Knowledge that Transforms

The present study explored the impact of incumbent satisfaction, job enrichment, and level ofjob-relevant information on observers' ratings of job characteristics. Two hundred and forty undergraduate students were randomly assigned to I of 12 experimental conditions in a 2x2x3 factorial design: unenriched versus enriched job, low versus high level of job-relevant information, and positive, negative, or no incumbent satisfaction cue. It was hypothesized that enrichment and the incumbent satisfaction cue would influence observers' ratings of job characteristics (skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy, and feedback). In addition, an interaction between level of information and the satisfaction cue was predicted, with the cue having a greater impact in the low-information condition. The results indicated that both enrichment and the satisfaction cue affected observer ratings, with the former having a greater effect on allfive task dimensions, while the interaction effect was not supported by the data.

This article reviews the recent literature on organizational decline and identifies four key elements or events: the problem definition decision process, substantive cutback decisions, the implementation process, and the resulting outcomes. The conceptual and empirical literature to date is somewhat deficient and limited in linking these elements together. A more integrative approach is demonstrated by our longitudinal research study of six hospitals which faced underfunding over a period offive years. Using a mixture of qualitative and quantitative methods, the responses of these hospitals to moderate cutbacks is documented and explained in the context of the phases noted above. Our findings illustrate the importance of linking rather than isolating the four components of decline management. It is suggested that this framework provides both a diagnostic explanatory toolfor practitioners and a source of useful hypotheses for researchers.

Recent research has provided new facts and insights concerning Henri Fayol and Joseph Carlioz. Fayol's career, seen against his family background, may have been even more remarkable than we thought. Carlioz, a disciple of Fayol, remains elusive, yet tantalizingly interesting as a remarkable teacher.

Quality circle (QC) programs instituted in two Department of Defense (DOD) organizations were evaluated within the framework of a nonequivalent control group design. Two waves of survey data were collected from 107 members of a military maintenance organization and 165 employees of a medical facility located on the same DOD installation. Analysis of covariance procedures on data from the maintenance sample isolated significant treatment group effects on 7 of the 20 criterion variables used in the study. However, QC treatment effects were not apparent in the covariance results for the hospital personnel. Subgroup analyses on the data provided by active QC members identified different patterns of responses from individuals in the two samples. Active circle members from the maintenance organization tended to evaluate their situation more favorably as the study progressed. In contrast, responses provided by active QC group members from the medical facility tended to take an increasingly more negative tone over the course of the study. Qualitative differences between the two organizations in the conduct of the QC intervention are reviewed in an effort to identify potential moderating variables conditioning the degree of program success.

Attribution theory is presented as a potentially useful framework for understanding the workings of operant conditioning principles. Causal attributions for the receipt of reinforcements are posited to have a moderating effect on reinforcement predictions emanating from the law of effect. Attributions are hypothesized to explain the effects of reinforcements, the workings of reinforcement schedules, and the administration of reinforcements.

We propose that employer-employee exchanges can be characterized by four contradictory types of normative expectations for the appropriate distribution of rewards: profit maximization, equity, equality, need. We expand on Williamson's (1975) argument that intrafirm transactions are characterized by normative expectations different from those in marketplace transactions and find that his characterization of employer-employee transactions is similar to recent social psychological characterizations of "intimate" relationships. The possible presence of four distinct norms is suggested to be the basis for some types of allocation disagreements within organizations and has implications for management research in organizational climate, socialization, and compensation.

As a system of understanding reality, the organizational culture and symbolism perspective is similar to Romanticism. Both movements arose out of the recognition of the inadequacies of rationalism, and both attempt to chart areas of the human experience through the imagination in terms of metaphors, symbols, and myths. A comparison of the two, therefore, serves to explain the rise of the cultural and symbolic perspective in organizational studies and its theoretical basis. Further, the comparison at once suggests the potential of the symbolist perspective as well as its problems, especially relativism and the love of distance, while indicating how that perspective may evolve as a total system.