This quantitative, non-experimental study was conducted to investigate the relationship among the behavioral agility of school leadership teams, school culture, and school performance. Additionally, the study sought to determine whether the influence of these variables and/or their relationships are modified by alterable and unalterable characteristics of the school. The study utilized Pisapia’s (2009) Strategic Leader Questionnaire (SLQ) to measure school leadership team’s behavioral agility in using five leadership influence actions (managing, transforming, bridging, bonding, and bartering). Cameron and Quinn’s (2005) Organizational Culture Assessment Instrument (OCAI) was used to determine if the school’s dominant organizational culture type (adhocracy, clan, hierarchy, or market) mediated the behavioral agility of school leadership teams and school performance. The study included 65 schools and approximately 1,500 classroom teachers from a very large urban school district located in the Southeast United States. The results indicate that behavioral agility, unidimensional and multidimensional factors, were significantly correlated to each organizational culture type, with the exception of the managing behavior subfactor in clan and adhocracy cultures. Student suspension moderated the relationship between behavioral agility and school culture. There was no relationship found between school culture and school performance; however, it was found that minority percentage negatively correlated market culture and school performance and student attendance negatively correlated both hierarchy and market cultures and school performance. / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2018. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

Purpose – Agile manufacturing concept was first coined by Iacocca institute in 1991 as a new manufacturing paradigm in order to provide and ensure competitiveness in the emerging global manufacturing order. Afterward, a considerable number of studies have been conducted in this area. Reviewing these studies reveals that they mostly focus on agile manufacturing drivers, definition and characteristics but few of them propose practical solutions to achieve it. Moreover, among proposed approaches toward agility, the impact of product design has been less studied. However, the substantial impacts of product design on manufacturing firms are widely accepted. To fill this gap, this research aims to analyse how the product design affects the potential of being agile in a manufacturing firm. In this research the main focus is on the architecture of product as a part of its design. Methodology – Since this research requires synthesizing and bridging two separate fields, agile manufacturing and product architecture, the “literature review” method is adopted. Findings – Agile manufacturing has four main dimensions: drivers, capabilities, strategies and providers. To become an agile competitor, a manufacturing firm should concentrate on enriching a set of appropriate agility capabilities. Moreover, product architecture allocates functions to physical chunks (major building blocks of a product) and determines interfaces among chunks. The analysis of reviewed literature exhibits that product architecture has strong implications for agility capabilities. These implications might have both positive or negative effects which result in various trade-offs. Additionally, these trade-offs disclose this fact that there is not a superior architecture. Thus, a manufacturing firm is able to adopt suitable product architecture by considering the product architecture impacts on agility capabilities and related trade-offs. Value – This study organized and summarized a considerable number of researches’ outcomes in the product architecture area. In addition, it covers the lack of attention to product architecture in agile manufacturing literature. Also, it exhibits how product architecture may contribute to manufacturers which are moving toward agility. This report raises managers and practitioners’ awareness regarding product architecture potential and probable consequences of different choices that they make.

Title: A Multiple Case Study on Contradictions and Pre-conditions for Outsourcing Agile Software Development ProjectsAuthor: Maksim Buslovič & Samson DeribeSupervisor: Jonas SöderlundDate: May 30th, 2012Background: In today’s turbulent business environment organizational success depends on its ability to embrace change and adapt quickly. The ability to satisfy customer is core to profitability; thus being agile is a prominent factor, because customer expectations are never static. One of the project management methods which is quite popular in the software development are is Agile Method. Agile methods depart from the classical project approach as it emphasizes more on interaction among participant, short iteration and continuous feedback to embrace the continuously evolving customer requirements. However, implementing Agile methods in a distributed project work seems to be challenging, thus limiting projects to optimize form their distributed resource as well as external parties.Aim: The purpose of this thesis is to understand how Agile methods contradict with the Outsourcing practice, which ultimately lead to identifying the possibilities to successfully outsource project work based on Agile methods. In addition, the study aims in providing a good ground for future study in ‘Outsourcing within Agile Methods’ to fill the big theoretical gap identified in the area.Methodology: The thesis used a qualitative approach that intends to build theory through iteration by waving back and forth between data and literatures in an inductive manner. The research design was based on multiple case study that used five interviews and one direct observation as an instrument to collect primary data along with secondary data; all three together ensure proper triangulation resulting in higher research validity. Open coding system was used to analyze data; and findings were presented by tables, figures, models and direct quotations.Results: The study shows that values and principles of agile software development which gives much emphasis on proximity in order to have a daily stand-up meetings, visualizations, constant contact with customers and other team members, knowledge sharing and fun disappear when the project is involved in outsourcing partly the development process; because the need use more plans & documentation, clear contracts and less interaction implying a contradiction in both ‘Agile methods’ and ‘Outsourcing’ practices. However, the study identified preconditions that must be considered while involving in outsourcing part of Agile software development: Outsource only if the part to be outsourced is not related to core product; Put a complete team in a co-located manner; Minimize interdependence among distributed teams; and there should be enough time before delivering product to customers.

For years heath care workers have been dealing with environmental changes which have created turbulent, complex work environments. Turbulence has been considered a negative phenomenon. However Workforce Agility may be a positive response to Environmental Turbulence. Other disciplines are familiar with the term Turbulence and Workforce Agility but there is little research available on this concept despite the impact that they may have on patient outcomes.The purpose of this research was to identify the relationship between Environmental Turbulence, Workforce Agility and Patient Outcomes through the examination of four alternative theoretical models.This research was conducted using secondary analysis of the IMPACT data set (Verran, Effken & Lamb, 2001-2004). The data were reanalyzed in order to answer different questions than the primary study. Causal modeling with path analysis and regression analysis was conducted to answer the research questions. Three questions included the use of either a moderator variable or mediator variable.The setting for the IMPACT Study was acute care hospitals in the Southwestern region of the United States. For the IMPACT study, the sample consisted of patient care units from teaching and non-teaching hospitals. Subjects consisted of staff members who were employed on the patient care units.Data collected from the Registered Nurses were used for the secondary analysis because this research was interested in looking primarily at the nursing unit. The total RN staff assigned to patient care units who responded to the questionnaires was N=454. The total number of patients who responded to the survey was N=1179.In summary, the unit characteristics that were found to be Antecedents to ET were the sub-composites of Team and Complexity. Proxy variables, Collaborative Culture Agility and Experiential Agility, were successfully formed as a composite for WFA and were tested with the primary data. No mediators or moderators were shown; however, main effects of WFA and ET did have an impact on patient outcomes.

Thesis (M.S. in Electrical Engineering) Naval Postgraduate School, March 1997. / Thesis advisors, Tri T. Ha, R. Clark Robertson. AD-A331 918. Includes bibliographical references (p. 69-70). Also available online.

Thesis (M.S.)--Humboldt State University, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 21-24). Also available via Humboldt Digital Scholar.

Software development methodologies provide guidelines and practices for developing information systems. They have evolved over time from traditional plan-driven methodologies to incremental and iterative software development methodologies. The Agile Manifesto was released in 2001, which provides values and principles for agile software development. Over the last few years, agile software development has become popular because its values and principles focus on addressing the needs of contemporary software development. IT and Business teams need agility to deal with changes that can emerge during software development due to changing business needs. Agile software development practices claim to provide the ability to deal with such changes. Various research studies have identified many factors/variables that are important for agile software development such as team autonomy, communication, and organizational culture. Most of these empirical studies on agile software development focus on just a few variables. The relationships among the variables is still not understood. The dimensions of agility and the relationship between agility and other variables have not been studied quantitatively in the literature. Also, there is no comprehensive framework to explain agile software development. This research study addresses these research gaps. This study analyzed a comprehensive research model that included antecedent variables (team autonomy, team competence), process variables (collaborative decision making, iterative development, communication), delivery capability, agility, and project outcomes (change satisfaction, customer satisfaction). It presents key dimensions of agility and quantitatively analyzes the relationship between agility and other variables. The PLS analysis of one hundred and sixty survey responses show that process variables mediate the relationship between antecedent variables and delivery capability and agility. The findings show that the delivery capability of the teams contributes to agility, antecedents and process variables contribute to agility, and delivery capability for better customer satisfaction. These results will help IS practitioners to understand the variables that are necessary to achieve agility for better project outcomes. Also, these quantitative findings provide better conceptual clarity about the relationship between various key variables related to agile software development.

Agile software development methods reduce project costs and development time by simultaneously enhancing quality. But despite these advantages, agile principles are rarely adopted by the whole organization. In fact, it seems difficult to describe what distinguishes an agile organization from another. Therefore, the objective of this thesis is to gain an understanding what factors constitute agility at an enterprise level and to develop a maturity model as measurement tool. To fulfill this aim, the thesis as based on a multi-paradigmatic approach combining behavioral and design science and utilizes a pluralistic set of research methods belonging to both paradigms. A comprehensive analysis of agility-related frameworks showed that despite partial similarity there is no consensus about what constitutes an “agile organization”. Hence, the thesis identified the structure to be found behind the concept of organizational agility using an exploratory research approach. A survey among organizations in the software and IT services industry was conducted and showed that organizational agility can be described using six interrelated factors that can be further aggregated into the three basic dimensions of “Agility Prerequisites,” “Agility of People,” and “Structures Enhancing Agility.” Based on these results, the Organizational Agility Maturity Model has been developed providing a theoretically and empirically grounded structure of organizational agility supporting the efforts of developing a common understanding of the concept. The application of the maturity model furthermore creates useful benefits for organizations and underscores the strategic character of organizational agility. It generates an awareness about the complexity of organizational agility. Furthermore, it may serve as a reference frame to implement a systematic and well-directed approach for improvements and continuous assessment of actions taken.

El texto completo de este trabajo no está disponible en el Repositorio Académico UPC por restricciones de la casa editorial donde ha sido publicado. / Over the years, the telecommunications sector has steadily grown in the last ten years while gaining relevance in the global market. Management of the supply chain generates various risks and complications, and many industries seek effective supply chain operation methods to meet their variable requirements. The objective of this research is to propose a supply-chain model focused on on-time delivery compliance with substantial support of knowledge management methodologies. The research study yielded a 91% increase in compliance from the given scenario.

Athletes of American football need the ability to stop, start, and reach top speed in an efficient manner. Football players on the defensive side of the ball require the skill of stopping a backward run and accelerating to a forward run. This action is termed the break. Football players receive year-round training in an effort to improve performance. Yet, many times, these athletes may not focus specifically on the muscular systems that are unique to the position they play. The law of specificity states that the more specific the training is for the action required, the more beneficial the outcome. This study utilized seventeen defensive players of a Division IA football team and compared the effect of two training programs on acceleration during the break. The first program was a standard conditioning program (SCP) for football players. The second program was the SCP combined with three ballistic-plyometric drills (BPD) designed to improve the acceleration of the break. The groups were pre tested and divided into either the SCP or the BPD using a matched pair ABBA procedure by position, from fastest to slowest. After six-weeks of training, the BPD group made a 24.9% (p<0.05) improvement in acceleration from 11.14 ± 0.43 m•sec2 to 13.78 ± 0.44 m•sec2. While the SCP group pre tested at 11.9 ± 0.41 m•sec2 and post tested at 12.42 ± 0.34 m•sec2 for a 6.3% change that was not statistically significant. We conclude that the addition of three specific ballistic-plyometric drills to a SCP will improve acceleration out of a break in American football players.