<p> This hermeneutic study starts with a critical review of three formal approaches to group visioning: future search, appreciative inquiry (AI), and scenario planning. It then establishes a foundation for an archetypal psychological approach to such visioning. The research reviews future search, AI, and scenario planning from a depth psychological perspective and against two sets of vital considerations. The first set considers the participants' psychological relationship to the future and the second their psychological relationship to their groups. </p><p> Future search and AI arose in the field of organizational development; scenario planning first as a military strategy. All three currently appear as interventions for both organizations and communities. However, only future search and scenario planning explicitly recognize the unconscious, and none account for the participants' temporal biases. Zimbardo and Boyd (2008) would describe these approaches as made by futures for futures. They work best when participants already have a future orientation. Furthermore, the approaches vary in the ways they account for Bion's (1961) observation that humans are group animals who are not only in conflict with the group, but also with themselves for being group animals. </p><p> The second part of this study establishes a foundation for an approach to group visioning based on archetypal psychology. The approach begins by identifying the group's dominant archetypes, the archetypes' goals, and the archetypal field present in the external environment. It then links the group's vision to the aims of the group's dominant archetypes. </p><p> This study contributes to the fields of depth psychology, liberation psychology, and organizational and community development. Despite Freud's (1922/1955) and Jung's (1935/1966) negative opinions of groups and organizations, individuals are always involved with a group. This research addresses this fact and its relationship to liberation psychology, which aims to empower the excluded voices on the social margins (Watkins &amp; Shulman, 2008). Some organizational researchers already view organizations from a depth psychological perspective (Corlett &amp; Pearson, 2003). However, none ties the archetypes to the vision of the organization. This work clearly identifies and examines this vital link.</p>

<p> Human sex trafficking is the harboring, recruiting, or transporting of a person for purposes of prostitution. Traffickers use social networking sites to lure victims in a process called "grooming." Past research suggests that sexual victimization online could be associated with online risky behaviors, offline risky behaviors (e.g., substance abuse), poor academic performance, and problems at home, among others. The purpose of this study was to identify those psychosocial constructs that increase an individual's likelihood of becoming a victim of online HST. The likelihood of victimization was estimated by examining participants' reactions to realistic vignettes representing messages from strangers. This study hypothesized that executive dysfunction, participation in offline and online risk behaviors, and poor self-esteem would predict the likelihood of victimization. The results from the 168 young, female participants showed that marijuana use, online risk behavior, and self-esteem were found to predict this outcome. Executive dysfunction did not predict victimization likelihood.</p>

<p> Family firms contribute to both the national and global economies. Over the last few decades, the family-business field has continued to develop, as have its counterpart disciplines of business, economics, psychology, and social sciences. The study of leadership theory has also advanced over the years; however, not much research has applied this theory to family firms. </p><p> This dissertation contains the oral histories of a family-owned manufacturing business that is still operating after 60 years. The purpose of this exploratory case study was to examine the leadership dynamics of a family operation. To provide a theoretical leadership model to understand the oral histories presented in this dissertation, four major themes were discussed: family systems theory, organizational psychology, leadership studies, and the manufacturing industry. </p><p> The shifts in scholars' understanding of organizational dynamics were presented using Bowen's family systems theory and Lewin's systems theory is detailed in the narrative portion. This study used two mechanisms to study the family firm: oral histories (captured through open-ended interviews) and written documents and memoirs. Excerpts of written narratives also ground the interviews within the firm's historical and geographical setting. </p><p> This study documents the significance in understanding organizational culture to the development of a leadership model for family firms. This case study provides the opportunity to identify key attributes within a successful family firm. This firm has remained successful through multiple leaders over several decades within a challenging industry.</p>

<p> The gender gap issue is a complex, systemic problem emerging from the interrelation of multiple variables. This study sought to identify the primary, interrelated, and mutually influential variables that contribute to the C-suite gender gap phenomenon using Moustakas' transcendental phenomenological research methodology. Seven female vice president level executives who work in a male-dominated private sector industries in a major metropolitan area were interviewed. Common themes emerged around the significant impact of culture and upbringing and experiences with subtle or overt second-generation gender bias. Five women had some experience of the double bind, although not all of them seemed to perceive the experience that way. All participants discounted the concept of the "glass ceiling." All except one credited strong mentors who provided advice, guidance, and support and who also acted as advocates in helping to advance their careers. All participants demonstrated strong self-confidence, although two noted their confidence was low during their early career and grew through positive, reinforcing experiences. All participants discussed work-life balance and many tempered their career ambition with a similarly strong value for creating and maintaining work-life balance. Only one experienced career limitations by downgrading her work schedule to accommodate childcare needs. Each of their stories, though unique, illustrated how the variables of personality, leadership style, levels of ambition and confidence, upbringing, organizational culture, societal culture, how others interact with them, work-life balance, and mentors created a systemic "whole" that brought them to their current level of success in their careers. It is in the context of describing and seeing the systemic complexity of the issue that recommendations for a comprehensive strategy for action were presented.</p>

<p> This paper examined patterns of decumulation and the role that health events and marital disruption play in forming those patterns. Study data were drawn from six biennial waves of the HRS (1998 - 2008), and merged RAND HRS data files for the period 1998&ndash;2008. The a priori expectation was that there will be variation in drawdown strategies households employ. Findings suggest that patterns of dissaving are heterogeneous. The five most prevalent patterns were discussed. Households predominantly transitioned between oversaving and overspending. Households are expected to have a goal of on target spending therefore the observed cycle's dissaving will influence the next cycle's draw down rate in an attempt to maintain a sustainable drawdown rate. Markov model results suggest that households do recalibrate their depletion rate as a function of their last depletion rate. This study hypothesized that the onset of a health condition or a spouse's admission to a nursing home would be associated with an excessive decumulation of assets. These hypotheses were unsupported by the research. Marital transitions as predictors of decumulation were only partially borne out by the results. Divorce was also expected to increase the likelihood of overspender however this relationship was not significant. Loss of spouse was associated with an increased likelihood of verspending. One of the major contributions of this study is the identification of patterns of dissaving in retirement. Various life course, demographic and decumulation factor variables were determinants of these patterns. Overall results suggest that elders have a difficult time managing to an on target drawdown. This study concludes with a national decumulation policy directive outline.</p>

<p> Since the 1970's, the United States has enacted anti-crime legislation, particularly against sex offending and offenders. It can be supposed this occurred because of fear of victimization, which lead the public to demand laws to reduce crime. This thesis will use a case study approach to examine all laws that may affect sex offenders and their behaviors (e.g. registration, notification, civil commitment, castration, residency restrictions, mandatory reporting) in two states to determine cross-case variability in the existence and context of laws affecting sex offenders. If variability exists in the number and type of laws across states, consistencies in public safety may vary across state lines. The results can be used to assist future studies seeking to broaden understanding of sex offender laws across a region or the entire U.S.</p>

<p> Organizational Identity Formation Processes: A Case Study Examining the Relationship between the Emergence of Organizational Identity Labels and the Creation and Negotiation of their Meanings The social constructionist perspective of organizational identity (OI) is that it resides in collectively shared beliefs and understandings about central and relatively permanent features of an organization. Gioia, Schultz and Corley (2000) suggest that the content of an organization's identity consists of two tangled aspects: labels and the meanings associated with them. This qualitative case study explored the OI labels and their associated meanings of a newly established organization focused on diabetes. The research objective was to examine the relationship between the emergence of OI labels and the creation and negotiation of their meanings during the organizational identity formation processes (OIFP). Data were gathered from audio visual materials, documents, interviews, and observations. Findings demonstrated that four OI labels emerged and associated meanings were created during the OI formation processes. The OI label "not-for-profit" originated during the initial phase of development of the now-established organization and was predetermined by the State of New York and the IRS. The OI label "focused on diabetes" described the specific disease that the organization addressed. The OI label "healthcare practitioner driven" described the occupation of NEO members. The OI label "educators" described the community outreach activities NEO offered. The phrase "African American-based" and term "young," which were used at the intrasubjective level to describe the organization, did not move beyond the individual level; there was no "interchange or synthesis of two, or more, communicating selves" (Wiley, 1988, p. 258) related to these terms/phrases or their associated meanings. Conclusions offer refinements to OI theory, suggesting the utility of the two tangled aspects of the content of OIFP, the emergence of the labels and the creation and negotiation of their associated meanings, and provide a practical application to newly established organizations.</p>

<p> The rapid process of urbanization currently swelling the poor urban neighborhoods of developing countries is changing local and national political landscapes. As the population of urban poor continues to grow&mdash;it is expected that by 2030 half of the total urban population will be poor&mdash;so are poor peoples' demands for access to public services, as well as the type and intensity of their engagements with political actors. The dissertation focuses on the different types of interactions between the urban poor and politicians and specifically tackles the following questions: What explains the variation in political participation among the urban poor? What drives the urban poor to become active in politics? What types of political activity are these citizens engaging in? The dissertation uses a mixed-methods strategy that makes use of a case study of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and survey data, including an original dataset that includes interviews with over 400 favela dwellers. It finds that in Brazil, there is a "favela effect" in political participation: favela dwellers are more likely to become politically engaged in a number of activities&mdash;voting, working for a politician, participating in neighborhood meetings&mdash;than people living in more affluent neighborhoods. In addition, the dissertation demonstrates that there are multiple pathways to political participation and that four factors are key in explaining the levels of political engagement: social networks, religious groups, government transfer schemes, and NGO programs. The dissertation contributes to the literature on political participation and democracy, and helps move the debate on political engagement of the urban poor beyond arguments that, on the one hand, portray them as uninterested or unable to engage in political activities and, on the other hand, describe them as the inevitable victims of clientelism and political bosses.</p>

<p> This qualitative study not only describes the intercultural capacities of 20 high-achieving, homeschooled, evangelical university students from diverse backgrounds, but also far surpasses this original aim by generating a new model that critiques and complements cultural intelligence theory (CQ). Debate regarding tolerance among homeschoolers has lacked adequate study because the right questions have been obscured by terminology too broad (socialization) and impossibly loaded (tolerance). This constructivist, grounded-theory study thus addresses the question through intercultural lenses. </p><p> Chapter 2 reviews literature to propose a Process-Outcome Model of Socialization, a 10-pair categorization of critics' concerns, and introduces a reconceptualization of Perry's (1970) scheme of epistemological development for a faith-based university. Chapter 3 describes data-collection. In Southern California, strategies include participant observation, interview, focus-group, narrative, written reflection about Emerson &amp; Smith's (2000) <i>Divided by Faith,</i> and case study response. In metropolitan DC, shorter measures confirm theoretical saturation. Chapter 4 presents 20 participants' intercultural journeys. Chapter 5 traces cognition. Chapter 6 outlines motivation, describing intercultural self-efficacy, initiative, and perceived value. Chapter 7 offers evidence of metacognition. Chapter 8 provides the missing piece&mdash;concern&mdash;as the connector of knowledge and desire, showing that the most intense reflection and regulation operate based on higher commitments (metaphysical, existential, and ethical). </p><p> Chapter 9 integrates core categories to present two new models. One shows the complementarity of CQ and concern. The other unites them as Sustainable Cultural Concern (SCC), a model explaining why some people grow in intercultural capacities while others do not. Three assertions underlie these models: a) concern is a meta-commitment that differs from motivation; b) CQ and border-crossing concern cooperate to sustain growth; c) a culturally-concerned person seeks to wed knowledge and desire according to concern. Though most participants display sustainable cultural concern, unconcerned outliers strongly suggest that homeschoolers and organizations should intentionally cultivate it. </p><p> Methodologically, the models correct inconsistencies regarding homeschooling socialization and challenge the prevalence of quantitative studies. Theoretically, they highlight ambiguity and overlap in CQ domains and the disproportionate scope of metacognition. Practically, they guide personal evaluation of intercultural engagement and growth in perception (honor), understanding (humility), regulation (integrity), and volition (faithfulness).</p>

<p> Solid State Disks (SSDs) are reaching the point of being a practical replacement for traditional spinning media hard disk drives. With no moving parts and containing only semiconductor memory components, SSDs are faster and more reliable than spinning media drives but carry a price and size penalty. While the forensic analysis of the contents of spinning media drives is well understood and legally accepted, the increased complexity and autonomous actions of SSDs create serious challenges to the reliability of analysis on such devices. The limited lifespan and the slow erase times for blocks of memory have caused manufactures to create behavior that eliminates most forensic artifacts from unallocated space. Because of the autonomous actions of these intelligent devices, forensic analysis can produce different results in the absence of any user initiated changes. In a limited number of cases, data may still remain on an SSD's unallocated areas, but examiners should continue to focus on the allocated files and the rich set of information left behind there.</p>