Edwin A. Gerloff

Three Components of Perceived Environmental Uncertainty: An Exploratory Analysis of the Effects of Aggregation

Duncans 1972 instrument was completed by 118 Project Managers to investigate perceived environmental uncertainty (PEU). Factor analysis indicates significant loadings on three factors corresponding to Milliken s (1987) state, effect, and response uncertainty. Measures of project manager performance were found to be differentially associ-ated with total PEU and its disaggregated components of state, effect, and response uncertainty.

Organizational environment, changing economic conditions, and the effective supervision of technical personnel: A management challenge

Abstract Industrys share of R&D funding is increasing while, at the same time, the half-life of technology is decreasing. This condition increases the pressure on technical managers to produce research that is creative and innovative but, at the same time, sensitive to the “bottom line.” Six conditions within the context of the organization play an important role in the management of technical employees: 1) Uncertainty in the work place increases the need for a supportive organizational climate and high information sharing, 2) Compensation appears to produce both functional and dysfunctional consequences for motivation, 3) Engineering personalities have a tendency to favor autonomous, challenging, and meaningful assignments, 4) Organizational structures influence the engineers ability to process information, 5) The structure of the engineering task has been shown to affect job satisfaction, and 6) Career choices become an important consideration for mature engineers. Each of these issues, if not properly managed, can lead to stress, burnout and eventual employee turnover. Most important however, is the fact that if they are not managed properly, creative output from R&D organizations declines at a time when industry is assuming a greater share of the funding. When creativity declines, a reduction in the number of innovative solutions for products and processes is certain to follow. This condition can lead to serious problems when markets are changing dynamically. This paper reviews research findings related to each of the preceding issues and, discusses the role that each of them plays in the management of engineers and technical personnel. At the end of each discussion we provide some propositions worthy of further research.

Management of high technology: A path analytic study of stress and distress-strain

Abstract This study investigated uncertainty as an episodic Stressor affecting military R & D engineering project managers ( N = 118) in high technology settings. LISREL analysis was used to investigate path effects between perceived environmental uncertainty, coping, social support, and distress-strain outcomes. The results suggest a sequential path such that episodic stress is linked first to psychological symptoms which are then linked to physiological symptoms and burnout. Social support and problem-focused coping are linked to burnout, but emotion-focused coping is linked only to physiological symptoms.

Task role ambiguity and conflict in supervisor‐subordinate relationships

The purpose of this research was to examine the effects of hierarchical communication distortion on the task role perceptions of subordinates working in the context of a goal setting program. The study used empirical data collected from junior officers, managers, staff employees (N=32) and their executive supervisors (N=15) in one division of a national insurance company. This sample formed 32 supervisor‐subordinate dyads which were classified as “high” or “low” in hierarchical communication distortion. Subordinates in “high” distortion dyads experienced more role stress in terms of conflict and ambiguity than did subordinates in “low” distortion dyads.

Engineering management: Abstractions, analysis, and clones do not a manager make

Abstract In this paper we argue that a loss in American technological competitiveness and inventiveness has resulted, in part, from an excessive reliance on widely publicized managerial practices and control. These managerial practices tend to be based on analysis, technique, and other abstractions of reality. Individually such practices are valuable tools for the manager, but applied universally and in mass they have become counterproductive. Such dysfunctions are especially true in engineering and research management where the tangle of requirements, procedures and reports interferes with innovation. Managers who rely to excess on such approaches tend to create bureaucratic climates which are hostile to innovation. Insulated by the very techniques they practice, they lose any sense or feel of the richness of organizational functioning and become overly concerned with risk avoidance. The proposed alternative management style is one which balances managerial control with autonomy for technical professionals while encouraging high levels of information-sharing.