The objective of this study is to gain a better understanding of the factors influencing internship engagement and determine if there is a notable difference between first-generation students and their non-first-generation counterparts. To achieve this goal, I surveyed students currently engaged in an internship or those who have completed one within the past three years. The findings indicate that there is no significant difference between the two groups in terms of overall internship engagement. However, first-generation students reported experiencing higher levels of work-role fit and psychological meaningfulness. It's worth noting that psychological meaningfulness influences internship engagement.

Employee retention is a major problem for organizations, especially for small and medium-sized organizations, which make up 99.7 percent of U.S. Organizations. Research reveals how leadership style affects employee retention, showing that supervisors who are transformational help to reduce employee turnover. However, little research has assessed the interdependent dynamics of transformational leadership, employability, and employee retention. Furthermore, employability is a sparsely discussed concept in the literature, making it a novel inquiry to consider in the dynamics of employee retention. This research employs agent-based modeling (ABM) to examine the dynamics of employee retention while considering the interdependent nature of modern organizations and workforce. The goal is to look at the relationships between the degree of transformational leadership of leader, the employability factors of individual employees, and employee turnover. The model will input data from previous empirical research to define parameters for these variables in NetLogo. This simulation model shows how workers and leaders interact and how these interactions affect the employability and retention of each employee over time, as well as how employability affects the individual’s turnover behavior once they become dissatisfied with their leader. Results demonstrate that there is a positive relationship between transformational leadership and employability, and transformational leadership and employee retention, in some organizations from the model. This study contributes to organizational research on retention by looking at the dynamic impacts of both transformational leadership and employability in an employee’s decision to leave their organization. Additionally, changes in this study can look at other factors affecting employee retention. The resulting research will impact practice by clarifying the interdependence of leadership and employability on employee retention, leading to new innovations to decrease the turnover in organizations. This model will be replicable and adjustable to look at other factors impacting employee retention that are worth studying.

The Community Assistant position at Arizona State University is dealing with an issue of poor year-to-year retention. Currently, a large number of Community Assistants who could return for another year are choosing not to, which is further exacerbated by the fact that graduating Community Assistants cannot stay even if they wanted to because the position must be held by active students. Through research, interviews, and testimony, this paper constructs what the Community Assistant role entails and the priorities that the role instills in current Community Assistants at ASU. It then seeks to answer the question of why low levels of year-to-year retention matter and why so many are choosing to move to different positions after their first year has ended. By building from the information provided by current Community Assistants and various management theories from a variety of sources, this paper offers actionable recommendations for Arizona State University Housing to increase retention and motivation within the Community Assistant position.

This thesis analyzes the importance of positive relationships between managers and their
employees. It attempts to define what a positive work relationship is and how it can influence the
work environment. Through information found from case studies and surveys it is clear that a
good manager, as defined in this work, has a large impact on employee job satisfaction,
motivation and perceived retention rate. Using popular theories and studies I will show the
support I have for the analysis of my results as well as studies which prove my results to be
flawed.

The creative project titled “Culture and Business: Exploring the Etiquette Behind a Chinese Business Meal” focused on defining what is proper dining etiquette targeted at doing business with China. Through the use of 10 informational interviews with seasoned professionals who have experience working overseas in China, this project explored the key aspects of building relationships over a meal. Furthermore, online research was taken into account in order to provide a more up-to-date and well-rounded view. Trends that were discovered across categories include seating arrangements, gift giving, conversation topics, drinking culture, gender roles, and the actual act of eating. The goal of this project was to create an infographic and short video with the intention of educating American business students who are interested in working in China. It was found through the study that many Chinese professionals find the rules of business dining etiquette to be common sense. With globalization making developing relationships between American and Chinese businesses more accessible, providing established descriptions of how to properly conduct a business meal is essential to rising American professionals in order to ensure success in closing the business deal with their Chinese counterparts.

Differences between cultures have been (and continue to be) examined by researchers all over the world. Prominent studies performed by organizations such as GLOBE and Hofstede have created a foundation for our understanding of how culture affects business in different countries. They also inspired our study, which investigates how employment benefits vary in different cultures. We examined the difference in employee benefit preference of Austria and Germany compared to America and how that affects their perception of the organization. Specifically, we studied how employees in those countries would react to an increase in wage or an increase in vacation time. Each participant read a hypothetical scenario in which they received one of the two benefits. The alternative benefit was not disclosed to them. After reading about the reward, they were asked various questions about the company. These questions gauged their belief in the ability of the organization, their benevolence toward the organization, their perception of the integrity of the organization, their trust in the organization, their turnover intentions, and their obligation felt towards the organization.
Two of the six variables tested yielded statistically significant results after we performed a univariate analysis of variance test on each of the variables. The two variables that yielded statistically significant results were belief in the integrity of the organization and benevolence toward the organization. Americans expressed more benevolence and belief in the integrity of their organization when they received more vacation time, while Europeans exhibited the opposite reaction (to a lesser degree). These results could provide insight to companies that are looking to strengthen company culture or increase motivation of employees. The variables with non-significant results could be attributed to globalization, limitations of our study, or the concept of scarcity.

Leadership styles in the U.S. have gone through great changes in the past decades. New leadership styles have proven to be more effective than those of the past. There are certain characteristics that leaders today must have in order to effectively motivate their employees intrinsically. This report explains how certain leadership characteristics can lead to desirable or undesirable behaviors from employees. The information provided in this report was retrieved from a study I conducted with Peter Hom, Professor of Management of Arizona State University, and articles on servant leadership written by two extremely knowledgeable individuals on this topic, Adam Grant, Professor of Management at the University of Pennsylvania, and Robert Liden, Professor of Management at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Several other articles from credible sources were also used to provide support for this report. The report also includes numerous diagrams that help interpret the information provided.
The report is divided into several sections:
• Traditional Leadership style and rewards
• Existing literature on job relational design
• Servant leadership
• Surveys
• Data analysis
• Conclusion


From this research, it can be concluded that certain leadership qualities can contribute to an increase in intrinsic motivation to subordinates. Also, there are certain traits that allow managers to have a positive impact on subordinates. This study also provides leaders with suggestions on how to increase subordinates’ concerns for customers, which will translate into more productive work from employees.

This dissertation explores when and how the social comparisons that employees make with respect to their LMX (leader-member exchange) relationships affect their work performance and behaviors. The study introduces the concept of LMX social comparison across dyads (LMXAD) in which a follower compares the quality of his/her supervisory relationship to other leader-member dyads outside of the workgroup (e.g., my leader-myself vs. other leaders-other colleagues). Thus, the study sheds light on LMX social comparison processes at a dyadic level (e.g., our relationship vs. their relationships) as opposed to the individual level (e.g., my relationship vs their relationships, when followers share a same leader) to highlight the importance and saliency of leader-member dyadic comparisons. Drawing upon Thibaut & Kelley (1959)’s social exchange theory, the study, which collected data from 318 employees in Korean companies, empirically supported the positive effects of LMXAD on work performance, organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), and the negative effects of LMXAD on counterproductive work behavior (CWB), beyond LMX and LMX social comparison within group (e.g., my leader-myself vs. my leader-coworkers). Furthermore, results suggest upward counterfactual thoughts with regards to the current LMX relationship, mediates the relationship between LMXAD and work performance and CWB. Individual LMX and causal attributions also have a moderating effect by weakening the negative effects of LMXAD on upward counterfactual thoughts.

Researchers lament that feedback interventions often fail. Traditional theories assume a cognitive relationship between the receipt of feedback and its impact on employee performance. I offer a theoretical model derived from Affective Events and Broaden and Build Theories to shed new light on the feedback-performance relationship. I bridge the two primary streams of feedback literature-the passive receipt and active seeking-to examine how employees' affective responses to feedback drive how they use feedback to improve performance. I develop and test a model whereby supervisor developmental feedback and coworker feedback seeking relate to the positivity ratio (the ratio of positive as compared to negative affect), enabling them to be more creative and thus improving their performance. I test my model using Experience Sampling Methodology with a sample of MBA students over a two week working period.