Gerald L. Blakely

Does Perceived Organizational Support Mediate the Relationship between Procedural Justice and Organizational Citizenship Behavior

Our purpose was to test an explanation of how procedural justice may influence organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). The model tested suggests that procedural justice affects OCB by influencing perceived organizational support, which in turn prompts employees to reciprocate with organizational citizenship behaviors. Results suggest that procedural justice is an antecedent to perceived organizational support, which in turn fully mediates its relationship to three of four OCB dimensions.

The Influence of Empowerment and Job Enrichment on Employee Loyalty in a Downsizing Environment

Maintaining survivors’ loyalty in a downsizing environment is a difficult problem for management practitioners. Theorists have suggested that empowerment and job enrichment are mechanisms that allow survivors to cope with the stress of downsizing. This study examined the relationships between managerial empowerment behaviors, perceptions of job enrichment, and loyalty behaviors with employees who have survived downsizing in an organization. Results showed that empowerment does not have a direct effect on loyalty but affects loyalty indirectly through job enrichment. The results are discussed in terms of their implications for theory and practice.

Group Cohesion as an Enhancement to the Justice—Affective Commitment Relationship

Using a social exchange framework, the present study explores the role of group cohesion as a moderator of the relationship between the four dimensions of organizational justice and affective commitment. The hypotheses are tested using a sample of 142 employees of a pharmaceutical company. Results indicate that the relationship between distributive, interpersonal, and informational justice and affective commitment was stronger for individuals who reported high levels of work group cohesion. The relationship between procedural justice and affective commitment was unaffected by work group cohesion. Implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.

The Effects of Nationality, Work Role Centrality, and Work Locus of Control on Role Definitions of OCB

In this study of 116 Chinese managers of state-owned businesses in Shanghai and Tianjin and 109 American managers attending an Executive MBA program, nationality, work role centrality, and work locus of control were examined as possible reasons for why an individual might include behaviors typically characterized as organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) as in-role job behaviors (role definition). Nationality was found to be directly related to role definition. Chinese managers were more likely to define OCB as part of their job than were the American managers. Work locus of control was also found to mediate the relationship between nationality and role definition. However, work role centrality did not mediate the relationship between nationality and role definition as had been hypothesized. Implications for management and further cross-cultural research are discussed.

The relationship between gender, personal experience, and perceptions of sexual harassment in the workplace

In this study 352 working men and women responded to a questionnaire about their perceptions of what constituted sexual harassment. It was hypothesized that females, compared to males, would view ambiguous sexually oriented work behavior as more harassing. It was also hypothesized that those who had been a target of sexual harassment, compared to those who had not been a target, would view ambiguous sexually oriented work behavior as more harassing. Both hypotheses were supported. Additionally, after taking into account the effect of having been a target of sexual harassment, the effect of gender on perceptions of sexual harassment was found to be spurious. Implications for management and future research are discussed.

Executive Development: Corporate Response to Business Ethics

Abstract This article reports the results of a survey of human resource management professionals regarding the focus on ethical decisionmaking in executive development programs in the United States. One hundred fifty-five responses were analyzed. The results indicated that there was only moderate emphasis given to ethical issues in executive development programs. There were no differences in the level of emphasis on ethical decisionmaking among lower, middle, and senior levels of management. Further, the level of emphasis on ethical decisionmaking was unaffected by the strategy employed by the corporation, the firms position in the corporate life cycle, or the size of the business (number of employees).

Understanding How Perceived Leader Integrity Affects Follower Trust: Lessons From the Use of Multidimensional Measures of Integrity and Trust:

Even though much research has emerged recently supporting the importance of perceived leader integrity judgments on how followers develop trust in their leaders, our efforts to understand possible mechanisms for these relationships have not yet yielded detailed explanations. One reason for this is that most research on perceived leader integrity and trust has used unidimensional measures of each construct, even though recent research has called for more complex treatments of them. The purpose of this study is to couple the use of a recently developed, multidimensional measure of perceived leader integrity with a multidimensional measure of trust to examine possible explanations of how they relate. Results support the value of modeling perceived integrity in two dimensions and support a more nuanced model of how integrity may affect trust when trust is similarly modeled as multiple dimensions. We discuss the implications of these findings for our understanding of how leader integrity may affect trust and other outcomes.

Management Development Training in the 1990s: Present Trends and Future Directions

Management development programmes are increasingly being studied and evaluated, regarding their efficiency and effectiveness. Presents the results of a survey of 155 directors and vice‐presidents of personnel and human resource management departments regarding the current status of their management development programmes. The results indicate that management development programmes do not seem to differentiate between levels of management. This held true across a wide spectrum of training areas. The results also indicated that the approach used in teaching (pedagogy) was consistent across management levels. This lack of variety according to management level seems to go counter to current theory regarding the differences in skill requirements between management levels.