Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of Couseling and Educational Psychology, 2009. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on Feb. 10, 2010). Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 70-06, Section: A, page: . Adviser: Rex Stockton.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Oxford Graduate School, 2001. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [118]-178).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2009. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 70-06, Section: A, page: . Adviser: John J. Lawler. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 231-238) Available on microfilm from Pro Quest Information and Learning.

<p> This study examined the relationships between internalized racism, perceived minority status, code-switching and three types of organizational commitment of African Americans. Overall, internalized racism and code-switching were related to less positive forms of organizational commitment. The perception of minority status was not related to affective or continuance commitment, but was strongly related to code-switching.</p>

The purpose of the present study was to examine the variables associated with the sustainability of Person Centered Planning over time by Support Coordinators working in an agency that provided services to individuals with developmental disabilities. Identifying these factors that positively or negatively affect the implementation and longterm sustainability of Person Centered Planning was an important outcome of the current study. The study was designed to investigate the following areas: (a) the current level of use of Person Centered Planning by Support Coordinators in the agency; (b) the variables associated with the degree to which Person Centered Planning has been sustained; (c) strategies for ensuring sustainability of Person Centered Planning; and (d) the agency's demonstration that its values are consonant with the philosophy and goals of Person Centered Planning. The research in this study was qualitative in nature, utilizing questionnaires, interviews and document reviews. Fourteen Support coordinators and five administrators employed by the agency comprised the population in the present study. Support coordinators who participated in this study were asked to complete a questionnaire related to specific demographics, as well as a questionnaire that illustrated the individual's perception of his/her use of Person Centered Planning. Both the administrators and the support coordinators were interviewed. The interviews were semistructured, guided by a set of questions, which provided consistent parameters around the areas for discussion. The review of documents included a portion of the Individual Service Plans completed during the years 2000--2001, and a review of the agency's mission statement and other planning documents. From the review of the ISP, a paucity of documentation exists from which to corroborate the numbers of support coordinators that self-reported they are either using Person Centered Planning or completing ISPs, which are person-centered. The results of the study provided evidence that Person Centered Planning has not been sustained as an overall organizational change within the agency under study.

Managing safety in the energy industry requires continuous assessment of the factors with potential to contribute to accidents. Investigations into major incidents across highhazard industries have repeatedly highlighted the critical role of management factors in relation to safety performance. As leadership from site-level managers has been identified as a key non-technical skill with potential to measurably affect safety variables, this thesis investigates how the concept of ‘safety leadership,’ a term commonly used in the energy industry, might be applied at the level of senior management. After a review of the empirical literature revealed minimal consistency across existing work on this topic, four studies were conducted to support the operationalisation of the term ‘safety leadership’ in language relevant to practicing managers. In the first study (Study 1) semistructured interviews with subject matter experts (19 senior managers, 3 health and safety professionals) supported the identification of a set of behavioural ‘elements’ of safety leadership. In Study 2, a second set of interviews with contractors (n=11) and regulators (n=11) facilitated the refinement of the element set, and a preliminary safety leadership framework was proposed wherein behavioural elements were organised into broader categories. In Study 3, a documentary analysis study, data from published incident reports from the energy industry were used to test the preliminary safety leadership framework and assess the framework’s capacity to encompass senior-level behaviours that have been implicated in major investigations. Finally, Study 4 used structured interviews with experienced senior managers (n=15) to assess the face and content validity of the framework. This research informed the development of a behavioural framework, labelled the safety leadership framework (SLF), that includes three categories (Maintaining risk awareness, Leads by example, Setting and managing safety standards) encompassing seven safety leadership elements (Promotes continuous exchange of safety information, Monitors the reality of operations, Incorporates safety into decision-making, Acts as a safety role model, Provides direction, Reinforces with rewards and consequences, Supports and motivates)

The psychological contract of workers has been a subject of recent interest, in both academic and practitioner organizational literature. While this attention has developed across fields, and several typologies of contracts have been developed, there are many parts of this construct that are not well understood. Among these are the predictors of the psychological contract, the outcomes of the psychological contract, the violation or fulfillment of the psychological contract, and the generalizability of the psychological contract to volunteer organizational members. In this dissertation, I look specifically at the motives of volunteer workers, the consequences of organizational justice and organization commitment, violation of the contract by the organization and by the worker, and the generalizability of the psychological contract to volunteer workers in an organization. Two studies, one field and one lab, are used to assess these relationships. Results indicate that volunteers and paid employees, regardless of motives, do not differ in their psychological contracts when they are in the same organization performing significantly similar work. In terms of consequences, relationships were found between the psychological contract and its fulfillment or violation with organizational commitment and organizational justice. Specifically, relations were found between: transactional psychological contracts and both distributive justice and continuance commitment; benefits psychological contracts and continuance commitment; good faith and fair dealings psychological contracts and distributive, interactional, and procedural justice as well as affective commitment; and intrinsic job characteristics psychological contracts and distributive, interactional, and procedural justice. Not all findings are consistent across both studies. The results have two implications. The first, that volunteers and paid employees do not differ in their psychological contracts, points to the importance of the work environment in determining psychological contracts. The second issue, the relationships between specific aspects of the psychological contract, organizational justice, and organization commitment, establishes the separateness and relatedness of these constructs. Future research will address other predictors of psychological contracts, the fulfillment or violation of specific contracts, and their effect upon job attitudes that impact worker productivity.

The three studies reported here examined the role of expectations in determining an individual's satisfaction with a real or hypothetical outcome. More specifically, this work looked at the accuracy of individuals in predicting their affective responses to expected and unexpected outcomes in various settings. Finally, three variables thought to have an effect on affective response were manipulated in order to examine their role in judgments of satisfaction with outcomes. In the first study, undergraduate subjects read scenarios containing the expectations of an individual about some event. Subjects made predictions about how these individuals might feel about outcomes better than, worse than or the same as what had been expected. The second study involved the expectations of bowlers about their scores in an upcoming game. Prior to beginning the game, bowlers predicted their scores and what their affective responses would be for outcomes better than, worse than, or equal to their expectations. After the game, their responses were recorded and compared to the predictions. The final study involved the expectations of hotel managers about important measures of business productivity. Some time before the relevant outcome would be learned, managers made predictions about the outcomes and their affective responses to other potential outcomes better than, worse than, or equal to their expectation. These studies show that bowlers and managers do very well at predicting affective responses to outcomes, both expected and unexpected. This is especially true for one subset of our subjects, whose predicted affect curve closely resembles the actual responses.

This research examines the role of customer behavior in Internet service deliveries. A nomological network of customer behaviors and its antecedents is developed and tested in two studies. In the first study, two hundred individuals were surveyed about their customer satisfaction, socialization, coproduction, and citizenship behaviors in their most recent online service experience. Results show that customers distinguish between two types of behavior: required customer coproduction behaviors and voluntary customer citizenship behaviors. Furthermore, these two behaviors were predicted by differential antecedents. Customer coproduction was more strongly predicted by customer socialization than by customer satisfaction. Customer citizenship behaviors, on the other hand, were more strongly predicted by customer satisfaction than by customer socialization. In the second study, three hundred twenty-eight participants acted as customers in a simulated Internet service delivery. In a 2 x 2 factorial design, perceptions about customer satisfaction and perceptions about organizational citizenship behavior were manipulated prior to the service experience. Subsequently, measures of self-reported customer citizenship intentions as well as actual citizenship behaviors towards the organization were assessed. Results showed an effect on customer citizenship behaviors and intentions for customer satisfaction but not for organizational citizenship behavior. Participants in the condition with perceptions of high-customer-satisfaction engaged in more citizenship behaviors and reported greater intentions to do so in the future than those in the condition with perceptions of low-customer-satisfaction. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed from the perspective of organizational citizenship behavior and social exchange theory.

Throughout much of the past century, manufacturing efficiencies were gained by constructing systems from independently designed and optimized tasks. Recent theories and practice have extolled the virtues of team-based practices that rely on human flexibility and empowerment to improve integrated system performance. The formation of teams requires consideration of innate tendencies and interpersonal skills as well as technical skills. In this project we develop and test mathematical models for formation of effective human teams. Team membership is selected to ensure sufficient breadth and depth of technical skills. In addition, measures of worker conative tendencies are used along with empirical results on desirable team mix to form maximally effective teams.