Employee turnover is a persistent problem contributing to financial issues and declining productivity in nonprofit organizations. Nonprofits cannot fulfill their core missions of providing services to people in need when managing staffing disruptions. Measuring employee turnover intention can determine the probability of employee turnover, and a potential predictor of turnover intention is emotional intelligence, an area unstudied in the nonprofit sector. This study was designed to explore this relationship, in addition to the employee's commitment to the organization. The population consisted of 273 nonprofit employees older than 18 years, working in a nonsupervisory capacity. They completed an online survey consisting of measures of emotional intelligence, turnover intention, and commitment. The findings of this study showed no relationship between total emotional intelligence and turnover intention; however, there were significant relationships with the 4 predictors of emotional intelligence, as well as the scales of commitment. The results of this study can be used to better understand how to strengthen a nonprofit employees' commitment to his or her organizations through better understanding of commitment levels themselves, as well as to the emotional intelligent that informs such commitment. With such understanding, organizations could potentially better retain the talent of their workforces, and in turn better serve their communities without as many interruptions to their services. Retaining employees is essential to organizational health to ensure consistent and excellent services are provided to those in need.

Work and family are the central and salient domains in one’s life. Juggling work and family life has become a challenge for many employees and families (Hammer et al., 2005). This study proposed a theoretical model in which work to family enrichment functioned as the mediator between work support (support from supervisor, co-workers and organization) and work well-being (job satisfaction and psychological health), and also examined whether work demand buffered the impact of work support on work well-being. The inclusion of work to family enrichment extends prior research on Job Demands – Resources model (Demerouti & Bakker, 2007), and allows for a more detailed assessment of the effects of work support on work well-being from a perspective of positive organizational behavior. A total of 978 employees in Chinese society were recruited. An exploratory factor analyses and a confirmatory factor analyses supported a 10-item Work Support Scale measuring supervisor support, co-worker support and organization support. Structural equation modeling (SEM) and Sobel Test results showed that work to family enrichment partially mediated the influence of work support on job satisfaction and full mediated the influence of work support on psychological health, whereas the regression results showed that work demand indeed buffered the positive relationship between work support and job satisfaction. Implications for future research on work-family enrichment were discussed.

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Cognitive dissonance between learned spirituality and opposing behaviors is called spiritual cognitive dissonance (SCD). SCD has been successfully proven in former research; however, to date, it has yet to offer descriptions of specific incidents of SCD and/or how it effects the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and questioning (LGBTQQ) individual. A qualitative phenomenological study in which eight participants were interviewed was employed to collect data. The study revealed how SCD manifested in their lives, specifically those who were raised within conservative, heteronormative spiritual homes. All participants were LGBTQQ and believed they had experienced SCD. The data collected during each interview were meticulously analyzed to find similarities with other participant answers and then codified for similar ideas expressed. Each individual experienced SCD in different ways. Most of the participants experienced fear, guilt and/or shame when they began to live authentically as LGBTQQ. Many revealed they had experienced suicidal ideations. Because of the danger of suicide associated with this disorder, it is important that intervention programs be developed to properly recognize and treat this illness. Places of worship should spearhead educational opportunities specifically targeting SCD in the LGBTQQ community. Secular offerings should include education at both the secondary and collegiate levels. Additionally, since SCD is not limited to the LGBTQQ community, this data may also assist therapists who aid heterosexual individuals in coping with spiritual cognitive dissonance.

This dissertation is about collaboration as an organizational practice that is communicatively constituted. Specifically, I examine how members of a team in an English language program located in a large southeastern university in the United States make sense of what they define as a collaborative work environment and materialize it in their meetings in spoken and written discourse, and in their mention and use of organizational artifacts. Though the study examines the practices of one organizational setting, the insights generated illuminate broader organizational and discourse dynamics and speak to important issues in the discipline of communication such as authority, leadership, organization sensemaking, materiality, and the role of texts in organizations. The data in this dissertation consists of spoken and written discourse. The spoken and written discourse data consist of 11 audiorecorded and transcribed meetings. To collect these data, I attended team meetings for a period of one year. I transcribed selected meeting data, and analyzed this data using a tool kit called discourse analysis. The written discourse data I examine is comprised of two documents: The Statement of Core Values and the Philosophy on Teamwork. My analysis shows how team members operating in a collaborative environment favor strategies that lead to consensus. These strategies include the use of politeness strategies such as the use of mitigating and inclusive language. Team members also use discursive strategies that demonstrate top down leadership and authority, albeit marked by indirectness. I offer practical recommendations for practice starting with the idea that collaboration does not have meaning outside of communication; collaboration means what the members of a discourse community say it means. I contend that discourse analysis can be a useful tool for organizational members as it can help them become mindful of the language they use and its constitutive force in the workplace. I also offer suggestions that can help organizations retroactively make sense of their organizational texts to ensure that they are accountable to others for what their organizations stand for.

Emotional Intelligence is believed to explain how emotions may be used, monitored, and measured to predict workplace success and failure, the suggestion that if individuals can balance the emotions within themselves and others, they can use their skills to better their organization. This study explored the development of Emotional Intelligence in the ASI Student Manager Team in comparison to Student Government members at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo (Cal Poly) during the fall 2008 quarter. The Bar-On Emotional Quotient Inventory (EQ-i) was used to assess student leaders’ Emotional Intelligence (EI) development (N = 27). A two sample t-test was used to identify any significant difference in the Emotional Intelligence scores between the two groups. Findings indicated significant training effects on respondent’s scores when considering assertiveness, happiness, and empathy.

Globally the construction industry struggles to prevent injurious and fatal safety incidents. The purpose of this single case study was to explore strategies used by construction business managers that had significantly reduced the occurance of safety incidents in a Northwest Ohio construction company. Data were collected from organizational records and interviews with 6 construction managers. The conceptual framework for this research was the concept of safety management systems. Data were compiled and organized, disassembled into fragments, grouped, and then interpreted for meaning. Methodological triangulation and member checking were used to enhance reliability and validity. Four themes emerged from the data: senior management's commitment to a culture of safety, comprehensive safety training, safety accountability, and the importance of engaged employees. These findings indicate that senior managers established a safety-oriented culture by systematically implementing the safety management systems principles and practices in every organizational process and procedure. Safety training ensured that workers have the necessary skills to perform safely. All leaders, at every level of the organization, were held accountability for monitoring and measuring safety performance. Engaged workers were receptive to and compliant with safety rules. The positive social implications of these findings include the potential of contributing to the efforts to establish safer and healthier workplaces that protect workers from injuries and fatalities, thereby contributing to overall safety and health of communities.

Existing research on the Millennial generation has focused on identifying the workplace attributions and stereotypes between generations, and the relationship between those attributions and stereotypes, as related to organizational commitment. However, research has not addressed which workplace characteristics influence organizational commitment of the Millennial generation. Herzberg's 2-factor theory was used to investigate the relationship between workplace characteristics and organizational commitment of the Millennial generation. The purpose of this quantitative study was to determine whether workplace characteristics influence organizational commitment in the Millennial generation. This quantitative study used the Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire and the Organizational Commitment Questionnaire. A convenience sample of 215 individuals born between 1984 and 1998 were surveyed. The key research questions investigated which workplace characteristics had the greatest impact on organizational commitment. The results indicated that self-management of career paths, combined with opportunities for employee development provided the best predictors for organizational commitment of the Millennial generation. These 2 variables accounted for 21% of the variance of the OCQ (R = .463, R²=.21).By understanding which workplace characteristics impact organizational commitment, organizations will be able to reduce turnover, employees will become more committed to the organization, which may provide employers with a greater opportunity to develop future leaders of their organizations and thereby initiate positive social change at the level of the individual employee and the organization.

Teacher turnover has been a problem in U.S. public schools, especially among math teachers, and is more prevalent in schools that have a majority of students from low-income families. Teacher turnover has been shown to have a negative effect on student performance. The purpose of this quantitative, nonexperimental study was to investigate on-the job and off-the job embeddedness and its dimensions of links, fit, and sacrifice to determine effects on math teacher turnover intention. The theory of job embeddedness provided the framework for the study. Data were collected from 152 high school math teachers from 17 counties in a western U.S. state using the Job Embeddedness Questionnaire and a demographic survey. Findings from multiple linear regression analysis indicated statistically significant relationships between turnover intention and the sacrifice/job (on-the-job embeddedness) and turnover intention and links/community (off-the-job embeddedness). Findings may be used by administrators and policymakers to develop programs geared toward promoting math teacher retention

As required by the Government Performance Results Act of 1993, the use of performance measurements in social service organizations to measure outcome data has increased expectations of efficient outcomes in service delivery. This study addressed the problem of inefficient service delivery in nonprofit human service organizations from the perspective of direct service staff responsible for service provision. The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study was to explore how direct service staff in nonprofit organizations perceive their individual contributions to the overall goal of providing efficient quality service. Principal agent theory framed the inquiry regarding how direct service staff working in nonprofit human service organizations perceive the nature and value of using performance measurements as required by law. Data were collected from 5 direct service workers through semi-structured interviews and analyzed for content themes using Ethnograph software. The results of this study indicated direct service workers perceive organizational efficiency related to how well they do their jobs and not overall at the organizational level. In addition, participants identified job training and more open communication with management to understand how organizational level goals would be valued to do their jobs effectively. This study contributes to social change by informing those who develop nonprofit human services policy and practice of the potential for further staff training curriculum and improvements to the organizational accountability culture.