Browsing by Author "Korte, Russell, advisor"
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Item Open Access An examination of decision-making during organizational crises: a case study of the 2017 Northern California Firestorm(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2019) Thomas, Cliff, author; Korte, Russell, advisor; Chermack, Thomas, committee member; Folkestad, James, committee member; Williams, Elizabeth, committee memberOrganizations experiencing crises are subject to harm that can involve injuries, fatalities, financial losses, reputational damage, losses of assets, and others. This study examined a phenomenon central to minimizing crisis-related harm: decision-making. More specifically, this study examined the ways in which decision elements interact to influence decision processes and behaviors during crises. The significance of this study stems from a steady increase in the frequency and intensity of organizational crises, and the claim that novel research and insights into the phenomenon can promote harm reduction. Research in this domain has been predominantly grounded in post-positivist perspectives, suggesting that new insights and understandings can be found through alternate perspectives. This inquiry adopted a constructivist and holistic view of crisis decision-making, recognizing that the construction of meaning, or "sensemaking", is an important aspect of decision-making. As such, this study sought to investigate how people make decisions during organizational crises, how and why some factors influence sensemaking and decision-making in the ways they do, how and why some decision factors are ascribed more significance than others, and the ways in which decision consequences influence ongoing decision-making. The conceptual framework guiding this study involved organizational crises, contextual decision factors, sensemaking frameworks, decision-making strategies, and decision consequences. The results of this study are intended to enlighten an area that some researchers and practitioners believe is growing in importance, and to provide insights that will foster improved practitioner capabilities. The study's findings suggest that in some contexts, organizational crisis decision-making can be appropriately described as a complex adaptive system. The findings also yielded insights related to several decision factors: past experiences, time influences, situational control, group member trust, and decision-maker self-perceptions. Among the various decision factors studied, decision-maker self-perceptions were found to be the most influential. Finally, implications for research, theory, and practice are presented.Item Open Access Exploring experiences of burnout, engagement, and social support networks: a qualitative study of hospital medicine physicians(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2019) Robinson, Dea, author; Korte, Russell, advisor; Balgopal, Meena, committee member; Han, Heeyoung, committee member; Maynard, Travis, committee memberStudies on burnout and engagement for US physicians have resulted in few changes to improve the lives of affected physicians who suffer from the negative effects of burnout that include negative effects to patient care. Research has suggested that physician social support networks can provide protections against burnout that theoretically would lead to a more engaged physician. This qualitative study was conducted to understand the nature of hospitalist experiences of burnout, engagement and social support networks for 15 hospital medicine physicians (i.e., hospitalists). Two sources of burnout related to hospitalist leaders and hospitalists (non-leader role) emerged: (a) lack of hiring authority, (b) lack of business support, and (c) disruptive peer behavior. Sources of burnout for hospitalists (non-leader) came from: (a) unrealistic expectations from a boss and (b) stress from the employment contracting process, and (c) enough time in the day to finish work. Sources of engagement came from: (a) time spent with patients during difficult diagnosis, (b) appreciation expressed from patients, and (c) meaningful connections with patients. Social support networks for hospitalists were represented by: (a) clinical support, (b) non-clinical support; and (c) leader support. Social support networks were influenced by the quality of relationships hospitalists had with their boss and degree of support received from their leaders. Implications from the study suggested burnout and engagement are separate constructs; engagement is defined differently by hospitalists and their leaders, and sources of stress that lead to burnout need to be identified to enact effective interventions.Item Open Access Factors impacting the efficacy of restorative practices(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2018) Taylor, Phillip, author; Korte, Russell, advisor; Scott, Malcolm, committee member; Sebald, Ann, committee memberThis study applied qualitative methods from a constructivist perspective to investigate the efficacy of restorative practices (RP) at an American inner-city school. The study analyzed interviews and office referrals from four students, eleven teachers, and three administrators to investigate factors that impacted the efficacy of restorative practices and other non-punitive approaches to classroom discipline for the purposes of evolving current understanding of how RP works in a classroom setting. The study revealed that three factors were important in connection to improving and/or restoring student behavior in the classroom. These factors were 1) teachers' attempts to make personal connections with students 2) teachers' attempts to maintain a consistent demeanor in the classroom, and 3) affective resonance. These findings are important to the field of RP in that they show that training which emphasizes targeted restorative practices in response to incidents of misbehavior, which are emphasized by many RP programs, such as IIRP, and other RP experts, may be of secondary interest to the work of restoring student behavior to school norms. The findings make salient other factors that are described and addressed within RP literature, however, are often not directly emphasized. In addition, this study provides new insights into the concept of affective resonance and brings new theoretical insights that might help evolve research methods investigating the impact of teacher efforts to implement restorative practices.Item Open Access Investigating engineering students' learning for global preparedness in curricular and cocurricular engineering education(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2019) Cook, Alistair, author; Korte, Russell, advisor; Siller, Thomas, advisor; Bourn, Douglas, committee member; Valdes Vasquez, Rodolfo, committee member; Birmingham, Daniel, committee memberEngineering as a profession has a significant impact globally in the creation and maintenance of the infrastructure and technology on which humanity relies. As resource constraints and dramatic global population growth challenge engineering's ability to support sustainable, appropriate development globally, the education provided for engineers is increasingly important for preparing engineering students to face the challenges of the present and future. Therefore, it is essential to understand how engineering students can become more globally prepared in their studies. The purpose of this study is to compare, through student experiences, different classes, and programs in engineering education designed to develop students' capabilities in global preparedness. The data for this project were collected through interviews with students who were taking part in different learning curricular and cocurricular classes and programs. In addition, data were collected through pre/post/retrospective-pre-student surveys when possible (for participant groups of greater than 30). The outcomes of this study are presented in three articles. The first article is a structured literature review of the global and professional competencies recognized by academia and engineering practitioners as key experiences and learning designed to improve undergraduate engineering students' global preparedness. The second article is a mixed methods analysis, comparing on-campus classroom development of global preparedness and the impact of changing the context of the engineering class (from local to global) on student's global preparedness and professional competence development. The final article reports on the results of interviews with students participating in different study abroad and volunteer programs, to compare and contrast their experiences in and the impact of those programs. The value of this study is that universities and students may be able to use these results to better understand how to more effectively design and deliver classes and programs to increase the global and professional preparedness of engineering students.