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Show moreThe paper illustrates the application of Pierre Bourdieu's oeuvre to a qualitative research project regarding organizational change. Considerable attention is given to the interaction of field delineation, capital stakes struggle, interests, and individual/class habitus at both a church and a medical college. It is posited that a focus on field analysis considers the sources of capital struggle in a given realm. This, in turn, grants a researcher a new way to analyze who participates in these struggles, what prized capital stimulates interest, and how action and prctices are subsequently engendered. This body of work suggests that agents and/or classes have the ability to disassemble and reassemble their social world by collectively strategizing to create or obtain legitimacy. Class habitus tended to attract similarities and repel differences, based on individual/class/field "fit". A "fit" was apt to generate a collective dynamism, while a disconnect tended to cast off outliers, voluntarily or involuntarily. Additionally, embedded dichotomies were used to enhance power relations, distinctiveness, domination, and differences. Prized capital was defined through a process of struggle and negotiation, resulting in its creation, conveyance, appropriation, and consumption. Practice and action arose from the capital form and volume available to agents, habitus, and the opportunities or constraints afforded by the field. I offer a reproduction and production model, which supports change processes, despite the anchoring potential of habitus. The model posits that there is continuity and reporoduction in social practices; but the potential exists for transformation as a result of a recapitalization process. Once capital stakes change, the identity of a field transforms. This ultimately affects what can be claimed as distinctive and legitimate by substantiating reigning dichotomies and creating a new foundation of continuity for each organization. The new plateau of stability paralleled each organization's old stability; accordingly returning to their roots of core identity and deep structure. Elements of the model are illustrated and implications discussed. Bourdieu's concept of field homologies sugges that a model such as this can potentially contribute to the study of organziations, businesses and management, since their existence is predicated upon ongoing schemes concerning relations and capital.
Doctorate of Management Programs
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Show moreThis study investigates the possible link between leadership and organizational sustainability. The primary focus is to determine if leadership is a distinguishing variable associated with organizational sustainability. This study was quantitative in design and used The Leadership Profile (TLP) (Sashkin & Rosenbach, 1995, 1996, 1997) to measure leadership. The data used for this study to measure leadership was collected through the use of a mailed survey. The mailed survey yielded a 180-degree leadership assessment. The sample consisted primarily of chief executive officers and their senior executive subordinates of multinational or national healthcare firms. A purposive and nonrandom selection was completed to ensure specific characteristics and information were represented in the sample. One hundred forty (140) chief executive officers and senior executive subordinates participated in the study. The data used for this study to measure organizational sustainability was collected through the development of a financial databased focusing on specific organzational financial meaures. Nine hundred (900) organizations were contained in the initial sample with approximately two hundred seventy two (272) organizations qualifying under sample constraints. Ultimately, one hundred forty (140) senior executives from thirty five (35) qualifying organziations participated in the study. This study's results indicate that leaders of the least sustainable organizations (subgroup 3) recorded significantly lower levels of self awareness, self-other agreement and concurrence of their transactional leadership, transformational leadership behaviors, and transformational leadership characteristics than leaders in the sustainable and somewhat sustainable organizations (subgroups 1 and 2, respectively). Although there were significant differences in leadership recorded by leaders in sustainable organizations versus non-sustainable organizations, the most significant and most important finding relates to the significant differences in the agreement and concurrence of self-other ratings of leaders in both sustainable and non-sustainable organizations. Therefore, this study's findings suggest that self-awareness and self-other fit as defined as congruence between self and other assessments and measured by The Leadership Profile (TLP) (Sashkin & Rosenbach, 1995, 1996, 1997), differentiates leaders in sustainable organziations versus less sustainable and non sustainable organizations. In sustainable organziations, there is greater agreement and congruence between self-other ratings measured by The Leadership Profile (TLP) (Sashkin & Rosenbach, 1995, 1996, 1997) suggesting that leader self-awareness more closely matches the perceptions of key subordinates.
Doctorate of Management Programs
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Show morePerhaps the most difficult job in long term care chain organizations is that of the Regional Manager. This study considers the chronic and acute events with which Regional Managers must contend and determines how they cope with the stresses of those events. Appraisal theories of Richard Lazarus and P-E fit are used to test the actions of the Regional Managers. The events discussed seem to confirm previous research regarding coping in that the more significant the event, the greater the likelihood that others will be solicited to attain a solution. Corporate staffs who assist in the acute events help to keep the focus on problme-solving as opposed to emotion-focused coping. Current Regional Managers appear to have a greater comfort level in working with the staff and view their presence as part of the solution process. Chronic events can grow to acute events if they become pronounced or occur in simultaneously in multiple sites. Acute events appear to have a very personal nature and significantly affect the Regional Manager. For some, the acute event becomes a sentinel event that leads to career and job changes. The gap of regulator and public expectations compared to the industry's ability to meet those expectations has increased. This has lead to a changing paradigm of the competencies required of Regional Manager in order to meet the increased set of demands. These new competencies include: the ability to work within an organizations utilizing the staff forsupport; the ability to use time efficiently; greater clinical insights and abilities; knowledge of an ability to use technology; and, the general applications of business concepts to keep the organziation financially viable. Companies must do a more active job of identifying and developing Regional Managers in order to ensure the future of the enterprise. A series of training and development programs are suggested to improve Regional Manager performance and ability to perform the requirements of the job.
Doctorate of Management Programs
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Show moreThis social constructionist study examined what occurred to 20 high school students exposed to the narrative genre of news story writing to try to add to the knowledge about the narrative mode of thought. This applied research project used various qualitative methods to interview, analyze and discuss the changes that occurred in these students who became narratively enriched from their participation in journalism workshops that were designed to help them learn how to write and publish news stories. The findings where that learning to write narrative news stories stimulated changes in the students' values and sense of self-determination. The study concluded with the practical and theoretical implications of this research and offered reasons why narrative enrichment can be one of the vessels through which human change can begin to occur.
Doctorate of Management Programs
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