<p> Small business owners face challenges associated with leading change, and many times lack the necessary resources to manage it properly. The purpose of this descriptive qualitative study was to determine what challenges leaders of small businesses face in managing change, what strategies and practices those leaders employ, and how the leaders of small businesses measure success in managing change. This study also determined what advice leaders of small businesses would suggest for managing change. Four research questions were created to assist with this process, and 13 semi-structured interviews were conducted in various cities throughout the state of Michigan. The participants were small business owners of privately held American companies that had been in business for a minimum of 5 years. Twelve interview questions were asked to answer the 4 research questions. Many themes emerged. Some of the challenges that participants face while managing change are resistance to change, communication issues, lack of confidence, lack of resources, lack of knowledge/experience, absence of strategy, conflicts of interest, and lack of emotional intelligence. The participants shared many different strategies for successful management of change and also offered their lessons learned over the years. The main overall theme presented by all of the participants in this study was the importance of knowledge and experience for management of change in small businesses.</p>

<p> This grounded theory study sought to create a viable framework that may help school leaders accelerate the expansion of an authentic 21st century instructional model. The U.S. economy is now more dependent on knowledge work than manufacturing. Yet, many for-profit, non-profit, and public sectors perceive schools as not adequately preparing students for 21st century careers and colleges. However, customary principal-led change is challenging. Leaders face several complex organizational challenges, including a modern-day duty and role expansion that limits time, and the inherent difficulty of human-behavior and organizational change, observed in the fact that schools have deeply entrenched norms: an estimated 150 years of traditional lecture-dominant instruction. </p><p> As such, a singular research question informed this study: What leadership competencies do 21st century change-savvy school administrators perceive as critical to accelerate successful change to a 21st century instructional model? Using a purposive sampling method, <i>change-savvy</i> school leaders (<i>n</i> = 22) with <i>lived experience</i> were interviewed covering germane topics such as what worked for them, professional development, and change management. </p><p> Utilizing Charmaz&rsquo;s (2014) constructed grounded theory coding process and data analysis technique, the results include two key findings: five leadership competencies (<i>discerning, authentic, facilitative, collaborative, </i> and <i>communicative</i>) and the <i>Authentic 21st Century Leadership Framework,</i> which integrates the respective competencies to provide a user guide for the contemporary time-burdened school leader. Ultimately, the study concluded the following: (a) the leadership competencies are essential; (b) the framework provides a supportive guide to accelerate expansion of the 21st century instructional model; (c) 21st century leadership is chiefly collaborative; (d) leader created and sustained growth culture is critical; and, lastly (e) as the 21st century instructional model magnifies in utilization across schools, opportunities for all students improve.</p>

<p> This study expands upon Geert Hofstede&rsquo;s theory that employees in high power distance societies will prefer and accept direction from their workplace superiors. Hofstede&rsquo;s first two dimensions of national culture, power distance and uncertainty avoidance, are based in the results to questions related to hierarchical relationships. This and other studies into power distance orientation reveal significant country differences, but no previous research exists into power distance among Puerto Rican workers who have relocated to the continental United States. This dissertation addresses that gap with a qualitative, phenomenological study into the research question of whether there exists anecdotal evidence of high power distance orientation among Puerto Rican employees living and working in Pennsylvania. Semi-structured interviews were conducted in Pennsylvania with 15 hourly employees originally from Puerto Rico. In answer to the research question, no evidence of high power distance orientation is indicated through the analysis. Implications of this study include the potential for cultural shifts over time as a result of economics, politics, and technology. From the anecdotes, emerge themes of the importance of family and leisure time over status, the desire for respect and organizational justice, and a sense of comfort and familiarity with current supervisors and managers.</p>

<p> Behavioral aspects of learning and emergent cognitive state are known to influence team effectiveness. In practice, agile project management is employed to address certain behavioral aspects of teaming with an emphasis on communication and social interaction. Software development teams have widely adopted the scrum framework for agile over the past decade, yet research on agile software development has produced a limited amount of work covering scrum. In addition, quantitative empirical support for links between socially situated learning, learning conditions, and organizational learning in agile software development teams have not been established. This dissertation study used a quantitative survey research design to examine effects of social interaction and learning conditions on transactive memory and the influence of social interaction on transactive memory among agile teams practicing scrum. A one-time quantitative survey was conducted, collecting data from 114 agile software developers on research panels. All participants were currently or recently working in the US on agile teams practicing scrum. This dissertation study proposed learning conditions as a socio-cognitive mediator in the relationship between social interaction and transactive memory. Support was found for three hypotheses (a) social interaction positively influences learning conditions among agile team members; (b) learning conditions positively influence transactive memory among agile team members; (c) social interaction influences transactive memory among agile team members. Evidence of mediation was also found using the Sobel test and a joint test of significance with percentile bootstrapping. This dissertation study found that agile software teams demonstrate enhanced group memory under certain learning conditions. The results indicate that positive learning conditions can strengthen the relationship between social interactions and transactive memory in an organizational setting.</p>

<p> From the perspective of Depth Psychology, each of us to some degree suffers neurotic complexes of inferiority, superiority, and blind spots in our internal and external awareness. Hence, managing any organization requires managing oneself, or at least understanding the psychological processes involve. As demonstrated throughout this study, not only our inherent functional (neurophysiological) blindness but the acquired blindnesses of hubris, bias, exclusionary modes of perception, and fixed formulae of operation and administration affect our clarity of thought, the lucidity of our decision-making. And perhaps more so for leaders and managers vested in performance and profit: their capacities to listen, learn, interact, implement, recognize and pursue opportunities, recognize and address errors, are materially and decisively affected by the one-sided agenda of business. As argued throughout this study, a central dilemma of economic success entails our overtraining in supposedly objective and obsessively quantitative rational thinking, and our undertraining in purportedly subjective and typically derided emotional qualitative thinking.</p>

<p>The Health Managerial Appraisal (HMA) is a competency-based assessment that measures a test-taker?s ability to evaluate interpersonal effectiveness and decision-making capabilities in others. The instrument was developed for assessing managers in Health, Human, and Community Service (HHCS) organizations for skills that are essential to managing staff as they provide person-centered care. This study evaluated the construct validity of the HMA through a correlational method. HMA scores were correlated with the Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal, California Psychological Inventory, and Behavioral Observations. The sample included 77 managerial job applicants in the HHCS industry. The results yielded convergent and discriminant evidence that the HMA as a valid measure of these necessary constructs for managing in the HHCS industry. The HMA has potential to be used to inform selection of HHCS managerial applicants as well as help current HHCS managers identify areas for professional development.

<p>The initial development and content validation of the Health Managerial Appraisal (HMA) is outlined in this study. The content of the HMA was developed based on a Health, Human, and Community Service (HHCS) Managerial Competency Model that was created by subject matter experts. In today?s HHCS organizations, managerial roles now include empowering direct support professionals. Empowerment requires that managers accurately evaluate staff?s interpersonal effectiveness and decision-making capability. The HMA measures a test-taker?s ability to evaluate these two skill sets. The HMA was first administered to initial job applicants across all job levels (N = 2,072). Based on these test-taker responses, the HMA was revised from six scenarios to four. The revised form was then administered to final candidates for managerial and executive level jobs (N = 77). These executive and managerial candidates performed better on the HMA than initial stage job applicants, suggesting that more qualified managerial candidates were more likely to perform well on the HMA. Additionally, internal consistency reliability of the HMA test scores was .735, suggesting that the HMA produced reliable test scores. The HMA has the potential to inform selection of HHCS managerial candidates as well as help current HHCS managers identify areas for professional development.

<p> Lean manufacturing was first introduced in the United States in Womack&rsquo;s 1990 book, <i>The machine that changed the world</i>. This 10-year study was published in response to an increase in global manufacturing competition and the demand for American manufacturing companies to increase efficiency and quality while removing process wastes as seen in sustainable continuous improvement environments. Despite widespread interest and research supporting the obstacles senior managers face when implementing lean processes, there is little understanding of how organization development (OD) and change theories relate directly to lean implementation. This qualitative case study mapped out key organizational players&rsquo; conceptions of lean manufacturing and how they implemented the lean management system into an organization by comparing their mental models to OD change management models and Lean management models. The researcher interviewed and observed senior managers and production employees involved with implementing lean management system within one manufacturing organization. The primary purpose was to identify if and how senior managers&rsquo;, lean consultants&rsquo;, and other designated change agents&rsquo; inherent mental models align with existing OD theories and determine if an understanding in organizational development (OD) theory is necessary for the success of lean implementation. Data collected from interviews, production documentation review, and personal observations revealed senior management did not fully understand OD principles and as a result the lean implementation was short lived. These findings will help future organizations who choose to pursue such implementations to understand the importance of OD and change models prior to executing a lean cultural transformation.</p>

<p> In a review of previous literature, this study attempted to delineate and define work engagement, generally, and teacher engagement specifically. It aimed to illuminate the importance of identifying and understanding when a teacher is engaged. This study suggested ways school leaders and policy makers could use teacher engagement to improve the teaching and learning that takes place in their schools. </p><p> This study measured teacher engagement at a small independent K 8 school in two ways: (a) as a personal trait (using the Engaged Teachers Scale or ETS administered once); (b) as a state that may change over time (using an Experience Sampling Method form or ESF multiple times over the course of a work week). The ESF also measured variables on instructional format and levels of interaction with an administrator.</p><p> The findings of this study described the teacher engagement of the population sampled. It weighed the relationship between trait teacher engagement and state teacher engagement. It found a significant relationship between a teacher&rsquo;s engagement when measured as a static trait and that teacher&rsquo;s engagement when measured as a dynamic state. The study found a significant relationship between trait teacher engagement and a teacher&rsquo;s social interactions with students. It did not find a similarly significant relationship when considering state teacher engagement. This study also considered the relationship between teacher engagement and a teacher&rsquo;s last interaction with an administrator. It also considered a teacher&rsquo;s social engagement with colleagues. The study explored the relationships between teacher engagement and the mean number of different instructional formats used in each class period. Finally, the study considered the relationships that might be present between teacher engagement and the percentage of time that a teacher uses varying instructional formats. </p>

<p> Employee retention in the Canadian gaming/casino industry is an important consideration that allows organizations to maintain stability in a highly competitive hospitality environment. The purpose of this quantitative research was to determine if there was a relationship between employability skills, in the form of customer service aptitude and essential skills numeracy, and employee retention in the gaming/casino industry. The literature review supports the notion that hiring people with the correct person-job fit (P-J fit) has a high probability of retention (Edwards 1991). The current study looked at 298 employees hired by Manitoba Lotteries casinos (data supplied by Manitoba Lotteries Corporation) and applied bivariate analyses and a binary logistic regression analysis to identify if the customer service aptitude and numeracy assessments are useful tools in predicting employee retention in the gaming/casino industry. This approach encompassed information that identified customer service and numeracy/math skills as being critical to the successful performance of duties for a large number of gaming/casino employee positions. The results of the analysis were unable to provide evidence that high levels of customer service aptitude and numeracy/math assessment results significantly contributed to short term employee retention. However, significant relationships were identified between casino department and retention and between gender and numeracy scores. Implications of these results and directions for future research are discussed.</p>