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Show moreThis study focuses on the shifting role of the designer as change agent in the 21st century. The investigation includes four case studies in which designers are addressing human needs linked to large-scale social, cultural and economic challenges. These cases underscore how designers contribute to and experience complex projects in which their expertise is deployed among multidisciplinary teams with a transdisciplinary focus across a variety of organizational structures. Key aims were to uncover 1) what the distinct methods to inquiry put forth by the various design groups are, and in turn, what critical implications arise for organizational practice as a result of its broader engagement with the public sector; 2) how these evolving design roles shape human dynamics and performance between project stakeholders and accelerate innovation processes; and 3) why the value of design as a strategic tool in the social innovation context remains an emergent phenomenon.
Doctorate of Management Programs
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Show moreBoard performance research focused on individual director?s economically-motivated behaviors and outcomes has generated inconsistent and disappointing results. Most research does not consider the board as a team, despite recent calls for a focus on collective board processes and behaviors. As 90% of directors rate their individual performance at very effective but only 30% rate overall board performance at an equivalent level, it is obvious that this gap needs to be addressed. The discrepancy between individual and team performance effectiveness was the focus of this research, based on original data from 182 directors and their assessment of their board?s dynamic, team task performance efficacy, team potency and the impact of their activities as a board on firm profitability. Our findings show that director experience, social network and cultural intelligence quotient as well as their ability to achieve high levels of team interaction, thereby lowering information asymmetry, have a significant impact on profitability. We found that this dynamic as well as team potency had a positive impact on profitability, while the focus on task performance compliance quality had a significantly negative effect on profitability. The insights of this study should help boards and their advisors better focus their efforts to improve team dynamic, optimize board interactions and refocus their attention on value-creating activities. We also believe improving board team dynamics will have an unintended consequence of bring a level of individual and team satisfaction back to the boardroom.
Doctorate of Management Programs
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Show moreScholars and institutions alike are concerned with academic productivity. Scholars not only further knowledge in their professional fields, they also bring visibility and prestige to themselves and their institutions, which in turn attracts research grants and more qualified faculty and graduate students. Many studies have been done on scholar productivity; however, most of them focus on individual factors such as gender, marital status, and psychological characteristics rather than intrinsic academic factors such as scholars? academic values, institutional expectations and academic alignment between the scholar and the institution. In this study, we developed measures for the different kinds of scholarship based on Boyer?s work and extended it by adding Engaged Scholarship in Van de Ven?s work. This research focuses on how these academic factors have an effect on not just academic productivity but also the scholar?s well-being. Our results suggest that scholarship identity, academic work focus, and perceived institutional expectations significantly impact knowledge production and well-being and that this relationship is mediated by the recognition and support provided by the institution. These results have important implications for university administrators who develop, and faculty who work under policies designed to foster professional development and scholarship.
Doctorate of Management Programs
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Show moreFor military teams faced with the threat of death, this study found that the generally accepted positive effects of training and experience may be insufficient to ensure survival and met mission goals. Positive outcomes of acute?or ?at the point of death??events encountered by military team leaders did not correlate with general training, overall team leadership experience or frequency of experience. Survey responses of 494 military team leaders reveals situation awareness and perceived control trump training and experience in positive outcomes of in extremis events. These results empirically support the rapidly accreting, but, to date, mostly theoretical literature on situation awareness in acute crisis situations. Results relevant to military and other professional first-responders facing life threatening situations, may also be of interest to individuals facing tense, ambiguous, albeit less acute, circumstances.
Doctorate of Management Programs
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Show moreThis research seeks to illuminate which managerial and organizational factors lead large corporations to operate in an environmentally conscious manner. We used a blended quantitative approach to test the effects of managerial and organizational factors on a corporation?s environmental performance. We used three data sets: (a) firm?s actual environmental performance, (b) firm?s actual safety performance, and (c) survey from top executives of the Fortune 500 companies. Our data shows that profit seeking positively affects environmental performance; in contrast, a manager?s intrinsic values have little effect; and surprisingly a corporation?s environmental performance is inversely related to coercive external pressure and risk aversion. Furthermore, environmental performance is positively associated with elevated concerns for employee safety. Results also indicate that pro-environmental behaviors are improved by an organization?s ability to transfer knowledge across functional boundaries: best performing corporations were able to source and exploit new information to improve safety and environmental performance. Overall, the study provides new and surprising insights into what motivates and enables firms to achieve superior ecological performance.
Doctorate of Management Programs
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Show moreStrategic anticipation refers to the capacity to anticipate possible future strategic scenarios and thus anticipate required strategic moves in response to them. The academic community has produced significant literature regarding strategy formulation and implementation, but very little has been published in regard to what managers actually do, and should do, to anticipate the need for a strategic change. This study aims to uncover factors that influence the capacity for strategic anticipation. This paper reports on a qualitative, interviewed based, grounded theory study I conducted on the strategy practices of successful CEOs in Chile. I discovered that Mintzberg?s critique of the ?design school? was correct, with none of the CEOs reporting strategy formulation or implementation practices corresponding to that tradition. Instead, strategic action took place via a series of localized responses (or ?moves?) made by the CEOs based on their anticipation capacity of coming changes in their environment, competitors, markets and technologies. Strategic moves were not seen as such by the CEO?s until much later, when a series of ?moves? they had made in response to their anticipation of a coming change accumulated over time and were recognized as an ?emergent ?strategy of the firm. I found that, in addition to individual characteristics that have been examined in prior literature, three forms of immersion (upstream, sideways, and downstream) influenced management capacity for strategic anticipation. Although these forms of immersion facilitate strategic anticipation and strategic moves, managers find it difficult to involve other members of the organization in the process. Given these findings and the nature of my sample, I discuss how situated, emergent processes of strategic anticipation and strategic moves are rarely diffused as a general management capacity within companies.
Doctorate of Management Programs
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Show moreBusinesses view supply chain operations as critical components to customer satisfaction, market competitiveness, and profitability. Over the last decade, these operations have been exposed to ever increasing levels of disruption risk from sources such as cultural differences, geography, managerial actions, shifting market demand and supply, and technological changes. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the types and management of risks within the supply chains of large US base companies in the apparel, footwear, nutritional supplement and supply chain services sectors operating on a global basis. We intend to compare relevant frameworks within extant literature and data obtained during semi-structured interviews with senior level practitioners from those industries to confirm the existence of these risks or identify new risks. This study will also investigate mitigation strategies used by practitioners for dealing with risks, and how these strategies are gauged in terms of effectiveness in maintaining normal supply chain operations contributing to business performance. We present two important areas for future research in the supply chain context: teamwork and sustainability.
Doctorate of Management Programs
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