Search

This Global Studies honors thesis addresses how managers and leaders of global firms manage innovation across multiple markets. Current research on multinational corporations provides an understanding of different kinds of innovation and the ways to attend to multiple markets. However, there is less documentation of how these innovation strategies are actually implemented on the ground and the tensions that these efforts might produce. Therefore, my research focuses in particular on the challenges and tensions faced by leaders of global firms as they implement transnational innovation strategies. This study is based upon in-depth interviews with 20 participants who held positions in global companies in the pharmaceutical and technology industries as well as academics whose work addresses organizational management and innovation. Results from an analysis of these interviews across and within these two industries provide insights into the literature on multinational corporation global innovation and leadership across international borders.

This paper addresses the wicked problem of toxic leadership in the U.S. Army. The paper begins by defining toxic leadership, explaining the scope of the challenge, describing its effects on subordinates and units, and examining current barriers to identification of toxic leaders. The paper explores methods to identify toxic leaders within the U.S. Army. Finally, the paper describes tools available to remove toxic leaders from military service. Taming this wicked problem requires positive and effective leadership at all levels. Leaders must first help establish a military culture that encourages Soldiers to report toxic behavior without fear of reprisal. Leaders must also make the hard choices necessary to document and remove toxic leaders from military service. The Army is moving in the right direction with several new initiatives including revamping the Officer Evaluation Report system and implementing the Commander 360 evaluations. The Army must continue to monitor and expand upon these initiatives to demonstrate its commitment to rid toxic leaders from its ranks and to protect the integrity of the military profession.

Church leaders must know how to create healthy culture in their churches. Organizational culture has been a trending topic over the last three decades. In more recent years, church culture has developed out of the greater organizational culture discussion. Much research exists that addresses both organizational and church culture. Despite the prevalence of this research, there was still a lack of empirical research that addressed the creation of healthy culture in local churches. This study addressed the need that was present for churches and church leaders. This research was qualitative in nature, utilizing case study and content analysis as the two primary components of the instrumentation. Through this study of three local church cases seven practices emerged that can help church leaders intentionally create healthy culture in the churches where they serve.

The increased competition in the business environment requires organizations to be innovative and dynamic in order to survive. Entrepreneurial behaviour holds the enabling forces for such innovative and dynamic behaviour and could also become a strategic advantage for an organization. The purpose of this research is to investigate the influence of organizational culture on entrepreneurial capital of employees. A quantitative research methodology was followed to collect the research data. The organizational culture of 185 respondent’s organizations was measured with the organizational culture assessment instrument and was classified according to the competing values model. The entrepreneurial intent, a proxy for entrepreneurial capital, of these respondents was measured with the theory of a planned behavior instrument. Sequential multiple regression analysis was used to analyse the relationship between entrepreneurial intent and organizational culture. The results confirm that an organization’s culture indirectly influences entrepreneurial capital through the antecedent of planned behaviour. This research contributes to explaining why certain organizations are more entrepreneurial than others.

This study recognises that both metrics and innovation lead to superior performance. It explores the marketing activities and processes followed by innovative companies, in particular those involving customers, and proposes the key metrics aligned to these; thereby formalising marketing's role in the innovation process. Qualitative expert-interviews were done using the Critical Incident Technique; 11 professionals from a South African company, recognised for its innovation, were asked to share their personal experiences of a recent company innovation. The findings highlight the value of a strong corporate culture of collaboration and inclusion, as well as an unwavering focus on creating value for the client, and conclude by proposing a finite marketing dashboard of 12 metrics that align people and processes as key indicators of success to guide the marketer during the innovation process.

Organisation faced with competitive market pressures and those that are looking at sustaining their market position may adopt collaborative product design as a strategy to improve quality, increase market share, increase efficiencies and reduce the time to market for their products. Conversely, in a design environment engineering changes are unavoidable and need to be effectively coordinated because they may become costly for a company in product recalls and reputational damage. They can however be viewed as a cost benefit as contributors to optimisation of product quality. In this study, engineering changes were examined as enablers to collaborative product design where the study was undertaken in the land systems sector of defence in South Africa. The sector is faced with defence cuts resulting in direct and indirect job losses across the supply chain. An exploratory study was conducted where the constraints to design performance were evaluated. The applicability of the data and process orientated information exchange models were explored on the extent they influence the speed of engineering changes. The outcome was a model that can be used as an evaluation and decision making tool for companies conducting collaborative strategy with emphasis on engineering changes and information flow.

When focusing on toxic leadership, many researchers emphasize the symptoms of toxicity (individual characteristics, traits) and not the disease (culture, climate, outcomes). Although characteristics and traits may be helpful in identify toxic leaders, they fall short of a holistic view by failing to identify or discuss how an organization's culture may contribute to toxicity in its leaders. Culture is a key strategic factor in predicting behaviors and outcomes. An organization's culture may have a moderating effect on the behavior of its members and may ultimately serve to promote toxic behavior. Toxic leadership is a topic of increasing interest in the military and civilian sectors. In this paper I will examine the possible cause and effect relationship between toxic leaders and the damaging cultures they foster. I will begin by defining toxic leadership; I will then use a classification-oriented approach to analyze the effect of toxic leadership on the elements of organizational culture: values, norms, and behaviors. Finally, I will explore the moderating environmental effects that may increase or mitigate the organization's vulnerability to the damage caused by toxic leaders. The intent of this paper is to add to the understanding of this significant organizational concern through initial conceptualization and theory.

"As the Air Force matures as a service we must choose a culture for our continued long-term success. The zero-defect approach practiced by the Strategic Air Command (SAC) during the service's infancy offers short-term success, but the resulting culture of fear and reprisal is not conducive to sustained excellence. Conversely, the tolerant approach of Quality Air Force (QAF) adopted during our adolescence provides short-term morale benefits, but its culture of ambivalence lacks the discipline required to achieve Excellence in All We Do. Ultimately, long-term, high performance is possible by adopting a fail-safe approach which paradoxically embraces failure through a mindful approach to building a resilient enterprise. This fail-safe culture occurs when leaders clearly articulate the boundaries of acceptable behavior and enforce them through just rewards and just discipline. It is from inside the security of these clearly-defined boundaries that our fail-safe culture will thrive."--Abstract.

The "View now" link directs to the finding aid only. Please email wvrhcref@mail.wvu.edu or call 304-293-3536 for more information about accessing collection A&M 4443 Glen H. Hiner, Jr. Papers, ca. 1910-2016. Papers of Glen H. Hiner, Jr., Senior Vice President and Group Executive of General Electric Plastics (1983-1991) and CEO of Owens-Corning Fiberglas Corporation (1992-2002). These papers document both his personal life and professional career with an emphasis on the latter. Materials found in the collection include but are not limited to business publications, financial reports, correspondence, and photographs of various personal and business events. The collection also contains a large amount of publications and audio/visual material relating to Glen Hiner and the companies with which he was associated. Also included in the collection are a few personal belongings of Glen Hiner such as a high school letterman jacket, cuff links, and an assortment of awards, among other items. Record series include: Series 1. Personal and Business Papers (Box 1) Series 2. Family Papers (Boxes 1-2) Series 3. Correspondence (Box 3) Series 4. Books and Publications (Boxes 4-5) Series 5. Media (Box 5) Series 6. Photographs (Boxes 6-8) Series 7. Artifacts and Awards (Boxes 9-13) Series 8. Oversize (Box 14-23 and unboxed)