Asya Pazy

Pay Contingency and the Effects of Perceived Organizational and Supervisor Support on Performance and Commitment

Applying a social exchange perspective, three studies examine how the effects of perceived organizational support (POS) and perceived supervisor support (PSS) on performance and commitment are constrained by pay contingency. Study 1 shows a negative interaction between POS and pay contingency and a positive interaction between PSS and pay contingency in their effects on performance and nonsignificant interactions regarding commitment. In Studies 2 and 3, which were conducted in high pay contingency field settings, performance was affected by PSS but not by POS, whereas commitment was affected by POS but not by PSS. Implications of these moderation effects are discussed.

The impacts of women's careers on their commuting behavior: A case study of Israeli computer professionals

The growth in womens participation in the labor force has attracted attention to gender differences in commuting behavior and to their implications. The present study focuses on the relationship between womens willingness to extend their commuting trips in exchange for career gains. Career gains were defined in broad terms, to encompass whatever the individual woman viewed as desirable improvement in her work situation. Three categories of variables were examined: career factors, family factors, and commute factors. The sample consisted of 162 women working in computer-related professions, in the Tel-Aviv metropolitan area. The majority of respondents expressed willingness to extend their journey to work for a career improvement. Commute duration and distance were the major determinants of such willingness: the longer the present commute, the more reluctant were women to further lengthen it. Career orientation was positively associated with willingness to increase commute, whereas education level, rank and weekly working hours did not have a significant influence. Among women of weaker career orientation, willingness was higher when their job was incongruent with their career aspirations. Mothers of young children were less inclined to travel more. Women dependent on public transport showed a greater sensitivity to the presence of a young child in their inclination to increase commute travel time than those who used private cars. The study supports the hypothesis that attitudinal data seem to offer greater explanatory power than simple indicators of employment.

Joint Responsibility The Relationships Between Organizational and Individual Career Management and the Effectiveness of Careers

The career literature advocates a joint person-organization responsibility for the career development of employees. Along similar lines, this study explored the relationships between individual and organizational career management and employee career effectiveness. The results indicated that two elements of individual career management—planning and proactivity—contributed to career effectiveness. Perceived organizational career management enhanced the affective aspects of career effectiveness (career attitudes and identity) and was also associated with personal planning. The study lends support to an implicit, untested, and widely shared assumption regarding the contribution of organizational career management to individual effectiveness.

Cognitive Schemata of Professional Obsolescence

This exploratory study used qualitative data as a basis for grounding a new theoretical framework for understanding obsolescence and updating. Fifty professionals were interviewed at length. Four propositions emerged out of the data. One, obsolescence and updating are multifaceted phenomena. Obsolescence has different meanings for different people. Professionals adopt world views-or cognitive schemata-regarding the nature of obsolescence, its relevance to them, and their roles in coping with it. Eleven cognitive schemata were identified. Two, the various schemata constitute various ways of coping with the obsolescence threat. Three, schemata are not individual creations. They are shared by groups of people in organizations. Four, organizational rank and career stage determine to a large extent which schema will be adhered to by the person (or the group). These four propositions are integrated with extant literature, and organizational implications of the new framework are discussed.

Concept and career-stage differentiation in obsolescence research

The study aimed to further the differentiation in obsolescence research in three directions: differentiation of obsolescence concepts, differentiation of updating-related cognitions, and career-stage differentiation. Survey data from 544 professionals employed by high-tech organizations in Israel were collected. The analyses of differentiation in obsolescence and its related cognitions showed that the response to the obsolescence threat was characterized by constriction. Constriction was manifested in higher levels of updatedness in the closer scope, in the shorter time span, and in comparison to the more immediate reference groups. Other indications of constriction were the salience of the present job and the significant role played by the immediate supervisor in the updating pursuit. Two different meanings of updating could be distinguished—formal updating and incidental updating. The analyses of career differentiation identified stage differences in the extent of updating, obsolescence and organizational support of updating. They were mostly higher at more advanced stages. The managerial route was more advantageous to updating compared to the technical route. Finally, whereas the link of organizational support to updating behavior strengthened with career progress, its link to the obsolescence experience loosened. Implications of the findings are discussed.

Negotiation as a Form of Persuasion: Arguments in First Offers

In this article we examined aspects of negotiation within a persuasion framework. Specifically, we investigated how the provision of arguments that justified the first offer in a negotiation affected the behavior of the parties, namely, how it influenced counteroffers and settlement prices. In a series of 4 experiments and 2 pilot studies, we demonstrated that when the generation of counterarguments was easy, negotiators who did not add arguments to their first offers achieved superior results compared with negotiators who used arguments to justify their first offer. We hypothesized and provided evidence that adding arguments to a first offer was likely to cause the responding party to search for counterarguments, and this, in turn, led him or her to present counteroffers that were further away from the first offer.

A Developmental Approach to Variability in Experience of Self

Much more attention has been devoted to the consistency of behavior and experience than to their variable nature. This study aims to reestablish the balance between these two by focusing on variability in experience of self. Three types of variability are defined: (a) phenomenal variability, (b) contextual variation, and (c) polarization in self. The major hypothesis states that as one progresses in level of ego development (as conceptualized by Loevinger, 1976) there is increased variability in self-experience. The empirical methodology is primarily phenomenological in that its various measurement devices look at the experience of the people studied from their own viewpoints and utilize their own personal dimensions of reality construction. The major hypothesis was strongly confirmed. It was found that ego development and variability of self-experience were positively associated. With higher ego development there was more identification of variability in phenomenal experience of self, more valuing of the quality of variability, more contextual variation, and more polarization in self. It also was found that at lower levels of ego development, variation in the negatively evaluated aspects of the self was more restricted compared to variation in the positively evaluated aspects. Finally, higher levels of ego development were associated with greater recognition of negative aspects of self.

The relationship between pay contingency and types of perceived support

Purpose – This study aimed to test how the effects of types of support on employees’ performance and commitment were moderated by structure of pay, namely by the degree to which pay was contingent on level of performance. The constructs of Perceived Organizational Support (POS) and Perceived Supervisor Support (PSS) were decomposed into two types, according to whether the support was directed at doing the task or at the welfare of the person. The study proceeded to examine how each type influenced performance and commitment under different pay structures.Methodology – The survey was conducted in Israel. A self‐report questionnaire was administered to a sample of managers and professionals. The questionnaire consisted of new scales for person‐focused and task‐focused support along with measures of performance, commitment and structure of pay. The main interaction predictions were tested with regression analyses.Findings – Pay contingency interacted with task‐focused POS and with person‐focused PSS in affec...

Sex-Linked Bias in Promotion Decisions: The Role of Candidate's Career Relevance and Respondent's Prior Experience:

To investigate the idea that information about relevant career experience has an effect on the degree of sex bias in promotion decisions, an analogue study was conducted in which sex of candidate and relevance of prior jobs were varied. The effect of respondents experience of subordinacy to a female manager was also investigated. A within-subject design was used with two response formats, ranking and rating. As predicted, relevance of career experience was a primary consideration in the promotion decision. Respondents who had worked in the past under a female manager showed a profemale bias in choosing among candidates with relevant career experience. No sex-linked bias was identified in the treatment of the candidates with irrelevant prior experience. Additional results suggested that the ranking format was more sensitive to the effect of sex-linked bias than was the rating format.

A Contingency Approach to Consistency: A Challenge to Prevalent Views.

Abstract Two types of consistency have been distinguished in the literature: internal consistency and person-environment congruence. It is generally assumed that the lower the consistency, the more dysfunctional the outcomes. This study challenged the prevalent unqualified approach to consistency by presenting a contingency approach based on activation theory. It predicted an interactive effect, that is, that in congruent situations internal consistency would be associated with higher individual outcomes compared to inconsistency, but in incongruent situations it would be associated with lower individual outcomes compared to inconsistency. Four individual career outcomes were used as dependent variables—organizational commitment, professional commitment, job satisfaction, and job involvement. The sample included 175 professionals from various occupations. The predicted interactive effects were found in the analyses which used a perceived P-E congruence scale. The analyses which used actual P-E congruence did not yield definite results. The findings are discussed in terms of differences in cognitive appraisals mediating the response to incongruence. It is suggested that the functionality of inconsistency and incongruence needs to be reestablished.