<p>Within the discourse of scholarly research into organizational culture, intelligence studies, law enforcement reform and organizational change, the examination of post-9/11 organizational assessments and implementation has become an emerging area of investigation. This mixed-methods research focused on how mandated organizational culture change affected a traditionally hierarchical organizational subculture. After the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was mandated to implement an organizational culture change. The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States directed the FBI to move from a traditional reactive investigative paradigm, to one of an intelligence-based, preventative framework. Utilizing a survey based on the competing values framework of organizational culture, and semi-structured qualitative interviews, the effects of mandated organizational culture change were identified in the FBI Special Agent organizational subculture. The data from the quantitative portion of the research identified an ongoing hierarchical organizational culture, and also revealed a preference for a more inclusive based organizational culture. The qualitative interviews provided a deeper understanding of the quantitative data in that the organizational subculture under study reported experiencing an organizational identity crisis because of the mandated organizational change. Through the research, the Special Agent organizational subculture was identified as having experienced a loss of positional primacy within the organization. The research implications identify areas of further study within several academic disciplines including organizational culture, organizational change, organizational identity, public administration and intelligence studies. </p>

<p> The purpose of this qualitative, basic interpretive study (Merriam, 2009) was to improve understanding of the role of transactive memory systems (TMS) in board groups as a way of leveraging their knowledge in the context of the chief executive officer (CEO) succession planning process. Sixteen participants were recruited who had served on a board of a $500 million-plus public company and had been involved in a CEO succession planning process within 5 years of the study. Within the participant group, a subset of six had all worked together, over the same time period, on the same CEO succession planning process from beginning to end. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and participant follow-up.</p><p> The study findings confirmed a relationship between structures and processes of TMS and CEO succession planning in the context of board groups. The data supported the presence of some but not all of the characteristics of TMS presented in Ren and Argote's (2011) metaanalysis and categorization of antecedents, components, and consequences of TMS. Specifically, TMS antecedents present in board groups included team-level inputs of task interdependence, goal interdependence, team familiarity, shared experiences, and communication. Specific dimensions of TMS components present within board groups included team knowledge stock and knowledge of who knows what. Three TMS behavioral indicators were present: knowledge specialization, task credibility, and task coordination to support knowledge sharing and updating. Finally, key dimensions of TMS consequences included team performance behaviors of team learning, creativity, and reflexivity.</p><p> Five conclusions were drawn from the study. (1) The TMS dimension of reliance on others' specialization serves to meet the challenges of bounded rationality in board groups. (2) High familiarity can enhance trust, but if overemphasized negatively affects the reliability of specialized expertise. (3) Personal respect and trust in the expertise of others affects receptivity to defer to others' specialized expertise. (4) A director's publicly known resume is the primary determinant of specialization. (5) Board structures (the knowledge stock of the group) and processes (transactive processes of encoding, storing, and accessing knowledge) facilitate the continual refinement of member-expertise associations and conscious development of knowledge sharing. </p>

<p> Does our status impact the way we interpret change? This study proposes that one's level of power within their workplace, as granted by their role within the organization, shapes the way in which people interpret adjustments to the norms of that organization. Drawing on qualitative focus groups with forty-four members of Oregon's construction trades, this study examines the relationship between participants' position within the industry&rsquo;s structure and their opinions about the changing jobsite norms brought on by recent waves of diversification in the workforce. Findings suggest that within Oregon&rsquo;s construction trades, hierarchical distribution of power via industry position serves to stratify and reorganize the attitudes and responses of participants. This is done through situating knowledge; different positions hold differential understandings of which issues generate harassment, present barriers to progress, and serve as potential solutions to the issue. Results show that participants who occupy positions of power within the trades tend to frame harassment as an interpersonal problem, which can be solved by interpersonal solutions. Thus, participants in positions of power saw change as an incremental process that was constantly happening. Conversely, participants who were not in positions of power within the trades tended to frame harassment as an institutional problem that required industry-wide changes to be fully addressed. As a result, participants with less power in the trades framed change as generational for the industry; something that could only be achieved after the current workforce. Ultimately, this study highlights the tension between interpersonal and institutional strategies for organizational change.</p>

<p> This multi-site case study explored the role that a global nonprofit organization plays in decreasing the gap of inequality and contributing to the greater society. This research identified what processes were used to implement, increase, or alter the global CSR efforts. This research identified how global CSR efforts impact and is impacted by the organizational culture. In addition, the study explored how CSR efforts have changed or expanded to meet the demands of a globalized society, with a particular focus on the mutual relationship between these expanded efforts and the organizational culture. It studied the internal impact of the CSR efforts as well as how the organization relates externally. This qualitative study made use of three sources of data: semistructured interviews, document and artifact analysis, and observations. The use of various methods of data collection ensures reliability and trustworthiness and adds to the thick description of the case. The findings in this multi-site case study provided an understanding of how a global non-profit organization implements or expands social responsibility efforts. </p><p> This exploratory study yielded seven major conclusions. The conclusions operationalize to meet the organizational needs and the processes used to implement. The seven conclusions are 1) The organization's CSR efforts impact organizational culture including artifacts espoused values and basic assumptions 2) The impact was reciprocal as the organizational culture impacted their CSR efforts 3) CSR efforts reflect the needs of society and adapt to meet societal needs to balance the organization's internal culture and external image 4) Senior leadership and policy volunteers are instrumental to the implementation of CSR efforts throughout the organization as well as to the organizational culture 5) Partnering with organizations increases their CSR efforts and result in better serving their community and organizational needs 6) CSR processes increase awareness and impact to promote goodwill locally and globally and 7) CSR efforts need to be included in the organization's strategic plan and align with the mission and vision of the organization.</p>

<p> Throughout the Cold War, the United States maintained a military prepared to confront a technologically advanced Soviet adversary. With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the structure and purpose of the armed forces were called into question. In time, the U.S. military transformed from one prepared to conduct large-scale war, to one prepared to carry out a variety of missions ranging from war to humanitarian efforts. Throughout the 1990s, the U.S. Army's senior leaders engaged in a campaign to transform the organization from its warrior-oriented mindset to a service-oriented one. I report in this dissertation my findings from an analysis of the efforts of the Army's senior leaders in support of this transformation from 1991 to 1995. Specifically, I report my findings from an analysis of the discursive dimensions of their efforts.</p><p> Theoretically, this dissertation contributes to two emergent perspectives in organizational analysis: the institutional logics and institutional work perspectives. These perspectives highlight the fact that individual and collective actors are not only influenced by the structural, normative, and symbolic dimensions (i.e., the institutional logic) of the institutional environments in which they act, but those environments are shaped by their actions (by institutional work). Through my analysis of the efforts of the Army's senior leaders to disrupt and replace the Cold War institutional logic, I identified three distinct forms of institutional work. Environment work included efforts to construct an extra-organizational environment that demands change, and an intra-organizational environment hospitable to change. Organizational identity work involved the establishment of an organizational sense of self that encompassed new practices. Institutional logic work involved a recursive process of textualization that established a post-Cold War logic constituted in a well-structured discourse. </p><p> In conclusion, I consider the institutional work I identified as situated within the institutional field of the armed forces. I demonstrate how the management of organizational change can influence the logic that prevails within the broader institutional field. I conclude by highlighting the utility of focusing on the organizational level of analysis in studies of institutional change, and the benefits of considering the institutional logics and institutional work perspectives as complementary.</p>

<p> The purpose of this study was to investigate the differential effects of the Capitalization vs. Compensation model applied to a brief, group-based intervention that focused on Character Strengths, as defined by Peterson and Seligman (2004). Traditional Character Strengths interventions in Positive Psychology apply a Capitalization model, in which individuals engage their top-ranked strengths of character, and this approach has amassed substantial empirical support. However, it is not known whether a Compensation model, in which individuals engage their bottom-ranked strengths, can offer similar benefits. One hundred and eighty-seven employees from eighteen small organizations were randomized at the group level to receive one of four psychoeducational interventions: Top Strengths, Bottom Strengths, Placebo (behavioral health), or a delayed-treatment Control. Participants completed the VIA Survey of Character Strengths and a pre-treatment battery of outcome measures that assessed both positive psychological variables, such as life satisfaction and psychological well-being, and negative life functioning variables, such as depression and negative affect. Post-treatment outcome measures and a compliance measure were completed approximately one month following the psychoeducational presentations. Results revealed few differences between experimental conditions for most measures; however, participants in the Bottom Strengths condition experienced a decrease in symptom distress and an increase in emotional well-being relative to those in the Placebo and Control conditions. Regression analyses revealed several interesting relationships between Character Strengths and outcome measures, with implications for applications in multiple fields. A discussion of methods to strengthen brief group-based interventions, as well as the future direction of Character Strengths interventions, concludes the paper.</p>

<p> Organizational perception and conception of interactions and relationships vary over time and space. This study focused on the capacity within and between healthcare organizations to collectively make sense of ambivalent and ambiguous environments in the context of social structuring actions (Czarniawska, 2008; Johnson, 2009; Weick, 1995). The purpose was to develop narrative frames from which a deeper understanding could be developed of how collective sensemaking is enacted through reciprocal and reflective interorganizational relationships during the final phases of an intended multiorganizational integration endeavor (Barki &amp; Pinsonneault, 2005; Oliver, 1990). This study explored and described collective sensemaking as recognizable patterned social structuring actions that surfaced during integration efforts within the Military Health System's Defense Centers of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury. </p><p> A narrative approach illustrated emergent social processes. In the process of collaboration, ongoing generative conversations (Taylor &amp; Van Every, 2000; Hardy, Lawrence, &amp; Grant, 2005; Weick, 2004) affected the relationships between collective sensemaking and social structuring. An interpretive constructionist perspective revealed practices involving the interplay of assignment of <i>meaning</i> (signification), reducing equivocality and integration; formation of a sense of community, establishing structures and <i>norms </i> (legitimation); and the effects of collaboration and <i>power </i> (domination) distribution (Giddens, 1984; Weick, Sutcliffe, &amp; Obstfeld, 2005). </p><p> More than 24 months of embedded observation aided the researcher's awareness of ongoing narrative dynamics of collaborative actions setting the conditions for the emergence of interorganizational relationships (Harquail &amp; King, 2010; Hatch, 1997; Hatch &amp; Schultz, 2002) and embodied practices (Varela, Thompson, &amp; Rosch, 1991). Throughout experiences of collective sensemaking, organizations interpose mini-narratives as evidence of reciprocal patterns of social structuring revealing cooperative behaviors interweaving coordinated actions and setting conditions for the structuring of collaborative integrating nets of collective action. This supports both Carniawska's (2008) and Weick's (1995) theory of organizing during collective sensemaking as enacted processes within relational conceptualizations and perceptions. These findings contribute to understanding the dynamics of collective sensemaking and social structuring; moreover, they incorporate the new paradigm of enaction (Kuhn, 1996; Stewart, Gapenne, &amp; Di Paolo, 2010) as embodied sensemaking into organizational theory.</p>

<p> This dissertation describes the process by which community messaging obligates members to perform work behaviors in order to achieve full membership status&mdash;labeled here the <i>Obligation-based Culturing of Work</i> (<i>OCW</i>). The investigation supports and extends theory regarding the sources and influences of adult meaning attributions about work, and how those meaning attributions can function as a mechanism of cultural maintenance. Constant comparative analysis of 31, face-to-face interviews with members of a Lebanese-American community revealed how anticipatory work socialization emanates from sources other than organizations and is an interpretive process through which influential community members inculcate new generations with memorable messaging. Participants' reported that their community's messaging encouraged them to make sense of work in ways that invited shared mental models about the meaning of work behaviors; then, the community's messaging connected those meanings to the idealized performance of authentic cultural membership. Therefore, memorable community messages constructed cultural identity as at least partially performed in work behaviors. Analysis revealed how the seemingly mundane communication of everyday community and family life is linked to enduring patterns of meaning attributions and work behaviors. OCW supports and extends organizational communication theories like anticipatory organizational socialization, work socialization, and the meaning of work (MOW) as well as intercultural communication theories like cross-cultural adaptation, intercultural fusion, hybridity, and critical cultural transculturation. The dissertation discusses how these findings contribute to knowledge about the interrelationships among messaging about work, cultural maintenance, and community identity.</p>

<p> The purpose of this quantitative, non-experimental descriptive study was to examine the relationship between servant leadership and job within a multicultural hospitality organization. The theoretical foundation of the study, servant leadership, was supported by the premise that servant leaders within multicultural organizations value the job satisfaction of their employees. Thirty-nine employees completed the Organizational Leadership Assessment (OLA) survey instrument, and the data were analyzed through the utility of SPSS v. 20. The results revealed that a statistically significant relationship existed between servant leadership and job satisfaction as perceived by culturally diverse employees within a hospitality organization (<i>r</i> = 0.635; <i>p</i> &lt; 0.0005). Thus, the discovery of this new knowledge contributed to the fields of cross-cultural leadership, servant leadership, and hotel management regarding the potential utility of servant leadership principles within a multicultural hospitality organization.</p>

<p> In both academic and management literature it has been often stated that 70% of change efforts are not successful (Kotter, 1995; Smith, 2002). And while this failure rate may not be empirically tested, it points to a reality that most change efforts are not only difficult, but they are often unsuccessful (Hughes, 2011). When an organization undergoes a major organizational change process, the expected impacts include increased employee stress and overall productivity dips in the midst of the change (Dahl, 2011; Elrod II &amp; Tippett, 2002). Measuring the impacts of change on employees and on organizational effectiveness during the change can add value and help increase the chances for change initiative success by allowing necessary adjustments and identifying and leveraging additional business improvement predictors along the way.</p><p> In this dissertation, I answer the question &ldquo;What is the impact of going through a major organizational change on business outcomes and employee and organizational health?&rdquo; My results suggest that an organization can transform the expected negative effects of a major change effort to positive effects by focusing on three things: 1) Improving employee mental health; 2) Increasing positive practices, including leadership&rsquo;s impact on the organization; and 3) Improving employee involvement, communication, and teamwork. Finally, the results also show that improved employee mental health and improved positive practices are significantly related to improved business outcomes. Organizational change outcomes can be successfully informed by linking business outcomes with change impact measures.</p>