An Exploratory Study on Why ETM Students Have Chosen ETM Program for Their Graduate Studies

The research is an exploratory study of Engineering and Technology Management (ETM) graduate students‟ main reasons and motivation factors in pursuing an ETM degree (MS or Ph.D.) at Portland State University (PSU) and the sources of information that helped the students in their decision to enroll at the said graduate program. So, the team designed, conducted, analyzed and interpreted a Web-based survey tool using Google Forms tool. The survey was distributed to the current ETM students at PSU. The main objective of the study is to provide the ETM department and the ETM Advisory Council (ETMAC) with the main reasons on why these students have chosen ETM and PSU for their graduate studies. Another objective is to determine and understand the main sources of information that prospective ETM students had used to research about the ETM program before deciding to apply. The research had come up with four hypotheses which were tested using ANOVA through using SPSS software. The first two hypotheses pertain to the information sources that were given importance by the respondent in researching for relevant information when they were still in the pre-purchase stage. The other two hypotheses pertain to the Motivation Factors that influenced the decision of the current ETM students when they have decided to enroll at a graduate program at PSU, the ETM program in particular

Hierarchical Decision Modeling for Selection of a Graduate Institution

This paper demonstrates a decision making process for selecting the best graduate institution in the Northwest region for international and domestic graduate students. The educational institutions reviewed will be limited to the public institutions located within the northwest region. A brief overview of each institution considered as an alternative is provided. This report also explains how the Hierarchical Decision Model (HDM) was set up with major and subcriteria to prioritize the alternatives. Before using this tool, the criteria that are deemed important to the students must be selected. Fifteen experts responded to the instrument and their judgments were analyzed. The calculations were obtained using the Pairwise Comparison Method (PCM) software which calculates the inconsistency within a sample data. Then the institutional facts were researched and final utility weights were computed for each. Finally, the analysis and results will be presented along with future enhancements to this model

Business Plan Presentation for Use-by-Touch

These are the presentation slides for ETM 510

An Exploratory Study of Conflict Management Styles in Project Management employed by ETM 545/645 graduate students at Portland State University

The research is an exploratory study of conflict management styles (CMS) that graduate students from the ETM 545/645 course (Project Management) at Portland State University tend to choose when faced with conflict situations while managing projects in the work place and in graduate school. Blake and Mouton‟s conflict management grid and Dr. Jay Hall‟s CMS model were the bases for determining the CMSs of the respondents. A second goal of the study is to describe the CMSs of the respondents, as these relate to gender, age, ethnicity, and work experience. The researchers used a demographic questionnaire and Dr. Jay Hall‟s CMS survey as research instruments. The results of the study are presented using descriptive statistics. The findings of the research aim to provide students of project management in ETM 545/645 with information on their CMSs, and recommendations for best practices in dealing with interpersonal conflicts when managing projects

Survival of General Motor Corp Under the Global Economical Crisis

The struggle of the American manufacturing industry to survive under the global economical recession has been the main headline for most of the business news nowadays. The government of the United States is, however, giving an extra attention to the American Automotive industry due to its micro impact towards the national economy, with more than one million jobs on the stake. The automotive industry has, however, received governmental stimulus packages to avoid its inevitable bankruptcy, but their overall stability remains under risk. The main objective of this study is to conduct an analysis of the main internal and external factors that restrained General Motors Corp. (GM), to achieve financial stability. The study includes literature reviews, benchmarking of better performing companies, and performing interviews with field experts, all to come up with a list of suggested courses of actions that would give in return a better overall performance for the American automotive industry in general, and for General Motors Corp. (GM) in specific

Legit Widget: Risk Plan Proposal

The intention of this project is to develop and present a Risk Management System (RMS) for a fictitious company in effort to use the tools taught in the EMT 546 Project Management Tools course. Members of Team One are now associates in a company called Legit Widget. We have provided background as to what our company does and how we make money, which will assist in communicating our company’s experience, operation and quality of work. The Project Management practices that Legit Widget uses in this project will demonstrate and enlighten our board members as to the quality that we bring to the challenge of implementing a necessary RMS. We will also explain some of our Project Management best practices to further add confidence in our preparation of our new Risk Management System