This research examined leadership in difficult situations using phenomenological and critical incident analyses of 14 interviews with respected leaders. Leadership in difficult situations was examined as a personal experience consistent with the perspective of counselling psychology. The phenomenological analysis has produced four voices. The first voice captures the participants' description of leadership as a paradox of personal and situational dynamics. The second voice forms an uncommon elucidation of the lived experience of leadership in difficult situations. The participants are seen to be striving in a resilient manner characterized by a sense of acceptance and authenticity. The third and fourth voices describe the means by which the participants are effective in difficult situations. The third voice captures the intra-personal process of resonance, personal and social awareness, personal supports, mastery of the issues, and the capacity to generate remarkable outcomes. The fourth phenomenological voice captures the participant's active engagement in connecting with people, shaping the work context and leading collaboration to develop a successful process. Five categories have been produced by the Critical Incident Technique, which examined what helps and what hinders in the experience of leadership through difficult situations. The five categories are: being experienced, principled and self-aware; having personal supports and influences; being interested and skilled in connecting with people; being both energetic and able to withdraw appropriately; finally, actively cultivating their perspective or vision. These five categories indicate the capacity of the participants for diverse means of participation in difficult situations. Results are discussed in terms of implications for research and practice.

This research examined leadership in difficult situations using phenomenological and critical incident analyses of 14 interviews with respected leaders. Leadership in difficult situations was examined as a personal experience consistent with the perspective of counselling psychology. The phenomenological analysis has produced four voices. The first voice captures the participants' description of leadership as a paradox of personal and situational dynamics. The second voice forms an uncommon elucidation of the lived experience of leadership in difficult situations. The participants are seen to be striving in a resilient manner characterized by a sense of acceptance and authenticity. The third and fourth voices describe the means by which the participants are effective in difficult situations. The third voice captures the intra-personal process of resonance, personal and social awareness, personal supports, mastery of the issues, and the capacity to generate remarkable outcomes. The fourth phenomenological voice captures the participant's active engagement in connecting with people, shaping the work context and leading collaboration to develop a successful process. Five categories have been produced by the Critical Incident Technique, which examined what helps and what hinders in the experience of leadership through difficult situations. The five categories are: being experienced, principled and self-aware; having personal supports and influences; being interested and skilled in connecting with people; being both energetic and able to withdraw appropriately; finally, actively cultivating their perspective or vision. These five categories indicate the capacity of the participants for diverse means of participation in difficult situations. Results are discussed in terms of implications for research and practice.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2008. / Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 169-177). Also available online in Scholars' Bank; and in ProQuest, free to University of Oregon users.

Disruptions can cause projects to fail. Within the project management literature, approaches to managing disruptions consist of uncertainty, risk, opportunity, change, and crisis management. These approaches focus on developing strategies to manage perceived threats and also work towards predicting risk, therefore, reducing vulnerability. This vulnerability-reduction only focus is limiting because it takes the focus away from the development of a general capacity for readiness and for responding to uncertain situations. A resiliency approach enables a simultaneous focus on vulnerability reduction, readiness and response and thus ensures recovery. Given the context and discipline specific nature of the resilience concept, and the little or no attention in projects, this thesis conceptualises resilience in projects. This conceptualisation is to enable the identification of factors to consider and indicators to ensure overall project recovery, through the identification of dimensions and antecedents of resilience respectively. The aim of this study therefore, is to develop a framework to conceptualise resilience in projects. To achieve this aim, three case studies, namely; building, civil engineering and engineering construction projects were investigated. Within each case study, the critical incident technique was employed to identify disruptions and their management through direct observations of human activities, narration of critical incidents and review of documents on disruption. Following this, a comparative analysis and synthesis of the case studies was carried out and findings revealed definition, dimensions, antecedents and consequences of resilience in projects. Specifically, resilience in projects is defined as; the capability of a project to respond to, prepare for and reduce the impact of disruption caused by the drifting environment and project complexity. The dimensions of resilience are; proactivity, coping ability, flexibility and persistence. Proactivity can be defined as an anticipatory capability that the project takes to influence their endeavours whilst coping ability can be defined as the capability to manage and deal with stress caused by disruptions within the projects. Furthermore, flexibility can be defined as the capability of a project to manage disruption by allowing change but ultimately making sure that the aim is maintained and persistence is the capability to continue despite difficult situations. Several antecedents of these dimensions of resilience are identified. For proactivity these include contract, training, monitoring, contingency and experience. For coping ability these include the contract, training, contingency and experience. For flexibility these include open-mindedness, planning, continual monitoring and continual identification of ideas and for persistence these include continual monitoring, planning and negotiation. Also, the consequence of resilience in projects is recovery through response, readiness and vulnerability reduction. This conceptualisation of resilience is then synthesised into a validated framework for resilience in projects. Theoretically, this research provides definition, dimensions, antecedents and consequence for resilience in projects and a theoretical starting point for the concept of resilience in projects. The significance of this research to practice is the identification and development of a more holistic perspective of managing disruptions in projects through the identified dimensions, antecedents and consequences. These dimensions, antecedents and consequences provide clarity for the roles of project managers and team members in managing disruptions and thus, expand the eleventh knowledge area; project risk management, of the Project Management Book of Knowledge (PMBOK). In addition, the dimensions, antecedents and consequences of resilience in projects contribute to the curriculum development in project management and thus, provide factors and indicators that project managers require in managing disruptions.

xiii, 177 p. A print copy of this title is available through the UO Libraries. Search the library catalog for the location and call number. / Marketing Planning is the most prescribed tool for "doing" marketing. The marketing plan's implementation schedule provides a roadmap for accomplishing a firm's stated marketing objectives. For over three decades researchers have investigated planning's link to firm performance. The consensus has been that they do improve performance although there is little empirical evidence to suggest how implementation of those plans is related. Environmental turbulence, new information and failed implementation cause firms to act outside of the planning framework. Improvisation is the contemporaneous creation and execution of an action. The extent to which firms act improvisationally has been studied, but to date there has been no empirical investigation that exposes the different types of post plan improvisations of strategic marketing plans that exist. This dissertation attempts to identify the different types of post plan improvisations (PPI) used in marketing. Using the Critical Incident Technique, 384 incidents of PPI were gathered from marketing planners and then used to create categories and systematically classify each incident. Four primary categories of causes of deviations, six categories of deviations and four categories of outcomes emerged from the data. The results provide a foundation for a theoretical model of the types of post plan improvisations in practice. This will allow further research into contextual differences that could help managers decide when to improvise and when to follow their plan. Further, by exposing the useful application of the CIT method in a new field, additional researchers might begin to use the technique to update and more deeply understand other marketing phenomenon. / Adviser: David M. Boush

This research examined leadership in difficult situations using phenomenological and critical incident analyses of 14 interviews with respected leaders. Leadership in difficult situations was examined as a personal experience consistent with the perspective of counselling psychology. The phenomenological analysis has produced four voices. The first voice captures the participants' description of leadership as a paradox of personal and situational dynamics. The second voice forms an uncommon elucidation of the lived experience of leadership in difficult situations. The participants are seen to be striving in a resilient manner characterized by a sense of acceptance and authenticity. The third and fourth voices describe the means by which the participants are effective in difficult situations. The third voice captures the intra-personal process of resonance, personal and social awareness, personal supports, mastery of the issues, and the capacity to generate remarkable outcomes. The fourth phenomenological voice captures the participant's active engagement in connecting with people, shaping the work context and leading collaboration to develop a successful process. Five categories have been produced by the Critical Incident Technique, which examined what helps and what hinders in the experience of leadership through difficult situations. The five categories are: being experienced, principled and self-aware; having personal supports and influences; being interested and skilled in connecting with people; being both energetic and able to withdraw appropriately; finally, actively cultivating their perspective or vision. These five categories indicate the capacity of the participants for diverse means of participation in difficult situations. Results are discussed in terms of implications for research and practice. / Education, Faculty of / Educational and Counselling Psychology, and Special Education (ECPS), Department of / Graduate

The present study investigated what helped and what hindered multicultural supervision. The participants consisted of 19 females, and 6 males, including Asian-Canadians, Indo- Canadians, First Nations, Latin-Canadian and Afro-Canadian. They were individually interviewed, following an expanded version of Flanagan's (1954) Critical Incident Technique. There were 340 relevant meaning units related to positive incidents and 386 meaning units related to negative incidents. Forty-two meaning units were associated with coping efforts, and 87 meaning units were on recommendations. Categories extracted from these meaning units were grouped as follows: (a) 20 positive categories, (b) 15 negative categories, (c) 15 coping categories, and (d) 33 recommendations. The reliability of classifying meaning units according to these categories was satisfactory, based on inter-judge agreement (80% and higher). The validity of content analysis was established by (a) confirmation by participants, (b) crossvalidation by other participants, (c) cross-validation by an independent judge, and (d) cross-validation by other researchers. The most frequently cited positive categories were subsumed under five key areas: (a) personal attributes of the supervisor, (b) supervision competencies, (c) mentoring, (d) relationship, and (e) multicultural supervision competencies. The most frequently reported negative categories were associated with the following five areas: (a) personal difficulties as a visible minority, (b) negative personal attributes of the supervisor, (c) lack of a safe and trusting relationship, (d) lack of multicultural supervision competencies, and (e) lack of supervision competencies. The coping efforts employed were grouped into four areas: (a) help seeking, (b) existential coping, (c) active coping, and (d) emotional coping. Finally, recommendations were also grouped into four broad areas: (a) needs to improve the quality of supervision, (b) needs to improve multicultural supervision competencies, (c) needs for educational institutions to make changes, and (d) needs for minority students to make changes. The study provided a comprehensive picture of what works and what does not work in multicultural supervision. The results support a mentoring model, which posits that supervision is effective to the extent that the supervisor takes on the role of a mentor. The practical implications of the study include the need for cross-cultural supervision competencies and mentoring graduate students. / Education, Faculty of / Educational and Counselling Psychology, and Special Education (ECPS), Department of / Graduate

Student problem behavior continues to be a major issue in schools for both teachers and students. Teachers often feel they are not provided with enough resources to help them manage this problem behavior. Students who engage in problem behavior tend to struggle socially and academically. When classified with an emotional disturbance, students are especially at risk due to the severity of the problem behavior they exhibit (Brauner & Stephens, 2006). This study examined how function-based interventions can help both teachers and students better manage the effects of problem behavior. There are several factors believed to hinder the effectiveness of function-based interventions, including time available, training, parental involvement, and fidelity of implementation (Ingram et al., 2005). The study used the critical incident technique (CIT) qualitative methodology to identify helping and hindering factors in the implementation of behavior intervention programs (BIP). Participants of the study include BIP implementers, defined as any school personnel who directly participates in the implementation of an effective BIP with a student. Using the CIT qualitative methodology and semi-structured interviews, the research team determined which events are most prevalent in the hindering and helping of BIP implementation. Research concluded that ongoing collaboration with colleagues, in- and out-of-class support, consistent data tracking, reward systems, calming down strategies, and relationships were the most helpful factors reported by teachers. Unexpected events, severity of behaviors, inconsistent reward systems, differing opinions amongst team members, inconsistent communication, and insufficient training were factors that hindered BIP efficacy based on the results of this study. The findings suggest that the implementation of BIPs can be improved with greater consistency in consequences, clear communication among stakeholders, and building meaningful relationships of trust.

Remote usability evaluation is a usability evaluation method (UEM) where the experimenter, performing observation and analysis, is separated in space and/or time from the user. There are several approaches by which to implement remote evaluation, limited only by the availability of supporting technology. One such implementation method is RECITE (the REmote Critical Incident TEchnique), an adaptation of the user-reported critical incident technique developed by Castillo (1997). This technique requires that trained users, working in their normal work environment, identify and report critical incidents. Critical incidents are interactions with a system feature that prove to be particularly easy or difficult, leading to extremely good or extremely poor performance. Critical incident reports are submitted to the experimenter using an on-line reporting tool, who is responsible for their compilation into a list of usability problems. Support for this approach to remote evaluation has been reported (Hartson, H.R., Castillo, J.C., Kelso, J., and Neale, W.C., 1996; Castillo, 1997). The purpose of this study was to quantitatively assess the effectiveness of RECITE with respect to traditional, laboratory-based applications of the critical incident technique. A 3x2x 5 mixed-factor experimental design was used to compare the frequency and severity ratings of critical incidents reported by remote versus laboratory-based users. Frequency was measured according to the number of critical incident reports submitted and severity was rated along four dimensions: task frequency, impact on task performance, impact on satisfaction, and error severity. This study also compared critical incident data reported by trained users versus by usability experts observing end-users. Finally, changes in critical incident data reported over time were evaluated. In total, 365 critical incident reports were submitted, containing 117 unique usability problems and 50 usability success descriptions. Critical incidents were classified using the Usability Problem Inspector (UPI). A higher number of web-based critical incidents occurred during Planning than expected. The distribution of voice-based critical incidents differed among participant groups: users reported a greater than expected number of Planning incidents while experts reported fewer than expected Assessment incidents. Usability expert performance was not correlated, requiring that separate analyses be conducted for each expert data set. Support for the effectiveness in applying critical incidents to remote usability was demonstrated, with all research hypotheses at least partially supported. Usability experts gave significantly different ratings of impact on task performance than did user reporters. Remote user performance versus laboratory-based users failed to reveal differences in all but one measure: laboratory-based users reported more positive critical incidents for the voice interface than did remote users. In general, the number of negative critical incidents decreased over time; a similar result did not apply to the number of positive critical incidents. It was concluded that RECITE is an effective means of capturing problem-oriented data over time. Recommendations for its use as a formative evaluation method applied during the latter stages of product development (i.e. when a high fidelity prototype is available) are made. Opportunities for future research are identified. / Master of Science

This study was designed to determine the ability of the Critical Incident Technique (CIT) to advise changes to training regiments offered to Resident Advisers (RAs). The CIT was devised as a tool in the field of organizational psychology. Its purpose is to assist in analyzing the success of individual team members by examining the self-reported occurrence of incidents on the job, which are deemed critical. The Critical Incident Technique has been implemented with success in business and military applications. This powerful tool allows researchers to make valuable observations about the realities faced by individuals on the job. These observations make it possible to devise and improve existing training methods capitalizing on these realities. Data for this study came from an examination of incident reports (IRs). RAs generate IRs in response to different kinds of issues faced working with resident college students. Three regional institutions agreed to participate in this study and helped to diversify the data collected. This study addresses the following questions: What are the critical incidents RAs experience most often on the job? Is there a difference between the critical incident types reported in residence halls by institutional type? Is there a difference between the critical incident types reported by hall types? Is there a difference between the critical incident types reported by gender? What implications do the findings have for future RA training? Four types of demographic information were collected from the IRs: institution type (large public, midsize public, and small private), hall type (male, female, or coed), RA gender, and incident type. Conducting a survey of the literature concerning RA training and the CIT, generated five general categories of incidents on which RAs report. Crisis situations Policy enforcement Facilities management Administrative procedures Advising Specific measures including coding, and excision of sensitive information (such as sexual assaults sexual identity situations) from documents were used to protect the confidentiality and anonymity of the parties involved. When data collection was complete, a chi-squared test of significance was used to examine the relationships between the incident types reported and each of the other three variables (gender, institution type, and hall type). After analyzing the data using the statistical research methods described above, it was possible to make recommendations for future RA training. This study examines the impact of institutional environment, department philosophy, and personal bias on the training of RAs. The results suggest that each of these factors influences the success of RAs, and defines the environments in which resident students live. / Master of Arts