Carrie R. Leana

Social Capital and Organizational Performance: Evidence from Urban Public Schools

In this paper we examine social capital and its relationship with performance at the organizational level. We predict that both internal and external social capital will have a positive effect on organizational performance. We test our hypotheses in 88 urban public schools where we collected data from principals, teachers, parents, and students. Results indicate that both internal social capital (relations among teachers) and external social capital (relations between the principal and external stakeholders) predict student achievement in mathematics and reading. These effects were sustained over time for reading achievement, providing support for a causal relationship between social capital and performance. We provide evidence that social capitals impact on student achievement in mathbut not readingis mediated by the quality of instruction provided by teachers. These results underscore the importance of context in studies of social capital.

Coping with Job Loss: How Individuals, Organizations, and Communities Respond to Layoffs.

This is an examination of the emotional and psychological effects of job loss along with practical strategies for coping. All kinds of layoffs, from plant closings, work slow downs, corporate downsizings, and mergers and acquisitions are discussed, illustrated with case studies of Pittsburgh steel workers and Florida Space Coast engineers. The authors document the turmoil that often follows layoffs and the ways that many laid-off workers have succeeded in putting their lives back together. They also evaluate available support services, including extended benefits, outplacement, and retraining programmes.

Work Process and Quality of Care in Early Childhood Education: The Role of Job Crafting

In this study we conducted performance assessments in 62 childcare centers and surveyed 232 teachers and aides, to examine the extent to which workers crafted their jobs and how such crafting affec...

Finding New Jobs After a Plant Closing: Antecedents and Outcomes of the Occurrence and Quality of Reemployment

In a longitudinal study of laid-off industrial workers, we examined the factors which influenced whether individuals got reemployed after a plant closing as well as the factors which influenced whether individuals got satisfactorily or unsatisfactorily reemployed. Financial pressures, levels of optimism and self-blame, and the amount of problem-focused and symptom-focused coping that individuals engaged in were significant predictors of reemployment status. There were also significant differences among the unemployed, satisfactorily reemployed, and unsatisfactorily reemployed in terms of adjustment, with the unsatisfactorily reemployed experiencing substantially lower life satisfaction. The paper highlights quality of reemployment as an important issue in understanding individual adjustment to job loss and the ways in which unemployment and unsatisfactory reemployment can be detrimental to individual well-being.

Underemployment and relative deprivation among re-employed executives

Using a sample of 517 executives who lost their jobs as a result of downsizing, this study examined underemployment among managers in replacement jobs taken after their layoffs. Laid-off executives who were re-employed in jobs which paid less, were at lower levels of organizational hierarchies and which did not fully utilize their skills had consistently lower job attitudes. In addition, the results suggest that relative deprivation is an important mediator in explaining how underemployment leads to poorer psychological well-being in those replacement jobs. The article concludes with directions for future research on underemployment and relative deprivation in the aftermath of layoffs.

A Partial Test of Janis' Groupthink Model: Effects of Group Cohesiveness and Leader Behavior on Defective Decision Making

The effects of group cohesiveness and leader behavior on Janis (1982) symptoms of defective decision making were investigated within a laboratory setting. Two-hundred-eight college students were divided into four-person groups to solve a hypothetical business problem during tape-recorded group discussion sessions. Results showed that members of noncohesive groups engaged in more self-censorship of information than did members of cohesive groups. Teams with directive leaders proposed and discussed fewer alternative solutions to the problem than did groups with leaders who encouraged member participation. Groups with directive leaders were also willing to comply with the leaders proposed solutions when the leaders stated their preferences early in the group discussion. These results only partially support Janis groupthink model.

Individual Responses to Job Loss: Perceptions, Reactions, and Coping Behaviors

This article presents a theoretical model that explains how individuals perceive, react to, and cope with job loss. Job loss is seen as a stressful event that evokes perceptual, emotional, and physiological changes. Identified in the model are situational factors and individual difference variables that influence the degree to which individuals will experience job loss as stressful. In addition, the coping strategies used by dismissed employees to deal with job loss, and the impact these coping strategies have on obtaining re-employment, are examined. The relationships among job re-attainment status and a series of attitudinal, physiological, and behavioral outcomes are also explored. Finally, suggestions for future research are outlined and discussed.

Power relinquishment versus power sharing: Theoretical clarification and empirical comparison of delegation and participation.

This article presents a theoretical and empirical comparison of delegation and participation. Although the two processes have sometimes been treated as interchangeable, delegation and participation have evolved from two different theoretical perspectives and are used by managers under different sets of conditions. Two studies are reported that examined these differences. The experimental study examined situational factors in Vroom and Yettons (1973) leadership model that predict differences in managers reported preferences for delegation or participation. Results indicated that decision importance, subordinate information, and subordinate goal congruence explained 23% of the variance in managers preferences. The correlational study examined similar situational predictors of supervisors reported use of delegation and participation with subordinates. These results largely confirmed the findings of the experimental study and also showed supervisor workload as a significant predictor. In addition, objective measures of subordinate performance significantly correlated with the use of delegation but not with participation. The implications of the findings for research on participative decision making are discussed. Research on the distribution of decision-making authority in organizations has been both abundant and diverse. This literature spans a broad range of research topics, from participation in decision making to worker autonomy to structural decentralization. The largest body of literature addressing this issue, however, is the research investigating subordinate participation in decision making (PDM). This research is itself quite diverse and plagued with inconsistencies concerning both the definition and the implementation of participative decision-making processes (Schweiger & Leana, 1986). Participation can vary in scope, content, and degree, in whether it is formal or informal, and in whether it is forced or voluntary (Locke & Schweiger, 1979). Moreover, PDM can take many different forms ranging from subordinate consultation to superior-subo rdinate decision making to participation through subordinate representation. Although these variations in method suggest that little agreement exists on the exact meaning of PDM, participation has commonly been operationally denned by researchers as joint decision making between superior and subordinate (Bass, 1981). Consequently, much of the PDM research has tended to focus exclusively on comparisons between joint decision making and autocratic arrangements in which subordinates are not included in any aspect of the decision-making process. Conversely, research involving comparisons of other methods of in

Gender Differences in Responses to Unemployment.

Abstract This study examined differences between 94 men and 63 women in how they perceived, coped with, and reacted to job loss. Contrary to gender stereotypes that portray women as less traumatized by job loss than men, the results showed no significant differences between men and women in psychological and behavioral distress symptoms. There were differences, however, in how each group coped with the job loss. Men relied more on problem-focused activities such as job search, while women relied more on symptom-focused activities such as seeking social support. Marital status had a significant effect on several types of coping behaviors and reactions, but it did not significantly interact with gender. The implications of the findings for research on women and job loss are discussed.

Cognitive and motivational frameworks in U.S. research on participation: a meta‐analysis of primary effects

In this paper we classify 86 published studies of participation conducted in the U.S. according to whether they are based on cognitive or motivational conceptual frameworks, then conduct a meta-analysis of 124 correlation coefficients obtained from them to determine whether distinguishing between conceptual frameworks portends differences in the findings of U.S. research on the effects of participatory processes on performance and satisfaction. Results reveal noticeable differences in the findings of participation–satisfaction research, but also indicate that these differences diminish substantially upon elimination of research based on single-source self-reports. If interpreted as evidence of percept–percept inflation, these findings are wholly consistent with those of other recent analyses. If interpreted as evidence of the greater accuracy of self-report measures of intra-psychic phenomena, they suggest that research on the relationship between participation and satisfaction has been influenced by the conceptual frameworks used to design studies and formulate conclusions.