In recent years, institutions of higher education have dramatically increased the number of online courses and degree programs offered to students, and yet it remains unclear what factors determine student satisfaction with online course and instructor effectiveness. Accordingly, the purpose of this exploratory correlation study was to examine how factors related to courses and instructors contributed to student perceptions of course quality (CQ) and instructor effectiveness (IE). Six stepwise regression procedures assessed the effects of specific course and instructor characteristics on perceptions of CQ and IE across one year of course evaluation data collected in a northeastern 2-year college. Results revealed that IE, quality of readings and assignments, and quality of threaded discussions had significant effects on CQ. In turn, student ratings of CQ, instructor-inspired interest in course material, and instructor availability and helpfulness had significant effects on IE. The results of the study can allow higher education administrators to make more effective decisions regarding online instruction and course structure, thus leading to increases in student persistence and success within online courses and programs.

Business intelligence (BI) involves transforming data into actionable information to make better business decisions that may help improve operations. Although businesses have experienced success with BI, how leaders of church organizations might be able to exploit the advantages of BI in church organizations remains largely unexplored. The purpose of the phenomenological study was to explore the perceptions of pastoral leaders concerning the potential usefulness of BI in church organizations. Conceptual support for the study was based on the premise that churches may also benefit from BI that helps improve decision making and organizational performance. Three research questions were used to examine the current role of BI in church organizations, the potential usefulness of BI in church organizations, and potential conflicts that might exist between spiritual and BI management objectives. Semistructured interviews were used to obtain data from 20 pastoral leaders. The data were analyzed using the modified Van Kaam method of analysis. The results indicated that pastoral leaders perceived that BI can be a useful technology in church organizations. Additionally, the pastoral leaders did not perceive any conflict between BI and church management objectives. Church leaders may be able to take advantage of BI to achieve their social outreach programs. As a result, local churches can have a greater social impact on the surrounding communities.

One of the objectives of the U.S. government has been the development of a nationwide health information infrastructure, including adoption and use of an electronic health records (EHR) system. However, a 2008 survey conducted by the National Center for Health Statistics indicated a 41.5% usage of the EHR system by physicians in office-based practices. The purpose of this study was to explore opinions and beliefs on the barriers to the diffusion of an ERH system using Q-methodology. Specifically, the research questions examined the subjectivity in the patterns of perspectives at the preadoption stage of the nonusers and at the postadoption stage of the users of an EHR system to facilitate effective diffusion. Data were collected by self-referred rank ordering of opinions on such barriers and facilitators. The results suggested that the postadoption barriers of time, change in work processes, and organizational factors were critical. Although the time barrier was common, barriers of organizational culture and change in work processes differed among typologies of perspectives at the postadoption stage. Preadoption barriers of finance, organizational culture, time, technology, and autonomy were critical. The typologies of perspectives diverged on critical barriers at the preadoptive stage. A customized solution of an in-house system and training is recommended for perspectives dealing with technical and organizational concerns and a web-based system for perspectives concerned with barriers of finance, technology, and organization. The social impact of tailoring solutions to personal viewpoints would result in the increased sharing of quality medical information for meaningful decision making.

Employee injury rates in U.S. land-based operations in the energy industry are 2 to 3 times higher relative to other regions in the world. Although a rich literature exists on drivers of safety performance, no previous studies investigated factors influencing this elevated rate. Leadership has been identified as a key contributor to safety outcomes and this grounded theory study drew upon the full range leadership model, situational leadership, and leader-member exchange theories for the conceptual framework. Leadership aspects influencing safety performance were investigated through guided interviews of 27 study participants; data analyses included open and axial coding, and constant comparisons identified higher-level categories. Selective coding integrated categories into the theoretical framework that developed the idealized, transformational leader traits motivating safe behaviors of leading by example, expressing care and concern for employees' well-being, celebrating successes, and communicating the importance of safety (other elements included visibility and commitment). Employee and supervisor participants reported similar views on the idealized leader traits, but low levels of these qualities may be driving elevated injury rates. Identifying these key elements provides the foundation to creating strategies and action plans enabling energy sector companies to prevent employee injuries and fatalities in an industry where tens of thousands of employees are subjected to significant hazards and elevated risks. Creating safer workplaces for U.S. employees by enhancing leaders' skills, building knowledge, and improving behaviors will improve the employees' and their families' lives by reducing the pain and suffering resulting from injuries and fatalities.

The purpose of this project was to translate evidence-based literature into policy and practice guidelines in order to improve leadership standards and skills among nurse managers and improve patient outcomes and the quality of care. Guided by the American Nurses Credentialing Center Magnet Model and Lewin's change theory, which sets the framework for creating exceptional nursing leaders, a literature search was conducted from studies ranging from 2010 to 2012 from several databases. Inclusion criteria were based on the presence of one or more leadership styles discussed in the articles and the impact of leadership style on nursing satisfaction. A total of 25 articles were found during the electronic search, but only 7 articles met the inclusion criteria for analysis. The results of this review revealed that transformational leadership enhanced nursing satisfaction rates, while transactional leadership and situational leadership contributed to low levels of nursing satisfaction rates. This project contributes to positive social change for nurse managers because there is limited research available that focuses on leadership styles and its implication for practice. This project will inform the work of nurse managers by illuminating the importance of leadership styles on nursing satisfaction and work environment conditions.

Healthcare providers increasingly recognize the importance of collaboration among stakeholders in cost-effective healthcare delivery. While collaborative relationships offer great advantages, little research has addressed their relevance in an international development aid context, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. The region is a major recipient of international development support, yet health indicators on HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, and child and maternal mortality indicate the health of the region is among the weakest worldwide. This sequential mixed method, descriptive study of a USAID-funded community health program in Ghana examined the nature of collaboration among six stakeholders and impact of this collaboration on effectiveness of program implementation. Stakeholder and resource dependence theories provided conceptual frameworks for analysis. Data were collected through surveys and interviews of officers of participating organizations (POs) and community health officers (CHOs). Surveys were analyzed using means, standard deviations, and t tests, while coding and themes determination were adopted for the interview data analysis. Results from both sources were integrated. Findings indicate both POs and CHOs perceived human relationship factors as more critical than physical resources. Collaboration, shared decision making, and frequency of communication in the relationship were perceived to substantially improve CHO skills and rural healthcare quality. Recommendations include active development of strong trust and dialogue in future relationships. These results could have important implications for positive social change by identifying the bases for collaborative success in providing impoverished rural communities with cost-effective and quality healthcare to address critical community health needs.

Layout Decision Analysis and Design is a ubiquitous problem in a variety of work domains that is important from both strategic and operational perspectives. It is largely a complex, vague, difficult, and ill-structured problem that requires intelligent and sophisticated decision analysis and design support. <br /><br /> Inadequate information availability, combinatorial complexity, subjective and uncertain preferences, and cognitive biases of decision makers often hamper the procurement of a superior layout configuration. Consequently, it is desirable to develop an intelligent decision support system for layout design that could deal with such challenging issues by providing efficient and effective means of generating, analyzing, enumerating, ranking, and manipulating superior alternative layouts. <br ><br /> We present a research framework and a functional prototype for an interactive Intelligent System for Decision Support and Expert Analysis in Multi-Attribute Layout Optimization (IDEAL) based on soft computing tools. A fundamental issue in layout design is efficient production of superior alternatives through the incorporation of subjective and uncertain design preferences. Consequently, we have developed an efficient and Intelligent Layout Design Generator (ILG) using a generic two-dimensional bin-packing formulation that utilizes multiple preference weights furnished by a fuzzy Preference Inferencing Agent (PIA). The sub-cognitive, intuitive, multi-facet, and dynamic nature of design preferences indicates that an automated Preference Discovery Agent (PDA) could be an important component of such a system. A user-friendly, interactive, and effective User Interface is deemed critical for the success of the system. The effectiveness of the proposed solution paradigm and the implemented prototype is demonstrated through examples and cases. <br /><br /> This research framework and prototype contribute to the field of layout decision analysis and design by enabling explicit representation of experts? knowledge, formal modeling of fuzzy user preferences, and swift generation and manipulation of superior layout alternatives. Such efforts are expected to afford efficient procurement of superior outcomes and to facilitate cognitive, ergonomic, and economic efficiency of layout designers as well as future research in related areas. <br /><br /> Applications of this research are broad ranging including facilities layout design, VLSI circuit layout design, newspaper layout design, cutting and packing, adaptive user interfaces, dynamic memory allocation, multi-processor scheduling, metacomputing, etc.

Layout Decision Analysis and Design is a ubiquitous problem in a variety of work domains that is important from both strategic and operational perspectives. It is largely a complex, vague, difficult, and ill-structured problem that requires intelligent and sophisticated decision analysis and design support. <br /><br /> Inadequate information availability, combinatorial complexity, subjective and uncertain preferences, and cognitive biases of decision makers often hamper the procurement of a superior layout configuration. Consequently, it is desirable to develop an intelligent decision support system for layout design that could deal with such challenging issues by providing efficient and effective means of generating, analyzing, enumerating, ranking, and manipulating superior alternative layouts. <br ><br /> We present a research framework and a functional prototype for an interactive Intelligent System for Decision Support and Expert Analysis in Multi-Attribute Layout Optimization (IDEAL) based on soft computing tools. A fundamental issue in layout design is efficient production of superior alternatives through the incorporation of subjective and uncertain design preferences. Consequently, we have developed an efficient and Intelligent Layout Design Generator (ILG) using a generic two-dimensional bin-packing formulation that utilizes multiple preference weights furnished by a fuzzy Preference Inferencing Agent (PIA). The sub-cognitive, intuitive, multi-facet, and dynamic nature of design preferences indicates that an automated Preference Discovery Agent (PDA) could be an important component of such a system. A user-friendly, interactive, and effective User Interface is deemed critical for the success of the system. The effectiveness of the proposed solution paradigm and the implemented prototype is demonstrated through examples and cases. <br /><br /> This research framework and prototype contribute to the field of layout decision analysis and design by enabling explicit representation of experts? knowledge, formal modeling of fuzzy user preferences, and swift generation and manipulation of superior layout alternatives. Such efforts are expected to afford efficient procurement of superior outcomes and to facilitate cognitive, ergonomic, and economic efficiency of layout designers as well as future research in related areas. <br /><br /> Applications of this research are broad ranging including facilities layout design, VLSI circuit layout design, newspaper layout design, cutting and packing, adaptive user interfaces, dynamic memory allocation, multi-processor scheduling, metacomputing, etc.

This dissertation studies important issues in supply chain management and marketing interface research: competition, product line design, and channel efficiency, at the presence of vertically differentiated products. Vertical differentiation as a means of price discrimination has been well-studied in both economics and marketing literature. However, less attention has been paid on how vertical differentiation has been operationalized. In this dissertation, we focus our study on two types of vertical differentiation: the one created by a product line which is produced by the same firm, and the one created by products from different firms. We especially are interested in the so-called private label products vs. the national brand products. Specifically, this dissertation explores how vertical differentiation can affect the interactions among the members of a supply chain in several different contexts. In the first piece of work, we use a game theoretic model to explore how the ability of a retailer to introduce a private label product affects its interaction with a manufacturer of a national brand. In the second essay, we are investigating how an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) will be affected by the entry of a competitor when there are strategic suppliers of a critical component. If these suppliers behave strategically, it is not clear that the entry of other players will necessarily be harmful to the incumbent. In the last work, we pay our attention to an emerging change happening in the industry: some retailers begin to sell their private labels through their competitors. We investigate the strategic role of a retailer selling her own private label products through another retailer. In summary, this dissertation illustrates how vertical differentiation play a crucial role in firms' supply chain as well as marketing strategies. Therefore, it is important for firms to recognize these strategic issues related to vertically differentiated products while making operations/marketing decisions. / text

An die Musterfertigung von Systemlieferanten stellt sich die besondere Anforderung, Prototypen verschiedener Erzeugnisse, in vielfältigen Kundenvarianten, in jeweils unterschiedlichen Produktreifegraden, parallel zu fertigen. Daraus resultiert eine spezifische Variabilitätsausprägung der Produktionsplanungsparameter, die zu einer hohen Komplexität und Turbulenz in der Ablaufsteuerung einer Musterfertigung führt. Infolgedessen gilt der Planparametervariabilitätsfall Musterfertigung, sowohl in der Theorie als auch in der betrieblichen Praxis, als ein bislang ungelöstes Steuerungsproblem, welches ein hohes Verbesserungspotenzial aufweist. Die vorliegende Arbeit analysiert und beleuchtet diesen Problemfall im Rahmen einer vergleichenden Fallstudienuntersuchung. Aufbauend auf den gewonnenen Erkenntnissen wird ein Konzept zur Steuerung einer Musterfertigung bei Systemlieferanten entwickelt und in seinem Anwendungszusammenhang evaluiert. / Sample production of tier 1 automotive suppliers demands producing simultaneously different product samples in many customised versions and within various maturity levels. The associated variability of the time-phased work content leads to a high degree of complexity and turbulence in the manufacturing process of such a production type. Therefore, sample production control becomes significantly more complicated and most existing control approaches fail in the real world. For this reason the present thesis examines this subject matter by means of a comparative case study. Based on the findings a customized production control concept will be introduced that fully adapts the specific needs of sample production of tier 1 automotive suppliers.