published_or_final_version / Business Administration / Master / Master of Business Administration

published_or_final_version / Business Administration / Master / Master of Business Administration

published_or_final_version / Business Administration / Master / Master of Business Administration

published_or_final_version / Business Administration / Master / Master of Business Administration

published_or_final_version / Management Studies / Master / Master of Business Administration

published_or_final_version / Business Administration / Master / Master of Business Administration

published_or_final_version / Business Administration / Master / Master of Business Administration

Newspaper journalists today find themselves at the nexus of a changing media landscape. Their professional principles and job roles are being challenged by changes in the technology they are expected to use, changes in the economic model that has supported the industry since this nation was founded, and changes in public attitudes and perceptions of newspaper journalism. This study examines these changes through the lens of social identity theory, examining how technological and economic changes have affected newspaper journalists’ perceptions about the ways in which they are able to perform their jobs and their perceptions about threats to the status of their profession, and how those beliefs affect their identification with their newspaper organizations and the profession. The primary methodological approach used was a national Web-based survey of journalists working at newspapers with circulations of more than 10,000. To supplement the survey findings, in-depth interviews were conducted with survey participants who volunteered to be interviewed. The findings included that journalists who have negative perceptions about changes in the newspaper industry will be more likely to have negative feelings about the impact of those changes on their jobs, and that journalists with negative feelings about those changes on their jobs will be more likely to have lower organizational identification. Professional identification was found to partially mediate this relationship, in large part because it has a considerable overlap with journalists’ organizational identification. This study also found that journalists who have negative perceptions about changes in the industry will be more likely to perceive the status of the profession has been threatened, and that journalists who perceive those status threats will be more likely to have lower professional identification. Additionally, journalists’ job type and the circulation size of their newspaper affected some of these relationships, such as the link between negative feelings about technological and economic changes and lower organizational identification. The implications of this study’s findings for the newspaper profession and those who study it are discussed in the last chapter. / text

The continued expansion of principals' responsibilities is having a detrimental effect on their job satisfaction; therefore, it is increasingly challenging to retain these important leaders. Effective principals can impact student learning and other vital outcomes; thus, it is important to be able to retain effective school leaders. Examining the perceived sources of principals’ satisfaction and dissatisfaction with their work has strong implications for policies and practices that can be implemented to increase principal retention. The purpose of this study was to measure the job satisfaction of head principals in Kentucky. The research conducted was an exploratory study using survey research methods. The study sought to obtain a census sample of all head principals throughout Kentucky’s 174 public school districts (N=1,158). A total of 478 responses were collected providing a response rate of 41%. A profile of the demographic and personal characteristics of Kentucky principals was constructed, and principals’ satisfaction with specified job facets was measured using the Rasch Rating Scale Model (RRSM). Findings determined that economic job attributes were not significant sources of dissatisfaction for principals in this sample. Principals were also found to be satisfied with psychological job attributes with the exception of the effect of their job on their personal life. Data in this study indicated that head principals in Kentucky were: (a) highly dissatisfied with the amount of hours they work; (b) highly dissatisfied with the amount of time spent on tasks that have nothing to do with their primary responsibility of improving student outcomes; and (c) highly dissatisfied with the lack of time they are able to spend on tasks that are directly related to improving student outcomes. A primary implication of this research was that Kentucky policy makers and superintendents could simultaneously increase principal retention and student outcomes by eliminating managerial job tasks not directly tied to instruction from the principalship so that principals can focus solely on instructional leadership.

The United States Department of Education issued a blueprint in 2010 outlining intended changes for the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Included was a focus on selecting effective teachers per new criteria. Information about teacher selection and assignment systems as related to teacher retention is beneficial to school district leadership as they prepare for the new federal expectations. This study extends previous research by Liu and Johnson (2006) that examined the experiences of newly hired teachers and introduced the construct of an information-rich hiring process, in which a district hiring process provides both the teacher applicant and district employer with sufficient interaction and adequate information-exchange to make informed decisions leading to a position fit of teacher to teaching position and campus. In addition to the use of an information-rich hiring process as a hypothetical construct, other theories incorporated in this research include: realistic job preview theory; human resource management theory; person-job-fit, person-organization-fit, and person-group-fit theories; and two-sided matching theory. The problem addressed in this study: The selection and assignment of teachers is often done in complex systems leading to poor matches that culminate in job dissatisfaction and teachers’ intentions to leave the classroom. The purpose of this study was to examine how newly hired teachers perceived their hiring experience and their fit with their campus and classroom assignments in order to determine if these perceptions predicted their intentions to remain in the classroom. This study used a nonexperimental approach with an ex-post facto design and a quantitative methodology to examine associations between variables. Participants in the study included 1,430 newly hired teachers at 92 campuses located across 13 Texas school districts who were administered an electronic survey instrument. / text