Thesis (Ph. D.)--Columbia University. / Vita. Pub. also as Columbia University contributions to education. Teachers College series. no. 16. Bibliography: p. [98]-99.

<p> This exploratory qualitative study was used to explore the perceptions of team leads and team members of globally dispersed virtual matrix cross-functional teams regarding the four constructs of interaction influence team performance as they work together to complete projects. The four constructs of interaction &ndash; technology, communication, trust, and understanding cultural diversity formed the basis for the research question and a series of interview questions that sought responses from globally dispersed virtual team leads and team members from around the world. Participants in this study came from Australia, Brazil, China, England, Greece, India, Ireland, Poland, Thailand, and the United States. The participants also represented individuals working in Information Technology, Sourcing, Consulting, Retail, Manufacturing, and a Religious organization who provided their perspective on their teams&rsquo; interactions. Using the responses from this cross-section of individuals from countries and industries the researcher found that the four constructs of interaction, when used correctly, are perceived to improve the performance of globally dispersed virtual teams. The strength of themes reported by team members through the interview process showed that the participants thought the four constructs improved team interaction. This study allowed the extension of a branch of non-goal organizational theory to include team level interactions to the performance of a globally dispersed virtual team.</p>

With recent developments in Scottish education characterised by less prescriptive curriculum guidance, educators, and teachers in particular, are being presented with the opportunity to become more active participants in the curriculum innovation process (Scottish Executive, 2004). This thesis argues, however, that a more participatory curriculum innovation approach contrasts with the centrally-driven top-down curriculum projects that have held currency over the last 30 years; as such, the experiences of most teachers, and their managers, have not helped build the capacity to cope with and influence the curriculum innovation process. Following on, it is suggested there is an urgent need to develop curriculum innovation approaches that specifically set out to help educators construct these innovation-related capacities. The thesis proposes that a more participatory curriculum innovation approach may be achieved by extending concepts from current educational ‘change knowledge’ (Fullan, 1993) to include key principles from complexity-oriented theories (Biesta, 2010; Morrison, 2010). A complex ecological approach (CEA) is presented in which curriculum innovation efforts are portrayed as complex, self organising, emergent, non-linear and ambiguously bounded phenomena influenced by the ongoing interaction of contextual factors and personal capacities. The applicability of this complex ecological approach is explored by means of a case study focused on my personal curriculum innovation efforts in primary physical education (PE) over a twenty-four year period from 1987-2011 in two countries: England and Scotland. I provide a detailed retrospective analysis of the ‘Developmental Physical Education Project’ (DPEP) to explore the extent to which the macro, meso and micro contexts in which I worked and my personal capacities have influenced my curriculum innovation efforts over this twenty-four year period. In particular, the nature of my developmental PE innovation efforts, characterised as complex, self-organising, emergent, non-linear and ambiguously bounded is explored. Analysis reveals the important influence of different contextual factors on the nature of these innovation efforts, particularly the prevailing policy-making and policy-dissemination processes and the support of micro-level management. However, the most significant finding is the central role played by my personal capacities in shaping innovation efforts that, over time, are self-organising, emergent, ambiguously bounded and non-linear. In particular, the analysis highlights how six key capacities; reflection, inquiry, emotions, vision, knowledge and relationships, all played a key role in helping me cope with and influence the innovation process. Given these findings, the thesis concludes by proposing ways in which the CEA may help educators, and teachers in particular, better understand, negotiate and influence future curriculum innovation agendas.

This thesis consists of three stand-alone papers which address different questions regarding the economics of education and pay. The Effect of Free Pre-school Education on Children’s Subsequent Academic Performance: Empirical Evidence from England (Chapter 2) This chapter address the question of whether starting formal education part-time at age three has a positive effect on children’s academic attainment when they reach age 7 and whether this depends on the sector providing the early education. Using a panel of English Local Education Authorities I initially utilise the fact that mandatory provision of free early education for 3-year olds was introduced at different times according to the deprivation of the LEA and then estimate effects separately for more and less deprived LEAs. Exploiting the time dimension of the panel dataset, I am able to control for time-invariant unobserved heterogeneity at the LEA level that may confound estimates from other British cohort studies which rely primarily on cross-sectional variation. I find that early education in public sector nursery and primary schools in the more deprived LEAs has a small positive effect on attainment in reading and writing. These findings suggest that state maintained nursery settings are more effective than private sector providers of early education, especially in more deprived LEAs. The Causal Effect of Education on Wages Revisited (Chapter 3) In this chapter I estimate the causal effect of education on wages comparing estimates that are derived using variations in schooling associated with (a) early smoking behaviour, and (b) the raising of the minimum school leaving age. Earlier research using similar methods covers a wide range and my work is motivated by the concern that what is sometimes claimed as the return to education is only the return for a specific group and this might be rather different to the average return to education in the population. Each of my instruments estimates a ‘local average treatment effect’ and I analyze the extent to which these differ and which is more appropriate for drawing conclusions about the return to education in Britain. I implement each instrument on the same data from the British Household Panel Survey, and use the over-identification to test the validity of my instruments. I also exploit the dual sources of exogenous variation in schooling to derive a further IV estimate of the return to schooling. I find that each of my IV estimates of the return to education are not significantly different to each other (approximately 12%) and are substantially higher than the Ordinary Least Squares estimate (4.6%). The Lifetime Public Premium in Earnings: The View from Europe (written with Fabien Postel-Vinay and Hélène Turon) (Chapter 4) The focus of most of the current literature on public-private pay inequality is on differences in earnings levels, however the public-private differences are equally marked in terms of earnings mobility, earnings dispersion and job loss risk. Forward-looking agents care about earnings and job mobility as well as earnings levels, thus an assessment of the existence of a “public premium” should be based on measures of the lifetime value of employment in either sector. Using data from the European Community Household Panel survey, we evaluate the difference in lifetime value of employment in the public and private sector, taking into account differences in average earnings, earnings dispersion and earnings persistence. In addition to considering the effect of observed individual characteristics, such as education and labour market experience, the estimation strategy allows for unobserved heterogeneity – for example in terms of “public service motivation” – to influence the dynamics of individuals’ employment and earnings patterns. The common format of the ECHP permits the analysis to be carried out for six different European countries – Germany, The Netherlands, France, Italy, Spain and Portugal. This is first time this modelling strategy has been applied to European data, affording an international perspective on public-private pay inequalities.

<p> This research examines the relationship of leadership styles to career success using the Multi-Factor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ). The objective of this research was to identify how the selection and practice of appropriate project leadership styles benefited the leader based on five assessed success criteria. Participants include 159 students from a Midwestern University in leadership programs with leadership experience. Transformational leaders were identified as being more beneficial to leaders as supported through the comparison of MLQ results to career success factors. Statistical significance in transformational leaders found a stronger preference to each of the five assessed success factors when compared to transactional or passive-avoidant leaders. Of worthy discussion is the instrument&rsquo;s standard utilization of parametric data treatment in the presentation of medians and p-values. Results using medians verses means to determine data relationships found a stronger preference when comparing transactional leadership to each success factor when compared to transformational or passive-avoidant leaders. </p>

<p> Elite US-Sino joint education ventures in the People&rsquo;s Republic of China (PRC) have brought together diverse stakeholders to create a learning environment that supports innovation in the context of China&rsquo;s transformation to a service-based economy. These diverse stakeholders include: university administration, faculty, and students; government agencies; and industry. Theories of strategical alliances are useful in understanding how these stakeholders interact and influence these institutions during their establishment. Important insights can be learned about how to build successful cross-border education partnerships in a complex social environment.</p><p> Three descriptive case studies were conducted through in-depth interviews, site visits, and official documentation. The first case is the Hopkins-Nanjing Center at Nanjing University&mdash;the first US-Sino venture established in 1986. The second case is Duke Kunshan University, and the third case is the Schwarzman Scholars Program at Tsinghua University, heralded as the Rhodes Scholarship of China.</p>

<p> Lean manufacturing was first introduced in the United States in Womack&rsquo;s 1990 book, <i>The machine that changed the world</i>. This 10-year study was published in response to an increase in global manufacturing competition and the demand for American manufacturing companies to increase efficiency and quality while removing process wastes as seen in sustainable continuous improvement environments. Despite widespread interest and research supporting the obstacles senior managers face when implementing lean processes, there is little understanding of how organization development (OD) and change theories relate directly to lean implementation. This qualitative case study mapped out key organizational players&rsquo; conceptions of lean manufacturing and how they implemented the lean management system into an organization by comparing their mental models to OD change management models and Lean management models. The researcher interviewed and observed senior managers and production employees involved with implementing lean management system within one manufacturing organization. The primary purpose was to identify if and how senior managers&rsquo;, lean consultants&rsquo;, and other designated change agents&rsquo; inherent mental models align with existing OD theories and determine if an understanding in organizational development (OD) theory is necessary for the success of lean implementation. Data collected from interviews, production documentation review, and personal observations revealed senior management did not fully understand OD principles and as a result the lean implementation was short lived. These findings will help future organizations who choose to pursue such implementations to understand the importance of OD and change models prior to executing a lean cultural transformation.</p>

<p> Employee retention in the Canadian gaming/casino industry is an important consideration that allows organizations to maintain stability in a highly competitive hospitality environment. The purpose of this quantitative research was to determine if there was a relationship between employability skills, in the form of customer service aptitude and essential skills numeracy, and employee retention in the gaming/casino industry. The literature review supports the notion that hiring people with the correct person-job fit (P-J fit) has a high probability of retention (Edwards 1991). The current study looked at 298 employees hired by Manitoba Lotteries casinos (data supplied by Manitoba Lotteries Corporation) and applied bivariate analyses and a binary logistic regression analysis to identify if the customer service aptitude and numeracy assessments are useful tools in predicting employee retention in the gaming/casino industry. This approach encompassed information that identified customer service and numeracy/math skills as being critical to the successful performance of duties for a large number of gaming/casino employee positions. The results of the analysis were unable to provide evidence that high levels of customer service aptitude and numeracy/math assessment results significantly contributed to short term employee retention. However, significant relationships were identified between casino department and retention and between gender and numeracy scores. Implications of these results and directions for future research are discussed.</p>

<p> Organization Development (OD) has been used in a variety of ways to improve organizations both large and small. Interestingly, the institutions that teach and conduct research on organizations have been slow to adopt or utilize OD approaches and practices in their own institutions. This dissertation will use a thematic meta-synthesis approach to examine the case studies that have been conducted in which OD initiatives have been used in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) between 2000 and 2015. It will look to synthesize the main themes of these case studies in an effort to create a new grounded theory of OD practice for HEIs. The study looked at 34 case studies (12 articles and 22 dissertations) that took place at a mixture of public and private universities and colleges in the United States from 2000 to 2015. Using a qualitative thematic meta-synthesis approach allowed the research to uncover the prevailing themes and discuss in a macro sense how OD has been applied to HEIs.</p>

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Toronto, 2004. / Adviser: Peter Trifonas.