Showing papers in "Human Relations in 1981"

Role Conflict and Role Ambiguity: Integration of the Literature and Directions for Future Research

Abstract: Although research on role conflict and ambiguity has been extensive, there has been only moderate consistency in the focus and results of the research, while several areas of role conflict and ambiguity research are still relatively unexamined. This paper suggests that a framework for organizing the recent research may assist in consolidating the field and providing an understanding of where we are, what is left to be done and, therefore, direction for future role conflict and ambiguity research.

Psychological Sense of Community: Measurement and Application

Abstract: The development and testing of an instrument designed to measure '"psy-chological sense of community" (PSC) is described. A discussion of the historical background of the PSC concept is presented and results of the use of the instrument in three U.S. and Israeli communities are described. Specific attention is given to the relationship of PSC and the variables of community satisfaction and competence as well as to applications of the PSC instrument. Since results suggest that certain manipulable variables may be associated with PSC, and that PSC itself may have the properties of a construct, suggestions for further research, and the potential im-portance of PSC for community development and maintenance are given.

Inter-Relationships Between Organizational Commitment and Job Characteristics, Job Satisfaction, Professional Behavior, and Organizational Climate

Abstract: Commitment to the organization is an important behavioral dimension which can be utilized to evaluate employees' strength of attachment. Keeping employees highly committed is important, especially in not-forprofit firms whose salary scales may not be as competitive as industrial firms. Management is concerned with identifying those variables that are related to organizational commitment in order that they may design organizational strategies to maximize commitment levels. Results in a healthcare institution indicate that role conflict and role ambiguity are detrimental to commitment, while a participative climate, power, teamwork, reading professional journals, satisfaction with work and promotion opportunities, age, GS level, tenure, and length of professional employment are positively related to organizational commitment.

Conventional vs. Worker-Owned Organizations

Abstract: Based on a sample of worker-owners in a producer cooperative and employees in a conventional organization, this study empirically tests portions of a theoretical model explaining the relationship between worker ownership and control and work attitudes and behaviors. According to the model, worker-owners in the cooperative are hypothesized to have higher perceptions of particiption in decision-making, pay equity, performance-reward contingencies, and group work norms than are employees in the conventional organization. These perceptions, in turn, are expected to lead to an increased commitment to the organization and lower levels of absenteeism, tardiness, accidents, grievances, and turnover. Results partially support the model with members of the cooperative being more committed to their organization, while at the same time having higher absenteeism and tardiness levels than employees in the conventional firm. Implications of results are presented, and directionsforfuture research are discussed.

The Development of Professional Role Commitment Among Graduate Students

Abstract: This paper focuses on one aspect of the socialization process in graduate and professional schools. Specifically, it examines salient aspects of the socialization experience fostering or inhibiting the development of professional role commitment. The study is based on two indices of professional role commitment, a productivity index and a self-concept index. The results suggest that the frequency and nature of contact with faculty members is significantly related to the amount of professional role commitment. Surprisingly, contact with graduate students in one's discipline does not affect a student's level of professional role commitment. The length of time in graduate school, academic discipline, and prestige of the institution do not alter the relationships suggested. Furthermore, the relationships reported remain and some additional findings are suggested when the influence of sex is examined.

The Way of the Warrior: The Effects of Traditional Martial Arts Training on Aggressiveness

Abstract: This study examines aggressive fantasy of students in traditional karate dojos. These data are of both theoretical and humanistic interest. The theoretical interest derives from the conventional wisdom that perceives such training as leading to a decrease in aggressiveness, in contrast to current theory which would expect such training to increase aggressiveness. Such an inquiry is of humanistic interest because it offers practitioners of nonviolence the option of acquiring defensive competences without at the same time becoming more aggressive. Interviews with 42 students at various belt levels found that longer training is associated with lower aggressiveness, in contrast to the theoretical predictions. Four plausible mechanisms of such a change were examined: self-control, self-assertiveness, self-esteem, and self-confidence. None of these was found to qualify as an intervening variable, though one subscale of self-assertiveness, "constructiveness," was found, like training, to be associated with lower...

The Social Comparison of Ability

Abstract: Current theories of social comparison processes deriving from Festinger lack predictive validity largely because the central construct (social comparison) has been left undefined. This paper offers a definition of social comparison which implies that people can compare their abilities in numerous different ways. An experiment is described which varied interpersonal similarity in ability and measured three forms of ability comparison-competition, cooperation, and conformity. Both competition and cooperation were found to vary as a function of interpersonal similarity. Some suggestions are tendered for a reformulated theory of social comparison processes.

Conflict, Power, and Organization in a Changing Community

Abstract: This paper analyzes a case study of conflict among groups of differing power in a community, drawing upon two distinct traditions of conflict theory: integrative and adversarial. The paper examines the evolution of organization within and among groups over a two-year period and the impacts of that evolution on conflict among them. Essentially, a new organization, composed of representatives of the groups in conflict, was created, and mechanisms for regulating information exchange and for handling differences were evolved that reduced the conflict among them. The evolution of the Committee on Residential Lending (CORL) as an institution is examined from the vantage points of level of organization and balancing unequal power relations, and implications for joint use of integrative and adversarial conflict traditions are considered. Three propositions for guiding the joint use of the two traditions are articulated and illustrated.

The Effects of Formal Employee Participation in Ownership and Decision Making on Perceived and Desired Patterns of Organizational Influence: A Longitudinal Study

Abstract: This paper examines possible effects of introduction of formal employee participation in ownership and decision making on patterns of organizational influence, using longitudinal data obtained before and after conversion of an electronics firm to partial employee ownership. Although numerous formal participation mechanisms were introduced, including employee board representation, an employee council, and quarterly shareholder meetings, little change was found in perceived worker participation at any decision level. Employee ownership did not seem to increase desires for worker influence among either managers or nonmanagers, nor did it appear to significantly affect the total amount and distribution of influence within the organization.

Overall Job Satisfaction: Is It a Linear Function of Facet Satisfaction?

Abstract: This study investigates the relationship between overall job satisfaction and satisfaction with various job facets. Linear and nonlinear models for combining facets are examined. The results provide marginal support for an hypothesis that overall job satisfaction is a linear function of satisfaction with various job facets. Specifically, satisfaction with job facets explains 50%-60%o of overall job satisfaction based on a linear combination of facet satisfactions. The results also indicate that facetbased instruments used individually are not sufficient measures of overall job satisfaction. When facets from multiple facet-based instruments are combined, a marginally sufficient measure is obtained.

A New Look at Job Satisfaction in the Small Firm

Abstract: The widely accepted view that job satisfaction is higher among workers in small firms than their large-firm counterparts, especially in terms of non-monetary and expressive aspects of work, is critically examined. Workers employed in small and large firms in the printing and electronics industries were surveyed using a semistructured interview strategy. Job satisfaction was related to work environment and also nonwork influences such as family life-cycle position. The findings show that when such factors as the specific characteristics of the industry and age and marital status of respondents are taken into account, size of firm is not, in itself, an important factor in explaining differences in levels of job satisfaction. It merely interacts with these other influences, sometimes to raise and sometimes to lower, perceived levels of satisfaction.

The Coch and French Study: A Critique and Reinterpretation

Abstract: Coch and French's interpretation of their classic (1948) study of worker participation in decision-making is questioned. It is argued that the superiority of the combined experimental groups to the control group could have been due to differences in: the way in which the job changes were explained; the manner in which the time studies were conducted; and/or the amount of additional training given. Similarly, the superiority of experimental Groups II and III to Group I could have been an artifact of differences in the amount of work available, or of differences in group size. In addition, the failure to find a difference within Group I between direct and indirect participants would seem to argue against a participation interpretation of the findings. It is suggested that the perceived fairness of the pay rates was probably the key factor in this and in some similar studies. The wider issue involved may have been organizational trust.

Social Perception of the Rape Victim's Culpability: The Influence of Respondents' Personal-Environmental Causal Attribution Tendencies

Abstract: This study investigated the influence of individual differences in attributional tendencies on the perception of a rape victim's causal role in her own vicitmization. Respondents'general tendency to attribute cause of events in another person's life to either personal, internal reasons or external, environmental ones was assessed, as were their attitudes to a variety of items on the subject of rape. Factor analysis of the rape questionnaire produced four factors: victim precipitation-responsibility, negative evaluation, sexual motivation, and power motivation. With the victim precipitation-responsibility factor serving as a measure of attributed responsibility, a factorial design was created with sex of subject and attributional propensity serving as independent measures. Males perceived significantly greater precipitation-responsibility on the part of a rape victim than did female respondents. There was also a significant overall trend for attributional orientation with "personals" indicating greater vic...

The Influences of Eye-Gaze, Style of Dress, and Locality on the Amounts of Money Donated to a Charity

Abstract: A number of studies have examined in the laboratory the effects of an individual's eye-gaze upon the behavior of another. In this study the effects of gaze were investigated in a real-life setting in which a collector of money for a charity either looked a possible donor in the eye when asking for money or looked at the collecting tin. Significantly more money was donated in the former condition. While neither the style of dress of the collector nor the locality in which the collections were made had an overall effect, significant interactive effects were noted for gaze and style of dress, for style of dress and locality, and for gaze and locality. Gaze was a more potent factor when the collector was dressed casually than smartly, and when the collections were made in high-rise flats as opposed to terraced houses.

Is Ignorance Bliss? A Reconsideration of the Folk Wisdom

Abstract: The validity of the proverb that "ignorance is bliss" is tested via analysis of data from the 1974 and 1976 General Social Surveys. A shortened version of a previously validated indicator of general intelligence, when correlated with measures of happiness, life satisfaction, and anomia, is found to be significantly related to all three; only the correlation with anomia, however, is of an impressive magnitude. Intelligence is then used as one predictor of psychological well-being in a series of multivariate models. The multiple regression and partial correlation results indicate that intelligence has no independent impact on either happiness or life satisfaction, but that it is a good predictor of anomia. But the impact of intelligence on anomia is negative, indicating that even when the effects of all the other variables in the analysis are controlled, more intelligent people tend to be less anomic. Overall, these results point toward rejection of the maxim that "ignorance is bliss.."

Scapegoating in Small Groups: An Organizational Approach

Abstract: We present findings from a videotape study of naturally occurring scapegoating incidents in a Tavistock Group Relations Training Conference. Videotape recordings of three successive sessions from each of four study groups revealed nine scapegoating incidents. We offer an empirical description of the incidents together with a sociopsychological theoretical analysis. Aspects of the tasks, social structure, and culture of the group-relations training conference as a temporary organization led to a reliance upon the projective identification of work difficulties into individuals who were then scapegoated. We identify the phenomenon of task displacement in which groups whose task performance is inherently hard to measure unwittingly shift their emphasis from achievement to conformity. This may be a general phenomenon in HEW-type organizations of which the group-relations training conference is one.

Personality and Task Moderators of Subordinate Responses to Perceived Leader Behavior

Abstract: This study examines the moderating effects of two task variables-role ambiguity and job complexity-and subordinate locus of control on the relationship of leader initiating structure and consideration to subordinate intrinsic satisfaction and job involvement. Data were collected from a sample of 89 middle-lower level managers of a large, heavy-equipment manufacturing firm in the Midwest. Moderated regression analysis was performed on the data. Significant interactions were obtained between leader consideration and each of role ambiguity, job complexity, and locus of control. Leader initiating structure has a significant interaction with locus of control, but the direction is opposite that predicted. Implications of the findings for the path-goal theory of leadership, future research, and leadertask design match are discussed.

Innovations in Organizations: Appropriateness of Perspectives From Small Group Studies for Strategy Formulation

Abstract: Some dimensions of innovations appropriate to processes have been closely examined in the small group, mainly experimental, literature for the purpose of illuminating the process of innovation in organizations. The processes selected are learning, communication, deviance, risk taking, creativity and brainstorming, leadership, and cohesiveness. It is argued that small group processes can offer much to the understanding of organi-zational processes, for example, innovation and strategy formulation.

Close Encounters of the Third World

Abstract: First-time encounters pose a number of difficulties for participants. Then subsequent analysis is also problematic. The view is taken here that in order to understand the dynamics of the situation and its subsequent development it is necessary to focus on the various aspects of role imputation and its expressive counterparts of altercasting, role modification, presentation of self, and fantasy. These are applied to tourist-beachboy encounters in the Barbadian context of an overriding framework of Third World dependency on the metropolis. The ensuring relationships are characterized by qualities of assymetry, difference and mixed exchange. It is hoped that by investigating an extreme case of role disparity in terms of class, sex, race, and cultural differences a greater appreciation can be obtained of encounters with which we are more familiar.

Communication-Conflict Predisposition: Development of a Theory and an Instrument

Abstract: This paper has two objectives. First, it presents a brief informal statement of a theory of the dynamic constructs of personality bearing upon conflicts within and between people. The six dynamics (range of feelings, task energy, respect for community, respect for others, desire for control, and concern for one's own self-uniqueness) are based on the concept-free research of Osgood et al. and Bales. Second, it reports the reliability and validity of an instrument which, using scales for the six dynamics, is designed to measure the degree to which one is predisposed to handle conflict constructively (win-win) or destructively (win-lose). Internal and test-retest reliability of the instrument are acceptable for basic research. Several field studies suggest criterion validity. Construct validity was examined by comparison with three other instruments, which were supportive.

Situational and Behavioral Moderators of Subordinate Satisfaction with Supervision

Abstract: The additive and interactive relationships of supervisor behaviors (con-sideration, initiation of structure) and work-setting attributes (role clarity, role conflict) relative to criteria of individual job satisfaction were investi-gated with bivariate and multivariate regression analyses. For a sample of 107 supervisor-subordinate dyads, results indicated that situational attributes moderated the influence of supervisor behaviors on satisfaction with supervision, but these attributes did not moderate the influence of supervisor behaviors on other satisfaction criteria. The evidence is inter-preted as underscoring the validity of contingency approaches to the study of leadership and pointing to the need for specifying "relevant" (i.e., con-ceptually proximal) criteria for theoretical networks.

Verbal Aggressiveness in Spectators at Professional Hockey Games: The Effects of Tolerance of Violence and Amount of Exposure to Hockey

Abstract: Cross sections of male spectators (N = 391) at 14 professional hockey games were interviewed prior to the game and after the first and second periods Subjects who were tolerant of violence in hockey showed signifi-cantly higher levels of irritability on the Buss-Durkee inventory of verbal aggressiveness than did subjects who were intolerant of violence Subjects tolerant of violence were also angrier over the prospect of their favorite team losing Over the course of the game, subjects who were both tolerant of violence and frequently exposed to hockey showed a significant increase in verbal hostility on the Buss-Durkee inventory Subjects who were fre-quently exposed to hockey but who were intolerant of violence showed a reduction in hostility This differential effect is explained in terms of the motives these two groups of spectators may have for attending hockey games

Job Change: A Naturally Occurring Field Experiment

Abstract: A naturally occurring field experiment of job change was conducted over a one-year period in three applied research and development organizations. The experimental group (n = 42) were those employees who had been promoted or assigned to a different job. Employees who had maintained the same job made up the nonequivalent control group (n = 166). Standardized change score analysis showed the job change group to have greater increases in performance, innovativeness, and job satisfaction, as well as a greater reduction in role ambiguity when compared to the nonequivalent control group. In addition, the job change group reported greater increases in the job characteristics of variety and task autonomy, as well as in the role requirements of integration and boundary-spanning activities. The importance of the results and the role of field experimentation are discussed.

The Moderating Effect of Work Context Satisfactions on the Curvilinear Relationship Between Job Scope and Affective Response

Abstract: This paper examines the interaction of job scope and satisfaction with contextualfeatures of the job in determining affective response. Data from four samples were analyzed using moderated regression analysis. The results were opposite those predicted from existing theory although consistent with one other published study. The theoretical and practical implications of the results are discussed.

Leardership, Job Perceptions, and Influence: A Conceptual Integration:

Abstract: A fundamental assumption adopted by most approaches to the study of leadership is that leaders somehow influence subordinate attitudes and behavior. Unfortunately, few systematic attempts have been made to address specifically how the influence process operates. Thus, we have been left with a large amount of research reflecting relationships between leadership and subordinate outcomes, but little in the way of explanation as to how or why such results come about. This paper reviews the effects of leadership on subordinate attitudes and behavior by incorporating subordinate perceptions of the job. A perspective is offered which more clearly articulates the operation of the leadership influence process, viewing it as a contextual influence that impacts on behavior and attitudes of subordinates through their perceptions of job characteristics. This alternative perspective thus casts the integration of leadership and job perceptions in a different conceptual framework. Suggestions for testing the proposed mod...

Contextual Factors in the Selection of Strategic Decision Methods

Abstract: The approach followed by top managers when dealing with strategic decisions is shown to be related to contextual conditions. Three areas of potential influence on the determination of the decision method are studied: (1) the organizational environment; (2) the nature of the specific problem; and (3) the leadership style. Knowledge about the first two areas allows a significant improvement in the ability to predict the use of a decision approach, while the dimensions chosen to represent leadership style do not seem to have an important influence on the selection of a method.

Effects of an Organizational Control System on Managerial Satisfaction and Performance

Abstract: Previous research on goal setting and feedback is placed in the context of an organizational control system model. Using a sample of 100 managers, the independent impacts of three components of a control system (goal setting, measurement, and corrective actions) on managerial satisfaction and performance are examined. Results show that aspects of each of the three model components are independently related to performance but not to satisfaction. Respondents' perceptions of top management's support for the performance-appraisal system, a factor not considered in most research on feedback and goal setting, emerges as an important correlate of high performance.

Defectors, Vulnerability, and Relative Power: Some Causes and Effects of Leaving a Stable Coalition

Abstract: This study explored the causes and effects of defecting from a stable coalition. Vulnerability and the relative power of the defectors were the primary independent variables. Results showed that defectors were obtaining higher payoffs than nondefectors prior to their defection. Defection from stable coalitions in the four coalition games studied here led to reduced benefits for both the defectors and the nondefectors. At the same time defectors fared better than nondefectors, with vulnerability reducing the defectors' benefits. Relative power, over all conditions, led to significantly more positive outcomes than relative equality or weakness. The data also suggested that vulnerable defectors may fare more poorly than their nondefecting partners. The use of coalitions as models of a variety of interactions and the social contexts that facilitate or block defections are also discussed.

Examining a Causal Model of Early Drug Involvement among Inner-City Junior High School Youths

Abstract: Reflecting the need to construct more inclusive, socially and culturally relevant conceptions of drug use than currently exist, this paper investigates the determinants of drug involvement among inner-city youths within the context of a causal model. The drug involvement of the Black and Puerto Rican junior high school girls and boys studied is hypothesized to result from their home composition, felt relationships with parents, attitudes toward school, machismo values, and identification with drug involved peers. The results show few socialization into drug-use differences to exist between the Puerto Rican and Black youths surveyed. However, the girls' drug use is somewhat better explained by the intrapersonal and interpersonal socialization variables in the model than that of the boys. At the same time, the socialization variables examined have limited predictive power in regard to the drug involvement of the four groups (R2s from .177 to .220). Peer-oriented attitudes and behavior that more closely refl...

Technology as a Moderator of the Relationship Between Perceived Work Environment and Subunit Effectiveness

Abstract: The present study examined the role of technological complexity as a moderator in the relationship between perceived work environment and subunit effectiveness. Empirically derived subunit effectiveness scores, subunit technology scores, and aggregated subunit employee perceptions of their work environment were used to test the research hypothesis. Moderated regression analysis suggested that technology does operate as a moderating variable. The addition of technology increases the explanation in the variance of subunit effectiveness over the use of work environment factors alone as predictors. Furthermore, the analysis showed that perceived work environments associated with effectiveness vary between technological groupings of subunits. Since such variation in effective work environments was found, it suggests that organization development programs should be multifaceted and based on substantial research in the organization to determine appropriate work environments in the various subunits.