Although most working adults possess a lay understanding of understaffing in the workplace and may, in fact, feel they are experiencing such a stressor, a review of the research literature reveals a general lack of empirical work on understaffing and its consequences. Hudson and Shen (2013, Development and testing of a new measure of understaffing. Paper presented at the Southern Management Association 2013 Meeting, New Orleans, LA) recently proposed a new model of understaffing that distinguished between two types of personnel deficiencies, manpower and expertise shortages, and linked these dimensions to worker well-being and attitudinal outcomes and identified likely mediating mechanisms. However, Hudson and Shen focused exclusively on the individual level of analysis. Therefore, the current study extends their work by investigating whether prior findings also hold at the group level of analysis. Participants in this study were members of 66 intact work groups and their supervisors (N = 57 for groups with matched supervisor data) from a variety of industries and organizations, who filled out a one-time survey. Results supported that perceptions of understaffing, both manpower and expertise, are shared within work groups and that there is some convergence between work groups and their supervisors regarding levels of understaffing. Results from correlational and regression analyses also supported differential relationships between manpower and expertise understaffing and group outcomes. Finally, structural equation models generally upheld Hudson and Shen's (2013) framework at the group level of analysis; results were consistent with group quantitative workload, potency, and role ambiguity serving as key mediators in the relationships between shared group perceptions of understaffing and unit well-being and attitudinal outcomes (i.e., group emotional exhaustion and cohesion). This study broadens our understanding of the construct of understaffing and presents a number of promising directions to be pursued in future research.

This dissertation examines how differences between the strategic-systems audit approach and the traditional, transaction-based audit approach affect the content and complexity of client business knowledge in long-term memory, how these mental representations develop with experience, and how the representations affect risk assessment. Knowledge of the client?s business is essential to conducting an effective and efficient audit, but researchers have devoted little attention to how this knowledge is represented in memory and what effect it has on audit judgment. Moreover, proponents of the strategic-systems approach argue that this approach leads to the formation of a more-complex client business model and results in better audit judgments than the transaction-based approach. The study?s results contradict these claims, with the strategic-systems auditors having less-complex models than their TBA counterparts. Also, no experience-related differences were found in the client models, and risk assessments were only weakly affected by content and complexity differences between client models. After a variety of supplemental analyses, it was concluded that there is no evidence from this dissertation to suggest that the SSA methodology does not result in an auditor possessing an enhanced knowledge of the client?s business compared to that possessed by an auditor employing a traditional audit approach.

<p>Expertise is regarded as the most important asset for groups working on knowledge-intensive tasks. This dissertation advances a multi-dimensional conception of group expertise that includes depth, breadth and variety as three distinct dimensions, and develops a model of the joint effect of the three dimensions on knowledge sharing and group performance. Two empirical studies test different components of the model. Using data on 174 groups from a Fortune 500 telecommunications company, one study supports the hypothesis that depth of group expertise will have a less positive effect on group performance as breadth of group expertise increases, particularly when groups engage in a low level of external task process. Using data on knowledge sharing networks among 44 employees of a supply chain service organization, the second study probes into dyadic interactions underlying group process, and tests how individual variety of experience, functional department experience (proxy for depth of expertise at the individual level), and dyadic functional difference (proxy for breadth of expertise at the dyadic level) affect dyadic knowledge sharing. Results show that individual variety of experience improves ease of knowledge sharing, and that the negative effect of functional department experience on ease of knowledge sharing is mitigated by individual variety of experience. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are considered, and directions for future studies are discussed.</p> / Dissertation

Abstract Department Stores are highly interpersonal communicated in the service industry. Products and services should be delivered through the service employees. In the process of interaction with customers , service employees could deliver the expertise of products and services , discover what is customers need , offer them appropriate services and then build the long term relationship with them. So service employees play very important roles in building long term relationship with customers. In reviewing literatures about relationship marketing and purchase intension, previous researches use¡urelationship quality¡vas the mediator mostly to discuss the relationship between relationship marketing and purchase intension, or In the surveys of this study, this research study wants to find how service employees expressions affecting the customers perceived relationship benefits and reach the purposes as below: 1.Discussing the salespersons¡¦ expertise could positive affect the customers perceived relationship benefits. 2.Discussing the interpersonal communication between service sales and customers could positive affect purchase intension. 3.Discussing the customers perceived relationship benefits could positive affect purchase intension. 4.Discussing if relationship benefits play as the mediator between interpersonal communication ¡Bsalespersons¡¦ expertise and purchase intension. Structural Equation Modeling is used in this research. The followings are four points of conclusions¡G 1.Salesperson¡¦s expertise positive affect the confidence benefit and social benefit. 2.Interpersonal communication between service employees and customers positive affect confidence benefit¡Bsocial benefit and special treatment benefit. 3.Confidence benefit and social benefit positive affect customer¡¦s purchasing intension. 4.Confidence benefit¡Bsocial benefit are mediators between interpersonal communication¡Bsalespersons expertise and customers purchasing intension. The conclusions of this research could offer department stores to develop appropriate customer relationship strategies and have great improvement in their business.

After the financial tsunami in 2008, banking businesses took advantage in the economic recovery to attract investors back. For the past two or three years, financial institutions have generated considerable revenue from wealth management businesses, which was growing at a two-digit rate. Since financial consultants determine the success of customer relation management, which is the key factor to wealth management business, it has become essential for human resource research in banks to investigate the characteristics of financial consultants. This study investigates whether there exists a positive correlation between key factors, such as the financial consultants¡¦ seniority in banking business, developing expertise, work attitude, and organizational climate, and their performance achievement. It is hoped that financial consultants, whether recruited from local branches or from outside of the bank, when equipped with related banking experience, developed expertise, better work attitude and supporting organizational climate can achieve their performance goals. This study is based on questionnaire results from the 172 financial consultants in Bank S. A total of 114 valid questionnaires were returned, yielding a return rate of 66.28%. Statistical analysis shows the following results: 1. There is a significant positive correlation between seniority in banking business, developing expertise, and performance achievement. 2. Higher levels of seniority in banking business and developing expertise, lead to higher levels of performance. Based on the results, this study suggests that for future human resource recruiting and training, the wealth management division should strengthen trainings in financial services provided especially for high net worth clients, in addition to the recruitment of experienced employees from local branches. Competent financial consultants, with required certifications, should provide timely suggestions on stop-loss and stop-gain to clients to secure their trust and recognition. Only when the clients become stable assets of the bank can wealth management business be sustainable.

To help online trip planners, some online travel agencies and travel service providers have adopted travel recommender systems. Although these systems are expected to support travelers in complex decision-making processes, they are not used efficiently by travelers due to a lack of confidence in the recommendations they provide. It is important to examine factors that can influence the likelihood of recommendations to be accepted and integrated into decision-making processes. The persuasion literature suggests that people are more likely to accept recommendations from credible and likable sources. It has also been found that technologies can be more credible and likable when they give a variety of social cues that elicit social responses from their human users. Thus, it is argued that enhancing the social aspects of travel recommender systems is important to create more persuasive systems. One approach to enhancing the social presence of recommender systems is to use a virtual agent. Current travel recommender systems use various types of virtual agents. However, it is still not clear how those virtual agents are perceived by travel recommender system users and influence users' system evaluations and interactions with these systems. Consequently, this dissertation aimed to investigate the influence of virtual agents presented in travel recommender systems on system users' perceptions. Specifically, the virtual agents' anthropomorphism as well as similarity and authority cues on system users' perceptions of system credibility and liking were examined. For this purpose, two experiments were conducted. For Study 1, the impacts of anthropomorphism of the virtual agents on users' perceptions of virtual agents as well as recommender systems in terms of credibility and attractiveness/liking were examined. Anthropomorphism was manipulated with visual human appearance and voice output. Study 2 tested the influence of virtual agents? similarity and authority on travel recommender system users' perceptions of virtual agents and system credibility and attractiveness/liking. Similarity and authority of the virtual agent were tested by manipulating nonverbal cues (age and outfit) of the agent. The results showed that the characteristics of virtual agents have some influences on system users' perceptions of virtual agents as well as recommender systems. Specifically, a human-like appearance of the virtual agent is found to positively influence users' perceived attractiveness of the virtual agent while voice outputs were found to enhance users' liking of the system (Study 1). Findings also indicate that RS users' perceptions of virtual agent expertise are increased when virtual agents wear a uniform rather than a casual outfit (Study 2). In addition, system users' perceptions of the virtual agent's credibility are found to have a significant influence on users' perceived credibility and liking of the overall system, which implies an important role of virtual agents in recommender system evaluations. Further, perceived credibility and liking of recommender systems lead to favorable evaluations of the recommendations, which, in turn, increase users' intentions to travel to the recommended destination. Past travel recommender system studies have largely neglected the social role of recommender systems as advice givers. Also, it is not clear whether the specific characteristics of virtual agents presented as a part of the system interface influence system users' perceptions. This dissertation sought to close this knowledge gap. By applying classic interpersonal communication theories to human and system relationships, this dissertation expands the scope of traditional theories used in the context of studying recommender systems. Further, the results of the research presented in this dissertation provide insights for tourism marketing as well as practical implications for travel recommender system design.

Authentic design commonly involves teams of designers collaborating on ill-structured problems over extended time periods. Nonetheless, design has been studied extensively in sequestered settings, limiting our understanding of design as process and especially of learning design process. This study addresses potential shortcomings of such studies by examining in-situ student team design. The participants of this study are three cohorts of a year-long capstone biomedical engineering design class at The University of Texas. Pilot research demonstrated advantages of a more authentic redesign task over a kit-based design task; students who chose devices to redesign were significantly better at representing perspective taking associated with customers' needs. Pilot research showed that there was no relationship between Early Efficiency (appropriate use of factual and conceptual knowledge) and Final Innovation of design products. I triangulated various methods for studying design: Qualitative research, Hierarchical Linear Modeling, and Social Network Analysis, the latter of which allowed me to generate team-level statistics of interaction (Cohesion), once I devised a practical method to account for missing data in a weighted network. Final Efficiency is a function of Early Innovation, early and late Cohesion, and team feasibility (factual and practical knowledge). Final Innovation is a function of Early Innovation, late Cohesion, and team Voice of the Customer (perspective-taking), with all relationships in both models positive. Measures of both design skills and interaction are required to explain variance in these outcomes. Narratives of team negotiation of design impasses --seemingly insurmountable barriers-- provide deeper understanding of relationships between design process and products. The case study teams spent a large percentage of their time engaged in problem scoping, but framed as engineering science rather than as engineering design. Only when they began prototyping did they transition towards being solution focused and frame the problem as engineering design. This left little time for iteration of the final design. Variance in timing of iteration may account for slight deviations of the case study teams from the statistical model. Recommendations include earlier opportunities to design and support for team collaboration. Social network analysis is recommended when learning is interactional and to support triangulation. / text

Recent research on teachers’ achievement goals suggests that the teacher with a mastery goal is more likely to retain a high degree of interest in teaching, more willing to seek help with their teaching, and less likely to report professional ‘burnout.’ Section one of this study extends this line of research by testing the hypothesis that teachers with mastery goals toward teaching are more likely to display the traits of the adaptive expert. Achievement goals and adaptive expertise are measured for a sample of secondary school mathematics teachers who have attained National Board Teacher Certification. A multiple regression model is used with score on the adaptive expertise measure as the dependent variable and four independent variables. The second part of this study proposes the development and evaluation of a challenge-based model of professional development. The Legacy Cycle has been used extensively to teach transfer and adaptive expertise to college students. It has not been used, however, in the professional development of teachers. A professional development program using the Legacy Cycle for teaching high school Algebra teachers how to implement a new conceptually-based Algebra 1 curriculum is proposed. Its accompanying evaluation plan will enable further exploration of the role teacher goal orientation and school climate play in a teacher’s willingness and ability to innovate; and if having an adaptive expert in the classroom can improve student learning. / text

published_or_final_version / Education / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

<p>Consumers’ beliefs can influence enjoyment via beliefs about a product (e.g., whether a wine is believed to be high quality) and explored beliefs about themselves (e.g., where the consumers believes they have the expertise to appreciate any high qualities in a wine). Across nine experiments in five domains (e.g. film, tea, wine) we seek to better understand this latter and far less understood component by experimentally altering people’s subjective expertise (beliefs about ability in a consumption domain) independent of their real expertise and independent of real or framed differences in products’ qualities. We find subjective expertise alone generally increases two sources of enjoyments, item enjoyment (the enjoyment of an item’s qualities such as liking an item’s flavor) and process enjoyment (the enjoyment of consumer processes such as critically evaluating an item’s flavor). Importantly though, when consumption items are perceived to be lower quality, the subjective expertise effect on item enjoyment is eliminated but remains positive for process enjoyment. Additionally, subjective expertise leads consumers to engage in more actions and effort to improve their consumption (e.g. stirring a drink, learning more about a consumption item). This project improves general understanding of consumer expertise and consumer beliefs, finds subjective expertise has unique and often diverging effects on two sources of enjoyment important to everyday consumption, and demonstrates how and when subjective expertise can be altered to effectively enhance consumer enjoyment.</p> / Dissertation