<p> Absence of management transition planning in Nigerian family enterprises undermines economic growth and job creation. Family businesses contribute significantly to the economic development in Europe and North America. This Mixed methods study involving sequential explanatory design investigated and explored the connection between culture and management transition planning in Nigeria. The specific problem investigated was the incessant collapse of family businesses after the death of founders. Management transition planning and its relationship with national culture of Nigeria, from the perspectives of nonfamily managers, is the main objective of this research. A survey involving a self-developed 40-item Likert-type scale was used for collection of data for the quantitative segment of the study. One hundred managers from 10 family businesses located in Lagos and Ogun states of Nigeria participated in the survey. During data analysis, SPSS 21.0 aided the computation of Spearman&rsquo;s Rank Order correlation coefficient, which revealed that cultural beliefs and values, extended family system, tradition/legacy, and lifestyles of the family business owners had negative relationship with management transition planning. The quantitative findings indicated statistically significant correlation between culture and attitudes of family business owners toward management transition planning and allowed rejection of the four null hypotheses. Five top managers of the family businesses participated in the qualitative segment by responding to semi-structured interview questions. NVivo 10 software assisted the analysis of the qualitative data. The qualitative findings supported the quantitative results. Administrators, bankers, family business entrepreneurs, and academics would obtain valuable information from the outcomes of this study.</p>

<p> Since the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997 and the Global Financial Crisis of 2007, members of the Association of Southeast Asia Nations (ASEAN) have sought to strengthen ASEAN&rsquo;s regional economies through a digital trade project known as the ASEAN Single Window (ASW). The purpose of this case study was to explore the business strategies that multinational organizational leaders used to overcome business barriers while implementing ASEAN partnership contracts and ASW region-wide projects. This study may be unique in that, at the time of this research, there was no published study in which researchers had explored a single window for a vast, multination geographical region. Data collection was done via in-depth interviews with ASW executives, studying online ASW-related conferences, and examining relevant strategic documents. A 6-phase thematic analysis process based on methodological triangulation corroborated the data and addressed construct validity through data familiarization, generating initial coding, categorizing codes and searching for themes, breaking codes into subcategories, data reduction and defining and naming themes, and report generation. The 4 strategic themes that emerged were business models and processes, public&ndash;private partnerships, project management methodologies, and overlapping themes. The findings offer insights into ways to overcome the ASW&rsquo;s constraints and barriers. These strategic themes developed into a list of critical success factors and a summary list of principle business strategies and best practices. The implication for social change is a regionally collaborative trading environment providing potential economic options that not only impede the deterioration of the regional social fabric but support new opportunities such as trade liberalization and economic stability.</p>

<p> Mergers and acquisitions are a common form of inorganic growth for many companies; however, the failure rate of those activities remains high with IS&amp;T integration noted as one of the causes of failure. The purpose of this narrative inquiry study was to explore the experience of the IS&amp;T leaders during an M&amp;A IS&amp;T integration to understand how to reduce future failures. Interviews were conducted with eight IS&amp;T leaders who have been involved with M&amp;A IS&amp;T integrations at technology companies. Seven themes emerged from the data analysis of the transcribed interviews. The themes resulting from the study are: incomplete or incorrect technology integration and technology architecture, identification and adherence to technology standards, employee uncertainties and conflict caused as a result of the M&amp;A, a lack of agreement on the M&amp;A strategy across leadership, identification of the end state goals of the IS&amp;T integration, development and consistent use of an M&amp;A IS&amp;T integration process playbook, and communication process across leadership and employees. The recommendations from the findings for IS&amp;T leadership provide three areas of focus. First, the findings reflect the issues impacting M&amp;A IS&amp;T integration failures. Second, the rich experiences of the participants provide leadership with recommendations on how leaders can prepare for M&amp;A integrations to reduce the potential for failures. Third, the findings provide recommendations on performing an M&amp;A IS&amp;T integration resulting in a reduction of failures including gaining an understanding of previous failures, preparing for, planning, and executing an M&amp;A integration.</p>

<p> Already a challenge to human resource professionals is retaining talented employees. Increasing human resource management&rsquo;s knowledge of how employees&rsquo; perceived and preferred organizational culture contributes to job satisfaction, intent to remain, and willingness to recommend the organization could have a significant positive impact on the reduction of turnover intention. In this quantitative, nonexperimental, correlational study, the researcher investigated the relationships between the independent variables (i.e., employees&rsquo; perceived culture and employees&rsquo; preferred culture) and the dependent variables (i.e., employee job satisfaction, intent to remain, and willingness to recommend the organization), while controlling for specific demographics. The Hospitality Industry Culture Profile (HICP) was used to measure the independent, dependent, and control variables. There were total of 143 survey participants actively working in the hospitality industry resulted in 88 completed surveys for a response rate of 62%. Regression analyses were conducted to assess the relationships among perceived and preferred organizational culture, job satisfaction, intent to remain with the organization, or willingness to recommend the organization. The coefficient of determination (<i>R</i>²) indicated that there was a 25% variability in job satisfaction, 23% variability in intent to remain, and up to 44% variability in willingness to recommend. The results of this research identified that a relationship does exist between the employees&rsquo; perceived organizational culture and the behavioral intentions of job satisfaction, intent to remain, and their willingness to recommend the organization as a good place to work. Because of the lack of younger workers that participated in the study in the age category of 22-34 (<i>n</i>=27, 19%), a recommendation for future research would be to conduct a study directed at the millennials who are working in the hospitality industry. This may add to the body of knowledge and have a practical application for human resource management when making adjustments to the culture of the organization.</p>

<p> The purpose of this qualitative descriptive study was to explore the perceptions of the NPO leaders about the value of EI (Emotional Intelligence) on leadership strategies in the City of Richmond, Virginia. The research problem was the perceptions of the NPO leaders about the value of EI on leadership strategies in Richmond Virginia was unknown. The need to examine the NPO leaders&rsquo; perceptions about EI stemmed from the paradigm shift from cognitive intelligence to EI. Fourteen participants were selected using Seidman&rsquo;s three phase interviews. The study population was the faith-based and non-faith-based leaders in the US with samples drawn from NPO leaders in the City of Richmond, Virginia. The 14 participants were engaged in in-depth interviews (Seidman&rsquo;s Phase Two), and the data were analyzed using the NVivo10. The analyzed data resulted in the emergence of five themes. (a) NPO leaders&rsquo; perceptions about the term EI. (b) The leadership atmosphere of organizations in the 21^st century is sensitive and volatile. (c) The NPO leaders practice short walking away from the place of stress as a coping strategy. (d) The NPO leaders practice self-control with team members to manage conflict and (e) The NPO leaders practice respect for team members for team harmony. The study findings indicated 29% of the participants demonstrated conceptual EI perceptions, while 64% showed practical EI awareness. The remaining 7% expressed moderate or low perceptions of EI. The overall study findings indicated sound EI perceptions among the NPO leaders in Richmond, Virginia.</p>

<p> Manufacturers attempt to compete in the world economy and improve their business processes by implementing change management theory, often using Lean Six Sigma processes; however, these implementations are not always effective in manufacturing settings. Research was needed about leadership efficacy differences in Lean Six Sigma success to inform strategies aimed at augmenting success rates. The purpose of this causal comparative quantitative investigation was to determine the impact of perceived leadership efficacy differences on Lean Six Sigma success rates in a manufacturing setting. The population for the study is estimated at 20,000 supervisors with a sampling of 128 leaders from the manufacturing industry in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, and Wisconsin, who have conducted a Lean Six Sigma implementation. The independent variable was perceived leader efficacy and was gathered from McCormick&rsquo;s Leadership Efficacy Questionnaire (LEQ). The dependent variable was Lean Six Sigma implementation success rate and was gathered from a researcher-created checklist designed to measure overall equipment effectiveness of the respective leaders&rsquo; operation. Analysis of variance was performed to assess the difference between high and low efficacy leaders on Lean Six Sigma success rates. The findings demonstrated individuals with high leader efficacy were significantly more successful in implementing Lean Six Sigma initiatives than those with low leader efficacy. Recommendations to increase leadership efficacy in manufacturing in order to positively impact the success rates of change initiatives were offered.</p>

<p> A mixed methods sequential explanatory design was used to conduct research to help fill the gap in the literature on cross-cultural differences between Ghanaian workers in American Multinational Companies and Ghanaian Companies in Ghana. The purpose of this research was to identify, compare, and make understandable to multinational companies the work ethic of Ghanaian workers in issues related to centrality of work, leisure, and morality/ethics. In the quantitative phase, using a stratified random sampling approach, 300 participants completed surveys on work ethic. The results were analyzed using SPSS software package. The qualitative phase followed with interview of 30 purposively sampled participants on work ethics. The results were coded, organized, and categorized using NVivo. The findings did not support the perceptions held by American Multinational Companies that Ghanaians have a poor work ethic, are lazy, and love pleasure. In contrast, the study results indicated that Ghanaian worker ethics included working hard to achieve a goal, doing voluntary work, meeting deadlines; having good relationships with peers, subordinates, and superiors. The results also indicated Ghanaian workers in USA companies exhibit a set of work ethics different from the Ghanaians working in Ghanaian companies, self-employed, and not employed. The results of this research were significant at 98% confidence level and are generalizable to settings that have similar cultural expos&eacute; as Ghana, considering the differences noted which were mainly cultural based.</p>

The effects of interviewer training in Equal Employment Opportunity guidelines and the sex of interviewee on ratings of that interviewee were investigated in this study. Previous research on job interviewing indicated that interviewee choices or ratings are based primarily on subjective data, such as attractiveness of the interviewee, sex of the interviewee, and perceived attitude similarity, rather than on objective, job-related criteria. / Current legislation, particularly Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended, requires that interviewee hiring be based solely upon job-related criteria and that biases due to such things as race, color, religion, sex and national origin be eliminated. Organizations have attempted to comply with these rules, but have had little success, particularly in the area of eliminating biases in interviewing due to sex of the interviewee. Therefore, this study examined the sex source of bias in the employment interview and attempted to minimize its effect through training in Equal Employment Opportunity guidelines, those written to enforce title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended. / The hypotheses were: (H(,1)) Interviewers not trained in Equal Employment Opportunity guidelines will rate male interviewees significantly higher than equally qualified female interviewees when interviewing for a neuter-gender job. (H(,2)) Interviewers trained in Equal Employment Opportunity guidelines will rate equally qualified male and female interviewees the same when interviewing applicants for a neuter gender job. (H(,3)) Training in Equal Employment Opportunity guidelines will have a greater effect on the ratings of equally qualified male and female interviewees than will the sex of the interviewee when interviewing for a neuter-gender job. / One hundred thirty-six students enrolled in introductory management classes served as interviewers for the study. They were all trained in interviewing skills and on the use of the three dependent measure scales used for rating interviewees: (1) How qualified is the applicant for this job?; (2) How strongly do you recommend hiring this applicant for the job?; and, (3) What starting salary do you recommend for this applicant? / The control group then interviewed one male and one female job applicant in random order. Both applicants had been judged to be equally qualified for the job and the job had been judged to be neuter in gender. Meanwhile, the treatment group received a lecture and discussion on Equal Employment Opportunity guidelines by the Affirmative Action Officer of the University System of New Hampshire (the training). They mastered the material at the 90 percent level immediately after training. Then, the treatment group interviewed the same male and female job interviewees for the neuter-gender job in random order. / All subjects completed the three dependent measure scales after each interview. / The results were analyzed using t-tests for repeated measures and a 2 x 2 mixed design analysis of variance, with repeated measures on one factor. / The results of the study indicated that interviewers, both trained and untrained in Equal Employment Opportunity guidelines, rated male and female interviewees significantly different, with females being rated higher than the males. In addition, while training did have a significant effect on the ratings of all interviewees, it did not have as strong of an effect as the sex of the interviewee on the ratings. Thus, all three hypotheses were rejected. / The results of the experiment were discussed in relation to Equal Employment Opportunity policy. Limitations of the research were discussed and suggestions for future research made. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 42-10, Section: A, page: 4562. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1981.

A theoretical model for the development and communication of a strategic vision for information technology (IT) is presented in this paper. Based on the communication process for strategic IT vision, a research model is developed. This research studies the effectiveness of channel use for communicating a strategic vision for information technology in an information-intensive organization throughout the organization. Two bank holding companies were used to examine the relationship between the awareness of the strategic vision for information technology at each organization and several constructs related to channel use and communication source legitimacy. / Support was found for the relationship between strategic IT vision awareness and source legitimacy, represented by the source's hierarchical level in relation to the communication recipient, the source's perceived credibility and the source's perceived information technology expertise. Partial support was found for the relationship between strategic IT vision awareness and channel richness and between awareness and the number of channels used to communicate the strategic IT vision. No support was found for the relationship between strategic IT vision awareness and potential for exposure of a channel and frequency of interaction with a source. Support was found for the moderating relationship of the communication recipient's organizational level with channel richness and the number of channels used. The study also revealed a difference in the outcomes of strategic communication between manager and worker level communication recipients. / A dual dynamic proposed here posits that manager and lower level workers have different mental models with which to interpret and recall strategic messages. Whether or not this results in differences in organizational outcomes is not the focus of this research but should be examined in future research. Support for the construct of source legitimacy outside of the marketing discipline was also confirmed in this study. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 55-08, Section: A, page: 2464. / Major Professor: Robert W. Zmud. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1994.

Heterogeneity of valuation for a firm implies an upwardly sloped supply curve for a firm's stock. This has several implications for mergers and acquisitions. Firms with greater heterogeneity are expected to have more steeply sloped supply curves. It is therefore expected that as heterogeneity increases, a target firm's shareholders must be offered a greater premium to induce them to sell. / Heterogeneity of valuation may affect other aspects of merger and acquisition activity, as well. Bidders should prefer to acquire low heterogeneity targets, ceteris paribus. If bidders do not consider heterogeneity in bidding, bids for high heterogeneity targets are expected to fail more frequently than bids for low heterogeneity targets. / Heterogeneous valuation of the bidder may also affect takeovers. If there is wide disagreement over the value of bidder securities, then it may be difficult to negotiate an acquisition agreement using bidder securities as consideration. Cash should be a more suitable form of payment when bidder heterogeneity is high. / Empirical results are mixed. A positive relationship between dispersion of analysts' forecasts and premiums paid to targets shareholders is found only for firms contesting a takeover. The strongest influence of heterogeneity is found in target selection. Firms with greater dispersion of analysts' forecast are more likely to become targets than firms with lower dispersion. Alternative explanations for the results are considered. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 55-09, Section: A, page: 2930. / Major Professor: James S. Ang. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1994.