Date of Award

4-23-2025

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Business Administration (DBA)

Department

College of Business

First Advisor

Letta Campbell, DM

Second Advisor

Stephen Pyle, DBA

Third Advisor

Larry Hughes, PhD

Committee Members

Letta Campbell, DM; Stephen Pyle, DBA; Larry Hughes, PhD

Keywords

Organizational behavior; Organization theory; Business administration, Atlassian Jira; Enterprise reporting; Enterprise Work Management; Kanban; Organizational effectiveness; Smart goal setting

Abstract

Organizations need to be effective to stay relevant in a constantly changing environment (Mergel et al., 2019). No pre-existing theoretical frameworks provide leaders with a tested, holistic work management strategy that is proven to positively impact organizational effectiveness (Mergel et al., 2019). Without structured work management practices, organizations experience low levels of work visibility which translates into reactive decision-making and decreased organizational effectiveness (Burke, 2024).

The newly created Enterprise Work Management (EWM) framework provides leaders with a holistic work management strategy that is proven to positively impact organizational effectiveness. The findings from this study address a gap in organizational effectiveness and work management literature by measuring the impact of SMART strategic goal setting methods, Atlassian Jira work visualization tools and processes, MCDA enterprise backlog prioritization methods, Kanban boards, and flow-based enterprise reporting metrics on organizational effectiveness.

An intervention pilot was conducted within a Fortune 500 Global IT department over a threemonth period to assess the EWM framework’s impact on organizational effectiveness. The research questions for this study included the framework’s impact on organizational effectiveness, the challenges associated with adoption, and participant observations on how the framework impacted organizational effectiveness.

This study used a two-method quasi-experimental research design. The Organizational Effectiveness Measurement (OEM) (Kulachai et al., 2021) survey instrument was used as a pretest and posttest assessment before and after EWM framework adoption. There were 117 total participants in the study. The intervention group included 36 Data Technology team members who fully adopted the EWM framework. The comparison group included 81 Global IT employees who did not participate in the intervention.

A repeated measures ANOVA showed the interaction effect between time and group was statistically significant F(1, 106) = 16.60, p < .001, η²ₚ = 0.14, indicating that the intervention meaningfully improved organizational effectiveness over time. Qualitative analysis from 18 Information Technology leader interviews indicated that the Data Technology teams experienced increased work visibility, cross-team collaboration, value delivery, and delivery speed. The EWM framework provides leaders with a holistic framework to enhance productivity, increase transparency, and optimize work execution which can help organizations navigate increasingly complex environments.

Included in

Business Commons

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