Organizational Culture: Critical Questions for Researchers and Practitioners

Abstract

The idea of career self-management is part of the growing move to encourage individuals to take ownership of their own development. The article explores why this makes sense both for individuals and for organizations, and defines specific initiatives individuals and organizations should take to make the concept work successfully. It is argued that most people are unlikely to take responsibility for themselves unless there is sound organizational support, but that with the right practical initiatives they can become energized by the process. There is, however, a need for organizations to centre much more closely on understanding people as individuals if performance levels at work are to be raised from competence to excellence.     

Psychological Climate,Organizational Commitment and Morale: Implications for Army Captains' Career Intent

The purpose of this research was to examine how work experiences contribute to junior officers' intentions to leave the Army. Specifically, we hypothesized that psychological climate perceptions have direct and indirect effects on intent to leave through affective commitment and morale and that affective and continuance commitment interact to predict intent to leave the Army. The sample for this study was 649 captains who responded to an Army-wide survey, the Fall 2002 Sample Survey of Military Personnel. Results demonstrate support for full mediation, indicating that psychological climate impacts intent to leave the Army by influencing captains' affective commitment and morale. The psychological climate dimension of leadership had the largest impact on affective commitment, morale, and intent to leave the Army. Affective commitment did not interact with continuance commitment to predict intent to leave. Implications for Army retention policies and leadership are discussed.     

Response to Lynn, et al.'s "Evaluation of Woodard's theory of perceptually oriented hypnosis"

In this article some misunderstandings of Perceptually Oriented Hypnosis presented in the recent evaluation by Lynn, et al. are pointed out. Perceptually Oriented Hypnosis emphasizes individual differences naturally occurring in the experience of everyday life or being-in-the-world and differentiation as major themes to understanding hypnosis. Woodard advocates that qualitative research enhances our understanding of hypnotic experiencing and allows us to examine hypnotic phenomena that elude the laboratory and control settings.     

Oddities in Kirkpatrick, et al.'s study of children of lesbian mothers

Kirkpatrick, et al.'s 1976 study of what happened to 20 lesbians' children has received considerable attention, apparently later being matched with 20 heterosexuals' children. In 2004, Kirkpatrick generally acknowledged Schumm's caution that her findings are less impressive than are needed, yet, Kirkpatrick stated her "early findings have been reinforced" and that "no evidence of differences in the children grouped by the mother's sexual orientation" have been documented by subsequent research. Close examination of the data of these studies indicates that children from 13 lesbian mothers were compared with children from 13 divorced heterosexuals. Further, there are contradictions between the published reports regarding the nature of samples and various findings. Analysis of Kirkpatrick, et al.'s study suggests that children do less well when raised by homosexual parents.     

Critical appraisal of the discussion on delay discounting by Bailey et al. and Stein et al.: A scientific proposal for a reinforcer pathology theory 3.0

Delay discounting is one of the most studied phenomena in Psychology in the last decades. Recently, it has been proposed as a transdiagnostic variable accounting for several psychopathological problems. A review of current practices and clinical application (Bailey et al., 2021) and a response article (Stein et al., 2022) have been recently published. Despite both of them being stimulating, the articles raise issues needing further discussion. The first part of the present article critically appraises both publications by highlighting their strengths/limitations and offers an alternate perspective that clarifies some theoretical issues and allows new lines in research. In the second part, one of these new lines of research is presented by describing a research proposal based on the analysed critiques and current developments in both psychopathology and addiction research. This article contributes to the discussion on delay discounting suggesting alternative interpretations and future studies to improve theoretical models.     

Comment on Soar, et al.'s case study of problems and use of Ecstasy

This case report provides no basis for drawing any conclusions regarding possible adverse effects of use of Ecstasy.     

An Evaluation of James et al.'s (1992) VG Estimation Procedure when Artifacts and True Validity are Correlated*

James, Demaree, Muliak, and Ladd (1992) outlined a procedure for estimating the mean (M) and variance (V) of true validities (ρ's). This procedure was designed to take into account the potential nonzero intercorrelations among the three artifacts (predictor reliability, criterion reliability, and range restriction) and ρ. The accuracy of this new validity generalization procedure was compared with the accuracy of the Model 2‐based (in which correlations are individually corrected for artifacts) procedure because this latter procedure does not require the assumption of uncorrelated artifacts. The current study included two different ρ distributions, three sample sizes, and six different levels of intercorrelations among the three artifacts and ρ. Both procedures yielded relatively accurate estimates of M and V even when the intercorrelations among the three artifacts and ρ were nonzero. The Model 2‐based estimates were slightly more accurate than the James et al. estimates, and the accuracy of the Model 2‐based estimates was much more stable across sample sizes and different levels of intercorrelatedness. Sample‐based artifact data were used in this investigation.     

Coping With Academic Problems: An Empirical Examination of Brickman et al.'s Models of Helping and Coping1

According to Brickman et al. (1982), people facing problems make attributions about responsibility for causing and for solving the problem. Four models of helping and coping emerge. The present investigation examined 2 key questions. First, do individuals assign responsibility exclusively to the person or external forces, or do they exhibit a pattern of distributing responsibility among several causes? And second, do the models provide superior explanatory power relative to the individual attributions? College students provided information about their assumptions about causes and solutions to their own academic problems. Students revealed all 3 patterns. Furthermore, those making self‐attributions of responsibility for solutions had higher grade point averages (GPAs) than did those making other attributions. Implications for the Brickman et al. analysis and framework are discussed.     

从组织承诺到组织忠诚:华人组织忠诚的概念内涵与结构

回顾、分析西方组织忠诚研究——从组织承诺到组织公民行为的研究发展过程,显示西方组织忠诚概念深受西方文化思想的影响.尽管西方从组织承诺又发展出组织公民行为的研究,但研究长期切割了组织忠诚的态度和行为两个层面.忠诚在中国有悠久的历史文化传统,近期研究发现华人组织忠诚有着独特的文化内涵成分,然而当前研究仍存在不足.因此,进一步深化华人组织忠诚研究不仅必要,对于构建适应华人文化的组织行为理论也有着重要的价值.     

An alternative perspective on von Winterfeldt et al.'s (1997) test of consequence monotonicity

D. von Winterfeldt, N.-K. Chung, R. D. Luce, and Y. Cho (1997) provided several tests for consequence monotonicity of choice or judgment, using certainty equivalents of gambles. The authors reaxiomatized consequence monotonicity in a probabilistic framework and reanalyzed von Winterfeldt et al.'s main experiment via a bootstrap method. Their application offers new insights into consequence monotonicity as well as into von Winterfeldt et al.'s 3 experimental paradigms: judged certainty equivalents (JCE), QUICKINDIFF, and parameter estimation by sequential testing (PEST). For QUICKINDIFF, the authors found no indication of violations of "random consequence monotonicity." This sharply contrasts the findings of von Winterfeldt et al., who concluded that axiom violations were the most pronounced under that procedure. The authors found potential evidence for violations in JCE and certainty equivalents derived from PEST.     

Organizational reward systems: Implications for climate

This study investigated the role of systematically different organizational reward structures upon individual perceptions of the reward climate. Nurses in a naval hospital worked for the same supervisors but were subject to either tenure-contingent (N=73) or behavior-contingent (N=50) reward systems. No differences in perceived reward climate were found between the two groups. In the tenure-contingent group, job attitudes reflected individual characteristics rather than perceived climate. The opposite relationship was found for the behavior-contingent group.Support for this research was provided under Office of Naval Research Contract RR942-08-01 NR 170-915. Opinions expressed are those of the author. No endorsement by the Department of the Navy has been given, nor should it be inferred. Portions of the study were conducted while the author was at the Naval Health Research Center in San Diego. The author would like to thank R. J. Bullock, Mark C. Butler, L. R. James, and R. D. Pritchard for their helpful comments and assistance.     

Supernumerary phantoms: a comment on Grossi, et al.'s (2002) spare thoughts on spare limbs

A recently published case report of a supernumerary phantom limb in a man with left-sided hemiplegia did not take note that this phenomenon has been extensively documented in the neurological literature for well over 100 years. The present comment provides a brief introduction to the clinical and experimental approaches to supernumerary phantom limbs. It also emphasizes the theoretical importance of this condition for understanding the neurological mechanisms subserving the experience of having a body.     

On the importance of models in interpreting remember-know experiments: comments on Gardiner et al.'s (2002) meta-analysis

From a meta-analysis of recognition experiments using the remember-know-guess paradigm, Gardiner, Ramponi, and Richardson-Klavehn (2002) reported two findings that they viewed as evidence against the one-dimensional model for that paradigm: (1) Memory strength increased when know responses were added to remember responses, decreasing when guess responses were also included. (2) The accuracy of guess responses was correlated with the location of the old-new criterion in the one-dimensional model for the paradigm, implying that guesses were influenced by decision processes. We question both findings. The first result is contradicted by a signal-detection (SDT) analysis, which shows that both know and guess responses reduced estimated memory strength. The discrepancy results from the properties of A', the measure of accuracy used by Gardiner et al., which we argue is flawed. The second result follows directly from the one-dimensional model, in which accuracy and response criteria are fixed. The authors' reasons for rejecting the one-dimensional model are thus not persuasive, but it can nonetheless be rejected because ROC curves implied by the data are inconsistent with ROCs derived from ratings experiments. A two-dimensional SDT model (Rotello, Macmillan, & Reeder, 2004) accounts for both sets of data. The analysis illustrates the importance of models in interpreting remember--know data.     

On the importance of models in interpreting remember-know experiments: Comments on Gardiner et al.'s (2002) meta-analysis

From a meta-analysis of recognition experiments using the remember-know-guess paradigm, Gardiner, Ramponi, and Richardson-Klavehn (2002) reported two findings that they viewed as evidence against the one-dimensional model for that paradigm: (1) Memory strength increased when know responses were added to remember responses, decreasing when guess responses were also included. (2) The accuracy of guess responses was correlated with the location of the old-new criterion in the one-dimensional model for the paradigm, implying that guesses were influenced by decision processes. We question both findings. The first result is contradicted by a signal-detection (SDT) analysis, which shows that both know and guess responses reduced estimated memory strength. The discrepancy results from the properties of A′, the measure of accuracy used by Gardiner et al., which we argue is flawed. The second result follows directly from the one-dimensional model, in which accuracy and response criteria are fixed. The authors' reasons for rejecting the one-dimensional model are thus not persuasive, but it can nonetheless be rejected because ROC curves implied by the data are inconsistent with ROCs derived from ratings experiments. A two-dimensional SDT model (Rotello, Macmillan, & Reeder, 2004) accounts for both sets of data. The analysis illustrates the importance of models in interpreting remember-know data.