Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Family Studies and Human Services / John E. Grable and Kristy L. Archuleta / The efficient operation and succession of family owned businesses plays a critical role in our national economic health. This study was built upon the Family Business Succession Model, which is based on family systems theory. The impact of owner characteristics, enterprise characteristics, business formalizing activities, family influence, access to resources, and external environmental conditions, all on the extensiveness of family business succession preparedness, was assessed. These results were moderated by the generation of the business. With an exploratory and descriptive methodology, primary survey data were obtained from family business owners in Missouri, Illinois, and Kansas. Research results provide family business advisors with important insight for developing recommendations around improving the extensiveness of family business succession preparedness, provide important policy implications, and serve as a basis for additional theory development in family business succession planning.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Family Studies and Human Services / Jared R. Anderson / Sandra M. Stith / Adoption trends have shifted in the past two decades and as a result, could impact established assumptions about behavior problems among adopted children. A comprehensive meta-analysis was published in 2005 attempting to come to more definitive conclusions regarding adoption behavior and moderators of adoption behavior. However, the study used a sample from over a dozen countries over a 44 year span. This study is a meta-analysis that has replicated many of the questions investigated by the previous analysis with a much more recent 15 year sample of adoptees placed only within the United States. The results show that combined international and domestic adoptee samples, as well as separate international and domestic adoptee samples are more likely to have total, externalizing, and internalizing behavior problems than their non-adopted counterparts. In addition, age at time of assessment, gender of adoptees, and length of time spent with adoptive family may moderate some of the behavior problems experienced by adoptees. Pre-adoptive adversity, age at time of assessment, and study quality were not shown to have moderating influence on behavior of adoptees.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Hospitality Management and Dietetics / Chihyung Ok / Employee engagement has received a great deal of attention in the last decade in the popular business press and among consulting firms and the practitioner community. They claim employee engagement is a new human resource practice that business organizations can use in order to cope with the uncertainty of turbulent industry conditions. However, in the academic community, the concept remains new, and therefore, the concept requires rigorous seminal studies to validate it. Given that practical interest in work engagement has outstripped the currently available research evidence, fundamental questions, like how it can be increased and how and why it benefits individuals and organizations, still require answers. Therefore, this study empirically tested relationships among antecedents and consequences of employee engagement in the hotel setting. In particular, this study provided theory-based empirical evidence regarding whether employee evaluations of self (i.e., core self-evaluations) and perceptions of organizational environment (i.e., psychological climate) affect employee engagement. This study also investigated how employee engagement directly and indirectly leads to intrinsic rewards, job satisfaction, personal attachment to an organization (i.e., organizational commitment), and the leader-member exchange relationship (LMX). In accordance with the purpose and objectives of the study, 11 hypotheses were proposed based on several theories: Kahn's three psychological conditions theory, job demands-resources model, social exchange theory, and conservation of resources theory. To test the hypotheses, data were collected from 394 hotel employees and managers in the United States. The proposed relationships were examined using hierarchical multiple regression and structural equation modeling. Results of hypothesis testing showed that core self-evaluations and three components of psychological climate (managerial support for service, interdepartmental service, and team communication) positively influence employee engagement. The results also revealed that employee engagement is positively associated with all the outcome variables. This study further demonstrated that LMX mediates the relationships of employee engagement with job satisfaction and organizational commitment; job satisfaction mediates the relationships between employee engagement and organizational commitment and between LMX and organizational commitment. Given that employee engagement is an important current issue for hospitality companies, the findings should provide the hotel industry with a more complete picture of how employee engagement is associated with its antecedents and outcomes. A discussion of managerial implications is included along with theoretical implications of the findings, an evaluation of research limitations, and directions for future research.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Family Studies and Human Services / Rick J. Scheidt / Previous research has discovered that most 18-to-25 year olds do not feel they have reached the rite of passage known as adulthood. This period of development, termed “emerging adulthood”, is characterized by identity exploration and myriad possibilities related to who one is and what one wants out of life. Empirical evidence suggests that future goals linked to one’s identity are more likely to be obtained through three actions specified in the Selection-Optimization-Compensation (S.O.C.) model: selecting goals to focus one’s resources, optimizing goal-relevant means, and, when necessary, compensating for losses that may occur in these means. The purpose of this study was (a) to identify the proportions of 18-to-25 year old perceived adults vs. emerging adults in a university sample (n = 828); (b) to assess the degree to which self-reported perceived adult status distinguishes self-reports of achieved adult criteria, goal-pursuit strategies, and subjective well-being, and; (c) to determine the predictive utility of perceived adult status, background characteristics, and goal-pursuit strategies for understanding individual differences in life satisfaction, positive affect (i.e., subjective vitality), and negative affect (i.e., depressive symptoms). Analyses of on-line survey responses indicated that approximately one-fourth (24%) of participants reported they had reached adulthood, and, compared to their emerging adult peers, had achieved more criteria for adulthood and were using more effective goal-pursuit strategies. Step-wise multiple regression analyses revealed that specific background characteristics (e.g., relationship status and GPA) and goal-pursuit strategies (e.g., optimization) were significant and strongest predictors of the participants’ life satisfaction, positive affect, and negative affect. Perceived adult status was a significant moderate predictor of both life satisfaction and positive affect but was unrelated to negative affect. Implications of the findings for developmental researchers, educators, and practitioners are discussed.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Family Studies and Human Services / Sandra Stith / Farrell Webb / This study explored the impact of differentiation of self on Intimate Partner Violence (IPV). First, the study determined if differentiation of self in a relationship added to the variance accounted for by the known risk factors including relational satisfaction, marital conflict, romantic jealousy, depression, anxiety, and attitude about violence towards women. Second, it examined the moderating effect of gender on the relationship between differentiation of self and IPV. Results indicated that differentiation of self in a relationship is a predictor of perpetration of intimate partner violence in relationships even after controlling for other known risk factors. Results also indicated that gender did not moderate the relationship between differentiation of self and perpetration of violence.