Browsing by Subject "Organizational effectiveness"
Now showing 1 - 15 of 15
Results Per Page
Sort Options
Item A comparative study of task domain analysis to enhance organizational knowledge management: systems thinking and Goldratt's thinking processes(Texas Tech University, 2000-12) Musa, Philip FatingandaThe focus in this research is the evaluation of the effectiveness of two problem solving or task analysis methodologies in order to enhance of knowledge management in organizations. The two methodologies are systems thinking and Goldratt's thinking processes. One of the goals of the research is to investigate the effectiveness of the two theories in managing task domains when controlling for individual differences. The effectiveness of each methodology relative to task domain is investigated. The synergies between the two theories are also investigated. In this research, knowledge management centers more on humans rather than on computers. As a leadoff, a background overview of knowledge and knowledge management is first presented. Within the context of knowledge management, the subject of task analysis or problem solving is then presented. The literature on problem solving is surveyed and a research model using the two methodologies of interest is developed and validated. Fundamentally, knowledge management has to do with the creation of explicit processes that enhance knowledge and learning throughout the organization. Knowledge could be defined more generally as "any text, fact, example, event, rule, hypothesis, or model that increases understanding or performance in a domain or discipline" (Liebowitz and Beckman, 1998, p.49). Maintaining this perspective, knowledge management is defined as "the systematic, explicit, and deliberate building, renewal, and application of knowledge to maximize the enterprise's knowledge-related effectiveness and returns from its knowledge asset" (Liebowitz and Beckman, 1998, p.51). According to Liebowitz and Beckman, knowledge asset refers to the organizational knowledge imbedded in the human resources that make up given organization. Knowledge management requires systematic attention to learning processes, culture, technology infrastructure and measurement (Brown and Massey, 1999). Since organizations are often made of workgroups or teams, and the workgroups are, in turn, made up of individuals, when we speak of organizational learning or knowledge management, aggregation should be preceded by analysis at the individual level. Ten major hypotheses are generated and tested using laboratory experiments. The results of the study would help managers gain a better understanding of how to evaluate programs in general, and the dynamics of the two investigated task analysis methods in particular. Other theoretical contributions and future research plans are discussed.Item A comparison of the performance of structured and unstructured groups in three levels of time pressure(Texas Tech University, 1999-12) Sprague, Vicki L.Few comparisons of structured and unstructured group performance in various stressfiil situations exist (e.g., Sprague, 1997; Worchel & Shackelford, 1991; Urban, Bowers, Monday, & Morgan, 1995). Given that time pressure Is the most common stressor in organizations. Experiment 1 compared the performance of three-member structured and unstructured groups in three time-pressure condhions. Structured and unstructured group performance was also compared to the performance of nominal groups. A 3 (no, low, and high levels of time pressure) x 5 (structured and unstructured groups and the best, middle, and worst members of nominal groups) ANOVA using the quaUty of group performance as the dependent variable revealed that structured and unstructured group performance did not differ significantly. The quality of structured and unstructiued group performance was significantly lower than the best nominal groupmember, indicating that structured and unstructured groups experienced a process loss when working on the logic problem task. Although performance quaUty differed significantly between all three time-pressure condhions, the predicted curvilinear relationship between time pressure and performance did not occur. Finally, the rate of group performance did not differ significantly across the three time-pressure conditions. Experiment 2, in a test of the social entrainment hypothesis proposed by Kelly, McGrath, and colleagues (e.g., Kelly & Karau, 1993; Kelly & McGrath, 1985; McGrath & Kelly, 1986), compared the performance of structured, unstructured, and nominal groups in two consecutive high time-pressure conditions. A 5 (structured and unstructured groups and the best, middle, and worst nominal group members) x 2 (costume and skiing versions of the logic problem task) mixed subjects ANOVA revealed that groups and Individuals worked at a lower rate in the second consecutive high timepressure condhion than in the first condhion. This unpredicted finding was attributed to the fact that groups and individuals faced a problem of capability when working on the logic problem task (i.e., the demands of the task exceeded available processing resources; Kelly, Futoran, & McGrath, 1990). Possible explanations for the lack of significant differences between structured and unstructured group performance and the failure to find the predicted curvilinear relationship between time pressure and performance quality are explored.Item A conceptual model and an implementation of an intelligent meeting-scheduler (IMS)(Texas Tech University, 1996-08) Glezer, ChananMeetings are a major liaison device for achieving mutual adjustment in organizations. Several commercial meeting-schedulers and academic prototypes attempt to provide assistance in the process of scheduling meetings; however, these systems focus mainly on the calendar management and integration functions. They do not provide tools for describing the meeting-content in advance or locating the most suitable invitees based on standard organizational knowledge. This research attempts to propose and validate a conceptual model for an Intelligent Meeting-Scheduler (IMS), which is a DSS that is capable of assisting organizations in scheduling meetings. The IMS is an integrated software system. It encapsulates scheduling tools and organizational knowledge that are used to support various activities within the scheduling process, such as meeting-content planning and group composition. Our model is based on the notion of software-agents, and consists of the following functional agents: Control-Manager, Communication-Manager, Scheduling-Manager and Calendar-Manager. These agents work in cooperation and provide assistance to the host and the invitees in negotiating an acceptable solution during a scheduling session. We also describe the knowledge architecture of the IMS, which consists of a set of knowledge-base agents that support the above functional agents.Item A framework for propagating measures of performance throughout organizations using object-oriented technology(Texas Tech University, 1997-05) Marquis, Gerald P.The merging of Business Process Reengineering (BPR) with Object-Oriented Technology (OOT) has been substantively advanced by many authors [Carr and Johansson, 1995; Jacobson et al., 1995; Taylor, 1990, 1995; Yourdon, 1994]. BPR is defined as "The fundamental rethinking and radical redesign of business processes to bring about dramatic improvements in performance" [Hammer and Stanton, 1995, p. 3]. These business processes will most often span across multiple business functions. A business process is "a set of linked activities that take an input, transform it, and create an output" [Carr and Johansson, 1995, p. 9] while a business function refers to the fragmented simple, repetitive steps that are carried out by single departments within the organization [Hammer and Champy, 1993]. This makes it very difficult for the traditional information systems (IS), that were developed to support business functions, to also support a newly developed business process. Object-oriented technology (OOT) is becoming the paradigm of choice to support business process reengineering due to its flexibility and reusability.Item Business alliance success: the influence of alliance competence, idiosyncratic resources, and relational factors(Texas Tech University, 2001-08) Wittmann, Charles MichaelThe use of business alliances as a strategic option has grown tremendously over the past decade. Firms are seeking partners, both within and across industries, with the valuable resources necessary to survive and thrive. While the use of alliances has increased, the success rate has remained poor. Thus a key question is: What factors contribute to alliance success? Researchers have offered three views to explain alliance success. The resource-based view focuses on firm's resources. The underlying premise is that when alliance partners possess valuable, rare, and difficult to imitate resources, then the alliance should be successful. The competence-based view suggests that alliances are successful when firms develop an alliance competence that allows them to secure, develop, and maintain alliances. Finally, the relational factors view holds that when alliances are characterized by factors such as trust, commitment, and cooperation that they will be successful. In general, past research has tested one or two views of alliance success. This research develops and tests a theoretically grounded model of alliance success. The findings suggest that the three views of alliance success are complementary. Therefore, the integrative model developed and tested in this research offers a more complete explanation of alliance success.Item Determinants and consequences of board-level human and social capital(2006-05) Boivie, Steven Robert, 1975-; Westphal, James D.Item Effects of task content, task type, and leader gender on perceptions of gender differences in leadership effectiveness(Texas Tech University, 1998-05) Sutton, Janet L.In this experiment, leaders of intellective tasks were required to bring the group to a decision as to which of three alternatives was the correct alternative. Leaders of judgmental tasks were required to bring the group to a consensus as to which was the best alternative. The paradigm allowed leaders to clearly exhibit differential behaviors depending on task type. This experiment focused on the effects of congruency between task content and leader gender on perceptions of gender differences in leadership effectiveness. Based on past research on the interaction of leader gender with task content, it was hypothesized that leaders should receive higher leadership effectiveness ratings when there was congruency between task content and leader gender. Furthermore, because judgmental tasks require consideration of opinions and values of group members (i.e., a stereotypically feminine characteristic), it was hypothesized that female leaders should be perceived as more effective when task type was judgmental than when task type was intellective. Building on Hypotheses 1 and 2, Hypothesis 3 predicted that when task type was judgmental, congruency between task content and leader gender should result in higher effectiveness evaluations for female leaders than male leaders. Hypothesis 3 also predicted that incongruency between task content and leader gender should result in equal evaluations to that of male leaders. As Figure 1 shows, the interaction of task content, task type, and leader gender was predicted to affect perceptions of gender differences in leadership effectiveness.Item Empirical test of a model of individual firm economic profitability and the impact of strategic group membership(Texas Tech University, 1993-12) Roquebert, Jaime A.Researchers investigating the causes of individual firm (or strategic business unit, SBU) economic profitability have not reached a consensus as to what these causes are, in part due to the wide variety of disciplines and orientations represented. In an attempt to solve the confusion, some have tried to aggregate the different causes into their sources of origin—industry, corporate parent, or firm specific—and, using variance components models, have estimated their relative significance. However, different conclusions have been reached, even when using the same database. Also, one concept missing in previous studies is the strategic group, an empirically valid concept in the literature. This study addressed the issue of relative importance of industry, corporate, firm, and strategic group effects using variance components estimation with a recent database, the Compustat Business Information Industry Segment tapes. In contrast to previous papers, this study finds significant corporate effects, but decreasing exponentially as the average number of SBU's per corporation increases. As in previous research, firm effects account for most of the variance, industry effects are moderate, while strategic group effects appear non-significant. This study gives some support to both the management choice and industry structure perspectives of the strategy literature, and point to future research into the sources of economic profitability.Item Information technology and firms' organizational scope and structure(2007) Xue, Ling, 1975-; Ray, Gautam; Whinston, Andrew B.The dissertation consists of three essays that explore the relationship between information technology and firms' organizational and governance structure. The first essay examines how information technology (IT) moderates the impact of firms' assets on the level of vertical integration and horizontal diversification. The empirical analysis suggests that IT is associated with a decrease in vertical integration in firms with more tangible assets. The analysis also indicates that IT is associated with a greater increase in horizontal diversification in firms with more intangible assets. The general implication of this essay is that firms with more tangible assets may use IT to become more vertically specialized, whereas firms with more intangible assets may deploy IT to become more horizontally diversified. The second essay uses a moral hazard model to examine the relationship between environmental uncertainty and decentralization in IT governance. It is shown that this relationship is determined by a trade-off between the need for processing local information and the moral hazard problem. The trade-off results in an inverted-U-shaped relationship between environmental uncertainty and decentralization in IT governance. The increase in environmental uncertainty first increases and then decreases the likelihood of adopting decentralized IT governance, and thus decentralized IT governance is not likely to be desirable when the external environment is either highly stable or highly turbulent. An empirical study using a sample of 455 business sites of Fortune 1000 companies validates the theoretical results. The third essay presents an analytical model to examine the design and management of partner relationships in IT service. The firm hires a manager to manage the partner relationship. However, the firm has to decide whether to delegate the design of the relational contract with the partner, to the manager. We find that when the firm and the manager have asymmetric information about the manager's inclination to maintain a long-term partner relationship for the firm, delegation in relational contracting can help the firm in screening the myopic manager from the farsighted manager.Item Model coordination system that will contribute to business process improvement(Texas Tech University, 1996-05) Kim, Gyeung-MinThe new applications developed for business process improvement use data integration as a coordination mechanism with the support of database technology [Davenport, 1993; Teng et al., 1992; Davenport and Short, 1990; Rockart and Short, 1989; Madnick and Wang, 1988]. By pursuing a data-centered approach, the models that are associated with processes and procedures in the task envhonment are neglected. With changed attitudes toward modeling, people at all levels are building and using models for their productivity. One problem with many functional models is that they do not address coordination issues across adjacent or process common functions. For example, there are two functional units within the business process, A and B. The functional unit A needs to link its model Ma with the model Mb of the functional unit B. That is, die output of model Ma becomes the mput of model Mb. If the variable names for the output of Ma and the input of Mb are defined differendy by each functional unit, then the model Ma cannot be linked with the model Mb despite all the sophisticated model integration facilities provided by MMS. Since information from the model Ma cannot be drawn automatically into the model Mb, mformation is exchanged by memos and reports and then retyped into the corresponding model [Berry, 1986]. Furthermore, models are duplicated from one step in the process to the next [Foster, 1991]. Models of a functional unit are used and then discarded, not shared with others in similar decision situations [DoUc and Konsynski, 1985].Item The corruption of a simple measurement system due to unintentional bias(Texas Tech University, 1998-05) James, Matthew RobertNot availableItem The effects of cohesion on organizational performance: a test of two models(Texas Tech University, 1992-05) Wong, LeonardNot availableItem The effects of open versus closed organizational structure on attendant variables in public residential facilities(Texas Tech University, 1980-08) Burger, Donald LuverneNot availableItem The impact of relative organizational capabilities as firm resources on patterns of strategic and tactical choices of strategic engineering groups(Texas Tech University, 1998-08) Nix, Timothy WilliamThis dissertation investigates how integrative firm resources lead to strategy development in medical groups. The strategy model merges the current firm resources with the process of strategy development into actual strategy content. The study of strategy content is based on the concept of strategic engineers. Strategic engineers concentrate on maximizing efficiency in the organization. The process of strategy development centers on organizational priorities as intended strategic choices and organizational actions as tactical choices. By combining the process and content of strategy, a new model is developed that suggests that not all strategic engineers are equal. However, rather than performance as the dependent variable, this model uses strategy as the dependent variable. The firm resource literature suggests that firm resources are key to gaining competitive advantage in an industry. Finding that different types of firm resources lead to different types of engineers may be a precursor to explaining differences in performance, although this study does not address performance of the organization.Item The multiple resource constrained scheduling problem(Texas Tech University, 1998-05) Montes, Elliot J.In this dissertation, algorithm methods that provide solutions to the Mutiple Resource Constrained Scheduling (MRCS) problem are presented. The MRCS problem can be considered an m machine, n job problem with batch setups subject to resource (worker) constraints with the objective of minimizing makespan, the maximum job completion time. Additionally, the machines are non-identical and parallel where job preemption is not allowed. The MRCS problem exists in systems where each job set requires processing by a specific machine and a crew of workers. Even though multiple machines exist in the system, not all machines can perform all jobs. Furthermore, before a worker(s) can be assigned to operate a machine for a particular job, the respective worker(s) must have been trained to perform that job. In addition, workers must be retrained before performing any new type of job. The goal is to schedule the jobs, workers, and machines such that the total makespan is minimized. This problem is unique because not only are workers and machines considered, but the workers have the additional job training requirements. The MRCS problem can be found in high health risk and environmental risk systems where continual operator training is mandatory before work can begin or continue. Such operations can be found in nuclear plant maintenance, defense industries, and other areas. The developed algorithm is evaluated via Monte Carlo sampling, existing decision rule comparison, and through human subjects testing.