Knowledge that Transforms

A survey of wage and salary administrative practices fora sample of business firms is reported (n = 325), including a descriptive analysis of labor market surveys, job evaluation, and the pattern of decision making in a number of activities for each responding firm. The decision-making process is analyzed with a focus on the relative independence of the staff wage and salary function on activities that affect the total organization. The profile of the decision-making process which emerges suggests substantial shared authority between line and staff units. The wage and salary administrator is relatively independent in crucial technical tasks, but is constrained in decision making over tasks that have more obvious organizational impact. The findings and implications contribute to an increased data base on administrative practices and professional development.

This study attempts to reconcile inconsistencies in the literature concerning the job attribute preferences of full-time and part-time workers. The data reveal that the worker's sex and occupation influence preferences. For male and female blue-collar workers and professional/managerial employees only minor differences exist between full- and part-time employees. However, significant differences in the preference rankings of job attributes were found between full- and part-time female clerical employees. Further, the data suggest that for female clerical employees, marital and family status could influence their job attribute preferences.

This article focuses on a significant and neglected issue - the impact of flexible workhours programs on first-line supervisors. Relevant data come from two sources: a substantial panel of Flexi-Time studies, often with a short time-frame; and "sensing group" meetings with 43 supervisors who had over three years of experience with flexible workhour variants. The data converge to a direct conclusion: Flexi-Time variants have a range of effects on supervision, but these appear within the abilities and tolerances of almost all supervisors, who seem motivated to make any adaptations by the positive features for employees and supervisors of such programs.

The study reports the results of tests of two hypotheses which investigate relationships between a firms industrial location, perceived strategic challenges, and strategic responses. Based on a single industry sample, findings suggest that firms which operate in essentially the same industrial setting perceive the same strategic challenges. However, similar perceived challenges do not necessarily elicit similar strategic responses.

Union officials and managers from several federal facilities rank-ordered 11 elements identified as necessary for successful union-management relationships. No significant differences were found in the subject's rankings, from different samples, from union or management positions, or from high or low successful relationships. The results are used to develop a three-tiered hierarchy of importance of the elements. In addition, the hierarchy and the elements can be employed as part of a strategy for evaluating and improving union-management relations.

This paper proposes that when empirical research on the technology-structure relationship is classified by organizational level and by type of technology studied, the evidence favoring a technological imperative is quite consistent. The only studies which have yielded inconsistent results have been those focusing on the total organization, where the measurement of both the transformation technology and structure has been particularly problematic. At the workflow or subunit level of organizations, generally strong technology-structure relationships have been observed. The same is true for system level studies where technology was operationalized in terms of the characteristics of environmental inputs or outputs rather than of the transformation process itself. It is suggested that the consistency and value of future research results on the technology-structure connection can be considerably enhanced if researchers take greater care to specify their organizational levels of analysis as well as the way in which they operationalize their technology and structure variables. Some preliminary suggestions are also made for the development of a general theory of the technology structure link.

The predictive power of two models (work unit structure and job design) in association with employee job satisfaction were compared. Job design was also tested as an intervening variable in the work unit structure-employee job satisfaction relationship. The results indicate the work unit structure did not have a significant association with employee job satisfaction. Instead, job design emerged as an intervening variable in the work unit structure-employee job satisfaction relationship.

Relationships among managerial status, sex, and the traits of aggression, dominance, achievement-orientation, and nurturance were investigated in an attempt to obtain insight into the validity of the male managerial stereotype. Sixty-six sets of individuals matched by organization and department participated in the study. Each set consisted of a male and female manager and a male and female nonmanager. Results for high achievement, high dominance, and low nurturance support the managerial stereotype. There was little support for the male managerial stereotype, since these traits appear to be associated with both males and females who have attained a managerial position.

Cognitive style perceptions are suggested as possible explanations for the communication barrier often found to exist between system specialists and the users of information systems. Two empirical studies are presented which demonstrate that (a) perceptual differences can be observed for specific cognitive styles and between subjects possessing contrasting educational backgrounds, (b) no apparent relationship exists between cognitive style perceptions and cognitive behaviors, and (c) consistent differences were shown in the manner in which subjects perceived the analytic (more potent) and heuristic (less potent) cognitive styles. The implications of these findings f or the inf ormation system design process are discussed.