Thesis (M.B.A.)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2009.

Det här arbetet studerar med hjälp av en attitydundersökning förhållandet mellan anställdasoldater och Försvarsmakten i syfte att utveckla förståelsen för soldaters commitment till sinarbetsgivare. Frågeställningen lyder Hur ser soldaters relationer ut till arbetsgivarenFörsvarsmakten? Arbetets teoretiska grund hämtas i begreppet relationship commitment och närmare bestämtden del som benämns attitudinal commitment. Den begreppsdefinition som nyttjas bygger ihuvudsak på Meyer och Allens (1991) tre komponenter av relationship commitment, det villsäga affective commitment (känslomässig), continuance commitment (kalkylativ) ochnormative commitment (normativ). Begreppsdefinitionen inkluderar även åtta påverkansfaktorer som var och en ges en tydlig knytning till respektive komponent avrelationship commitment. Påverkansfaktorerna utgörs av personlig kompetens, deladevärderingar, förtroende, upplevelser, relationsfördelar, relationsavvecklingskostnader samtskyldigheter och tvingande miljö.Till skillnad från många tidigare studier görs här en tydlig koppling mellan påverkansfaktoreroch komponenter. Vidare studeras relationen mellan arbetstagare och arbetsgivare inomoffentlig sektor vilket även det är relativt ovanligt. Tidigare har framförallt relationer mellanorganisationer inom privat sektor eller olika former av nätverk studerats.Undersökningens resultat visar att soldaternas relation med Försvarsmakten framföralltbygger på en känslomässig grund där personlig kompetens och upplevelser samt deladevärderingar har störst betydelse. Därtill kan föras att även förtroende har viss betydelse förrelationen. Inom den kalkylativa komponenten spelar en förväntan om personlig utveckling enviss roll, men i övrigt har komponenten begränsat inflytande på relationen. I studienkonstateras också att det i princip inte finns någon normativ grund i soldaternas relation medFörsvarsmakten. / Using an attitude survey, this essay studies the relationship between employed soldiers and their employer the Swedish Armed Forces in order to develop an understanding of therelationship between these parties. The research question is: What do soldiers' relationships totheir employer, the Swedish Armed Forces, look like?The theoretical basis of the study is build on the theories of relationship commitment, andmore specifically the part that can be linked to attitudinal commitment. The conceptualdefinition used is mainly based on Meyer and Allen's (1991) three components of relationshipcommitment, namely affective commitment (emotional), continuance commitment(calculating) and normative commitment (normative). The concept definition also includeseight influencing factors, each given a clear linkage to the respective component ofrelationship commitment. The influencing factors are personal competence, shared values, trust, experiences, relationship benefits, relationship termination costs, obligations andimperative environment.Unlike many previous studies done in this area, a clear link between the influencing factorsand their respective components is defined. In addition, the survey covers the relationshipbetween workers and employers in the public sector which is also relatively rare. Previously,mainly relationships between organizations in the private sector or in various forms ofnetwork have been studied.The results of the survey show that soldiers' relationship with the Swedish Armed Forces arebased in particular on an emotional basis, where feelings of personal competence, desire forexperiences and shared values are most important. In addition, trust has some but lesssignificance for the relationship. Within the caculating component an expectation of personaldevelopment play a certain role but otherwise the component has limited influence on the relationship. In principle, there is no normative basis in the soldiers' relationship with theSwedish Armed Forces.Keywords:

Wind power installations are growing rapidly throughout the world due to environmental concerns associated with electric power generation from conventional generating units. Wind power is highly variable and its uncertainty creates considerable difficulties in system operation. Reliable operation of an electric power system with significant wind power requires quantifying the uncertainty associated with wind power and assessing the capacity value of wind power that will be available in the operating lead time. This thesis presents probabilistic techniques that utilize time series models and a conditional probability approach to quantify the uncertainty associated with wind power in a short future time, such as one or two hours. The presented models are applied to evaluate the risk of committing electric power from a wind farm to a power system. The impacts of initial wind conditions, rising and falling wind trends, and different operating lead times are also assessed using the developed methods. An appropriate model for day-ahead wind power commitment is also presented. Wind power commitment for the short future time is commonly made equal to, or a certain percentage, of the wind power available at the present time. The risk in meeting the commitment made in this way is different at various operating conditions, and unknown to the operator. A simplified risk based method has been developed in this thesis to assist the operator in making wind power commitments at a consistent level of risk that is acceptable to the system. This thesis presents a methodology to integrate the developed short-term wind models with the conventional power generation models to evaluate the overall operational reliability of a wind integrated power system. The area risk concept has been extended to incorporate wind power, evaluate the unit commitment risk and the well- being indices of a power system for a specified operating lead time. The method presented in this thesis will assist the operator to determine the generator units and the operating reserve required to integrate wind power and meet the forecast load for a short future time while maintaining an acceptable reliability criterion. System operators also face challenges in load dispatch while integrating wind power since it cannot be dispatched in a conventional sense, and is accepted as and when present in current operational practices. The thesis presents a method to evaluate the response risk and determine the unit schedule while satisfying a specified response risk criterion incorporating wind power. Energy storage is regarded as an effective resource for mitigating the uncertainty of wind power. New methods to incorporate energy storage with wind models, and with wind-integrated power system models to evaluate the wind power commitment risk and unit commitment risk are presented in this thesis. The developed methods and the research findings should prove useful in evaluating the operating risks to wind farm operators and system operators in wind integrated power systems.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Waikato, 2008. / Title from PDF cover (viewed April 30, 2008). Includes bibliographical references (p. 262-298)

The aim of this quantitative study was to determine the relationship between authentic leadership (AL) and organisational commitment (OC) in a State hospital in South Africa. In this study AL was measured by means of the Authentic Leadership Questionnaire (ALQ) while OC was measured by the Organisational Commitment Questionnaire (OCQ). The self-report paper-and-pencil questionnaires were administered to a convenience sample of 222 participants in a State hospital in South Africa. The ALQ produced a Cronbach alpha coefficient of 0.815, while the OCQ produced a Cronbach alpha coefficient of 0.891, both of which were considered adequate for the purpose of the current study. Results indicated that there is a statistically significant positive relationship between Overall AL and Overall OC (r = 0.19, p ≤ 0.05). Results also indicated a statistical significant positive correlation between Overall AL and the three OC dimensions, namely Affective Commitment (r = 0.12, p ≤ .05), Continuance Commitment (r = 0.13, p ≤ .05) and Normative Commitment (r = 0.20; p ≤ .05). All the correlation coefficients obtained, although statistically significant at the 0.05 level, were of small practical effect, ranging from a low of 0.12 to a high of 0.20. These small correlations indicate that the relationships between the variables were weak, despite being statistically significant. The results of the regression analysis conducted indicated that AL accounted for a statistically significant amount of variance of Overall OC (adjusted r2 = 0.03, F (1.218) = 8.38, p ≤ 0.05), and of one of its three dimensions, namely Normative Commitment (adjusted r2 = 0.04, F (1.218) = 9.52, ρ ≤ 0.05). However, AL was unable to significantly predict the two dimensions of Continuance Commitment and Affective Commitment. Although two of the regression scores obtained in this study were statistically significant, the amount of variance they explained was extremely small, ranging from a low of 3% to a high of 4%. These results indicate that AL can predict the Overall OC and the Normative Commitment of a sample of participants in a State Hospital in South Africa. Limitations of the empirical study were the small sample size that was used in this study (n = 222), and the fact that the study was conducted in a single State Hospital, making the generalisation of results to other State or Private Hospitals in South Africa problematic. It was also recommended that due to the importance of AL as a contemporary approach to leadership, it should be studied further to determine its relationship with other organisational variables besides OC. / Industrial and Organisational Psychology / M. Com. (Industrial and Organisational Psychology)

Escalation of commitment refers to the tendency of decision makers to continue with failing courses of action (Staw, 1981). An abundance of research has shown that decision makers persistently escalate commitment to less favorable alternatives when making a series of decisions related to a single course of action. This decision making fallacy occurs across a wide range of personal and professional settings, and has significant implications for management and policy. There has been a wealth of research suggesting various explanations for why escalating commitment occurs across a wide range of situations; however, there have been relatively few studies investigating factors that may reduce this type of irrational decision making. Emotional intelligence is the ability to recognize and understand emotional information in oneself and others and use that information to guide one's thinking and behavior (Salovey & Mayer, 1990). This study investigated the previously unexplored relationship between emotional intelligence and escalation of commitment decisions. It also examined whether anticipatory emotions and risk perceptions mediate the relationship between emotional intelligence and escalation of commitment. It was hypothesized that individuals who have higher emotional intelligence will be less likely to commit additional funds to unfavorable courses of action, and that this relationship is mediated by anticipatory emotions and risk perceptions. These hypotheses were tested using a scenario based experiment with 110 undergraduate students at a large Midwestern university. Escalation of commitment was measured using Staw's (1976) "Adams & Smith Financial Decision Case" (p.30). Emotional intelligence was measured using the 33-item emotional intelligence scale (Schutte, Malouff, Hall, Haggerty, Cooper, Golden, & Dornheim, 1998) The relationship between emotional intelligence and escalation of commitment was tested using regression analysis, and the mediating relationships (anticipatory emotions, risk perceptions) were tested using Baron and Kenny's (1986) mediation procedure. Findings from the study reveal several practical and theoretical contributions. Results suggest that emotional intelligence is not significantly related to escalation of commitment. However, anticipatory emotions were shown to play an important role in one's tendency to escalate commitments. Those who anticipated more positive emotions about finishing the course of action were significantly more likely to escalate commitments toward its completion. In addition, managerial experience was significant in reducing one's tendency to escalate commitments. Results, strengths, weaknesses and future research directions are discussed in relation to the current study.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-12-17T13:53:39Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 GlendaMMFF.pdf: 399434 bytes, checksum: 28a623d9476a5757f4545369ccd69301 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2006-07-17 / Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cient?fico e Tecnol?gico / This study presents the results of field research of an exploratory descriptive character that seeks to identify the latent dimensions of leadership and organizational commitment as well as to discover the relationship between these two sets of indicators. In the study, 236 respondents were interviewed, 84 being managers or owners and 152 being sales personnel. The research was undertaken in five shopping centers in the municipality of Natal, capital of Rio Grande do Norte, and employed two different questionnaires. One of them was developed by Bass and Avolio, 1992 (in NORTHOUSE, 2004), contained 21 indicators of leadership and was completed by store managers. The other instrument, completed by sales personnel in the stores, was developed by Medeiros, Albuquerque, Marques and Siqueira (2003) and contained a total of 28 indicators of organizational commitment. For the analysis of the data, factor analysis techniques and structural equations modeling were used. Using the factor analysis, five dimensions of leadership and seven dimensions of organizational commitment were found, all of which have a theoretical basis for their explanation. Through the structural equations modeling, a relationship was established between leadership and organizational commitment, in which it was possible to observe that certain leadership styles influence in a positive form the commitment of the employee / Este estudo apresenta os resultados de uma pesquisa de campo de car?ter explorat?rio-descritivo que buscou identificar as dimens?es latentes da lideran?a, e do comprometimento organizacional, bem como encontrar rela??es existentes entre esses dois conjuntos de indicadores. Na pesquisa foram entrevistados 236 respondentes, sendo 84 gerentes ou propriet?rios de lojas e 152 vendedores. A pesquisa foi realizada em 84 lojas localizadas em cinco shopping centers do munic?pio de Natal, capital do Rio Grande do Norte, e utilizou dois question?rios diferentes. Um deles foi desenvolvido por Bass e Avolio, 1992 (apud NORTHOUSE, 2004), contou com 21 indicadores de lideran?a e foi respondido pelos gerentes de lojas. O outro instrumento, respondido pelos vendedores das lojas, foi desenvolvido por Medeiros, Albuquerque, Marques e Siqueira (2003), e conta com um total de 28 indicadores do comprometimento organizacional. Para a an?lise dos dados, foram utilizadas as t?cnicas de an?lise fatorial e a modelagem de equa??es estruturais. Utilizando a an?lise fatorial, foram encontradas cinco dimens?es da lideran?a e sete dimens?es do comprometimento organizacional, todas elas com respaldo te?rico em suas explica??es. Atrav?s da Modelagem de equa??es estruturais, foi estabelecido um modelo de rela??es entre a lideran?a e o comprometimento organizacional, em que foi poss?vel observar que determinados estilos de lideran?a influenciam positivamente o comprometimento do empregado

The purpose of this Master’s research was to explore factors involved in youth athletes’ sport commitment decision following multiple concussions and persistent symptoms. Individual semi-structured interviews were conducted with 11 pre-adolescent and adolescent athletes (three males, eight females) between 12 and 18 years of age (M = 15.25). Participants were involved in a variety of sports including soccer (n = 3), hockey (n = 3), basketball (n = 1), cheerleading (n = 1), gymnastics (n = 1), jiu-jitsu (n = 1), and rugby (n = 1). Based on the data emanating from the interviews, two articles were written. In article one, the sport commitment model (SCM) (Scanlan, Chow, Sousa, Scanlan, & Knifsend, 2016) facilitated the exploration of the determinants of youth athletes’ sport commitment following multiple concussions and persistent (i.e., lasting beyond 28 days) symptoms. A further objective was to expand upon the current SCM by exploring other potential determinants specifically related to return to play after multiple concussions. Findings indicated that sport enjoyment, valuable opportunities, and the desire to excel were the most salient sources of sport commitment. Constructs pertaining to social influences were the least influential in athletes’ sport commitment. Findings also supported the addition of athletic identity as a new construct in the SCM. Article two uncovered the psychosocial challenges faced by youth athletes during recovery and return to play following multiple concussions and protracted symptoms. The findings revealed that athletes with concussions experience concerns about persistent symptoms, re-injury anxiety, a diminished perceived ability, lack of social support, and emotional turmoil and mental health problems. Finally, findings provided insight into the potential role concussions and ensuing psychosocial challenges may play in mental health and wellbeing. Collectively, this research improves the understanding of difficulties experienced by youth athletes following multiple concussions and supports the need to improve concussion education and foster a more supportive environment.

This study aimed to investigate the use of values based training with typically developing adults to affect levels of physical activity recorded by FitBit Flex technology in the form of step count. Traditional approaches have shown promise but with mixed results. Interestingly, one must look outside of behavior analysis for interventions attempting to affect control by an individual’s covert verbal behavior. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) has been shown to be effective in various behavior change areas by using a values based approach that focuses on the control of rules and their motivative functions. An ACT training protocol (ACTr) consisting of values identification, present moment training, and committed action (goal setting) was implemented across four sessions to teach various tools in an effort to relate personal values to physical activity and create short-term and long-term goals with respect to those values. Results show small to moderate increases in physical activity during intervention with continued increases seen in follow-up. These results support the potential of using values based training to increase physical activity levels.

The purposes of this study are a) to explore the construct of "marital commitment" in order to achieve a more clear definition of it; b) to identify the component factors involved in the construct; and c) to design and develop an instrument for assessing the construct.