Doctor of Management, Case Western Reserve University, 2022, Weatherhead School of Management

This research explores the factors which influence and enhance ethical decision-making. Themes of managerial education, a liberal arts training, religiosity, personal value-guided behavior, and mindfulness are explored. This integrative paper reports two mixed method studies following an exploratory sequential design. The first qualitative study consisted of 30 qualitative semi-structure interviews of executives both at the C-level as well as at the middle manager level about their experiences in the corporate setting of ethical dilemmas which they faced. The second quantitative study involved a survey of 316 respondents composing of college students, entrepreneurs, and executives. Both studies provided insights about ethical decision-making at the workplace specifically the positive effects of personal value-guided behavior and religiosity. The relationship between mindfulness and ethical decision-making could not be demonstrated. As business ethics involves its own set of morals and values (e.g., profit-maximization vs ethics-maximization) that are becoming central in a workplaces and corporations, ethical business leaders stand to benefit from exploring multiple ways of neutralizing ethical misconduct including relying on personal values and religiosity.

Committee: James Gaskin Ph.D. (Advisor); Corinne Coen Ph.D. (Advisor); Peter Whitehouse M.D, Ph.D. (Advisor) Subjects: Business Administration; Education; Ethics; Philosophy; Religion

Master of Science (MS), Ohio University, 2018, Experimental Psychology (Arts and Sciences)

Religiosity is positively related to self-regulation, though more research is needed to understand the nature of this relationship. For example, relatively few studies have examined the link between religiosity and delay-of-gratification (i.e., resisting immediate temptation in favor of some objectively larger, delayed reward). Most of the limited research on this topic has conceptualized and operationalized religiosity as though it were a unidimensional construct. We review literature that, instead, suggests religiosity be treated as a two-dimensional construct – consisting of organizational (i.e., religious practice/community) and personal religiosity (i.e., religious belief) dimensions. Personal religiosity elements are more strongly associated with asceticism than are organizational religiosity elements. Therefore, we hypothesized that personal religiosity would lead to greater delay-of-gratification than would organizational religiosity. Furthermore, we hypothesized that cognitive construal level, rational-experiential processing, and/or deontological thinking would mediate this effect. Consistent with the former hypothesis, experimental results indicated that activating personal, but not organizational, religiosity concepts increased delay-of-gratification. We did not find support for the latter hypothesis. We discuss the implications of these findings and future research directions.

Committee: Kimberly Rios PhD (Advisor); Ronaldo Vigo PhD (Advisor); Keith Markman PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Cognitive Psychology; Psychology; Religion; Social Psychology; Social Research

Master of Gerontological Studies, Miami University, 2008, Gerontology

The purpose of this research is to explore the relationship between religiosity and attitudes towards aging. Specifically, this research investigates the relationship between specific kinds of Christian belief (fundamentalism, orthodoxy, puritanism, and humanism) and attitudes toward personal aging. Results show that individuals with more orthodox beliefs tended to have more positive attitudes about their own aging. Individuals with greater fundamentalist belief also have more positive attitudes about personal aging while those individuals who hold humanistic belief have more negative attitudes toward personal aging. These three kinds of beliefs were the only significant predictors of attitudes toward personal aging when controlling for age, gender, educational attainment and frequency of church attendance.

Committee: Suzanne Kunkel PhD (Committee Chair); Jennifer Kinney PhD (Committee Member); Anthony Peguero PhD (Committee Member); Robert Applebaum PhD (Other) Subjects: Gerontology