<p> Today's nurse leaders face many challenges and concerns that require a new type of leadership &mdash; authentic leadership. Nurse leaders who are authentic are behaviorally altruistic, transparent, have personal integrity, possess attributes of caring, ethical moral values, shared and balanced decision making, effective communication, and integral relationships. The purpose of this research was to explore, develop and validate an instrument measuring perceived authentic leadership, by staff nurses, that is grounded in a nursing theoretical framework that supports clinical practice and knowledge development. In addition, to validation of the instrument, hypotheses investigated in this research examined the extent in which the Authentic Nurse Leadership Questionnaire, is supported by the Authentic Nurse Leadership conceptual framework, and its relationship between authentic nurse leaders' attributes, nurse engagement, and nurse work-life. The methodology included Polit and Beck's method of multi-item scale development. A cross-over design was employed to compare the Authentic Nurse Leadership Questionnaire, this new instrument, with Authentic Leadership Questionnaire was implemented in the pilot and full study phase. Sample included: an expert panel (n =19) which included clinical nurse leaders, faculty and researchers, pilot study (n = 20) registered staff nurses and full study (n = 309) registered staff nurses who provide 50% or more direct patient care. Study results indicated: the average Content Validity Indices (CVI) for the final 29-item scale, its subscales and individual questions, all surpassing the .9 bench mark. The Cronbach's alpha coefficients ranged from .89 to .99, and the Intra Class Coefficients (ICCs) for 3 week test-retest reliability from 0.87 to .94. Findings indicated the ANLQ was reliable and valid instrument to measure authentic nursing leadership. Overall the ANLQ demonstrated better nursing values as indicated by a stronger relationship with nursing areas of work-life and nurse engagement than what ALQ did. The ANLQ concepts were statistically supported by both exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. Nurse leaders who incorporate Authentic Nurse Leadership into their practice are uniquely positioned to influence nurse work-life environment and nurse engagement.</p>

<p> Transformational leadership research has been extensive over the last several decades (Bass &amp; Stogdill, 2008). While there have been a number of studies of transformational leadership within the Indian culture, there are less which explore the Indian transformational leadership and Indian follower relationship from the follower&rsquo;s perspective. The researcher has not come across research which measures the relationship, if any, between the Indian transformational leader and job satisfaction of the Indian follower. Research has been conducted on overall Indian employee job satisfaction but none which includes the variables of Indian manager and Indian follower. A quantitative study is proposed to examine on whether a relationship exists between the variables of Indian transformational leadership and the job satisfaction of Indian followers. To measure Indian transformational leadership, the researcher will be using the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ) which has been used by researchers for many decades (Avolio &amp; Bass, 2004). To measure job satisfaction, the researcher will be using the Job Satisfaction Survey (JSS) which also has been used by researchers for many years (Spector, 1997). Further methodology of the study can be found in Chapter 3. The findings and conclusions of the study will be reviewed in Chapter 4 and Chapter 5 respectively.</p>

Under the principal-agent framework, the first essay studies and compares different compensation schemes commonly adopted by hedge fund and mutual fund managers. We find that the option-like performance fee structure prevalent among hedge funds is suboptimal to the symmetric performance fee structure. However, the use of high water mark (HWM) mitigates the suboptimality, though to a very limited extent. Both our theoretical models and simulation results show that HWM will induce more managerial efforts only when a fund is slightly under the water but it will unfavorably dampen incentives when a fund is too deep under the water and when the manager’s skill is poor. Allowing managers to invest personal wealth in their own funds, however, helps align interests and provides positive managerial incentives. Existing literature has detected a ”tournament behavior” among mutual fund managers that mid-year underperformers tend to take relatively higher risk than peers in the second halfyear. The second essay reexamines this issue and provides empirical evidence that such behavior does not exist among hedge fund managers, either at fund level or risk style level. Instead, hedge fund managers shift risk at mid-year in response to the moneyness of their incentive contracts. Also, risk shifting decisions are more driven by underperformance than by outperformance. High Water Mark can strongly rein in excess risk-taking and therefore better aligns interests. Last, risk shifting on average does not improve either performance, moneyness of incentive contracts, or cash inflows. The third essay uses factor models and optimal changepoint regression models to capture the intra-year risk dynamics of hedge fund managers. Those risk shifting managers are further divided into Informed’, ’Uninformed’ and ’Misinformed’ groups, according to their post-shifting risk adjusted performance. We find evidence that supports the existence of an ’Adverse Selection’ problem of managers compensation schemes. Namely, incentive contracts, designed to share risks and align interests, induce the strongest risk taking from the least informed or skilled hedge fund managers, whose risk-shifting decisions result in undesired or even deteriorated risk-adjusted returns for investors. We also find that the High Water Mark has only limited influence on mitigating excessive risk shifting.

<p> This single explorative case study investigated the causes of churn in the telecommunication industry in Kenya, narrowed down to include only the capital city of Nairobi. The question of this dissertation was split into three sub-questions. The first sub-question investigated the behavioral patterns of customers causing churn. The second sub-question investigated the economic patterns causing churn, and the third sub-question investigated the policies and regulations that cause churn.</p><p> Data was gathered from carrier websites and publications from all the four carriers, Safaricom, Airtel, Orange, and YuMobile. Face-to-face interviews with one manager from each carrier were conducted. Field research was gathered from 29 customers who used multiple SIM cards or have changed their carrier. </p><p> Findings of this dissertation confirmed findings of most previous literature. Causes of churn differed based on the perspectives. Carriers thought they were mainly in control of churn, whereas customer causes reflected multiple behavioral and economic factors that were not related to the carriers. Findings also indicated that it not possible to investigate a single cause of churn without taking into consideration the effect of all other linked causes. Recommendations for telecommunication leaders have been provided, and a model illustrating the procedure that was followed to solve the problem was also provided. The first step that leaders must take is to identify the true causes of any problem from all the different perspectives before attempting to solve the problem. Future quantitative research is required to investigate the links between causes of churn. Results from this dissertation together with the quantitative research could be used to make customized churn prediction software to accurately predict churning customer.</p>

<p> Dissatisfaction caused by work conflicts between members of different generations is possibly rooted in misinterpretations of the millennial generation, those born between 1980 and 2001, especially in relation to the type of supervisory leadership behavior they favor. The purpose of this quantitative study was to examine whether there is a statistically significant relationship between transformational leadership and job satisfaction among millennial workers in an intergenerational workforce. The Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ) questionnaire was selected to measure the five subscales of transformational leadership and the Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire (MSQ) to measure job satisfaction. A sample of 133 U.S. millennial employees in information technology (IT), healthcare, and sales and marketing selected from LinkedIn groups completed the survey. Two statistical models were developed and findings indicated a significant positive relationship between transformational leadership and its five factors and the job satisfaction of millennials. The five transformational leadership factors were attributed as an explanation of 37.8% of millennials&rsquo; job satisfaction in the first model. The second model of overall transformational leadership score was applied to explain 36.4% of the relationship. The individual consideration component showed the highest score indicating a significant positive relationship with millennial job satisfaction (<i>r</i> = .584; <i>p</i> &lt; .05). As such, the component&rsquo;s contribution to the predictive model was the highest of all transformational leadership factors (<i>R²</i> = .341, <i>F</i>(1, 133) = 15.451, <i>p</i> &lt; .05; <i> B</i> = 5.52), indicating that when leadership behaviors displayed individualized attention, job satisfaction increased. Variables of gender and occupational sector did not correlate significantly with job satisfaction of millennials and therefore were excluded. There was a significant relationship between covariate annual income and job satisfaction of millennials (r = .150; <i> p</i> &lt; .05). Across occupational sectors, job satisfaction did not differ much and millennial males indicated a higher level of satisfaction at work (<i>M</i> = 71.5556; <i>SD</i> = 15.7548) compared to women (<i>M</i> = 66.6582; <i>SD</i> = 18.59479). Recommendations for future research include expanding the study with a full range MLQ questionnaire to capture additional information as well as scrutinizing the mediation of gender and occupational sectors on job satisfaction.</p>

<p> Leaders are frequently called to apologize on behalf of their organizations, in some cases skillfully resolving episodes of failure while meeting the unique, competing needs of diverse stakeholders. However, too often leaders handle apology poorly, exacerbating tense situations and alienating key constituents. This study is an examination of the practice of apology as a leadership behavior in an organizational context. To answer the question, <i>How might the existing literatures on apology be examined, integrated and refocused to apply specifically to leaders operating within an organizational context </i>? the study provides a meta-analysis of the diverse literatures that address the practice of apology. Examining literature from theology and philosophy, the social sciences, law, public relations and organizational management, the study builds a framework to understand and evaluate apology and its appropriate application to episodes of organizational failure. The literature integration and analysis demonstrates a diversity of perspectives on the definition of apology, its purpose and goals, the modes through which apology is delivered, the process or steps involved in apology, and the alternatives to apology. Using the adaptive leadership framework and a stakeholder management perspective on organization, the research is organized around the unique and distinct needs of organizational leaders. The Organizational Apology Model, offered in Chapter 5, provides a robust set of tools and examples designed to support organizational leaders considering the practice of apology.</p>

<p> Poor executive leadership of organizations over the last 20 years has resulted in the destruction of stakeholder value, loss of jobs, and in some cases, risk to the entire enterprise. An executive search firm database, encompassing 16,000 leaders from 300 organizations, was analyzed to determine if the commonality and transferability of leadership competences could be used to improve executive assessment. Implicit leadership theory, where leaders are gauged by the individuals that surround them, served as the theoretical foundation. The study also relies on a leadership competency model used by the executive search firm that constructed the database and is based primarily on behavioral-event interviewing method of assessment. Inferential statistics were used to analysis the data with analysis of variance and Tukey post-hoc methods for testing mean differences, and with correlation and regression analysis to test for associations and explained variances. The executive roles were found to show a commonality of competency profiles and transferability across the disciplines studied, with the exception of the chief executive officer (CEO) role. These findings suggest that a new CEO should not be sourced directly from the other executive functions inside or outside the firm. The Outstanding leader database indicates a strong universality and interchangeability of leaders at this higher-ranking level, regardless of discipline and industry; the database is a source of new potential CEOs. Results Orientation is by far the strongest developed of the competencies for all leaders. Social change will result from better selection of top executive leaders with a positive impact for employees and all the stakeholders of the corporation or institution.</p>

The increasing implementation of teams in organizations has led to much research attention around team processes and performance. Uncertainty exists, however, in how team processes impact collaborative activities and, ultimately, team performance. Recent research has focused on team cognition as a potential means of explaining this uncertainty. Extending this line of inquiry, my dissertation research focuses on the interplay between teams' cognitive and communicative processes that have been implicitly linked in past team research. Specifically, I examine mental model convergence among team members as a specific type of team cognition. By integrating cognition and communication explicitly, the process of mental model convergence as it unfolds during collaborative activities may be analyzed via the verbal exchange of mental model content. Herein, I compare baseline, intervention, and optimal team communication processes to understand how the communication patterns evoking the underlying mental model convergence process of baseline teams may be changed by team interventions and how the process differs among them. Baseline team data comes from 60 student teams working in a laboratory setting. These data are also used to create a model of team communication processes, which is then implemented to simulate the communication processes of teams receiving interventions. The two types of team intervention conditions investigated include initiating collaborative activities with a specific topic discussion and delaying the start of task activities. The teams with optimal communication processes are obtained using genetic algorithm optimization procedures for combinatorial problems with multiple objectives. Specifically, the genetic algorithm evolves generations of team communication processes, beginning with the baseline data, toward optimal cost and time performance. In addition to examining the mental model convergence process, the performance of intervention teams, analyzed on a neural network generated performance assessment model, is compared to baseline teams receiving no interventions and optimal teams. Results indicate that team interventions do not improve team performance equally. Furthermore, event history analysis indicates a temporal shift in the timing of communication patterns between baseline teams and top intervention teams (i.e., the best performing teams receiving interventions). Moreover, top intervention teams have mental model convergence processes that emulate those of optimal teams.

<p> Research demonstrates that there is a gap in focusing understanding factors of information communication technology (ICT) acceptance and use in small and medium enterprises (SMEs). ICT is gaining popularity because it is a force in the economic growth equation. SMEs adopt ICT to promote their business strategy, performance, and growth. This study focused on the factors influencing ICT acceptance and use in SMEs. The research questions were 1) what factors influence SME owners/managers to accept ICT in Kenya? 2) What is the relationship between ICT acceptance and SMEs retail business growth in Kenya? and 3) What is the relationship between ICT usage and SMEs retail business growth in Kenya? The researcher used quantitative research methodology to survey SME owners/managers in Kenya. The researcher hand delivered the survey to 121 potential participants, of which 118 responded. This study evaluated factors of ICT acceptance in SMEs, the relationship between ICT acceptance and SME growth, and the relationship between ICT usage and SME growth. Research findings showed that customer services, cost reduction and business relationships were the most influential factors of ICT acceptance. Computer applications and mobile phones were the most commonly used ICT tools. The study found a strong positive relationship between ICT acceptance and SME growth, and a moderate positive relationship between ICT usage and SME growth. The research results are valuable to stakeholders including potential entrepreneurs, sponsors, government official and financial institutions who make informed decision and formulate policies about ICT investment and effective business strategies for SMEs growth.</p>

<p>This study examined strategies that seven corporate leaders use to enhance their performance within boundaryless work contexts. Participants described their best and worst days as examples of interrole facilitation and conflict. The behaviors, values, and beliefs underlying interrole facilitation strategies were then deduced. Experiences of interrole facilitation were characterized by wellbeing, efficacy, and connection. Interrole conflict was experienced as the absence of these, combined with stress, pressure, feeling out of control, and having a sense of defeat. Various planning and executing behaviors as well as internal and external conditions were believed to impact interrole facilitation. Participants? values and beliefs emphasized the importance of connection with others, self-care, contribution, and active management of themselves and their schedule. Further research should examine the intrapersonal and interpersonal conditions that act on interrole facilitation behaviors and identify recovery strategies to help individuals shift from interrole conflict to interrole facilitation.