Master thesis

What issue is your MA dealing with?

Global developments and unexpected events such as the COVID-19 pandemic present organizations with complex challenges. In the context of organizational crises and related uncertainty, proactive individuals are a supportive force because of their tendency to actively bring about change in their work environment. They are able to positively reinterpret stressful situations and feel responsible for constructive change. To this end, the study examined contextual factors that may promote proactive behavior in uncertain times and compensate for a lack of proactive disposition. In addition, implications for practice were derived.

How did you investigate this research question?

Based on the theories of trait activation and situational strength, dual interactions between proactive personality and supervisor-employee relationship (LMX) and proactive personality and situational uncertainty were expected to predict proactive behavior in organizational crises, respectively. Competing hypotheses about the structure of these interactions were tested using an experimental design and a quantitative online questionnaire among employees(N = 184) in different industries. Crisis scenarios were developed that manipulated measures of situational uncertainty. Other constructs (e.g., proactive personality, LMX, and proactive behavior) were measured using established scales.

What did you find?

Instead of the suspected two-way interactions between proactive personality and LMX and proactive personality and situational uncertainty, a more complex interaction between the variables was found in the form of a three-way interaction. The results show that a solid relationship between manager and employee in highly uncertain crisis situations has a reinforcing effect on the relationship between proactive personality and behavior. In contrast, if uncertainty is perceived to be weaker in the crisis situation, a positive LMX can compensate to some extent for a lack of proactive disposition. The findings obtained point to the importance of a trusting relationship between manager and employee, which - depending on situational uncertainty - is a motivational factor for proactive behavior in crises for both proactive and less proactive personalities. To cope with organizational crises, it is advisable to select proactive personalities in the context of personnel selection on the one hand, and to implement measures to foster the relationship between managers and employees on the other.

Contact:

Christina Veronica, www.LinkedIn.com/christina-veronica

What is the topic of your master's thesis?

In my thesis, I compare the wishes of new hires for so-called socialization tactics with the characteristics of the socialization tactics of the existing onboarding process at Fraunhofer IEE. Subsequently, I derive recommendations for action to improve the onboarding process. The goal is to meet the expectations of the socialization tactics as well as possible, as they support Newcomer Adjustment as part of organizational socialization. This and why this is relevant is explored in depth in the paper.

How did you investigate the research question?

Two quantitative online surveys were conducted to capture both what people want from socialization tactics and how they are currently being expressed at Fraunhofer IEE. To elicit the organizational socialization tactics, the German translation of Jones' (1986) 30-item scale, which appeared in Zdravkovic's (2011) dissertation, was used. To answer the four research questions and two hypotheses, mean values and confidence intervals, among others, were calculated. In addition, cluster analyses were conducted after a thorough review of the prerequisites and sample differences were determined using Mann-Whitney U tests.

What did you find out?

It can be seen that the 105 (potential) employees of energy research institutes desire collective, sequential, fixed, serial, and emergent tactics, but have no preference regarding formal-informal tactics. The induction process at IEE currently ensures serial and fixed socialization. By comparing the two, implications for the implementation of collective tactics in particular emerge. The approach used can be used to validate onboarding processes.

What was the topic of your master's thesis?

My master's thesis investigated to what extent the integration of social nudges in web-based training can increase learning success. Social nudges are mostly known from other contexts, such as shopping on online sites (e.g. "Other people also bought ...") or the promotion of environmentally friendly behavior (e.g. "85 percent of our hotel guests use their towel a second time") - always with the goal of "nudging" people's behavior in a certain direction. In online learning, however, the use of nudges has been little explored, so my master's thesis focused on stimulating learning-enhancing behavior with social nudges, such as "Max and 95 other learners tested their knowledge with this exercise task", and observing the resulting learning success.

How did you investigate the research question?

I investigated my research question using an online experiment. Subjects went through a self-constructed web-based training in which no social nudges (control group) or different social nudges (experimental groups) were integrated. After completion of the training, learning success was assessed in a knowledge test.

What did you find out?

With my experiment, I was able to achieve a significant improvement in learning behavior induced by the integration of social nudges. Subjects more frequently engaged in exercises, tested their knowledge, reflected, or viewed supplemental materials. Moreover, this behavior resulted in increased learning success. My hypothesis that social nudges improved performance in the knowledge test mediated by more learning-promoting behavior was confirmed. It also showed that subjects who were presented with social nudges felt more intrinsic motivation while learning with the web-based training. The master's thesis resulted in a conference paper at the Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences(https://hdl.handle.net/10125/102634).

Contact:

Laura Schlegel, schlegel@uni-kassel.de

What is the topic of the master's thesis?

Digitalization is changing work in the office: activities are changing and requirements are increasing. Therefore, recovery during work is increasingly moving into the research interest. The insertion of less strenuous routine tasks between complex work tasks could bring relief. However, routines at work and the underlying processes are still largely unexplored. To fill this gap, this master's thesis investigated for the first time how the interruption of a complex task by a routine task affected exhaustion, motivation, and task focus.

How did you investigate this research question?

The study targeted individuals who performed their work at a desk. An online experiment was designed with a complex creativity task and a routine task. Participants:were divided into two groups:

Group 1 was asked to briefly interrupt the creativity task, switch to the routine task, and then finish the creativity task,

Group 2 worked on the creativity task first and was then automatically directed to the routine task (no task switching).

What did you find out?

The results showed that interrupting a complex task with a routine task a) reduced perceived exhaustion and b) increased motivation for task processing and task focus.

Furthermore, individual preferences seemed to play an important role: participants only benefited from task switching if they indicated that they liked to switch between tasks during their work.

In summary, routines at work instead of boredom can provide meaningful variety and relief.

Contact:

Christina Nuhn, christina.nuhn44@gmail.com

What is the topic of your master's thesis?

Scientific questions are becoming increasingly complex and interdisciplinary. This is why the number of co-authorships or collaborative projects is constantly increasing. But what actually happens before that? How and why do researchers come into contact, what prevents them from thinking outside the box and what promotes it, and what is the significance of such informal interactions (without a monetary, project-related background)?  My research was about identifying these success factors and barriers for informal interactions - using the concrete case of applied research. The goal was to find out to what extent scientific collaborators already collaborate, exchange and network informally and what advantages and disadvantages they see in this behavior as well as what conditions this behavior.

How did you investigate the research question?

Through qualitative research, I was able to identify various influencing factors. Here, I was guided by Yin's (2014) case study design and Kuckarzt's (2018) structured content analysis. For this purpose, I conducted eleven interviews with group and project leaders from different research institutes. The interviews lasted an average of 55 minutes and were collected over a period of four weeks. I transcribed the interviews using Word and used MAXQDA for analysis (I highly recommend this).

What did you find out?

First of all, the development and maintenance of a network is considered very important and is also pursued, especially in the subject-specific area (keyword subject communities). However, competitive structures, time and funding pressures, thematic and linguistic differences as well as a lack of attractive meeting places and attendance events cancelled by Covid-19, for example, prevent low-threshold access to interdisciplinary exchange. In summary, I have established a theoretical model with thirteen influencing factors that now needs to be tested in future research.