<p> The purpose of this quantitative research study presents the correlations between education, years of experience, and Six Sigma experience versus an individual&rsquo;s compensation because of training and participating in the Six Sigma Methodology with regards to organizational management theory and leadership. The literature review revealed the historic foundations of Total Quality Management, Six Sigma and Lean aspects of participating in Six Sigma. The participant population consisted of Green Belts, Black Belts, Master Black Belts and Champions from several different industries within the United States and abroad. The participant data were collected through a comprehensive questionnaire with the following categories: (a) demographics; (b) Six Sigma training; (c) industry experience; (d) Six Sigma project completion; (e) compensation; (f) Lean Six Sigma tools frequency of use. The Spearman&rsquo;s rho results of the study indicated that Six Sigma training and participation is statistically significant and an important benefit to participants as compared to years of experience and education. An individual trained in the Six Sigma Methodology earns more to significantly more over the course of their career after participating and practicing Six Sigma. The study provides leadership with an understanding of the expected Six Sigma participant salaries and bonus percentage after training and successfully practicing the Six Sigma Methodology, as well as a brief discourse and recommendations on Six Sigma implementation within matrix organizations through a transformational leadership style.</p>

Role theory (Kahn, Wolfe, Quinn, Snoek & Rosenthal, 1964) provided a framework for an investigation of moderators of MSA agreement. Specifically, this study investigated moderating effects of different types of actual role conflict (person-role conflict, role sender dyad conflict, and inter-sender conflict), frequency of behavior observation, and feedback seeking behavior (feedback inquiry and feedback monitoring) on agreement between self, peer, superior and subordinate assessments within a 360 degree assessment. Data from 350 assessors of 27 managers and 124 professional employees produced 839 assessments (86% return rate). An exploratory factor analyses of results (prior to full analyses) indicated five behavioral categories of competence would best represent the data. These factors were used in Moderated Multiple Regression analyses. Results indicated weak to moderate support for moderating effects. Results replicated trends in past research regarding self-peer, self-superior, and peer-superior dyads.

Using a field study methodology, the current research investigates potential formal and interpersonal discrimination against pregnant women in hiring situations, as well as how such discrimination might be remediated. Female confederates, who were manipulated with a prosthesis to sometimes appear pregnant, applied for part-time jobs in local retail stores. Multiple sources of data were gathered from their interactions with store employees and analyzed for instances of formal discrimination (e.g., job callbacks) and interpersonal discrimination (e.g., smiling). Results indicated that although employees were giving pregnant and non-pregnant applicants job callbacks at approximately the same rates, pregnant applicants were being discriminated against through other formal channels and interpersonally. Moreover, attempts to remediate pregnancy discrimination were largely unsuccessful. Theoretical and practical considerations of these findings will be addressed. Further exploratory results are also discussed, and the theoretical and practical considerations of these findings are addressed.

Affect has been theoretically important to charismatic leadership for over 80 years as Weber (1920) referred to the emotion, passion, and devotion that ensue from charismatic authority, and is still evident in modern theories of charismatic and transformational leadership. When leaders express positive affect, they elicit more positive follower attributions of leadership (Lewis, 2000; Newcombe & Askanasy, 2002) and better follower performance (George, 1995; George & Bettenhausen, 1990). Yet the mechanism for these effects has largely been ignored in empirical research. The current studies examine emotional contagion as one means by which leader affect influences follower outcomes. Emotional contagion is the transfer of affect between persons that is thought to occur through unconscious and automatic mechanisms (Hatfield, Cacioppo, & Rapson, 1992). If leaders are able to transmit positive affect to their followers, then followers' positive affect should result in more positive attributions of leadership and better performance. In two laboratory studies and one field study, I tested the effects of affect and emotional contagion on leader and follower outcomes. Study 1 examined the effect of manipulated positive and negative affect on leadership behavior, using MBA students (n = 42). Leaders in the positive affect condition exhibited better leadership behavior than leaders in the negative affect condition. Study 2 tested the subsequent impact of leader affect on follower outcomes (n = 200). The proposed model suggested that leader affect influenced follower attributions of transformational leadership and performance directly, and through follower affect. Structural equation modeling indicated that the hypothesized model fit the data well. Study 3 largely replicated the findings of Study 2, using a field study of principals and teachers ( n = 228). Hierarchical Linear Modeling demonstrated that leader (principal) positive affect related to follower (teacher) positive affect via emotional contagion. Follower positive and negative affect related to follower attributions of transformational leadership and performance, in terms of organizational citizenship behavior. Follower attributions of transformational leadership also related to follower organizational citizenship behavior. As a whole, these three studies highlight the importance of affect and emotional contagion in leadership.

<p> The primary focus of this study was to learn how ethical leadership behaviors impacted employee organizational citizenship behaviors (OCB) and to propose a theory related to the relationship between ethical leader behaviors and employee OCB. This qualitative grounded theory study investigated specific types of leader behaviors and other, non-leader related factors that contributed to employee OCB. Seven female and 10 male engineers, working in a variety of engineering disciplines at various levels of leadership in their organizations, provided important perspective from their experience. The study discovered specific leader behaviors that can be traced back to ethical leadership theory encourage employee OCB. <i>Role model-employee relationship theory</i> or RMER was developed from analysis of the data. There are three constructs to RMER: <i>the ethical leader,</i> in which three distinct leadership behaviors of mentoring, supporting, and role modeling appear to promote employee OCB, <i>growing into leadership, </i> which describes the phenomena found in this study where employees who have role models early in their careers in turn choose to become role models once they become leaders, and <i>employee characteristics promote employee OCB,</i> in which employee characteristics of psychological ownership, self-esteem, and employee voice were each found to be important to promoting employee OCB, especially when combined with leader behaviors that promoted employee OCB.</p>

<p> Family businesses represent a key economical asset in the global economy. Leaders of family businesses have implemented internationalization as a key strategy to enhance sustainability and increase profitability in a hypercompetitive global marketplace. Guided by the Uppsala model, the purpose of this case study was to explore how Saudi family business leaders have planned and implemented internationalization. Three leaders from different international Saudi family businesses participated in semistructured interviews. The participants described their experience in achieving successful internationalization for their family businesses. After analyzing the interview data and validating through member checking, 3 main themes emerged: (a) the characteristics of the family business to compete internationally, (b) the characteristics of a suitable international market for family businesses to internationalize, and (c) the characteristics of a successful internationalization opportunity for a Saudi family business. In order to internationalize, Saudi family business leaders identified having a proper strategy, financial capability, qualified resources, well-structured policies, and globally-standardized products or services. Family business leaders should target the international market that is stable, that is secure with regulations, and that is welcoming to foreign investments. Each internationalization opportunity should have close psychic distance, available relationships in the international market, targeted family business motives, demonstrated existing market demand with the ability to satisfy, and proper timing. The findings may promote social change in Saudi family businesses by identifying essential characteristics to maintain the companies' existence and offer a roadmap to compete internationally.</p>

<p> Leadership sets the tone and determines and shapes the organization. The more proficient individuals are in leadership and management skills, the more the organizations will thrive. Technical challenges have and will always be barriers, but competent leadership will always resolve those barriers. There are leaders of organizations who revel in success and those that perish in futility. What is the difference? Is it the organizational structure? Could it be luck? Throughout history there are individuals who have been praised for their leadership abilities. What can we learn from them?</p><p> The purpose of this study was to determine the key leadership characteristics of mid-level managers in the business divisions at a Federally Funded Research and Development (FFRDC). FFRDC organizations, as non-profits, have different leadership challenges from those of for-profit organizations.</p><p> Managers need to utilize and adapt to changes that provide us with better understanding the generational gaps in organizations considering the particular strengths and weaknesses of individual skill sets and the global impacts of international finance. Leadership skills from prior generations may not provide the necessary dynamics and flexibility that is needed in today's business environment.</p><p> History also has proof of poor leadership ability that has condemned countless organizations. What are the differences? Additionally, we must factor in the inevitable change variable since organizations are moving targets, constantly evolving based on the ever-changing technology, workforce and global business landscape. What may have been considered a successful leadership style 50 years ago may not be considered successful in today's world. However, there are constants that withstand the test of time.</p><p> The findings suggest that the majority of managers have leadership styles, flexibility range, and adaptability level appropriate to become effective leaders within FFRDCs.</p>

<p> Women have been experiencing challenges to upward mobility in executives&rsquo; positions because of negative stereotypes and social perceptions about their ability to be lead nonprofit and for-profit organizations. Despite their advancements in education, women are still not occupying leadership positions at the rate of their male counterparts. As a result, this study examined through a phenomenological lens the lived experiences of female CEOs on their perceptions about gender and their attitudes towards change as being open or their approach to change as being different to their male counterparts. The findings of this study revealed that it is the belief of female CEOs that gender matters. The results also pointed to female CEOs&rsquo; attitudes towards change as being more open and a different approach to change than their male counterparts. The qualitative methodology used was a phenomenological study drawing on multiple theoretical approaches. The main framework for this study, however, drew on the theoretical framework of the upper echelon theory to assist in the understanding of the complex operations of nonprofit organizations. Through theory tranquilizations, this study also examined other theoretical frameworks such as the glass ceiling theory, social role theory, expectations states theory as well as transactional leadership and transformational leadership, as they are all relevant to organizational leadership, attitudes towards change, and organizational stability and success.</p>

The capacitated multi-item lot sizing problem is a model which aims at scheduling production of several products over a finite number of periods, while minimizing production costs, holding inventory costs and setup costs subject to demand and capacity constraints. These costs may vary for each product and each period and are all linear. Our model includes setup times for each product. / We compare two approaches: a classic Lagrangean relaxation of the capacity constraints and a Lagrangean decomposition by variable splitting. In both cases, the Lagrangean multipliers are updated with an interior point cutting plane technique. The results show: (1) The superiority of the interior point method over the commonly used subgradient optimization in terms of accuracy at termination, number of iterations and ease of utilization. (2) The better quality of the bounds obtained by the Lagrangean decomposition by variable splitting over the Lagrangean relaxation.

Business modelling, the modelling of architectures and processes of organizations, should have a broad scope. It should not exclusively capture the basic information of the processes, but also address the various kinds of documentation related to the processes under consideration. In this combination, organizational models will be more expressive and useful. / The research reported here describes and demonstrates a new approach for reconciling formal and informal documentation in business modelling. It is based on the integration of an underlying formal modelling approach with hypertext concepts that provide mechanisms for capturing, manipulating and viewing informal model documentation. / We have developed the Hypertec tool which complements the Macrotec environment. Macrotec is a business modelling environment that is based on the formalism of extended colored Petri nets. Hypertec is a hypertext-based component supporting authoring, display and navigation of all the process documentation that cannot be captured by Macrotec. Our experience with Macrotec/Hypertec shows that their combined functionality substantially facilitates the understanding of business processes and clearly reduces problems such as miscommunication, misinterpretation, and misunderstandings about entire processes or some of their components.