Browsing by Subject "Involvement"
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Item The impact of the business-project interface on capital project performance(2013-08) Yun, Sungmin; O'Brien, William J.; Mulva, Stephen PatrickA capital project represents a significant investment by a firm to create future economic benefits. Since the global economic recession begun in 2008, corporate owners have paid increased attention to business-project interfaces with the aim of improving alignment between business strategy and capital project development. Despite its importance, the business-project interface has not been quantitatively measured and no empirical evidence exists about its effects on performance outcomes. This dissertation intends to identify and quantify the business-project interfaces in the development of a capital project in terms of personnel involvement and task interaction, and to investigate its effects on performance outcomes and the value of best practices. To achieve these objectives, a conceptual framework for assessing the involvement and interaction on business-project interfaces was developed. Based on the conceptual framework, a questionnaire including quantitative measures for the assessment of personnel involvement and task interaction was designed. Supplemental survey responses were received for several industrial capital projects that had initially provided capital project data to the CII Benchmarking & Metrics database. The effects of the business-project interface in terms of cost, schedule, change, and business performance were documented. Data analyses show that project groups with high involvement by business personnel and high interaction between business and project units tend to show remarkably improved project performance. Furthermore, this dissertation presents confirmation that projects with high involvement of business unit personnel and intensive implementation of best practices tend to show superior project performance. The primary contribution of this research is to provide a quantitative assessment tool to assess the business-project interface and to document the interface throughout project life cycle. Another contribution is empirical evidence of the benefits on project performance from implementing best practices that were supported by management.Item Information triage : dual-process theory in credibility judgments of web-based resources(2010-05) Aumer-Ryan, Paul R.; Dillon, Andrew; Robinson, Daniel H.; Bias, Randolph G.; Rice-Lively, Mary Lynn; Geisler, GaryThis dissertation describes the credibility judgment process using social psychological theories of dual-processing, which state that information processing outcomes are the result of an interaction “between a fast, associative information- processing mode based on low-effort heuristics, and a slow, rule-based information processing mode based on high-effort systematic reasoning” (Chaiken & Trope, 1999, p. ix). Further, this interaction is illustrated by describing credibility judgments as a choice between examining easily identified peripheral cues (the messenger) and content (the message), leading to different evaluations in different settings. The focus here is on the domain of the Web, where ambiguous authorship, peer- produced content, and the lack of gatekeepers create an environment where credibility judgments are a necessary routine in triaging information. It reviews the relevant literature on existing credibility frameworks and the component factors that affect credibility judgments. The online encyclopedia (instantiated as Wikipedia and Encyclopedia Britannica) is then proposed as a canonical form to examine the credibility judgment process. The two main claims advanced here are (1) that information sources are composed of both message (the content) and messenger (the way the message is delivered), and that the messenger impacts perceived credibility; and (2) that perceived credibility is tempered by information need (individual engagement). These claims were framed by the models proposed by Wathen & Burkell (2002) and Chaiken (1980) to forward a composite dual process theory of credibility judgments, which was tested by two experimental studies. The independent variables of interest were: media format (print or electronic); reputation of source (Wikipedia or Britannica); and the participant’s individual involvement in the research task (high or low). The results of these studies encourage a more nuanced understanding of the credibility judgment process by framing it as a dual-process model, and showing that certain mediating variables can affect the relative use of low-effort evaluation and high- effort reasoning when forming a perception of credibility. Finally, the results support the importance of messenger effects on perceived credibility, implying that credibility judgments, especially in the online environment, and especially in cases of low individual engagement, are based on peripheral cues rather than an informed evaluation of content.Item Joint relationship of four types of involvement (SI, EI, AMI and RI) : path analysis model combining mediation and moderation(2007-12) Yun, Tai Woong; Lee, Wei-Na, 1957-The current study addresses the overarching issue of the role that different types of involvement play in cognitive and behavioral processes and attitude formation by investigating 1) if and how SI and EI function jointly to form the level of AMI, 2) how SI, EI and AMI are interwoven to affect the level of RI, 3) the joint role of SI and EI on the routes to attitude formation. The findings suggest that SI and EI additively influence the level of AMI with stronger role of EI on the formation of AMI. Moreover, while SI and/or EI may affect AMI and subsequent cognitive and behavioral processes such as attention, comprehension, elaboration and information search intention their influences on such cognitive processes are only observed indirectly via the mediating role of AMI. No direct influence of SI and/or EI is observed when AMI is included in the models tested. In addition, AMI appears to be a robust indicator to the level of attention and information search intention regardless of the types of situational source of personal relevance and product types used, while SI and/or EI provide somewhat mixed results depending on the type of situational source of personal relevance and the type of products considered. With regard to joint function of SI, EI and AMI on the information search intention, there is an initial evidence of direct interactive influence of SI and EI on information search intention beyond the mediating role of AMI. However, this interactive function is only found via moderated regression analyses rather than ANOVA with a median-split of EI. Concerning attitude formation via dual-route theories of ELM and HSM, the current study suggests that systematic (central) vs. heuristic (peripheral) processing based on SI is inadequate to account for the two qualitatively different processes in advertising context dealing with laptop computer and digital camera ad.Item Museum visitors' self-efficacy and interest in contemporary art(2015-05) Wilson, Lauren Michelle; Schallert, Diane L.; Patall, Erika AContemporary art can pose a particular challenge for museum visitors to interpret, and psychological literature suggests that such challenge to self-efficacy may lower interest (Hong & Lin, 2013; Ryan & Deci, 2000; Schunk & Usher, 2008). This study sought to explore museum visitors’ interpretive strategies, feelings of self-efficacy, and interest. Factors including prior knowledge, interpretation support (e.g., labels), and challenge of artwork were also considered. Results discuss suggestions for museums when displaying works that may be perceived as challenging or unapproachable. Participants included visitors to the Blanton Museum of Art and students at the University of Texas at Austin who were pre-screened for prior knowledge of museums. Sessions occurred during the fall of 2014 and included completing questionnaires while viewing three works in the contemporary galleries. Students also participated in focus groups. Both quantitative and qualitative results confirmed predictions that interpretive self-efficacy and interest are related. Provision of labels did not show significant difference for self-efficacy or interest, but high prior knowledge of art did show increased levels of self-efficacy. A search for meaning and aesthetic observation and preference typically drove participant interpretations; most were highly personal. With low self-efficacy, participants struggled to interpret works and even considered pieces arbitrary. However, they enjoyed being challenged to interpret the work on their own before viewing the label. Participants responded particularly well to the idea of using interactive interpretive devices as a means of building understanding for works to which they may not otherwise be drawn. Overwhelmingly, low-prior-knowledge infrequent visitors wanted clear explanations of the artist's motive for creating the work and wanted the ability to visualize or even mimic the artistic process for creating each piece. Museums striving to increase interest in contemporary art for visitors should prioritize building self-efficacy through supportive interpretive strategies.