<p> This study investigated how the sociomaterial features of e-mail shaped the dynamics of teacher work expectations and work actions in one high school. Drawing on Greenhalgh and Stones' (2010) Strong Structuration Theory Incorporating a Technology Dimension, the study utilized Stones' (2005) Quadripartite Cycle of Structuration to make meaning from the data. The research site was a k-12 independent school in the Southeast United States. The network-in-focus was the high school and the agents-in-focus were high school teachers. Three administrators, all of whom taught at least one high school class, were also included in the sample. Data were collected primarily through interviews with the participants, supplemented by relevant documents, and a participant-generated e-mail communication log. Data were analyzed through a multi-step open coding process, as well as document analysis and analysis of the e-mail communication logs. The study's findings demonstrate that the sociomaterial features of e-mail played a significant role in shaping the dynamics of teachers' work expectations and work actions at Southeast. Teachers all utilized e-mail on a daily basis as both an efficiency and accountability device; however, some also appropriated it for task and work management purposes. Those teachers that used a smartphone in the execution of their jobs experienced feelings of increased availability, stress, and disruption to their work/home lives. There was a strong theme of accountability that was enabled--perhaps even encouraged--by uninhibited e-mail use. Finally, the research demonstrated that e-mail was at the center of how teachers understood their job(s) and what it meant to be "professional." </p>

<p> A considerable deficit of Licensed Mental Health Professionals (LMHPs) is expected in the United States because of the rapid professional burnout and turnover. Research has related various leadership styles to job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and retention. This study focused on authentic leadership theory and the relationship between authentic leadership and burnout. The researcher conducted a causal-comparative study with a convenience sample of 116 licensed mental health professionals to assess the relationship between authentic leadership and LMHP leader burnout in an attempt to identify a solution to the systemic burnout and turnover problems in community mental health centers. The results indicated that authentic leadership was a statistically significant predictor of all three subscales of the MBI. The multiple linear regression analysis indicated that the subcomponents of authentic leadership had a relationship with the three subscales of the MBI. The transparency sub-component of authentic leadership was particularly important because it was a statistically significant predictor of the emotional exhaustion subscale, while the balanced processing and self-awareness subcomponents were also statistically significant predictors of the depersonalization subscale. The moral sub-component of authentic leadership was a statistically significant predictor of the personal accomplishment subscale, which makes this study useful for development of leadership trainings designed to promote work environments that are able to minimize burnout and turnover in LMHPs.</p>

<p> There is limited understanding of the variables that impact trainee performance in clinical settings. As such, investigating the tools used to assess performance was warranted. In the first part of the present research study, I investigated the independent factors that comprised the FPEF using 294 archival forms completed by clinical supervisors at the California School of Professional Psychology, Alliant International University, San Francisco. The five conceptually derived domains of clinical competency of the FPEF included: psychological intake, evaluation and assessment; clinical interventions; professional roles and behaviors; self-examination and development; and supervision. A principal factor analysis was conducted to determine whether the items of the FPEF comprised performance factors that were based on these FPEF domains. Results yielded a four-factor solution based on how the items clustered together. Thus, subscales were retitled as follows: Clinical Development, Professional Roles and Behaviors, Psychological Conceptualization and Intervention, and Psychological Assessment Skills. The second part of the present study included trainee self-ratings and supervisor ratings on the FPEFs for 47 school-based mental health trainees. This part of the study focused on whether the internal psychological variables of role conflict, role ambiguity, and self-efficacy (domain specific), and the external variables of both organizational support and supervisory support were associated with performance ratings on the FPEF. Findings indicated that the internal and external variables were both associated with trainees' performances across various domains. However, some of these relationships were contrary to what was expected. Organizational support and supervisory support were found to have negative associations with specific performance domains, which may have been due to limitations of the instruments or moderating variables that were not measured in this study.</p>

<p> Businesses are faced with many challenges in the global economy which require frequent changes to their organizational structure and business processes. One of the roles of the human resources (HR) department in any business is to act as the strategic partner for management in disseminating changes to the broader employee base. The HR professional who is faced with communicating and implementing these changes may encounter stressful situations as they are executing these new change processes. When stress is not treated it can lead to burnout. The purpose of this quantitative study was to investigate if there was a relationship between frequency of change in organizations and burnout among HR professionals. The study also sought to explore the relationship between burnout and gender as well as the relationship between and burnout and position within the organization. The sample included 147 HR professionals who completed the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI), which measured burnout and the Frequency of Change Scale (FoCS) which measured change. The results indicated that the frequency of change in an organization does not have a significant effect on burnout among HR professionals. No relationships were found between burnout and gender or burnout and position. Additional research is needed in this area and recommendations are suggested.</p>

<p> This analysis contributes conceptually to the field by investigating how campuses both originate and respond to academic innovation by locating the focus of the study in the center of curricular decision-making and action&mdash;the academic department. </p><p> This study applies an organizational perspective to academic innovation directly by combining three ideas to conceptualize and measure departmental qualities. The research design proposes that (1) academic innovation is the result of a direct behavior taken by an actor&mdash;in this case, departments are collective actors and changes in academic programs require collective decision-making; (2) actor behaviors are often cyclical or routine and changes in behavior can be measured through these routines&mdash;in this case, departments routinely offer courses; (3) innovation requires feasibility in actor knowledge, capability, and skill&mdash;in this case, departments collectively contain faculty capability, course knowledge, and administrative skill. </p><p> The significance of departmental factors in a robust inferential model provides evidence that departments draw on technical knowledge and skills through course development and prior programmatic experience. Although enabling environments contribute, external conditions do not create organizational change. Program innovations occur within a campus, beginning at the department level. This study makes the case that context matters, but that its relative impact is mediated by the core characteristics of the collective actor that makes decisions and takes action.</p>

<p> Organizational culture is in need of new paradigms. As an ontological category it is flawed because the lack of academic consensus on what culture is tends to render it inadequate as an explanatory framework. As a field of praxis managers and practitioners tend to oversimplify culture, reducing it to one or two variables such as idealized norms or values, or as personality-writ-large. This leads to failed organizational culture change efforts, usually at great cost and effort as organizations fail to adapt beyond surface effects. Against these notions a new paradigm for organizational culture is proposed. Cognitive science, specifically embodied and situated cognition, analogically based reasoning, and cultural schemas provide a robust way to conceptualize and investigate culture. It is proposed culture is loosely but distinctively ecologically determined, underwritten by human cognition grounded in the functional, technological, and social forces inherent in work, and the production of meaning related to work. This paper advances a theory of culture as shared cognitive models by which groups derive meaning and organize sensemaking. Under the right conditions such models may make up the organization&rsquo;s dominant culture. This dissertation provides theory and research describing a so-called functionally embodied organizational culture framework. It investigates the shared schemas and cultural models of the executive team of a global, diversified Fortune 1000 manufacturer. Preliminary support for functional grounding is seen: Schemas rooted in the strategic task environment of manufacturing make up the cultural models for people leadership and business management, lending preliminary support to functionally grounded culture. Implications for current theory and practice are discussed, along with avenues for future research. One implication is that popular approaches to culture and change utilizing top-down, espoused, and idealized norms and values may not be sufficient to dislodge prevailing shared cognitions rooted in dominant professional orientations or strategic context.</p>

<p> The increased consumption of finite resources threatens the preservation of the environment. Environmental pioneers George Perkins Marsh, Gifford Pinchot, and Aldo Leopold were the first to address this concern in the United States. With this background, environmental sustainability in the United States has become a common consideration for public, private, and government organizations. Many organizations have implemented environmental management systems to handle environmental issues. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore what environmental sustainability programs manufacturing firms in West Michigan pursue and their motivation for doing so. Leaders from 13 West Michigan manufacturing companies were interviewed. Research questions addressed the benefits administrators perceive can be gained by adopting environmental sustainability programs, disadvantages in adopting environmental sustainability programs, and what organizations are doing to pursue environmental programs. Cost savings was cited as a major reason for pursuing sustainability programs with the lack of time and resources being the greatest restraint environmental administrators encounter. Company leadership noted that sustainability programs provided their firm a competitive advantage with many Millennial employees preferring companies that manage robust environmental programs. The sustainability strategies identified in this research can be leveraged by firms seeking to implement or improve their environmental programs.</p>

<p> This research study examined the organizational identification process of lay church leaders. The organizational identification process is important to all organizations, as it increases an individual&rsquo;s connection to the organization and thus has the potential to increase attendance, commitment, group behaviors, and the enactment of organizational policies. Lay leaders are key to the success of churches, as the weight of leadership lies within these structured leadership positions of small, established ministries. </p><p> One research question guided this study: <i>What is the role of leadership development of lay leaders in enhancing their organizational identification? </i> The research site for this single descriptive case study was First Baptist Church of Highland Park, a large, African American Protestant church located near Washington, DC. Data were collected through interviews with lay leaders of three ministries of this church&mdash;deacons, ministers, and trustees&mdash;as well as observation and document analysis. Lay leaders were selected as the participants for this study since most roles and positions of leadership within the church involve this volunteer, lay leader base, and these individuals are trained for the ministry through an extensive leadership development process developed and provided by the church. </p><p> This study found that (1) the early life of lay leaders made a difference in how the leadership development program affected their organizational identification; (2) the associated ministry roles and responsibilities, as refined in the leadership development process, enhanced their process of organizational identification; (3) the self-esteem of the lay leaders developed through their leader training process and was an important factor in further enhancing their process of organizational identification; and (4) the church&rsquo;s identity and specific aspects of its mission and values were central in the organizational identification process.</p><p>

<p> The purpose of this qualitative exploratory single case study was to explore how professional development in blended learning influences teachers&rsquo; self-efficacy in a Title I school district in the southwestern U.S. The importance of this study was to understand how teachers&rsquo; self-efficacy may or may not be enhanced through professional development experience with blended learning approaches. Teachers&rsquo; perceptions of their experience integrating technology after receiving professional development was significant since blended learning is transforming education. The theoretical foundation used for this study was Bandura&rsquo;s social cognitive theory. Purposive expert sampling was used to identify the 32 participants for this study. The data was collected through a questionnaire, interviews, and a focus group, put through a member checking process, then coded and thematically analyzed to answer the research questions. All questions posed in the questionnaire, interviews, and focus group were interlaced in a way that they answered more than one research question, and the data was analyzed from each and then all together. The findings of this study indicated that teacher efficacy increased as a result of professional development experience and the main factors that contributed to this are: teachers&rsquo; sense of self-efficacy related to modeling and collaborative learning, mastery of blended learning skills and strategies through clear communication and positive feedback, and mastery in blended learning to teach self-regulatory strategies to enhance personalized learning. This study extended Bandura&rsquo;s social cognitive theory by seeking to understand teachers&rsquo; perspectives of how professional development in blended learning influences their self-efficacy. </p><p>

<p> Complexity and turbulence create intensifying pressures on 21^st-century organizations seeking growth through globalization and operating efficiencies. Organizations are responding by engaging dispersed teams in expanding operations and enabling efficiencies from &ldquo;anywhere, any time, any form&rdquo; teaming. The use of dispersed teaming enables new opportunities for organizational growth; however, may introduce the need for change in the organization&rsquo;s leadership mindset and approach to leading. The purpose of this qualitative grounded theory research study is to explore and seek a deeper understanding of the emergence of leadership in dispersed teams and the resulting points of tension that potentially affect the process of leading and team effectiveness as organizations address complexity. Findings from the study are based on the lived experiences of virtual team leaders and members and provide insights on the theoretical and practical guiding practices exploring the supportive and hindering forces that enable an ideal environment for the act of leading shifting from an entity or person to a shared process with members of dispersed teams. The findings explore the importance of relational leadership and the role of appointed leaders when fostering shared leading. The outcomes of the research provide insight to organizations, leaders, and members of dispersed teams on the importance of operating collectively in an environment where individuals can maximize their capabilities despite geographical separation; while understanding the importance of situational readiness and adaptability when seeking team effectiveness. The research study provides theory describing the ideal aspirational environment that will enable shared leading and guiding principles that introduce practical considerations reflecting the situational realities, ambiguities, and humanistic complexities influencing today&rsquo;s organization when seeking growth and effective outcomes through dispersed teaming.</p><p>