Browsing by Author "Chai, Dae Seok, committee member"
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Item Open Access A study on bridge inspections: identifying barriers to new practices and providing strategies for change(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2021) Abdallah, Abdelrahman M., author; Atadero, Rebecca A., advisor; Ozbek, Mehmet E., advisor; Jia, Gaofeng, committee member; Chai, Dae Seok, committee memberBridge inspections are one of the key elements required for a successful bridge management process to ensure adequate bridge performance. Inspections significantly inform maintenance decisions and can help in managing maintenance activities to achieve a reliable bridge network. In the United States (U.S.) routine visual inspections are required for most bridges at a maximum interval of 24-months regardless of the bridge condition. However, limitations of current bridge inspection practices impact the quality of information provided about bridge condition and the subsequent decisions made based on that information. Accordingly, the overarching goal of this research project is to support bridge inspection practices by providing a systematic and rational framework for bridge inspection planning and identifying the factors that can facilitate innovation and research transfer in the bridge inspection field. To do so, this dissertation includes three separate yet related studies; each focusing on essential aspects of bridge inspection planning. Much research in bridge inspection has been conducted to improve the inspection planning process. The first study provides an overview of current bridge inspection practices in the U.S. and conducts a systematic literature review on innovations in the field of bridge inspection planning to identify research gaps and future needs. This study provides a background on the history of bridge inspection in the U.S., including current bridge inspection practices and their limitations, and analyzes the connections between nondestructive evaluation techniques, deterioration models and bridge inspection management. The primary emphasis of the first study is a thorough analysis of research proposing and investigating different methodologies for inspection planning. Studies were analyzed and categorized into three main types of inspection planning approaches; methods that are based on: reliability, risk analysis, and optimization approaches. This study found that one of the main barriers that may be preventing the implementation of new inspection planning frameworks in practice is that the approaches presented focus on a single bridge element or deterioration mechanism in the decision-making process. Additionally, it was concluded that approaches in the literature are either complex to apply or depend solely on expert judgement. Limitations of the uniform calendar-based approach used to schedule routine inspections have been reported in the literature. Accordingly, the objective of the second study is to provide a new systematic approach for inspection planning that integrates information from bridge condition prediction models, inspection data, and expert opinion using Bayesian analysis to enhance inspection efficiency and maintenance activities. The proposed uncertainty-based inspection framework can help bridge owners avoid unnecessary or delayed inspections and repair actions, determine the inspection method, and consider more than one deterioration process or bridge component during the inspection planning process. The inspection time and method are determined based on the uncertainty and risks associated with the bridge condition. As uncertainty in the bridge condition reaches a defined threshold, an inspection is scheduled utilizing nondestructive techniques to reduce the uncertainty level. The framework was demonstrated on a new and on an existing reinforced concrete bridge deck impacted by corrosion deterioration. The results showed that the framework can reduce the number of inspections compared to conventional scheduling methods, while also reducing the uncertainty regarding the transition in the bridge deck condition and repair time. As identified through the first study, over the last two decades many researchers have focused on providing new ideas to improve conventional bridge inspection practices, however, little guidance is provided for implementing these new research products in practice. This, along with resistance to change and complexity of the proposed ideas, resulted in a lack of consistency and success in applying new technologies in bridge inspection programs across state departments of transportation (DOTs). Accordingly, the third paper presents a qualitative study set out to identify the factors that can help improve research products and accelerate change and research transfer in bridge inspection departments. This study used semi-structured interviews, written interviews, and questionnaires for data collection and engaged with twenty-six bridge staff members from different DOTs. The findings of this study are expected to be both specific to changes in bridge inspection practice and have some generalizability to other significant changes to engineering practice at DOTs. To improve research products, this study suggested that researchers need to collaborate more with DOT staff members and provide relevant research products that are not specific to certain bridge cases and can be applied on different bridges. Also, to facilitate change in transportation organizations, change leaders should focus on showing the need for change, gaining support from the FHWA, allocating the required resources, and enhancing the capacity of DOT staff members through training and effective communication. The investigation also presented participants' opinions on some of the aspects related to conventional inspection practices such as their support of a uniform inspection interval over a variable interval, and the main barriers limiting the use of NDE methods. This study contributes to the body of knowledge in the bridge inspection field by providing a new inspection planning approach that depends on the uncertainty and the risks associated with the bridge condition and uses both computational methods and expert judgment allowing bridge owners select inspection time and method while considering more than one deterioration process or bridge element. In addition, this study presents some of the factors that can help reduce the gap between research and practice and facilitate innovation and change in transportation organizations.Item Open Access Crafting the "myths of the future": the art and science of writing scenarios in scenario planning(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2019) Coons, Laura Marie, author; Chermack, Thomas, advisor; Chai, Dae Seok, committee member; Doe, Sue, committee member; Gloeckner, Gene, committee memberThe purpose of this research was to investigate scenario writing as a discrete component of the scenario planning process. While ongoing scholarship on scenario planning has added data to support many of the outcomes of the process, the specific guidance to writers of scenarios has remained largely absent from the literature. For those who would write scenarios either as practitioners or as organizational members who tackle the process, more information would be useful to inform the writing. This research had two aims. First, to distill the available literature on scenario writing into a practical model for writers. In addition to reviewing scenario planning literature, this work also considered the impact of specific genres of writing: science fiction, with its future-oriented frame; theater, with its performance and lived-experience approach to content; and short stories, with their high-impact, short-format structure. Beyond types of writing, best practices for writing were also considered. Second, this work sought to test writing quality in scenarios by measuring participant experiences with the stories. To accomplish this second objective, the researcher facilitated a series of scenario planning workshops, wrote scenarios of high and low quality, and leveraged the ITC-Sense of Presence Inventory (SOPI) to measure participant experiences of sense of presence. Sense of presence is a useful and previously unexplored construct to measure participant experiences with scenarios. The ITC-SOPI has primarily been used to measure sense of presence for participants experiencing non-written media, like movies, video games, or virtual reality. The tool showed promise, however, to asses a scenario reader's experience as well. The instrument measures four constructs of sense of presence: spatial presence, engagement, ecological validity, and negative effects. Spatial presence is a person's sense of being drawn into the medium. Engagement describes a participant's sense of enjoyment. Ecological validity is the sense of naturalness or realistic qualities of the medium. And negative effects are the person's discomfort experienced after interacting with the medium. All of these constructs are of interest to scenario writers, since the existing literature does consistently explain that participants should experience all four – feeling drawn into the story, enjoying at least parts of the experience, feeling that the scenarios are realistic, and potentially undergoing difficult or challenging changes in thinking as a consequence of the experience. The results of the inquiry were promising. Three hypotheses were tested to understand how scenario quality affected participant sense of presence and whether or not participating in the workshops had any effect on sense of presence. Results indicated that both workshop participation and scenario quality had statistically significant effects on sense of presence scores. Such results indicate additional inquiry would be beneficial.Item Open Access Relationship of transformational leadership and organizational readiness for change as mediated by leader-member exchange and work engagement(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2024) Hutt, Mark Joseph, author; Chermack, Thomas J., advisor; Chai, Dae Seok, committee member; Makela, Carole, committee member; Conroy, Samantha Ann, committee memberThe purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between transformational leadership and organizational readiness for change as mediated by the quality of the leader-member relationship and employee work engagement. Organizations face unprecedented cycles of change, which are ever-present during company merger and acquisition events. Research has shown that between 70% and 90% of mergers fail to deliver a realized benefit to companies and shareholders. This research proposed merger and acquisition events fail partly due to a lack of organizational readiness for change due to leadership practices and poor employee engagement. There is a gap in the scholarly research on what practical actions practitioners can take to improve the likelihood of success in merger and acquisition events. Research has shown a connection between organizational readiness for change and organizational performance. Previous research has also shown there are relationships with transformational leadership, leader-member exchange, employee work engagement, and organizational performance. While this research has shown the individual relations of these theoretical constructs on organizational performance, more research needs to be done to understand the relation of these constructs with each other and their ability to improve organizational readiness for change and, therefore, organizational performance. This research hypothesizes a positive relationship between transformational leadership and organizational readiness for change and sought to answer the question of what the relation of transformational leadership and organizational readiness for change is as mediated by leader-member exchange (LMX) and work engagement. The context used to study this question was a biotechnology firm in the Pacific Northwest that had experienced the announcement of two separate significant acquisitions within 12 months. A non-experimental, descriptive, cross-sectional survey research design was used to investigate this research question and hypotheses. The population for this study was 1,145 employees of a bio-pharmaceutical company in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. Well established in the scholarly research, the following surveys were used to study transformational leadership, leader-member exchange, work engagement, and organizational readiness for change. Transformational leadership was measured using the 7-item Global Transformational Leadership (GTL) scale. The quality of leader-member exchange relationships was measured by administering the 12-question LMX-MDM survey. Work engagement was measured through the administration of the 9-question UWES-9. Organizational readiness for change was measured using the 14-question OCQ-R. The hypotheses were analyzed using confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling. Structural equation modeling was used to test the hypotheses and the hypothetical model. The model's fit was evaluated using root mean square error of approximation, standardized root mean square residual, comparative fit index, normed fit index, and the goodness of fit index. The mediation hypotheses of this research were analyzed using bootstrapping in combination with Baron and Kenny's established regression test for mediating factors using macros for SPSS & R. The outcome of this research found a relationship between the transformational leadership styles and actions managers and leaders take and the readiness of employees for organizational change in support of organizational performance and the success of change events. Specifically, this study provided insights to scholars and practitioners on the actions organizations can take when faced with large-scale organizational change events, such as merger and acquisition events.Item Open Access The role of managerial motivating language in turnover intention of public sector employees(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2024) Brito, Marina M., author; Chermack, Thomas J., advisor; Chai, Dae Seok, committee member; Thomas, Cliff, committee member; Conroy, Samantha A., committee memberThis study examined the relationships between three types of managerial motivating language, including a) direction-giving language, b) meaning-making language, and c) empathetic language, and employee turnover intention in the public sector environment. The mediating effect of public service motivation was also examined. Motivating language theory guided this study, variable selection, and hypothesis development. An online questionnaire was distributed to public sector employees of four local government organizations in Utah, US. Descriptive statistics, reliability, correlation, common method variance, confirmatory factor analysis, structural equation modeling, and bootstrapping were used in this study. The results of the analysis confirmed that the hypothesized conceptual model was supported by data. The path analysis showed that motivating language was significantly and negatively associated with public employee turnover intention. Public service motivation did not have a mediating effect on this relationship. The findings supported the application of motivating language theory to the public sector environment with some nuances. The significance of the study includes a deeper understanding of motivating language theory, managerial motivating communication in public sector organizations, and practical applicability of results to leadership development training programs that may influence organizational outcomes including employee turnover intention.