Using a sample of 215 managers, this study investigated the role of supervisor affective trust as a mediator between organizational citizenship behaviour and willingness to provide mentorship (psychosocial and career support). Subordinate OCB directed at the supervisor and toward the organization (civic virtue) were investigated. The results showed that supervisor affective trust acted as a mediator between OCB and willingness to provide psychosocial support. The results suggest that an employee seeking psychosocial support from his/her supervisor should build affective trust by engaging in citizenship behaviour directed at the supervisor.

As the link between a healthy workforce and better patient outcomes is becoming more evident, creating healthy and safe workplaces for health care providers is now a concern for many employers. While a safe work environment includes being exempt from aggression, workplace aggression continues to be identified as a serious problem by health care professionals. Notwithstanding the importance and obligation of addressing all types of workplace aggression and all groups of perpetrators, dealing with instances of intra/inter professional aggression is essential since this type of aggression is often insidious and can be more disturbing to the victim than any other type of aggression. While nurse managers were identified as playing a central role in the management of workplace aggression, it is not clear how they deal with instances of intra/inter professional aggression given their current work environment and working conditions. The purpose of this study is to broaden the understanding of how nurse managers respond to intra/inter professional workplace aggression. Based on a theoretical framework developed from the work of Girard, Foucault and Weber, this study focuses on aspects of the social/cultural work environment influencing nurse managers' responses to intra/inter professional aggression as well as strategies deployed by nurse managers to deal with such aggression. Using principles from critical nursing ethnography, the research was conducted in both a university affiliated psychiatric hospital and a community hospital located in a large metropolitan city in Ontario. Data collection included 23 semi-structured interviews, collection of mute evidence and observations. The major study findings are that 1) aggression management is a non linear process involving managing perceptions, emotions and the actual aggressive act, which are all influenced by omnipresent and insidious power relations; 2) aggression management is not solely the responsibility of managers but must involve several actors including the aggressive individual, peers, human resources department and unions; and 3) each individual needs to play an active role in aggression management and be held responsible and accountable for his/her actions.

<p> Successful collaborations take effort. This study analyzed the process followed by 20 groups of diverse professions that were brought together to solve a community health problem. To this goal a four part model of conflict was adapted and used to understand how conflict emerged, was managed or resolved. The model allowed for the identification of five routes to conflict. Conflict was either averted or managed constructively by most of the groups and a set of productive behaviors is associated with this ability. Experienced collaborators utilize these behaviors at various times throughout the collaborative process to promote group cohesion and the possibility of integrating differences and transforming them into more creative outcomes. Conflict is found to be neutral; for some groups it is stagnating while others are able to use it constructively.</p>

<p> Today's information technology (IT) professional must go beyond their technical ability and obtain new leadership skills. Simultaneously obtaining business acumen, developing successful IT-business relationships, communicating effectively, and still being technical makes being an IT professional more challenging than ever. It is the viewpoint of this researcher that self-awareness is the foundational level skill set needed to foster the insights needed to adopt and apply these skills to increase success in the IT professional. Previous research has examined the relationship of self-awareness and it's impact on leadership effectiveness and even explores correlations with emotional intelligence and IT organizations success. However, gaps remain in the literature to the specific correlations of the value and perception of self-awareness within the IT professional, and what specific role self-awareness plays in IT professionals' success. The purpose of this research was to understand and quantify how IT professionals perceive the meaning of the word self-awareness, and the connection between self-awareness and increased effectiveness. A comprehensive survey was conducted with 164 IT and business professionals of different levels, different size organizations and different industries to formalize quantitative answers to these questions. Follow-up interviews were also conducted to gain further clarification of survey results. The results reveal that self-awareness was viewed positively and critical to the success of the IT professional regardless of gender, role, educational level or years in the industry. The data also showed that if more investment in self-awareness training where to incur, the importance of that skill would increase, and the importance of technical skills would decrease; provided they had an external influence ("sponsor") that provided feedback to invest in such skills. They had to have their awareness raised, to raise their awareness, and this effort had to be intentional. Self-awareness had direct positive correlations to improved relationship management. Study limitations and implications to the organization development field are also discussed.</p>

<p> In hospitals in the United States, the ratio of nurses to patients is declining, resulting in an increase in work demands for nurses. Consequently, organizations face challenges with nurses' organizational commitment. Studies have revealed generational differences, as determined by birth year, in employee levels of organizational commitment in a number of organizational settings. However, there is a gap in the literature regarding the impact of generational cohorts on the organizational commitment of nurses. The purpose of this quantitative, nonexperimental, cross-sectional design was to address whether generational cohorts of nurses differed in their levels of organizational commitment, and to investigate whether licensed practical nurses (LPNs) and registered nurses (RNs) differed in their levels of organizational commitment. A purposive sampling method was used to recruit 132 nurses in Alabama for this study. A MANOVA was employed to test the mean differences in organizational commitment by generational cohort status and nursing degree. Results revealed that generational cohort status did not have a significant impact on nurses' levels of organizational commitment. However, the findings showed that LPNs had significantly lower levels of affective commitment than RNs. This study provided information that may be of use to hospital administrators and human resource managers in communicating the need for flexible incentive packages to address the needs of a diverse workforce. Results from the study may promote social change by providing information about how nurse credentials are associated with their organization commitment. This association is critical for building organizational stability, organizational effectiveness, and nurse recruitment and retention.</p>

<p>A substantial body of scholarly literature exists demonstrating the elevation of positive citizenship behavior in the presence of transformational leaders. A smaller but no less significant amount of research has suggested that union citizenship behavior, a specific form of organizational citizenship behavior, is elevated in the presence of transformational leadership and enhances member commitment and perceptions of support. Utilizing an international sample comprised of unionized airline pilots, this study sought to explore the relationship between transformational leadership, discretionary citizenship behaviors, perceived organizational support, organizational commitment, and the effect stated cultural affinity has on these factors. The results of this study indicate that while a transformational leadership style may incidentally elevate follower commitment and perceived support, it was not found to be a positive predictor of union citizenship behavior. Further, the results suggest that organizational commitment and perceived support are more positively related to perceptions of leadership than leadership style itself. Therefore, union members may engage in constructive union citizenship behaviors irrespective of leadership style, provided commitment and positive perceptions of leader and organizational support exist. The results of this research also demonstrated that cultural affinity did not greatly influence perceptions of leadership or levels of perceived support, organizational commitment, or engagement in union citizenship behaviors. </p><p> <b>Keywords</b>: <i>Transformational leadership</i>, <i> perceived support</i>, <i>organizational commitment</i>, <i> union citizenship behavior</i>, <i>culture</i> </p>

This dissertation explored change needed to co-create alignment amongst women, organizations, and society, addressing a systemic whole to support women's attainment of progressively more responsible and effective leadership roles. To inform this qualitative, phenomenological case study the researcher explored the lived experiences of 20 women who attained progressively more responsible and effective leadership roles to gain insight into how they believe women, organizations, and society can align to support women's attainment of progressively more responsible and effective leadership roles. Systems thinking theory (Gharajedaghi, 2006), which indicates alignment between women, organizations, and society is important in order to achieve success, and transformative change theory (Scharmer, 2007) of suspending past habits to see and direct attention to the future served as the theoretical framework for this study. This study is unique in that it adds the perspective of alignment within a system and the transformative change process to the body of literature on women and leadership. The outcome of this study provides new knowledge about tools that can be used to co-create alignment within a system of women, organizations, and society to support women's attainment of progressively more responsible and effective leadership roles within the system. Gharajedaghi, J. (2006). Systems thinking managing chaos and complexity: A platform for designing business architecture (2nd ed.). Burlington, MA: Butterworth-Heinemann. Scharmer, C. (2007). Theory U: Leading from the future as it emerges. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc.

The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore how human agency and learner autonomy contribute to or inhibit leader action and leadership development. Bandura (1986, 1997) identified four core features of human agency (forethought, intentionality, self-regulation, and self-reflection) and three modes of human agency (personal, proxy, and collective). Confessore (1992) identified four conative factors of learner autonomy, including desire (Meyer, 2001), resourcefulness (Carr, 1999), initiative (Ponton, 1999), and persistence (Derrick, 2001). Six adult professionals in an organizational context participated in this qualitative study. The findings show that desire has a profound influence on the formation of intentions. The findings also show that desires, beliefs, and intentions influence goal formation. The path of goal pursuit resides between need-meeting goal formation and goal attainment. The pathway of goal pursuit represents the domain within which leader action and development takes place. Within this leadership domain, resourcefulness, initiative, and persistence represent self-control mechanisms that leaders utilize in the context-specific self-regulatory process of taking leader action. The exhibition of human agency within this leadership domain influences the manner in which the conative factors of learner autonomy are utilized. Leadership and leadership development represent a self-efficacious and autonomous self-regulatory process of learning that takes place on the path of goal pursuit. A theoretical model illustrates self-efficacious autonomous leadership and leadership development among adult professionals in the organizational context.

Numerous studies have documented the continuing failures of the government-sponsored foster and adoptive care system in the United States. Although policymakers, scholars, and practitioners have suggested that faith-based foster and adoptive care organizations (FBFACOs) possess unique characteristics and capacities that offer an important solution for many of the foster system's elusive problems, there has been a paucity of research on the leadership difficulties endemic within this nascent industry. The purpose of this study was to identify and explore leadership capacities of mobilizing donors, volunteers, employees, board members, foster parents, and executives of FBFACOs. Data collection in this emergent, grounded theory study involved in-depth interviews of 23 leaders across 6 purposefully sampled FBFACOs as well as the analysis of such corporate documents as strategic plans, newsletters, annual reports, and memoranda. Qualitative research software aided the open, axial, and selective coding of data, and the constant-comparative method, memo writing, and diagramming revealed a theoretical model comprising 7 emergent mobilizing themes (i.e., spiritually based calling, problem construction, action framework, environment, communications, action coordination, and sustainability) and 4 organizational characteristics (i.e., God as the nexus for mobilization, an unrelenting focus on vision and mission, construction of the social problem in stakeholder accessible terms, and the emphasis on relationships as a foundation for solving the problem). The application and further exploration of this model of mobilizing leadership practices will improve the capacity of faith-based organizations to provide for the well-being of foster children and their foster, adoptive, and biological families.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Dept. of Economics and Dept. of Sociology/Criminal Justice & Criminology. University of Missouri--Kansas City, 2005. / "A dissertation in economics and social science." Advisor: James I. Sturgeon. Typescript. Vita. Title from "catalog record" of the print edition Description based on contents viewed March 12, 2007. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 137-149). Online version of the print edition.