Clement Psenicka

A Structural Equations Model of Stress, Locus of Control, Social Support, Psychiatric Symptoms, and Propensity to Leave a Job

The main effects of (a) job stress on psychiatric symptoms and propensity to leave a job and of (b) psychiatric symptoms on propensity to leave a job and the (c) moderating effects of locus of control and social support on the relationships of job stress to psychiatric symptoms and propensity to leave a job were examined. Data collected with questionnaires completed by 526 members of the Chamber of Commerce in a southern state were analyzed using LISREL 7 (Jöreskog & Sörbom, 1988). The results indicate that role overload and role insufficiency positively influenced psychiatric symptoms and that role insufficiency, role ambiguity, and role conflict positively influenced propensity to leave a job. Overall, the moderating effects of locus of control on the relationships of stress variables to psychiatric symptoms and propensity to leave a job were significant, but similar moderating effects for social support were not.

Measuring Cluster Similarity across Methods

Cluster analysis techniques delineate groupings or categories of observations based on some shared commonality over a set of variables. If such groupings can be formed, their commonality may be investigated to define relationships that may otherwise go undetected given their complexity. However, the cluster analyses are inappropriate unless the results can be replicated. A number of clustering techniques are available, differing mostly in the technical criteria used to judge the similarity of the observations. There is added validity to the cluster structure when different methods produce similar groupings however, in most cases, different clustering techniques will not produce identical clusters and the extent of cluster similarity becomes an important measure. In this paper the hypergeometric distribution is used to gauge cluster similarity across different methods, providing an appropriate measure of consistency. This measure is used to validate reproducibility of the clusters.

Comparison of Reliability and Validity of Unweighted and Factor Scales

Data on the Rahim Organizational Conflirt Inventory II, which measures the five styles of handling interpersonal conflict, such as integrating, obliging, dominating, avoiding, and compromising, were collected from a random national sample of 1,219 executives. Scales for the five conflict styles were constructed by an unweighted method (item averaging) and complete estimation and shorthand methods of factor scaling. A comparison of reliability and validity of the five scales of conflict styles constructed by the three methods indicated no superiority of the factor scaling methods over the unweighted method.

CONVERGENT AND DISCRIMINANT VALIDITY OF THE RAHIM ORGANIZATIONAL CONFLICT INVENTORY

Confirmatory factor analysis with LISREL 7 of data from 1,188 managers on the 21 items of the Rahim Organizational Conflict Inventory-I provided support for the convergent and discriminant validities of this measure of the three types of organizational conflict (intrapersonal, intragroup, and intergroup).