Knowledge that Transforms

Employee willingness to relocate can have a major impact on individual career advancement as well as organizational human resource policies. The present study examines the relationship of career andfamily-relatedfactors to the lowest percentage pay increase required to relocate to another city or state for males andfemales. The results support previous studies concerning gender differences. However; gender does not remain as a significant predictor of willingness to relocate when controlling for other career andfamily-relatedfactors.

Citation analysis of research published in 10 U.S. organizational sciences journals during the past decade provides insights into communications within and among disciplines contributing to the study of organizations. Results suggest that during the 1980s a modest increase in cross-disciplinary communication occurred among authors contributing to these journals. The same conclusions are reached when the time horizon of the study is lengthened to encompass the previous 3 decades. More interdisciplinary communication is needed to improve the quality of organizational studies.

In the decade before World War I, two American naval officers tried to reform naval manufacturing with the help of Frederick W. Taylor, the foremost management consultant of his time. They failed. Admiral Caspar F. Goodrich was forced to retire in 1909, and Commander Holden A. Evans resigned in 1911 after his career was ruinedfor trying to change a Navy organizational policy by implementing Taylor's management ideas. Yet, the lengthy deliberations about how to manage helped the Navy find its own "best way" prior to World War I. This article, using new evidence, studies their actions as an example in American management history of the eventual success of a consulting effort that initially failed.

Taking as its point of departure the striking increase in attention to employee (and employer) rights and responsibilities, this article sifts through the fragmented interdisciplinary body of knowledge to identify the elements of the paradigm on which the subjectfocuses. It examines the notions of rights and responsibilities and their characteristics, such as the nature of the issues and the relevant approaches. It explores the significance of workplace responsibilities and rights and suggests a paradigmatic matrix to guide and promote future management research and practice.

A system of structured interviews, superior-peer-subordinate ratings, and consensus discussion is describedfor the selection of top level managers in a multi-national Fortune 50 firm. The interviews and superior-peer-subordinate ratings were used to gather biographical information on 66 candidates. The biographical information was used to generate consensus ratings on nine performance dimensions for the job of division general manager. Concurrent validity evidence provides preliminary support for the selection system. Implications for the personnel selection and leadership literatures are discussed.

This study surveys 155 executivesfrom the People's Republic of China (PRC), Hong Kong, and Canada to investigate whether norms for organizational design and management are subject to a process of globalization. The survey consisted of structured questionnaires using two different sets of Likert-like importance rating scales. One set of scales examined organizational design norms. The other setfocused on the desired attributes of a good manager The balance of the evidence from this study supports the hypothesis of globalization. However, the study also indicates that some norms of organizational design that reflect basic cultural values are resistant to change and convergence. Furthermore, the study indicates that regulatory and political differences may be reflected in local adaptation of organizational and management design norms.

Discussions have drawn attention to the relationship between strategy and structure for much of the last quarter century. Yet, no firm basis has emerged to settle the issue of causal direction or to affirm the relationship's effects on organizational performance. By adding a new dimension to the strategy-structure model, this article attempts to conceptually link long-term performance with (a) the presence of subunits having distinctive competence in strategic planning and (b) the coordination of these differentiated subunits into a discernable microstructure embedded within the overall organization. This new dimension is explored and developed by use of a case of the Pacific Coast seaport industry.

Earlier work has examined executive control and merger activity and suggested that mergers are sometimes undertaken in the best interests of managers rather than stockholders. This study has examined the relationships among firm control (owner versus manager), merger strategy (related versus unrelated) and returns to stockholders. The results suggest that both firm control and merger strategy affect merger performance. Therefore, an assessment of the control of the acquiringfirms should temper the interpretation of any research comparing the performance of related versus unrelated diversification strategies.

This report seeks to determine whether the high success rates observed in a large survey of QWL evaluative studies (N = 231) can be substantially explained in terms of the lack of rigor of research methodology and design, as the literature critical of QWL often proposes. This studyfinds statistically significant support for a positive-findings bias hypothesis, but rigor explains less than 7% of the variance in outcomes. This implies only modest supportfor the position that attractive QWL results can be substantially accountedfor by a positive-findings bias.

This article proposes a strategy for integrating the research on a powerful selection tool (biographical data) with a promising approach to leader development (constructiveldevelopmental theory) in an attempt to bridge the gap between personnel selection and leadership theory. Building on previous calls for integrative approaches to the study of leader effectiveness, the strategy suggests that biodata be gathered in a manner that allows us to (a) understand the meaning that leaders derive from their life experiences and (b) assess leaders' developmental stages. It is expected that this strategy will help to explain the predictive validity consistently exhibited by biodata instruments and will help to better predict leadership effectiveness. The implications of this strategy for both managerial selection and leadership development are discussed.