<p> This study examined how organizations that participate in Green programs made energy efficiency (EE) investments. The main organization studied was a large public sector organization that participated in the LEED certification program. Characteristics and aspects of the primary business processes of property utilization were explored. The findings determined that public sector property utilization has five primary business process roles: the owner, property manager, facility manager, construction manager, and end-user (tenant). These roles were the principal stakeholders in the EE investment process. The findings concurred with previous research that indicated the importance of strategic centrality in order for EE investments to be successful across the organization. The public sector EE investment was strongly driven by EE policies that derived from Executive Orders. A sustainable investment approach was seen as a critical prerequisite to obtain long-term returns on investment for EE and sustainability policies.</p>

<p> This research identifies critical factors that influence knowledge exchange between knowledge workers in professional organizations in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). The influence of boundary systems on global knowledge exchange between organizations was also studied. The significance of the research was to establish the critical relationships so that best practices could be suggested for STEM organizations. Theoretical lenses that guided this research included absorptive capacity theory, boundary spanning theory, cultural dimension theory, and trust theory. These theoretical lenses focused on organizations engaged in global knowledge exchange. The study&rsquo;s methodology employed an evidence-based research synthesis approach and systematic review technique with configurative thematic synthesis. The study&rsquo;s findings identified ten critical factors that influence knowledge exchange between global STEM organizations. Findings also identified boundary system influences on global knowledge exchange, and the pivotal role that the level of trust between and within organizations has in global knowledge exchange. The research led to recommended management practices for practitioners in STEM organizations to improve their ability to facilitate global knowledge exchange within communities of practice.</p>

<p> By pursuing private and collective political action in the nonmarket environment, businesses attempt to influence public policy that shapes their operating environment. This dissertation considers how a firm&rsquo;s market-based experience and its accumulation of political resources affect how the firm combines private and collective political tactics. Drawing on the resource-based view of the firm (RBV) I investigate how a firm&rsquo;s alliance experience, political resources and prior collective political experience influence the autonomy of its Corporate Political Activity (CPA). I use fixed effects GLS regression with clustered standard errors to test my model on a panel of 21,329 firm/year observations of 2,779 U.S. property casualty insurance companies over the ten-year period between 2005 and 2014. I find support for the influence of state-level political resources, equity alliances, and the interaction of prior collective CPA experience with regulatory complexity and learning capacity on autonomy. My findings contribute to the growing literature connecting market and non-market strategies by linking collaboration in the political arena to the related market activity of alliance experience. Findings also contribute to our understanding of how participation in a collective provides opportunities for learning, and reveals that taking advantage of this opportunity depends on a firm&rsquo;s learning capacity and the complexity of its regulatory environment. These findings add insight to the literatures on CPA, inter-organizational learning, collective action and trade associations. </p>

I examine the influence of managerial overconfidence and ability on 1) auditors' decision to issue a going concern opinion and 2) auditor dismissal rates after issuing a going concern opinion. When there is substantial doubt about the entity's ability to continue as a going concern for a reasonable period of time, auditing standards prescribe that auditors obtain and evaluate information about client management's remedy plans. I find that clients with overconfident managers are more likely to receive a going concern opinion. I also show that managerial ability mitigates the positive association between managerial overconfidence and the likelihood of a going concern opinion. Additionally, I examine how these managerial attributes influence auditor retention decisions, and find that auditors are more likely to be dismissed after issuance of a going concern opinion when the client company has overconfident management. Finally, I find that the association between managerial overconfidence and auditor dismissal is stronger when management is more powerful than the company's audit committee.

<p> The purposed of this quantitative study was to identify whether leadership skill requirements to perform one&rsquo;s job effectively varies by job function. This research focuses on leadership skill rather than other leadership constructs such as leadership traits because leadership skills can be developed and improved upon. Past research in this area has identified that leadership skill requirements vary by level within an organization (executive, middle management, lower management) but nothing exists examining by job function (Mumford, Campion, &amp; Morgeson, 2007). In this research, the job functions examined were sales, human resources, and finance, and 146 interviews were completed. The results showed that certain softer leadership skills (listening and critical thinking) were more important leadership skills across all 3 functions. The findings also suggest that leadership skill requirements were not the same for the 3 job functions. Sales professionals required more interpersonal skill than their finance counterparts.</p>

<p> Globalization is a transformational change phenomenon that is significantly and rapidly impacting today&rsquo;s organizations, leaders, and people. In turn, the role of the global business leader has become quite complex, and Fortune 500 organizations are facing a dearth of global leaders capable of addressing today&rsquo;s business leadership challenges. In response to this challenge, one particular strategy for developing global leaders focuses on building intercultural skills. However, given the complexity of their roles, global leaders may face difficulties in developing these skills. By first acknowledging these obstacles global leaders can then, through their work, develop effective strategies and practices in the intercultural domain. After some time spent working in their global roles, leaders may be in the best position to measure what intercultural strategies and practices are most effective. Once global leaders possess strong intercultural acumen, they can pass on their knowledge to emerging generations of leaders by recommending a number of strategies and practices that have proven effective in navigating the global business arena. </p><p> This study took a qualitative approach through semi-structured interviews of global leaders to gain a deeper understanding of the difficulties faced in developing intercultural skills. From that vantage point, the interviewees articulated strategies they have used to nurture these critical intercultural skills. Success measures for global leaders demonstrating applicable intercultural skills may include effective communication, team cohesion, and goal achievement. Other success measures were discovered as a result of this study. Collectively, these measures inform new strategies and tools to develop and coach future generations of emerging global leaders seeking to enhance their intercultural acumen.</p>

<p> Toxic leadership is associated with a number of negative consequences to the long-term health and welfare of people in organizations. Destructive leader styles redirect employee efforts from mission accomplishment to self-protection and survival behaviors, undermining the organization. Increased demand and decreased funding are characteristic of the nonprofit sector. Therefore, successful nonprofit organizations tend to rely on creativity and innovation to ensure their communities are appropriately and sufficiently sustained. Supportive, not toxic, leadership helps foster organizational environments that encourage prudent risk-taking and innovation. </p><p> This concurrent mixed methods study explored the relationship between toxic leadership and organizational citizenship and turnover behaviors among 471 survey respondents from a sample of San Diego nonprofit paid staff, and considered the influence commitment has on those relationships. An open ended question for those who reported experiencing toxic leadership provided additional context and depth as to why employees stayed in an organization in spite of abusive supervision. The findings of the study are of interest to leaders and managers of nonprofit organizations to develop policies and training processes as they strive to recruit, retain and develop talented employees. </p><p> Toxic supervision was found to exist in San Diego nonprofit organizations. However, its effect on organizational citizenship (OCB) and turnover behaviors was inconclusive, as was the influencing effect of commitment, in this study. However, both commitment and OCB-like ideas emerged as stated reasons that participants did not leave the organization, as did career, resilience and opportunity concepts. These identified variables suggest complex relationships that act in concert to influence staff retention indicating possible important opportunities for future research.</p>

This research looked at absenteeism on a Corps-wide basis to determine the extent of recidivism and man-days lost to the Marine Corps as a result of unauthorized absenteeism. The personnel records for absentees contained in the Marine Corps' Transaction Retrieval System files were analyzed using computer programming. It was found that there were 60,120 incidents of unauthorized absence (UA) reported during the Calendar Year 1974. This number includes a count of 6,799 incidents which were for a period of less than 24 hours and 12,393 incidents of desertion. The recidivism rate was found to be approximately 40.5 percent with 13,966 Marines as repeat offenders who were responsible for 39,630 incidents of UA. The Marine Corps also lost 2,230,033 man-days of service as a direct result of unauthorized absenteeism initiated during 1974. In addition, demographic factors were examined, in a preliminary way, for their possible relationship to absenteeism.

The importance of social capital can be characterized by a well-known quote: "it's not just what you know, but whom you know". Firms with rich social capital are more informed, more capable, and more competitive, because networks of resources are within their reach. Social capital is embedded in social networks, and social network analysis is the chief topic of this research. The network being examined contains 1126 venture capital (VC) programs, 206 of them being corporate venture programs, and the rest consisting of independent venture capital firms. Venture programs co-invest in portfolio firms following an identifiable pattern. This research attempts to explain this co-investment pattern using social network analysis. Four attributes of social networks are explored during this analysis: prominence, range, brokerage, and cohesion. The findings of the corporate venture capital network provide a number of implications for the theory of social capital. The objective of the thesis is <em>using social capital to examine the syndication patterns in a corporate VC network</em>. The analysis of the corporate VC co-investment pattern supports four hypotheses. First, the corporate VC network is not cohesive. Second, most relationships in the network are indirect. Third, most prominent VCs are also the most powerful resource brokers in the network. Lastly, prominent VCs are likely to syndicate with other prominent VCs.

To reflect common practice in the software industry and extend transaction cost theory, this research developed building on previous research and empirically tested a model based on to identify conditions in which software vendors are likely to sell and distribute their packaged products directly to end-users through the Internet. How software firms distribute their products over the Internet is an important issue because software is a digital product, and the potential for the Internet to transform the distribution channel is considerable. Extant literature shows that Canadian software firms frequently choose direct instead of market channels. However, none of the existing studies focuses specifically on packaged software, or on the Internet as a distribution channel. Further, recent research on what products are suitable for distribution through the Internet does not address the case of packaged software. <ul> <li>Knowledge-based asset specificity, human asset specificity, and physical asset specificity are positively associated with the likelihood of using the Internet to distribute packaged software (H₁, H₂, and H₃). </li> <li>The likelihood of using the Internet in delivering products has a positive relationship with the volatility of packaged software, its clients, and markets (H₄); whereas this likelihood has a negative relationship with diversity (H₅). </li> <li>Channel growth is positively associated with the online distribution of packaged software (H₆); Channel volume is negatively associated with the likelihood that packaged software developers use the Internet to deliver products (H₇). </li> <li>The rate of growth in gross sales has a positive relationship with the likelihood of online distribution by packaged software firms (H₈); while the gross sales of a firm negatively are associated with this likelihood (H₉). </li> <li>The use of the Internet in the distribution of packaged software is positively associated with the United States market and negatively associated with other national markets (H₁₀). </li> </ul> The data to test these hypotheses were collected from Canadian software developers by a web-based survey. The information includes the distribution channels for their best selling product in its largest market, and Likert scales that measure forms of asset specificity, market uncertainty, and channel volume. The hypotheses are tested using logistic regression. The results provide support for hypotheses H₅, H₆, and H₉ whiles hypotheses H₁, H₂, H₄, H₇, H₈, and H₁₀ are not supported. The result for H₃ is statistically significant, but the direction of the relationship is the opposite of the expectation. <br /><br /> The results of this study have implications both for theory and managerial practice. This research contributes to the literature a test of the ability of transaction cost analysis to explain the use of the Internet in distributing software. It also provides managers with reliable insights into some of the circumstances where packaged software developers may use the Internet to deliver their products. However, further research is required to verify the generalizability of the findings of this study.