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Practicing orthodontists frequently state that the most difficult aspect of their career is running the practice and managing the staff members. To combat this challenge, some residency programs, including Temple's, offer practice management courses. Residents commonly learn practice management skills from male orthodontists, as they typically make up the majority of the orthodontic faculty. Due to the innate personality and interpersonal relationship differences between females and males, what a male orthodontist teaches may not be true, or effective, for the female orthodontist. The aim of this pilot study was to determine how practice management styles lead to personal and professional success. With the aid of qualitative research protocol, this study assessed: 1. practice management skills and deficiencies exhibited by male and female orthodontists, 2. practice management challenges male and female orthodontists face. The study explored the management styles of male and female orthodontists. The goal of the study was to define if male and female orthodontists exhibit different practice management strengths, weaknesses, challenges, and styles. Based on the study results, the following conclusions have been drawn: 1. Several factors play a role in the orthodontist's personal success: the most important factors being family and happy staff members. 2. Male orthodontists report that their career has a negative effect on their families due to job stresses. In contrast, female orthodontists view their career as having a positive effect on their families due to increased flexibility and reduced burden on their husbands. 3. Male orthodontists have well-defined business goals and aggressively pursue their goals, whereas, female orthodontists are content with their current success and less driven to achieve more. 4. All orthodontists believe their staff members are happy; female orthodontists have longer standing staff members and a more open relationship with their employees. 5. Male orthodontists utilize nearly every orthodontic technology. Interestingly, newer technologies are all but absent from female owned orthodontic offices. / Oral Biology

The majority of the research conducted to date on transfer student academic success compares transfer students with first-year freshmen or native students (Belcheir, 1999, 2001; Carlan, 2001; Cohen & Brawer, 1987; Cope & Hannah, 1975; Eimers & Mullen, 1997; Glass & Harrington, 2002; Keeley & House, 1993; Lorentz & Benedict, 1996; Lunneborg & Lunneborg, 1976; Miville & Sedlacek, 1995; Owen, 1991; Pascarella, 1999; Richman, 1979). Of the studies solely focusing on transfer student academic success, there is inconsistency in the variables selected for analysis and in the findings. Furthermore, transfer students from other four-year institutions are often excluded from these studies. The research generally focuses on transfers from a single community college (Townsend, McNerny, & Arnold, 1993) and oftentimes on transfers from a state's public community college system into the state's public university system (Graham & Hughes, 1994; Holton, 1991; Minear, 1998; Walker, 1992). There is a need for research that looks at transfer students from both two- and four-year institutions and that examines multiple variables associated with academic success. The purpose of this study was to determine the value of the following factors in predicting the academic success of undergraduate transfer students in their first and second semesters of enrollment: (a) on-campus residency, (b) ethnicity, (c) gender, (d) domicile (in v. out of state, (e) Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) scores, (f) number of credits enrolled in, (g) academic college, (h) class standing, and (i) last prior institution (two-year v. four-year). First semester GPA was included as an additional independent variable in the examination of second semester GPA. The data analyzed in the study were collected in 2002 at a research institution in the mid-Atlantic region and were accessed through the student census file. Participants were students coded as entering undergraduate transfer students in the university's student census file during the fall of 2002. This study defined academic success as first and second semester Grade Point Average (GPA), which were used as dependent variables. The above factors were used as independent variables in a step-wise regression analysis. The results indicated nine significant predictors of first semester GPA. The following variables contributed positively to first semester GPA: (a) SAT scores, (b) class standing, (c) being a student in the College of Architecture and Urban Studies, and (d) attending Community College (CC) #3. The following variables contributed negatively to first semester GPA: (a) attending CC #1, (b) being Black, (c) attending CC #2, (d) attending Comprehensive University #1, and (e) attending CC #4. The only significant predictor of second semester GPA was first semester GPA. This suggests that the first semester predictor variables help set a student up for academic success or failure. That tracking then carries over generally to second semester. / Master of Arts

An important problem in the field of education is determining the criteria by which academic success of students can be predicted. This study sets up criteria for predicting the success of a comparatively small group of students, those who have attended one or more other colleges and have made less than a "C" average in all subjects attempted at those other colleges before enrolling at North Texas State College.

Date of final Seminar: June 8th, 2012 Title: Success factors of entrepreneurial small and medium sized enterprises in Gnosjö municipality Authors:    Johan Eriksson and Muyu Li Group Number: 2898 Supervisor: Michaël Le Duc Examiner: Ole Liljefors Research Question: What important factors affect the success of entrepreneurial SMEs in the Gnosjö municipality? Background: With the economic crisis and recession, the world has begun to take notice of SMEs (small and medium sized enterprises). With an unemployment rate of just 1% and about 1500 companies - most of them successful by almost any definition and with a population of 9500, if there is such a thing as an SME region in Sweden, the Gnosjö municipality is it. Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to describe and analyze some of the factors that influence the success of companies with a special focus on entrepreneurial SMEs in the Gnosjö municipality. Method: The main method of this study is to use primary data in the form of interviews with local company owners or executives, with the interview questions being based on theories generated from the critical literature review. The authors are able to distinguish successful SMEs with an entrepreneurial focus among companies located in the Gnosjö municipality. By utilizing the method of semi-structured interviews, the authors gathered data from a sample of 20 top performing companies. With the theory generated from literature, the authors analyze the primary data, thus being able to find the answer to the research question. Conclusion: There is a relationship between general company success factors and factors driving success for companies in Gnosjö. However, compared to best-in-class, there is definite room for improvement, with regards to company operations as well as to the external factors that affect companies in Gnosjö. Keywords: Gnosjö, definition of entrepreneur, definition of success, success factors. / <p><strong>Acknowledgements</strong></p><p>The authors would like to thank our kind and dedicated supervisor Michaël Le Duc for his aid and assistance in the process of authoring this thesis.</p><p>The authors would also like to thank not only our thesis group colleagues who have provided us with valuable insights and good advice but also the participating companies in the Gnosjö municipality for their kind contributions to the interviews that form the basis of this thesis.</p><p>Finally, the authors would like to thank our beloved family members for their great support throughout the creation of this thesis.</p><p>Without all of you, this thesis could not have been done.</p><p>Thank you all very much!</p><p>Johan Eriksson and Muyu Li</p><p>June 20, 2012</p>

This research studies project success in the context of decision-makers in young, entrepreneurial companies, namely startups. More precisely the companies are European companies that are independent, active and under 10 years of age, and furthermore identified as startups through a framework created from literature derived from Organizational Life Cycle theory and other pluralistic literature about startups. The main concentration is in the concepts related to project success: Project Success Criteria and Critical Success Factors, based on two research questions: 1. “What success criteria are perceived to be most relevant in the project management of startup firms?” 2. “What critical success factors are perceived to be most relevant in project management of startup firms and why?” Previous studies on project management have been mostly conducted in the context of large organizations and typically in a quantitative form. Studies in project management of startups have been scarce, and in project success, nonexistent. Researchers have called upon project literature that concentrates on particular organizational context. In this study, existing theories are studied to find the most suitable framework for success criteria. This study is conducted as a case study, wherein interviews were conducted with startup founders, partners and CEOs, located in Finland, Sweden and Germany. The data collection in the interviews consisted of both semi-structured questions and rating of importance regarding the elements of aforementioned theoretical frameworks of Project Success Criteria and Critical Success Factors, creating a rich set of data, forming holistic cases of the view of project success. The resulting indicate that the most relevant success criteria for startup decision-makers are connected to customer relations, which dictates also the importance of short-term and long-term goals. The economic goals as well the preparation for future were more polarizing. The concentration on customer criteria is not divergent from previous research, but the importance of team criteria is a noticeable difference and a common theme across cases. It is also noticeable in the statements of interviewees that in the startup context the uncertainty regarding products, customers, and economical factors create certain tensions in project success assessment. In Critical Success Factors, there were also clear themes that mirror the aforementioned results. It furthermore became apparent that startups do not have clearly established tools or methods for their project management, which may distinguish them from larger, more established organizations.

published_or_final_version / abstract / toc / Education / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

Thesis (Ed. D.)--Indiana University of Pennsylvania. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A. in communication)--Washington State University, May 2009. / Title from PDF title page (viewed on July 27, 2009). "Edward R. Murrow College of Communication." Includes bibliographical references (p. 39-46).

Successful or failed software projects have been discussed in literature for many years. Successful software projects are often defined as meeting business objectives, deliver on time and within budget, and meeting requirements. Different factors that contribute to software project success have been identified in the literature. Some of the most common factors that lead to software project success are: user involvement, management support, realistic requirements, and having good estimations. However, there are different opinions about what a successful software project is. Linberg found in a study that managers had a different perception from software practitioners (developers, testers etc.) about what a successful software project is. Since there are different perceptions of what a successful project is among different roles in software development, there may be differences from other perspectives too. This observation relates to the overall research questions in the thesis: Could there be different perceptions about what success factors are for software projects among different countries and customer-supplier relationships? Do people from different countries have different perceptions about what success factors are for software products? This study investigated if there are any differences and similarities between Swedish and Australian companies. In addition, a comparison between bespoke and market driven and bespoke and in-house customer-supplier relationships was made. The result shows that there are differences of which factors that lead to software project success among the two countries as well as between different types of customer-supplier relationships. / richard.berntssonsvensson@gmail.com