TELECOMMUTING TECHNOLOGY IMPLEMENTATIONS: A WITHIN- AND BETWEEN-SUBJECTS LONGITUDINAL FIELD STUDY

This research examines the impact of technology design on the acceptance and long-term use of telecommuting systems. Specifically, we compare employee acceptance and sustained use of a traditional system designed based on the common "desktop metaphor," with a virtual-reality system designed to enhance social richness and telepresence. This 1-year study incorporated a within- and between-subjects examination of 527 employees across 3 locations of a large organization. Results showed much higher telecommuter acceptance and use of the virtual-reality system. Strong support emerged for the hypotheses that higher social richness and higher telepresence leads to higher telecommuter motivation and higher sustained use of the system.     

MISSING DATA: A CONCEPTUAL REVIEW FOR APPLIED PSYCHOLOGISTS

There has been conspicuously little research concerning missing data problems in the applied psychology literature. Fortunately, other fields have begun to investigate this issue. These include survey research, marketing, statistics, economics, and biometrics. A review of this literature suggests several trends for applied psychologists. For example, listwise deletion of data is often the least accurate technique to deal with missing data. Other methods for estimating missing data scores may be more accurate and preserve more data for investigators to analyze. Further, the literature reveals that the amount of missing data and the reasons for deletion of data impact how investigators should handle the problem. Finally, there is a great need for more investigation of strategies for dealing with missing data, especially when data are missing in nonrandom or systematic patterns.     

FORMAL AND INFORMAL MENTORSHIPS: A COMPARISON ON MENTORING FUNCTIONS AND CONTRAST WITH NONMENTORED COUNTERPARTS

Research on mentorships has suffered from fragmentation of key issues; specifically, type of mentoring relationship, functions served by the mentor, and outcomes of the mentoring relationship. A field study was conducted comparing 212 protégés who were involved in informally developed mentorships, 53 protégés involved in formal mentor-ship programs, and 284 individuals who did not have mentors. Individuals in informal and formal mentorships were compared along two mentoring dimensions: psychosocial and career-related functions. All groups were compared on three outcome measures: organizational socialization, job satisfaction, and salary. Results indicated protégés in informal mentorships reported more career-related support from their mentors and higher salaries than protégés in formal mentorships. For all outcome variables, protégés in informal mentorships also reported more favorable outcomes than nonmentored individuals. However, outcomes from protégés in formal mentorships were generally not significant from the other two groups. Implications for mentorship practices and research are discussed.