Thesis (M.B.A.)--Naval Postgraduate School, June 2003. / "MBA professional report."--Cover. Joint authors: Kurt P. Boenisch, Hector A. Cervantes, Andrew J. Clark IV, Jesse G. Espe, and Erik B. Lohrke. Thesis advisor(s): John Mutty, Raymond Franck. Includes bibliographical references (p. 61-62). Also available online.

published_or_final_version / Community Medicine / Master / Master of Public Health

The dissertation consists of three essays that explore the relationship between information technology and firms' organizational and governance structure. The first essay examines how information technology (IT) moderates the impact of firms' assets on the level of vertical integration and horizontal diversification. The empirical analysis suggests that IT is associated with a decrease in vertical integration in firms with more tangible assets. The analysis also indicates that IT is associated with a greater increase in horizontal diversification in firms with more intangible assets. The general implication of this essay is that firms with more tangible assets may use IT to become more vertically specialized, whereas firms with more intangible assets may deploy IT to become more horizontally diversified. The second essay uses a moral hazard model to examine the relationship between environmental uncertainty and decentralization in IT governance. It is shown that this relationship is determined by a trade-off between the need for processing local information and the moral hazard problem. The trade-off results in an inverted-U-shaped relationship between environmental uncertainty and decentralization in IT governance. The increase in environmental uncertainty first increases and then decreases the likelihood of adopting decentralized IT governance, and thus decentralized IT governance is not likely to be desirable when the external environment is either highly stable or highly turbulent. An empirical study using a sample of 455 business sites of Fortune 1000 companies validates the theoretical results. The third essay presents an analytical model to examine the design and management of partner relationships in IT service. The firm hires a manager to manage the partner relationship. However, the firm has to decide whether to delegate the design of the relational contract with the partner, to the manager. We find that when the firm and the manager have asymmetric information about the manager's inclination to maintain a long-term partner relationship for the firm, delegation in relational contracting can help the firm in screening the myopic manager from the farsighted manager.

This study examined the moderating effects of teachers' implementation of a research-based comprehension intervention on a related student outcome. In addition to looking at the utility of including implementation data in a model of student outcomes, the stability of implementation ratings across occasions and the relationship between two implementation data sources (teacher logs and researcher ratings) were examined. The program featured in the study consisted of research-based comprehension strategy instruction implemented in 4th grade classrooms during social studies. Two measures of implementation -- fidelity and overall instructional quality -- did not predict student outcomes. In the tested model, a student's comprehension skills upon entering 4th grade did more to predict post-intervention comprehension achievement than did the teacher's instructional practices. Secondary analyses showed that an overall measure of teacher quality appears to be relatively reliable across only a few measurement occasions. Fidelity scores were less stable across occasions. The alternative method of collecting implementation data used in this study (audio recordings) appears to offer a viable and less costly means of obtaining implementation data. In addition, when measured at a macro level, implementation fidelity data from two sources (teacher logs and researcher ratings) were moderately correlated. Results inform future theory-driven evaluation activities by providing information on approaching the task of documenting implementation and using that information to understand program outcomes.

published_or_final_version / abstract / toc / Educational Psychology / Master / Master of Social Sciences

Frameworks seeking to explain teaching competency and development in higher education indicate that context and personal perspectives, as well as knowledge and action are crucial components in the understanding of how and why faculty teach as they do and how development may be encouraged and may be supported. This study sought to contribute to a deeper understanding of individual instructors' perceptions of context of higher education as it related to their teaching projects. This study investigated the daily pursuits and pre-occupations (teaching goals/projects) of an individual instructor, specifically, the instructional demands, departmental demands, the personal and professional pursuits of knowledge and the pursuits of pedagogical knowledge. More specifically, this study investigated perceived facilitators and barriers to the realization of individual teaching and other work projects. / Nineteen full-time faculty members in the Departments of Physiotherapy, Occupational therapy, Nursing, Social Work, Educational Psychology and Education at a large research and teaching university in Montreal, Quebec participated in this study. The instructors were asked to complete an adapted version of Little's (1983) Personal Project Analysis (P.P.A.) instrument, which is designed to elicit an instructor's current pre-occupations or projects in his or her current context. The instructors were asked to rate these projects (seven teaching projects and seven other work projects) using a Likert scale (0 to 10) on twenty-one empirically supported dimensions. These dimensions included the following: enjoyment, difficulty, control, initiative, stress, time pressure, outcome, self-identity, others' view, value congruency, challenge, commitment, competence, support, self-worth, fun, others' benefit, self-benefit, supportiveness of culture (departmental level), hindrance of culture (departmental level), and overall current satisfaction. Instructors were asked to assess their perceived conflicts between two of their teaching projects and two of their other work projects in addition to completing a demographic questionnaire. / The findings indicate that instructors identified five different types of daily pursuits that formed and defined their teaching context, as they perceived it. These five types of daily pursuits (projects) included: course planning and preparation projects; student investment, support and delegation of tasks to student projects; knowledge building and knowledge sharing projects; committees, faculty support and faculty teaching projects; and finally, teaching strategy projects. The instructors also identified five different types of daily pursuits that formed and defined their other work context. These included: publishing, conference presentation and research projects; grant proposals and funding projects; office organization projects; correspondence, university committees, outside mandates, departmental expectations and management of student and faculty projects; and finally, personal objectives and technical skill building projects. / P.P.A. enabled the researcher to identify on an individual instructor level the instructor's perceived facilitators and barriers to the successful completion of teaching and other work projects. Furthermore, P.P.A. as a faculty development instrument or as an alternative to semi-structured interview methods is supported by the findings.

Studien undersökte vilka ledarbeteenden och organisatoriska förutsättningar som upplevs vara viktiga för att ett ledarskap ska kunna skapa hälsa och effektivitet i en arbetsorganisation utifrån både ledare och medarbetarperspektiv. Metoden för studien bestod av gruppintervjuer. Deltagare var nio personal ledare, varav två kvinnor och tio medarbetare, varav tre kvinnor på en svensk tillverkningsindustri och underlaget bestod av fyra gruppintervjuer, varav två med personal ledare och två med medarbetare. Resultatet visade att ledarbeteenden som upplevdes viktiga för att skapa hälsa och effektivitet var tydlighet, regelbundna medarbetarkontakter, lyssnande och personalvård. Organisatoriska förutsättningar som ansågs viktiga var personalgruppens storlek och tid för medarbetarkontakter. Resultatet visade samstämmighet mellan ledarskapsperspektiv präglade av att visa stöd och omtanke och att ge medarbetarna möjlighet att arbeta självständigt.

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