Doctoral Dissertations and Theses

Just in case anyone's interested in a qualitative research design using an inductive model--everyone, right?--you can grab a copy of my Leicester thesis in the link below. Here's the abstract:

The Chief Learning Officer (CLO) of an organization is the executive responsible for learning and workplace performance, and is often a member of its top management team. Practicing human resource development (HRD) strategically, the CLO creates and conducts learning and development activities designed to increase workers’ capabilities and outcomes. This thesis establishes a theoretical description of the path HRD practitioners take to become CLOs, examines how they perform strategic HRD and where they go when finished in that role, and delineates the structure-agency dynamics they function within. Additionally, the thesis explores and explains the CLO phenomenon through the use of sociological theories of structure and agency. Particularly, it applies strong structuration theory to the CLO. Combining these theories provides a thorough theoretical explanation of the basic social process of the CLO phenomenon, grounded in the data. Using grounded theory as its qualitative research method, it gathers and analyzes the lived experiences of CLOs. The results from 20 semi-structured interviews with current and former CLOs are presented and analyzed to explore how HRD practitioners become CLOs, how CLOs practice strategic HRD, and where CLOs go in their careers. A foundational theoretical model for the CLO is offered, which includes several contributing theories. It is demonstrated that CLOs are constructing their roles and the social structures while simultaneously performing in them. Also, CLOs are shown to come from a variety of vocational backgrounds with varying degrees of experience in HR. They practice strategically whether or not they are members of their organizations’ top management teams. When they leave the CLO role, they also tend to move away from organizationally defined careers and towards self-defined ways of practice. Also offered are recommendations for further research and implications for HRD scholarship and practice.

Link: https://lra.le.ac.uk/bitstream/2381/31841/1/Thesis%20R%20Douglas%20Final%202015.pdf

Long-time readers will recall that my first doctoral dissertation--at the Union Institute--was pirated by degree mill trolls. It was purchased once from Proquest and downloaded 67 times in 2 days before I halted electronic sales. But that's ancient history, and I've offered it for free on my amateur website--no registration or information necessary. That abstract:

This study explored the role of accreditation and other types of recognition of
degree-granting institutions in terms of the usefulness of those degrees to graduates using
them in the employment sector. Emphasis was placed on nontraditional degree-granting
institutions and the agencies that recognize, approve, license, and/or accredit them.

A survey of the development of nontraditional higher education is provided, along
with a review of the literature relevant to the research topic. To represent the workplace,
human resource professionals were identified and offered an opportunity to fill out an
online survey instrument. Completed surveys were received from 267 participants to
explore the study’s research questions. The participants were asked to rate the
acceptability of each degree source when considering employees for hire, promotion, and
tuition reimbursement purposes.

An Analysis of Variance was performed to explore the research questions, and
statistically significant differences were found for each. Post-hoc tests were used to
locate and analyze differences.

There were significant differences in how participants rated the provided forms of
recognition, the provided schools, and the provided forms of recognition with
descriptions. There also were significant differences between how the participants rated
forms of recognition and their corresponding schools. Finally, there were significant
differences between how participants rated the forms of recognition before and after descriptions were provided.

The researcher concluded that human resource professionals often do not
understand the differences among schools and among different types of institutional
recognition, and they often do not check. It was also concluded that human resources
professionals require training regarding degree acceptance and recognition. Importantly,
it was determined that degrees from unaccredited schools, or even those issued by
diploma mills, can be accepted by employers for hiring, promotions, and tuition
reimbursement programs. Degrees from accredited schools can sometimes be considered
less acceptable than those from diploma mills, and that the acceptability of a degree is
often unrelated to the type of recognition held by the issuing school. Finally, the
researcher determined that potential students (and their potential employers) need to
understand these issues when making decisions about the value or legitimacy of college
degrees. Further research was indicated in several areas.

The link: http://hrdstrategy.com/images/PhD_Dissertation.pdf

Perhaps these will be useful not only for their content, but their methodologies. The first uses an inductive, qualitative, theory-building approach while the latter uses a deductive, quantitative, theory-testing approach.

If you use any content, please cite the source. Thanks!