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Browsing by Author "Chermack, Thomas, advisor"

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    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 member
    The 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.
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    Effects of undergraduate leadership experiences on leadership efficacy
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2015) Leone, Deanna Josephine Maria, author; Chermack, Thomas, advisor; Hughes, Blanche, committee member; McKelfresh, David, committee member; Rastall, Patrick, committee member
    This dissertation addressed the research problem burdening higher education to better prepare students with leadership they can effectively apply in complex organizational environments during a time of rising costs for education and competing interests for programmatic funding. This context coupled with high costs for corporate training to generate performance improvements and increased spending on leadership development during a recognized crisis in organizational leadership in the U.S. increased pressure on employers to hire college graduates who can enter the workforce with demonstrated leadership capacity. To address the research problem, the purpose of this non-experimental research study explored the relationships between leadership experiences on leadership efficacy by comparing strength of associations and differences in undergraduate students at Colorado State University through a secondary analysis of data collected during the Multi-Institutional Study of Leadership in 2006, 2009, and 2012. The research design and rationale included between-groups mixed factorial design using independent samples t-tests, factorial analysis, and regression analysis as the inferential statistics for data analysis and exploration of how the independent variable - leadership experiences - might predict the dependent variable - leadership efficacy. Target population for this study was undergraduate students enrolled at Colorado State University's main campus. As part of the Multi-Institutional Study of Leadership in 2006, 2009, and 2012, two sampled populations were drawn from the undergraduate population each year, which included 1) a random sampled population up to 4,000 participants, and 2) a purposefully sampled comparative population identified from rosters of campus leadership experiences. Results of statistical analysis indicated high internal consistency reliability for leadership efficacy data with a 0.88 Cronbach's coefficient alpha. Assumptions of independence, normality, and linearity were met. Principal component factor analysis supported construct validity of the data used to create the MSL leadership efficacy scales with 73% of the total variance explained by only one component. Results of independent t-tests indicated higher average leadership efficacy scores for students reporting yes to having leadership experience while in college (Mdifference = 0.27,p<.001), but the effect of the significance was small (d = 0.23). There was no statistical significance reported for the interaction between leadership experience and the year the MSL survey was administered on predicting leadership efficacy, F(2,3223) = 1.09, p = 0.34, partial eta² = 0.001. Results of the multiple regression analysis indicated that short-term and long-term leadership experiences had a statistically significant effect on predicting higher average scores for leadership efficacy at a 99% confidence interval. Leadership courses also had a positive effect also on predicting higher average leadership efficacy scores at a 95% confidence interval. The combination of experiences was also statistically significant (p <.001), but the effect was estimated as small with an adjust R squared value of .02. Because the statistical effects were small, minimal conclusions were drawn as to the differences between types of leadership experiences or if there were differences between survey years on leadership efficacy for undergraduates at this institution. In addition, because of the small effect size, no conclusion were made to the effect leadership experiences have on predicting leadership efficacy or which type of leadership experience has greater effect on predicting leadership efficacy. It was not concluded that leadership opportunities on college campuses should not be supported because there was statistical significance to support differences and effects, but given the small effect, results were inconclusive. The MSL survey instrument changed between years of data collection, which caused limitations to this study. To the benefit of future studies, the MSL instrument asked questions in the format that now captures more robust data about student participation in leadership experiences during college that can be better explored in future studies. Given the definition of leadership efficacy and magnitude of leadership-related tasks, does the leadership efficacy scale represent the extent to which undergraduates could build leadership capacity through varying levels and types of leadership education offered in college? Future research studies could examine theory of self-efficacy to create a more robust leadership efficacy scale that accounts for differences among populations and varying ways in which students internally see their leadership capabilities. Such research could support the continued call to educators to conduct research on student leadership development and models used in practice to ensure participants reach intended outcomes.
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    The effects of career development planning on employee affective commitment to the organization
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2023) Spritzer, Lindsay, author; Chermack, Thomas, advisor; Lynham, Sue, committee member; Folkstad, James, committee member; Gibbons, Alyssa, committee member
    The importance of employee commitment to an organization is well documented in literature, however, there is a gap in literature of how to increase affective engagement if an employee is not affectively engaged. This study worked with a United States oil and gas company to explore if career development planning would be affective in increasing affective engagement through a quasi-experimental study. The study found that career development planning was beneficial in increasing affective engagement for already affectively engaged employees and for employees who are staying with an organization out of a feeling of obligation as measured by the three-component model (TCM) survey instrument. The results did not appear to be effective for employees who are continuously engaged as measured by the three-component model or for overall commitment as measured by the organizational commitment questionnaire (OCM).
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    TOLERATED ORGANIZATIONAL FORGETTING IN THE U.S. AIR FORCE: A CASE STUDY ANALYSIS OF KNOWLEDGE LOSS AMONG GOVERNMENT CIVILIAN EMPLOYEES
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2024) Lee, Daniel, author; Chermack, Thomas, advisor; Chai, DaeSeok, committee member; Conroy, Samantha, committee member; Thomas, Cliff, committee member
    Organizations do not learn well. As a result, they lose valuable knowledge. When knowledge is lost in organizations, workers are forced to spend as much as 25% of their workday looking for information to do their jobs, contributing to workplace frustration, anxiety, and personnel retention challenges (Businesswire, 2022). Numerous studies on knowledge management, organizational memory, and organizational forgetting have expanded organizations’ view of knowledge as a valuable organizational resource. The problem of interest in this dissertation is that while prescriptive measures to retain organizational knowledge exist, organizations continue to lose valuable knowledge. Such knowledge loss in the government contributes to performance inefficiencies, unnecessary costs to U.S. taxpayers, and the potential inability of military forces to meet national security requirements. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore the contextual issues that influence how and why forgetting is tolerated within strategic-level organizations of the Air Force as experienced by the civilian workforce. The research questions that guided this study are as follows: Why do Air Force organizations tolerate forgetting despite policy directives and available prescriptive remedies? How do Air Force organizations prioritize knowledge loss in their learning and knowledge management activities? and How are organizational processes, systems, and culture managed to address knowledge loss? The study expands the existing models of organizational forgetting that focus on intentional and unintentional knowledge loss to include forgetting that is neither of these but is tolerated by organizations. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 26 mid- to senior-level Air Force civilian employees representing eight strategic-level organizations. Four themes were identified as contributing to tolerated organizational forgetting. First, motivation and values within the organization often relegate knowledge management efforts to other tasks. Second, a culture of acceptance and lack of accountability habituate organizations to knowledge loss. Third, organizational focus on near-term objectives creates strategic blindness. Lastly, undocumented business processes contribute to a loss of governance and ad hoc practices. These findings provide practical considerations to address tolerated forgetting in organizations and provide new avenues for refining organizational forgetting theory.