Untenured Faculty Research Initiative (UFRI)

Beyond Leader-Member Exchange (LMX): The Development and Validation of a New Typology Scale of Followers
Dr. Kihwan Kim, School of Management and Marketing

Although LMX Theory made a substantial contribution to understanding the importance of the relationship between leaders and followers, the theory has a critical weakness that its simple classification of the followers as either in-group or out-group seriously limits the understanding of the complex natures of leader-follower relationships (e.g., Kim et al., 2020). Recently, to address this issue, the PI suggested that a new typology model describe four groups of followers by combining two dimensions: Physical Distance and Psychological Distance. Physical Distance refers to how closely and how often the follower interacts with the leader in carrying their tasks (e.g., Nayani et al., 2018; Newcomb, 1976). Meanwhile, Psychological Distance refers to how much the followers care about the leader’s goals, values, and successes (e.g., Lee et al.,2018; Thomas & Tsai, 2012). The PI named these four groups as Social Exchange, Transactional Exchange, Attraction, and Indifference. 

Women’s Representation in Local Governments: Evidences from Financial Disclosure Statements in New Jersey
Claire Yun, Public Administration

This research project will continuously examine women's representation in government to address the lack of data on women’s employment in local governments, which continues to constrain an accurate assessment of its status. To fill the gap in available data, we used the Financial Disclosure Statements containing a comprehensive list of high-level officers, elected or appointed, in local governments and special entities, including specialized authorities, boards, and commissions. Furthermore, the gender of officers has been examined women’s representation in county governments by utilizing Gender R-package. Through the research supported by the UFRI award 2020-2021, the potential research opportunities for other states’ cases are confirmed. Thus, this study for the extended period will focus on exploring the women’s representation and explore women’s representation in local governments in other states such as Florida. It will contribute to the literature on women's representation in local governments by providing an empirical case with descriptive statistics as well as probing into determinants of women's representation in local governments.

Toward a Concrete Revolution:   Architecture, Planning, and Cultural Policy during Cuba’s “Grey Period,” 1968-1982
Gabriel Fuentes, Public Architecture

"Much historiography around socialist architecture in Cuba renders the revolutionary period as a hiccup in the overall trajectory of Cuban culture. According to this narrative, Cuban architecture in the 1960s lost its soul by the 1970s when Cuba underwent a cultural “Grey Period” after adopting Soviet ideology, planning, and building methods. Such political and economic dimensions often cast a deep shadow over the aesthetic quality of socialist Cuban architecture. Citing impenetrable bureaucracy, a lack of design expertise and construction knowledge, and the Khrushchevian reduction of architects to ‘technicians’, many scholars have written off Cuba’s socialist architecture as having little to no aesthetic value. While this may hold true under a classical view of aesthetics as product (i.e. as beauty), a contemporary view of aesthetics as process—particularly Jacque Ranciere’s “Distribution of the Sensible” and Nicolas Bourriaud’s “Relational Aesthetics”—may open up powerful and often overlooked dimensions of Cuba’s revolutionary architecture positioned in between utopian imaginaries and bureaucratic realities. 

Millennials Tend to Prefer Larger Collaborations: Do Inventive Preferences Change Across Generations?  
Ipek Kocoglu, Management and Marketing

Statement of the proposal goal: "This study will investigate the impact of generational differences on the collaborative endeavor of inventors. While prior research has shown a progressive increase in the size of inventive teams to account for the growth in technical challenges, it has failed to incorporate generational differences. Focusing on this gap this study raises the question: Do millennial inventors prefer more individuals in their teams than inventors from the earlier generations? This study argues that inventive collaborations are not just a task-specific domain but also a means of social engagement. A social reprieve that allows one to overcome the belongingness deficit that has increased with the greater use of technology in day-to-day interactions – an implication that is more salient to millennials. This study will investigate whether millennials, more than non-millennials, use larger inventive teams to overcome the belongingness deficit. As this deficit decreases with access to other forms of close collaboration, this study will also examine whether millennials’ preference for larger teams decrease when inventions are developed while working for a new or an established organization than when working independently. To test these hypotheses patent data will be obtained from Harvard Patent Inventor Database and the employment data will be obtained from the matched data of inventors’ public profiles in LinkedIn.

Assessing Methodologies That Enable Analog, Digital, Virtual and Augmented Realities: An all-integrated approach without neglecting the physicality of the ID curriculum
Efe Kutuk, RBSD

An Industrial Design student and I are part of a team which was awarded the Faculty Seed Grant for Covid-19 Research Project, an initiative by Dr. Jefferey Toney. The primary goal of this program is to provide support for research and creative projects that will lead to proposal submissions for external funding. As background several members of the Michael Graves College faculty assembled a post pandemic think tank led by Prof. Craig Konyk, and we submitted a proposal for the Faculty Seed Grant titled “Planning for the Next Pandemic: A Proactive Design Think Tank at Kean University.” After receiving the grant, we recruited a student from each field, Architecture, Graphic Design, Interior Design, and Industrial Design. Our initial goal was to solidify our research-driven findings and present the results during Kean University Virtual Research Days. We hope our endeavor will lead to securing an external grant.

COMPARISON OF BLOOD SPATTER AND ARTIFACTS CREATED BY DIFFERENT SPECIES OF NECROPHAGOUS FLIES (DIPTERA) ON A CRIME SCENE. IMPLICATIONS ON CRIMINAL INVESTIGATIONS AND FORENSIC SCIENCE EDUCATION
Maria Denise Gemmellaro, Biology

This study aims to analyze artifacts created by blow flies (Diptera: Calliphoridae) through defecation and regurgitation and compare them to blood stains that can be present on a crime scene. Moreover, we intend to compare artifacts created by different species of blow flies as well as by males and females, testing against the null hypothesis that there are significant differences among them. This which would make it possible not just to distinguish an insect artifact from blood stains, but also to have information on the species who created the artifact. Crime scenes are rich of different elements that can be of high significance in the CSI operation and in the overall investigations. Blood traces and insects are among the most common pieces of evidence recovered at any crime scene. Being able to discriminate between an artifact created by an insect and a real blood stain may help investigators focus their efforts and gain a better understanding of the crime’s dynamics. Moreover, learning about the artifacts created by blow flies, which are the most important group of colonizers of dead bodies, will help us improve our knowledge in the field of forensic entomology and decomposition ecology. Finally, this research project will offer students the possibility to combine different skills, among which colony maintenance, experimental design and data analysis, and will show them the need for a multidisciplinary approach to forensic science and to crime scene investigation.