A gestão da qualidade configura-se em um dos conceitos mais importantes da gestão moderna. Frequentemente, divide-se suas dimensões em dois grupos, o primeiro composto por aspectos objetivos, as dimensões hard, e o segundo, composto por aspectos subjetivos, as dimensões soft. Dentre as dimensões soft, a liderança é uma das apontadas como mais relevantes para o estabelecimento de um ambiente de qualidade nas organizações. No entanto, embora a relação entre gestão de qualidade e liderança seja clara, há ainda diversas lacunas de pesquisa a serem exploradas, especialmente sobre a relação entre estilos de liderança específicos e a gestão da qualidade. Deste modo, o objetivo do presente estudo foi de explorar esta relação, utilizando-se, para tanto, do modelo de liderança transformacional-transacional, e do modelo Competing Values Framework. Participaram do estudo 47 gestores de qualidade, em sua maioria (74%) da região Sudeste do país, que foram contatados através de e-mail e mensagem na rede social LinkedIn,. Para a análise dos dados, utilizou-se correlação de Pearson, com o uso do software SPSS. Os dados encontrados confirmam achados da literatura que apontam que tanto a liderança transformacional, quanto a transacional apresentam relação com elementos da gestão da qualidade, com vantagem do primeiro estilo de liderança. A respeito dos estilos de liderança do Competing Values Framework, observou-se que os perfis associados a um estilo diretivo e de curto prazo demonstraram tendência a apresentar coeficientes de correlação mais altos, em detrimento dos perfis de estilo colaborativo e longo prazo. Sugere-se, em estudos futuros, estabelecer as mesmas correlações para diferentes participantes, especialmente gestores da alta administração. / Quality management is one of the most popular concepts in modern magament. Often, the quality management dimensions are divided into two groups, one of objective aspects, or hard dimensions, and other of subjective aspects, or soft dimensions. Among soft dimensions, leadership is one of the most relevant for establishing a quality environment in organizations. However, although the relationship between quality management and leadership is clear, there are still several research gaps to be exploited, especially on the relationship between specific leadership styles and quality management. Thus, the aim of this study was to explore this relationship, using, therefore, the transformational-transactional leadership model, and the Competing Values Framework model. The study included 47 quality managers, mostly (74%) of the country\'s southeastern region, who were contacted through e-mail and message on the social network LinkedIn. For data analysis, it was used Pearson correlation, and software SPSS. It was confirmed that transformational and transactional leadership are related with quality management elements, but the transformational leadership has some advantage. About Competing Values Framework leadership styles, it was observed that the profiles associated with a directive style and short-term demonstrated tendency to have higher correlation coefficients, instead of long-term and collaborative style profiles. We suggest, in future studies, establishing the same correlations for different participants, especially managers of top management.

This thesis provides an analysis of supervisory interactions between PhD supervisors and their students within social science disciplines, using the Competing Values Framework (CVF). Traditionally, such work has been conducted using a supervisor-centred perspective, and this thesis adds to the literature by adopting a student-centred view to look at supervisor's behaviours during the interaction, from a role performance perspective in light of the CVF. Drawing primarily on semi-structured interpersonal process recall interview data, the thesis considers a number of interlinking analytical themes. These can be divided into three broad groups. The first focuses on investigating the CVF roles that are adopted by the supervisor during the interaction and recognized by the students as important component parts of the most helpful supervisory moments. In line with the previous literature, I note that the most effective supervisory behaviours reflect the performance of all the eight CVF roles with the producer and the director occupying the dominant position. The second group is closely linked with the first and investigates CVF managerial roles represented by the least helpful supervision moments selected by the student. I note how PhD supervisors inadequate use, including both overuse and underuse of the CVF roles are related to the least effective supervisory moments. The director and the producer are again the most represented ones which are reported as being mostly underused. The third group analyses students advice on further improvements . In conclusion, I relate my analysis to existing literature and examined the contributions of the thesis to three main areas of research. This research finds that instances of positive and negative supervisee feedback reflect an increased influence of marketorientation and manageralism on research students and correspondingly inadequate use of managerial roles by supervisors.

Att företagskultur förknippas med organisatorisk effektivitet är flertalet forskare överens om. Enligt forskning inom Competing Values Framework finns ett flertal kriterier som leder till organisatorisk effektivitet. Dessa kriterier ska till olika grad korrelera med de fyra kulturtyper som Competing Values Framework baseras på. Då tidigare studier inom området främst har gjorts i USA och Sydkorea ämnar vi i denna studie undersöka om dessa effektivitetskriterier även kan appliceras på en svensk marknadsledare och icke-marknadsledare inom detaljhandelsbranschen. För att besvara uppsatsens syfte har vi valt att mäta kultur genom Organisational Culture Assessment Instrument. De resultat vi har fått fram genom vår undersökning visar att de effektivitetskriterier som forskning tidigare har hittat även stämmer överens med vårt resultat, men visar också att svenska organisationer till en högre grad än amerikanska och sydkoreanska präglas av en Clan Culture.

The purpose of this study was to determine the criteria used by foundation directors in assessing the effectiveness of contribution programs in company sponsored foundations. Quinn and Rohrbaugh's Competing Values Approach of organizational effectiveness was used as the theoretical framework for the study. The Competing Values Approach is an integrative effectiveness model which clusters eight criteria of effectiveness into four theoretical models of organizational effectiveness.

Master of Science / Department of Clinical Sciences / Bob L. Larson / The 2007 NAHMS (National Animal Health Monitoring System) survey indicated that early lactation health issues are major factors influencing reproduction and culling on U.S. dairy herds. The objective of this study was to evaluate fresh-cow health during the first 30 days in milk, and its association with days to pregnancy in the concurrent lactation. Data were collected on cattle that calved over a two month period (July and August 2009) on a dairy farm located in the Upper Midwest region of the U.S. Health and production data were collected daily for each cow from the beginning of lactation until the majority of the study population was confirmed pregnant. Both a competing risk analysis and a semi-parametric Cox regression model were used to test the association between specific health-related events and days to pregnancy and the outcomes of the two models were compared. These analyses showed metritis and dystocia in the first 30 days of lactation were associated with greater days to pregnancy. The only difference noted between parities was that lactation-five and greater cows were significantly associated with greater days to pregnancy. The two analyses showed conflicting significance of association between retained placenta, ketosis, twinning, lameness, and other non-specific illnesses with days to pregnancy. This study found that a competing risk analysis and a semi-parametric regression model were appropriate methods to analyze time sensitive data such as reproductive efficiency. This study supports the evidence that parity, metritis, retained placenta, ketosis, dystocia, twinning, lameness, and other non-specific illnesses can have an impact on reproductive efficiency.

Research on components of habit reversal suggests that awareness training alone may be an effective and efficient intervention for reducing nervous habits. This study evaluated the effectiveness of awareness training for the reduction of three nervous habits that manifest in public speaking: filled pauses, tongue clicks, and inappropriate use of the word "like." Four university students delivered short speeches during baseline and assessment sessions. Awareness training consisted of response description and response detection. Awareness training resulted in meaningful reductions in target behaviors for all participants. Booster awareness training sessions were necessary for all participants to achieve further reductions in target behaviors. Generalization probes conducted in front of a small audience indicated that treatment effects generally maintained at low levels. Social validity scores indicated that the treatment was acceptable, and participants indicated not only decreased use of verbal fillers, but also improved overall public speaking ability post-treatment. Although awareness training was effective, it was not more efficient than simplified habit reversal.

This research is about understanding effectiveness achieved from B2E (Business-to-Employee) e-business model. Though many studies have been undertaken on B2B and B2C models; research on B2E is still at an infancy stage. This research addressed the identified niche with a focus on the factors that lead to organisational effectiveness from B2E e-business model in the Australian context. The research was guided by Resourced Based Theory and Competing Values Framework to understand the impact of the model on organizational effectiveness. Research methods adopted for this research are exploratory; so that the 'new' area can be investigated and emerging new concepts in the same phenomena can be examined. Analysis of the data is interpretive, which was collected via interviews using a semi-structured questionnaire. The findings reveal that the Australian organisations investigated regard B2E e-business to be a dynamic and evolving model for internal management and servi ce to employees. The findings also indicate that B2E model is adopted differently in different organizations. However, the general pattern or theme that the data revealed is that the B2E applications tend to follow a stream of electronic applications such as electronic news (e-news), electronic documents (e-documents), electronic information (e-information), electronic human resource (e-HR) applications and electronic business processes for the management of employees and their internal processes. The resulting outcomes include both internal and external effectiveness in organisations with B2E e-business models.

Background: Dilated Cardiomyopathy (DCM) is the most common functional type of cardiomyopathy in children with significant morbidity and the leading indication for cardiac transplant over 5 years of age. Identification of baseline risk factors for failing medical management by etiologic grouping remain to be elucidated in a large populationbased study. The competing risk for heart death between all-cause mortality and heart transplantation is often overestimated in the literature and may obscure additional novel risk factors associated with poor clinical outcomes. Methods: The National Heart Lung and Blood Institute Pediatric Cardiomyopathy Registry collected longitudinal data from 1731 children with DCM in North America from 1990 to 2007. Composite endpoint (CEP) was the earlier occurrence of death or heart transplant. Univariate and multivariate predictors were identified from demographic and echocardiographic data (expressed as z-scores) collected within 30 days of diagnosis. A competing risk analysis was performed calculating cumulative incidence and identifying novel prognostic factors. All analyses were performed by etiologic group. Results: Multivariate Cox regression identified the highest mortality risk among children with idiopathic disease (N=1192, CEP: 41%) when diagnosed over age 6 years, and with congestive heart failure (CHF) and decreased left ventricular fractional shortening (FS). Risk factors for those with myocarditis (N=272, CEP: 26%) were older age, CHF, and increased left ventricular (LV) end-diastolic dimension (EDD); while for neuromuscular disease (N=139, CEP: 40%), it was a decreased FS and increased EDD. Only univariate predictors were identified for children with familial isolated cardiomyopathy (N=79, CEP: 44%) including: CHF, increased EDD, end-systolic dimension, or LV mass, and decreased FS or ejection fraction), while for children with inborn errors of metabolism (N=43, CEP: 33%) risk factors included: a positive family history of cardiomyopathy or genetic syndromes. The group of children with malformation syndromes (N=6, CEP: 50%) was not large enough to model. Comparison of cause-specific event rates between Kaplan-Meier and cumulative incidence demonstrated an overestimation with the former method. Competing risk multivariate regression showed similar models to those for CEP, with the following exceptions: for neuromuscular disease, an increased EDD had a larger hazard ratio for transplant than for death; for idiopathic disease, an increased EDD was associated with transplant, but not with death, and growth retardation (height-for-age zscore) was associated with death but not transplant. Conclusions: Within etiologic grouping, demographics and echocardiographic values at diagnosis have varying predictive value. Generally, the presence of symptomatic disease in the form of CHF, echocardiographic evidence of more severe DCM, and increased age were indicative of worse outcomes. These results help to validate those from conflicting studies; however, they suggest that etiology modifies the importance of particular factors. Analysis of competing risk provides an alternate interpretation of studies with composite endpoints and assists in the transfer of clinically relevant information. For children with idiopathic and neuromuscular disease, the degree of dilation had a differential effect that has gone unrecognized. The novel finding of reduced stature and its effect on mortality suggests a potential for treatment and mitigation of poor outcomes in idiopathic DCM. Both increased dilation and reduced stature could be used to improve the triage process and refer children to cardiac transplantation who otherwise might die prematurely and unnecessarily. Subsequent studies on the utility of these factors and their effect on improving survival are warranted.

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Pulsatilla vernalis is one of several endangered plant species that benefit from wildfires and small scale disturbance events that repel competing vegetation and create open patches in the vegetation cover. Previous studies argue that Pulsatilla vernalis is decreasing in numbers due to vegetation changes associated with the decrease in wildfires, forest grazing and changes in forest management. In this study, 17 populations of P. vernalis were inventoried in order to examine if soil and/or vegetation structures affect the population structure of P. vernalis (i.e. population size, presence of flowering individuals, density of juveniles) and if performed conservation attempts in the populations have been positive for P. vernalis. This was done by counting the number of vegetative, flowering and juvenile individuals and examining soil and vegetation structure in the populations. The population sizes were then compared with estimates of population sizes from earlier inventories of P. vernalis at the same localities. The study also presents specific recommendations for an improved conservation management of P. vernalis. The results of this study show that mechanical conservation management had a positive effect on the population size and that open areas in the vegetation cover provided better conditions for viable populations of P. vernalis. To prevent the trend of decreasing population sizes of P. vernalis, conservation measures must be carried out to repel competing vegetation and to restore or maintain open patches in existing populations.