Individual, Congregational, and Denominational Effects on Church Members' Civic Participation

Previous research demonstrates two aspects of religion that affect civic activity—church participation and religious conservatism. Conservative religious beliefs and membership in conservative denominations are often associated with low levels of civic activity while church participation is said to increase civic activity. This article advances the discussion of the relationship between religion and civic participation by introducing the congregational context. Data from the 1987 Church and Community Planning Inventory show that congregations vary in their members' civic activity—congregational factors associated with conservative Christianity (high levels of biblical literalism and within-church friendships) are strongly and negatively associated with church members' activity in nonchurch organizations. At the individual level, the data show that education and participation in church activities other than religious services have particularly strong, positive effects on church members' activity in nonchurch organizations. The findings demonstrate that a conservative congregational context limits church members' activity in nonchurch organizations, potentially limiting their opportunities to build heterogeneous social networks and social capital that bridges church members to other people in their communities.     

CONSEQUENCES OF INDIVIDUALS' FIT AT WORK: A META-ANALYSIS OF PERSON–JOB, PERSON–ORGANIZATION, PERSON–GROUP, AND PERSON–SUPERVISOR FIT

This meta-analysis investigated the relationships between person–job (PJ), person–organization (PO), person–group, and person–supervisor fit with preentry (applicant attraction, job acceptance, intent to hire, job offer) and postentry individual-level criteria (attitudes, performance, withdrawal behaviors, strain, tenure). A search of published articles, conference presentations, dissertations, and working papers yielded 172 usable studies with 836 effect sizes. Nearly all of the credibility intervals did not include 0, indicating the broad generalizability of the relationships across situations. Various ways in which fit was conceptualized and measured, as well as issues of study design, were examined as moderators to these relationships in studies of PJ and PO fit. Interrelationships between the various types of fit are also meta-analyzed. 25 studies using polynomial regression as an analytic technique are reviewed separately, because of their unique approach to assessing fit. Broad themes emerging from the results are discussed to generate the implications for future research on fit.     

CHALLENGE‐ORIENTED ORGANIZATIONAL CITIZENSHIP BEHAVIORS AND ORGANIZATIONAL EFFECTIVENESS: DO CHALLENGE‐ORIENTED BEHAVIORS REALLY HAVE AN IMPACT ON THE ORGANIZATION'S BOTTOM LINE?

Virtually all of the studies that have examined the relationship between organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) and unit or organizational effectiveness have focused on affiliation‐oriented as opposed to challenge‐oriented forms of OCB, and no study has examined the mechanisms through which OCBs influence unit or organizational effectiveness. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to examine the main and interactive effects that challenge‐oriented and affiliation‐oriented OCBs have on organizational effectiveness through their impact on workgroup task performance. Results from a sample of 150 limited‐menu restaurants showed that the relationship between challenge‐oriented OCBs and workgroup task performance has an inverted‐U shape and is moderated by affiliation‐oriented OCBs, and that workgroup task performance completely mediated the impact of challenge‐ and affiliation‐oriented OCBs (and their interaction) on organizational outcomes (i.e., sales dollars, profit as a percentage of sales, and employee turnover). Specifically, the findings showed that challenge‐oriented OCBs have a positive impact on workgroup task performance up to a point, and beyond that point only when certain enabling conditions (i.e., high levels of affiliation‐oriented OCBs) are present. Implications are discussed.     

APPLICANT REACTIONS TO SELECTION: DEVELOPMENT OF THE SELECTION PROCEDURAL JUSTICE SCALE (SPJS)

This paper describes research that fills a void in the applicant reactions literature by developing a comprehensive measure of Gilliland's (1993) procedural justice rules, called the Selection Procedural Justice Scale (SPJS). Five separate phases of scale development were conducted. In Phase 1 we generated and refined the items. For Phase 2 we reduced the items through exploratory factor analysis using data gathered from 330 applicants for the job of court officer and found higher-order factors consistent with Greenberg (1993a, 1993b). In Phase 3 we confirmed the factor structure using a separate sample of 242 applicants and trainees for the court officer job. In Phase 4 we assessed the initial convergent and divergent validity of the scale. In Phase 5 we tested the generalizability of these items in general and for those receiving positive and negative selection outcomes using 2 student samples. The results demonstrated the usefulness of the SPJS in differentiating each of Gilliland's procedural justice rules and relating them to outcomes included in his model of applicant reactions. A copy of the SPJS is included in the Appendix.     

KANT's EMPIRICAL HEDONISM

Abstract: According to the long orthodox interpretation of Kant's theory of motivation, Kant recognized only two fundamental types of motives: moral motives and egoistic, hedonistic motives. Seeking to defend Kant against the ensuing charges of psychological simplism, Andrews Reath formulated a forceful and seminal repudiation of this interpretation in his 1989 essay “Hedonism, Heteronomy and Kant's Principle of Happiness.” The current paper aims to show that Reath's popular exegetical alternative is untenable. His arguments against the traditional view miss the mark, and his revisionist interpretation of Kant's theory of motivation cannot bear the considerable weight of the countervailing evidence.