Critical Evaluation of Porter et al.'s Organizational Commitment Questionnaire: Implications for Researchers

Organizational commitment is a useful construct for understanding employee behavior. The Organizational Commitment Questionnaire (Porter et al. 1974) has been used extensively to operationalize this construct, but its dimensionality is unclear. The present work assesses the dimensionality of the OCQ using two sales force samples.     

Looking Ahead: Questions for and About Behavioral Scientists and Practitioners

In this article Robin B. Jarrett reflects on the early years in which female investigators were a minority in the field and on her participation in the Trailblazers' panel discussion at the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies on November 29, 2009. Dr. Jarrett writes these reflections in the form of a letter to current and future professionals (of all demographics) dedicated to behavioral science and its practice; she poses questions about what the future may hold.     

Organizational Change: The Role of Organizational Culture and Organizational Learning

Recent findings suggest that organizational culture and learning impact organizational performances. We report the results of an organizational change program focused upon strengthening further productivity in a public sector organization. The findings suggest that systematic and structured programs that include specific organizational goals, performance measures, performance feedback mechanisms, and incentives yield enhancements of targeted organizational performances. We present guidelines to promote organizational change and suggest that perceived collective efficacy plays an important role in changing organizational culture.

     

Designing Critical Questions for Argumentation Schemes

Argumentation - This paper offers insights into the nature and design of critical questions as they are found in argumentation schemes. In the first part of the paper, I address some general...     

Researchers, Practitioners, and Funders: Using the Framework to Get Us on the Same Page

The worlds of prevention research and practice are largely disconnected. The growing body of scientific knowledge regarding effects of prevention programs is not often disseminated and translated in a manner that leads to wide scale changes in practice. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in collaboration with a team of academic researchers, has developed the Interactive Systems Framework for Dissemination and Implementation to help us understand the roles and interactions of those associated with developing knowledge, those associated with using the knowledge in practice settings, and those acting in the roles of bridge, support, and broker between the research and practice communities. This special issue on the Framework presents a variety of theoretical, practical and empirical issues related to this framework and its subsystems. This compilation of articles discuss the capacity of the Framework’s subsystems, provide examples of the generally under-developed prevention support system, describe the additional challenges involved in disseminating a change in culture, discuss the delicate balance and interaction of fidelity and adaptation, present a meta-analysis of the relationships between program implementation and program outcomes, and include examples of how the Framework has been used to guide action. The present commentary on this special issue provides a critical examination of the contributions, implications, and challenges raised by each of these articles. It also includes a discussion of how the Framework relates to the basic values and practice of community psychology and concludes with some suggested future directions and challenges for the continued development and use of the Framework.     

Grounding Recognition: A Rejoinder to Critical Questions

It is always great good fortune for an author to have his writings meet with a receptive circle of readers who take them up in their own work and clarify them further. Indeed, it may even be the secret of all theoretical productivity that one reaches an opportune point in one's own creative process when others' queries, suggestions, and criticisms give one no peace, until one has been forced to come up with new answers and solutions. The four essays collected here, in any event, jointly represent an ideal form of such a challenge: I am now compelled to make further theoretical developments and clarifications that lead me to a whole new stage of my own endeavours, well beyond what I initially had in mind in The Struggle for Recognition . For this reason, I will not concentrate here on interpretative issues regarding my earlier work but will instead take up the problems and challenges that have occasioned several revisions on my part. For this reason, it makes sense to begin (in section I) with the points that Carl-Göran Heidegren makes, in terms of a history of social theory, regarding my proposed theory of recognition. The issues that still motivate me today can best be expressed via an engagement with the conscientious interpretations he offers. The core of this rejoinder is based on Heikki Ikäheimo's and Arto Laitinen's suggestions and corrections, which they have used to develop my initial approach further, to the point where the theoretical outlines of a precise and general concept of recognition come into view. It is primarily these two contributions that helped me develop a productive elaboration of my originally vague intuitions (section II). By way of conclusion (in section III), I take up the penetrating questions raised by Antti Kauppinen regarding the use of the concept of recognition in the broader context of social criticism; he has compelled me to take on several extremely helpful clarifications, and they give me the opportunity, in conclusion, to summarize my overarching intentions.     

Progress with Science and Religion Issues: Critical Questions and Suggestions

Progress with the marriage of science and religion is slowed by “sterile” controversies. Ways toward overcoming them are suggested here. These concern the metaphysical foundations of science and religion (science and spirituality, science and theology) with a specific emphasis on epistemology, ontology, anthropology, aims, methodological procedures, limitations of binary logic, and the use of other types of logic (in particular relational and contextual reasoning). Dialogues between science and religion can have positive practical societal relevance, and therefore need to progress faster. An enlargement of humanity's mental horizons and development—especially of epistemic cognition—seems to be called for in order to secure the future of a global intellectual culture. Suggestions for achieving this are included.     

Disentangling Critical Questions from Argument Schemes

Critical questions have been understood in the framework of argument schemes from their conception. This understanding has influenced the process of evaluating arguments and the development of classifications. This paper argues that relating these two notions is detrimental to research on argument schemes and critical questions, and that it is possible to have critical questions without relying on argument schemes. Two objections are raised against the classical understanding of critical questions based on theoretical and analytical grounds. The theoretical objection presents the assumptions that are embedded in the idea of argument schemes delivering questions to evaluate arguments. The analytical objection, on the other hand, exposes the shortcomings of the theory when critical questions are used to evaluate real-life argumentation. After presenting these criticisms, a new theory of critical questions is sketched. This theory takes into account the dynamics of dialectical discussions to describe the function of critical questions and their implications for evaluating arguments.

     

A Comparative Analysis of Sport and Business Organizations: Factors Perceived Critical for Organizational Success

The purpose of the present investigation was to compare and contrast sport and business leaders' perceptions regarding what makes for a successful organization. Twenty sport ( N = 10) and business ( N = 10) leaders were interviewed and asked about their perceptions of organizational effectiveness in the area of group dynamics including (a) leadership, (b) group cohesion, and (c) communication. Using qualitative methods, results revealed more similarities than differences, with most sport and business leaders in agreement on the factors relating to organizational success. Specifically, all higher- and lower-order themes were identified by leaders in both areas, the emphasis simply being a matter of degree. Some of the more notable differences included business leaders putting more emphasis on being honest and being a reflective listener, whereas sport leaders emphasize interactions with others and having positive reinforcement in their communications. These similarities and differences are discussed in terms of the extant literature, and future directions for research are offered, such as investigating how to specifically enhance the transfer of skills and principles between sport and business settings.     

Overcoming Organizational Fixation: Creating and Sustaining an Innovation Culture

Fixation on established paradigms and practices can severely limit the capability of organizations to change, thereby jeopardizing the ability of organizations to keep up with changes in their environment and new technological developments. Overcoming organizational fixation is therefore a requirement for any organization that strives to achieve sustained success. Based on a discussion of individual, social and organizational causes of organizational fixation, a framework for overcoming organizational fixation and establishing an innovation culture is presented. Elaborating on the important role of leaders in creating an innovation culture, competencies and behaviors of innovation leaders are discussed, and a comprehensive leadership development strategy is outlined.     

Nine Critical Questions About Selective College Admissions

The misgivings of college faculty, college administrators, and high school counselors about selective admissions are focused on 9 issues. Data relevant to those issues reveal that: (1) prediction of grades is sufficiently accurate to be useful; (2) prediction equations from one year are sound for use in the immediately succeeding years; (3) predictions of first-year grades are related to performance over the 2-year period at a junior college and the 4-year career at a senior college; (4) there may need to be separate prediction procedures for widely different majors, such as science and nonscience; (5) accurate predictions can be made before the student has completed high school; (6) the nonacademic courses students take do not reduce prediction accuracy; (7) introduction of selectivity has not been found to decrease diversity in educational opportunity; (8) grading practices in an institution will tend to fluctuate with the degree of selectivity; and (9) procedures are available to set admissions cutoffs, to provide students with sound counseling information, and to provide a second chance for those who do net meet minimum admissions standards.     

How REBT Can Be Less Disturbing and Remarkably More Influential in Britain: A Review of Views of Practitioners and Researchers

We asked British cognitive behaviour therapists and researchers for their views on the current status of Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy in Britain. All agreed that REBT had lost influence in comparison with Cognitive Therapy since the cognitive revolution 20 years ago. The main reasons given were that REBT, particularly in comparison with CT, was under-researched, was too rationalist in its approach and too active/directive in its style. One responder thought REBT was remarkably atheoretical. Overall there was a surprising degree of ignorance and misinformation. On the positive side, REBT was felt to be focused on the person rather than the symptom, and oriented more to the client than the professional or academic in its publication output than CT. We consider each issue and make recommendations for change.     

持续学习组织文化研究

学习型组织是目前管理领域中组织变革的主流方向之一,本研究指出塑造持续学习之组织文化是创建学习型组织的重要内容。通过自编问卷,对国营与非国营两种性质不同群体员工的调研,初步确定持续学习组织文化的结构维度。研究还考察了组织文化和一些组织行为以及实际的学习行为之间的关系。     

Authority Argument Schemes,Types, and Critical Questions

Authority arguments generate support for claims by appealing to an agent’s authority status, rather than to reasons independent of it. With few exceptions, the current literature on argument schemes acknowledges two basic authority types. The epistemic type grounds in knowledge, the deontic type grounds in power. We review how historically earlier scholarship acknowledged an attractiveness-based and a majority-based authority type as equally basic type. Crossing these with basic speech act types thus yields authority argument sub-schemes. Focusing on the epistemic-assertive sub-scheme (‘an epistemic authority A_E asserts a proposition P’), we apply a meta-level approach to specifying critical questions. Results improve the evaluation of this sub-scheme and show how similar improvements are obtainable for other schemes.