<p> The onset or inception of organizational decline has been largely bypassed in management research over the past two decades, even though understanding this fundamental typology is key to mitigating organizational failure, while also providing important insight regarding how managers respond to phenomena that they may neither expect or understand. Understanding how managers observe, decide, and act in times of uncertainty, and how organizational culture and other factors may shape that environment, are important for scholars and practitioners alike to understand. This dissertation argues that corporate decline has largely been misunderstood from the perspective of onset or initiation; that the manager's decision-making process in times of decline must be considered in relation to the actual causes and factors associated with decline, and that the fundamental definition of organizational decline must be revised in light of advances in our understanding in management over the past three decades. This qualitative empirical descriptive study reviews literature regarding organizational decline with emphasis on the onset of decline, presents an equation for understanding a firm's propensity for decline, provides a revised definition of organizational decline, and examines the decision-making process of management when faced with decline based on symbolic interactionism theory.</p>

<p> I have designed and implemented a new online communication training tool (XHTML, CSS, PHP, Javascript, MySQL) that potentially maximizes a job candidate's ability to obtain job offers. All demographic statistics show people with disabilities as the largest minority group currently unemployed in the United States. Those who seek work have a higher chance of being unemployed, find a low-level job, or find part-time employment. With communication training, job candidates gain the ability to market their skills to potential employers and increase the likelihood of obtaining a job offer. I researched into ADA law that provided guidelines when developing the system and discuss a job candidate's rights in each step of the interview process. Using a Model-View-Controller (MVC) based framework, I have built a system that adapts to a user's disability, and presents them with a tailored list of interview questions and answers. For this paper, mobility and visual disabilities were focused on. The database contains legal interview questions, illegal questions under ADA law, and gray area questions (questions that may seem illegal but really not). This allows us to challenge the communication skills and knowledge of the user and encourage them to learn how to improve. PHP modules were built to be flexible and independent from each other. Different modules can be loaded and unloaded in the Controllers thereby allowing flexibility in the system. Having independent modules also reduces the time to debug code. Participants are given multiple choice answers to each interview question in a 10-question training session and rated based on their performance. Answers are assigned points (from 1 to 4) and are calculated at the end of a training session. A group of California State University, Long Beach (CSULB) students were given a 2-part survey before and after communication training and provided promising results on the effectiveness of the system. Overall, attitudes of participants showed the entire group agreed that communication is a key aspect in a job interview and that communication training would help them obtain more job offers. Participants that completed part-2 of the survey indicated that communication training through the system has overall helped their abilities. Long-term usage of the system could potentially show an increase in job interview performance (i.e., job interviews vs. job offers) and therefore, increasing the employment rate for people with disabilities.</p>

<p> Human service workers have a history of working with our neediest populations, and their work often entails long hours, challenging situations, and limited resources. When the focus of the work is on human strengths and positive approaches, more positive results emerge. In order to determine the process of how human services workers maintain a positive perspective in their work, 15 human service workers from a diverse spectrum were interviewed. A narrative analysis was applied to elicit the participants' insights, revealing common themes and strategies. The findings indicated that having a fundamental belief in human potential, seeing the client's positive attributes, and having inherent capacities of caring were fundamental. Participants believed their work was meaningful and made a difference, and that they were a part of something bigger. They felt empathy and compassion toward clients, and generally believed that their temperament and upbringing also influenced their capacity to maintain a positive perspective. Aside from their beliefs, workers depended on receiving support from like-minded people, colleagues, and others in their environment. They utilized self-care, self-monitoring techniques, and demonstrated self-awareness and a mature capacity to adapt to the unexpected. They were able to apply their learning from past experiences in support of the services they offer to others.</p>

<p> The present research study examined the strength and direction of the correlations between three leadership styles (transformational, transactional, &amp; servant) and satisfaction with leadership and motivation as outcomes of leadership style. A web-based survey was used to collect data from 181 professional Latino employees in the U.S. <i>The Leadership Style Survey </i> was combined from the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ) and the Servant Leadership Questionnaire (SLQ), which measured transformational, transactional, and servant leadership styles, as well as satisfaction with leadership and motivation. Data was collected about Latino employees' perceptions of their supervisors' leadership styles, and satisfaction with leadership and motivation. Results from one-sample t-tests indicated Latino employees' responses to the leadership, satisfaction, and motivation scales were significantly lower than the norm. All Pearson correlations indicated there were strong positive relationships between each of the leadership styles and satisfaction with leadership and motivation. More importantly, Fisher <i>r</i>-to-<i> Z</i> transformations demonstrated that correlations found on the Latino sample were significantly higher than the correlational norms. The findings suggest Latinos are less motivated and less satisfied with their current leaders, however characteristics of transformational, transactional, and servant leadership are highly important to Latino employees and are highly correlated to their motivation and satisfaction with leadership. Cultural values may have a strong impact on Latino professional employees' evaluation of their supervisors. The results also highlight that the responses from the Latino sample are significantly higher in terms of the relationship between servant, transformational, and transactional leadership and satisfaction with leadership and motivation. </p>

<p> The purpose of this quantitative descriptive correlational research study using the Emotional Competence Inventory (ECI) survey instrument was to examine to what extent a relationship exists between a project leader&rsquo;s emotional intelligence (EI) and project success (Hay Group, McClelland Center for Research and Innovation &amp; Wolff, 2006). Literature reviewed found a gap existed regarding relationships between emotional intelligence of a project leader and project success. The survey sample consisted of project managers, project leaders, or other project management designation. The survey sample contained 60 respondents self-identified within the project management profession and others providing multi-rater reviews of survey participants. The study, using the ECI, Spearman&rsquo;s correlation, chi-square statistical analysis, and other descriptive statistics was to examine relationships between the independent and dependent variables. Results suggested no correlation between emotional intelligence of project leaders and project success but do suggest emotional intelligence is a factor to consider within project leadership.</p>

<p> Emerging research has shown that, in the last twenty years, dramatic corporate and workforce changes have taken place in terms of when and where work is performed. Telework has emerged as a popular mode of work design, characteristic of a modernizing workforce. As a flexible work arrangement, telework options have been linked with improved work-life balance, feelings of autonomy, and intrinsic satisfaction for employees. However, concerns for employees' lack of presence and distance from the office and how individuals remain connected to the organization and its members continue to surface. More particularly, increasing time being physically away from the organization can impact employees' feelings of becoming invisible, isolated, and less able to identify with the organization. This is noteworthy because a sense of connectedness and feelings of belonging at work have been linked to engagement, productivity, and performance. To date, however, no studies have focused on what happens to individuals' sense of belonging when they engage in high-intensity telework, consistently working from home more than sixty percent of the time. The purpose of this phenomenological study, then, was to describe and understand the essence of the high-intensity teleworkers' experience of organizational belonging. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with ten individuals who were employed in full-time roles across different organizations, who worked from home at least three days a week, and had been doing so for at least six months. The findings reveal especially unique and important perspectives on the employee-supervisor relationship, how high-intensity teleworkers engage from a distance, and how a sense of belonging is realized. Notions of identity fulfillment surface as central to how organizational belonging is experienced by high-intensity teleworkers. An identity-based definition of organizational belonging is also offered. Recommendations for further research and practical suggestions for organizations employing high-intensity teleworkers are highlighted. </p>

<p> This qualitative grounded theory study sought to identify what motivates women to stay in or return to science, technology, engineering, and math professions (STEM) long-term, leading to a motivation model. Twenty women, each having a minimum of 10 years of experience in STEM professions, participated in the study. Four of the 20 participants had a career path where they left the STEM workplace for more than 26 weeks and then returned. The results of this study suggested that there may be five themes related to motivating factors for women who stay in STEM professions long term: a) interest in STEM is the constant as individual needs and priorities change, b) direct manager influence on development is critical c) performance-based workplace policies and culture are continuously sought, d) moving towards a no-bias workplace remains important, and e) the career growth path at life's crossroads remains a challenge. While this study's results suggested that some bias does still exist in the STEM workplace, as previously documented. The results suggested that an equitable workplace does not yet exist regarding career growth opportunities. As career growth is one of the motivating factors for women in STEM and environments for career growth opportunities vary in the workplace, this study's results also suggested that career growth opportunities continue to be a barrier for women in STEM.</p>

<p> This study explored authentic leadership behaviors to determine if the behaviors would relate to follower satisfaction with supervisor, overall job satisfaction and the intent to quit and in age groups of 20-24, 25-34 and 35 and over and predict the same relationships in age groups of 20-24 and 25-34. The intent was to determine if authentic leaders could positively affect the intent to quit in younger workers that in turn may attenuate turnover. This non-experimental quantitative study significantly supported the relationship to and the prediction between authentic leadership behaviors, follower satisfaction with supervisor, overall job satisfaction and a lower intent to quit. Age groups did not significantly moderate the relationships. This study demonstrated that authentic leaders significantly related to and predicted follower satisfaction with supervisor, overall job satisfaction and the intent to quit with all age groups, suggesting that authentic leaders may attenuate turnover, including younger workers.</p>

<p> Job performance aids (JPAs) have been studied for many decades in a variety of disciplines and for many different types of tasks, yet this is the first known research experiment using JPAs in a quality assurance (QA) context. The objective of this thesis was to assess whether a JPA has an effect on the performance of a QA observer performing the concurrent dual verification technique for a basic assembly task. The JPA used in this study was a simple checklist, and the design borrows heavily from prior research on task analysis and other human factors principles. The assembly task and QA construct of concurrent dual verification are consistent with those of a high consequence manufacturing environment. Results showed that the JPA had only a limited effect on QA performance in the context of this experiment. However, there were three important and unexpected findings that may draw interest from a variety of practitioners. First, a novel testing methodology sensitive enough to measure the effects of a JPA on performance was created. Second, the discovery that there are different probabilities of detection for different types of error in a QA context may be the most far-reaching results. Third, these results highlight the limitations of concurrent dual verification as a control against defects. It is hoped that both the methodology and results of this study are an effective baseline from which to launch future research activities.</p>

<p> The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine women's career journeys and how these journeys vary by generational cohort. Sixteen women wage-earners were interviewed to examine women's career journeys and how these journeys vary by generation. Specifically, the internal and external barriers to and facilitators of women's career advancement, success and fulfillment were examined. The women reported five influencers on their career choices: mentors or role models, work-life balance considerations, passions and interests, financial needs, and hostile work environments. The process of career planning and exploration the women described was consistent across the generations and included a period of exploration, failure of their initial plans leading to continued exploration or limbo, and their avocations and careers ultimately seeming to unfold naturally.</p>