Strategic Assessment of Organizational Commitment

The concept of organizational commitment has been widely studied over recent decades, yet it remains one of the most challenging concepts in organizational research. While commitment is understood to be highly valuable in today’s dynamic business environment, its multifaceted nature is not necessarily understood adequately. The purpose of this study was to examine the concept of organizational commitment and its measurement issues within organizations, and to develop a practical evaluation tool for management, which is based on previous scientific research. First, a theoretical framework discussing organizational commitment and engagement was established. Based on the literature research, three ontologies were developed addressing organizational commitment and engagement, as well as academic engagement. The ontologies were constructed as a synthesis of existing theories. With the help of the ontologies and the created evaluation system, it is possible to better understand these concepts, gain a collective view of the organization’s current state and vision for the future, and to open a dialogue between members of the organization regarding their development. The results of the empirical case studies are presented at the end of this thesis, as well as in the attached research papers. The empirical results indicate that, by using these applications, it is possible to gain insights about the respondents’ feelings and aspirations, which can be used to support effective decision-making and as the basis for creating development actions within the organization.Organisaatiositoutumisen käsitettä on tutkittu laajasti kuluneiden vuosikymmenten aikana, kuitenkin se on edelleen yksi organisaatiotutkimuksen haastavimmista käsitteistä. Sitoutuminen on laajalti ymmärretty erittäin tärkeäksi tämän päivän liiketoimintaympäristössä mutta sen moniulotteista luonnetta ei yrityksissä ole välttämättä ymmärretty riittävästi. Tämän tutkimuksen tavoitteena oli tarkastella organisatorisen sitoutumisen käsitettä ja sen mittaamisen ongelmallisuutta sekä kehittää aikaisempaan tieteelliseen tutkimukseen perustuva käytännön sovellus sitoutumisen tason määrittämiseksi. Tutkimuksen ensimmäisessä osassa laadittiin organisaatioon sitoutumista käsittelevä teoreettinen viitekehys, jonka perusteella kehitettiin kolme ontologiaa. Ontologiat käsittelevät organisaation sitoutumista eri näkökulmista sekä opiskelijoiden akateemista sitoutumista. Ontologioiden sekä laaditun arviointijärjestelmän avulla on mahdollista ymmärtää sitoutumiseen liittyviä käsitteitä, saada yhteinen näkemys organisaation nykytilasta ja tulevaisuuden näkemyksestä sekä löytää mahdollisia kehityskohteita. Empiiristen case-tutkimusten tuloksia on esitetty tämän työn loppuosassa sekä liitteenä olevissa tutkimusartikkeleissa. Tulokset osoittavat, että laadittujen sovellusten avulla on mahdollista saada tietoa vastaajien tuntemuksista ja pyrkimyksistä. Tätä tietoa voidaan hyödyntää päätöksenteon tukena sekä perustana kehitystoimien luomiselle.fi=vertaisarvioitu|en=peerReviewed

New Tools to Help in the Recruitment Process

AbstractThe recruitment process is demanding, especially when there are many good candidates. Failure in this process can be expensive. Typically interviews and different psychological tests are used to help in the selection. The problem is that interviews and tests are costly. Here a new, partly automated approach is presented. The new approach was tested in the Tenure Track process at the Tampere University of Technology. The new approach consisted of two parts. Firstly, the candidates used the on-line Evolute Helix application [1]. They responded to 237 claims and gave their degree of agreement with each claim. This part produced data measuring commitment. Secondly, the gathered data, i.e. profiles of commitment, were analyzed to find clusters of similar candidates. These clusters were checked against the desired profile. These two parts were automated. The test data were based on the Tenure Track process at the Tampere University of Technology. Recruitment to universities nowadays largely follows the same principles as the normal recruitment process in companies and other organizations. Universities have started to play a global game in their recruitment and try to find the best possible candidates internationally for their universities. In this case example we show how an organizational commitment application that has been developed could help the recruitment process, in which 55 candidates were applying for two tenure track positions. The application used, Evolute Helix, was useful in the recruitment process and helped in the interviews as well as the selection of applicants for the shortlist. The shortlist consisted of six candidates, who were finally interviewed. The two winners were selected from among these candidates. Commitment can reveal many personal characteristics and also the future aspirations and motivations of applicants. The tested application can also be used afterwards, as the tenure track of the chosen person continues in the university. Automatic preprocessing is a great aid when sifting out desired candidates from multiple applicants

Phronetic leadership style evaluation with a fuzzy logic application

The purpose of leadership style assessments is to determine the basic features and characteristics of leadership behaviours and to reveal the leader's personality traits and abilities and to increase their self-awareness. The style can be, for example, democratic, autocratic, bureaucratic, laissez-faire, strategic, visionary, transformational, or transactional. However, ordinary assessments do not help leaders analyze their knowledge and wisdom behind their behaviours. The Wisdom Cube seeks to explain wisdom through the four dimensions of wisdom and provides a practical way of understanding the knowledge and wisdom in leadership. By utilising the dimensions and planes of the Wisdom Cube, we can find the way from data handling, information processing, and knowledge creation to wisdom generation. The aim of this research is, therefore, to reveal the ontology of the phronetic leader and to create a practical evaluation tool for leaders. The content of the article covers the elements of the Wisdom Cube, presents related efforts to measure and analyze phronetic leadership characteristics, and shows the practical results of the first test runs with the fuzzy logic-based application. The personal deep understanding of the leadership traits may then help the leaders to turn their current leadership styles more phronetic

Evaluating and profiling student engagement and motivation at a higher education institution

PURPOSE: This study aimed to identify the main areas and features of student engagement at a university. The research also focuses on evaluating the main features of student engagement that can be used for profiling student motivation.METHODOLOGY: The data for this study was gathered at the end of the spring semester of 2018 at the Warsaw University of Life Sciences (WULS), one of the largest life sciences universities in Poland, using an Internet-based instrument called Evolute. The data in this research consisted of self-evaluation responses from 242 undergraduate students on Master’s and Bachelor’s programs. The respondents filled out an online questionnaire.FINDINGS: The results were presented in a three-stage analysis (descriptive statistics, a fuzzy logic-based method, and a clustering method for profiling student engagement). The results identified some key attributes of student engagement. The highest creative tension was noticed in student satisfaction, which reflects a gap in that area that could be improved by the university. The findings showed that highly motivated students presented high values in routinization and goal progress.PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS: The proposed solution could be used for further profiling according to applied additional criteria, such as type, of course, year of education, lecturers, work experience, etc.ORIGINALITY/VALUE: The study findings hold essential theoretical and practical implications for educators and researchers seeking to understand how students evaluate their engagement and reveal the gaps in university committees.peer-reviewe

Measuring Student Engagement and Commitment on Private Academic Institutions Using Fuzzy Logic Expert System Metrics Applications

© 2020, Springer Nature Switzerland AG. Even though academic knowledge is provided to academic institutions under very specific academic standards in teaching and research, the instruction’s management can impact significantly the student engagement and commitment on receiving and utilizing such knowledge. To analyse this challenge, a Fuzzy Logic, expert system-based software application has been developed and applied on a private academic institution. In this research the institution participated with 40 undergraduate students, from 24 different countries from two different semesters on the same course. The technology measures the student engagement and commitment via the co-evolute methodology for knowledge elicitation. By utilizing this approach, the management of academic institutions can make development analysis based on concrete bottom-up results. The collective analysis of the test results clearly identifies where students see the needs for greatest development and how they view their current state of engagement