This study was designed to show how the Figsboro Elementary School Child Study Committee transformed from an uninformed committee to one that became informed. This created a more effective Child Study Committee. Strategies were identified and implemented to show how this process evolved. / Ed. D.

This study analyzes the effectiveness of the Cooperatives Working Together (CWT) program. This program is believed to have improved the farm-level price of milk since it began in July 2003. To date, no publicly available analysis addressing this question has been conducted. Total milk removed by the program was determined and expressed as a percentage of total milk produced nationally during the same time frame. Elasticity measures from prior studies were adapted to determine the impact of the program. This analysis suggests the program has had a significantly positive effect on the price of milk. Issues dealing with future action were identified and discussed. In addition to analyzing the effectiveness of the CWT program, a survey was conducted among Utah dairy producers who had recently exited the industry. It was determined that the majority of these producers were older and did not exit through the CWT program. The primary reasons for their exit were their older age, low milk prices, and lack of family interest in continuing to operate the dairy.

Overhead and Behind is an ongoing learning exercise in three parts: Working Conditions, The Refusal of Objects and Disturbing Distribution (forthcoming). Through learning by doing, it unfolds new episodes as an attempt to look at the act of orientating different standpoints. The different parts of Overhead and Behind are examined in series of episodes and an ongoing glossary that expands words connected to the learning exercise. The purpose of Overhead and Behind is (a) to see how structures over-ones-head conceals value systems which conforms working conditions and (b) to practice the method of “being behind”, i.e. to slow-down and counterpose progress. The third aim (c) is to see how these standpoints can be practiced and how this act can insert a new valorization-system.

Developing countries are increasing their adoption of information systems at the country level now. One important aspect distinguishing the implementation of information systems in developing countries from that in developed countries is that developing countries usually lack the resources and capability for training and support, and the workers need to learn to use the system from their own experience. Thus, a better understanding of the workers’ learning-by-doing after the implementation of an information system in developing countries may have important theoretical and practical implications, but empirical evidence on this issue remains limited. This dissertation seeks to fill in the gap by investigating workers’ learning-by-doing after the implementation of an information system at two levels. First, it studies how an individual customs agent’ experience preparing and submitting customs documents influences her performance in document preparation and submission tasks. Second, it also examines how an agent-inspector dyad’s experience working together affects the performance of customs inspection tasks completed through the cooperation of the dyad. The first chapter provides an overview of the dissertation. The second chapter examines how the relatedness of workers’ prior experience affects their learning-by-doing and operational performance in service work. Prior research has viewed relatedness along a single dimension. However, tasks and the underlying knowledge required for task performance can vary along multiple attributes. This chapter extends prior conceptualizations of relatedness by defining it as a multi-dimensional construct and also accounting for the level of task relatedness between different categories in each task dimension. It separates the level of workers’ experience from the relatedness of their experience, and then link the two constructs to workers’ task performance, including their efficiency and quality. Analyzing data on the processing of 998,258 import customs declarations in Costa Rica from 2006-2010, the second chapter finds that customs agents, the major workers processing the customs declarations, learn from their experience to improve their time to complete the task but not their quality of completion. Moreover, it finds that the relatedness of customs agents’ experience to their current task is positively related to the quality of task completion but has a U-shape relationship with completion time, such that the completion time first decreases with and then increases with an increase in customs agents' experience relatedness. The chapter also finds that the impact of customs agents’ experience relatedness is enhanced when the agents have more experience. Overall, the results highlight the role of experience relatedness in workers’ performance in learning-by-doing service work, and help to identify ways for managers to improve different operational performance measures. Many service tasks are completed by dyads rather than by an individual worker. In this setting, the individuals in the dyad not only need to acquire knowledge about the task, but also have to learn to work with each other. Thus, individuals’ experience working together may have significant performance implications for dyads. However, this effect remains largely unexamined, especially when there are conflicts within the dyad. In the third chapter, it theorizes how a dyad’s experience working together influences the dyad’s task performance, and label it as a learning-by-working-together effect. The chapter further proposes that the impact of dyad experience can vary across tasks with different levels of complexity, goal conflict, and combinations of the two. It examines learning-by-working-together in a setting where there is goal conflict, but the dyad must work together to complete the task: customs inspections. Based on a field study on data of 323,520 customs inspections in Costa Rica, the third chapter shows that the number of prior interactions between a customs agent and a customs inspector is positively associated with the agent-inspector dyad’s efficiency in customs inspection. In addition, it demonstrates that the impact of an agent-inspector dyad’s experience working together is greater for high-complexity tasks than for low-complexity tasks, and weaker for high-conflict tasks than for low-conflict tasks. It also shows that due to a joint effect of task complexity and task-level goal conflict, dyad experience exhibits the largest impact on the performance of high-complexity, high-conflict tasks. The chapter discusses the implications of our results for the study of learning curves and for the practice.

<p dir="ltr">This research examined the impact of power dynamics in decision-making on both the gross income and perceived success of businesses. Additionally, it investigated the influence of premarital and postmarital factors on decision-making processes within businesses. The first chapter posited two hypotheses: first, that business income would positively correlate with participation in copreneurial relationships, and second, that perceived success would similarly correlate positively with such relationships. In the second chapter, hypotheses were advanced that premarital endowments would increase the likelihood of shared decision-making in businesses, and that postmarital conditions, viewed as assets, would positively influence joint decision-making.</p><p dir="ltr">Methodologically, the first chapter employed OLS regression for gross income analysis and logit regression for perceived success assessment. The second chapter utilized a two-stage least squares model to reinforce first chapter findings, alongside logit regression to examine the probabilistic effects of premarital endowments and postmarital assets on shared decision-making. The findings indicate no statistically significant relationship between business income and copreneurial management. Similarly, no significant association was found between perceived success and ownership of copreneurial businesses. Regarding determinants of joint decision-making within businesses, premarital endowments were minimally impactful, with greater reliance observed on postmarital assets, particularly the hours invested in business operations.</p>