Search results

The decision to disclose an illness is a difficult choice for many individuals. Despite national laws such Americans with Disabilities Act that protect workers with disabilities from discrimination in the workplace, the stigmas around certain illnesses, fears of being judged by others using different standards, and concerns about a lack of support regardless of legal requirements are all reasons why someone may hesitate to disclose a health condition in the workplace.

Using experimentally manipulated vignettes and a combination of theories on attribution and incivility, this study explores the dangers of not disclosing a disability/condition that can lead to behaviors that will engender judgments by coworkers.

The results of the study make clear that there are social benefits to disclosing a health condition rather than concealing. The findings clearly demonstrate that attributing an individual's negative behavior to their disposition will lead to more judgments of responsibility, and less sympathy and more anger compared to behaviors that can be explained by any health reason. Furthermore, more punishment, feelings of revenge and social distancing await individuals whose negative behavior cannot be explained by health issues.

This study combines issues of health, attributions, incivility in an experimental studies that illuminates issues surround disclosing a workplace disability that go beyond the typical focus of legal questions.

Individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) represent a growing segment of the population but face important obstacles in the workplace. Even for ASD individuals with the mildest form/highest-functioning type, unemployment is 80 percent, and many of those who work are underemployed. This in spite of the fact that these individuals are highly intelligent and capable of excellent work. The purpose of this paper is to present a model of the unique challenges that workers with ASD face in the modern workplace based on stigmas and discrimination surrounding mental health, attribution theory and the disconnect between behaviors common to neurodiverse individuals and some of the most researched theories in the field of organizational behavior. The goal of the paper is to encourage more empirical research focused specifically on ASD workers.

A review of the literature on ASD in juxtaposed to evidence-based social psychology and management theories to demonstrate the difficulties faced by individuals with ASD.

Recommendations for overcoming these barriers and using management theories to help integrate ASD workers are discussed.

Workers with ASD are a growing population in the workforce, but have received scant research attention. This is the first paper to link several theories to ASD and the hope is that subsequent research will illuminate these relationships empirically.

It is commonly asserted that qualitative research in the organizational sciences lacks the rigor and objectivity of the quantitative approach. Case studies, while commonly used for educational purposes, have been viewed in a less favorable light in terms of research. This paper suggests that case studies represent an important research track in organizational science, not only as a method of generating hypotheses for quantitative studies, but for generating and testing theory. The paper will develop arguments in support of case study research, will highlight particular issues and constraints relating to case study research, and will offer recommendations for the use of this method.

The Donner expedition to California in 1846‐1847 is one of the darkest tales of the great migrations west. While much has been written about the tragedy, a group analysis based on business research has not been undertaken. The purpose of this paper is to suggest that the story of the Donner Party is primarily a group failure, with implications for practicing managers employing temporary groups in uncertain situations.

Group theories concerning the nature of temporary work groups, interdependence, diversity, social identity, and leadership are employed to explain how negative group processes likely contributed to the disaster.

Based on books and a film about the incident, the Donner Party suffered a social breakdown based on: the changing nature of the goals of the expedition in mid‐course, which is difficult for temporary teams to handle; destructive forms of diversity based on cultural background and social status; and a lack of critical skills and effective leadership. The story also illustrates that small, cohesive groups had a better survival rate than individuals.

While only a single case, this study demonstrates the special nature of temporary groups and demonstrates that not all diversity is positive. Both issues require strong leadership. Furthermore, the study demonstrates the importance of considering context in group research.

This is an original analysis of the Donner Party using group theories. This study reminds managers of the fragility of temporary groups, and stresses the need to consider the possibilities of accidents/disasters when undertaking large projects.

The literature on downsizing and downsizing through early retirement programs lead to a clear conclusion: managers must take a very thoughtful approach to downsizing. Poor planning, knee‐jerk reactions, miscommunication with employees and the mishandling of remaining employees can lead to failure. Despite all the benefits, early retirement incentive programs have received harsh criticism on a number of fronts. The legal, societal, and individual implications of early retirement incentive programs are numerous. The key to reducing this uncertainty and potential negative outcomes is the ability to predict beforehand which employees will accept the early retirement packages. Many factors influence the decision to retire and are examined. Predicting who or why someone will retire is extremely difficult. One of the missing ingredients for the success of these programs can be found in the Human Resources Department and its activities. This is the linking pin for all training, development and education efforts intended to socialize the existing management team responsible for this activity and its success as well as failures to deal with the new changes and culture of a downsized organization. Attention is given to the role and major issues of this intervention.

While downsizing is often automatically associated with for‐profit organizations, many of the pressures that have led businesses to downsize over the last 20 years have also affected public‐sector organizations, including universities. The primary focus of this article is to underline the particular issues and problems facing universities when confronted with pressures to downsize. Begins with a general overview of downsizing and its outcomes, followed by an analysis of downsizing in higher education with an emphasis on three major points: the factors causing universities to consider downsizing; the special nature of universities that makes downsizing particularly difficult; and the downsizing methods used by universities.

The purpose of this paper is to examine principal mentoring, a process that is significant in principal identification, socialization, development, and retention.

The study was framed within the social constructivism paradigm and thematically examined individual perspectives to develop the thematic constructs relevant to the participants’ experiences of and perceptions about principal mentoring.

Thematic analysis of the interview data from 16 principals from the state of Georgia, USA, revealed five major themes related to leaders’ experiences of and perceptions about principal mentoring: mentoring as recruitment; mentoring as socialization; mentoring as support; mentoring as professional development; and mentoring as reciprocal learning.

These findings were limited to the sample of principals used for this analysis. Researchers are encouraged to examine principal mentoring in other contexts.

The results of this inquiry suggest the need for formal and informal mentoring opportunities for new and experienced principals and call for further research on comparing mentoring practices between the large and small schools systems.

The paper identifies mentoring as an important path to principal effectiveness and contributes to the corpus of literature on educational mentoring by examining the perceptions and experiences of new and experienced principals about the mentoring they received and provided.

Professional practice doctorate programs’ purpose is to prepare practitioners in the industry to lead and solve current and future complex problems with the application of research. The authors aim to argue that leadership, critical friends, and engagement of the education community together have the potential to assist in enhancing professional practice doctorate graduates’ outcomes.

From three case studies of redesign and implementations of Ed. D. programs associated with the Carnegie Project on the Education Doctorate, the authors discuss how distributed leadership and implementation of contemporary motivational concepts within a university empowers and incentivizes faculty to develop and enhance effectiveness of professional practice doctorates.

The concept of critical friends, those who are not invested in a specific situation, can provide objective and fresh insight and is applied as a reform strategy. Engaging the industry, that is, the education community, to further in‐context experiences for both faculty and graduate students provides not only venues for research and continual updates in the field, but also access to data, participants, and information needed for both doctoral dissertations in practice, but also faculty research. The authors conclude that the three concepts support enhancement of effectiveness of professional practice doctorate programs and accountability for graduates’ impact in the workplace.

The authors’ analyses of two professional doctorate programs generated three themes as important contributors to the (re)design, implementation, and evaluation of the Ed.D.: leaders, critical friends, and the education community. By considering the roles of leaders, critical friends, and the education, a conceptual model can be developed to support success.

The paper aims to ascertain the governance arrangements of higher education providers in Cambodia and to seek insights into institutional governance while its higher education sector is in a significant transition towards the market model.

The empirical research underpinning this paper applies a qualitative method, based on an interpretivist approach to inquiry. The study uses semi-structured interviews with 38 key research participants from relevant institutions. The data analysis follows a thematic coding approach.

The study has found that despite their divergent governance arrangements, three forms of higher education providers – public institution, public administrative institution and private institution – have become increasingly similar because of their convergent trend towards commercialization and politicization. These two critical issues are considered threats to institutional development in Cambodia.

The interviews were conducted with the key actors at leadership and management levels. This leaves room for future research to investigate the institutional governance issue at faculty and student levels to develop a deeper understanding about the on-the-ground implementation. This paper is a useful information source for policymakers, institutional leaders and educational practitioners.

This paper addresses the under-researched issue of institutional governance in Cambodia and critically examines the assumption that devolution and privatization of higher education in Cambodia will help advance the sector for economic development. The paper contributes to the ongoing academic debate in the higher education domain while higher education institutions are struggling to sustain their place in the competitive marketplace.