Setting the Foundations for Theoretical Progress toward Understanding the Role of Values in Organisational Behaviour: Commentary on “Values at Work: The Impact of Personal Values in Organisations” by Arieli,Sagiv, and Roccas

Arieli, Sagiv, and Roccas’s lead article provides a timely and important review of the role of individual values and their role in organisations. At the same time as identifying several key areas of progress, the review identifies significant gaps. In this commentary, we focus on additional gaps that merit attention. In particular, we highlight a need for greater theoretical clarity in the literature about the concrete ways in which values are instantiated in different organisational contexts, roles, and cultural settings. We argue that the growing importance of values in studies of organisational contexts would be well-served by more precision in how they are conceptualised and operationalised in studies of organisational behaviour.     

The relative effect of cue interaction

It is well established that two predictor cues ( A and B ) of a common outcome interact in that the judgement of the relationship between each cue and the outcome is influenced by the pairing history of the other cue with that outcome. For example, when the contingency of A with an outcome is weaker than the contingency of B with that outcome, the rating of the predictiveness of A is reduced relative to a situation where only A is paired with the outcome. One explanation of such cue interaction effects is provided by the conditional ΔP account. Spellman (1996b) derived a counterintuitive prediction of the conditional ΔP account where cue interaction should not occur under certain conditions even though a relatively poor predictor of an outcome is paired with a relatively good predictor of that outcome. However, Spellman (1996b) did not provide data to evaluate this prediction. In the present paper, we report the relevant data and show that they are consistent with the conditional ΔP account. A competing account of cue interaction is provided by the Rescorla-Wagner (RW) model. We derive the predictions of the RW model for the conditions specified by Spellman (1996b), and show that at asymptote the predictions of the RW model are identical to those of the conditional ΔP account.     

Educational and interpersonal uses of home computers by adolescents with and without specific language impairment

Many uses of new media entail processing language content, yet little is known about the relationship between language ability and media use in young people. This study compares educational versus interpersonal uses of home computers in adolescents with and without a history of specific language impairment (SLI). Participants were 55 17‐year‐olds with SLI and 72 typically developing peers. Measures of frequency and ease of computer use were obtained as well as assessments of participants' psycholinguistic skills. Results showed a strong preference for interpersonal computer use in both groups. Virtually all participants engaged with interpersonal new media, finding them relatively easy to use. In contrast, one third of adolescents with SLI did not use educational applications during a typical week. Regression analyses revealed that lower frequency of educational use was associated with poorer language and literacy skills. However, in adolescents with SLI, this association was mediated by perceived ease of use. The findings show that language ability contributes to new media use and that adolescents with SLI are at a greater risk of low levels of engagement with educational technology.