The purposes of this study are fourfold: (1) to examine job satisfaction among academic department chairpersons/division directors in four allied health disciplines in colleges and universities, (2) to identify factors that influence job satisfaction among chairpersons/division directors of baccalaureate and associate degree allied health academic department, (3) to identify differences in characteristics of academic department chairpersons/division directors which would influence job satisfaction, and (4) to determine the feasibility of the use of Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory in determining their job satisfaction. / The population consisted of allied health academic department chairpersons/division directors from 155 Medical Record Administration programs, 65 Occupational Therapy programs, 257 Radiologic technology programs, and 273 Respiratory Therapy (Respiratory Care) programs (n = 750). / The research method employed in this study was the survey method using a self-administered questionnaire. The questionnaire consist of two instruments: the Job Descriptive Index (JDI), Smith et. al. (1969) and Porter's needs fulfillment instrument, Porter, (1961). The data were collected through self-administered questionnaires. One hundred eighty-eight questionnaires were mailed with a return rate of 67% with 64% usable. / The results of this study indicated the following: (1) with the respect to the total sample; while not statistically significant for every job characteristic, the results generally indicated that higher ratings in job characteristics tended to be positively related to higher ratings in satisfaction with the work, (2) there was no significant difference between the means (at the.05 level) of the independent variables of discipline, formal academic preparation, classification of schools, type of institution, academic position, first administrative position, race (White/Non-White), and gender with the dependent variable of job satisfaction. However, there was a statistically significant difference between the means (p =.05) of those educationally prepared and those unprepared for the academic position and the subscale promotion for the JDI, (3) the needs categories most often reported as unsatisfied were the high level needs of autonomy and self-actualization, and (4) overall, most respondents indicated they would probably remain in the position for the next five years. / Finally, information derived from this study can be utilized to improve selection, retention, and self-motivation of allied health academic department chairpersons/division directors. This will contribute to the improvement of allied health education, and thus, the quality of care delivered by graduates of baccalaureate and associate degree programs in the allied health sciences. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 52-08, Section: A, page: 2763. / Major Professor: Allan Tucker. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1991.

Conceptualizations of leader performance-contingent behaviors have recently been expanded by Schriesheim, Hinkin, and Podsakoff (1989). Their taxonomy of leader response behavior includes not only the traditional concepts of leader reward and punishment, but also the concept of leader omission, whereby no leader behavior is emitted following subordinate performance. One purpose of this manuscript was to more fully develop the construct of leader omission by comparing it with traditional operant concepts (such as reward, punishment, and extinction) and assessing its relationships with subordinate performance and role ambiguity. Most studies in this area have been field examinations. In these studies, leader response behaviors may have been confounded with other contingencies in the organizational environment, making it difficult to determine what factors were controlling subordinate performance. A laboratory study was conducted which allowed the subordinate's environment to consist only of leader contingencies. In addition, a review of the literature revealed that other sources of performance-related information, besides leader response behavior, may operate on the direction and intensity of subordinate performance changes. This other information has been identified as the quality of feedback information communicated to the subordinate by the leader. This study was designed to examine the effects of different levels of feedback information quality and three leader behaviors (reward behavior, punitive behavior, and extinction), under different levels of subordinate performance (manipulated by the researcher) on subsequent subordinate performance and role ambiguity. As expected, results indicated that there were significant interactions between the experimental factors with respect to their effects on performance. The performance patterns that emerged under / different experimental conditions indicate (1) the importance of consistency between leader behavior and feedback, (2) the negative impact of punishment on performance and role ambiguity, and (3) the important role information processing plays in an individual's interpretation of performance-related cues from his working environment. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 52-03, Section: A, page: 0997. / Major Professor: Mark J. Martinko. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1991.

The key purpose of this dissertation was to empirically test a new conceptual model of team conflict management (Tan, 2011). Central to this model is a configural team-level construct called variant conflict management (VCM), which refers to the relative levels of cooperative and competitive conflict management among members in a team. This model also identifies three key antecedent categories likely to predict VCM in teams: salient conflict-relevant member characteristics, team contextual determinants, and divergent team dynamics. Three archetypal profiles of VCM, i.e., distinct distributional patterns in members' conflict management approaches, are also proposed: minimum, moderate and maximum VCM profiles. These three profiles are further organized into five sub-types: minimum cooperative, minimum competitive, moderate cooperative, moderate competitive, and maximum VCM profiles. Specifically, this study sought to assess whether the proposed VCM profiles are present in 79 student project teams. It also compared the effects of VCM (based on teams' standard deviation scores) and of mean team conflict management (based on teams' means scores) on three team outcomes: team conflict efficacy, members' satisfaction with their teams' conflict management process, and team effectiveness. This study also investigated the relative effects of the proposed VCM profiles on each of the three team outcomes. Three indicators representing each of the antecedent categories, i.e., gender role diversity, team goal interdependence, and subgroup formation, were also examined as potential predictors of VCM. Using qualitative content coding analyses, it was revealed that all five VCM profiles proposed in the model, i.e., minimum cooperative, minimum competitive, moderate cooperative, moderate competitive, and maximum VCM profiles, were indeed evident in the teams sampled. Three additional profiles described as `distributed,' `multiple clusters' and `midpoint cluster' were also uncovered in the content coding analyses. In the supplementary latent class analyses, four latent classes were identified. Two of these classes corresponded with two of the five proposed VCM profiles: the moderate cooperative and moderate competitive VCM profiles. The third latent class was aligned with the new `distributed' profile identified in the content coding analyses. As for the fourth latent class, it consisted of the other three proposed VCM profiles, i.e., minimum cooperative, minimum competitive and maximum VCM profiles, as well as the two additional profiles uncovered in the content coding analyses, i.e., `multiple clusters' and `midpoint cluster' profiles. Comparisons among the five proposed VCM profiles of their effects on the three team outcomes showed that teams with minimum cooperative VCM profiles reported higher levels of team conflict efficacy than teams with moderate competitive VCM profiles, and they were also more effective than teams with minimum competitive VCM profiles. Teams with minimum competitive VCM profiles, on the other hand, reported the lowest levels of member satisfaction compared to teams with the four other proposed VCM profiles; teams with minimum competitive VCM profiles were also less effective than teams with minimum cooperative and moderate cooperative VCM profiles. Teams with moderate cooperative VCM profiles, relative to those with moderate competitive VCM profiles reported greater team conflict efficacy and team effectiveness. The study results also found no significant effects of VCM (based on teams' standard deviation scores) and of mean team conflict management (based on teams' means scores on cooperative and competitive conflict management respectively) on team conflict efficacy, members' satisfaction with their teams' conflict management process, and team effectiveness. Additionally, no significant associations were found between the three proposed predictor variables, i.e., gender role diversity, team goal interdependence and subgroup formation, and VCM. Implications of these findings for theory, research and practice, along with limitations and future research directions, were also discussed.

The purpose of the current study was to examine if a high-quality manager-employee relationship could buffer female leaders from the negative perceptions and retaliatory actions they tend to receive for expressing anger. Research has shown that female leaders who express anger at work violate the stereotype that women should be warm and communal and are therefore punished, whereas male leaders who express anger reinforce the stereotype that men should be strong and leader-like and are thus rewarded for expressing anger. Female leaders who have a high-quality relationship with their employees may have fulfilled the implicit gender role expectation that they are warm and communal, which may buffer them from being penalized for expressing anger. As male leaders are not punished for expressing anger, it was proposed that quality of relationship was unlikely to have the same buffering effect, as there is no backlash to buffer against. While results showed that female leaders who express anger received more negative ratings than male leaders who express anger, contrary to expectations, quality of relationship behaved as a `buffer' for both male and female managers. In addition, participant gender was shown to have an important effect on perceptions of managerial anger expression. Ratings by male participants revealed that while quality of relationship buffered both male and female managers who expressed anger, it `boosted' ratings of male managers whom male participants rated more favorably in terms of competence and backlash, than female managers. Ratings of female participants showed that quality of relationship only served as a buffer for female managers (and not male managers) on ratings of competence, as hypothesized. However, for female participants, quality of relationship did not buffer against backlash for either male or female managers. In addition, female participants were more likely to demonstrate backlash toward female managers than male managers, regardless of quality of relationship. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

Little research to date has investigated the role that destructive and constructive conflict climates have on individual decisions to engage in conflict resolution interventions in organizations. One such widely employed intervention is conflict resolution training. The purpose of this dissertation was to test the influence of conflict climates on decisions to participate in conflict resolution training. An integrative behavioral intention model was formulated that predicted intentions to participate. The model proposed, counter intuitively, that both destructive and constructive conflict climates would positively predict reasons for and reasons against participation in conflict resolution training. On one hand, destructive conflict climates were expected to motivate reasons for participating in order to resolve conflicts in the work unit, yet simultaneously motivate reasons against participating due to concerns that training may lack sufficient power to effect such change. On the other hand, constructive conflict climates were expected to generate reasons for participating to build further morale while simultaneously generating reasons against participating due to concerns that the work unit might be functioning sufficiently well and therefore not be in need of training. The reason factors, in turn, were expected to predict global conflict resolution motives (i.e., attitudes, subjective norm, and perceived control). Global motives and reason factors were further hypothesized to predict behavioral intention, which in turn was expected to predict participation in conflict resolution training activities. A cross-sectional survey design was employed, involving 214 respondents in a large international non-governmental organization. Study hypotheses were tested using confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling. Overall, the study revealed that: (1) destructive conflict climate predicted reasons for as well as reasons against participating in conflict resolution training, while constructive conflict climate predicted reasons for but not reasons against participating; (2) behavioral reasons for participating in conflict resolution training predicted the three global conflict resolution motives of attitude, subjective norm, and perceived control, while behavioral reasons against participating in conflict resolution training predicted attitude and perceived control but not subjective norm; (3) behavioral reasons fully mediated the effects of destructive and constructive conflict climates on global motives; (4) the global motive factors of attitude and perceived control predicted intention to participate in conflict resolution training but subjective norm did not; and (5) behavioral reasons for and against participating in conflict resolution training did not predict intention over and above global motives. Exploratory analyses found that destructive and constructive conflict climates interacted to predict reasons against participating in conflict resolution training. Implications of the study's findings for conflict management in organizations are discussed.

Job loss and layoffs have become an economic fact of life as a result of constant mergers, acquisitions, restructuring, and general economic malaise. As a consequence, researchers have examined behavioral, physiological, and cognitive reactions of the unemployed. The purposes of this study were to examine the role of age and education in predicting career and employment expectancies, various demographic variables in predicting financial strain and subsequent negative affect, hostility as a result of justice perceptions, and expectations, job loss attributions, and affect as predicted by various attributional styles. 424 job losers who were corporate sponsored outplacement clients of a nation-wide career consulting firm completed a survey involving antecedents of, and behavioral and cognitive reactions to, job loss Analyses were conducted using causal modeling techniques. Older job losers were found to have generally lower vocational expectancies involving their career and prospects for re-employment, particularly with respect to anticipated changes in industries and fields. Education was not found to be a particularly good predictor of either vocational expectancies, nor its components. Job losers with lower salaries and greater number of dependents experienced greater financial strain, and subsequent anxiety, depression, and hostility. Gender and marital status were not predictive of financial strain. Perceptions of justice were found to be multi-factorial, involving both procedural justice and interactional justice. Although both procedural justice and interactional justice were predictive of hostility, interactional justice was a better predictor Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, as well as reliability analysis indicated that the Attributional Style Questionnaire (Peterson, Semmel, Von Bayer, Abramson, Metelsky, & Seligman, 1982) was psychometrically unsound. Employment expectancies involving comparison to others with similar skills, age, and education, and expectancies involving chances for a better or similar salary were negatively related to anxiety. Job loss attributions involving changes in technology, management, obsolescence, and the external factors of labor market and general economic conditions were not predictive of affective reactions. However, job losers blaming their job loss on effort, performance, job demands, inability to fit into the organization's culture, and interpersonal skills, did report experiencing guilt / acase@tulane.edu

Poorly written police reports interfere with the efficient functioning of the criminal justice system. Accounts from several police jurisdictions have indicated that many officers lack the necessary writing skills to complete reports which require documenting chronological events in an incident, reporting witness statements, and describing evidence. This study attempted to identify the important dimensions of police report writing. On this foundation, a job-related video test was developed and its psychometric properties investigated. The test, the New Orleans Police Department Written Communication Test (NWCT), was designed to assess the report writing skills of New Orleans Police Department Recruits and Officers. Two versions of the test were developed, each having direct and indirect subtests. Subjects were 110 police officers who had been on the job one to two years. Internal consistency, alternate forms reliability, interscorer reliability, intraclass reliability, and test-retest reliability were estimated. Reliability was also estimated within a generalizability framework with persons and raters as facets. Both forms of the NWCT were administered to the officers as well as Hammill and Larsen's (1988) Test of Written Language-2 (TOWL-2). The TOWL-2 was administered to the officers to estimate the convergent validity of the NWCT. Convergent validity was also assessed by determining the relationship between NWCT scores and other measures of writing skills. Subjects' police reports were rated by Assistant District Attorneys and police personnel whose ratings served as criteria. Internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha) estimates differed by subtest, and the overall test lacked internal consistency (both Forms A and B). Alternate forms reliability coefficient was extremely low (.22) for the alternate direct subtests. The test-retest coefficient was.73 ($p < .001$) for the indirect portions of the test which were identical for both forms of the test. Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was used to estimate the variance components for the effects of raters, persons, and the interaction between raters and persons. A large amount of variance was attributed to differences in how raters scored subjects for the direct subtests. With the indirect subtests, however, much of the variance was attributed to differences in the test performance of the subjects. Convergent validity evidence was weak, although the NWCT did correlate significantly with some of the variables of interest. Criterion-related validity evidence, using ratings of work samples as criteria, was insufficient / acase@tulane.edu

A research instrument was designed, pretested and given to randomly selected Air Force Social Workers (AFSWs) in order to assess the utility of expectancy theory in assessing AFSWs': (1) valence (Vk) of and rank order Vk of 15 second-level work role outcomes; (2) most instrumental (Ijk) Performance Standard Rating (PSR), and the extent of the Ijk; (3) expectancy (Ex) that effort expended at work will lead to Ijk PSRs; (4) job motivation (E); (5) job satisfaction as derived from the Job Descriptive Index (JDI), and expectancy theory's valence of work role (Vj) model; and (6) background characteristics. Data analysis indicated: (1) a significant association between AFSWs' rank ordering of work role outcomes; (2) AFSWs prefer outcomes affecting them personally and professionally; (3) the PSRs are not perceived as Ijk for attaining outcomes; (4) low Ijk scores lowered AFSWs' Vj scores, and low Vj scores lowered AFSWs' E scores; (5) AFSWs are satisfied with their supervisor, but dissatisfied with their subordinate status, pay, promotions, and work roles; (6) significant differences between AFSWs' JDI scores; (7) differences exist between AFSWs' E and Vj scores along variables of age, sex, rank, education, organizational levels, supervisory classifications, prior military social work related experience, prior military service, and prior civilian social work experience; (8) outcomes dependent on organizational policy are job demotivators and dissatisfiers; (9) AFSWs maintain identity with the social work profession; and (10) expectancy theory has utility for assessing AFSWs E and Vj. Implications for the Air Force involves restructuring AFSWs' role status and providing them with equitable rewards. Implications for the social work profession, social work education and AFSW involves a more active advocacy role for professional autonomy and equitable rewards for their social work members / acase@tulane.edu

This study investigated (1) the tenability of the assumptions underlying human resource utility analysis models, (2) methods of operationalizing these models, and (3) manager's perceptions of the accuracy of results from these models. The investigation was conducted using several behavioral and sales performance measures from 434 sales-representatives who attended a product information and sales strategy training program. Low positive relationships were observed between behavioral performance and the value of performance, demonstrating that it is tenable to assume a linear (but not a perfect) relationship between behavioral performance and the value of performance. Such linear relationships, however, were not uniformly observed, which suggests that the tenability of this assumption may be moderated by the latent behavioral and economic domains as well as the operationalizations of the utilized measures. Alternative methods of operationalizing the utility model's components, including the effect size (i.e., d) as well as alternative methods of calculating and summarizing variability in the value of employee performance (i.e., $\sigma\sb{y}$ (sometimes referred to as SDy), A$\nu y,$ and A$\sigma\sb{\rm R}),$ yielded results with different levels of accuracy: some components were quite accurate (overestimating the parameter by 2.3 percent) and others were quite inaccurate (overestimating the parameter by 107.2 percent). These levels of accuracy were perceived to be significantly different by human resource and training department managers in a Fortune 500 company. These managers' ratings, on average, indicated that some methods of estimating utility components are accurate enough for decision making purposes. Implications for utility analysis research, performance measurement research, and the use of utility models for applied human resource decision making are discussed / acase@tulane.edu

The feasibility of conceptualizing organizational culture in terms of five broad categories of cultural assumptions was tested. The five categories of basic cultural assumptions assumed to underlie observable organizational cultural characteristics are: (a) Humanity's relationship to nature, (b) the nature of human nature, (c) the nature of human relationships, (d) temporal relationships, and (e) the nature of organizational activity. We attempted to determine whether individuals could interpret and use information at this level in a judgment task. Policy-capturing procedures were used to assess the relative strength of each of the five categories of basic assumptions in predicting subjects' judgments of organizational support for innovation, on 48 hypothetical organizational profiles. All five categories significantly predicted participants' ratings on the profiles. Results also indicated that an additive model was applicable. Participants' own cultural assumptions about how businesses should operate failed to moderate judgment ratings. Lastly, the methodological soundness of the policy-capturing exercise was assessed. The results of this study have implications for future research and practice in terms of conceptualizing and assessing organizational culture / acase@tulane.edu