REMOTE CONTROL: PREDICTORS OF ELECTRONIC MONITORING INTENSITY AND SECRECY

Electronic monitoring research has focused predominantly on the reactions of monitored employees and less attention has been paid to the processes that trigger managers' decisions to electronically monitor subordinates. Employing a distributed virtual team simulation, this study examined the effects of dependence, future performance expectations, and propensity to trust on team leaders' decisions to electronically monitor their subordinates. Results indicate that team leaders electronically monitor subordinates more intensely when dependence on subordinates is high or future performance expectations are low. Moreover, team leaders are more likely to monitor in secret when dependence is high or propensity to trust is low. Although team leaders increased their level of electronic monitoring over time, this tendency was stronger when the leader had consistently low performance expectations.     

EMPLOYEES THAT THINK AND ACT LIKE OWNERS: EFFECTS OF OWNERSHIP BELIEFS AND BEHAVIORS ON ORGANIZATIONAL EFFECTIVENESS

A model of the psychological experience of employee ownership in work groups was developed to investigate antecedents (participation in a 401 (k) program and a climate of self-determination) and consequences (employee attitudes and financial performance) of psychological ownership. Based on data from a large retail organization, results showed that working in a climate supporting self-determination and 401(k) participation were positively related to the level of ownership beliefs in the 204 work groups studied. Ownership beliefs were positively related to ownership behaviors and employees' attitudes toward the organization, whereas ownership behaviors were positively related to financial performance. Implications of psychological ownership for organizational behavior and performance are discussed.     

Computer-Assisted Concept Analysis of HCR's First 25 Years

Human Communication Research's (HCR) silver anniversary provides an occasion for an examination of the journal's history of publication. This was accomplished using new procedures for computer-assisted content analysis of text. Titles of 634 HCR articles were normalized using linguistic reduction, elimination of common words and terms with indiscriminate meaning, and tokenization of phrases and compound concepts. The resulting 86 most frequently occurring tokens were submitted to hierarchical cluster analysis to study conceptual linkage. Concepts represented in HCR articles were found to group into five large clusters: media, family, conflict, and learning; culture, social organization, and self; gender and language; cognition, conversation, persuasion, and influence; and group decision making. Support and clarification are provided for findings that HCR serves as a liaison journal between mass and interpersonal communication. It is suggested that HCR's history of publication manifests a theory of communication that is rooted in social psychological traditions.     

Education and How Not to Corrupt the Young

ABSTRACT The paper has three parts. The first specifies a, notion of philosophy as both a critical discipline and a process of theoria independent of utilitarian or ideological commitment. The second part shows how philosophical paradigms can be ideologically exploited, often unwittingly, by the teacher in a way that sacrifices truth and clarity to utility. Three examples are given, viz. over-simplification in science-teaching of the Lockean primary/secondary qualities distinction, misuse of Wittgenstein's nuanced theories to inculcate relativism in the social sciences, and use of the ethical fact/value paradigm to promote a simplistic liberalism in moral teaching. The third part distinguishes teaching a skill and communicating an insight. It is claimed that the theoretical capacities of the learner are routinely subordinated to the practical needs of the teacher.     

THE EFFECT OF COMMUNICATION APPREHENSION AND SITUATION ON COMMUNICATION STRATEGY CHOICES

Volunteer undergraduate students were administered a questionnaire that assessed their perceptions of the probable use of certain persuasive strategies in a given situation and measured their level of communication apprehension. Data were analyzed to test hypotheses concerning the effects of communication apprehension and type of situation on the use of persuasive strategies. Data confirmed the impact of situation on strategy selection but failed to demonstrate the effect of communication apprehension or an interaction between communication apprehension and situation on strategy use. Implications for communication apprehension and communication competence were offered.     

TOWARD A MESSAGE-CENTERED THEORY OF PERSUASION: THREE EMPIRICAL INVESTIGATIONS OF LANGUAGE INTENSITY1

Based on accumulated knowledge concerning the effects of language intensity on attitude change, a set of propositions were advanced that provide a skeletal theoretical framework. Based on the propositions, three separate studies were done to extend the predictive power of the formulation. Predicted interactions between sex of the source, situational anxiety, source credibility, and language intensity were obtained. There were also significant person perception changes as a result of the level of language intensity employed in the persuasive message. Discussion centered on the import of the new findings in formulating a message-centered theory of persuasion.