abstract: ABTRACT For decades the United States has tried to increase the number of students pursuing science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education and careers. Educators and policy makers continue to seek strategies to increase the number of students in the STEM education pipeline. Public institutions of higher education are involved in this effort through education and public outreach (EPO) initiatives. Arizona State University opened its largest research facility, the new Interdisciplinary Science and Technology Building IV (ISTB4) in September, 2012. As the new home of the School of Earth & Space Exploration (SESE), ISTB4 was designed to serve the school's dedication to K-12 education and public outreach. This dissertation presents a menu of ideas for revamping the EPO program for SESE. Utilizing the Delphi method, I was able to clarify which ideas would be most supported, and those that would not, by a variety of important SESE stakeholders. The study revealed that consensus exists in areas related to staffing and expansion of free programming, whereas less consensus exist in the areas of fee-based programs. The following most promising ideas for improving the SESE's EPO effort were identified and will be presented to SESE's incoming director in July, 2013: (a) hire a full-time director, theater manager, and program coordinator; (b) establish a service-learning requirement obligating undergraduate SESE majors to serve as docent support for outreach programs; (c) obligate all EPO operations to advise, assist, and contribute to the development of curricula, activities, and exhibits; (d) perform a market and cost analysis of other informational education venues offering similar programming; (3) establish a schedule of fee-based planetarium and film offerings; and (f) create an ISTB4 centric, fee-based package of programs specifically correlated to K12 education standards that can be delivered as a fieldtrip experience. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ed.D. Higher and Postsecondary Education 2013

abstract: In an effort to understand and improve interactions between homeless young adults and the nonprofit organizations that serve them, I engaged in a long-term, qualitative, participatory action project. My project involved input from homeless young adults, nonprofit organizations, volunteers/staff, and communication scholarship. While taking a community-engaged, participatory, and qualitative approach, I focused on the interactions between youth and the organizations. Particularly, I drew on homeless young adult experiences to inform services and illuminate compassion within the context of the nonprofit organizations. In the end, this project extends the individual model of compassion to include presence, identifies potential ruptures in the process of compassion, and models compassionate dynamics in organizations. It also articulates a method I call pragmatic fieldwork, a qualitative and pragmatic approach to participatory action research. Each of these outcomes speaks to varied community interests, from theoretically nuancing scholarly models of compassion to informing policy in the interest of more effectively and compassionately serving homeless youth. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Communication 2013

abstract: The healthcare system is plagued with increasing cost and poor quality outcomes. A major contributing factor for these issues is that outdated leadership practices, such as leader-centricity, linear thinking, and poor readiness for innovation, are being used in healthcare organizations. Through a qualitative case study analysis of innovation implementation, a new framework of leadership was uncovered. This framework presented new characteristics of leaders that led to the successful implementation of an innovation. Characteristics uncovered included boundary spanning, risk taking, visioning, leveraging opportunity, adaptation, coordination of information flow, and facilitation. These characteristics describe how leaders throughout the system were able to influence information flow, relationships, connections, and organizational context to implement innovation. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Nursing and Healthcare Innovation 2013

This program of research examines the perceptions of the flows of learning in a Canadian granting council during its renewal initiative. This case study will answer the following research questions: How do employees of a granting council perceive the flow of learning during the organization's transformation into a knowledge council? More specifically, how do they perceive the feed-forward flow between the individual and the group, and the feedback flow between the organization and the individual? Based on Crossan, Lane and White's (1999) 41 Framework and on the organizational learning, organizational change and social construction literatures, this qualitative study sheds light on two problematic relationships that may lead to tension at the junctures of the flows between the individual and the group, and the organization and the individual. Face-to-face, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 15 participants, and data was analyzed using Miles and Huberman's (1994) methods for interpretation. The data revealed that those who are heavily involved in the renewal conceptualization retain the learning that occurs during organizational changes. It also suggests that some factors consolidated under the constructs of capabilities/capacities, skills, roles and infrastructure, could be considered as indicators of the flows of learning. The findings confirm that middle management has a fundamental role in amplifying knowledge and in engaging and integrating employees. Preliminary results also show that routines are mostly at the individual and group levels, and that along with hierarchy, do not obstruct the flow of learning as much as is commonly believed. This research contributes to theory by studying the learning component during a renewal exercise, by building on the 41 Framework, by providing empirical data, and by extending research on organizational learning in federal granting agencies. Its implications for practice are that the mechanisms to spread organizational learning need to be taught, and that organizations could be considered as neutral rather than benevolent organisms where power is not malevolent, but residing in a set of relationships that employees have to navigate. The fields of education and management may benefit from the narratives that this research provides regarding the learning needs of knowledge workers. Keywords: Feed-forward and feedback flows of learning; tension; granting councils; organizational learning; organizational change.

<p> Purpose. This study sought to identify, understand, and describe the decision-making processes used by school districts to determine the middle school science course sequence as part of the adoption of the Next Generation Science Standards. Additionally, this study explored and described the expressed comments, feelings, and beliefs of participants involved in the decision process about their experience in the decision-making process and the outcome. </p><p> Methodology. This multiple case study focused on four cases&mdash;three school districts that chose the integrated approach and one district that chose the discipline approach. Ten participants represented the four school districts. Data were collected from each participant utilizing personal face-to-face interviews. </p><p> Findings. Significant findings included: Administrators tended to defer to teachers, because of their expertise, to promote consensus and teacher buy-in; prolonged discussions led to expressions of demoralization among teachers; each of the four school districts used a different approach to the decision&mdash;one depended on expertise of a dedicated science education leader to make a command decision, while three districts included a broad set of participants to promote consensus; conceptual structuring devices facilitated decision making; science teachers with discipline-specific backgrounds tended to prefer the discipline model and were more reluctant to adopt the integrated approach; the professional identity of the science teacher influenced their preference and their feelings about the outcome; and each participant expressed unique perceptions of who was involved in the decision&mdash;teachers tended to downplay the importance of their own influence and to describe the ultimate decision as being in the hands of administrators. </p><p> Conclusions. There is no best approach to selecting a middle school science course sequence. Multiple decision-making approaches resulted in acceptable outcomes, but any approach can be improved by taking steps to promote levels of trust among constituents. </p><p> Recommendations. Educational leaders must understand how the <i> professional identity</i> and <i>science content expertise</i> of science teachers influence their preferences of curricular sequencing. Leaders interested in developing consensus should take careful steps to promote transparency and trust. Participants in the decision should be provided professional development to limit ambiguity, provide guidelines, and promote structuring devices to facilitate the decision.</p><p>

<p> This study seeks to explore the historical influence of quilting within the African-American community, its development as a form of non-verbal communication, through the evolution of an organizational culture originating from the period of Reconstruction, and its relevance as a continued communication medium among quilters of today. The study will trace the influence of cultural traditions from Africa, through the period of Reconstruction to the 21st century. The goal of the research is to identify the development of cultural and organizational behaviors that influenced a sustainable form of non-verbal communication that is generational, as well as cultural, particularly among African-American women. The study will further explore the use of quilting as a new medium of non-verbal communication for social issues, giving voice many life experiences that may be overlooked. It will also explore ways in which quilting can be used to further educate others as it assumes the identity of a new and important art form. </p><p> The research will use a qualitative analysis approach, conducting interviews with generational quilters from Baltimore, MD, Charleston, Florence, Georgetown, and Beaufort, SC, who are believed to have first-hand experience of the art form due to the predominance of quilting within those specific African &ndash;American communities. In addition, a review of peer research will be assessed to evaluate the correlation between present day first-hand accounts quilting and the relevance of prior research in determining if quilting is still a culturally motivated skill. Theories founded in research studies from the science of anthropology, will describe how organizational culture is instrumental in developing specific behaviors and patterns of assimilation within a community. It will further define how values, norms and traditions provide the framework of quilting as a non-verbal means of expression within a community or culture. It is believed that the research will show that quilting has been influenced by the life experiences contained within specific cultural structures. It is also the goal of this study to prove that quilting is an art form that has been limited in its past assessment as an influential form of non-verbal communication, and personal expression, and that the craft is communicated through generations, in an historical context which has contained a predominant cultural influence among African-American women.</p><p>

<p> Ambulatory care comprises a major and increasingly important part of the U.S. and other countries&rsquo; health care sectors. Every year in the U.S., about 80% of the population seeks care at a doctor&rsquo;s office, amounting to one billion visits. These visits divide almost equally between primary care and specialty clinic organizations. Diagnostic work is part of most ambulatory care, and central to over 40% of patient visits that originate due to a new problem or a flare-up of an ongoing chronic problem. Yet, the risks associated with diagnostic failures have not garnered much attention from health care leaders and policy makers until a recent National Academy of Medicine (NAM 2015) report synthesized research data with the statement that &ldquo;most people will experience at least one diagnostic error in their lifetime, sometimes with devastating consequences.&rdquo; This dissertation first reviews organizational theories and measurement challenges relevant to diagnostic safety and quality in the context of ambulatory care, and then presents three papers analyzing specific organizational factors hypothesized to enable or thwart an accurate and timely diagnosis. The first paper targets delayed diagnosis from missed evidence-based monitoring in high-risk conditions (e.g., cancer) within five specialty clinics in an urban publicly funded health system. The second paper analyzes staff-reported office problems that could lead to diagnostic error (e.g., not having test results when needed) in over 900 primary and specialty clinics across the nation. The third paper examines the associations between two types of time pressure (i.e., encounter-level and practice-level), organizational factors, and patient effects including perceptions of missed diagnostic opportunities. The three primary conclusions from this work are 1) organizational vulnerabilities for missed monitoring common to the different clinics included challenges with data systems, communications handoffs, population-level tracking, and patient activities, leading to the development of &lsquo;design seeds&rsquo; for context-flexible solutions to improve diagnostic quality; 2) two organizational factors&mdash;stage of health information technology (HIT) deployment and patient safety culture are associated with diagnostic-related office problems, and 3) encounter and practice-level time stressors in primary care clinics are associated with perceptions of greater adverse effects on diagnosis and treatment, and worse patients&rsquo; experiences of chronic care from the clinic team, respectively, as well as associated with several organizational factors including HIT, patient-centered culture, relational coordination for interdependent teamwork, and leadership facilitation of changes to address frontline practice challenges. Taken together, the dissertation papers also demonstrate the applicability of the NAM Improving Diagnosis Conceptual Framework for research on ambulatory care organizations. </p><p>

<p>The boundaries within our workplace continue to disappear and employees at all levels are impacted by the cultural and technological differences among generations. The gaps in values, beliefs, life experiences and attitudes are increasing. Leadership is essential in bridging these gaps to achieve top performance and operational excellence. There is no single strategy to provide support for developing leaders, each business must implement what works for them. Executive coaching, as an increasingly popular leader development strategy, seems to maximize employee engagement while fostering collaboration and teamwork. This exploratory research study explores how executive coaches are preparing leaders to succeed in managing the multigenerational workplace. Through a virtual interview process, the researcher explores the experiences, discussions and perceptions of 88 executive coaches about different generational cohorts, as it relates to leadership development and the workplace. Most of the coaches responding to the survey belong to the Baby Boomer generation (72%, n = 55), followed by Generation X (19%, n = 14) and Traditionalists (9%, n = 7). The respondents claim to have coached on average 105 individuals during the last five years. The vast majority of them hold an executive coaching credential (72%, n = 55). Through a rigorous textual analysis process five themes emerged from the data: (a) developmental assignments, (b) feedback processes, (c) formal programs, (d) self-development assignments, and (e) developmental relationship assignments. The information gathered provides a better understanding of these best practices as well as areas of opportunity in developing leaders in a multigenerational setting. These findings suggest that although executive coaches are aware of the need their clients have for being prepared to successfully lead a multigenerational workplace; executive coaches still need to develop ways to tailor their specific coaching approaches considering the growing impact of the multigenerational workplace phenomena. In addition, findings suggest the need for organizations to have a clear strategy for addressing the multigenerational workplace phenomena and that in doing so, they can start by implementing effective leader development programs.

<p> Intimately interwoven in American culture is the unquestioned notion of paid labor as a personally gratifying moral and civic responsibility. Yet, of the 46 million Americans living in poverty in 2010, 23% held jobs (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2012). The U.S. fast food industry employs 4 million workers (Statista, 2014) and &ldquo;pays the minimum wage to a higher portion of its workers than any other American industry&rdquo; (Schlosser, 2001). </p><p> The research methodology for this study was critical ethnography, which explores a cultural phenomenon and attempts to provoke social change by giving voice to marginalized communities (Thomas, 1993). A New York City&ndash;based nonprofit organization working to organize fast food workers was the field site for the study. The mining of empirical material involved multiple qualitative research methods, including observation, document and artifact analysis, and interviews with 25 fast food workers who participated at one or more strikes. This study addressed a single research question: What role does work ethic as a legitimizing myth play in the work lives of New York City fast food workers who live and work in New York City and who have participated in work actions or demonstrations? Sidanius (1999) defined legitimizing myths&mdash;an element of his social dominance theory&mdash;as &ldquo;values, attitudes, beliefs, causal attributions, and ideologies providing moral and intellectual justifications for social practices that either increase, maintain, or decrease levels of social inequality among social groups&rdquo; (p. 104). </p><p> The study found that the role of work ethic as a hierarchy-enhancing legitimizing myth appeared to depend upon what the individual was fighting to achieve when she or he joined the Fight for $15, i.e., emancipation, reciprocity, worker solidarity, or personal development. Stigma and stigmatization appeared to act as a mechanism to maintain group-based social hierarchy and thereby reinforce the legitimization of the work ethic myth. In addition, the research participants had low expectations of escaping poverty in the future and experienced anxiety about the temporal nature of a future positive financial situation, further legitimizing the work ethic narrative. Recommendations based on these findings are offered for theory and research, and policy and practice.</p><p>

<p> Much has been written in academic and popular publications about organizational change. Topics have ranged from case studies to anecdotal stories of how leaders can change an organization. There is little written on changing the culture and vision of a profession at the macro level. </p><p> This dissertation shows that one key to effecting change within a profession is to educate those at the entrant level and thereby effect change with the profession. Over time, these new entrants to the profession will rise to senior positions and be able to effect greater change through the hiring, training, and mentoring processes inherent in the professions and the organizations for which they work. One way to effect change in these entrants is through education in college and professional schools. This study is specifically focused on effecting change in the interdisciplinary field of engineering and public policy. Public policy involves countless infrastructure issues at all levels of government. Engineers are well-versed in dealing with the technical issues of infrastructure but their voice is often lacking at the policy level. Similarly, political scientists are well-versed in policy but are often lacking in a thorough understanding of the technical aspects of the policy. </p><p> Through an introductory course in engineering and public policy, undergraduate students from the seemingly disparate fields of engineering and political science were placed in a common classroom and through lectures, writings, presentations, and guided discussions their attitudes on key areas were changed. Areas studied were professional interest, legitimacy, deference, the public policy process, and education outside of a specific field. Through the process of education, changes in each of these areas was possible. Further, the movement was towards making students in each discipline more open to the input, opinions, and attitudes of others, and specifically in shifting engineers toward a more positive view of the public policy process. Being exposed to these topics and to each other&rsquo;s thought processes, changes in professional attitudes were made. </p><p> While there is not a specific profession for which any research has been done, the military is used, in places, as an analog to the profession of engineering.</p><p>