Theses and Dissertations from UMD
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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 give thesis/dissertation in DRUM
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Item Essays on the Management and Organizational Practices Survey(2017) Ohlmacher, Scott William; Haltiwanger, John C; Economics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation examines the role that management practices play in plant performance and addresses the many challenges that accompany efforts to measure accurately the adoption of management practices. I first provide background on a recent Census Bureau survey, the Management and Organizational Practices Survey (MOPS), which measures management and organizational practices at manufacturing plants in the United States. Economists have long hypothesized that management is an important component of firm success, but until recently, the study of management was confined to hypotheses, anecdotes, and case studies. Building upon the work of Bloom and Van Reenen (2007), the Census Bureau conducted the first-ever large-scale survey of management practices in the United States, the MOPS, for 2010. The Census Bureau conducted a second, enhanced version of the MOPS for 2015. Next, I use data from the MOPS 2010 to examine changes in establishment-level management practices at approximately 12,000 continuing establishments between 2005 and 2010. I find that within-establishment changes in productivity are correlated primarily with practices related to performance incentives, particularly performance bonus practices. I present evidence that plants use performance bonuses as a channel of wage adjustment during the Great Recession, which explains most of the within-plant correlation between structured management practices and productivity. That is, negative demand shocks during the Great Recession negatively affect both measured productivity and the availability of bonuses and manufacturing plants. There is limited evidence that changes in bonus practices for reasons other than demand shocks have an impact on plant outcomes over the period from 2005 to 2010. Finally, I present further background on the cognitive testing practices that the Census Bureau used to develop the MOPS. Because management is an intangible input into plant production functions, it is not as easily measured as conventional inputs such as labor or capital. Pretesting was essential to ensure that quality data was collected. The results of the pretesting process provide insight into how respondents interpret the MOPS questionnaire, including the questions related to bonus practices, which in turn influences the interpretation of the results presented in the preceding chapter.Item Korean American Mothers' Perception: Investigating the Role of Cultural Capital Theory and Parent Involvement(2014) Kim, Yong-Mi; Parham, Carole S.; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The strongest and most consistent predictors of parent involvement at school and at home are the specific school programs and teacher practices that encourage parent involvement at school and guide parents in how to help their children at home (Dauber & Epstein, 1995). Joyce Epstein (2004) developed a framework for defining six different types of parent involvement. This framework assists educators in developing school and family partnership programs. "Schools have a vested interest in becoming true learning communities. They are now accountable for all students' learning," she writes. "To learn at high levels, all students need the guidance and support of their teachers, families, and others in the community." School improvement no longer rests solely on the shoulders of the principal, but rather takes the collaborative effort of the entire school community to increase achievement levels of all students. A major stakeholder of that community is the parents who want what is in the best interest of their children. This mixed-methods study examined the perceptions of Korean American mothers regarding their own parent involvement practices and investigated the role of Bourdieu's Cultural Capital Theory using the conceptual framework of Epstein's Parent Involvement Framework. Data for this study were collected by way of survey responses and interview probes with focus groups of six Korean American mothers. In the quantitative phase of the study, 81 mothers from a single school district in the mid-Atlantic United States were identified. The results from the quantitative phase of the study found that English proficiency had a significant impact on whether Korean American mothers engaged in parent involvement activities. Examination of the focus group responses revealed that the Korean American mothers identified English and time as major factors in determining in what types of parent involvement activities they engaged. Parent involvement is essential for promoting successful school improvement. It plays a pivotal part in school reform. Further research is recommended with larger samples of participants in rural and urban settings. In addition, future research should examine the role of fathers in parent involvement.