Doctor of Education , University of Dayton, 2023, Educational Administration

The purpose of this study is to identify and evaluate how organizations are able to create a sense of community and support teams within remote work environments, especially within times of crisis. The study emphasizes the need for BAC Consulting leadership teams to assess and understand the demographic and cultural makeup of the organization as a means for determining its specific needs. Details from BAC Consulting Baseline Sustainment team members' lived experiences will also be gathered to gain an understanding of the individual and collective challenges they have faced as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The goal of the study is to aid in the fostering of a sustainable partnership between employees and leadership as they work to improve employee engagement and create a thriving organizational culture. This qualitative participatory action research study will add to the developing knowledge base while also being a useful tool for administrators interested in making impactful organizational change during times of crises. This study utilized Funds of Knowledge (FoK) and William Kahn's Theory of Employee Engagement as guiding frameworks for improving the employee experience and creating a greater sense of belonging. To collect relevant qualitative data, participants in the study were interviewed individually and also contributed to a working group session. The results were analyzed and common themes were identified. The information was valuable in developing an effective action plan and organizational checklist. These tools were designed to aid in fostering organizational change by providing greater access to training and company resources while increasing employee engagement and team collaboration.

Committee: Matthew Witenstein Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Elizabeth Essex Ph.D. (Committee Member); Meredith Montgomery Ed.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Management; Organization Theory; Organizational Behavior

MDES, University of Cincinnati, 2016, Design, Architecture, Art and Planning: Design

User experience (UX) designers who are joining a multidisciplinary product development team might face different collaboration challenges since the field user experience is relatively a new term and there is an ambiguity with UX designers' proficiencies, skills and abilities. In this thesis I have done a literature review on UX design process and successful collaboration criteria and addressed the challenges by two methods. One is a case study in which I was the UX designer. The project was about designing a web-based application in a multidisciplinary team at Bioinformatics department at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center (CCHMC). The second method was interviewing my teammates at the same project in order to find out their experience in this collaboration. Based on my findings I have developed five guidelines for UX designer to overcome collaboration challenges. These guidelines are: 1-

Committee: Steven Doehler M.A. (Committee Chair); Gerald Michaud M.A. (Committee Member); Craig Vogel M.I.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Design

Doctor of Philosophy, Case Western Reserve University, 2015, Management

Although difficult, complicated, and sometimes discouraging, collaboration is recognized as a viable approach for addressing uncertain, complex and wicked problems. Collaborations can attract resources and increase efficiency, facilitate visions of mutual benefit that can ignite common desires of partners to work across and within sectors, and create shared feelings of responsibility. Collaboration can also promote conceptualized synergy, the sense that something will “be achieved that could not have been attained by any of the organizations acting alone” (Huxham, 2003). However, previous inquiries into the problems encountered in collaborations have not solved an important question: How to enable successful collaboration? Through exploratory sequential mixed-methods research conducted in three empirical studies, I discover how interorganizational collaborations can overcome barriers to innovate and rejuvenate communities and understand the factors and antecedents that influence successful collaboration. In the first study (Chapter 2), I use a grounded theory approach to identify the factors involved in successful collaboration. My interviews with leaders in affordable housing cross-sector collaborations revealed most collaborations for affordable housing encounter a common set of obstacles: funding, partnering, community, and/or government. Key findings suggest leaders of successful collaborations exhibit heightened emotional and social competencies, take actions intended to create a better future, remain mission-focused, and continuously redesign to meet ongoing challenges. Further, successful collaborations were innovative—creating solutions that rejuvenated their communities. To confirm and validate the findings in the first study, I propose a theoretical model emerging from the qualitative research, designed and empirically tested through a survey of 452 leaders and managers participating in ongoing or recently completed interorganizational collaborations (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Tony Lingham (Committee Chair); Bonnie Richley (Committee Member); Mary Dolansky (Committee Member); James Gaskin (Committee Member) Subjects: Management

Psy. D., Antioch University, 2021, Antioch New England: Clinical Psychology

This dissertation explored interdisciplinary team functioning on a long-term adolescent inpatient psychiatric unit. It compared staff perceptions (MHCs, clinicians, and nurses) of interdisciplinary coherence and unit effectiveness. This study was particularly focused on understanding MHCs perceptions of team functioning and how satisfied team members are with their level of input and involvement in team decision-making. Additionally, this study explored possible barriers to effective team functioning in this setting. Eighty-four participants in this study completed the Interdisciplinary Team Process and Performance Survey (ITPPS) to assess perceptions of team functioning. Participants answered additional questions assessing barriers to communication and collaboration and levels of satisfaction with their input in the team's decision-making process. A one-way ANOVA was conducted to compare perceptions of team cohesion and team effectiveness across occupations. Results suggest that there is a significant difference among the three occupational groups regarding their perceptions of how their team functions, with MHCs having more negative perceptions of team processes than nurses and clinicians. This team ranked the three highest barriers to communication and collaboration: (a) Differences in accountability, payment, and rewards; (b) Hierarchy; and (c) Lack of training for MHCs. Regarding levels of satisfaction, results showed that MHCs reported the lowest levels of satisfaction, while clinicians rated the highest levels of satisfaction. With these findings, recommendations were made for ways in which long-term inpatient adolescent psychiatric hospitals can work to improve their interdisciplinary team functioning to increase job satisfaction and improve patient care.

Committee: Martha Straus Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Barbara Belcher-Timme Psy.D. (Committee Member); George Tremblay Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Clinical Psychology

Master of Science (MS), Wright State University, 2019, Human Factors and Industrial/Organizational Psychology MS

Collaboration, cohesion, and trust within teams can lead to beneficial outcomes such as innovation, speed of innovation delivery, enhanced creativity, and improved performance. Because of the prevalence of teams in the workforce, it is important that teams function at their highest capacity. One way to enhance team functioning may be to improve emotional intelligence (EI) in team members. Research has shown that higher EI is related to individual benefits such as stress resilience, better communication, relationship satisfaction, and improved performance. Team benefits of higher EI include greater cohesion, cooperation, trust, and performance. This study examined whether an emotional competency training could enhance EI abilities in adults, and whether the trained EI abilities related to higher team collaboration, trust, and performance. Undergraduates (N = 135) participated in teams of three that were randomly assigned to an EI training or control condition. Results indicated that the training did not significantly increase EI abilities, team collaboration, or trust. The training was related to better performance on one of two team tasks. It may be that simply spending time together as a team enhanced performance.

Committee: Tamera Schneider Ph.D. (Advisor); Gary Burns Ph.D. (Committee Member); Ken Griffin Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Psychology; Social Psychology

Master of Arts, Miami University, 2015, English

For my thesis, I conducted a teacher-researcher study which focuses on first-year composition students' perspectives on team writing. In this study, I examine two different pedagogical approaches for teaching team writing. In both of my first-year composition sections, I used two different methods for grouping students: one where students kept the same team throughout the semester (Class A) and one where they formed different teams for each of the two team writing projects (Class B). My study examines student views through a collection of different student generated data. My thesis answers the following interrelated questions: what are first-year students' experiences with collaborative writing? what suggestions do they have for improving pedagogy for composition? what practices may best facilitate collaborative writing? And what grouping method for team projects seemed to work best for them? My thesis concludes by offering instructors suggestions for improving student collaborative writing based on my findings.

Committee: Heidi McKee (Committee Chair); Jason Palmeri (Committee Member); Michele Simmons (Committee Member) Subjects: Education; Rhetoric

Master of Arts (M.A.), Xavier University, 2015, Psychology

Workplace negative affectivity (NA) has been well-examined in the literature, but no study has explored its influence on perceived morale and perceived team cooperation. One hundred and fifty-eight undergraduates from a small university in the Midwest were randomly assigned to one of two vignette conditions and then answered questions about morale, cooperation, and affectivity. The study hypothesized that the presence of high NA would negatively affect perceived morale and perceived team cooperation. The hypotheses were supported, indicating that NA has a significant effect on both perceived morale and perceived cooperation, such that higher NA is related to lower perceived morale and lower perceived team cooperation. Results also indicated that participant positive affectivity was not related to either perceived morale or perceived cooperation, but NA shared a negative relationship with perceived cooperation. The results of this study have several implications for companies, including that employee disposition may impact team environments. Future research should continue to explore how personality may affect workplace environments.

Committee: Morell Mullins Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Dalia Diab Ph.D. (Committee Member); Mark Nagy Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Occupational Psychology; Organizational Behavior; Personality Psychology; Psychology; Social Psychology

Master of Science in Pharmaceutical Science (MSP), University of Toledo, 2013, College of Pharmacy

In the past, pharmacists' roles were centered around dispensing and compounding medications. With the changing roles and responsibilities of pharmacists in managing patients' medication therapy, an emphasis is being made on providing team based care to patients. Recent changes in legislation, improvements in regulatory standards, and developmental changes in reimbursement strategies have driven this change in the healthcare environment. Several interprofessional models of care have been implemented in various settings to effectively allocate resources and improve the access and continuity of care. The counseling services provided by pharmacists provide opportunities for patients, physicians, and pharmacists to work closely with each other. Physicians benefit from these services through improving patient safety and utilizing their time and expertise to see more patients. Pharmacists benefit by building relationships with physicians with the goal of making medication related recommendations to improve patients' drug therapy. Therefore, for the collaboration between pharmacists and physicians to be successful, interaction between them is important and begins at the educational level. With the focus being made on patient centered care, incorporating some educational sessions on the services that other healthcare providers provide or workshops on collaboration could be an important part in the curriculum of both medical and pharmacy schools. It could allow them to better understand each other's role and responsibilities, skills, and expertise. It could also improve their communication skills, trust, and confidence with each other. Therefore, the aim of our study was to understand the perceptions of medical students on pharmacist-provided counseling services and towards collaboration. A modified Theory of Planned Behavior was used to assess awareness, attitude, perceived behavioral control, subjective norm, and intention of the fir (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Sharrel Pinto (Advisor); Robert Bechtol (Committee Member); Gregory Stone (Committee Member) Subjects: Curriculum Development; Health Care; Health Care Management

PhD, University of Cincinnati, 2008, Arts and Sciences : Psychology

Emotional intelligence (EI) is a controversial construct, which affords a range of emotion-related skills including emotion perception; emotional facilitation of thinking; emotional understanding; and emotion management (Mayer & Salovey, 1997). Notably, EI can be considered as (1) a trait akin to personality (e.g., Petrides & Furnham, 2001), in which case it is measured using self-report questionnaires of socioemotional functioning; or (2) an ability, in which case it is measured using maximal performance tests (e.g., Mayer, Salovey, & Caruso, 2002). Teamwork has been a subject of investigation under military sponsorship since the 1950s (Paris, Salas, & Cannon-Bowers, 2000). Since that time teamwork research has evolved from a narrow social psychological focus to a broader domain, including organizational settings (Levine & Moreland, 1990). There, the use of teams has been increasing since the 1980s, and teamwork has been investigated as a way to enhance performance, especially in settings where task complexity has greatly increased. EI may affect the ability of workers to relate with fellow team members more agreeably, adapt to teamwork more effectively, thus improving team performance and productivity (Goleman, 1998). Moreover, it may affect workers' performance differentially based on instructions they receive regarding collaborating or competing with team members. The aim of the current study was to test the effect of EI on performance of a cognitive task in the context of collaboration toward a prestigious team goal vs. competition for a prestigious job promotion. 311 participants, in pairs and singly, decided whether a series of animated characters were “correct” or “incorrect,” in a discrimination-learning paradigm. Three conditions (i.e., two teamwork conditions: collaboration, competition; and a control condition) were manipulated, and the number of errors was recorded over 100 trials. EI, personality, teamwork attitude and general intelligence we (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Gerald Matthews PhD (Committee Chair); Joel Warm PhD (Committee Member); Kevin Shockley PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Behaviorial Sciences; Occupational Psychology; Organizational Behavior; Personality; Psychology

Doctor of Education (Ed.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2006, Leadership Studies

The purpose of this study was to identify the personal and organizational characteristics that facilitate and restrict boundary spanning (BS) of external leaders. The study was a two-phase sequential exploratory mixed-method study. The first phase examined the relationship between boundary spanning and emotional intelligence (EI) of external team leaders. Through interviews, the second phase explored individual and organizational characteristics that facilitate or restrict boundary spanning in external team leaders who scored differently on boundary spanning than predicted based on emotional intelligence scores. Bivariate regression and correlation showed that boundary spanning is strongly related to emotional intelligence. Three external leaders were selected for Phase II because they had nearly the same EI alignment scores but very different BS alignment scores. I wanted to know why, if EI and BS have such a strong relationship, the BS scores of these three leaders were so different. Qualitative data from 14 interviews revealed that leader distance and need are both facilitators and restrictors of boundary spanning. Boundary spanning is not just something that the leader does for the team. Boundary spanning is important based on an individual's need. If the need is low, the leader would offer less help and, therefore, the appraisal of the leader's boundary spanning would be lower. Also, the leader must understand when there is a need and how to react to the need by offering the appropriate help for the appropriate duration. The ability of the leader to understand the need of the team members requires relationship building. Relationship building is made easier when the leader distance (physical proximity, social distance, and perceived occurrence interval) is low. As emotional intelligence increases, so does the ability to recognize and utilize need and distance to span the boundary for the team. Boundary spanning is important on both individual and organizational (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Mark A. Earley Patrick D. Pauken (Advisor) Subjects: