The purpose of this study is to determine the impact of employee orientat ion on the implementat ion of market ing st rategy in the banking sector. To gain compet it ive advantage, a bank needs to be able to measure an aspect of its business that is not normally associated with f inancial gains or losses namely employee orientat ion.

La contribution du marketing management à la stratégie est une problématique qui a suscité un grand intérêt, aussi bien dans la communauté des chercheurs que celle des praticiens. L’orientation marché a été un sujet d’investigation fertile dans ce courant de recherche et des débats ont été lancés sur sa capacité à influencer le design stratégique de l’entreprise. Toutefois, peu d’études empiriques ont analysé la relation entre l’orientation stratégique et les comportements orientés marché. Le présent travail tente de contribuer à la théorie de l’interface en examinant cette relation et son impact sur la performance de l’entreprise. Il intègre par ailleurs l’analyse du poids de certains modérateurs qui influencent cette association. Cette recherche doctorale présente une étude empirique qui répond à ces questionnements. Nous avons menée une étude qui a testé notre modèle auprès de 254 senior managers et nous avons opté pour une modélisation en équations structurelles. Nos résultats débouchent sur de nombreuses implications managériales. / Recognized as a topic with important implications for executive practice, the contribution of marketing to business strategy management is a fertile topic of investigation. Within this research stream the role of market orientation has deserved special attention. Prior research raised a substantial debate regarding the market orientation capability to influence strategy design. However, few have investigated this interaction effect and little is understood of the business performance implications of market orientation‘s contribution to business strategy formation. This research addresses theseshortfalls in the literature by examining relationships between market orientation and strategic orientation, their interaction effect on performance, and some factors that moderate their effects on performance. In an attempt to address these key issues, this doctoral research presents an empirical investigation. We conducted a survey of 254 senior executives about their practices adopted in their respective firms. We next performed a structural equation modeling analysis. The results highlight many managerial implications for the practitioners.

This research report examines the effect of the customer orientation of an Information Systems (IS) department on its performance. Customer orientation has been cited as a contributor to and determinant of organisational performance in marketing literature. This study determined that this is applicable to the IS context. Customer orientation literature from the marketing context was examined and customer orientation measures from marketing adapted for the IS context. The key dimensions of customer orientation from marketing literature are communication, understanding, service delivery, service systems, skills, innovation, alignment and leadership support. Through a study of 98 South African organisations, this study found that there is a direct relationship between the customer orientation of IS departments and IS department performance. This study contributes towards encouraging customer orientation in IS departments and bringing to the forefront the value of customer orientation in Information Systems management.

Thesis (M.S.)--Boston University / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis or dissertation. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / 2031-01-01

Research has found that the turnover rate of graduate nurses within their first year is significantly high. Specialties such as pediatric and emergency nursing have even a higher turnover rate. It has been suggested that significant amounts of stress and lack of skills are responsible for the turnovers. This quality improvement project, which is theoretically based on Benner's novice to expert theory, will examine if a lack of a specialized pediatric emergency graduate nurse orientation program is a contributing factor. The purpose of the project is to improve retention of graduate nurses by implementing a specialized orientation program that focuses on pediatric emergency nursing. The research question examined the effect of a specialized graduate nurse orientation program on increasing retention, nurses' competency, and job satisfaction. This project takes the hospital's original orientation program of 6 generalized classes and hands-on orientation and adds a more specialized approach. The Emergency Nurses Association (ENA) Core Curriculum of specialized skills and didactic classes for pediatric emergency nursing (developed by the ENA pediatric committee based on evidence and gold standard practice); evaluation tools (developed by researcher) for both the preceptor and orientee; and face-to-face meetings between the educator, preceptor and orientee were the tools used for specializing the orientation program. It is anticipated that the results will show that increase in retention. In terms of social change, it is anticipated increased nursing retention will increase nursing knowledge and job satisfaction, which will ultimately lead to improved patient outcomes and decreased mortality rates.

In daily life, both animals and humans are often faced with the task of returning to previously visited locations. In many cases, an organism must be able to (1) establish a directional frame of reference and (2) determine location based on surrounding cues in order to solve this problem. Moreover, successful navigation is generally thought to rely on how an organism learns and uses the metric relationships between various locations in its environment. This thesis examines various factors that affect the way animals encode and use metric information in their environment, both to orient and to navigate. A transformation approach is used to determine what aspects of metric information are learned and/or preferred. Additionally, this thesis follows a comparative approach in order to examine similarities and differences among species. In chapter 2, I show that two closely related species of chickadees differently use geometric and featural information when establishing a directional frame of reference. I suggest that ecological factors, but not rearing condition, affect the way that chickadees preferentially use metric or featural information to orient. In chapter 3, I used a similar paradigm to show that a pre-existing directional frame of reference can interact with rats’ use of metric cues to navigate. More specifically, chapter 3 shows that experience gained through training procedures affects the way that rats use metric information in a navigation task. Chapter 4 expands upon this idea, and shows that pigeons encode directional metric differently based on their past experience. Finally, in chapter 5, I examined the flexibility of use of metrics by comparing how search strategies of human adults and children can change based on a goal’s proximity to an edge. To summarize, this thesis shows that use of metric information is malleable and situation-specific and can be affected by a variety of factors including ecology, past experience and boundary information.

Victimization and family rejection of sexual orientation are two particularly salient stressors facing lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) young people. While initial research has established a link between these sexuality-related stressors and LGB youth mental health outcomes, the factors that underlie this relationship remain unclear. The current study examined the role of negative LGB identity in mediating the relationship between sexuality related stress (i.e., victimization, family rejection) and youth outcomes (i.e., internalizing problems, public outness, substance use, and cigarette smoking). Participants included 81 LGB young people (ages 14 to 25) recruited through college groups, youth organizations, study advertisements, and friend referrals. Path analyses revealed that victimization and family rejection experiences were related to youth internalizing problems via negative LGB identity. Similar results were found for a model predicting public outness. However, stressors and health risk behaviors were not related through negative LGB identity, although some direct relationships between stressors, substance use, and smoking emerged. Limitations and implications of the present study are discussed.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2006. / Title from first page of PDF file. Includes bibliographical references (p. 144-148).

Extended orientation courses have been shown to be a valuable means of increasing student retention. However, little is known about the extent of their use, their form, their organization or their content. The purpose of this study was to determine what is being done in today's two-year college extended orientation courses, who has administrative responsibility for them, if the form, organization and content differs among two-year colleges, four-year private colleges, and four-year public colleges, and whether the content of these courses consists of activities conducive to retention. The data from the 1988 National Center for the Study of the Freshman Year Experience survey was analyzed for two-year, four-year public, and four-year private college responses. Both descriptive and chi square analysis were used. Results indicated that while there is broad use of extended orientation courses, there is little consensus in their form, organization or content. Results illustrated that course content does not emphasize activities which parallel retention-related variables. / Graduation date: 1990

The orientation relationship and interfaces of Ni3Sn4 and Ni3Sn2 with the Ni (001) and (111) surfaces have been studied with transmission electron microscopy. Ni was evaporated onto the NaCl (001) and (111) surfaces to form epitaxial Ni thin films and Sn was evaporated onto the Ni film and heat treated to form Ni3Sn4 and Ni3Sn2. No orientation relationship between Ni3Sn4 and Ni was found. Two types of orientation relationships between £b-Ni3Sn2 and Ni were found: (1) (0002) £b-Ni3Sn2//(220)Ni and (01 0) £b-Ni3Sn2//(2 0)Ni on the (2 0) £b-Ni3Sn2/(001)Ni interface¡Fand (2) (0002) £b-Ni3Sn2 //(2 0)Ni and (01 0) £b-Ni3Sn2//(22 )Ni on the (2 0) £b-Ni3Sn2/(001)Ni interface.