The purpose of this qualitative study was to identify the perception of school principals in school divisions with a student population of fewer than 2,500 as of June 2022, within the Commonwealth of Virginia regarding their school's use of online learning post-pandemic. School principals' perceptions regarding online learning can impact future implementation practices when global pandemics do not require the use of online learning. A qualitative study was conducted to analyze the perceptions and attitudes of principals. The research questions were: 1) How do principals in small school divisions perceive their school division's size as impacting decisions about online learning? 2) How have principals of small school divisions institutionalized online learning post-pandemic? 3) What perceptions do principals in small school divisions have about online learning post-pandemic? The research included building principals from elementary, middle, and high schools in small Virginia school divisions to better understand how the different age levels impact decisions regarding online learning. Interviews were conducted individually with eight interview questions. The findings suggest that online learning has not increased in the rate of use since the pandemic. Regarding principals' perceptions regarding online learning note concerns about the effects on their students. Particularly, 67% of elementary principals expressed concerns regarding the ability of younger students to gain foundation fine motor skills through online learning. Overall, principal participants agreed that there is a place for online learning to provide additional educational opportunities and access for their students when used in specific situations and circumstances. / Doctor of Education / The purpose of this study was to identify the perceptions of school principals regarding the use of online learning post-pandemic in Virginia school divisions with a student population of fewer than 2,500 as of June 2022. School principals' perceptions regarding online learning can impact the future implementation practices of online learning when global pandemics do not require the use of online learning. A qualitative study, which collects data about people's perceptions, was conducted to analyze the attitudes of principals regarding the use of online learning in public schools. The research questions were: 1) How do principals in small school divisions perceive their school division's size as impacting decisions about online learning? 2) How have principals of small school divisions institutionalized online learning post-pandemic? 3) What perceptions do principals in small school divisions have about online learning post-pandemic? The research included Building principals from elementary, middle, and high schools in school divisions to better understand the different age levels that impact online learning decisions, particularly in school divisions that may have used online learning. Interviews were conducted individually with eight interview questions. The findings suggest that online learning has not increased in the rate of use since the pandemic and the widespread use of online learning. Principals' perceptions regarding online learning note significant concerns about the effects on their students, particularly elementary principals. Although there was a consensus of concern regarding online learning, the participants agreed overall that there is a place for online learning, and it does provide additional educational opportunities for their students when used in specific situations and circumstances.

My research examines the importance of a particular form of cross-group brokerage in social networks wherein a person represents a bridge between his or her group and people belonging to a different group. Prior research on network brokerage and leadership emergence has failed to distinguish between brokerage in general and the kind of boundary-spanning between groups that is the focus of my research. Moreover, what we currently know about social network brokerage and leadership emergence comes either from highly abstracted laboratory-based work, or it comes research in relatively traditional work organizations with clear formal structures. It is unclear whether prior research from traditional organizational settings can be applied to nontraditional organizations in the so-called “creative industries,” which are the focus of my research. The core hypotheses my research examines are: (1) Do individuals whose friendship networks help them bridge between groups emerge as leaders in the eyes of others? And (2) Are people who are socially perceptive and socially skilled better at leveraging such boundary-spanning positions to win nominations of leadership from others? Data from the study come from interview and survey data from four different musical orchestras based in Korea.

The present study employed a novel approach to extend current knowledge of how ideal leader prototypes and self-concepts solely and dually influence leader categorization and effectiveness judgments. Cluster analysis and policy-capturing were employed to examine independent and dependent variables as patterns. Findings partially supported hypotheses and corroborated previous research. Leader categorization and effectiveness judgments were self-affirming across multiple managerial performance scenarios; implicit policies varied based on the pattern of traits exhibited within their self-concepts and ideal leader prototypes. On average, people who endorsed prototypical ideal leader prototypes and self-concepts were more stringent compared to individuals with less prototypical patterns. They categorized fewer managers as leaders, perceived them as less effective, and weighed Planning, Motivating, and Controlling performance behaviors more in their judgments. The study also showed ideal leader prototypes explained variance in implicit policies for leader categorization and effectiveness beyond the variance accounted for by self-concepts; however, the self-concept remained a significant predictor of implicit policies for leader effectiveness. This novel finding suggests the self-concept, like the ideal leader prototype, is relevant in weighting performance behaviors for effectiveness judgment. / Ph. D.

Although research in leadership perception tends to show males have an advantage over females as a result of gender stereotypes, researchers have theorized recently some of this gender-related cognitive bias may be offset by perceiver affect (Medvedeff & Lord, 2007). In this experiment, a between-participants factorial design was used to examine the impact of gender stereotypes (male or female) and perceiver affect (positive or negative) on participants\' leader networks and dynamic perceptions of leadership. Participants were randomly assigned to a affect and leader gender condition with roughly 33 undergraduate students in each group. Leadership perceptions were assessed by examining connections between concepts in cognitive networks and repeated measurements of dynamic ratings. Data were analyzed using the Pathfinder and GEMCAT II (General Multivariate Methodology for Estimating Catastrophe Models) programs. Results suggested gender stereotypes and perceiver affect yield differential effects on leader networks. There was more stability in leader networks for a male leader than for a female, whereas there was more accuracy for perceivers in a neutral mood when compared to those in a negative mood condition. Furthermore, dynamic ratings showed the perceptual process in leadership emergence recognition was non-linear for both the male and female leader. Additionally, those in the negative mood condition were less resistant to changing their leadership perceptions when compared to those in the neutral mood condition. Potential interpretations for these findings are discussed and recommendations for future work in this area are provided. / Ph. D.

Leader prototypes are our expectations for attributes a leader should possess, and these prototypes guide our perceptions and judgments of others with regard to leadership. This dissertation uses a connectionist perspective of leadership to investigate differences in perceptions and judgments of male and female leaders, and provides the first empirical test of Hogue and Lord's (2007) model for gender bias in leadership. In Study 1, leader prototypes are investigated as the mediating process through which perceptions of male and female leaders differ. Furthermore, leader and perceiver gender as investigated as contextual and person factors which impact the accessibility of leader prototypes, thus consequently impacting perceptions and judgments of leaders. The use of leader prototypes in remembering a leader's past behaviors reflects the use of a semantic memory system, where the leader behaviors recalled are influenced by our expectations of the leader, rather than whether the leader actually demonstrated those behaviors. Thus, masculine leadership behaviors demonstrated by a female leader may be discounted, and the leader behaviors recalled may be influenced by gender roles. Study 2 investigates an episodic memory intervention to increase the memory accuracy of leader behaviors as a means to reduce biases in judgments of female leaders. Overall, Study 1 results suggest that activation of agentic attributes; specifically tyranny and masculinity are impacted by leader gender, such that the accessibility of those attributes was higher for male leaders. Contrary to predictions, female leaders did not result in greater accessibility of communal attributes in the leader prototype. No impact of perceiver gender was seen on this mediation process. Subsequently, accessibility of these attributes impacts participants' perceptions and judgments of leadership. Study 2 results indicate behavior recognition accuracy of communal behaviors drives participants' negative perceptions and judgments of the female leader. Limitations and directions for future research are discussed. / Ph. D.

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Small businesses continue to be a dominant portion of the global economy, and their owners need to understand how they can effectively make organizational changes, including implementing sound decision-making processes and innovation, as well as competing with much larger businesses. Minority small business owners have a particular need for organizational change because of their limited financial opportunities in relation to their nonminority counterparts. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to examine how minority small business leaders in the food service industry in south central Pennsylvania experience and perceive organizational change. Organizational change theory, contingency theory, and situational theory provided the framework for understanding the key research question, which encompassed how minority small business leaders in the food service industry perceived and experienced organizational change. Data were gathered from face-to-face interviews with 25 minority small business owners and analyzed using the Hycnerian analysis process. Results indicated that participants did not have a theoretically recognized definition of organizational change. Results also suggested that the participants devised human capital resources to effect organizational change. Findings support the provision of more education regarding organizational change to the small business community, especially minority business owners. The findings may have implications for positive social change by identifying strategies for minority business owners to employ organizational change through human capital so that they can compete with larger organizations and nonminority-owned small businesses.

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Females continue to be underrepresented in leadership despite research demonstrating that leadership effectiveness does not vary by leader gender (Paustian-Underdahl et al., 2014). The current study examines the gender bias in leadership through the lens of leadership perceptions and evaluations; in particular, how perceivers' ratings of a leader would change as a function of the leader's gender. Leadership judgments are based on the leader prototype activated in the perceiver and how consistent/inconsistent the leader is perceived to be with the activated prototype (Lord et al., 2001). Due to the mismatch between the communal-oriented female gender stereotype and agentic-oriented expectations of a successful leader (Eagly and Karau, 2002), it was expected that the female leader would be rated more negatively than the male leader. Furthermore, the perceiver's gender and prior engagement in emotion suppression are investigated as two additional factors that could bias information processing when evaluating leaders. Male perceivers, who tend to hold a stronger masculine understanding of leadership (Koenig et al., 2011), were expected to evaluate the female leader more harshly than the male leader. Additionally, those depleted of their finite self-regulatory resources due to prior emotion suppression (i.e. being in a state of ego depletion; Baumeister et al., 1998) were predicted to rely more heavily on their stereotypes when making subsequent judgments; hence, ego-depleted individuals would demonstrate more bias in their ratings of the female leader relative to the male leader. In the current study, participants were randomly assigned to an emotion suppression or no suppression condition as they watched funny clips from the comedy series "The Office''. Then, they watched four business videos featuring a leader and three business managers. Participants were also randomly assigned to one of the two versions of the business videos portraying either a male or female leader. Leadership perception and leader effectiveness ratings were collected after each of the four business videos, and leader competence and leader warmth ratings were measured once after all four videos. Additionally, behavior recognition accuracy of agentic and communal leadership behaviors that were displayed in the four business videos was assessed. Contrary to expectations, the study findings demonstrate a dominant female leader effect; the female leader was evaluated more favorably than the male leader on all four leader judgments. This was observed both within the repeated measures and overall leadership ratings. An ego depletion effect was also observed; ego-depleted individuals showed lower accuracy in behavior recognition ratings and more leniency in leader warmth ratings. Furthermore, ego-depleted individuals showed less discernment by giving higher leader effectiveness ratings over time compared to non-ego-depleted individuals. Perceiver gender did not meaningfully affect leadership judgments. The unexpected pattern of bias in favor of the female leader instead of against her suggests that the nature of gender and leader stereotypes may be changing; the incongruence between the female stereotype and leader expectations may be decreasing, leading to more favorable evaluations of the female leader by both male and female perceivers. Moreover, the ability to provide fair and accurate judgments of leader effectiveness is reduced when depleted. Limitations and future research directions are discussed. / Doctor of Philosophy / The gender gap persists in leadership; although leader effectiveness has not been found to vary by the leader's gender, female leaders tend to be perceived and evaluated more negatively than male leaders. One reason for this is the mismatch between societal expectations for how women are ideally expected to behave and the expectations associated with a successful leader. In this study, gender bias in leader judgments and behavior recognition accuracy is examined by a leader's gender. Additionally, the perceiver's gender and prior engagement in emotion suppression are studied as two additional factors that can influence bias in leader ratings. Study findings demonstrate an unexpected but dominant female leader effect, where the female leader was perceived as more leader-like and rated more effective, more competent, and warmer than the male leader by both male and female perceivers. The amount of self-regulatory resources available also affected subsequent processing capabilities; those who suppressed their emotions and were depleted of their self-regulatory resources were less accurate in their behavior recognition ratings and were more lenient in their leader warmth ratings. Future research should explore if and how the nature of gender and leader stereotypes are changing, as evaluations of female leaders may not be as negatively-biased as it was previously.