The broad area of interest for this study is the nature of justice in organizational life. More specifically, it focuses on human resource managers and the ways in which their everyday activities create and sustain fair organization for themselves and for others. The linking of justice with human resource management is manifest in an extensive body of theory and research. In general, inquiry concerns the perceptions of employees about the fairness of organizational policies and procedures. My study diverges from this approach in both its theoretical position and its research focus. As a researcher, I maintain a different philosophical position regarding the nature of reality, knowledge, and human nature. In so doing, I offer different conceptualizations of human resource management and justice that shifts attention to each as socially constructed by organizational actors. My project is grounded in a micro-sociological orientation and draws upon two theoretical traditions, ethnomethodology and symbolic interaction. Within this framework or intersubjective approach, I use observations and interviews to describe human resource management as being defined by and through interactivity. In addition, I suggest that certain types of interactions ("justice occasions"), involving the making or applying of organizational policy or procedure, are of particular interest as local interactive sites of doing justice. The specific research question addressed in this study was: What are the verbal practices of human resource managers that serve to create and sustain fair organization as a shared definition of reality? I draw upon observations and interviews to develop the HR managers' understanding of justice as consistency. Then, using audiotaped conversations between HR managers and other organizational members during justice occasions, I document three interactional methods employed by these professionals to establish consistency as a quality of organizational life: (1) Projecting the Future, (2) Recalling the Past, and (3) Defining the Situation. I suggest that these interactional practices are not only how human resource managers do fairness, but that they are defining elements of human resource managing. This research contributes to justice and HRM scholarship by attending to the activities of human resource managers. It extends our knowledge about human resource management by explicating the ways in which HRM is defined and sustained by those who practice it. Further, it demonstrates that fairness, as a quality of organizational experience, is constructed in the everyday activities of organizational life.

This dissertation examines the relationship between social structure and the average length of time in economic exchange. The corporate merger and acquisition market is examined over a 19 year period to study the statistical relationship between the average length of time in deal negotiations and measures of institutional forces as well as established sociometric measures. Survival regression modeling is employed to assess the role social structure plays in the length of time in deal making. At the actor level, network position among investment bankers plays a role in the average length of time in deal negotiations. Investment bankers use degree centrality and exploit structural holes within their ego networks to further their duration goals. At the group level, properties of the overall network of investment bankers are related to the average length of time in deal negotiations as well. Network density of the investment bank community is related to the average length of time in deal making. Institutional forces play a role in the average length of time in negotiations as well. Measures of coercive, normative, as well as mimetic institutional forces are statistically related to the average length of time in deal negotiations. The passage of time itself is statistically related to lengthening the remaining length of time, on average, in deal negotiations.

<p>A substantial body of scholarly literature exists demonstrating the elevation of positive citizenship behavior in the presence of transformational leaders. A smaller but no less significant amount of research has suggested that union citizenship behavior, a specific form of organizational citizenship behavior, is elevated in the presence of transformational leadership and enhances member commitment and perceptions of support. Utilizing an international sample comprised of unionized airline pilots, this study sought to explore the relationship between transformational leadership, discretionary citizenship behaviors, perceived organizational support, organizational commitment, and the effect stated cultural affinity has on these factors. The results of this study indicate that while a transformational leadership style may incidentally elevate follower commitment and perceived support, it was not found to be a positive predictor of union citizenship behavior. Further, the results suggest that organizational commitment and perceived support are more positively related to perceptions of leadership than leadership style itself. Therefore, union members may engage in constructive union citizenship behaviors irrespective of leadership style, provided commitment and positive perceptions of leader and organizational support exist. The results of this research also demonstrated that cultural affinity did not greatly influence perceptions of leadership or levels of perceived support, organizational commitment, or engagement in union citizenship behaviors. </p><p> <b>Keywords</b>: <i>Transformational leadership</i>, <i> perceived support</i>, <i>organizational commitment</i>, <i> union citizenship behavior</i>, <i>culture</i> </p>

<p> A state and year fixed effects model is developed to analyze the influence of state unemployment insurance taxes and state workers' compensation costs on temporary help services employment concentration. Using state level panel data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, state unemployment insurance tax factors are found to have significant effects on temporary help services employment concentration. Workers' compensation costs had a significant effect on temporary help services employment concentration during the Great Recession, but not before. Because temporary help services jobs represent low quality jobs relative to traditional direct-hire jobs, state unemployment insurance taxes, through their impact on temporary help services employment concentration, contribute to a decrease in job quality. The results of the analysis suggest that the effects of policy factors on job quality merit further analysis.</p>

<p> This study represented an initial effort to systematically examine the effects of the perception of servant-leadership attributes in union leaders on the commitment and participation levels of union members. Using Barbuto and Wheeler's (2006) Servant Leadership Questionnaire, and Gordon, Philpot, Burt, Thompson and Spiller's (1980) Commitment to the Union Scale, 535 members of a U.S.-based, national healthcare union rated their union leaders on servant-leadership attributes, and answered a series of questions designed to assess their level of union commitment. Additionally, demographic and participation information was collected. A combination of descriptive statistics, and Baron and Kenny's (1986) mediation methodology was used to determine the relationship between servant-leadership attributes, union commitment attributes, and an overall participation score. Demographic information was used to determine generalizability. The results of this study indicate that each attribute of servant-leadership showed a relationship with overall union member participation and with each attribute of union commitment. The only instance in which an attribute of union commitment consistently mediated the relationship between servant-leadership and overall union member participation was union loyalty. While the respondents in this study reported lower scores on those attributes of servant-leadership and union commitment that emphasize the personal over the collective, this does not negate the statistical significance of the impact on servant-leadership on union commitment. The results of this study confirms that, in the case of the sponsoring organization, servant-leadership is a viable leadership paradigm with the potential to increase both commitment to the union-as-organization, as well as increasing overall union member participation.</p>

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2008. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 69-05, Section: A, page: 2002. Adviser: Steven Aragon. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 167-176) Available on microfilm from Pro Quest Information and Learning.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2008. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 69-11, Section: A, page: 4524. Adviser: Jan Nederveen Pieterse. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 166-177) Available on microfilm from Pro Quest Information and Learning.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2006. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 67-11, Section: A, page: 4351. Adviser: Jan Nederveen Pieterse. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 172-201) Available on microfilm from Pro Quest Information and Learning.

The demographics of today's workforce are changing at a rapid pace. Organizations are seeing an increase in the number of dual-career families, women entering the labor market, and single-parent households. Such changes have affected both organizations and the employees themselves. Employees are finding the need to manage increasing conflict between family and work roles. In response, some organizations are beginning to offer a variety of alternative work arrangements to enable workers to better balance opposing family and work demands. Organizations, in return, retain a greater number of skilled, quality, workers and obtain a broader pool of applicants. Furthermore, working an alternative, more preferred schedule may also reduce role overload and conflict and lessen excessive job involvement. These variables have been shown to relate to work/family conflict, ultimately affecting job satisfaction, commitment, and the propensity to remain with the organization. The purpose of this dissertation was to expand a model of work/family conflict by studying the effects of preferred versus unpreferred work schedules on work family conflict and the antecedents and outcomes of work/family conflict. Specifically, this study examined whether and how the desire to work a preferred schedule affected the relationship between work based role stressors, job involvement and work/family conflict on one hand, and job satisfaction, job commitment, and the intention to leave on the other, among a group of professional employees. A questionnaire consisting of eight summated scales was distributed to 122 employees of three firms: a computer firm, an electronics firm, and a hospital. Path analysis was used to analyze the results, offering a more robust interpretation of the responses. The results of the path analysis indicated that the desire to work a preferred schedule both directly and indirectly (through role conflict) affected work/family conflict, moderately supporting the extended model. Most respondents indicated that they would prefer a different work schedule to better balance work and family obligations. The work schedule preferred most often by employees was a full-time flexible schedule, four or five days per week. No relationship was found between the desire to work a preferred schedule and role overload, job involvement, or organizational outcomes.

<p>This study is an exploratory case study on supervisors' and front line managers' current practices towards the promotion of the socialization of employees with disabilities with their non-disabled peers. The researcher interviewed eight participants, four men and four women, purposefully selected from Connecticut and Indiana in person or over the phone. Various supporting secondary data documents were located by the researcher on the internet to further explain the work place's role in the promotion of socialization of employees with disabilities with their coworkers. Utilizing the Social Identity (Turner, 1975) and Social Categorization (Tajfel, 1970) theories to further explain the phenomenon of social integration of employees with disabilities as it relates to the under employment of Americans with disabilities when compared to their non-disabled counterparts, the researcher hopes to answers the following research questions: How are supervisors and front line managers in various work place arenas currently promoting social integration of employees with disabilities with their non-disabled coworkers? How are supervisors and front line managers in various work place arenas currently utilizing work place accommodations, when requested, to promote the social integration of employees with disabilities with their non-disabled peers? Once socially integrated, are supervisors and front line managers in various workplace arenas able to retain employees with disabilities for the long term? </p>