This paper focuses on the research-related, in-service professional development of social science academic researchers. It identifies as a gap in provision the paucity of provision of career-long training in the "creative" elements of research practice--specifically the methodological skills that have the potential to enhance individuals' research…

Managers must evaluate the performance, promotability and potential of workers with very different personal characteristics such as age, sex, or race. The research literature indicates that these personal characteristics affect decisions. Furthermore, these characteristics appear to be more salient and to affect decisions in some situations more…

Research on justice in organizational behavior has emphasized distributive rather than procedural justice. Distributive justice focuses on the fairness of rewards, while procedural justice focuses on the fairness of the procedures used in allocating rewards. To examine the procedural-distributive justice distinction as it relates to organizatonal…

Ninety managers interacted with low performing workers who demonstrated either insufficient ability or motivation. Results indicated that cooperative superiors expected mutual assistance, communicated supportively, and gave assistance. Superiors used threats and disliked low effort subordinates but wanted to work again with low ability…

Any legitimate theory of employment rights must be founded on the premise that employment is a voluntary relationship governed by mutual consent; an employment right does not exist apart from contract. Analyzes the legal aspects of public sector employment. (Author/MLF)

Managerial behavior is often conceptualized as consisting of two independent dimensions, i.e., task behavior and relationship behavior, concern for production and concern for people, and initiating structure and consideration. To examine the relationship between subordinates' sex, subordinates' sex role identity, subordinates' perception of…

It has been suggested that different forms of organizational commitment have different outcomes as well as different antecedents. To test the hypothesis that instrumental attachment to an organization is associated with members' investments in the organization, and that affective attachment to an organization is influenced primarily by the way the…

The primary intent of this paper is to provide an ideological critique of one instance of "union talk," which the paper takes to be representative of organized labor discourse at large. To reach this goal, the question of the need for and value of unions is specifically addressed in the paper, and a review of the studies existing within…

Triangulation, the combination of methodologies in the study of the same phenomenon, can be used to address a number of concerns arising in organizational communication research. This approach was used in a study of organizational culture by employing qualitative interview research to help interpret or place in context the results of statistical…

Attitudes and decisions regarding older workers should become an increasingly important issue for industrial/organizational psychologists in the 1980's. A variety of problems encountered by older workers has prompted concern about age discrimination in industry. Situational factors also affect the extent to which stereotypes about groups influence…

This report examines the extent of policy bargaining, as well as factors that might explain variation in its extent. Results of interviews in 6 districts with over 15,000 enrollment indicate that bargaining is more extensive than predicted in the curriculum, student placement, and teacher selection areas. States without the teacher strike option…

The relationship between managerial social power and subordinate job performance has produced mixed empirical results. To investigate the relationship between employees' performance and their perception of managers' social power under favorable and unfavorable climate conditions, an average of 135 city government employees completed two series of…

The "at-will" rule in American law is defined as the right of a private sector employer to dismiss an employee without a contract for virtually any reason. The rule has thrived since the nineteenth century and is still a major factor in the employer-employee relationship. However, recent court decisions have fashioned common law…

Every country has a system of social protection to help people when risks, contingencies, and needs arise. In each society this system is organized in three sections: a public sector, a personal sector, and a mixed sector. Each society combines these sectors in different ways. Here, the firm's social policy within the broader context of social…

This report describes efforts to test a model of leadership effectiveness that centers on "macro variables" and "discretionary leadership." Macro variables were represented by the complexity of the environment, context, and structure of a unit. Discretionary leadership was defined as influence over and above that typically…