Sales management researchers apply various leadership measures and theories taken from conventional work-group settings. These applications may be questionable given the unique boundary-spanning context in which the field sales force must operate. This study raises the questions and offers an approach which may be more appropriate. Specifically, this study questions the assumption that the manager acts and the salesperson reacts, and the focus of sales management studies which study managerial behavior in isolation from those of the salesperson he or she is supervising. The Leader-member Exchange theory (and the basis for this theory, social exchange) is offered as an approach which may be more consistent with the work-setting and obstacles faced by the field sales manager. This study offers a conceptual model of salesperson-manager relationships as a guide to explaining effective leadership in the field sales setting. A study was conducted on a subset of this conceptual model. Using the survey responses of industrial field salespeople and their managers, this study tested (1) the exchange relationships between the perceived behaviors of both the manager and salesperson, (2) the degree to which these exchanges influence the salesperson’s overall assessment of the salesperson-manager relationship, (3) the degree to which this assessment affects job-related outcomes and (4) the impact of environmental uncertainty on this boundary spanning link between salesperson and manager. The results of this study provides some support for the notion of an exchange relationship between the salesperson and manager. An exchange relationship may exist between the salesperson’s competency and the manager’s latitude. The salesperson’s assessment of the working relationship is based on the latitude received and the loyalty felt toward the manager {rather than his or her contributions of competency). This approach to studying the effects of leader behavior was effective in explaining salesperson satisfaction levels. It was less effective in predicting the goal achievement levels of the field sales force. Finally, the results of this study indicate the amount of uncertainty in the environment may have a direct effect on goal achievement levels of the salespeople, but lacks a moderating influence over the link between salesperson-manager relationships and outcomes. / Ph. D.

published_or_final_version / abstract / toc / Educational Psychology / Master / Master of Social Sciences

published_or_final_version / Politics and Public Administration / Master / Master of Public Administration

published_or_final_version / Politics and Public Administration / Master / Master of Public Administration

No description available.

M.Ed. / This research project on the promotion of educators as an aspect of educator management is part of a group research project on whole school development. This particular study focuses on managing educators in schools. Its objective is to make prospective and practising school managers aware of the wide range of activities covered by the term promotion of educators and to present the best current practises available on promotion of educators. Educator management is meant to bring about improved student learning. Decisions relating to the selection, placement, evaluation, development and promotion of educators should be made with that outcome in mind. Present and future educators as well as school principals and prospective principals, will find the material of this mini-dissertation to be relevant. When a principal interviews an applicant for a promotion post, plans a staff development programme for the school, or evaluates an educator's performance, he or she is engaging in personnel management. The importance of the principal's role in personnel management is increasing as schools move towards wider implementqtion of site-base management and the decentralisation of responsibility to the school level. However, no aspect of educator management is the exclusive terrain of a single, administrator. It is a shared enterprise that involves administrators at all levels of the regional hierarchy and with all types ofjob responsibilities. All administrators are members of some or other team and to the extent that they all understand the importance of good personnel practices, the region will be able to achieve its instructional objectives and so contribute towards whole school development. Many personnel decisions have a direct impact on the quality of instruction occurring in schools. When a decision is made to employ one applicant rather than another, or when an educator evaluation plan is implemented, there are likely to be implications for the quality of learning in the schools affected. The impact of these and other personnel decisions should be taken into account at the time the decisions are made. In this research a structured questionnaire was used to collect data on the perceptions of the respondents to the items posed in the questionnaire. In this research project 79 items were designed to probe the perceptions of educators on various post levels as to the extent that they agree or disagree with certain statements relative to the management of educators within the context of whole school development. The structured questionnaires were distributed to a convenient stratified sample in seven ofthe nine Provinces in South Africa. Based on the information gathered using the questionnaire each item relevant to this particular research project was analysed and discussed. After the factor analytic procedure the factor mean scores ofthe various groups were analysed and explained. In the view of the findings resulting from this project, further research is recommended. This should occur in areas like the methodology and research of the results of the numerous unique applications that this project recommended. Motivation at group level and the relationship between the experience of stress and those factors that increase or decrease the likelihood of a stress-related illness also need to be thoroughly investigated.

This dissertation consists of three chapters that study issues in Corporate Finance and Industrial Organization related to the behavior of markets with asymmetric information. The first two chapters study the economics of credit rating agencies; the third chapter examines a process of social learning about product quality. Chapter 1 models the effect of rating agency competition on the quality of rated securities. I compare equilibria across a regime of competition between two rating agencies and a monopolistic regime. In both regimes, all available agencies are hired in equilibrium, so under competition more ratings are observed. However, competing agencies do not fully internalize the return of a reputation for being honest. Whenever strategic agencies are not very concerned about their reputation, competition can induce more issuer effort than monopoly. Otherwise, a monopolistic agency induces more effort. Chapter 2 analyzes the effect of the Cuomo Plan, a much-discussed regulation that prohibits issuers of residential mortgage-backed securities from making payments to rating agencies contingent on the assigned ratings. I construct a certification model which consists of the following features: (i) an issuer privately informed about her security's quality can hire a rating agency to assign a rating; (ii) the agency can observe, at a cost, a private signal correlated with the quality of the security; (iii) an undeserved favorable rating reduces the agency's future revenues. I show that the Plan has an effect on the informative content of the rating only if the agency's signal is not too costly. In this case, the Plan ensures that the rating is more informative; otherwise the Plan has no effect. In chapter 3, I study the pricing strategy of a monopolistic firm in a market characterized by consumers with heterogeneous preferences and private information about the product quality. Consumers purchase sequentially and observe the history of purchasing decisions, prices, and consumers' preferences. I characterize the conditions under which the monopolist gains when consumers learn the true quality, and, which pricing strategy ensures that learning takes place.

Oregon’s Kindergarten Assessment (KA) is mandatory for all incoming Oregon kindergarteners starting in the 2013-14 school year. One component of Oregon’s KA is the Child Behavioral Rating Scale (CBRS), which Oregon has adapted into the Approaches to Learning Assessment. Teachers complete the CBRS during the first four to six weeks of school. This study uses a convenience sample of 731 kindergarten students (across two years) from one district in Oregon to analyze behavioral readiness (self-regulation and social-emotional behaviors) as well as easyCBM indicators of academic readiness. The CBRS is compared with the Child Behavioral Checklist and the Ages and Stages Questionnaire: Social Emotional as criterion measures. Parent and teacher responses to the CBRS are analyzed for comparability, and a Receiver Operating Characteristic curve analysis of the data is used to determine optimal cut points (maximizing sensitivity and specificity) for predicting whether students are at risk compared to the criterion measure cut scores. Demographic variables of gender, English Language Learner status, and Socioeconomic Status, are analyzed as control variables. Pre-post behavior change on the CBRS is document over the kindergarten year, and kindergarten academic benchmark measures is used as a dependent measure. This study explores whether: (a) parent responses differ significantly from teacher responses (internal consistency), (b) a cut score on the CBRS successfully sorts students into categories of "typically developing" or "in need of further assessment," (c) teacher predictions align to the proposed CBRS cut score, (d) academic risk is correlated to the established CBRS cut score, and (e) change in behavior over the course of kindergarten is measured (pre-post) by the CBRS. Results from this research could support identification of students for interventions in both kindergarten and early childhood programs.

by Che Tam Sze-chi. / Bibliography : leaves 64-72 / Thesis (M.A.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1982

This study examines the impact of personal attributes on student teachers' failure to pass or marginal success in the terminal field experience. Interviews were conducted of faculty at five Washington and two Oregon teacher education programs, who served as supervisors of student teaching. The interview was of the "depth" type described by Masserik (1981,) open-ended, interactive, and designed to encourage the sharing of case histories and subjective experience according to interpretive inquiry protocol as outlined by Lincoln and Guba (1985.) Its goal was to surface fundamental assumptions about and idiosyncratic language used to describe those attributes deemed critical to a preservice teacher's success. The format was flexible to allow respondents to guide and determine the final shape of the study (Goetz and LeCompte, 1984.) Interviews were tape-recorded, and transcripts re-submitted to respondents for additions, corrections, and elaborations. Interview transcripts were analyzed by a process of modified analytic induction (Bogdan and Biklan, 1982) and comparative analysis (Spradley, 1979) for recurring precepts and constructs related to personal attributes and the labels used to identify them. These were further collapsed into categories of cover and included terms, and used to construct a taxonomic model of personal attributes implicated in failure and marginality in student teachers. Initial categories which emerged were Extrapersonal, Irremediable, Intrapersonal and Interpersonal Attributes. Respondents' identified as critical the Intrapersonal and Interpersonal categories, which were further collapsed into three major attribute domains: Efficacy (including ego strength, locus of control, flexibility, and reflection) Relatedness (including empathy, self-assertion, and people-skills) and Heartfeltedness (including belief system, commitment, effort and passion.) Additional attributes identified by respondents as bridging and connecting the domains were imagination, authenticity, responsiveness and with-it-ness. Several themes emerged: 1) Respondents ascribe failure and marginality primarily to personal attributes, citing technical incompetence as causal only in combination with attribute deficits; 2) reluctance to judge subjectively produces formal evaluations that do not adequately reflect the role of personal attributes; 3) pressure to pass marginal students is seen as both cause and effect of a failure of the gatekeeping function; and 4) early identification of personal attributes likely to require and/or intractable to remediation is deemed essential.