Showing papers in "Human Relations in 1975"

Determinants of Supervisory Behavior: A Role Set Analysis

Abstract: While most studies have examined the consequences of different supervisory behaviors, the present study examines some determinants of supervisory actions. It is argued that the behavior of the supervisor is constrained by the demands of others in his role set. It was found that the expectations of a supervisor's boss and those of his subordinates and peers accounted for a significant portion of the observed variation in behaviors across 53 supervisors in the housing division of a large state university. Further, the extent to which supervisors conformed to their bosses' expectations was related to the number of persons and the proportion of the time spent supervising, the demands to produce, the supervisor's sex, and the proportion of the decisions made by superiors. Multivariate analysis indicated that the expectations of subordinates were more important in influencing social behaviors, while the expectations of the bosses were more important in determining work-related behaviors. Results are discussed i...

Towards a Political Theory of Organizational Intervention

Abstract: This paper discusses the neglected theme of the political context of the interventionist's work in terms of the client-consultant relationship and the consultant-consultant relationship. It is suggested that the internal consultant's ability to influence clients will be a function of his possession and tactical use of five power resources: expertise, control over information, political access and sensitivity, assessed stature and group support. Of these, the first three appear to be necessary but not sufficient conditions for consultant power. Once he has the political access and understanding, the consultant's ability to negotiate and persuade depends on his assessed stature with the appropriate figures in his political network.

Discussion-Induced Attitude Polarization

Abstract: Two experiments examined the group polarization hypothesis. In Experiment I group discussion polarized the evaluations of six hypothetical faculty members, three described positively and three negatively. 'Good' faculty were rated and paid even more favorably after group interaction and contrariwise for 'bad' faculty. Experiment II separated subjects into groups which were conservative or liberal in attitudes regarding women. Subsequent discussion of statements regarding the role of women yielded an increase in the attitude gap between the conservative and liberal communities.

Group Decision-Making Performance as Influenced by Consensus and Self-Orientation

Abstract: This study investigated the effects of (1) instructions outlining procedures to be followed in group decision-making and (2) level of self orientation among group members upon the quality of group decisions. Groups receiving consensual instructions systematically performed better than uninstructed groups, however instructed groups utilized about 50 per cent more time in making their decisions. While no significant overall effect was found for self orientation among uninstructed groups high self oriented 'groups' resorted to averaging significantly more often than low groups. The practical implications of the findings are drawn.

Socio-Technical Systems in Weaving, 1953-1970: A Follow-up Study

Abstract: In 1953-54, experimental changes in work organization were introduced in automatic and non-automatic loom-sheds of an Indian textile mill (Rice, 1953, 1955a, b, 1958, 1963). In each case semi-autonomous work-groups were established with responsibility for production and routine maintenance on a group of looms. Subsequently, these forms of working were extended to other loom-sheds. In 1970 a follow-up study of the 'group system' in four locations, including the two original sites, showed that in one the non-automatic experimental loom-shed the work organization and levels of performance had remained virtually unchanged over the 16 years, while in a newer automatic loom-shed group working had largely disappeared. Considerable regression had occured in the site of the automatic loom experiment, and the remaining non-automatic site displayed variation in modes of group working. The paper suggests that the effective persistence of the 'group system' in at least one area implies that the assumptions in Rice's o...

Person-Job Congruence and Individual Adjustment and Development

Abstract: This research was conducted at the clerical and hourly employee levels in two large organizations. It investigates the congruence or 'fit' of five personality predispositions with the relative certainty of jobs. The hypothesis tested is that this person-job congruence is related to individual psychological adjustment and development at work, as represented by an individual's 'sense of competence' on the job. The hypothesis is supported and the implications of the findings, especially regarding understanding the meaning of work for an individual, are discussed.

Employee Participation: An Experimental Field Study

Abstract: An experimental field study involving over three hundred blue-collar male employees and their superiors was conducted to investigate the hypothesis that participation in management decision-making is a determinant of satisfaction at work. A system of participation - Action Planning Groups - based on regular meetings between shop-floor employees and management proved effective in influencing organizational decisionmaking and was seen to be worthwhile by both parties. However, the increased participation achieved was not reflected in greater employee satisfaction. It is argued that these findings are consistent with previous experimental evidence. The reasons which lie behind the frequently expressed belief that participation is an important determinant of satisfaction at work are discussed. Employee desires for participation were also found to be unaffected by the experimental manipulation.

How Different Types of Change Agents Diagnose Organizations

Abstract: This article explores the results of a questionnaire study which focused on how four types of change agents, the Outside Pressure Type, the Organization Development type, the Analysis for the Top Type and the People Change Technology Type diagnose organizations. The four types of change agents were found to use different diagnostic categories. The differences were found to relate to both their value orientation and to the change techniques which they employ.

Persuasiveness and Accent-Message Incompatibility

Abstract: An experiment was conducted in order to investigate the effect of a speaker's accent upon listeners' responses to a communication. Speeches in favour of and against the Industrial Relations Act 1971 were recorded by one speaker using (a) RP (received pronunciation) and (b) a regional accent. Each of four groups of predominantly RP-speaking subjects heard one of the four accent-message combinations. The version which was most effective in influencing subjects' opinions was the RP-accented speech against the Act. This result is discussed in terms of compatibility between message-content and speaker's accent, listeners' identification with the speaker and the discrepancy between the listeners' original attitudes and that advocated by the speaker.

Superior-Subordinate Relations: Leadership and Headship

Abstract: The organizational behavior literature on leadership is marked by persistent conceptual problems which limit its applicability to the study of superior-subordinate relationships within organizations. This paper proposes a conceptual framework for viewing superior-subordinate relationships that makes explicit the differences between leadership, power, and authority. Several popular organizational behavior models of leadership are reviewed in light of the proposed framework and the conceptual inconsistencies associated with these models highlighted. Several benefits of the proposed framework for organizational research in the area of superior-subordinate relations are discussed.

Power and Commitment: An Empirical Assessment

Abstract: There is some question as to the usefulness of Etzioni's typological theory of compliance in organizational research. This study with a sample of 265 blueand white-collar workers in six organizations tests propositions from the theory concerning relationships between power used by organizations, commitment of workers to the organization and task performance. The results cast doubt on the usefulness of a classification scheme using concrete organizational types, but support the proposition that the more normative (less utilitarian) the power, the greater the commitment. Little or no relationship was found between power and task performance or commitment and task performance.

Role Conflict in Women as a Function of Marital Status

Abstract: Questionnaires on eight role conflict categories (Time Management, Relations with Husband, Household Management, Financial, Child Care, Expectations for Self, Expectations of Others, and Guilt) were administered to 518 women. Marital status was found to be a significant variable with married women expressing more conflict than other women. Never married and formerly married women did not differ significantly from each other. The results further suggested the existence of a generalized role expectation for women and the importance of the husband in marriage.

Attitudes Towards Participation among Local Authority Employees

Abstract: Employee attitudes towards participation in management decision-making is recognized as a subject which, though under researched, is of considerable contemporary importance. A questionnaire study of the attitudes of one hundred and twenty seven blue-collar employees leads to the following conclusions. First, whilst employees experience little participation they do express strong desires to be involved in decision-making. Second, the form of participation preferred depends upon the nature of the decision involved. In middle-management decision-making most employees would like to participate through personal contact with management; in top-management decisions employee representation is desired; and in pay related decisions participation through trade union representation is favoured. Finally, attitudes towards participation are positively related to job satisfaction. The usefulness of such questionnaire data as a starting point for the implementation of participative practices is discussed.

The Two Meanings of External Invalidity

Abstract: A distinction is proposed between two different senses of the treatment by background interaction (termed 'external invalidity' by Campbell & Stanley, 1966). The distinction parallels the dichotomy between universalistic (or theory centered) and particularistic (or context centered) objectives of behavioral research. In its universalistic sense the interaction above suggests a redefinition of the abstract meaning attached to the independent variables effective with respect to a given phenomenon of interest. In its particularistic sense this interaction defines the concrete contexts over which a given outcome will hold. The implications of the proposed distinction are discussed in reference to the phases of (1) designing the experiment and (2) evaluating the obtained results.

Communication and Satisfaction in Organizations

Abstract: The present study, based on data obtained in a set of health and social welfare agencies, attempted to develop some measures for examining organizational communication and to relate those measures to worker satisfaction. The communication properties of primary concern were the formality of the communication network and the direction of communication in the organization. The results indicated that these dimensions could be specified empirically and that their relationships to satisfaction measured. Those relationships were found to vary depending upon whether satisfaction with the job or with co-workers was the focus. The study discusses several implications of the differentiation made among dimensions of communication and proposes some hypotheses to be tested in further research on the social-psychological correlates of organizational communication patterns.

How Psychologically Dangerous are T-Groups and Encounter Groups?

Abstract: A number of people involved in the field of group training have suggested that Sensitivity Training (or T-groups as they are commonly called in Europe) and Encounter Groups may be 'counter-productive', 'disrupt ongoing personality functions', and 'encourage inappropriate levels of intimacy which may destroy rewarding psychological relationships with other people' (Mann, 1970: Crawshaw, 1969). That is, that this form of training is potentially dangerous and may have psychologically disturbing consequences for participants. Until recently the claims and counter-claims with respect to this issue have consisted primarily of opinions and inference drawn from limited or circumscribed experience (i.e., 'I knew a person once who attended a T-group...' vs. 'In my many years of training T-groups and Encounter Groups, I have never known a single case of...') Some empirical research is now being conducted to evaluate in a more systematic and controlled way this important issue. The magnitude of the problem can be see...

Interdependence and Complementarity-The Case of a Brokerage Office

Abstract: This paper attempts to develop a framework for defining the concept of interdependence theoretically and operationally. A distinction is being made between task, position-role, social and skill interdependence. The significance of these distinctions for outcome variables is discussed. Data descriptive of members of brokerage offices reveal weak or negligible intercorrelations among the modes of interdependence. Social interdependence appears to be the best predictor of organizational or group performance. The implications of the findings are discussed.

nAchievement, nPower and Effectiveness of Research and Development

Abstract: The French Test of Insight was administered to 118 executives, scientists and engineers working on seventeen pharmaceutical and chemical industry R + D projects. Scoring was according to McClelland et al., nAch and Veroff nPow systems. The R + D projects were classified as successful and unsuccessful by outside experts, both from a technical and an economic point of view. Blind analysis showed that (1) nAch significantly correlated both with technical and economic success, (2) nPow was a strong factor making for both kinds of success when present in conjunction with nAch but a factor making for failure in the absence of nAch, (3) nAch proved to be a factor making for success both on projects which allowed for initiative and those that did not, nPow on the other hand furthered success on non-initiative projects only, on initiative ones it promoted failure. Results are discussed in the light of the nAch construct, the theory of the human need for work; and various nPow constructs.

Effects of Video Tape Feedback and Modeling on the Behaviors of Task Group Members

Abstract: This study tests the relative and combined merits of two behavior modification inputs for effecting predictable and productive task group behavior change. Two hundred and seventy-seven subjects, mostly between 20 and 27 years of age, acted in problem solving groups of five to seven members. Analysis of variance results indicate that video tape presentation of model groups and video tape feedback yield significant behavioral change. It is concluded that video tape feedback and modeling can be utilized in a constructively oriented behavior modification effort in a task group context.

Interrelationships Among Mobility, Health and Attitudinal Variables in an Urban Elderly Population

Abstract: 169 urban elderly Ss were interviewed to study (1) the interrelationships among mobility, health, demographic and factor analytically derived attitudinal variables and (2) the characteristics of users and non-users of an innovative transportation program. Positive correlations were obtained between mobility and each of the following variables: self-assessed health (p < .001); functional ability (p < .001); current income (p < .005); Life Satisfaction (p < .001); and Ego Integrity (p < .001). Current income was positively correlated with Life Satisfaction (p < .001) and Optimism about the Future (p < .005) and negatively correlated with Authoritarianism (p < .005) and Political Powerlessness (p < .005). Life Satisfaction and Ego Integrity were positively correlated with selfassessed health (p < .001 in both cases). Age, income and education did not differentiate between users and non-users, nor did four of the five attitude factors. However, users manifested significantly poorer self-assessed health and fu...

The Judgement Process in Management Students' Evaluation of their Learning Experiences

Abstract: The ideal approach to evaluating management development programmes has often been held to involve objective measurement of achievement of criteria, carried out within an experimental design which allows any chance discovered to be attributed to the programme itself rather than any other factor. In practice many evaluation studies rely on the collection, after the programme, of evaluative opinions from the participants. Campbell et al. (1970) have pointed out that such opinionbased follow up studies may give valid results if the judgements made by the participants, which underlie their expressed opinions, themselves embody the logical and scientific procedures that give validity to the experimental type of study.This research investigates the process of judgement underlying the formation of evaluative opinions by programme participants. The methodology of 'protocol analysis', used so far mainly in laboratory studies, is employed. This calls for an inductive analysis of the content of recordings made when a...

A Boolean Analysis of Interpersonal Perception

Abstract: Laing, Phillipson, and Lee (1966) have developed an ingenious technique, the Interpersonal Perception Method (IPM), for the determination of the degree to which the members of a dyad agree on important issues, understand one another, feel understood, and realize the understanding of the other member. Unfortunately, a number of problems make it unlikely that the potential of the IPM will be realized: (a) it is nearly impossible to avoid getting tangled in complex semantics, (b) relationships among terms are obscure, (c) derivation of terms is completely intuitive and sometimes ambiguous, and (d) scoring procedures are tedious and difficult.Boolean analysis of the IPM makes its truth-functional structure explicit. In so doing it removes the need for intuitive derivations of terms; it clarifies the structure of IPM relation ships; it substantially reduces scoring efforts; and it provides a logical and rigorous substructure for the IPM which allows it to be developed as a general method for the study of inter...

Job Enlargement: A Multidimensional Process

Abstract: This paper reports the results of an evaluation study into the effects of a job enlargement exercise on female assemblers of electrical domestic appliances. Data on job satisfaction and perceptions of job attributes are analysed, and a comparison is made between the group with the enlarged job and another group of operatives who are performing tasks fairly similar to those which the enlarged group were performing prior to job enlargement. The results indicate that the expected increases in satisfaction associated with greater work variety, novelty and felt use of abilities were achieved. There were some dissatisfying outcomes related to decreased social interaction and somewhat increased effort of work. It is suggested that opportunities for social interaction could have been maintained by a different job redesign. The increased effort of work was hypothesized to relate to the presence of multiple motives for change among the management team. The need is stressed to conceptualize job enlargement as a phen...

Emergent and Contemporary Life Styles: An Inter-generational Issue

Abstract: In order to explore the diverse and emerging patterns of life styles within our social milieu, the beliefs, values, and preferences of a heterogeneous sample of 1 154 men and women were factor analyzed. Derived life styles were then related to various biographic and demographic data. Three life style dimensions emerged: (1) The formalistic life style which places a heavy reliance on higher authority, law and order, precedent, and advancement as a criterion of success. The formalistic is older, higher in men than women, typical of sales, business, and technical occupations, and greatest in the Protestant religions. (2) The sociocentric life style which looks to close intimate relationships for guidance and direction. The sociocentric shows a drop with age until 25 years and then a rise, is most typical of the social service and science occupations, and is higher in women than men. (3) The personalistic life style which looks to himself for guidance and direction, and places a high value on his personal fre...

The Demise of Management and the Ritual of Employment

Abstract: Industrial man's central social ritual is employment. This article is about my continuing personal explorations of the link between the condition of employment and a range of pressing issues - alienation, the overconsumption of scarce resources and pollution. I am expressing here a point of view relevant in limited time and space. Since the tradition of industrial social and behavioural enquiry is geared to maintaining a deception, our primary task is the search for reality. The case against the institutions of employment begins with their literary basis (the central role of written words and numbers in transactions) and rational veneer. Rites in this context fail to fulfil the function of religious activity. Employment, in short, is bad ritual. Important, though. debatable, distinctions are made here between positive work and negative employment and the consumption of the former by the latter. Attention is focused on the convergence of employment and ritual with the growth of large organizations and the ...

Strategies of Administrative Control and Organizational Effectiveness

Abstract: The results of a comparative study of thirty manufacturing firms in India indicated that the most effective organizations tended to choose a unidimensional strategy of administrative control. This strategy consisted of the use of formalized procedures to control decentralized decision-making with respect to both human and material resources. The least effective firms chose a similar strategy of control, however they emphasized mainly those procedures involving the control of material resources and tended to neglect their human resources in this respect. These results are interpreted as evidence in favor of normative theory of administrative control in organizations. The most effective strategy for maintaining indirect control over a decentralized decision-making process appears to be one which effectively integrates the rational material resource controls with the more intangible human resource control mechanisms.

Reactions to the Draft Lottery: A Test of Conflict Theory:

Abstract: A set of predictions from the conflict theory of decision making with regard to the effects of a threat to behavioral freedom were tested. The first selective service draft lottery, drawn December 1969, in which young men with low numbers were threatened with the draft provided a vehicle for the study. Attitudes of 84 Harvard seniors toward major draft-exampt and draft-vulnerable post graduation career alternatives were measured five days before the lottery and either one day or 10 days after. Conflict theory predicted that after the lottery men with low draft numbers would (a) show a decrease in attraction toward draft vulnerable alternatives (job, graduate school, travel) because they now produced threat of the draft and (b) show an increase in attraction toward draft-exempt alternatives because they now represented a means of avoiding the draft. The results provided support for the conflict theory predictions, men with low numbers showing a decrease in attraction toward the risky, non-draft exempt alte...

Group Composition and Changes in Self-Actualization in T-Groups

Abstract: A field experiment is reported concerning ten one-week sensitivity training groups. Groups were composed-according to their scores on Schutz's FIRO-B. It was predicted that the optimal conditions for change were provided by heterogeneous compositions. Three groups were composed to be heterogeneous for control behaviour but homogeneous for affection behaviour. Three further groups were homogeneous for affection but heterogeneous for control. The remaining four groups were heterogeneous for both need areas. Changes on Shostrom's Personal Orientation Inventory were found in all conditions. Control-heterogeneous groups increased on 'existentiality' and 'nature of man' subscales, while affection-heterogeneous groups increased on 'inner-directedness' and 'feeling reactivity'. Groups heterogeneous for both need areas showed change on all four of these POI scales. Most change thus resulted from the groups with the most heterogeneous compositions.

The Ability to Predict Workers' Preferences: Further Evidence

Abstract: This abstract reports a follow-up of an earlier survey of the ability of managers and trade union officers to predict workers' preferences. It was found that even when economic and social conditions change a good deal, and despite changes in individuals' preferences, the 'average union members' ' preferences for pay and fringe benefits remain remarkably constant. This being the case, the results of the earlier survey would have been an excellent source of information about workers' preferences. However the managers and union officers were unable to assess workers current preferences and the majority of persons who had predicted preferences in both surveys performed more badly in the second, most overestimating the limited changes in preferences which had occurred. It was concluded that those who work closest to the ordinary worker are less capable of deciphering the confusing array of information which they receive about him.

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich: A Study of the Structural Requisites of Organization

Abstract: The paper utilizes Solzhenitsyn's novel, One day in the life of Ivan Denisovich, to portray the operation of organization structure at its least understood level as a psychological artifact. The novel provides a rare opportunity to observe structure 'in action' at the level of the organizing scheme employed by the central character, Shukhov, in his quest for survival. The unencumbered view of structure in operation as a psychological artifact leads to an understanding of the paradox which organization structure presents to organization analysts and theoreticians.The principal source of the paradox lies in an understanding of the transformation process which structure performs at the psychological level. The organizing power of structure lies in its ability to reduce a complex field of relationships into a manageable set of objects and categories. In the process of this transformation the very medium of thought is altered in a way that, by definition, obscures the field of relationships whose interplay def...