The purpose of this study was to examine the support and perceptions about associate business degree programs offered by the University of Maine System. / Four of the seven University of Maine baccalaureate institutions were included in this study. A triangulation research methodology was employed, including institutional data collection, surveys, and interviews. A random sample of a total of 584 day students, along with all business faculty and campus administrators was surveyed during the Fall semester of 1988. Interview schedules were developed on a stratified sample of a total of 22 faculty and 30 administrators during the Spring 1989 semester. Support variables encompassed issues and questions dealing with faculty, curriculum, and students. / Based on the findings in the study, it was concluded that baccalaureate missions of senior institutions may conflict with associate degree career programs. The administrative structure delivering the associate degree program seems to be a major factor underlining the degree of support that is given to associate business programs. Strong leadership and advocacy for 2-year programs are necessary for equitable treatment at the institutional planning level. / Differences in program support of 2-year and 4-year degree programs seem to have surfaced the most on the larger University of Maine and Southern Maine campuses, where limited support was perceived for 2-year programs by faculty and administrators. / T-tests on student perceptions and attitudes about University services across campuses clearly resulted in positive significant differences of 2-year students in comparison to 4-year students. Differences in 2-year student expectations about university life in general may have contributed to this phenomena. / And finally, it appears that business school professional accreditation by the American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) does impact on the level and type of support, not only of baccalaureate business programs, but also associate business programs that are delivered by the same institution. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 51-07, Section: A, page: 2247. / Major Professor: Louis W. Bender. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1990.

Organizations are increasingly facing more dynamic environments. Often the time frame involved is too small for the organization to adopt formal structural changes in response to these environments. Increasingly, organizations are turning to virtual organizations to respond to this dynamic environment. Virtual organizations are temporary groupings of workers that meet task needs without formal change to the organization. Through the use of virtual organizations, the flexibility of the traditional organization is augmented. A research model is formulated that relates the strength of the virtual organization to performance. The model is tested with a sample of 273 Air Force acquisition managers comprising 84 teams. A measurement scheme for the strength of the virtual organization is developed and validated. A hierarchical regression scheme confirms that stronger virtual organizations perform better in complex task situations. The implications of these findings are explored. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 55-12, Section: A, page: 3919. / Major Professor: Thomas D. Clark. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1994.

The study is organized into two major parts. Part I is largely theoretical. It asserts the need for investigation and states the problem. It reviews the relevant literature and sets out the methodological framework of the study. Finally, it discusses the many facets of the gallery/museum: management, governance, structure, educational programs, publics served and exhibitions. Part II reports and analyzes the practice of one particular gallery/museum, that of The University of Texas at San Antonio. / Part I covers educational programs that may be pursued by the academic art gallery/museum in addition to exhibitions, including classes, lectures, workshops, and special events. It considers such programs from the perspective of environment for a successful presentation of these programs. Also included is a discussion of the place of the academic gallery/museum in adult education. / In Part II, the study analyzes the Art Teaching Gallery of The University of Texas at San Antonio, from its beginning in 1982 to its operation at the close of Spring Semester, 1986. Here, specific problems that actually arose are examined, and the solutions to them are presented. At issue are a wide variety of gallery tasks and the practical realities of accomplishing them. Major considerations include staffing, governance, finances, exhibitions, audience, and publicity. / The intent, ultimately, is to construct a paradigm for such a facility. The paradigm designed here is self-contained and fully intelligible without reference to the body of the study. It is offered as a basis for examination and comparison by interested directors and personnel of existing academic art galleries and as a model for the origination of new facilities and the development or improvement of current academic gallery facilities, operations, and services. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 49-06, Section: A, page: 1350. / Major Professor: Marylou Kuhn. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1988.

This research investigates the choice of intra-group communication medium by established decision-making groups. Other studies which have investigated this topic have used ad hoc groups as subjects. Because most decision-making groups in business organizations are pre-existing, and have established group roles and norms, the generalizability of ad hoc group research to business organizations must be questioned. In this study, face-to-face meetings are compared to computer conference meetings with consideration of the following questions: (1) is there any difference in the level of formal leader dominance in established decision-making groups using the two media, (2) is there any difference in the equality of communication between the members of established decision-making groups using the two media, (3) is there any difference in the number of instances of ideational conflict in established decision-making groups using the two media, and (4) is there any difference in overall group performance in established decision-making groups using the two media. Support was found for the use of computer conferencing with respect to the first three questions, though only the third question was answered within an alpha threshold of 0.05. No support was found for the fourth question. / In this study, established group norms are addressed, and a measuring instrument is created based on the work of M. A. Lieberman. Multiple pretest and post-test instruments for the investigation of group dynamics are developed and presented. The study suffered from a small sample size, and is best recognized as a preliminary investigation. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 52-04, Section: A, page: 1436. / Major Professor: Ralph Stair, Jr. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1991.

acase@tulane.edu

One of the basic tenets of expected utility theory is the principle of invariance in stating preferences between options. The preference should not depend on the description of the options (description invariance) or on the method of elicitation (procedure invariance). In Experiment 1, the maximum buying price for the right to play some bets was compared to the minimum selling price for giving up the right to play those same gambles. The selling prices were significantly greater than the buying prices for the different bets. In Experiment 2 participants had a choice task between a sure option and a risky one. The diversification obtained through repeated gambles had the predicted effect of decreasing risk aversion in the choice task. However, participants gave higher prices and lower risk premiums for the single gamble than for the repeated gambles, suggesting that the single gamble was more attractive than the repeated gamble. These results are consistent with the reversal of preferences found in previous research / acase@tulane.edu

acase@tulane.edu

acase@tulane.edu

This dissertation develops two examples in which managerial actions affect profitability. This view stands in contrast to earlier assumptions in economic theory that take a firm's profitability as given. The first example discusses how firm value depends on management's relative bargaining strength vis-a-vis an external party for a joint project. This example characterizes bargaining strength of the firm and of the outside party by means of specific criteria, such as capital participation restriction rules and the allocation of effective control of the project. The second example explores the effects on a firm's value, and on its capital structure, of the existence of managerial private benefits. Decision on financial structure is therefore considered to be affected by the kind of agency problem posed by management. In this second example we develop a system for the design of securities, given the effects of managerial actions on the characteristics of the cash flow distributions / acase@tulane.edu

acase@tulane.edu