Knowledge that Transforms

Life insurance agency managers (n = 168) evaluated a hypothetical applicant under the experimentally varying conditions of hiring pressure, cost of false positive selection error, valid test-score level, and applicant sex. The last two treatments, alone and in interaction, were primarily responsible for explaining up to 37% of the variance in the applicant evaluations. Explanations for the results and implications for research on selection decision-making were indicated.

Mutual savings bank managers reported their perceptions regarding the adequacy of information they possess in nine different career planning areas. Differences in perceptions emerged across a number of information areas. In addition, managers' career salience was positively related to perceptions of adequate information regarding self and family issues, and self-esteem was positively related to information regarding self. Although organizational tenure was not related to career planning information, the amount and diversity of prior work experience were related to information in several areas.

A major unanswered question relevant to managers and researchers is how to implement policies more effectively. This study advances a model of managerial policy implementation and tests hypotheses derived from 71 federal government organizations. The results show that various facets of managerial receptivity to the policy were the most important positive influences on implementation of the two policies. Other factors such as perceived emphasis by top level management, organizational size, work overload, perceptions of the importance of performance for promotion, and the manager's attitude toward change were also important predictors of the managers' receptivity to the policies. Implications of the findings for management and future research are presented.

A replication of Lawrence and Lorsch's (1967) findings of three modes of conflict resolution was attempted in a managerial sample. Various forms of factor analysis and rotation techniques did not yield a clear factor structure. The validity of the scale for purposes of measuring conflict resolution modes is seriously questioned as is what we teach in the area of conflict resolution.

Responses of male and female managers in public human service organizations are analyzed to determine w;hether differences exist in perceptions ofself-competence and ws'hether differences exist in their evaluations of the competence of women managers in general in these organizations. The findings suggest that female managers perceive themselves to be as competent as male managers, but theY see female managers in general as being less competent than male managers.

This study investigates the theory/applications orientation in management courses, the factors which influence this balance, and the techniques used to bring applications into the classroom. Overall, the findings indicate a balance between theory and applications. However, the theory/applications orientation was influenced by a number of factors: the subject matter, the level of instruction, the age, rank, and managerial experience of the instructor, and the size of the institution. Substantial differences were found between graduate and undergraduate levels of instruction.

The differential e fects of a management by' objectives (MBO) program on the work satisfaction of development and research employee groups were examined. Analyses indicated that these two groups differed in perceptions of their respective work group climates and that facets of MBO explained significantly different amounts of variance of the groups' work satisfaction. Implications and suggestions for accommodating MBO for use with development and research personnel are discussed.

Four recent factor analytic studies of the Litwin and Stringer Organizational Climate Questionnaire (LSOCQ) are compared to assess the consistency of the instrument's factor structure when administered to different organizational populations. In addition, separate factor analytic results of the LSOCQ for three functional subgroups of a single organization are compared to investigate the LSOCQ's factor consistency within a single organization. Although there is somewhat more intrathan interorganizational replicability of factors, both comparisons raise considerable doubt about the validity of the Litwin and Stringer instrument.

The nature of the academic stratification system within the field of management is investigated on the basis of data drawn from the 24 leading graduate departments of management. In theory, recruitment within the management marketplace follows a purely universalistic-achievement pattern that reflects a commitment to the ideal of advancement by merit. Evidence is presented, however, which suggests that a scholar's academic placement within the field of management may be influenced instead by particularistic criteria.

Role stress increasingly is becoming more pervasive and dysfunctional for individuals and organizations. Therefore, strategies for managing role stress are presented in this paper. Specifically, two strategies are presented in theframework of a model that allows us to examine several organizational components related to role stress conditions. Namely, a role perception model of goal setting content and leader initiating structure is presented in order to examine the relative effectiveness of these two important aspects of organization behavior as strategies to reduce role stress and to increase employee satisfaction. It was hypothesized that both goal setting content and leader initiating structure are related to employee satisfaction because of their association with the stressful conditions of role conflict and ambiguity. That is, the relationships between goal setting content and satisfaction and between leader initiating structure and satisfaction are reduced when the effects of role conflict and ambiguity are removed. The results of the research presented here strongly supported those relationships.