Women have historically been underrepresented in the field of information technology. The literature related to the underrepresentation of women in information technology has focused on developing strategies for attracting more females into the industry. Despite these efforts, the number of women in information technology has been declining. The factors that contribute to the career persistence of women in information technology were investigated. An exploratory multiple case study methodology was used with nine women who have been employed in the information technology field for a minimum of five years. The subjects underwent a series of two interviews that focused on the reasons why they thought they had been able to have sustained careers in information technology. A qualitative analysis of the interviews was conducted to determine the factors that the subjects identified as contributors to their career persistence. The interviews were also analyzed to discover whether women that have had sustained careers in information technology conceptualize their experiences from particular feminist perspectives. The findings provided insights into the following factors that contribute to career persistence among women in information technology. These factors included how a woman 2 transitioned into her first information technology position, personal traits, effective career strategies, and effective coping strategies. While there will be individual differences, each subject presented that a combination of the stated factors directly contributed to her sustained career in information technology. Women in information technology were found to conceptualize their experiences through a variety of feminist perspectives. The existential feminist perspective was used extensively as a rationale for how societal expectations shape peoples view of women in information technology. The Marxist/socialist feminist and radical feminist perspectives were utilized when describing the barriers against women in information technology. The liberal feminist and postmodern feminist perspectives served as a foundation for recommendations to increase the likelihood for women entering and staying in the field of information technology. / Department of Educational Leadership

This case study describes the organizational culture of a small, private Midwestern university (SPMU). Specifically, the study employs the Competing Values Framework (CVF) (Quinn & Rohrbaugh, 1981) and the Organizational Culture Assessment Instrument (OCAI) (Cameron & Quinn, 1999) to diagnose overall institutional culture and identify distinctive subcultures along representative demographic criterion. The cultural diagnosis achieved with OCAI is expanded through data analysis and used to investigate and demonstrate the utility of the Three-perspective Theory (TPT) of culture offered by Martin (2002).The results of this investigation support the ability of the Organizational Culture Assessment Instrument (OCAI) data to demonstrate simultaneously the three perspectives offered by Martin (2002): integration, differentiation and fragmentation. The integrationist bias of CVF and OCAI is shown to be overly narrow given its ability to quantitatively demonstrate multiple perspectives of culture with appropriate analysis. The intersection of OCAI data with the Three-perspective Theory is shown to expand the implementation and interpretation of both approaches to cultural investigation. This is the first time the OCAI has been used in intersection with the Martin (2002) Three-perspective Theory and the second time the OCAI has been used to test for subcultures in higher education as indicated by Paparone (2003) and available research published to date. This is the first published account of subcultural testing with OCAI in a traditional, comprehensive institution of higher education along demographic parameters. / Department of Educational Studies

Performance measurement in higher education is examined during this study, in particular university performance indicators are reviewed and discussed. The conclusion is made that appropriate input and output indicators require some form of combination in order to allow practical consideration to be made. The technique of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) is reviewed and found to have a number of conceptual drawbacks. The model is considerably developed within the thesis, primarily by the introduction of weight restrictions on the variables. Taken as a whole the developments, coined the DEAPMAS process, create a technique which can be used to assess cost effectiveness rather than simply efficiency. Data for two examples of subject areas, defined by recognised accounting units, are applied to the program as inter-university comparison was felt to be impractical at institutional level; due to differing subject mixes. A considerable computer implementation of the developed theory was written and utilised to provide results over a number of data runs for the examples. It was concluded that the results obtained represented a considerable improvement over separate consideration of numerous performance indicators.

International social movement coalitions are a promising instrument to address systemic problems in a globalizing world. This thesis explores the issue of maintenance of these coalitions by examining the factors that have facilitated or inhibited the maintenance of the Hemispheric Social Alliance as an example. This thesis is based on a qualitative case study; data includes some content analysis but mostly consists of direct interviews. The main finding is that factors such as resources, internal relationships, external conditions and management all affect the maintenance of an international social movement coalition. The thesis argues for increased links between social work and social movement coalitions, and offers insights for social work policy, research and practice.

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Despite the substantial amount of work undertaken on internationalization to-date, most has placed little emphasis on the temporal processes and dynamics of internationalization in shaping firm internationalization histories. This is reflected in several problem areas in theories and research regarding internationalization including accelerated internationalization, full and partial de-internationalization and use of multiple modes of entry at a point in time. This study addressed an important question: what factors and processes affect the way a firm???s pattern of internationalization changes over time? Although mainstream theories of internationalization and recent advances that link internationalization and entrepreneurship assume the importance of ???opportunity???, there is a paucity of research that that places ???opportunity??? as the core process in internationalization. By embracing time as a key dimension, this study reconceptualized internationalization as an entrepreneurial process: as the process of opportunity discovery, evaluation and exploitation in international markets. The research was undertaken in two phases. Phase 1 included a literature review covering the internationalization and entrepreneurship research streams. The discovery-evaluation-exploitation framework from entrepreneurship was used to identify relevant factors and explore eight case studies. By drawing on results from the exploratory research, an initial conceptual model and a set of propositions were developed. In Phase 2, fifteen case studies were theoretically sampled from a pool of small and medium enterprises from the knowledge and non-knowledge based industries in Australia. The data collection and analysis followed a process, event-driven approach to case study research involving the mapping of key sequences of events as well as within and cross case analysis. The results clarified the nature and pattern of opportunity discovery, evaluation and exploitation, and a number of factors that influence this process: the role of prior knowledge, network ties, serendipity, absorptive capacity, bricolage, the nature of uncertainty, feedback mechanisms and effectual versus causal reasoning. The findings also suggest the evolutionary process of firm development and internationalization and show that born globals may be a classification error. The results indicate that full and partial de-internationalization as well as the use of multiple modes of entry are influenced by the interconnectedness of opportunities across the founding, domestic and international context over time; the role of Knightian uncertainty which can push or pull the patterns in many directions and how firms rely on effectual reasoning. The results provide a better understanding of the basic mechanisms of internationalization. The academic contributions of this thesis include the extension of Jones and Coviello???s (2005) model and previous models by developing a dynamic, process model of internationalization that is capable of addressing the temporal and dynamic gaps in internationalization; the integration and reconciliation of extant theories of internationalization by understanding the role of mode of reasoning; and the establishment of ???opportunity-firm??? nexus as a suitable unit of analysis in internationalization and international entrepreneurship research. Finally, the managerial contributions include guidance for firms and entrepreneurs in terms of dealing with uncertainty and complexity in international markets using the appropriate mode of reasoning (i.e. effectual, non-predictive approach vs. causal, predictive approach) in the right context and circumstances.

FernUniversiẗat, Diss.--Hagen, 2004.

Zugleich: Diss. Staatswiss. Basel, 2005. / Literaturverz.

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