"Substitutes for leadership" is a new emerging leadership model of organizations within turbulent environments. Employee might minimize the "need for leadership" by "shared values", "self-managed work teams" and "cynicism". These substitutes would have further direct impacts on job outcomes as well. This study suggests that the higher the extent of shared values, self-managed work teams or cynicism, the lower the extent of the need for leadership. Also except cynicism, the higher the extent of shared values or self-managed work teams, the higher the extent of job outcomes. Data used were collected in two Kaohsiung companies, including an insurance agent and a semiconductor company. After statistic analyzes the results are stated as bellow: ¢¹. Differences of all variables due to characteristics of individuals. 1. The insurance agent: Employee are graduated from senior high schools have the higher extents of job outcomes than those are graduated from colleges. Sales have the higher extent of shared values, self-managed work teams and job outcomes, and the lower extent of cynicism than clerks. 2. The semiconductor company: No characteristics of individuals make a difference of variables. ¢º. Relationships between substitutes and the need for leadership. 1. The insurance agent: The higher the extent of shared values the higher the extent of the need for leadership. The higher the extent of self-managed work teams the higher the extent of the need for leadership. The higher the extent of cynicism the higher the extent of the need for leadership. 2. The semiconductor company: The same as the above. ¢». Relationships between substitutes and job outcomes. 1. The insurance agent: The higher the extent of shared values, the higher the extent of job outcomes; the higher the extent of self-managed work teams, the higher the extent of job outcomes; the lower the extent of cynicism, the higher the extent of job outcomes. 2. The semiconductor company: The same as the above. The empirical results show that although the substitutes regression model can offer explanation of job outcomes, the higher extents of shared values and self-managed work teams do not lead to the lower extent of the need for leadership. The reason that hypotheses are not approved seems to be the sampling. The insurance agent is an organization of the tight leader-follower relationship; the subordinators of the newly established semiconductor company of course strongly depend on the experienced leaders. Or shared values and self-managed work teams would not be the substitutes for leadership in deed. Or leadership could not be replaced at all!

Many economists in 21th century agree that the ¡§Research ¡® Development¡¨ is an essential factor to the ling-term competitiveness and the living quality of the civilians of a country. Michael E. Porter indicates in his book, ¡§The Edge Of Nation Competitiveness¡¨, in the competitive world, the creating and exerting the new knowledge are more important than using the traditional economic edges- natural sources and capital. R ¡® D is an accumulation and innovation of knowledge, and a foundation of the technology progress and economic growth. Therefore, the enterprises worldwide emphasize more on the management of the researchers. In this area, the ¡§work redesign¡¨ gets much spotlight. The enrichment of work was designed to cope with the characteristic of research, uncertainty and complexity, and to help employees performing completely. It also helps researchers to require more self-esteem. However, as the technology developed, the work contents are different than used to be. Does the Job Characteristic Model (JCM) of the Hakman and Oldman still fit the work variety? This is an issue that a manager should pay much attention while doing work redesign. By doing documents study, this research points out that the work redesign influences the job performance and is various with the work content. There are many factors affecting the work design and work performance, such as individual character, personal trait, work satisfaction, contextual satisfaction and growth need strength. This research is focusing on the relationship between job characteristic and work performance by evaluating the individual requirement (growth need strength and contextual satisfaction). Through real case investigation, there are some results in this research. 1.The task significance is unrelated to the contextual performance; however, besides that, each factor in this research is related to another one. The higher task identity and autonomy are, the higher task performance will be. The feedback from the job itself has the significant influence on contextual performance. 2.The individual character has different influence on each factor in this research. The researcher, who receives higher education has higher contextual satisfaction and higher job performance. Besides the education, the other factors, for example, the gender, marriage and age have little influence on the contextual satisfaction and job performance. 3.The contextual satisfaction and growth need strength have the moderating effects on the relationship between job characteristic and has job performance. On the contrary, the context satisfaction has no the moderating effects on the task identity and job performance of the job characteristic. The growth need strength has the moderating effects on the relationship between production responsibility and job performance, so as on the method control and task performance. But for public organization, it has the moderating effects on the relationship between task significance and job performance as well as on the production responsibility and task performance. In the high-tech company, the moderating effects between growth need strength and task variety as well as the moderating effects between growth need strength and task identity have the influence on task performance and contextual performance. 4.Whether Hackman and Oldman job characteristic model or Jackson et al. job characteristic model has little difference in analyzing the job performance, in public organization. However, analyzing the job performance of researchers in high-tech company, using Jackson et al. job characteristic model has better result

To cope with the current increase in both competition and customer requirements, traditional construction enterprises need more efficient methods to manage their relationships with customers. From the recession of Taiwan in recent years¡Atraditional construction industry needing to transform and escalate is no longer a empty verbiage. The construction industry has huge market potential undiscovered. Analyzing the information returned from customers and products, business can provide active and accurate services to the right customers through the right ways at the right time and raise the customers satisfaction. As the importance of CRM pertaining to management of relationships with customers has been recognized, meanwhile, with regard to implementation of the extensive software which involves investment of massive human resources, capital, and time, many critical decisions still need to be concerned. This research aims at extracting relevant factors affecting the adoption process and proposes a convincing framework verified by an empirical case study. Induction is used in the research. The first hand data are gathered through interviewing and circulating the questionnaire. After summing up this information and other relative articles and analyzing them with descriptive statistics, the result is derived and the conclusions are made according to the objective and frame of the study. The conclusions of this research are¡G (1)CRM is very important to the management. (2)Home Renovation should carry out the standard procedure of service to create customer value and to gain competitive advantage. (3) Home Renovation should emphasize on the collecting of the information of customers and looking for the best niche that can generate more profit on house repairing. (4) Customers expect to have professional Home Renovation team to run this market and offer high quality service. (5) The employees on first line play a very important role on building the relationship with the customers. (6) Home Renovation should follow the plan step by step to phase in the CRM. It only works when you really fulfill the plan and correct it timely. Some advice is offered in this research report, such as recommending that the government should build a safety system on all buildings and should make emphasis on the concept of house repairing and diagnosing. Home Renovation should know for sure what benefits that CRM will bring. Basically we can apply this research report to the real practice. When facing virtual problems in business operation, we can turn them in to management problems and then transform them into the themes for research and find out the solutions through scientific ways. Keywords: Customer Relationship Management¡BCustomized Service¡B Customer value¡BCustomer need¡BCustomer satisfaction

How to increase the extent of sales competency and growth need strength of salespeople would affect individual or organizational performance strongly. This study intends correlating compensation structure with salespeople¡¦s job performance. In this study compensation structure is independent variables, job performance is dependent variables, the distributive equity is a mediator. Besides, we defined the working experience and sales competency as a moderator between the compensation structure and distributive equity, and growth need strength is defined as moderator between the distributive equity and job performance. The subjects of this study are 548 salespeople of a department store in Kaohsiung. This research used the questionnaires. The data were analyzed by reliability analysis, factor analysis, one-way ANOVA and hierarchical regression analysis to discuss the relationships between compensation structure, distributive equity and job performance for salespeople. Besides, the mediating effect of distributive equity and the moderating effect of work experience, sales competency and growth need strength are also discussed. The findings of the study are as follows. (1) Job-based pay correlates positively with the internal equity perception; skill-based pay and performance-based pay correlates positively with the external equity perception. (2) The internal equity perception correlates positively and significantly with working efficiency and attitude, individual equity perception also has significantly positive correlation with job involvement and performance. (3) Mediating effect of distributive equity perception is not significant. (4) Working experience cannot generate moderating effect between compensation structure and distributive equity. (5) Correlation of job-based, skill-based and performance-based pay determined by sales competence and compensation structure creates intervention on perception of both external and internal equity. (6) Growth need strength and perception of external and internal equity under distribution equity also cause intervention on involvement in and performance of work. According to the results, we offer the following suggestions: (1) For retail counters, compensation structure and employees¡¦ distribution equity perception should be highly regarded. Furthermore, strategies of recruitment should be enhanced, and a comprehensive system of on-job training shall be established in order to improve employees¡¦ performance. (2) For salespeople at the retail counters, they should strengthen their competitiveness, understand the meaning of working as a salespeople, develop a correct attitude towards serving customers, and stick to the customer-oriented concept.

Instant Messaging ¡]IM¡^ has becomes an important tool of communication. Currently, eighty percent of the Internet users use IM to communicate each other. This study uses the dimensions of performance expectancy and effort expectancy of the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology and the interpersonal communication need to investigate factors that influence IM acceptance. There are 211 completed questionnaires were returned and analyzed. It¡¦s found that performance expectancy, effort expectancy, and interpersonal communication show significantly positive and significant impacts on IM users¡¦ intention. The intention significantly and positively affects their IM usage. According to the results, it¡¦s suggestted that IM software should make the IM more user-friendly and the software interface is not too complicated, so that users might feel that IM software is easy to use.

Includes vita. / Title from PDF of title page. / Document formatted into pages; / Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of South Florida, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references. / Text (Electronic thesis) in PDF format. / ABSTRACT: The primary purpose of this study was to examine the potential joint influence of need for cognition (NC), the dispositional preference for engaging in (or avoiding) effortful cognitive processing of information, and type of smoking risk message (i.e., factual and evaluative messages similar in message content and length) on the construction of smoking-relevant risk perceptions among college smokers. A secondary purpose was to examine potential mechanisms through which changes in risk perception might occur. 227 college smokers evaluated one of three pamphlets, (1) a factual (i.e., primarily fact-based) smoking risk pamphlet, (2) an evaluative (i.e., primarily emotion based) smoking risk pamphlet, or (3) a control pamphlet unrelated to smoking. Among occasional smokers, NC interacted with type of risk message to influence perceptions of post-pamphlet risk for several of the risk perception outcomes examined. / ABSTRACT: Specifically, smokers lower in NC reported higher levels of perceived risk in response to the evaluative pamphlet whereas smokers higher in NC reported greater perceived risk in response to the factual pamphlet. The interaction did not predict risk perception outcomes among daily smokers. Significant changes in the mechanisms examined were not observed. Findings provide evidence that NC interacts with type of smoking risk message to influence changes in smoking-related health risk perceptions among occasional college smokers. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. / System requirements: World Wide Web browser and PDF reader. / Mode of access: World Wide Web.

To talk about, talk to or with children. A conversation between a child and its teacher should be more than the teacher telling the child what to do, how to act. It should be more like a respectful and reverent meeting between two people where the adult sets the tone. The purpose of this research is to investigate teachers' experiences of conversations with children in need of special assistance. Our issues: What do teachers say about how they meet children in need of support? How do teachers response to students who are in difficulty? What ability have teachers and their school's to meet children in need of support and what appear to be particularly important or problematic issues for them in that work? In order to find some answers to our questions we interviewed ten teachers at two schools. Some of the teachers told us that they would really like to have more of relationship building, empathetic conversations with children, but felt that the school structure, form, and the working conditions prevented them. Other teachers felt that it was not their job to take the time to converse with individual children. Good relations between teachers and children may be crucial for the child´s ability to succeed and to thrive in school. Especially when a child is in any kind of difficulty, it is important that there is someone who listens and tries to understand how to customize something for the better.

The purpose of this study was to describe and analyses educators’ experiences of reflective conversations in their teams and part of teams in relation to their work with pupils in need of special support. Ten educators representing ten different teams have been interviewed since all had experiences of working in teams and working with pupils in need of special support. Focus has been on the educators’ experiences of the organisation, the effects of the reflections and the need to develop the reflective conversations in their teams and part of teams. The result showed that only a few of the educators described an organisation of the reflective conversations in their teams that met the conditions recent research point out as a way to use reflective conversations as a tool for development. These educators reached a deeper level of analysis and critical approach than the other teams which led to an improvement of their work with pupils in need of special support. The majority of the educators described reflective conversations with parts of their teams that content analysis and critical reflection. These reflective conversations led to development of their work with pupils in need of special support despite the fact that these reflective conversations showed a lack of organisation. All of the educators were aware of the need to improve the reflective conversations to achieve development of the educational practice, especially those in their teams. A conclusion was that reflective conversations in teams or part of teams can be a tool in the process of developed the work with pupils in need of special support provided that the conditions for the organisation were met and that there was a systematic reflection on high level.

Research literature on foreign assistance suggests that the U.S. provides aid in order to serve both its own strategic interests as well as the development needs of aid recipient countries. Maintaining a focus on Africa, this report uses newly available data for official development assistance and attempts to verify whether prevailing hypotheses regarding the motivations behind U.S. aid giving still hold true. Specifically, the report analyzes whether aid giving patterns align with 1) the development needs of recipient countries as understood through the lens of internationally established priorities, or 2) with good political and economic policies within recipient countries vis-à-vis democratic institutions and open markets, or 3) with U.S. national strategic interests (be they political, military, or economic interests). A statistical analysis of U.S. Official Development Assistance (ODA) to 53 countries in Africa over the period of 1970 to 2010 was carried out for this purpose. The results suggest that, when it comes to aid that is specifically addressed towards development projects in Africa, the strategic considerations and political priorities of the U.S. are just as important, if not more important, than the development needs or economic performance of recipient countries. Political allies and countries that democratize receive more aid from the U.S., ceteris paribus. In addition, it was found that more aid is given to countries with larger populations - a result that contradicts earlier literature on aid's motivations. The report is organized as follows. I begin in Section 1 by providing a general overview of U.S. foreign aid. In Section 2, I detail why Africa is a significant continent for such an analysis of U.S. aid, and outline some of the trends in aid to Africa. The third section summarizes some of the most important existing hypotheses about why the U.S. gives development aid. Section 4 describes the data and methodology used for this study and provides a discussion of the results obtained from the statistical analysis. Finally, in Section 6, I conclude by offering broader policy implications and sketching out avenues for future research. / text

The main purpose of this research is to study the impact of the empowerment Job Design (JD) techniques on the satisfaction of the blue-collars’ motivational needs in the context of assembly line system in the automotive industry. We have developed this purpose aiming to make a theoretical contribution due to the fact that only a few studies were developed and were linked to the empowerment model developed by Conger and Kanungo (1988) which is a JD model relevant for the context of assembly line work which is qualified as repetitive and monotone. To fulfil this gap, we have established a conceptual model based on the empowerment model developed by Conger and Kanungo (1988) and theories of motivational needs. We conducted our thesis with the following research question as guideline: What are the effects of the empowerment job design on the satisfaction of the blue-collars’ motivational needs in an automotive assembly line system context? Our objective of this research question was: to study the impact of the empowerment Job Design techniques on the blue-collars’ motivational needs thanks to a case study as research design. This research is made independently to the effects of the context on the blue-collar’s motivation. We have conducted a quantitative study from a positivist and objectivist perspective in two MB (Mercedes-Benz) factories: ELC Étoile du Rhône in France (sample part factory) and Rastatt MB (engine factory) in Germany. Also, we have made questionnaires to distribute these to the blue-collars located in these two MB factories which allowed us to get 67 respondents. The set of 15 questions that constitutes our questionnaire dealt with how the empowerment JD techniques affect their motivational needs. Once the data were collected, we used SPSS for statistical analysis. We retrieved some specific analysis such as descriptive statistics, correlations and regressions. In addition to that, we used Cronbach’s Alpha to test the reliability of our results. We measured the impacts of the empowerment JD techniques (participative management, feedback, modelling contingent/ competence based reward, goal setting and job enrichment) on the motivational needs (existence needs, relation-oriented needs and growth-oriented needs). The results of our findings definitely went in the way that the empowerment JD techniques have a positive impact on the satisfaction of the blue-collars’ motivational needs. Indeed, our analysis indicated positive correlations of all of the empowerment JD techniques on the motivational needs except the JD technique "modelling contingent/ competence based reward". Also, we found that the impacts on the relation-oriented needs (RN) were the strongest ones. Thus, we hope that this paper will help the assembly line managers to become aware of their blue-collars’ potential in order to increase their performance and to improve their employees job satisfaction.