Matching Items (3)
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- All Subjects: Educational leadership
- Genre: Doctoral Dissertation
- Resource Type: Text
Description
Using experience, observations, data, current research, and writings in the field of volunteer management, it was determined there was a need to study the effects of leadership/management practices on the productivity outcomes of a volunteer construction workforce. A simple wood bench that would be tiled and painted was designed to test the areas of Time, Waste, Quality, Safety, and Satisfaction of different volunteer groups. The challenge was bolstered by giving the teams no power tools and limited available resources. A simple design of experiment model was used to test highs and lows in the three management techniques of Instruction, Help, and Encouragement. Each scenario was tested multiple times. Data was collected, normalized and analyzed using statistical analysis software. A few significant findings were discovered. The first; the research showed that there was no significant correlation between the management practices of the leader and the satisfaction of the volunteers. The second; the research also showed when further analyzed into specific realistic scenarios that the organizations would be better to focus on high amounts of Help and Encouragement in order to maximize the productivity of their volunteer construction workforce. This is significant as it allows NPO's and governments to focus their attention where best suited to produce results. The results were shared and the study was further validated as "significant" by conducting interviews with experts in the construction nonprofit sector.
ContributorsPrigge, Diedrich (Author) / Sullivan, Kenneth (Thesis advisor) / Wiezel, Avi (Committee member) / Badger, William (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
The construction industry is performing poorly regarding project management and service delivery. On average, global projects are over-budget, delayed, and met with unsatisfactory results according to buyers. To mitigate poor performance, the project management career path has been heavily researched and continually developed over the last century. Despite the published advances in project management approaches and tools, project performance continues to suffer. This research seeks to conduct an exploratory analysis of current project management and other approaches and determine how they affect project performance. Through a detailed literature search, the researcher identified a procurement model that is more heavily documented as high performing than all other approaches. The researcher proposed that this model may be a solution to assist project managers with the delivery of high performing services. The model is called the Best Value Approach (BVA). The BVA focuses on leadership, non-technical communication, quality assurance, and transparent project execution. To test the effectiveness of its practices, the researcher modified and adapted the BVA into a project management approach and tested it on a large-scale government project. During the case study test, the researcher observed that there were two primary project management roles in the supply chain; the buyer’s and vendor’s project managers. The case study resulted in the large government organization receiving more work and increased their satisfaction of the work received by 22 percent from the previous year. To further test the project management adapted BVA, the researcher conducted a classroom case-study in which students learned and implemented the BVA practices on real-time, small-scale industry projects. Results include cost savings of $100,000 for 10 companies over 24 projects, cost avoidance of over $4.5M, and a 9.8/10 customer satisfaction [in terms of the companies’ satisfaction with the deliverables produced on each project]. These results suggest that the BVA practices may effectively improve the performance of project delivery, and may be a viable new project management approach to train future project managers. Out of the two project manager roles, it is proposed that the buyer’s project manager may receive the most benefit. Additional research is needed on the other approaches to compare quantitative project performance, and run repeated testing on the potential new project management approach.
ContributorsRivera, Alfredo Octavio (Author) / Badger, William (Thesis advisor) / Sullivan, Kenneth (Thesis advisor) / Kashiwagi, Jacob S (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017
Description
The United States building sector was the most significant carbon emission contributor (over 40%). The United States government is trying to decrease carbon emissions by enacting policies, but emissions increased by approximately 7 percent in the U.S. between 1990 and 2013. To reduce emissions, investigating the factors affecting carbon emissions should be a priority. Therefore, in this dissertation, this research examine the relationship between carbon emissions and the factors affecting them from macro and micro perspectives. From a macroscopic perspective, the relationship between carbon dioxide, energy resource consumption, energy prices, GDP (gross domestic product), waste generation, and recycling waste generation in the building and waste sectors has been verified. From a microscopic perspective, the impact of non-permanent electric appliances and stationary and non-stationary occupancy has been investigated. To verify the relationships, various kinds of statistical and data mining techniques were applied, such as the Granger causality test, linear and logarithmic correlation, and regression method. The results show that natural gas and electricity prices are higher than others, as coal impacts their consumption, and electricity and coal consumption were found to cause significant carbon emissions. Also, waste generation and recycling significantly increase and decrease emissions from the waste sector, respectively. Moreover, non-permanent appliances such as desktop computers and monitors consume a lot of electricity, and significant energy saving potential has been shown. Lastly, a linear relationship exists between buildings’ electricity use and total occupancy, but no significant relationship exists between occupancy and thermal loads, such as cooling and heating loads. These findings will potentially provide policymakers with a better understanding of and insights into carbon emission manipulation in the building sector.
ContributorsLee, Seungtaek (Author) / Chong, Oswald (Thesis advisor) / Sullivan, Kenneth (Committee member) / Tang, Pingbo (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018