The purpose of this study is to explore the relationship between position-related sources of power and person-related sources of power in organizations. The subject is the power of an organizational sub-unit compared to other units. Theory on the structural sources of power is well established in the literature. The question in this study is whether the individual manager, the person, is another major source of power for the organizational unit. A major objective of the study is to fill this gap in the literature on power in organizations. A secondary objective of this study is to see if one can rank the individual position-related sources of power and person-related sources of power, identified through a literature review, within each group in terms of their relative importance. The type of this study is exploratory. It is a descriptive study explaining the "what is" about the relationship between position and person sources of power in a manufacturing company. Results indicate that there is a two-way relationship between manager power and department power, and that one can rank order the sources of power in terms of their contribution to a department's or manager's power. Power is defined in this study as the ability …

The personality characteristic locus of control internality is widely-accepted as a trait possessed by women entrepreneurs. Recent research also suggests the presence of a coexisting attribute of similar strength, characterized as influence of a significant other. The presence of one personality characteristic implying perception of self-directed capability, together with indication of need for external assistance, poses a theoretical paradox. The study's purpose was to determine the nature and extent of direct and interactive effects which these and related variables had on entrepreneur return on investment. It was hypothesized that dimensions of significant other, as operationalized for this research, would support internality of locus of control and also modify constraining effects of educational and experiential disadvantage which the literature cites as pertinent to women entrepreneurs. This was nonexperimental, exploratory research of correlational cross-sectional design which examined hypothesized variable linkages. A convenience sample from a women's entrepreneur networking group was surveyed. Significant other elements were derived from factor analysis, resulting in four common dimensions. These factors, together with Rotter's Locus of Control instrument scores, reports on levels of education and experience, and hypothesized interactions, were independent variables. Hierarchial multiple regression was used to test a proposed path model. Two interpretable four-factor solutions …

This work collected four years of financial data from an employee-owned firm and a traditionally-owned firm from the same industry. The data were then organized to provide measures of three dimensions of corporate performance: (1) employee turnover, (2) productivity, and (3) profitability. Based upon a review of the literature, employee stock ownership plans (ESOP) are reported to enhance corporate performance after their adoption. Additionally, ESOPs are purported to perform better than traditionally-owned companies. This dissertation developed hypotheses to ascertain whether or not the particular ESOP used in this study conformed to these expectations. The first set of three hypotheses was tested using multiple regression techniques to determine if the ESOP experienced a reduction in turnover, an improvement in productivity, and an increase in profitability following its conversion to employee-ownership. The results of the regressions found that there was no incremental significance. There was no improvement noted in the performance of the ESOP firm. Another component of this investigation was to determine whether improvements in corporate performance were temporary or permanent phenomena. This portion of the research was rendered superfluous when no improvements were available for analysis. The final question that was examined was whether the ESOP would demonstrate better performance …

During the past twenty years, extensive research has been conducted concerning the judgmental processes of labor arbitrators. Previous research, sometimes referred to as policy capturing, attempted to identify the criteria or standards used by arbitrators to support their decisions. Much of the research was qualitative. Due to the categorical nature of the dependent variables, log-linear models such as logit regression have been used to examine decisional relationships in more recent studies. The decision cues used by arbitrators in 249 published alcohol- and drug-related arbitration cases were examined. The justifications for arbitrators' decisions were fitted into Carroll Daugherty's "seven tests" of just cause. The dominant cues were proof of misconduct, the appropriateness of the penalty, and the business necessity of management's action. Foreknowledge of the rule by the grievant and the consequences of a violation, equal treatment of the grievant, and an appropriate investigation by management were also important decision cues. In general, grievants in alcohol and drug arbitration cases fared as well as grievants in any other disciplinary arbitrations. However, when the cases were analyzed based on the legal status of the drug, illicit drug users were at a considerable disadvantage.

The objective of this study was to examine the relationship between intensity of short-range and medium-range capacity management and effectiveness of manufacturing operations. Data were collected to test the null hypothesis which stated that intensity of short-range and medium-range capacity management does not influence manufacturing effectiveness. Intensity of short-range and medium-range capacity management was indicated by the following variables: (1) production standards; (2) priority determination; (3) delivery dates determination; (4) material requirements planning; (5) routing information; (6) capacity utilization; and (7) backlog measurement. Manufacturing effectiveness was indicated by the following variables: (1) delivery dates performance; (2) lead times; (3) subcontract work; (4) direct labor overtime; (5) direct labor efficiency; (6) plant and equipment utilization; and (7) work in process inventory. The population selected to provide data for this study is the manufacturing firms in the State of Texas with five hundred or more employees. Over 42 percent of the eligible firms responded to a six-page questionnaire. Several multivariate techniques were utilized for data analysis: (1) factor analysis; (2) canonical correlation analysis; (3) bivariate correlation; (4) multiple linear regression; (5) cross-tabulation; and (6) analysis of variance. The results of this research did not adequately support the rejection of the null hypothesis. …

This study examined the effects of entrepreneurship level and legal regulatory environment on environmental scanning in one component of the health services industry, private practice physical therapy. Two aspects of scanning served as dependent variables: (1) extent to which firms scrutinized six environmental sectors (competitor, customer, technological, regulatory, economic, social-political) and (2) frequency of information source use (human vs. written). Availability of information was a covariate for frequency of source use. Three levels of entrepreneurship were determined by scores on the Covin and Slevin (1986) entrepreneurship scale. Firms were placed in one of three legal regulatory categories according to the state in which the firm delivered services. A structured questionnaire was sent to 450 randomly selected members of the American Physical Therapy Association's Private Practice Section. Respondents were major decision makers, e.g., owners, chief executive officers. The sample was stratified according to three types of regulatory environment. A response rate of 75% was achieved (n = 318) with equal representation from each stratum. All questionnaire subscales exhibited high internal reliability and validity. The study used a 3x3 factorial design to analyze the data. Two multivariate analyses were conducted, one for each dependent variable set. Results indicated that "high" entrepreneurial level …

This study modified the Ramanujam and Venkatraman (1987) questionnaire that was used to develop their model of planning system dimensions and planning effectiveness, and tested the model on a sample of private social service agencies. The criterion measures were level of planning sophistication, agency size, perceived environmental uncertainty, and relative competitive position. The sample was randomly drawn from private social service agencies which were members of the Community Council of Greater Dallas. Telephone interviews with fifty executive directors were conducted by a trained, impartial interviewer. Stepwise discriminant analysis was used to predict group membership between informal and formal planners. Of the nine dimensions in the model, three dimensions correctly classified 84 percent of the sample. The three dimensions were fulfillment of planning objectives, use of decision making techniques, and lack of resistance to planning. The level of perceived environmental uncertainty was another criterion set. Directors who perceived high uncertainty paid more attention to the external environment, used more decision making techniques, and relied on functional specialists when planning. Large and small agencies were classified by their annual budgets. Stepwise discriminant analysis using the planning system dimensions failed to reject the null hypothesis. Agencies reporting strong relative competitive positions placed greater …

Technologists predict that electronic information dissemination will create a paperless work environment. In spite of such predictions, paper-based internal communication will remain the primary medium for disseminating information in organizations for decades to come. However, electronic technology will have an impact on paper information production that may be more profound than changes following word processing's introduction. Previously unavailable for everyday production to enhance word meaning, certain graphic techniques now can be used to access readers' preconditioned symbol meanings to increase comprehension of routine correspondence and information internalization. This quasi-experimental field study examines interactions among laser-printer graphic treatment and communication variables as contributors to explaining variance in comprehension. Set Multiple Regression/Correlation analysis identifies significant variance explained by conditional relationships between near-typeset quality text and readers' self-interest and between near-typeset quality text and text's readability. The conditional relationship of near-typeset quality and self-interest shows increase in reader comprehension at a greater rate than the comprehension increase rate attributed to the reader's self-interest increase alone. This suggests that conditional relationships may be accessing an internal judgment process interpreting greater self-interest in near-typeset printed text. The conditional relationship between near-typeset quality and readability reveals that at more difficult reading levels comprehension is greater for …

Much of the previous research on organizational performance deals with the larger businesses. As such, the owner/managers of small firms and researchers interested in small businesses have had to work with planning models which were not formulated with small businesses in mind. Therefore, the general purpose of this study is to help correct this deficiency and add to the body of knowledge concerning the contributions specific factors make toward increasing the performance of small firms. Specifically, selected managerial personality traits, managerial perceived environmental uncertainty, managerial scanning habits, and managerial goal setting activities are utilized to develop three models. The three models are used to determine the relationship the factors have to each other and the contribution the variables make toward the performance of the firm. The firms included in this study are located in a South Central metropolitan area. The firms have between 2 and 100 employees, sales of less than 3 million dollars, and have been in operation 2 years or longer. This study utilizes regression analysis and path analysis to determine the effects the factors have on each other and their contribution to the firm's performance. The Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSSx) is utilized to run …

The purpose of this research was to study the effect of the conflict settlement process on the degree of expressed organizational commitment of employees in a collective bargaining setting. The research was done in a basic industry in northern Alabama. The instrument included the Organizational Commitment Questionnaire (OCQ) developed by Mowday, Porter, and Steers. Demographic variables measured were education, age, and sex. Main effects variables were tenure; union membership; and self-described experience with and feeling toward grievance/arbitration as a category 1 grievant, category 2 grievant, witness, and supervisor. Data were analyzed with hierarchical multiple regression. No statistically significant results were found. Limitations included the economic climate of the region and the industrial relations climate of the company.

This study examines the problem of operationally defining "hostile environment" sexual harassment, ruled a type of disparate treatment actionable under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act by the United States Supreme Court on June 19, 1986. Although the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission defines a hostile environment as an "intimidating, hostile, or offensive work environment," there is no consensus as to what is "offensive" behavior. An extensive review of the literature yielded various attempts to define and ascertain the magnitude of sexual harassment, but the fact that the actual percentages varied indicates that this is a difficult issue to measure. As perception by the victim is the key, this study surveyed 125 working women from all over the United States to determine their perceptions of behaviors that constitute sexual harassment. Discriminant analysis was then used to correctly classify 95% of the women according to their perceptions of having experienced sexual harassment. Using tests for proportions, three hypotheses were found significant. Women who have been sexually harassed are more likely to view sexual harassment as a major problem. Older men are more likely to have their behavior perceived as sexual harassment. In addition, women who have experienced acts such as staring, …

This dissertation examines the effect that the introduction of an advanced manufacturing technology, specifically robotics, has on the work force of an aerospace defense company. In this endeavor, there are two main objectives. First, this study determines whether workers feel that their jobs are threatened by the introduction of robotic technology. Secondly, the research compares the degree to which workers from different labor types feel this threat. A review of the literature reveals that the technical factors involving manufacturing technology have been thoroughly examined and discussed, but the effect that they have on the work force has been somewhat neglected. This dissertation develops ten hypotheses to ascertain the perceived threat to job security for workers within an aerospace defense company. This study is based on an employee survey that examined the employee's perceived threat to job security by the introduction of robotics. The primary research was obtained from employees within an aerospace defense company through the use of questionnaires in a three phase approach. The first phase utilized a pretest that sampled the questionnaire prior to the company-wide solicitation. The second phase administered the questionnaire to the three labor types within the work force. Phase three consisted of data reduction …