Why Fit Doesn't Always Matter: The Impact of HRM and Cultural Fit on Job Involvement of Kenyan Employees

The study investigates whether fit of human resources management (HRM) policies with employees' preferences in developing countries of sub‐Saharan Africa, with specific reference to Kenya, impacts on levels of job involvement. We argue that the contextual variables in developing countries are varied and complex to the extent that organisations operating in these milieux might find that 'fit' as presented in the literature from developed economies does not matter. Further, we examine the role of individual value orientations and organisation value fit to look for a link with job involvement. The study contends that the use of simple difference scores to measure fit is inadequate, and adopts Edwards' (1994) regression technique to analyse fit. Overall, the results indicate that the person–environment (HRM preference with actual policy practice) fit model can partially predict job involvement in a developing country context, but in a way that is not consistent with theory. However, job involvement is not related strongly to either the convergence of an individual's values with those of others in the organisation, or convergence of HRM policies with individual preferences. It is the values themselves—not their fit—that are most predictive of job involvement.     

Reading for meaning: The effects of concurrent articulation

Six experiments are reported which examine the assertion that phonological recoding for the purpose of lexical access in visual word recognition is prevented or impaired by concurrent articulation (“articulatory suppression”). The first section of this paper selectively reviews the literature, and reports two experiments which fail to replicate previous work.

The third experiment contrasts performance with visually presented words and with non-words. Latency measures show an effect of suppression that is specific to words, whilst error rates show an effect common to both words and non-words. The fourth experiment shows that if the task is changed from a judgement of rhyme (BLAME-FLAME) to one of homophony (AIL-ALE), the suppression effect seen in the latency data is eliminated, whilst error effects remain. It is suggested that, in addition to producing error effects that are not easily interpretable, suppression prevents or impairs a phonological segmentation process operating subsequent to the retrieval of whole word phonology (a process that is needed for rhyme judgement but not for one of homophony).

Experiment V shows that while suppression has no effect on the time taken to decide if printed non-words sound like real words (e.g. PALLIS), error rates increase. Experiment VI shows that suppression has no effect on either RT or errors in the same task if subjects suppress at a slower rate than in Experiment V.

It is suggested that there are at least two different phonological codes. Buffer storage and/or maintenance of phonologically coded information derived from print is affected by suppression; phonological recoding from print for the purpose of lexical access can be carried out without any interference from suppression.     

Prior experience modifies acquisition trajectories via response–strategy sampling

Animal Cognition - Few studies have considered how signal detection parameters evolve during acquisition periods. We addressed this gap by training mice with differential prior experience in a...     

Agencement and Agency: If Gilles and Félix had met Stanley

The concept of the assemblage set out in Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari's A Thousand Plateaus is brought into dialogue with the notion of ethical agency found in the writings of Stanley Hauerwas. The discussion is structured around the process of the agent's narrative formation. Elements of complexity theory, in particular emergence, are adduced in order to explicate the points of difference between Deleuze and Guattari and Hauerwas, as are the contributions of those like Manuel DeLanda who have sought to further develop Deleuzean-Guattarian ideas. The conclusion proposes disciple and Church as emergent forms structured by the Christ-event conceived as an abstract machine.     

Challenging the Universality of Job Resources: Why,When, and For Whom Are They Beneficial?

In this paper we introduce the topic of job resources and elaborate on their relevance for research and practice in work psychology. We start out with a brief overview of the historic and current understanding of job resources. Next, we discuss the need for a more nuanced perspective on the effects of job resources and present some ideas on how to move this forward. After these conceptual preliminaries, we introduce the papers in the special issue and conclude with a brief summary of the special issue's key messages.