<p>By investigating the business environment in Sub-Saharan Africa from an institutional theory perspective, the purpose of this thesis is to explain organizational response to the forces of this particular institutional environment. Coercive, normative and mimetic pressures serve as the basis for explaining the institutional environment. The organizations respond to these pressures by seeking legitimacy from the environment.</p><p>The study is based on a qualitative research method relying on qualitative secondary data. Additionally a questionnaire was sent out to a limited number of experts to validate the findings.</p><p>The main conclusion of this thesis is that networks are formed on the basis of norms and cultural processes working upon organizations in order to counter balance malfunctioning regulatory institutions. It has been revealed that organizations cannot rely solely on their response to coercive pressures for legitimacy. Normative aspects in networks are formed through repeated transactions that create trust and reputation between business partners that lead to legitimacy. Moreover, it is difficult for organizations to construct a proper response to cultural pressures since they stem primarily from heritage and ethnicity.</p>

<p> The AACN has asked academic leaders to align the performance of their organizations to the prescribed standards within the <i>Essentials of Baccalaureate Education for Professional Nursing Practice</i> document and has provided indicators of quality suggestions for program enhancement as a means of promoting continuous performance improvement. However, the AACN has not prescribed a strategy that specifies the manner in which colleges should achieve these benchmarked standards, which has created uncertainty among administrators about whether the indicators of quality lead to improvements that are actually indicative of improved performance.</p><p> This dissertation used multiple linear regression research design to determine whether predictive relationships exist between the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) indicators of quality and the Baldrige core values and concepts of performance improvement within Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education accredited baccalaureate colleges of nursing.</p><p> The purpose of this study was to determine whether the behaviors associated with specific AACN indicators of quality reflect behaviors that the Baldrige core values and concepts have already proven to be successful in achieving continuous performance improvement. The results revealed nine AACN indicators of quality behaviors most likely to enhance performance improvement outcomes within baccalaureate colleges of nursing. They include; (1) Resources are budgeted for research, development, business operations, public relations, marketing, and human resources; (2) Establishing and upholding policies that reflect faculty and leadership development resources; (3) Student experiences include service learning opportunities; (4) Practice partnerships include collaborative practice initiatives; (5) Collecting data and making program changes that focus on the level of graduate satisfaction with their preparation for the profession; (6) Faculty have input into the governance of the college/school; (7) The majority of faculty have a presence in state, regional, national, and international professional activities; (8) Opportunities for baccalaureate graduate's employment with practice partnerships; and (9) Formal mentoring program for clinical preceptors.</p><p> The results underline the fact that continuous performance improvement within baccalaureate colleges of nursing is a deliberate and dynamic analysis-driven endeavor dependent on an organization's ability, willingness, and initiative to continually strive to narrow the chasm between actual and potential performance results.</p>

<p>This qualitative study provides information on the experiences and perceptions of women who immigrated to the U.S. after the 1979 Iran Islamic Revolution to pursue higher education and professional careers. The study offers new understanding of strategies used to overcome obstacles in completing academic goals in the U.S., pursuing professional careers, and negotiating balance between home-life and career. The study focused on 3 research questions: 1. How did family expectations and Iranian culture influence Iranian women&rsquo;s academic goals and family-life balance decisions? 2. What experiences (motivations and drives) shaped the life course of high-achieving Iranian women, and how did these experiences impact their professional careers and family-life-balance decisions? 3. What strategies were utilized to support their professional careers while still creating a balance between their work- and home-life obligations? </p><p> The study was patterned after the Giele (2008) research that used the life story method, which focused on 5 periods in the lives of study participants: childhood, adolescence, early adulthood, current life, and future plans. A semi-structured survey instrument elicited open-ended responses grouped into 4 sections: Identity, drive and motivation, relational style, and adaptive style. The data was provided by 21 women who met the selection criteria of the study and agreed to participate in face-to-face interviews. </p><p> The findings centered on the participants&rsquo; need to find a meaningful balance between work- and home life. Family was a key priority of all of the respondents, an influence that mirrored Iranian society values. The women who made the choice to immigrate felt pressure to succeed in all of their endeavors. Additional findings highlighted the importance of the participants&rsquo; self-efficacy and expectations of high achievements instilled in their early years, along with their strong aspirations to excel in professional careers. Having one or more mentors and accommodations made by immediate and extended family members supported the participants in meeting their work-life balance goals. The findings can be useful to other women immigrants to the U.S. who seek work-life balance as they adhere to the traditional female roles of their home countries and adapt to the demands of professional careers in the U.S. </p>

<p> Mindfulness offers a wide range of benefits for teachers and students, however, less is known about the role of mindfulness in the work of principals. Current tools that assess instructional leadership, which is a major part of the principalship, omit issues of mindfulness. Further, measures of mindfulness connect little to instructional leadership to make meaningful assessment of the mindful instructional leadership of administrators. The study discusses development of the Principal Resilience for Educator and Student Success (PRESS), a 20-item self-assessment of principal instructional practices and beliefs concerned with cognitive processes shown to support mindfulness: preoccupation with failure, commitment to resilience, deference to expertise, resistance to simplify, and sensitivity to operations. Data were gathered and analyzed from a representative statewide sample of principals in Washington State. Findings reveal differing degrees of variability on specific mindful instructional leadership practices. Scores generated by PRESS are compared to respondent scores on the Cognitive and Affective Mindfulness Scale-Revised (CAMS-R); results indicate positive correlation between the PRESS Mindful Instructional Leadership (MIL) single factor score and the CAMS-R mindfulness single factor score. Use of the tool as part of principal professional growth, as well as further research to examine the relationship between mindfulness in instructional leadership and school improvement, are recommended.</p>

<p> Complexity leadership theory (CLT) (Uhl-Bien, Marion and McKelvey , 2007; Uhl-Bien &amp; Marion, 2009) represents a 21st century transcend and include theory of leadership. This study examined how seven senior managers and leaders working in complex environments engaged in CLT at work, and whether action-logics (Torbert and Associates, 2004) made a difference in how they did so. Participants spanned three action-logics: expert, achiever, and individualist. </p><p> Data collection for this qualitative study was based on a moderately structured interview protocol developed around the seven primary theoretical components (called "CLT Areas") of the adaptive leadership function presented in Uhl-Bien and Marion, 2009. The interview protocol embodied a language translation from the more abstract academic language of CLT to the idiolect of participants. Individual interviews lasted about two hours. Each participant also completed an action-logic instrument (Leadership Development Profile). </p><p> The primary study finding is a novel methodology for determining the degree to which participants were engaging in CLT. Existing definitions of CLT Areas as shown in Uhl-Bien, Marion, and McKelvey (2007) and Uhl-Bien and Marion (2009) were expanded via the development of elements comprising each CLT Area. Further, metrics were developed for each element that generated numerical scoring from interview text, providing a means for quantitative analysis to compare differences among participants. Data for three of the seven CLT Areas were analyzed. </p><p> In addition to the primary methodology finding, data findings guided by the CLT Scoring Framework showed evidence that all participants were engaged in CLT, but in different ways. Moreover, patterns of scoring differences emerged across action-logics, suggesting that action-logics were impacting the way these leaders engaged in CLT. </p><p> This study represents an early step in the integration of two theories - complexity leadership and action-logic - both of which appear to be related to 21st century environments. The study concludes with a recommendation for how to further integrate these theories in a way that could lead to considerable expansions of both. Of particular interest is the potential to deepen understanding of the role systems thinking plays in regards to action-logics.</p>

<p> This qualitative, exploratory case study addressed the research question: What is the interplay of executive group members' deep-level attributes in the process of high-stakes decision-making in one global organization? The study responded to Lawrence's (1997) call to explore the "black box of organizational demography" through the exploration of subjective concepts such as beliefs, cognitions, and values and their relationships within research models. As such, it sought to further the understanding of the influence of executive group members' surface- and deep-level (underlying) attributes while engaged in promotion and selection of internal candidates to higher levels of leadership within one regional business unit of a global organization. The research used executive groups, leadership, and decision-making literature as its basis, and its results inform practice related to executive groups, decision-making, and selection. </p><p> The study offered seven conclusions. (1) The definition of deep-level attributes requires revision. (2) Beliefs are not deep-level attributes, but result from the interplay between surface-level attributes and values. (3) Cognitions are generated from the interplay of beliefs and the decision-making context. (4) Executive groups appear to function best when both homogeneity and heterogeneity are present simultaneously. (5) The CEO has a more substantial and pervasive influence on the executive group decision-making process than any other member of the executive group. (6) The conceptual frame for this study required revision to fully understand "interplay." (7) Decision-making executive groups are flexible in structure. The study offered recommendations related to theory, practice, and future research.</p>

<p> Innovation is essential for organizational survival and effectiveness and often requires a balance between managing existing competencies, skills, and resources, and pursuing newer and radical aspirations. Organizational leaders play an important role in fostering innovation in the workplace and striking a unique equilibrium between these competing priorities to maximize individual creativity and organizational innovation outcomes. By employing path analyses, this study examined the relationship between two leadership styles&mdash;transformational leadership (TFL) and leader-member exchange (LMX) and two forms of organizational innovation (exploration and exploitation). The study also investigated the role that individual and organizational variables played in explaining the leadership-innovation relationship. </p><p> Results suggested positive but non-significant relationships between leadership styles and organizational innovation due to the high correlations and overlap between the two leadership styles. Follower autonomy was positively and significantly related to exploration innovation. When analyzed separately, positive and significant associations were found for both leadership styles and organizational innovation. Results of this study suggest the equal importance of transformational and relational styles of leadership towards fostering both forms of organizational innovation. In particular, organizational support for innovation was found to mediate the leadership-innovation relationship, suggesting the importance of social mechanisms in translating the effects of leadership into innovation outcomes for the organization.</p>

<p> This study empirically explores operational practices and archetypes of design thinking in various organizational constructs. The emphasis is on examining the common operational practices applied in design thinking initiatives, to determine whether there are variations in the patterns of applications of these operational practices across different design thinking initiatives, and to identify what may explain such variations if they indeed do exist. The extant literature on design thinking distributed across many disciplines was assessed to determine the common operational practices underlying design thinking initiatives. These practices were then tested in the real-work context of 41 design thinking initiatives.</p><p> Two hypotheses were central to this study. First, the many operational practices of design thinking can be reduced to certain core elements or factors that are consistent across various contexts of design thinking initiatives. This hypothesis is tested through factor analysis of 32 operational practices of design thinking across 41 design thinking initiatives. Second, there will be specific archetypes or clusters of design thinking across various contexts where emphasis on core operational practices will vary depending on the context of the design thinking initiative. This hypothesis is tested through cluster analysis of the results of the factor analysis of the 32 operational practices of design thinking derived from the data cross the 41 design thinking initiatives. The cluster analysis assesses whether there are, indeed, archetypal differences in terms of these core operational practices. Then, using qualitative data derived from interviews of 10 design thinking initiatives, case exemplars highlight each of the four archetypes of design thinking initiatives and further speculate on the assumptive domain or the guiding principles that undergird these different archetypes of design thinking operational practices.</p><p> This study shows seven factors of operational practices of design thinking emerging from the data, identifying empirical categories that are present across various contexts of design thinking initiatives. These empirical categories highlight the consistency and importance of concepts in design thinking, including cooperative understanding; aspirational visioning; truth seeking; comprehensive solutioning; optimistic collaborating; analytical prototyping; and personal reflecting. Further analysis of the data revealed four archetypes of design thinking initiatives that differed by operational practices of design thinking as well as other key organizational characteristics. A metaphorical construct was applied to the archetypes to symbolize the similarities of the design thinking initiatives to four sports races: training, emphasizing learning by doing and more novice design thinking initiatives; marathons, capturing personal reflection in long timeframe change initiatives; relays, highlighting team collaboration and codesign in complex initiatives; and sprints, emphasizing fast-paced product innovation initiatives. Case studies of the four archetypes were used to provide context to the archetypes. Speculation on the underlying assumptive domains of the archetypes is captured in a model differentiating designer-led versus team-driven design thinking initiatives and low versus high sense of urgency.</p><p> Ideally, the results of this study may provide diagnostic insight into the patterns of design thinking initiatives, thus helping managers recognize aspects of design thinking that may already be present in their organization. The archetypes may also be used predictively, aiding organizations pursuing design thinking by utilizing the model as a way of identifying characteristics similar to their own design thinking considerations and goals.</p>

<p> In recent years, nursing faculty incivility has been a searing topic of research. Nursing research included studies on incivility among nursing students, incivility between nursing students and nursing faculty, and incivility in the clinical setting. However, literature specifically on nursing faculty incivility was limited. This descriptive, quantitative study examined perceived levels of workplace incivility among nursing faculty members. The sample (<i> n</i> = 257) consisted of nursing faculty members employed at community colleges in North Carolina. The methodology included a non-experimental, online survey design using Martin and Hine's (2005) <i>Uncivil Workplace Behavior Questionaire</i>and a demographics survey. Data analysis included use of descriptive and inferential statistics. Findings revealed three themes (a) the description of workplace incivility among nursing faculty aligned with Bandura's (1977) social learning theory and Andersson and Pearson's (1999) incivility spiral; (b) workplace incivility among nursing faculty existed in the community college setting; and (c) most demographic factors did not influence the extent to which faculty members perceived uncivil behaviors among their peers. However, there were four exceptions: hostility and full-time employment, hostility and salary range, privacy invasion and ethnicity, and uncivil behaviors and the number of years of full-time teaching. Implications for nursing education included turning conflict into problem-solving and collaboration, and cultivating climates of civility and cultures of openness, inclusion, and social connectedness.</p>

<p> The study of leadership in wide range of organizational settings has demonstrated the advantage the Full Range Leadership (FRL) of transformational leadership approach over other leadership styles in predicting organizational performance and other outcomes. Research has found that leadership is one of the most significant contributors to organizational performance. However, very little research has been completed on the link between FRL and organizational performance at American Muslim Organizations (AMOs). This lack of empirical research, the increase use of FRL in assessing pastoral leadership (Rowold, 2008), and its positive and strong association with effective organizations as shown in literature were the primary motivators for this study. The Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ-5X), a proven leadership assessment test, was administered to 320 congregants at 12 AMOs in the greater Dallas area, TX, USA to determine preferred leadership styles and whether there is a significant correlation relationship between senior leadership styles and organization performance. Created and updated by Bass and Avolio (2004), the questionnaire measure three objective indicators of organizational performance: congregants&rsquo; satisfaction with leadership, motivation toward extra effort, and perceived leadership effectiveness. Results of descriptive analysis showed that senior leaders at AMOs scored relatively high in the average of all responses and in six of the nine leadership factors, suggesting that Full Range Transformational Leadership Model (FRLM) was the style practiced by senior leaders at targeted organizations.</p><p> The results of multiple regression analysis of aggregated leadership factors scores revealed that blended specific elements of the (FRLM) led to higher satisfaction, motivation toward extra effort and perceived leadership effectiveness among congregants.</p><p> Multiple regression analysis for separate leadership factors scores revealed the following findings: (1) Contingent Reward leadership style (CR), which requires performance measurements to reward achievement beyond meeting standards, is inextricably linked with the Transformational leadership style. (2) FRLM consisted of nine hierarchal factors on a continuum basis and strongly proffered as the most effective leadership approach at the studied context. (3) Idealized influence, attribute and behavior, did not reach significance, suggesting that AMOs are shifting from religious leadership to secular one. (4) Intellectual stimulation did not reach significance either, suggesting that leadership at AMOs does not empower followers nor facilitate creativity and independent thinking among them.</p><p> Factor analysis findings (PCA) suggested that the nine factors of FRLM can be represented by three main factors to explain 75.4 of the variability in the original data. The findings of this study provided strong support for FRLM to work well with the senior leadership at AMOs. Discussion of the implications and recommendations was provided.</p>