UMD Theses and Dissertations
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/3
New submissions to the thesis/dissertation collections are added automatically as they are received from the Graduate School. Currently, the Graduate School deposits all theses and dissertations from a given semester after the official graduation date. This means that there may be up to a 4 month delay in the appearance of a given thesis/dissertation in DRUM.
More information is available at Theses and Dissertations at University of Maryland Libraries.
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Item LEGITIMIZING THE CULTURE OF BIG TIME SPORT: RHETORIC AND THE MYTH OF THE STUDENT-ATHLETE(2019) Alt, Rebecca A.; Murray Yang, Michelle; Communication; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Legitimizing the Culture of Big-Time Sport: Rhetoric and the Myth of the Student Athlete analyzes and evaluates organizational rhetoric in the context of “big-time” sport, or universities with high-profile, revenue generating [men’s] athletics. I analyze the macro organizational rhetoric of the NCAA, rhetoric at the institutional level (in my project, the University of Maryland), and rhetoric of resistance from two college athlete advocacy organizations. I engage organizational discourse ranging from handbooks, strategic plans, and mission statements to promotional materials, press releases and public addresses. My texts were acquired from archival sources, news sources, and online. I also articulate my analysis in terms of the broader cultural and ideological formations at play, such as corporatized higher education, neoliberalism, and hegemonic masculinity. My purpose is to explore discourse that legitimizes the culture of big-time sport. I argue that the myth of the student-athlete, which hinges on three axiological-ideological topoi – purity, welfare, and excellence – is the primary legitimizing discourse of big-time sport culture – both the good and the bad. This project holds both disciplinary and social significance. Whereas important research has been conducted on sports from mass media or public relations perspectives (i.e., crisis communication during scandal), this dissertation expands the scholarly view to consider the networked and interdependent rhetorical culture of sport and higher education as illuminated through competing organizational discourse. Further, this project is interdisciplinary; it aims to join scholarship in critical/cultural studies disciplines with scholarship in communication. As a result, this project contributes to both the academic and public debates surrounding big-time sport and intervenes with practical recommendations for organizations, leaders, fans, and critics of big-time sport. The issues my dissertation explores are urgent in nature given the issues big-time sport fosters, especially as they implicate the health and well-being of college athletes and the quality of higher education. Aside from shedding light on current issues in big-time sport from a rhetorical perspective, this dissertation makes the following contributions to rhetoric and communication scholarship: First, it explains the ideological and axiological topoi of the myth of the student-athlete; second, it provides an extended critical framework to understand and analyze discourse of and about big-time college sport; and third, it bridges disciplinary and interdisciplinary divides in scholarship to contribute practical interventions for the problems in big-time sport.Item The Roles of Internal Public Relations, Leadership Style, and Workplace Spirituality in Building Leader-Employee Relationships and Facilitating Relational Outcomes(2008-04-25) McCown, Nancy; Aldoory, Linda; Communication; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Through a qualitative case study, this dissertation's purpose was to explore the confluence of internal public relations, leadership styles, and organizational culture--specifically in a spiritually based workplace--in order to better understand their influence on leader-employee relationship management. The organization researched was a bank with approximately 110 employees including several branch locations. Data collection triangulation included in-depth interviews, participant observation, and document analysis of relevant internal publications and communications. Analysis employed grounded theory strategies using the constant comparison method. Results indicated that this confluence, driven by the founder/top leader's faith and vision, enacted authentic/transformational/principle-centered/servant leadership style, spiritually based organizational culture, and open, two-way symmetrical communication to foster intentional, positive, people-driven cultural maintenance, interpersonal communication, and employee empowerment/growth strategies. In turn, this hybrid environment fostered strong relationship building between employees and organizational leaders as well as between employees across the organization. The confluence also promoted organizational unity as well as intentional leadership development among employees through both specific career goal planning and opportunities for honing individual employees' leadership skills. These outcomes feed back into the leadership, culture, and communication processes to perpetuate a cycle of organizational success. This study extended previous research in internal public relations, leadership styles, and organizational culture by examining their confluence and resulting outcomes to produce a model for internal public relationship building. Ultimately, this model and the understanding enhanced by it offers value to organizational leaders and public relations practitioners as they seek to build more successful leader-employee relationships as well as relationships between employees across the organization through heightened trust, control mutuality, job satisfaction, and commitment. The research also offers value by describing a model that encourages greater empowerment and leadership development among employees at various organizational levels, potentially serving to increase productivity and reach organizational goals.Item AN ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE PERSPECTIVE ON ROLE EMERGENCE AND ROLE ENACTMENT(2005-04-19) Marinova, Sophia; Tesluk, Paul E; Management and Organization; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Organizational culture has received ample attention both in the popular and scholarly press as an important factor predicting organizational effectiveness by inducing employees to behave effectively (Cooke & Rousseau, 1988; Schein, 1985, 1990). The assertion that culture leads to behavior, however, has received only limited empirical support. The purpose of this dissertation is to explicate the impact of organizational culture on employees' roles and subsequent role behaviors. I propose that four types of cultures (clan, entrepreneurial, market and hierarchy) exert different and at times competing pressures, thus, creating distinct role schemas regarding the range of expected employee behaviors, which in turn, guide distinct forms of employee role behavior (e.g. helping, innovation, achievement and compliance). In addition, I examine boundary conditions on the relationships between culture and role perceptions and role perceptions and behavior. I propose that in the process of role emergence, culture strength as an organizational level characteristic, cognitive self-monitoring, and perceived person-organization (P-O) fit influence the degree to which individuals interpret and incorporate the organizational culture's norms as part of their roles at work. I also suggest that culture strength, behavioral self-monitoring as well as P-O fit have an impact on the extent to which employees enact the expected organizational work roles. Data from about hundred different organizations were collected to test the proposed relationships. The empirical results provide support for most of the proposed relationships between culture and employee roles, thereby validating the role of culture in establishing what is expected and valued at work. In addition, culture strength had moderating effect on the linkages between culture and employee roles for two of the culture dimensions (clan and hierarchical). Surprisingly, self-monitoring (cognitive) had a significant moderating effect but in a direction different from the predicted. Perceived fit moderated the relationship between market culture and helping role. Innovative role exhibited a negative significant relationship with compliant behavior while market strength intensified the negative relationship between achievement role and helping behavior. Thus, the results lend some support to the overall framework. Implications for theory and practice, as well as directions for future research, are discussed.