We are living in a world of service economy. Global markets have radically transformed from product-based industrial structures to service-based post-industrial ones over the past fifty years. IT has catalyzed a significant portion of this transformation. Advances in IT have not only alleviated the accessibility of existing service systems, but also enabled Servitization of products and commodities that were delivered through traditional mediums. Ironically, IT itself has been a commodity that has met its own share of Servitization. Hardware computing resources have been virtualized, whereas software and media content have been delivered through distributed networks. Causing a paradigm shift on how IT is delivered and used, Servitization of IT is expected to impose technical, economical and managerial challenges in various business domains of organizations. In this dissertation, I develop novel methods and policies to overcome such challenges. By conducting four closely related studies, I address common IT Servitization problems encountered in the service-oriented architecture and customer relationship management domains. Specifically, I make the following contributions: (1) in study one, I work on the efficient creation of software services out of legacy software by annotating source code components of an IT system with business semantics. The approach facilitates source code reuse in developing new web services. (2) In study two, I develop a financial valuation model for SOA investments. The model quantifies evident and elusive costs and benefits of SOA and supports managerial decision making regarding the investment. (3) In study three, I investigate the deployment of live-chat online service channels by evaluating the impact of priority-based admission control policies. I show that under imperfect profiling of customer types, reserve-type admission control policies may have negative consequences for the entire system. (4) In study four, I investigate the value of adding flexibility in live-chat contact centers. Contrary to the service management literature, I find out that cross-training of agents in large contact centers suffers from switching costs as well as capacity shifting inefficiencies. Methods, models and policies proposed in this dissertation are expected to contribute towards understanding the short-term applicability and long-term impact of service-orientation and IT Servitization in business organizations.

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<p> Affirmative action public procurement programs (AAPPP) stem from legislation related to the Civil Rights movement. Debates about program usefulness and relevance have occurred as well as court decisions challenging not only the legality of these programs, but their very existence. The problem is that, although minority small businesses are fast-growing, access to public procurement opportunities is minimal. An assessment of the perceived social and economic impact of affirmative action public procurement programs between participants and non-participants could provide needed information to inform stakeholders more about how these programs are experienced. The purpose of this quantitative quasi-experimental causal-comparative (ex post facto) study was to determine whether minority business owners who have participated in AAPPP perceive the economic benefits, economic costs, social benefits, and social costs in minority businesses differently than non-participants. A random sample of 128 minority business owners seeking government contracts in the information technology field participated in this study. The participants were requested to complete a survey to assess their perceptions of affirmative action public procurement program participation on its economic benefits, economic costs, social benefits, and social costs. The findings showed AAPPP participants and non-AAPPP participants perceived economic costs and economic benefits similarly. The findings also showed AAPPP participants perceived both the social costs and benefits significantly greater than non-participants. Although the findings lend support for the continued use of these programs, the results paradoxically lend some support for their discontinuance. Without any overwhelming evidence to the contrary, it can be argued that continuing with these programs is necessary, since an inherent form of discrimination based on race or gender within the economic system still appears to exist, although not coherently depicted or understood. </p>

<p> Increased globalization and competition have forced companies to implement solutions at a rapid pace using new and evolving technology. As a result, companies are now initiating an increasing number of complex projects each year. Project management (PM) practitioners &ndash; the individuals responsible for leading a project team through the planning and implementation of these complex projects &ndash; need to understand the tools and techniques to implement a complex project successfully to meet the strategic goals of the organization. Emotional intelligence (EI) is a primary component of the leadership skills necessary to manage a complex project. The purpose of this study was to explore the EI competencies used by PM practitioners who managed a complex project as defined by Qureshi and Kang (2015). Using the Goleman model of EI, this study investigated 22 PM practitioners who managed a complex project and found the PM practitioner&rsquo;s ability to be adaptable, innovative, and trustworthy to be key personal competencies used in the management of a complex project. Furthermore, the ability to understand organizational politics and its effect on the team and the complex project, to maneuver around it, and to be influential, and deal with conflict are necessary social competencies when managing a complex project. These competencies are not limited to complex projects. This study also investigated EI competencies experienced in non-complex projects and found that trust, conflict management, influence, and political awareness were all EI competencies that held equal importance to PM practitioners when managing a non-complex project. People were the key. Findings from this study found that &ndash; although non-complex projects may not provide the innovative approaches or the need to adapt to change as found in a complex project &ndash; when people are involved, PM practitioners still need the ability to trust, resolve conflict, deal with and maneuver around the political climate, and influence the team.</p>

A research report submitted to the Faculty of Commerce, University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Master of Commerce. / Information Systems (IS) project management is fundamental to organlzations who are involved in the development of information systems, yet IS projects can fail for any number of reasons, and insome cases can result in consi derable financial losses for the organisations that undertake them. One pattern of failure is .hat the IS project takes on a life of its own, continuing to absorb valuable resources without reaching its cbjective. A significant number of these projects will ultimately fail, potentially weakening an organisation's competitive position while siphoning off resources that could be spent developing and implementing successful systems. Earned value performance measurement (EVPM) is a management technique that relates resource planning to schedules and to technical performance requirements. It is formed on a platform of fundamental project management, but with earned value performance measurement, with its focus being the continuous measurement of actual achievement against a detailed performance plan, thus providing a basis for problem identification, corrective actions, and management replanning, whilst providing the information necessary to be able to predict the final costs and fmal schedule forecasts for the project. The purpose of this study is to highlight the earned value performance measurement system, and propose it as an alternative approach that can be used for controlling the IS software development effort. / AC 2018

This dissertation hypothesizes the effects of membership change within teams on team coordination and effectiveness. When member change occurs, teams are likely to make attributions relating to how unexpected is the member change, based on the predictability and controllability of that change. The impact of the change (i.e., based on the unexpected nature of that change) on team coordination can be described in terms of flux (i.e., the amount of disruption caused by member change in coordination), and thus, team effectiveness. The membership change and flux-in-coordination relationship is then moderated by the importance of the member leaving the team, referred to as role criticality. The contributions and limitations of these results are discussed, as are directions for future research and practical implications. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Management in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Degree Awarded: Spring Semester, 2009. / Date of Defense: February 27, 2009. / Teams, Coordination, Effectiveness, Member Change / Includes bibliographical references. / Gerald R. Ferris, Professor Co-Directing Dissertation; Stephen E. Humphrey, Professor Co-Directing Dissertation; Michael Brady, Outside Committee Member; Mark J. Martinko, Committee Member; Chad Van Iddekinge, Committee Member; Timothy Holcomb, Committee Member.

Beginning as an area of popular and business press interest, emotional intelligence is fast becoming a legitimate area of research for organizational science theorists. The many potential benefits of emotional intelligence have yet to be evaluated within the realm of legitimate academic research, and there are many areas of organizational concern that may be beneficially influenced by this empowering attribute. Emotional labor is one such area, and it has grown as a legitimate concern for organizational participants involved in the practice of using their emotions for organizational purposes. Furthermore, it is a concern for the organizations these individuals serve. The purpose of this dissertation is to review and analyze the literature on emotional intelligence and emotional labor and to discover how emotional intelligence moderates relationships within the emotional labor process. It is hypothesized that this investigation will reveal evidence supporting the general hypothesis that emotionally intelligent organizational members enjoy more effective participation in the emotional labor process, and that emotional intelligence, as a moderator, will alleviate detrimental individual and organizational outcomes of this process. Data were collected using questionnaires. The questionnaires were distributed to 29 stores of an 87 year-old retail chain with over 200 stores centralized in the Southeastern United States. A sample of 210 usable employee responses having matching supervisor evaluations was obtained from these efforts. Hierarchical multiple regression was used to test the hypotheses. Results were found to support a number of the hypotheses set forth, including affirmative findings for the moderating influence of emotional intelligence on the relationship between various emotional labor performance efforts and outcomes of the emotional labor process. In addition, further analyses of unsupported hypotheses revealed direct main effects of emotional intelligence on some outcomes. A discussion of the results includes an evaluation of research limitations, practical limitations, and directions for future research. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Management in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Degree Awarded: Fall Semester, 2004. / Date of Defense: August 18, 2004. / Organizational Commitment, Job Satisfaction, Performance, Customer Service, Strain, Non-Acting, Emotional Intelligence, Emotional Labor, Emotion, Surface Acting, Deep Acting, Turnover, Physical Strain, Psychological Strain / Includes bibliographical references. / Gerald R. Ferris, Professor Co-Directing Dissertation; Pamela Perrewé, Professor Co-Directing Dissertation; Robert A. Brymer, Outside Committee Member; Larry Giunipero, Outside Committee Member; Ceasar Douglas, Committee Member; Wayne Hochwarter, Committee Member.

The over-arching purpose of this research is to broaden the study of trust as it applies to developing stable relationships in electronic environments. Previous research has investigated many aspects of trust, but has not looked at the incremental development of it. This may be because methods are difficult to develop that study process models and concepts are difficult to operationalize that influence the incremental progression of variables. Previous empirical research identifies antecedents that emerge to enhance initial perceptions of trust. These may possibly influence the progression of trust to deeper levels. More conceptual work identifies antecedents that swiftly cultivate trust, allowing for stable relationships to develop more quickly. The antecedents investigated in this study are the use of security symbols, trustworthy brand names, and personalization techniques. Developing and testing a process model using antecedents of trust offers one method to study trust development. This dissertation documents a longitudinal experiment that tested hypotheses of the process model, producing data sets that were analyzed using regression and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). The results of the study indicate that the use of security symbols and trustworthy brand names have a positive and lasting effect on trusting beliefs. The results also show that personalization has a decreasing and lasting effect on trusting beliefs. There was no support for the hypothesis that trust develops over time in electronic environments. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Management Information Systems in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Degree Awarded: Spring Semester, 2005. / Date of Defense: December 3, 2004. / Electronic Commerce, Disclosure, Trust / Includes bibliographical references. / David B. Paradice, Professor Directing Dissertation; Charles F. Hofacker, Outside Committee Member; Robert M. Mason, Committee Member; Ashley A. Bush, Committee Member.

The purpose of this dissertation was to expand current knowledge about control of software development projects by examining the effects that institutional influences have on the use of control mechanisms by software project teams, and how the different institutional influences affect each other. The findings provide support for an important relationship between institutional profiles and the adoption of formal control mechanisms by software project teams. First, different institutional profiles will support different types of adoption of formal control mechanisms. Second, when the enacted profile of a software project team is consistent with a dominant institutional profile, the use of formal control mechanisms will be faithful to this profile. Third, when the enacted profile is conflicted, the use of formal control mechanisms will be mixed with both ceremonial and faithful appropriations. Fourth, the higher the tenure of the software project team, the more likely the enacted profile will be consistent with the older institutional context. Finally, the level of congruence of software project managers with a particular institutional profile will be positively related to the adoption of formal control mechanisms consistent with that profile. The study also found that when institutional elements are complementary to each other in the form of an institutional profile, they have a much greater influence on social actors than when the elements are independent of each other. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Management Information Systems in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Degree Awarded: Fall Semester, 2003. / Date of Defense: October 31, 2003. / Institutional theory, Control theory, Project management, Software project teams / Includes bibliographical references. / Joey F. George, Professor Co-Directing Dissertation; Robert W. Zmud, Professor Co-Directing Dissertation; William P. Anthony, Outside Committee Member; David Paradice, Committee Member.