency theory has been widely adopted in academia and business worlds, it is imperative to clarify the mechanism behind the relationship between CEO power and risk taking. My study aims to fill this research gap. In this study I follow agency theory to take an employment security perspective and fully consider how CEOs’ concern about employment security is affected by their power and ownership structure to enrich the understanding of the effects of CEO power and ownership structure on risk taking. I fine-tune the key concept CEO power into the CEO power over board and introduce a key aspect of ownership structure - nontransient investor ownership. I further suggest that CEO power over board and nontransient investor ownership affect CEOs’ employment security and the resulting CEO risk taking. In addition, I consider a set of industry and firm characteristics as the boundary conditions for the effects of CEO power and nontransient investor ownership on CEO risk-taking. This set of industry and firm characteristics include industry complexity, industry dynamism, industry munificence and firm slack. I test my theory using a large-scale, multi-year sample of U.S. publicly listed S&P 1500 firms between 2001 and 2017. My main hypotheses about the effects of CEO power over board and nontransient investor ownership on CEO risk taking receive strong support. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Business Administration 2019

In emerging markets, joint venture is a dominant form of competition for multinational corporations. Drawing from the resource-based view of the firm and evolutionary perspective, I developed a theoretical framework that synthesizes our knowledge regarding timing of joint venture formation, initial resource commitment and resource development beyond formation to fully understand the path of joint venture implementation and its economic impact on sustainable competitive advantage. Life course data for 439 joint ventures in the Chinese auto industry (1983-2002) form a cohort-sequential longitudinal dataset. Employing Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM) allows me to isolate the economic consequences and developmental trend of the main and interaction effects of entry timing, initial resource commitment and resource development on joint venture performance over time. The results of the study indicate that: 1). The sustainability of early mover advantage depends not only on the initial resource commitment, but also the effort in resource development over time. 2). Timing alone is significant in determining initial performance, but is not significant for the long-term success. 3). Early movers with high initial resource commitment are more likely to succeed in the long run but may take some time to achieve profitability. This study empirically explored the dynamics of resource accumulation and its impact on intra-firm performance variation through its life course and inter-firm performance variation overtime by integrating the resource-based view and entry order effect research. The results can help to reconcile the long time equivocal findings in entry order effect research. It can also provide a valuable contribution to the development of a dynamic resource base theory of the firm through the longitudinal analysis of IJVs life course development paths. Methodologically, it is one of the first attempts to introduce HLM to international joint venture research where the important issue of parameter variation across firm or over time has not been effectively addressed. Furthermore, the results identified different pathways to success through the use of different entry strategies and advanced our knowledge of international joint venture operations at and beyond the formation stage.

This research project takes the position that there is a biological basis to social contract formation in business and to social contract dissolution. Its stance is that individuals cannot escape the natural forces that govern these relationships, by rite that these forces have on the structuring of the neural architecture of the human brain. While it is argued in this project that the neural algorithms in the brain are formed through evolutionary time to perform specific tasks that aided in the economizing activities of our ancestors, this structural design is not absolute. Rather, the neural circuits which formed in response to adaptive challenges facing our ancestors are susceptible to cultural influences, hierarchical arrangements, and organizational elaboration. So, although it is inescapable that biological forces shaped a fixed neural structure that guides and limits humans abilities in the present day, naturally formed cultural variables in corporations moderate the activation of these neural circuits in ordinary business social contract situations. This dissertation attempts to inform the business ethics field with insights from evolutionary psychology by examining business respondents behavior when confronted with a social contract situation that involves cheating. En route to this goal, the research project empirically tests for the presence of cheater-detection/social-contract neural algorithms in a sample of business practitioners and undergraduate business students, as an extension of the research conducted by evolutionary psychologists, Leda Cosmides and John Tooby. Based on the theoretical groundwork laid by evolutionary psychology and other natural science disciplines, the study examined whether human brain circuits are structured to recognize one specific type of social relationship in firms agency arrangements. Ultimately, this studys central thesis is: Although corporate agents minds are biologically evolved to identify cheaters in social contract situations, the neural circuits responsible for detecting these breaches are influenced by organizational and cultural components that affect the individuals perceptions of the terms of the exchange. Results from the main study empirically confirm that cheater-detection algorithms are present within a business population but that these hardwired circuits are moderated by cultural influences in business organizations. Implications for organizations and ethical decision making are offered and discussed.

In this dissertation, I conduct experimental labor markets to investigate the effectiveness of an optimal agency contract in inducing employee effort and maximizing firm profit. I compare firm profit under the optimal agency contract to that under a theoretically sub-optimal contract that relies on the norm of reciprocity to motivate employee effort, and explore how factors outside standard agency models affect the relative profitability of the two contracts. Experimental results show that firm profit is higher under the optimal agency contract in markets where only one of the two contracts is available, but is statistically indistinguishable between the two contracts in markets where both contracts are available. These results are inconsistent with the assumptions of agency theory, but are consistent with my proposition that employees'perceptions about the intentions underlying firms' contract offers, which play no role in standard agency theory, influence employees' reactions to the offers, and that this, in turn, affects the relative profitability of the two contracts. The implications of these results for research on incentives, contracting, and social norms, and for the design of management control systems in practice, are discussed.