Sex trafficking in the United States is an enormous illegal underground business economy that involves the sexual exploitation of many persons. Due to the large nature of the sex trafficking business and the many different types of sex trafficking, it is helpful for social workers, government agencies, and activists to understand the intricacies of the various types of sex trafficking. This research focused on determining the human resources business structures behind pimp businesses that relied on mental coercion of the victim. The data source used, Pimpfeet.com—an online pimp authored blog—provided data from actual pimps on their business practices that were analyzed to determine trends in recruitment and retention. These trends were compared to human resource management theories from business literature to determine to what extent, or if at all, a pimp’s business recruited and retained workers in a way that was similar to how a legal business would, according to human resources strategies. The data extracted from Pimpfeet.com and used in this study consisted of 69 pimp quotes that were put into three recruitment categories and five retention categories based on human resource management literature in order to see which categories were used for recruitment and retention by pimps. This study found that pimp recruitment and retention followed, to some extent, the same models described in the human resource management literature, with slight modifications. This study showed that job embeddedness theory (Holtom, Mitchel and Lee, 2009) was able to explain much of why sex trafficking victims are retained so well by pimps since they are so embedded in the prostitution lifestyle. These findings show the different business techniques that pimps use for recruitment and retention of sex workers and are useful for understanding how a social worker, government entity or an activist can combat these forces to help remove victims from a pimp’s control, or keep victims from getting recruited in the first place. Further areas of research related to this topic were suggested.

The United States is attempting to find the most efficient ways of responding to the threat of terrorist recruitment within its borders. ISIS has effectively recruited individuals from around the world on a large scale and specifically targets citizens of Western countries with high-quality, cinematic, English-language recruitment material. In the following analysis, we propose an additional approach to understanding ISIS recruitment appeal by comparing the content of recruitment messaging from a militaristic (but value-oriented) organization that is familiar to the authors of this thesis (the United States Marine Corps) with the militaristic but value-oriented unfamiliar (ISIS). Through this analysis, we seek to understand ISIS recruitment not from a theological basis but from a communications framework: narrative analysis. We identified narratives in each organization's recruitment materials and, by comparing larger themes that appeared across materials, determined the overarching narrative arc for each organization (into which the many smaller individual narratives were tied). We found that the narratives of the organizations are similar and different in many ways, but most significantly, they articulate fundamentally different resolutions: ISIS is driving towards a defined narrative resolution (which results in the end of the modern world) while the USMC recruitment materials depict no concrete resolution, as the organizational arc is depicted as continuing throughout time. Our discussion of narrative trajectory and defined resolutions directly supports existing scholarly literature linking the need for cognitive closure with extremist views: providing certainty and assurance about the future to potential extremist recruits. As demonstrated in our analysis, the narratives produced by ISIS for the purpose of recruitment depict a definite and conclusive resolution to both individual and organizational narratives, removing ambiguity (of actions, of antagonists, and of resolutions) and the anxiety associated with chance from the lives of the potential recruits. We believe ISIS's removal of uncertainty and provided template for how individuals should conduct their lives is an important part of the appeal its recruitment material has for Western recruits. Our suggestions for real-world use of our findings apply the immediacy and defined resolution found in ISIS recruitment narratives to counter ISIS-recruitment strategies.

The following paper is a proposal for marketing materials advertising the W. P. Carey Leaders Academy and the experience of business students in Barrett, The Honors College. There is a distinct need for materials that market to and inform prospective students about the experiences and feeling of community that can be attained from being a student in the W. P. Carey Leaders Academy, which is "a community designed exclusively for premier students enrolled in the W. P. Carey School of Business" (W. P. Carey Leaders Academy). The challenge of successfully creating these materials was approached with various methods of data collection and research. The data collection included a review of Arizona State University (ASU), the W. P. Carey School of Business, and Barrett, The Honors College marketing materials, a review of materials from competing institutions, and scholarly articles on the subject of recruitment and marketing. Admission-based data from groups of excelling students was featured. Finally, interviews and surveys with current faculty, staff, and students were conducted to supplement the research and data collection. Analysis of the data provided insight into best practices when marketing from universities and provided an understanding of appropriate methods for marketing this information. The data indicated that creating an online viewbook, like the one currently marketing the entire business school, as well as providing a physical postcard mailer directing students to the online viewbook, would be the best strategy for marketing the W. P. Carey Leaders Academy. The sections of the viewbook this paper proposes to include are Why the W. P. Carey Leaders Academy, W. P. Carey Leaders Academy Experience, Student Life, Academic Success, Involvement, Scholarship, Professional Future, Barrett, The Honors College, For Parents, and Next Steps. Details of the Time, Cost, and Project Personnel follow.

Purpose: This thesis studies the effectiveness of various recruitment strategies directed towards college students in the interest of acquiring the best talent for internships and full-time career opportunities after graduation. The purpose of this thesis is to develop an understanding about what current students respond to when it comes to efforts companies make to recruit for employment and then to provide suggestions to improve recruitment strategies. Methodology: In addition to research of existing literature, a survey was given to students at Arizona State University, in order to determine students' reactions to recruitment strategies used by companies. Differences in reactions will be examined by talent, as well as position, gender, school of discipline, and age. Findings: Through the research conducted, I found that personalized efforts are not necessarily always preferred by students. Mass efforts, such as career fairs and job postings, hold a lot of weight and influence in a decision. Two personalized recruitment efforts that should be noted are interaction with the HR team and direct emails. Reputation also plays a significant part in the recruitment of students on campus. Establishing a well-known and liked reputation within the different areas of reputation is vital to the recruitment of students.

A cost analysis was done on the participant recruitment for an ongoing research project to promote colon cancer screening in Phoenix, Arizona. The aim of the 5-year project is to navigate people, who do not regularly see primary care physicians, from the community to a nearby clinic to be screened, using an intervention strategy called tailored navigation. Through tailored navigation, participants' barriers to being screened are addressed by Community Health Navigators, who call the participant over the span of 8 weeks following an initial class at a community site and give them information on how to overcome his or her specific barrier. The objective of this cost analysis is to explore the costs of recruiting a participant from the community to the initial class to a potential program manager. The process of recruitment involved recruitment of a community site, project introduction, the sign-up of interested participants, eligibility, baseline, and consent tests, and the class itself. A Community Site Liaison recruits sites and schedules class times. The Community Health Navigator conducts eligibility, baseline, and consent surveys and teaches the class, a sixty minute presentation on colon cancer screening. The cost of recruitment per community site was $541.23, and the cost per participant attending class was estimated to be $1,594.41 per participant with variation between $1,379.97 and $1,770.71 in optimistic and conservative scenarios, respectively.

Collective decision making in social organism societies involves a large network of communication systems. Studying the processes behind the transmission of information allows for greater understanding of the decision making capabilities of a group. For Temnothorax rugatulus colonies, information is commonly spread in the form of tandem running, a linear recruitment pattern where a leading ant uses a short-ranged pheromone to direct a following ant to a target location (in tandem).The observed phenomenon of reverse tandem running (RTR), where a follower is lead from a target back to the home nest, has not been as extensively studied as forward tandem running and transportation recruitment activities. This study seeks to explain a potential reason for the presence of the RTR behavior; more specifically, the study explores the idea that reverse tandem run followers are being shown a specific route to the home nest by a highly experienced and efficient leading ant. Ten colonies had migrations induced experimentally in order to generate some reverse tandem running activity. Once an RTR has been observed, the follower and leader were studied for behavior and their pathways were analyzed. It was seen that while RTR paths were quite efficient (1.4x a straight line distance), followers did not experience a statistically significant improvement in their pathways between the home and target nests (based on total distance traveled) when compared to similar non-RTR ants. Further, RTR leading ants were no more efficient than other non-RTR ants. It was observed that some followers began recruiting after completion of an RTR, but the number than changed their behavior was not significant. Thus, the results of this experiment cannot conclusively show that RTR followers are utilizing reverse tandem runs to improve their routes between the home and target nests.

The coordination of group behavior in the social insects is representative of a broader phenomenon in nature, emergent biological complexity. In such systems, it is believed that large-scale patterns result from the interaction of relatively simple subunits. This dissertation involved the study of one such system: the social foraging of the ant Temnothorax rugatulus. Physically tiny with small population sizes, these cavity-dwelling ants provide a good model system to explore the mechanisms and ultimate origins of collective behavior in insect societies. My studies showed that colonies robustly exploit sugar water. Given a choice between feeders unequal in quality, colonies allocate more foragers to the better feeder. If the feeders change in quality, colonies are able to reallocate their foragers to the new location of the better feeder. These qualities of flexibility and allocation could be explained by the nature of positive feedback (tandem run recruitment) that these ants use. By observing foraging colonies with paint-marked ants, I was able to determine the `rules' that individuals follow: foragers recruit more and give up less when they find a better food source. By altering the nutritional condition of colonies, I found that these rules are flexible - attuned to the colony state. In starved colonies, individual ants are more likely to explore and recruit to food sources than in well-fed colonies. Similar to honeybees, Temmnothorax foragers appear to modulate their exploitation and recruitment behavior in response to environmental and social cues. Finally, I explored the influence of ecology (resource distribution) on the foraging success of colonies. Larger colonies showed increased consistency and a greater rate of harvest than smaller colonies, but this advantage was mediated by the distribution of resources. While patchy or rare food sources exaggerated the relative success of large colonies, regularly (or easily found) distributions leveled the playing field for smaller colonies. Social foraging in ant societies can best be understood when we view the colony as a single organism and the phenotype - group size, communication, and individual behavior - as integrated components of a homeostatic unit.

This study was conducted to (a) explore high achieving high school students' perceptions of the teaching profession, (b) examine the influence of these perceptions on intentions to teach, and (c) test a recruitment suite of tools to determine the effectiveness of recruitment messaging and strategies. The Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) served as the theoretical framework for this study. Using the TPB allowed examination of students' behavioral, normative, and control beliefs as well as their attitudes, subjective norms, and efficacy and how those components affected intentions to teach. Participants included high school seniors in the top 20% of their class. A mixed methods approach was employed to identify how the characteristics that students value when considering a profession were aligned with those they believed to be true about the teaching profession. Additionally mixing methods allowed for a more thorough exploration of the matter and an in-depth depiction of perceptions and intentions to teach. Results from a confirmatory path analysis showed students' perceived behavioral control, a measure of efficacy, and attitudes toward teaching were predictive of intention to teach and accounted for 25% of the variation in intention to teach scores. A series of exploratory structural equation models was developed to examine additional paths that might be useful in understanding students' intention to teach. Three additional, important paths were found among TPB variables that accounted for an additional 14% of the variation in intention scores. Additionally, these paths had implications for recruitment practice. Five themes emerged from the qualitative data--status, societal importance, influences of important others, teaching as a backup option, and barriers. The discussion focused on implications for recruitment practice and research, limitations, and conclusions. The following conclusions were drawn: (a) students must be provided with knowledge about the teaching profession to overcome stereotypical beliefs, (b) recruitment must begin much earlier, (c) parents must be better informed about teaching, (d) use of a longer recruitment process with multiple touch points must be used to inform and inspire students, and (e) students must be provided with practice teaching opportunities and systematic observational opportunities, which can foster increased efficacy for teaching.