The evolution of technology brings with it the evolution of business processes. Without a doubt, technology changes how work is performed. At first glance, workplace technology appears to be a great boon to society. However, research presents opposing views on how workplace technologies impact the individual. One perspective argues that organizations utilize technology to redesign work processes, such that the worker requires less skill, autonomy, and compensation. The opposing perspective argues that organizations utilize technology to empower employees to improve efficiency and profits. This dissertation consists of three interrelated studies examining workplace technology’s impact on decision makers. The first study examines the capability of an enterprise system to increase the application of scientific management techniques to middle management and, consequently, to degrade middle management’s work by limiting their autonomy. The second study investigates the capability of an enterprise system to facilitate the empowerment of managers via mutual monitoring and social identification. The third study builds upon the first study by examining how limiting autonomy through technology impacts the intrinsic motivation of decision makers and, as a result, affects the decision making process. Study one applies labor process theory to explain how enterprise systems can degrade the work of middle management via scientific management techniques. The purpose of this study is to test if the expectations of labor process theory can be applied to enterprise systems. In order to test this assertion, a field survey utilizing 189 middle managers is employed and the data is analyzed using component based structural equation modeling. The results indicate that iii enterprise system integration increases two scientific management techniques, formalization and performance measurement, but do not reveal a significant relationship between enterprise system integration and routinization. Interestingly, the results also indicate that routinization is the only scientific management technique, of the three studied, that directly limits the autonomy of the middle managers. Although performance measurement does not reduce autonomy directly, performance measurement interacts with routinization to reduce autonomy. This study contributes to the enterprise system literature by demonstrating enterprise systems’ ability to increase the degree of scientific management applied to middle management. It also contributes to labor process theory by revealing that routinization may be the scientific management technique that determines whether other control techniques are utilized in a manner consistent with labor process theory. The ability of an enterprise system to facilitate the application of Mary Parker Follett’s managerial control concepts are investigated in the second study. Specifically, Follett theorizes that information sharing facilitates the internalization of group goals and empowers individuals to have more influence and be more effective. This study employs a survey of 206 managers to test the theoretical relationships. The results indicate that enterprise system integration increases information sharing in the form of mutual monitoring, consequently, leading to social identification among peer managers. Additionally, social identification among peer managers empowers managers to have more influence over the organization. The study contributes to empowerment research by acknowledging and verifying the role that social identification plays in translating an empowering work climate into empowered managers. The study’s conclusion iv that enterprise system integration facilitates the application of Follett’s managerial control concepts extends both enterprise system and managerial control literature. The third study builds upon study one by examining the affect that autonomy has upon the decision maker. This study marries self-determination theory and technology dominance theory to understand the role that self-determination, intrinsic motivation, and engagement have upon technology dominance. Self-determination theory asserts that higher degrees of selfdetermination increase intrinsic motivation. Furthermore, self-determination research finds that intrinsic motivation increases engagement, while technology dominance research indicates that lack of engagement is an antecedent of technology dominance. Thus, applying self-determination theory as a predictor of technology dominance suggests that autonomy and relatedness associated with a task increase the intrinsic motivation to complete that task and consequently increase engagement in the task. Task engagement, in turn, reduces the likelihood of technology dominance. The proposed theoretical model is tested experimentally with 83 junior level business students. The results do not support the theoretical model, however the findings reveal that intrinsic motivation does reduce the likelihood of technology dominance. This indicates that intrinsic motivation as a predictor of technology dominance should be further investigated. Additionally, the study contributes to technology dominance literature by exhibiting a more appropriate operationalization of the inappropriate reliance aspect of technology dominance. This dissertation reveals that various theories concerning workplace technology and management control techniques have both validity and limitations. Labor process theorists cannot assume that all technologies and management control techniques are utilized to undermine the employee’s value to the organization, as Study 2 reveals that enterprise systems v and mutual monitoring lead to empowered managers. Likewise, proponents of enterprise systems cannot assume that the integrated nature of enterprise systems is always utilized in an empowering manner, as Study 1 reveals the increased performance measurement through enterprise systems can be utilized to limit managers in a routinized job environment. While the third study was unable to determine that the control features in technology affect the intrinsic motivation to complete a task, the findings do reveal that intrinsic motivation is directly related to technology dominance. The findings and theoretical refinements demonstrate that workplace technology and management control have a complicated relationship with the employee and that the various theories concerning them cannot be applied universally.

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This dissertation consists of the first three papers in a stream of organization theory research inspired by the insight that humans are as motivated by identity self interest - or the "longing to belong" - as by instrumental self interest. The first paper (chapter 2) spells out this insight and its implications for the governance of knowledge intensive organizations; the second paper (chapter 3) offers an empirical test of the fundamental assumption that a continuum of motivation influences governance arrangements; and the third paper (chapter 4) uses a historical case study to refine process theories of organization by emphasizing the struggle for dominance between identity groups and their logics. / Business Administration/Strategic Management

This dissertation is about the incorporation of labor migrants from Turkey in the context of precarious U.S. labor markets. Labor market transitions and work experiences are two aspects of incorporation. This dissertation analyzes the process by which first-generation Turkish male immigrants arrive in the United States, enter low-wage jobs, and then shift to the trucking industry. This shift brings a significant upward mobility for them. This discussion explains how the socio-economic cleavages within the immigrant community both conform to and challenge the dynamics of immigrant-dominated sectors. Moreover, this study examines the work life of immigrant truckers through their conception of money, time, occupation, entrepreneurship, and labor. This dissertation addresses two sets of research questions: The first set analyzes the structural reasons of labor market transitions by looking at the limitations that immigrants face. The second set looks at the role of agent, examining the formation of family-based and community-based networks and resources. It asks the question of how migrants navigate the labor market by changing jobs and sectors as well as by forming businesses. The findings of this research draw from investigations spanning three years. The qualitative data is based on 24 in-depth interviews, as well as several hundred hours of participant observations among first-generation Turkish immigrants who work as truckers in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The present study contributes to sociological knowledge in general and specifically to three areas of the discipline. First, it enriches the limited literature on Turkish immigrants in the United States, as there is a dearth of research on their labor market incorporation in the trucking industry. Second, it contributes to the theoretical discussions on the entrepreneurship of first-generation immigrants by focusing on small and understudied immigrant communities. Third, this study extends the academic knowledge about the work experiences of immigrant truckers. It examines how the varying immigrant work experiences outcomes are influenced by employment status and the structure of trucking segments. Chapter 2 develops a conceptual framework regarding the labor transitions of immigrants focused on three dimensions: the migration policies of sending and receiving countries, the structure of labor markets in the receiving context, and the characteristics of the immigrant community. Chapter 3 details the methodology and methods used in this study. Chapters 4, 5, 6 and 7 encompass the empirical sections of this dissertation. Chapter 4 discusses the migration patterns of truckers by focusing on the importance of social networks. Chapter 5 explores the pre-trucking period during which Turkish immigrants work in dead-end jobs and prepare to become truckers. Chapter 6 examines the work life of truckers by revealing the processes of obtaining commercial driver's licenses (CDL), choosing the segment of the industry where they will work, and their search for and selection of trucking companies and loads. Chapter 7 scrutinizes the acts of entrepreneurship in which these migrants are engaged. Chapter 8 summarizes the empirical findings while engaging with the theoretical debates within sociology on the incorporation of migrants. First, the labor demands of U.S. capitalism attract immigrants to certain low-income jobs with little promise. After the early years of settlement, nonetheless, migrants are able to mobilize networks and resources to change this early labor-intensive occupational entrapment. Such a change provides income and status increases for the migrants. I term this new concentration “creative occupational entrapment,” which can (potentially) bring migrants some economic success via entrepreneurship. However, the accessed immigrant resources are constrained by the limitations of the dynamics within the trucking industry. The segmentation within the trucking sector is not something created by immigrants, as they only fill out the existing segments depending on their resources and ties. Second, the characteristics of a migrant community heavily shape the differentiation within the trucking industry in terms of an individual’s sector segment and employment status. The way in which immigrants mobilize ties are affected by three dynamics: hometown background, class-based dispositions, and family-based resources. I define three segments of trucking in this study: (1) national tractor-trailer trucking, (2) regional tractor-trailer trucking, and (3) local dump trucking. National tractor-trailer trucking attracts a variety of immigrants who tend to leave this “tough” segment after a brief while due to opportunities in the other segments. Immigrants of relatively higher education levels from urban backgrounds are more likely to work in the “cool” regional tractor-trailer throughout New Jersey and Pennsylvania. These individuals have loose ties to the immigrant community and have no tight-knit community ties. Conversely, immigrants of relatively lower education levels from rural background tend to concentrate in “dirty” dump trucking in specific counties of New Jersey. They have closer ties with the immigrant community and strict ties with their tight-knit community. Within each segment, new differentiations based on employment status are formed. Through the course of this research, five categories of immigrants were identified. Such categories depend on an individual’s employment status and the number of trucks they have: pre-trucking migrant workers have nothing to sell but labor (Employment 1), company truckers (Employment 2), survivalist truckers with one truck (Employment 3), family truckers with two trucks (Employment 4), and boss truckers who have more than three trucks (Employment 5). For the regional tractor-trailer segment, having class-based dispositions (such as English proficiency and the familiarity with the economic system) enables for the transitions from Employment 2 to Employment 3. Those who have family resources are more likely to increase their position from Employment 3 to Employment 4 and 5. For the local dump trucking segment, having tight-knit community ties and resources is usually enough to jump from Employment 2 to Employment 3. Thus, class-based dispositions are not strictly required given their tight-knit community resources. Those who have family-based resources have additional likelihood to increase their position from Employment 2 to Employment 4 and Employment 5. While individual-based resources are important to be self-employed due to the lack of community resources in regional tractor-trailer trucking, an individual’s tight-knit community helps truckers in local dump trucking to be self-employed. In both segments, family-based resources are key to becoming employers. The use of labor characterizes the labor market experiences of immigrants. For my participants, such a process begins with taking commands from employers, and ends with giving commands to their own employees. Labor matters when immigrants are exploited in non-trucking as well as trucking businesses. It also matters when they exploit themselves and family members in individual or family-based trucking businesses respectively. Only those who have several trucks are exempted from getting exploited. Although entrepreneurship might be economically beneficial for some, success is not always guaranteed in the long-term. Moreover, entrepreneurship potentially brings destructive competition, long hours of work and the intensive use of family labor. / Sociology

Granular soils exhibit a generally beneficial change in engineering properties with time after deposition or densification, during a process commonly known as aging. Soil properties reported to change during aging include the small strain modulus and stiffness, penetration resistance, liquefaction resistance, and pile setup. Different hypotheses have been proposed to explain the occurrence of aging in granular soils, including cementation induced by dissolution of silica and precipitation at the particle contacts, cementation due to microbiological activity, internal stress redistribution caused by particle crushing, and buckling of the load chains due to particle slippage. New evidence points out that internal and time-dependent changes in the soil structure caused by particle slippage and rearrangement as the source of the time-dependent variations in soil properties. This investigation is focused on the study of aging at the particle scale to determine its main driving mechanism and define the factors which affect it. Results from an extensive laboratory testing program and computer simulations based on the discrete element method provide insight into the causes of aging and its effects on the macroscopic properties of sands based on the analysis of the interaction between sand grains. / Ph. D.

Social process theories are a class of theories which putatively explain crime. These theories have been criticized, however, on two grounds. The first is that these theories do not take the gender differences in criminal activity into account. The second critique is that these theories tend to discount the importance of the media in the learning process. This paper attempts to expand social process theories in two ways: first, to use various facets of feminist theory to take these gender differences into account and second, to build on a large body of literature which snows the effects of media violence on viewers’ attitudes and behaviors to account for the role of mainstream films in the learning process. A content analysis on the top 30 films of 1993 was performed to ascertain how much violence existed in these films, what types of violence was portrayed, and what motivations and rewards were associated with the violence. These factors were examined by the gender of the perpetrator and the victim in an effort to ascertain if similar gender differences were portrayed in mainstream film as are seen in reality. The most notable findings were that men were more likely to be portrayed as both perpetrators and as victims in the sample set of films, a relationship that closely mirrors criminal activity in reality. It is argued that future research should focus on testing the relationship between social process theories and violence in mainstream films. / Master of Science

Den här studien syftade till att undersöka om mental arbetsbelastning kan påverka benägenhetenatt begå konjunktionsfelet vid sannolikhetsbedömningar, trots att man fått ledtrådarsom synliggjort konjunktionsregeln. Detta undersöktes med en experimentell mellangruppsdesign.I studien deltog 57 deltagare, varav 27 i experimentgruppen och 30 i kontrollgruppen.Deltagarna var i huvudsak studenter på universitetsnivå. Grupperna hade en jämn könsfördelning.Vad gäller ålder så var medelvärdet i kontrollgruppen 24.8 och medelvärdet i experimentgruppenvar 30.7. Samtliga deltagare fick utföra ett datorbaserat test. Båda gruppernastest bestod av sannolikhetsbedömningsuppgifter, felstavningsuppgifter, samt en tilläggsuppgiftdär deltagarna ombads ange om ett visst ord förekommit i tidigare fråga eller ej. Experimentbetingelseninnehöll dessutom en visuospatial arbetsminnesuppgift. Resultatet visade attmental arbetsbelastning inte ökade antalet konjunktionsfel vid sannolikhetsbedömningar dådeltagarna fått ledtrådar som synliggjort konjunktionsregeln. Slutsatsen visar att det inte behövervara mer resurskrävande för arbetsminnet att göra normativa bedömningar och att tillgodogörandetav konjunktionsregeln är robust mot mental arbetsbelastning. Framtida forskningskulle kunna undersöka vilken betydelse ett visst antal ledtrådar har för om tillgodogörandetav konjunktionsregeln påverkas av mental arbetsbelastning. / The aim of this study was to investigate whether mental workload can affect the tendency tocommit the conjunction fallacy in probability assessments, despite having read clues that exposethe conjunction rule. This was investigated with an experimental between-group design.In total, the study had 57 participants, whereof 27 in the experiment group and 30 in the controlgroup. The groups were equally balanced concerning sex. The average age in the controlgroup was 24.8 years compared to 30.7 years in the experiment group. All participants performeda computer-based test. Both groups’ test consisted of tasks with probability assessments,discovering misspelled words and an additional task about estimating whether a certainword had occurred during the previous task. The experimental condition also consisted ofa visuo-spatial working memory task. The result indicated that mental workload did not increasethe number of conjunction fallacies committed in probability assessments, given thatthe participants had read clues that expose the conjunction rule. From this result, the conclusionis drawn that normative judgments are not necessarily more demanding for the workingmemory, also that the utilization of the conjunction rule is resistant to mental workload. Futureresearch might investigate what impact a certain number of clues has for whether theutilization of the conjunction rule is affected by mental work load.