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Despite 40 years of research, little is known about what moderates the relationship between organizational culture and company financial performance. This quantitative study examined if innovation moderates the relationship between an organization's culture, as measured by the Denison Organizational Culture Survey, and a company's financial performance, as indicated by return on assets (ROA). Understanding if innovation moderates the relationship between organizational culture and ROA could help business leaders foster a culture that maximizes financial performance. Lewin's field theory was the theoretical foundation explaining organizational culture. Denison Consulting provided the archival dataset, which included organizational culture scores and ROA data for 104 publically traded companies. Companies were classified into 5 innovation quintiles. Pearson's correlation, ANOVA, and multiple regression analyses were used to test the hypotheses. The results indicated that ROA did not correlate with Denison's organizational culture dimensions of adaptability, mission, consistency, and involvement; the second highest and second lowest innovation quintiles had greater ROA at high levels of mission and consistency as compared to low levels of mission and consistency; and innovation moderated the relationship between organizational culture and ROA. Enabling companies to maximize their financial performance by adjusting their organizational culture in relationship to their innovation strategies could enable the creation of cutting-edge products and services, thereby generating positive social change.

Workplace bullying has escalated among U.S. workers, and aside from its mental and physical toll, it can affect productivity, absenteeism, and turnover. Researchers have identified the primary causes of workplace bullying as envy, leadership disregard, a permissive climate, organizational culture, and personality traits. This non experimental, quantitative study investigated the predictors of workplace bullying at the target level, and specifically examined if target EI, age, gender, and/or race/ethnicity predicts experienced workplace bullying. Participants (N = 151) 18 years or older with one year of work experience were recruited from the WBI database, a newspaper column, public presentations, and a blog. Participants completed the Negative Acts Questionnaire to assess experienced workplace bullying, the Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire (Short Form) to assess EI, and a demographic questionnaire. A Pearson's correlation and multiple regression analyses were used to test the hypotheses. Global trait EI and the 4 trait EI factors of well-being, self-control, emotionality, and sociability were not statistically significantly related to workplace bullying. Further, EI, age, gender, and race/ethnicity were also not related to workplace bullying. Further research is suggested, to include examining organizational effects on workplace bullying. The implications for social change it that resources currently allocated for target can be more appropriately directed toward supervisors and the organization's culture.

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Today's organizations face an economic climate that is globalizing, increasing customer demands for products and services that meet their unique needs and the fast pace of technological developments. Organizations require the effective use of new communication technologies as a means of sharing information and expanding capacity for innovation. The main question for this research is: When new communication technologies are introduced into organizations, how do they work together with existing cultural assumptions to produce an innovative, learning environment within the organization? The research design involves conducting moderately structured interviews with organizational leaders in four diverse organizations: Ingram Book Company, Service Merchandise Company, Inc., Life Way Christian Resources of the Southern Baptist Convention, and Dollar General Corporation. Results include an introduction to each company, a report on their implemented new communication technologies and innovative learning environment, and a description of their core corporate culture.

A 2002 congressional mandate initiated the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) Centers of Excellence programs with a requirement to conduct cross-organizational research and development. The resulting complex multiorganizational programs required more effective virtual leadership and management strategies. Fifteen years later, the presidential budget showed that 61% of the DHS budget was targeted for such research and development. The complex management strategies and virtual leadership skills required to lead the programs were lacking, as top scientific researchers are drawn upon to manage programs. The purpose of this study was to understand followers' perspectives regarding virtual leadership and collaboration within complex multiorganizational DHS Centers of Excellence programs. Complex-systems and leader-member exchange theories formed the conceptual framework. Fifteen individuals, representing 10 Centers of Excellence programs, were interviewed about virtual leadership strategies used to motivate highly educated scientists across program organizations. A case study analysis of participants' perspectives revealed 4 key findings. The first finding was that programs employed shared leadership where project subteams were self-managed. The second finding was that the programs focused on applied research, resulting in subteam structures segmented by discipline. The third finding showed that collaboration occurred within collocated subteams and coordination was most common between virtual partners. The final finding was that highly educated participants were primarily self-motivated. Targeted training can lead to positive social change through influencing the existing paradigm of leadership for these programs.

This study examined the relationship between an organization's culture and its performance appraisal (PA) system and process. The initial phase of this study involved examining an organization's culture and the properties of its performance appraisal system from organizational archival information. Information derived from this phase of the study was later utilized to formulate interview questions, guide the search for the organizational culture survey instrument, and to construct the performance appraisal perceptions measuring instrument. This latter instrument is a quantitative measure that was later employed in testing the primary hypothesis that stated the performance appraisal process had a positive effect on organizational culture. The results of the hypotheses testing revealed that the PA process, in terms of individual member perceptions thereof, had a significant positive effect on the selected organizational cultural elements. Further analysis of the data revealed that members of the organization that had been recently appraised had statistically stronger positive perceptions towards the PA process and, therefore, stronger inclination towards the espoused cultural values. These findings make a strong case for using the performance appraisal process for the purpose of not only evaluating individual performance for various administrative goals, but for other goals related to creating, maintaining, and perpetuating the desired organizational culture. This suggests that organizational leadership (through its management), when designing its PA system should pay attention to the value system, or the culture, it wants to prevail in its organization and include this information along with other relevant performance measures into the PA structure. Such a policy can lead to the existence of an appropriate culture for that organization if, as the results of this study show, the managers and supervisors at all levels timely perform such appraisals for all their subordinates. Performance appraisal, which itself is often considered a structural element designed for organizational control, has the potential to have as much impact on an organization's culture as any other mode of communication. In that regard, this study takes a step towards looking at PA as one more criteria to be examined during organizational cultural studies and organizational intervention

Catholic schools in the United States have grappled with how to serve students with disabilities without the funding sources available to public schools. This mixed methods case study examines the driving forces, restraining forces, and social justice issues that influenced the development of an inclusion program at one Catholic elementary school. The case analyzed is the inclusion program at “St. Ignatius” Elementary School. Fourteen interviews with individuals heavily involved in the program were triangulated with qualitative analyses of the content of artifacts from the inclusion program and quantitative data from a rating scale on ideal inclusive practices completed by ten teachers at the school site. Themes from the literature on Catholic inclusive education were also used to illuminate the findings. The study identified the driving forces of leadership, teacher buy-in, the partnership between the school and parents, and the concept of the parish as “one big family.” Restraining forces included negative parent perceptions and deficits in capacity and resources. Current practices included increased professional development and resources, honest assessment, and the concept that inclusion serves all students. Interview participants felt that Catholic beliefs and teachings provided the social justice framework. The school site and archdiocese can further examine the paradigm shift required to implement Catholic school inclusion, increasing teacher professional development, the role of charismatic leadership, and serving gifted students. Further studies could explore socioeconomic variables, how inclusion affects other students, and whether the Catholic school environment provides advantages in implementing inclusion.

Seventy percent of organizational change initiatives fail. Among organizations where change and adaptation are necessary for survival, the U.S. military stands at the top. The disparity between desired health and fitness behaviors and actual behaviors is a glaring reminder that change is difficult to implement and that current change systems struggle. Merit-based systems offer a solution by rewarding and reinforcing good behavior to generate lasting change. This paper evaluates Kotter's Change Model and Nudge Theory and found them insufficient because they do not sufficiently address reinforcement learning or the temporal tie between behaviors and rewards for reinforcement. This paper then examines behavior modification through a theoretical framework called Active Inference. Active Inference suggests agents or organisms will engage in behavioral tradeoffs based on their prior knowledge, present sensing, and future beliefs. This paper suggests that the modeling of behaviors using active inference allows supervisors to predict and target behaviors that will need to be reinforced by a merit-based system to produce long-term change. Finally, this paper examines and recommends the adoption of blockchain play-to-earn models to standardize and automate rewards to produce lasting habits that result in long-term change.

This pilot study examines the impact of combined immersion and embodiment on learning and emotional outcomes. The results are intended to better enable U.S. Army senior leaders to decide if dismounted infantry Soldiers would benefit from a more immersive simulation-based training capability. The experiment's between-subject design included a sample of 15 participants randomly assigned to one of three system configurations representing different levels of combined immersion and embodiment. The control group was a typical desktop, and the two experimental groups were a typical configuration of a Virtual Reality headset (VR) and a novel configuration using VR supported by an omnidirectional treadmill (ODT) for full body exploration and interaction. Unique from similar studies, this pilot study allows for an analysis of the Infinadeck ODT's impact on learning outcomes and the value of pairing tasks by type with various levels of immersion. Each condition accessed the same realistically modeled geospatial virtual environment (VE), the UCF Virtual Arboretum, and completed the same pre and post VE-interaction measurement instruments. These tests included complicated and complex information. Declarative information involved listing plants/communities native to central Florida (complicated tasks) while the situational awareness measurement required participants to draw a sketch map (complex task). The Kruskal-Wallis non-parametric statistical test showed no difference between conditions on learning outcomes. The non-parametric Spearman correlation statistical test showed many significant relationships between the system configuration and emotional outcomes. Graphical representations of the data combined with quantitative, qualitative, and correlational data suggest a larger sample size is required to increase power to answer this research question. This study found a strong trend which indicates learning outcomes are affected by task type and significant correlations between emotions important for learning outcomes increased with combined immersion and embodiment.