Decision support systems are interactive information systems which incorporate both data and modeling capabilities in an effort to support and improve human decision making. The goal of a decision support system is to support the entire decision making process. In order to do this, an understanding of each phase of the decision making process is necessary. This study focuses on the choice phase of decision making in order to provide useful information to more comprehensive decision support systems. Specifically, the effects of embedding choice strategies into the design of decision aids on decision maker performance and perceptions were examined. Three decision aids were used in a laboratory experiment for a consumer selection task. The first imposed a compensatory choice strategy, another imposed a noncompensatory strategy, and the third allowed the decision maker flexibility to use one or both of those strategies. / The experiment resulted in the following findings. First, performance effectiveness was highest with the noncompensatory decision aid, however, the evaluation method had a tendency to bias those results. This finding indicates that several evaluation methods are necessary for a complete understanding of effectiveness. As for efficiency, both imposed strategy decision aids were more efficient than the flexible aid. For this particular task, a structured approach is preferred for both effectiveness and efficiency. Finally, the perceptions were not significantly different for subjects using any of the three decision aids. This finding is particularly useful so that the most appropriate strategy can be employed without fear of negative impressions which could lead to lack of system use. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 53-03, Section: A, page: 0880. / Major Professor: Thomas D. Clark, Jr. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1992.

The primary purpose of this investigation was to determine the relationship between the degree of use of upward influence strategies and job satisfaction of sports management personnel of the General Presidency of Youth Welfare (GPYW) in Saudi Arabia. In additon, the study investigated the differences between first-line sports managers of the GPYW and their subordinates in their use of these strategies and job satisfaction, as well as the differences between sports management personnel in the headquarters of the GPYW and those in its branches in the degree of use of upward influence strategies and their job satisfaction. / The data were obtained from 186 sports management personnel who were employed in the headquarters of the GPYW and its branches. / Five instruments were used in the investigation: the Personal Data Sheet, the Evaluation of Superior, the Goals of Influence, the Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire (MSQ)-Short Form, and the Kipnis-Schmidt Profiles of Organizational Influence Strategies (POIS)-Form M. The Pearson product moment correlation was used to test the first hypothesis, the partial correlation coefficient was used to test the second and third hypotheses, and the Student t-test was used to test the fourth and fifth hypotheses. The.05 alpha level was used as the criterion for rejection of the hypotheses. / The following conclusions were drawn: (a) when the degree of use of Assertiveness, Bargaining, Coalition, and Friendliness increased, the job satisfaction of the influence agent decreased; and (b) the personal goals, the organizational goals, and the evaluation of superiors have a significant effect on the relationship between the degree of use of the Reason strategy and job satisfaction. / The following recommendations are made: (a) similar studies should be conducted to determine the relationship betweeen successful and unsuccessful attempts to use upward influence strategies and job facet satisfaction among sports management personnel; and (b) it is recommended that additional research be conducted utilizing such variables as participative decison making with degree of use of upward influence strategies and level of job satisfaction. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 48-07, Section: A, page: 1826. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1987.

A field research project involving subjects undergoing alcoholism treatment in an employee assistance program (EAP) was conducted in order to answer the following research question: Do EAP's improve work related attitudes? A sample of 76 active duty military personnel participating in a six-week inpatient program at a Naval Alcohol Rehabilitation Center were compared with a nonequivalent control group of 76 military subjects not know to be alcoholics. / The following instruments were administered to both groups at the beginning and end of a six-week period: Locus of Control scale, Multidimensional Locus of Control scale, Organizational Commitment Questionnaire, Central Life Interest Questionnaire, Desirability of Control scale, and the Work Involvement scale. Kelman's (1980) model was used as a theoretical framework for the attitude change process. A one-way ANCOVA was conducted in which the two groups were compared on the basis of posttest scores, with the pretest scores being used as covariates. Additionally, demographic variables were used as covariates in order to statistically control for differences between the two groups. Significant main effect changes were found for two attitude variables. / In a secondary analysis two stepwise discriminant analyses were run, in which the counselor's rating of prognosis for success was used as a dependent variable. The pretest and posttest attitude scores were used, respectively, as independent variables in two separate runs. Marginally significant discriminant functions were achieved using pretest attitude scores, but not using the posttest scores. For the former, a classification analysis was run, but it did not yield any more information than could be expected by chance. / The research is considered to be a preliminary investigation into changes that occur within subjects participating in an EAP that allow them to become more productive upon completion. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 48-07, Section: A, page: 1829. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1987.

An attributional model of goal setting was developed and tested in an attempt to explain the inconsistencies in the literature regarding the effects of participation on satisfaction and performance. A 2 x 2 factorial design was employed. Subjects (102 undergraduate business students) were randomly assigned to formal goal-setting (participative or assigned) and knowledge of results (KR) (success or failure) conditions. The experimental task consisted of validating numerical data and entering corrections on a computer terminal. The dependent variables observed included subjects': (1) causal attributions for their performance outcomes; (2) affective reactions; (3) future performance expectancies; (4) future performance intentions; (5) effort; (6) task performance; and (7) goal acceptance. The moderating effects of locus of control, need for achievement and self-esteem were also investigated. / The results indicated that the formal method of goal setting employed and KR received influenced subjects' causal attributions for their performance outcomes which, in turn, were related to their feelings of satisfaction, future performance expectancies, intentions and task performance. Positive feedback led to greater internal attributions than negative feedback and this was augmented under assigned goal setting. Subjects in the positive feedback condition also tended to express lower satisfaction when allowed to participate in goal setting than when assigned a goal. Subjects' attributions to stable factors (i.e. ability and task difficulty) were found to be related to typical shifts in expectancy and intentions under assigned goal setting. Under participative goal setting, typical shifts of expectancy and intentions were expressed only when subjects' made greater ability rather than task difficulty attributions. Intentions were positively correlated with task performance. However, effort, performance and goal acceptance did not vary significantly between the two goal-setting conditions. Finally, need for achievement and locus of control were found to moderate the effects of goal-setting method and KR on subjects' causal attributions. / These findings contradict the accepted notion that participation in goal setting has a positive impact on subordinates' satisfaction. They also point out the role played by causal attributions in delineating the conditions under which individuals will vary their goal intentions. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 47-12, Section: A, page: 4446. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1986.

This dissertation has addressed the issue of labor scheduling, focussing primarily on environments in which employees are limited in number and/or not continuously available for work. New modeling procedures have been developed for these environments. / Three shift scheduling procedures were developed: (1) an iterative construction improvement procedure (HO), (2) a combination single-break-position linear programming and heuristic procedure (LP), and (3) a combination break-less linear programming and heuristic procedure (NT). Six tour scheduling procedures--originating from the three shift scheduling procedures crossed with two methods of making days-off determinations--were compared. / LP was found to be the best shift scheduling procedure, while one of the HO-based procedures was best for tour scheduling. The NT and NT-based shift and tour scheduling procedures were the poorest performers, a finding with important implications for scheduling procedures which fail to schedule meal and rest breaks. / Extensive investigations into the determinants of technique performance were conducted. These investigations included examining the effects on technique performance of (1) problem restrictiveness and (2) the ratio of understaffing to overstaffing costs. In addition, 143 demand- and availability-based measures thought to be potential influences on performance were developed and their effect on performance evaluated through the use of stepwise regression. It is likely that some of the findings arising from these investigations will be of interest to labor scheduling practitioners. / An extensive list of interesting and potentially fruitful research avenues has been provided for the benefit of researchers considering the field of labor scheduling. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 49-06, Section: A, page: 1517. / Major Professor: Michael Jan Showalter. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1988.

This dissertation examines the diversification strategy and top management fit proposition. Three general research questions guide the investigation: (1) To what extent are different types of managers required to manage different types of diversified firms? (2) What are the performance implications of a diversification strategy (mode and relatedness) and top management team fit? and (3) Do top management team characteristics explain performance differences within different diversification strategy categories? On the basis of a review of relevant literature and the development of new theory, separate hypotheses were developed for each of four diversification strategies: related-internal, unrelated-acquisitive, related-acquisitive, and unrelated-internal diversifiers. These hypotheses were then empirically examined using a sample of 104 firms drawn from the Compustat lines-of-business data base. / The results of the hypotheses tests and additional exploratory analyses suggest that (1) firms with different strategies do have different top management teams that appear to be matched to the task demands posed by their strategy, (2) matching top management teams to strategy is not much more than a necessary but insufficient step toward high performance, (3) specific top management team characteristics are critical to the implementation of each diversification strategy, importantly differentiating between the most and least successful firms with similar strategies, and (4) these specific top management team characteristics vary between strategies. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 56-03, Section: A, page: 1022. / Major Professor: Bruce T. Lamont. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1995.

Past work-nonwork conflict literature has failed to consider the values of an individual as an important aspect of work-nonwork conflict. This research proposes that work-nonwork issues should be redefined using a value/situation perspective. In essence, this perspective allows work-nonwork conflict to be viewed as a product of the incongruence between the situation in which an individual finds himself or herself and the values he or she holds. To better examine this incongruence, the concept of work-nonwork conflict is broken into two separate elements: work interference with nonwork conflict and nonwork interference with work conflict. These two variables are thought to have a bi-directional relationship as well as, both a direct and indirect impact on the outcome variables of interest. All of these relationships were combined into a model of work-nonwork conflict that was tested in its entirety using LISREL. / The results, based on a sample 510 full-time workers from a variety of organizations, suggested that values and situational factors directly influence the degree of conflict an individual experiences. However, the hypothesized interaction of the situation and values was not supported. The results do support the findings of a reciprocal relationship between the two types of conflict as well as an indirect relationship between the conflict variables and the life satisfaction variables through the domain satisfaction variables. / How this research both replicates and extends past findings is discussed in the conclusion. In addition, the practical implications from this research are discussed. Finally, implications for future research are considered. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 56-02, Section: A, page: 0621. / Major Professor: K. Michele Kacmar. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1995.

The importance of strategic changes is widely acknowledged. Yet, prior studies have generally relied on segmented perspectives while treating firms as independent entities driven mainly by economic considerations. In this dissertation, which consists of three standalone yet complementary essays, I propose three frameworks to study strategic changes while considering CEOs and firms as actors embedded in a network setting. Essay One develops an extended resource-based framework in exploring when new CEOs will initiate strategic changes. Essay Two utilizes the social capital perspective to study the performance consequences of strategic changes. Essay Three, informed by the social network and social capital perspectives, investigates the conditions under which outside CEO successors can bring performance improvements. Overall, the three essays have demonstrated that strategic changes, as a complex and multi-dimensional construct, can be better understood by considering not only CEO influences, but also firm conditions, as well as network embeddedness.

In the first part of the dissertation, we focus on the retailer's problem of forecasting demand for products in a category (including those that they have never carried before), optimizing the selected assortment, and customizing the assortment by store to maximize chain-wide revenues or profits. We develop algorithms for demand forecasting and assortment optimization, and demonstrate their use in practical applications. / In the second part, we study the sensitivity of the optimal assortment to the underlying assumptions made about demand, substitution and inventory. In particular, we explore the impact of choice model mis-specification and ignoring stock-outs on the optimal profits. We develop bounds on the optimality gap in terms of demand variability, in-stock rate and consumer heterogeneity. Understanding this sensitivity is key to developing more robust approaches to assortment optimization. / In the third and final part of the dissertation, we study how the seat value perceived by consumers attending an event in a stadium, depends on the location of their seat relative to the field. We develop a measure of seat value, called the Seat Value Index (SVI), and relate it to seat location and consumer characteristics. We apply our methodology to a proprietary dataset collected by a professional baseball franchise in Japan. Based on the observed heterogeneity in SVI, we provide segment-specific pricing recommendations to achieve a service level objective.

Despite the importance of outsourcing engagements, little research has been done on effectiveness of governance mechanisms. In particular, the effectiveness of governance mechanisms were not examined in the presence of risks such as ex post opportunism and uncertainty. Specifically, this research examines the effectiveness of transactional and relational governance mechanisms in the management of outsourcing engagements. Consequently, answers to three main research questions are sought as part of this dissertation. / First, this research examines the effective governance mechanisms in the presence of ex post opportunism and project uncertainty. The results indicate that the configurations of effective governance mechanisms are different for different configurations of risk. Second, the research explores if there are any specific patterns of governance mechanisms that are being currently used by outsourcing engagements. The results indicate that managers tend to choose specific patterns of governance mechanisms based on the strategic importance as well as risk faced in the engagement. Finally, this research examines if transactional governance mechanisms and relational governance mechanisms are complements or substitutes. The results indicate that transactional and relational governance mechanisms act as complements to each other. Specifically, the results depend on the level of opportunism exhibited by the supplier and the strategic importance of the outsourcing engagement. When the supplier is cooperative, relational governance mechanisms provide superior outsourcing performance. On the other hand, when the supplier is uncooperative (i.e., behaves in an opportunistic manner), the results diverge. Transactional governance mechanisms are beneficial when the outsourcing engagement is strategically important. / Based on the results, both transactional and relational governance mechanisms are seen as important. The effectiveness of the governance mechanisms differ based on the level of risk and the strategic importance of the outsourcing engagements. Managerial insights corresponding to these results are presented in this dissertation. The results provide clarity and recommendations to managers on instituting appropriate governance mechanisms in outsourcing engagements.