The purpose of this study was to develop and examine the effects of enhanced training and performance management methods for an autism coordinator who managed several paraprofessional therapists providing in-home behavior therapy for young children with autism. Intervention included task clarification, targeted skill development, and improved feedback from the coordinator to the therapists. Results showed that service delivery performance of in-home trainers increased and/or became more consistent after the intervention was implemented. The intervention provided the autism coordinator with an empirically validated training and feedback system that can be successfully utilized in a sporadically supervised environment.

The purpose of this study was to examine three components of Donaldson and Graham's (1999) model of college outcomes for adults: (a) Prior Experience & Personal Biographies, (b) the Connecting Classroom, and (c) Life-World Environment, and to assess their application to traditional and nontraditional students in community colleges in both technical and nontechnical courses. The study sample was comprised of 311 community college students enrolled in technical and nontechnical courses during fall 2005. A survey instrument was developed based on the three model components through a review of the literature. Demographic data collected were utilized to classify students into a technical or nontechnical grouping as well as four classifications of traditionalism: (a) traditional, (b) minimally nontraditional, (c) moderately nontraditional, and (d) highly traditional. This study found that nontraditional students vary from traditional students in regards to the three model constructs. A post hoc descriptive discriminate analysis determined that the Life-World Environment component contributed the most to group differences with the minimally nontraditional group scoring the highest on this construct.

When expenses become an issue, training is often one of the first budget items to be cut. There have been a number of evaluation studies about rates of return from training interventions. Most results are based on interviewing participants about the value of the intervention and its effect on their productivity. This often results in quadruple digit return on investment indications. Decision makers who control the budget often view these kinds of results with skepticism. This study proposes a methodology to evaluate training interventions without asking participants their opinions. The process involves measuring learning through a series of pre-tests and post-tests and determining if scores on pre-tests can be used as predictors of future return on investment results. The study evaluates a series of return on investment scores using analysis of variance to determine the relationship between pre-tests and final return on investment results for each participant. Data is also collected and evaluated to determine if the financial results of the organization during the period of the training intervention could be correlated to the results of the training intervention. The results of the study suggest that the proposed methodology can be used to predict future return on investment from training interventions based on the use of pre-tests. These rates of return can be used as a method of selecting between competing training intervention proposals. It is a process that is easily understood by the key decision makers who control the allocation of financial resources. More importantly, it is a process that can maximize the value of each dollar spent on training.

Organization Behavior Management (OBM) is a subfield within the discipline of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) involving the application of ABA principles and practices to organizational settings. One successful intervention used in OBM is the implementation of a performance improvement package. This approach has proven to be an effective problem solving strategy in a variety of settings, based on effective components such as goal-setting, prompting, and feedback. In this endeavor a performance improvement package was applied within an educational setting. In this school district, school psychologists are required to complete documentation for Medicaid reimbursement to the district, but were inconsistent in doing so. The purpose of this study was to improve the consistency of billing for Medicaid reimbursement by 74 school psychologists serving 102 schools. A multiple baseline across three areas was used to assess the effectiveness of the intervention introduced in a sequential manner.

This study describes and explains the perspectives of selected experts in continuing medical education (CME) and provides a glimpse at their lived experience. The theoretical frameworks are inclusive of constructivism and social constructivism reflecting the learning that takes place in medicine and that which occurs in the interview process. The voice of the researcher is heard through her professional role as a continuing medical education provider. The major elements of CME are identified as the role of accreditation and physician involvement in the design and delivery of CME; the primary influences as funding, physician involvement and accreditation; the significant issue is the expertise of CME providers; the future of CME is to be molded by the funding of CME, its providers and technology in continuing education venues. Performance improvement continuing medical education will continue to be the gold standard of accredited organizations. Implications for practice are many as the role of the CME provider changes to meet the expectations of the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education, the Institute of Medicine and organizations such as the American Association of Medical Colleges and American Association of Colleges of Nursing. Future research studies could include the following: interviewing experts in similar work environments may provide more focused findings that would assist that particular segment of the profession and their respective institutions; a comparison of local and national providers may shed light on how similar or disparate they are in the design, delivery, measurement, and funding of CME; a prospective longitudinal study looking at the implementation and outcomes of the IOM initiative for conflict of interest in medicine, the IOM initiative for the redesign of continuing education in the health professions or interdisciplinary lifelong learning in the health professions as proposed by the AAMC and AACN; investigate the proposed Continuing Professional Development Institute in five to seven years to determine if it achieved the desired design and function, and finally, repeating this study with experts from the same categories in about ten years should reveal significant changes in continuing medical education as compared to the findings presented in the current study.

Leaders and the strategies they employ to enhance employee performance are essential to retaining an organization's competitive advantage. The purpose of this multiple case study was to explore the strategies used by supply chain management managers to improve employee performance in the workplace. The conceptual framework for this study combined elements from Vroom's expectancy theory of motivation, Adams's equity theory of motivation and leadership, and transformational leadership theories. Participants were selected via the purposeful sampling of 6 successful supply chain managers in the District of Columbia's metropolitan area. Data were obtained using semistructured face-to-face interviews, interview notes, transcripts, and a thorough review and analysis of organizational documents. Data were analyzed using Yin's 5-step approach to data analysis. Four themes were identified: strategies associated with enhancing employee performance with an emphasis on training, barriers that prevented leadership from achieving performance improvement objectives, tools leaders used to measure employee performance and the leadership style of the manager with an emphasis on the use of the participative leadership style. The findings of this study may contribute to social change by providing supply chain managers with resources required to enhance overall employee performance in the workplace, which in turn may lead to increased overall organizational productivity, helping to ensure the prosperity of the organizational leaders, employees, their families, the surrounding communities, and the local economy.

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This research used quantitative and qualitative methodologies to investigate how working professionals are impacted and account for workplace cultural differences. This paper also sought to make a case for additional quantitative and qualitative research into what shapes and maintains culture by looking at leadership's knowledge of their organization's way of doing things and the impact these multiple knowledge areas have on performance. The literature review section analyzed performance improvement models, the effect of leadership, the behavior engineering model (BEM) and related models, organization culture, and performance. This work also outlined the methodology utilized in studying and reviewing culture and performance. This research aimed to determine a better understanding and increase the use of performance improvement and cultural models to aid organizations in achieving their missions.

Yes / This paper brings a new perspective to knowledge by focusing on the application and exploitation of big data in two UK companies providing, respectively, online and branch retailservices. The companies innovatively exploited the data that were generated by new internet technologies to improve business performance. The findings from both case study examples show that benefits do not come simply by adopting technology, but when people think creatively to exploit the potential benefits of ITC. The conclusion drawn is that the realisation of the ‘universal benefits’ of technological innovation does occur, but not necessarily until the hype has subsided. The paper demonstrates that there is opportunity to create sustainable competitive advantage through the application of ITC although the social, technological, and human challenges of managing technology have to be appreciated and managed. These implications need to be appreciated and if true long-term advantage isto be achieved.

Enabled by advanced information technologies, the distributed work environment has become a choice of organizations. When employees and supervisors work in geographically separate locations, management challenges emerge. Performance improvement may become an issue. Performance may be improved by identifying, studying, and improving factors that affect work performance. Two factors–feedback and goal setting–were chosen for this study because of the strong evidence of the effects of these components. Positive effects of feedback and goal setting are commonly accepted in the literature concerning the traditional work environment. This study focused only on knowledge work because most work in the distributed work environment may be knowledge work. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of feedback and goal setting on knowledge work performance in the distributed work environment. A laboratory experiment was conducted using 36 student subjects. The experimental design was a 3 X 2 factorial design consisting of three levels of feedback (i.e., no feedback, task feedback, and task feedback with comparisons with others) and two levels of goal setting (i.e., no goal setting and goal setting). Subjects were randomly assigned to various combinations of these two variables. The evidence did not outright support the claim that feedback and goal setting improve task performance; task performance of the subjects was improved only under certain conditions. Task feedback did not improve task performance because of its added pressure, especially in the presence of goals. Task performance was higher for the subjects who received both task feedback and information about others’ performance than for the subjects who received task feedback only. Overall, feedback was not found to improve task performance. The study did not support the hypothesis that specific and difficult goals improve task performance. The added pressure of having difficult goals was found to have demotivating effects. The notion that the co-presence of feedback and goals is necessary to improve task performance was not supported because of the combined pressure that both components created. The subjects who had feedback and/or goals did not perform better than those who had neither feedback nor goals. / Ph. D.