THE ENCHANTMENTS OF MAMMON: NOTES TOWARD A THEOLOGICAL HISTORY OF CAPITALISM

Tales of “disenchantment” dominate modern intellectual life, and especially accounts of the cultural history of capitalism. Yet Weberian sociology, and especially Marxist notions of “commodity fetishism”, point to the persistence of “enchantment” in the capitalist imagination. If we reformulate these notions of “enchantment” and “disenchantment” in theological terms of sacrament, then we can write new histories of capitalism, as well as articulate new forms of political and cultural criticism. Borrowing from “radical orthodoxy”, the author takes a Cook's Tour of “disenchantment”, explores the possibilities afforded by “sacramental” conceptions of materialism, and gestures toward an account of American cultural history shaped by a sacramental materialism.     

DO SITUATIONAL VARIABLES ACT AS SUBSTANTIVE CAUSES OF RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCE VARIABLES? TWO LARGE-SCALE TESTS OF “COMMON CAUSE” MODELS

James, Demaree, Mulaik, and Ladd (1992) proposed that situational variables may act as substantive ("common") causes of relationships between individual difference variables as well as statistical artifacts (i.e., measurement unreliability) associated with these variables, thus invalidating assumptions of current validity generalization/meta-analysis procedures. In this investigation, we report the results of two large-scale studies designed to test hypothesized relationships derived from two "common cause" models. Study 1 examines relationships between store-level organizational climate variables and employee satisfaction and performance variables for 33,097 sales personnel in 537 retail stores. Study 2 investigates relationships between store-level situational constraints and customer service perception and shopping variables for 31,611 customers from 564 retail stores. The results of these studies did not support the proposition that situational variables act as substantive causes of correlations among the respective employee and customer variables or the variances and reliabilities of these variables. The implications of these findings for meta-analyses in applied psychology as well as the generalizability of the findings are discussed.     

SELF-INTEREST,CREDIBILITY, AND MESSAGE SELECTION IN ORGANIZATIONAL COMMUNICATION: A RESEARCH NOTE

This paper reports the findings of a recent survey to determine the effectiveness of efforts by the Library of Congress to communicate with its employees about the Library's Affirmative Action program. Results indicated relatively low levels of employee information about the program. While the perceived credibility of the source was positively correlated with the amount of information absorbed, perceived self-interest in the Affirmative Action program was not.     

A NOTE ON DIRECT RANGE RESTRICTION CORRECTIONS IN UTILITY ANALYSIS

Brogden's equations for employment test utility analysis have been used in conjunction with direct range restriction correction formulas, because the data used typically come from selected applicant (incumbent) samples. We show that the use of direct range restriction corrections in utility analysis is not needed. Identical results can be obtained using a simpler equation that employs a regression coefficient based on the employee (i.e., restricted or job incumbent) population. This utility estimation procedure, which does not employ range restriction corrections, is derived and discussed. We recommend that this new equation be used in the practice of selection utility analysis because it not only provides identical utility estimates to those obtained using current equations that employ direct range restriction correction formulas, but also is computationally simpler.