Literte, Patricia E. “Revising Race: How Biracial Students Are Changing and Challenging Student Services.” Journal of College Student Development, vol. 51, no. 2, 2010, pp. 115–134., doi:10.1353/csd.0.0122.

This research investigates the relationship between biracial college students and race-oriented student services (e.g., Office of Black Student Services). These services are organized around conventional understandings of race that assume there are five, discrete racial categories, namely, Black/African American, Latino/a, White, Asian American, and Native American. Drawing on interviews (n = 60) with students and administrators at two universities, this article examines the problems that arise when students’ racial identities are incongruent with universities’ views of race. This study can assist practitioners in the development of services on campuses that are characterized by increasingly fluid racial terrains in the post–Civil Rights era.

The article’s topic is how racial identity of college students affect student services on college campuses and how this may also affect the identity of the individual. As quoted from the article, “This study brings to light (a) students’ efforts to construct meaningful biracial identities within institutions of higher education that reify monoracialism and (b) universities’ negotiation of the complex terrain of race and ability to respond to the needs of rapidly changing student bodies”. The research question is how is an individual’s racial identity influential in student services, both shaping these services and shaping their identity?

For this research project, the author needs to collect shallow and deeply held opinions and attitudes, as well as reports of acts, behaviors, and events. The author used interviews to collect this data, as well as collecting archival documents and informal observation. The method of data analysis was categorical. The author used data coding and analysis, but mentions that codes codes were established after data was collected and preliminarily reviewed sentence by sentence.

I think this is an interesting source. I chose this article because I think it will be interesting to see how racial differences may affect our research project regarding how student services can be improved at University of Redlands. I think that in order to have more credibility, the author should have surveyed more individuals (or at least get a sample size from more than just two schools). But overall, an interesting topic and insight on how racial identity may affect the services offered on campus.

Patton, Robert C., and Dennis E. Gregory. “Perceptions of Safety by On-Campus Location, Rurality, and Type of Security/Police Force: The Case of the Community College.” Journal of College Student Development, vol. 55, no. 5, 2014, pp. 451–460., doi:10.1353/csd.2014.0049.

This study examined Virginia community college students’ perceptions of campus safety. A survey of 11,161 students revealed the crimes students most feared being a victim of while on the community college campus and the areas in which they felt the most and least safe. The research also demonstrated the effect of certain variables had on students’ overall perception of campus safety. The variables studied included student demographics, the presence and type of security personnel, and the rurality of the campus setting. The campuses with the highest and lowest degrees of perceived safety were then further studied via case studies to gather detailed information, which may assist college administrators and policymakers in improving campus safety on community college campuses.

The article’s topic is perceptions of college campus safety. The research question is how do demographics, location, level of security, etc. affect a community college student’s perception of safety on campus? The type of data needed for this research project shallow and deeply held opinions and attitudes, demographic data, and reports of acts, behavior, and events.

The quantitative portion of the study utilized a non experimental survey research design. This study used electronic surveys to collect data on students’ perceptions of campus safety. After they got the results from the surveys, they collected qualitative data through case studies. They identified the most and the least safe based on student responses to the survey. The purpose of this case study was to identify characteristics, actions, and policies that may have affected students’ perceptions of campus safety.

I think that this source provides a great deal of information on perceptions of campus safety. I think that the data collection methods the researchers used were good and I think that it was good that they did both surveys and case studies. This is a great way to discover a lot, while also keeping the research budget relatively low, in comparison to doing case studies everywhere. I thought that this source was relative to the research topic we chose to do our interview practice with.

Relationship Between Organizational Culture, Leadership Behavior and Job Satisfaction

Yafang Tsai (BMC Health Serv Res. 2011; 11: 98.) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3123547/

Organizational culture refers to the beliefs and values that have existed in an organization for a long time, and to the beliefs of the staff and the foreseen value of their work that will influence their attitudes and behavior. Administrators usually adjust their leadership behavior to accomplish the mission of the organization, and this could influence the employees’ job satisfaction. It is therefore essential to understand the relationship between organizational culture, leadership behavior and job satisfaction of employees. Results found that organizational cultures were significantly (positively) correlated with leadership behavior and job satisfaction, and leadership behavior was significantly (positively) correlated with job satisfaction.

The article topic is the relationship between organizational culture and leadership behavior in employees. The research question is “How does a company’s organizational culture affect an employee’s leadership behavior and job satisfaction?”

The type of data needed to answer this question is shallow opinions and attitudes, as well as reports of acts and events. A cross-sectional study was undertaken that focused on hospital nurses in Taiwan. Data was collected using a structured questionnaire; 300 questionnaires were distributed and 200 valid questionnaires were returned. Correlation analysis was used on the relationships between organizational cultures, leadership behavior and job satisfaction.

Ordinal data was the method of data analysis used. The researchers asked the participants to rate (1-5) how strongly they agreed or disagreed with each statement.

I think that this research is pretty good. I think that their sample size was a large enough size to have reliable results. I think that this source was very helpful in preparing me for writing my own research project. Because this source focused primarily on nurses, I think it would be interesting to repeat this test in several other occupations to see how the results differ.

Shu‐Mei Tseng, (2010) “The correlation between organizational culture and knowledge conversion on corporate performance”,Journal of Knowledge Management, Vol. 14 Issue: 2, pp.269-284, https://doi.org/10.1108/13673271011032409

Organizational culture can significantly promote or hinder the success of knowledge management initiatives. This study seeks to develop and test empirically a conceptual framework to investigate the correlation between organizational culture and knowledge conversion on corporate performance. The results of the questionnaire analyses indicate that an adhocracy culture enables knowledge conversion and enhances corporate performance more than clan and hierarchy cultures.

The research topic is the correlation between corporate culture and knowledge conversion on corporate performance. The research question is “How does a company’s corporate culture affect the company’s performance?” The type of data that was collected is shallow opinion and attitudes, as well as cultural knowledge. The data gathering method includes questionnaire and statistical analytical techniques to gain the best exploration on organizational culture, knowledge conversion and corporate performance. The method of data analysis for this particular study is qualitative data.

I think that this study captures the correlation between corporate culture and corporate performance very well. But it is important to understand the limitations of this study. AS the authors write, “The research investigates the correlation between organizational culture and knowledge conversion on corporate performance under a Chinese‐centric set of societal, cultural and linguistic attitudes and behaviors. However, different countries have different cultures. Future research could extend this study to other regions of the world with a different set of attitudes and behaviors”.

Meng, Juan. “The Impact of Organizational Culture and Leadership Performance on PR Professionals’ Job Satisfaction: Testing the Joint Mediating Effects of Engagement and Trust.” Public Relations Review 45.1 (2019): 64–75. Print.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0363811118303801

“Work engagement is a strong predictor of job satisfaction through its direct influence on trust. The study examines the impact of critical organizational factors (organizational culture and excellent leader performance) on public relations professionals’ overall job satisfaction by focusing on testing the joint mediating effects work engagement and trust could generate. A national online survey of 838 public relations professionals working in a variety of organizations was used as the empirical data to test the relationships in a proposed conceptual model. Results confirmed the strong impact organizational culture and leader performance could have on public relations professionals’ work engagement, trust, and job satisfaction. More importantly, results revealed the significant joint mediating effects of engagement and trust on professionals’ job satisfaction, when supportive organizational culture and excellent leader performance were achieved. The study concludes with research and practical implications”.

The article’s topic is about how organizational conditions affect a professionals’ work engagement and trust on professionals’ job satisfaction as a classic employee. The research question is “how does organizational conditions affect an employee’s job satisfaction and productivity?” The type of data that is required for this research topic is reports of acts, behaviors, and events; organizational data, and shallow opinions. They used reports of acts, behaviors, and events, as well as shallow opinions and attitudes. They conducted a national online survey of public relations professionals in the U.S. to test proposed relationships.

I think that this is a very valid piece of research. I think that the sample size was large enough, the data collection methods were correct and I found the topic to be very interesting. With that being said, and the author even touches on this point in their journal, the survey didn’t produce qualitative data, so the findings were rather limiting. In depth interviews would have overcome this limitation. I think that the findings of this research could be applied to any organization or situation, not solely to businesses. The study confirms the strong effects of organizational culture and leader performance on public relations professionals’ work engagement and trust, with an ultimate goal of increased job satisfaction. Being able to take the information from this survey and apply it to all aspects of life can be very valuable.

Browne, Sarah. “Shaking Up Business Models with Creative Strategies: When Tried and True Stops Working.” Journal of Business Strategy, vol. 39, no. 4, 2018, pp. 19-27.

This article talks about ways in which a company can be successful in the competitive market that exists today. The authors go in depth with creative strategies and ways to “shake up” the market. While so many companies are all competing for greater market share, there are ways to successful come ahead. The author says that companies must adopt new approaches to business modeling in order to deliver novel and bold strategies that redefine the rules of the game.

The topic of this article is innovative business models. The research question is “How can a company successfully create a business model that leads to increased market share and success in an industry with lots of competitors? The type of data required to answer this question is organizational data; acts, behavior, or events; as well as expert knowledge. The author used mainly content analysis, public and private records, as well as ethnography to collect data. I think that these data collection methods are fitting for this research topic. Much of the article was discussing different examples of company’s business models and how successful or unsuccessful they are, so content analysis and public/private records are good methods for collecting this type of data. I found this to be a very good source for my research and allowed me to find several other sources as a result.

For my research topic, I plan to study something within the business field, probably related to business strategy or corporate governance. The strategy I chose to use for this particular source is a paper copy of a journal.

Lahovnik, Matej. “Corporate Strategies In The Post-Transition Economy.” The Journal of Applied Business Research, vol. 27, no. 1, 2011, pp. 61–68.

This source reports on several different advancements in business-related research, but the article cited above focuses specifically on how corporate strategies have changed now that we are in the post-transitional economy. I determined this source to be credible and scholarly because of the record The Journal of Applied Business Research has, and the credibility of the author of the article. I think that this source improves my knowledge on business/corporate strategy by giving me another authors perspective and access to research. This journal is filled with lots of information, includes excellent graphs and visuals, and has been around for many years. I believe that this source is a primary source.

From this literature search strategy, I learned how valuable paper copy journals can be. Not only did I gain a lot of information from this one journal, but it also led me to several other references, as well as topics that will help me with my research.