When organizational leaders create cultures that foster employee engagement, the leaders experience multiple benefits such as enhanced organizational performance, increased profitability, and improved retention rates. Although small business leaders must create and sustain atmospheres that nurture employee engagement to experience maximized success, 85% of organizational leaders struggle with executing strategies that increase engagement. The purpose of this qualitative, single case study was to explore strategies that small business leaders use to increase employee engagement. Servant leadership theory was the conceptual framework chosen for this study. The population included 3 small business leaders of a coffee shop located in Birmingham, AL. A review of company documents, as well as member checking of initial interview transcripts, helped to strengthen the credibility and trustworthiness of the interpretations. The final interpretations consisted of 2 main themes: creating a culture that enhances and sustains employee engagement and demonstrating leadership characteristics that increase employee engagement. Employee engagement increases when leaders use strategies that include effective employee development strategies, incentives and rewards, deliberate hiring practices, effective communication, leading by example, and leveraging employee innovation and ownership. These findings influence positive social change by uncovering strategies necessary to increase employee engagement, because employees who engage in the workplace display stronger forms of attachment to businesses, develop a significant bond within the community, and experience improved family interactions.

Healthcare administrators can improve patient care and safety by stimulating nurse engagement as a means of improving internal relationships. The purpose of this case study was to explore engagement strategies that healthcare administrators use to stimulate nurse engagement. Data were collected using semistructured interviews with 4 healthcare administrators in a Missouri hospital setting. The engagement theory informed the conceptual framework of the study. Data were analyzed using Yin's 5-step process that included compiling, disassembling, reassembling, interpreting, and concluding. Analysis revealed 4 major themes: teamwork, nurse and administrator communication, nurse recognition, and nurse empowerment. Strategies were identified through the exploration and analysis of the 4 themes, and the major findings included healthcare administrators increase trust with nurses by forming teams, and administrators who increase communication are more likely to stimulate nurse engagement. The social change implication for this study was that findings of nurse engagement may lead to improved patient care and contribute to a positive patient experience, which benefit patients and their families. Improved patient care may lead to greater faith and credence in medical care benefiting citizens, practitioners, and healthcare administrators.

All Computer Science majors are required to take introductory programming (CS1) as a fundamental course which has a high dropout rate. Researchers report that CS1 students lack motivation and need constant resource support. Motivated by these factors, we developed a cyberlearning environment embedded with learning engagement strategies such as Collaborative Learning, Social Interaction and Gamification. The purpose of research is to investigate the impact the cyberlearning environment had on student acquisition of programming concepts. I conducted a series of studies to empirically validate these learning engagement strategies in the context of student learning outcomes. The results of my dissertation have shown that Gamification and Social Interaction when combined or used individually had more positive impact on student learning when compared to that of other learning engagement strategies. / This work is supported in part by the National Science Foundation under grants DUE-1225742 and DUE-1525112. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

E-commerce is a business model that allows firms and individuals to buy and sell things over the internet. In the last few years, with the rise in telecommunications accessibility, e-commerce has experienced a vital boom, facilitating the growth of local economies in many countries and communities worldwide. Unfortunately, Peru is a country that has yet to develop a strong e-commerce market due to many shortcomings. This research discusses some of the key issues identified, such as deficient governmental support, insufficient business guidance, and lack of trust in online payment methods. Regardless, some Peruvian entrepreneurs have taken steps to find success within the e-commerce industry by implementing particular customer engagement strategies. As such, this study aims to identify some of the customer engagement strategies that have proved to be successful among Peru's e-commerce entrepreneurs, which are not well-known among the entrepreneurial community in Peru. This will be done by drawing on a set of 10 interviews that were conducted with local Peruvian entrepreneurs from diverse industries. As a result, this research offers insights into e-commerce businesses' strategies to increase customer engagement in Peru, potentially increasing their odds of success.

Despite the availability of many fall prevention measures, many patients fall in U.S. hospitals each year. Experts view patient fall rates as the measure that can be most affected by a nurse-led, evidence-based intervention. The purpose of this quality improvement project was to implement and evaluate the impact of patient engagement strategies on patient compliance to fall prevention education and the reduction of falls. The quality improvement framework used for this project was the Iowa Model. Interventions for this project included patient engagement strategies including the teach-back (TB) method and video-based fall prevention education paired with the project site's existing fall prevention program. A prospective quantitative design was used to answer the practice-focused question of whether the implementation of a falls protocol incorporating patient engagement strategies improves patient compliance with the fall prevention plan of care and reduces patient falls. A total of 58 patients were included in this project, conducted from July to October 2017. The results showed a 75% reduction in the fall rate compared to the same three month period in 2016. This finding suggests that reinforcement of oral and written instruction through video education follow-up and the use of the TB method to assess patient understanding are effective measures to reduce patient falls and increase patient compliance to the fall prevention plan of care. These patient engagement strategies can be replicated by nurses in similar acute care settings. Adoption of such evidence-based changes in nursing practice may improve patient safety and decrease harm in hospital settings as implications for positive social change.

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The ability to improve employee engagement in small businesses is critical, not only to workers but also to midlevel managers who want to retain productive employees in the workplace. Supervisors who lack efficient managerial practices also risk decreases in productivity, profitability, and sustainability. The conceptual framework for this qualitative, exploratory single-case study was Kahn's theory of personal engagement and disengagement. The population consisted of 2 midlevel managers from a single, small, franchise company in metropolitan Alabama, both of whom used engagement practices, and managed at least 5 subordinates in the company. Data collected, analyzed, and triangulated were from semistructured interviews, direct observations, and a review of company documents. Coded interview responses aligned with the research question, conceptual framework, and emergent themes resulted in identifying successful engagement strategies that midlevel leaders to use. Two critical themes that emerged were management and communication. Supportive management behaviors and leader-member exchange yielded positive employee engagement and increased job performance and productivity. These results could be used to help midlevel managers develop strategies that improve employee enagagement and job performance. Social change implications included leaders developing new strategies that encourage positive relationships among top-level and midlevel leaders, lower level employees, and customers.

In 2013, 35% of the workforce was not engaged, which results in lack of productivity and loss of profitability for small business enterprises (SBEs). The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore successful strategies that frontline leaders in a 4 generation, family-owned excavating business used to engage their frontline employees. The excavating business was started in 1947 by the father of the current business owners. William Kahn's employee engagement theory was the conceptual framework for this study. Data were collected through a focus group and direct observations of engagement during meetings and frontline areas from a population of 8 frontline leaders from construction work at an excavating business in Stephens City, Virginia. Data from the focus group and direct observations were thematically analyzed and then triangulated to ensure the trustworthiness of the interpretations. The 5 themes that emerged included: investing in sustainability, leading by example, providing clear and open communication, implementing a system of measurement, and developing a professional image. These themes could provide the basis for the area frontline leaders to improve the employee engagement level of their frontline employees. These findings could prompt what has been a missing dialogue of communication that could bridge the employee engagement gap between the area employees and employers. Social change implications of these findings could lead to productivity improvement that could contribute to the survival of SBEs and to the employment status of the community.

<p>  </p> <p>The overarching goal of this dissertation was to understand how between-partner feedback loops facilitate adjustment in the year following a military deployment (i.e., reintegration). Reintegration encompasses a period of family transitions and can be a challenging and turbulent time for couples as they attempt to reconnect and reorganize household dynamics. Couples may experience changes in how they interact, and partners may be able to act as a catalyst for promoting positive change in each other. Guided by Family Systems and Interdependence Theories, this study tested a specific feedback loop of a between-partner mechanism across a period of family stress and transitions. Whereas the demand/withdraw dynamic is one example of a feedback loop that is consequential for relationship well-being, the present study examined an alternative feedback loop where partners may respond to individuals’ withdrawal with a type of constructive partner support that encourages discussions and facilitates effective collaboration (i.e., active engagement). Relationship happiness, an indicator for relationship climate, was considered as a moderator in this proposed feedback loop as it intersects with individuals’ tendencies to withdraw, partners’ attempts at support provision, and global relationship functioning during periods of stress and transition. </p> <p>This study utilized longitudinal dyadic data from 124 couples at three time points in the year following service members’ return from deployment to examine the 1) longitudinal interpersonal dynamics of individuals’ tendencies to withdraw, 2) mediating role of partners’ active engagement in the change in individuals’ withdrawal, and 3) moderating role of relationship happiness in the interpersonal dynamics. Study aims were evaluated with a series of actor-partner interdependence models and path models in a structural equation modeling framework. Results suggest three interpretations. First, whereas this study sought to examine change in individuals’ tendencies to withdraw, the data indicate high levels of within-person stability. Second, this study modeled a possible feedback loop where partners’ attempts at active engagement would result in less individual withdrawal. While I did not find evidence of this feedback loop as proposed, it appeared that (female) significant others’ withdrawal was salient for reductions in (male) service members’ active engagement. Finally, I sought to understand how relationship climate (operationalized by a dyad-level indicator of relationship happiness) was associated with the interpersonal dynamics. Couples defined by a happier relationship climate had a stronger negative association between significant others’ withdrawal and service members’ active engagement. This finding may be evidence of happier couples being more apt to shift between levels of independence and interdependence, which may be especially useful for postdeployment transitions. Taken together, findings from this study suggest that individuals’ tendencies to withdraw are relatively robust to the perturbations of deployment and the utility of flexibility and adaptability in couples’ patterns across reintegration. This dissertation concludes with a discussion of the theoretical implications, avenues for future research, and potential applications of these findings.  </p>