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Browsing by Author "Cross, Jennifer E., committee member"

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    An investigation of perceived behavioral control (PBC), and environmentally responsible behavior (ERB): a case study of occupants in a high performing building
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2017) Jebackumar, Swaetha, author; Valdes-Vasquez, Rodolfo, advisor; Nobe, Mary Ellen, committee member; Cross, Jennifer E., committee member
    Energy efficiency continues to be a challenge faced by the built environment. Research on determinants of energy efficiency identifies occupant behavior as the weakest link in attainment of energy efficiency goals set for high performance building designs. Environmentally Responsible Behavior (ERB) could be the answer to the improved daily functional energy efficiency of buildings. Previous studies suggest that if ERB and Perceived Behavioral Control (PBC) are positively correlated, indicating that the rate of ERB will be higher by building occupants in high performing buildings. This study focuses on the relation between ERB and PBC in regard to thermal conditions. The data used for this study comes from building occupants through an online survey, which includes both open-ended and close-ended questions that act as multi-item indicators to measure ERB, PBC, and building features. The lack of control experienced by the building occupants over the thermostat posed challenges to adequately studying the correlation between ERB and PBC in this case study. Analysis of the responses to the open–ended questions provides a better understanding of occupants' discomfort and their behavior intentions related to energy efficiency. The results of this study show that for high performance building to obtain the aggressive goals for energy efficiency, the building design not only needs to well-thought out and coordinated, but it must also meet building occupants' need for both comfort and productivity.
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    COVID-19, policymaking, and the production of harm in the meatpacking sector
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2024) Luxton, India M., author; Malin, Stephanie, advisor; Opsal, Tara, committee member; Cross, Jennifer E., committee member; Sbicca, Joshua, committee member; Ipsen, Annabel, committee member; Hausermann, Heidi, committee member
    In March 2020, the United States was forced to respond to the impending threat of COVID-19. Businesses, schools, and many of society's institutions shuttered in hopes of preventing mass transmission. And yet, meatpacking plants remained open. By September 2021, over 59,000 meatpacking workers tested positive for COVID-19 and close to 300 workers had died from the virus (Douglas 2021). In this dissertation, I document the socio-political, structural, and institutional roots of high rates of COVID-19 transmission among meatpacking workers—and the impacts of firm decisions and federal, state, and local governance structures on workers. I utilize literature pertaining to industrialized animal agriculture, political economy, green criminology, and racial capitalism to analyze the intersections among policymaking and production of harm within the meatpacking sector. Drawing on 39 in-depth interviews, critical policy ethnography, and content analysis, I explore the impacts of labor and food policies on the safety and wellbeing of meatpacking workers prior to and during COVID-19. Through an extended multiscalar case study of the JBS plant in Greeley, Colorado, I trace the involvement of agribusiness actors in federal, state, and local level policymaking during COVID-19. I examine how legacies of racialized labor exploitation have enabled firms to uphold the treadmill of meat production and perpetrate hazardous working conditions—conditions further upheld through corporate self-regulation, rather than federal intervention. I document how regulatory power of the federal agencies tasked with protecting worker and public health, including the CDC and OSHA, has been greatly diminished in recent years due to declined funding, staff capacity, and a neoliberal political structure that favors corporate self-responsibility over state enforcement. I argue that a system of harm has been codified into the regulatory system; harm that emerges directly from policymaking and the outcomes of a neoliberal capitalist political-economic system. Throughout this dissertation, I analyze how meatpacking workers' vulnerabilities during COVID-19 were amplified by issues of procedural injustice and historical legacies of racial inequality and exploitation. I conclude with a discussion of theoretical and policy implications and offer suggestions for future research
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    Exploring the educational aspirations of rural youth: an image-based study using participant produced photographs
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2010) Lambert, Dana Ann, author; Banning, James H., advisor; Roman, Henry, committee member; Cross, Jennifer E., committee member; Dickmann, Ellyn M., committee member
    Education is an important variable in forming student aspirations in that it serves to help students become more knowledgeable about the world, more sensitive and understanding of their relationship to it, and more eager to contribute to the community. The purpose of this visual ethnography study was to explore how students in one rural ninth grade classroom perceive their home, school, and community environments as supporting and/or inhibiting their educational aspirations. The approach allowed students to describe their reality in a tangible visual manner by studying; what students do (behaviors), what they say (reporting on photographs), and what they make, (photographs). Cultural themes emerged from the three environments; school, community and home in which rural ninth grade students spend a majority of their time. This study was conducted in a rural area in the county of Colorado referred to as Steel County, located approximately ten miles east of the city. The community surrounding Steel County consists of residential areas, produce farms, and small businesses. The rural high school student body is comprised from sub-cities and transfer students from outside areas compiling a fifty mile parameter. The use of photography provided a unique lens at capturing multi-level relationships that impact rural educational aspirations. Student photographs successfully captured social relationships within the cultural, political-economic, socio-political and spatial context of a rural community, captured within the home, school and community setting.
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    Hidden options and player pushback: rhetoric of Mass Effect 2
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2011) Robson-May, Rebekah, author; Sloane, Sarah, advisor; Lamanna, Carrie, committee member; Cross, Jennifer E., committee member
    This thesis is an exploration of gender construction within the digital gaming subculture of the United States in the early 21st century. Using the 2010 game Mass Effect 2 as an organizing theme and central focus, the thesis examines how gender is constructed within this single-player role-playing game; how marketing materials reveal expectations about audience for this game and two other single-player role-playing games released in 2010 (Fable III and Final Fantasy XIII); and how online communities related to games, particularly to Mass Effect 2, both reinforce normative assumptions and attitudes about gender for players of digital games and characters within the games, and how they offer opportunities for the subversion and disruption of these normative models. Theories from Judith Butler and from Candace West and Don Zimmerman provide the primary basis for exploring gender construction. To examine the effects of digital games on literacy and learning, James Paul Gee's work is used extensively. Additional discussion utilizes online fan and gamer posts. Insights about games, their marketing, and the broader community are drawn from a number of perspectives, including autoethnography, visual rhetoric, the principles of interpreting visual art, and a study of theatrical costume design.
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    Is there an heir apparent to the Crown? A more informed understanding of connectivity and networked environmental governance in the Crown of the Continent
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2014) Bixler, Richard Patrick, author; Taylor, Peter Leigh, advisor; Carolan, Michael S., committee member; Cross, Jennifer E., committee member; Cheng, Antony S., committee member
    Multi-actor and multi-level processes characterize contemporary environmental governance where a multiplicity of actors and modes of governance are operating in diverse and overlapping spheres of authority. No fixed spatial or temporal level is appropriate for governing ecosystems and their services sustainably, effectively, and equitably. Rather, ecological processes interact across a range of spatial scales, which has led to an increased interest in the way networks operate and govern environmental processes across landscapes. These governance schemes involve communication and coordinated action by federal, state, and local agencies working with private landowners, nonprofit organizations, and industry. They involve multiple, interconnected issues within contexts that are complex, dynamic, and involve uncertainties. Working across multiple levels reveals governance and coordination challenges that often outstrip capacities, structures, and decision-making processes of the individuals or organizations involved. The processes of initiating multi-actor governance is not politically neutral, nor does it exist in a vacuum. It rather reflects competing interpretations of the appropriate distribution of power in a network and how information and knowledge are created and acted upon for environmental governance. Through this dissertation, I maintain that making progress towards these challenges requires a concerted effort and focus on the role of community-based conservation within the broader and emerging cross-scale networks of environmental governance. These cross-scale networks of landscape governance can either strengthen the role of community-based natural resource management or undermine them. To this end, my dissertation entitled: "Is there an Heir Apparent to the Crown? A More Informed Understanding of Connectivity and Networked Environmental Governance in the Crown of the Continent" uses social network analysis and qualitative interviews to explain the mechanisms that nurture cross-scale linkages that enhance collaborative community capacity in environmental governance. Building on a fundamental premise of landscape conservation, ecological connectivity, I develop three conceptual ideas in this dissertation: that social connectivity is a necessary prerequisite for network governance and landscape-scale conservation. Social connectivity includes concepts of social networks and is concerned with how information flows between individuals and organizations. Discourse connectivity is that crucial next step that links the social and the ecological together through a process of narrative and problem framing. Finally, I develop the idea of assemblage connectivity. The interest here is how the previous three concepts (ecological, social, and discourse) catalyze the conditions for cross-scale conservation that strengthens the role of community-based natural resource management. This framework is then applied across three empirical issue 'case-studies', invasive species management, grizzly bear conservation, and climate adaptation.
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    Needs assessment: strategies for raising awareness of construction management programs among high school counselors
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2014) Wilkes, Jeffrey T., author; Nobe, MaryEllen C., advisor; Clevenger, Caroline M., committee member; Cross, Jennifer E., committee member
    High school students comprise a high percentage of prospective students entering Construction Management (CM) departments. High school counselors are in a unique position to impart significant influence on these students as they make decisions about attending college. This is significant to CM departments because it has been observed by department advisors that high school counselors do not heavily influence current CM student's decisions to pursue a CM degree. The authors performed a needs assessment to test the accuracy of this observation, determine counselor's knowledge and perceptions of CM, and determine strategies for raising awareness. Phase I of the needs assessment surveyed first semester CM students to determine if counselors played a significant role in their decision to pursue a CM degree. The results revealed that students were meeting with their counselor for advice, but few reported the counselor influenced their decision. This confirmed the need to further explore the high school counselor's knowledge and perceptions of CM. Phase II of the needs assessment surveyed high school counselors in the state of Colorado. The results show that counselors do not possess a high level of knowledge regarding CM degrees and careers, but also shows that they would be willing to learn more if the right information and training opportunities were provided to them. The results also highlight the counselor's barriers to learning more about CM, namely lack of available information, lack of time, lack of training opportunities, and lack of student interest. In Phase III of the needs assessment, the High School Counselor Outreach Program (HSCOP) was developed with the specific goal of raising counselor's knowledge of CM programs. The HSCOP was specifically developed to address the counselor's need while respecting the barriers reported in Phase II. This two stage program closes the counselor's CM knowledge gap by giving CM departments an outline to provide targeted information packages to counselors in Stage 1 and accessible training opportunities in Stage 2.
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    Social capital and collective efficacy for disaster resilience: connecting individuals with communities and vulnerability with resilience in hurricane-prone communities in Florida
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2013) Meyer, Michelle Annette, author; Peek, Lori, advisor; Cross, Jennifer E., committee member; Lacy, Michael, committee member; Trumbo, Craig, committee member
    To view the abstract, please see the full text of the document.
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    The use of restorative justice practices in a school community traumatized by an incident of planned school violence: a case study
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2010) Mateer, Susan Carol, author; Banning, James H., advisor; Dickmann, Ellyn M., committee member; Cross, Jennifer E., committee member; Timpson, William M., committee member
    In 2001, less than two years after the Columbine High School shootings, a plan to copycat the Columbine shooting in a junior high school was interrupted by police. This was one of the first documented cases of interrupted school violence and the school where this was to occur was traumatized both by the fact that students were planning violence and the attention given to the event by the media. Even though no one was physically hurt, the school community was shocked and victimized. Eventually, three junior high school students reached plea agreement through the courts for their part in the incident and were sentenced to juvenile corrections. The school was left to pick up the pieces and attempt to understand how this could have happened. This study uses a case study format and interviews with involved administrators, teachers and juvenile justice practitioners to document how the school community recovered from this event - restored and transformed. It looks at how the responses to the trauma were based in restorative justice values and beliefs and why restorative justice played such an important part in the recovery. The school used restorative justice practices that were uniquely suited to the event and responsive to the healing needs of the community at the time. These responses; the Tree, the community meeting, the Summit, the talking piece rock, the mascot statue; all served a purpose at the time and all were steeped in restorative values. In time, a traditional restorative justice conference was held in which two of the offending students responded to the concerns of the school and were welcomed back to the community. Restorative justice has traditionally been about repairing the harm caused by crime. In this situation not only was the harm repaired, but the community used the pain created by the harm to create transformation, a transformation that resulted in a very good school becoming even better. What was transformational is that each of the actions taken by the school served not only to repair the harm caused by the event but served to raise the community to higher levels of safety, interdependence, respect, and inclusivity. This research documents how one school community used restorative practices to bring about transformational social justice.
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    Understanding pro-environmental behavior and improving social network research methods to inform conservation management
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2022) Clements, Kaylin Renee, author; Solomon, Jennifer N., advisor; Cross, Jennifer E., committee member; Niemiec, Rebecca M., committee member; McCarty, Christopher, committee member
    Conservation issues exist in the context of social-ecological systems, with human activities driving threats to species, habitats, and important ecosystem functions. The successes and failures of conservation efforts depend on how humans behave. Likewise, human behavior is crucial to rectifying these problems. Understanding why humans behave in ways that help or hinder conservation efforts is vital to effectively manage and prevent threats to natural resources, such as invasive species. Research specific to each social-ecological context on how social networks, knowledge, and other cultural and social psychological factors influence behavior is needed to inform management decisions. In addition, effective and efficient social science methods are needed for practitioners to assess relevant behaviors more easily. This dissertation contributes evidence that advances our understanding of pro-environmental behaviors that help control invasive lionfish (Pterois volitans) in Belize and Florida and provides insights into data collection methods on social networks. Each manuscript assesses factors that influence a specific target behavior. The first manuscript (Chapter 2) explores what factors affect consumption of the venomous, but edible, invasive lionfish in Belize. To determine the viability of a lionfish market in Belize, a national study of Belizeans (n = 400) and foreign tourists (n = 400) was implemented using structured surveys that assessed consumers' willingness to try lionfish, knowledge about lionfish, attitudes toward purchasing lionfish, and fear of trying new foods, or food neophobia. Findings show that most Belizeans and foreign tourists are willing to eat lionfish given the opportunity, but that a misperception that lionfish is not safe to eat and availability are barriers to eating lionfish. Belizeans, though concerned about lionfish, are less willing to consume lionfish than tourists and more likely to believe lionfish are unsafe to eat. In addition, when asked why they would not eat lionfish, the most common reasons Belizeans described were related to perceived danger or preference. These and other findings about consumer behavior toward seafood in Belize, such as that Belizeans primarily choose to eat seafood for health reasons and prefer snapper to other types of seafood, provide important insights into opportunities to grow demand for lionfish and decrease barriers related to risk perceptions. The second manuscript (Chapter 3) shares findings from a mixed methods study to understand how motivation and social capital affect removal of lionfish in Florida by spearfishers who hunt lionfish, or lionfish hunters. Findings are shared from semi-structured interviews (N = 75) as well as an online structured survey of 186 lionfish hunters. Results show that lionfish hunters who are motivated by money kill more lionfish than those motivated by other reasons. However, this group is very small in number and is sensitive to decreased lionfish numbers because it is prohibitive to commercial spearfishers' ability to profit from them. In addition, lionfish hunters who have a social contact who helps them sell lionfish kill more lionfish. However, this is still a small group. Most lionfish hunters in Florida are motivated to kill lionfish to protect Florida's reefs, to eat lionfish, and because it's fun. In addition, most feel an obligation or duty to kill lionfish in order to protect the reefs. Effective management strategies, therefore, should engage lionfish hunters across motivations to maintain consistent and long-term control of the population. In addition, practitioners should continue to cultivate a community around lionfish removal to better support money-motivated lionfish hunters' efforts to sell lionfish. The third manuscript (Chapter 4) investigates the efficacy of including an example social network map in an online structured survey to increase responses to questions about social network contacts. Social network research can be inhibited by willingness of respondents to provide names and contact information of themselves and their acquaintances. For social network research to be more feasible among practitioners in the conservation field and beyond, effective methods for collecting this type of information are essential. This experimental study compared responses (N = 186) to social network questions between those who completed a survey with an example social network map versus a survey without a map. Results show that the example map did not increase provision of network contacts and did not influence the types of ties reported. Therefore, while a map may not help in collecting more data, if it is necessary to include for explanatory purposes in a social network survey, it likely will not bias responses. Resistance among respondents to providing this information in this study demonstrate the need for further exploration into effective social network data collection methods for large groups, especially when snowball sampling is necessary.
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    Virtually engaged: the effect of a virtual work environment on task engagement, its antecedents, and consequences
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2011) Hurd, Brian M., author; Byrne, Zinta S., advisor; Kraiger, Kurt K., committee member; Steger, Michael F., committee member; Cross, Jennifer E., committee member
    As organizations continue to adopt virtual work environments in an effort to reduce costs and offer employees greater flexibility, the effect of this work setting on employee engagement is not fully understood. This laboratory study investigates the effect of a virtual work environment on participant perceptions (N = 242) of engagement, its antecedents, and consequences in an effort to extend the Job Demands-Resources model of employee engagement (JD-R; Bakker & Demerouti, 2007). Specifically, it was proposed that the JD-R be expanded to include contextual variables (e.g., work environment) and that these variables potentially influence individuals' appraisals of whether a work variable is a resource or a demand. To test this modified model, participants were assigned to work on a marketing task in either a virtual (N = 126) or co-located environment (N = 116). Results revealed that task engagement, quality of coworker relations, social presence, task performance, and task satisfaction were all higher and team uncertainty was lower for those working in a co-located environment compared to those working virtually. Team uncertainty and social presence partially mediated the relationship between work environment and quality of coworker relations. Team uncertainty was higher and social presence was lower for those working virtually as compared to those who were co-located, which in turn resulted in perceptions of reduced quality of coworker relations. Furthermore, task engagement fully mediated the relationship between quality of coworker relations and both performance and effort, and task engagement partially mediated the relationship between quality of coworker relations and task satisfaction. Quality of coworker relations was positively related to task engagement, which was related to increased task performance, effort, and task satisfaction. When combined, the results provide support for the proposed expansion of the JD-R to include contextual variables. Because resources and demands are fundamental to the JD-R and determine when employees become engaged versus disengaged, this extension to the model makes a significant contribution to the employee engagement and virtual work literatures. These results also offer practical applications for those organizations that operate virtual work environments.