J. Daniel Sherman

The Influence of Organizational Structure on Intrinsic Versus Extrinsic Motivation

The article discusses research pertaining to the degree to which organizational structure influences intrinsic motivation in the setting of voluntary religious organization. The sample consists of ...

The Impact of Emergent Network Structure on Organizational Socialization

Network analysis allows researchers to study patterns of roles or social relationships within organizations, and is especially usefulfor examining the impacts of informal systems on organizational socialization. This article presents a study of the level of connections within networks based on information flow, affect, influence, and the exchange of goods or services. Controlling for belief system, congregation size, and size of community, researchers selected 44 protestant churches for the sample and administered questionnaires randomly to congregation members. Researchers used the resulting data to analyze the effects of the four types of networks on knowledge, desire for growth, personal development, attendance rates, and outreach. The findings indicate that informal systems greatly affect socialization, especially when network connections are based on information flow. The authors conclude that further research should address additional network characteristics that may influence organizational socialization, should employ network analysis at the micro level, and should examine the actual process or organizational socialization.

Technical Supervision and Turnover Among Engineers and Technicians Influencing Factors in the Work Environment

In a study of engineering, scientific, and technical support personnel, factors in the immediate work environment which are influenced by the behavior of the technical manager were found to affect turnover propensities. Satisfaction with supervision, higher order need fulfillment, and unit morale were found to be more important influences on retention for technical support personnel. However, for the engineering and scientific personnel, factors such as autonomy, goal congruence, and higher order need fulfillment were found to have greater influence. The results suggest the importance of management training for technical managers as a potentially effective strategy to reduce turnover.

Leader Role Inversion as a Corollary to Leader-Member Exchange

Based on the work of Graen and Graen and Scandura on role-making processes in leader-member dyads and the leader-member exchange (LMX) paradigm, this investigation proposes a new direction for research. The findings reported demonstrate that leader role inversion positively affects a number of important work-related attitudinal and behavioral outcomes. These included higher order need fulfillment, accountability, intrinsic motivation, propensity to leave, and job satisfaction: work and supervision. The theoretical discussion presented in this article explains how leader role inversion results in a reconfiguration of role pressures. This reconfiguration of role pressures is hypothesized to affect the work-related attitudinal and behavioral outcomes. The results are tested for generalizability across plants and occupational categories.

Centralization of Decision Making and Accountability Based on Gender

Different gender combinations in superior-subordinate dyads were examined and results indicated that female employees perceived that they were delegated less authority or influence in decisions affecting their work. These results were consistent regardless of the gender of the manager and no differences were found across industry. Implications for career advancement and organizational socialization of female employees are discussed.

Stages in the project life cycle in R&D organizations and the differing relationships between organizational climate and performance

Abstract Differential characteristics of organizational climate and the relationship between various dimensions of organizational climate and performance were examined across stages in the project life cycle in R&D organizations. Characteristics of organizational climate which were investigated included: responsibility, reward, tolerance for risk, warmth support, standards, management of conflict, structure, and identity with the organization. Differences were found across stages in the project life cycle indicating the importance of organizational climate as a contingency variable. This finding suggests important implications for future research on factors influencing R&D performance.

Prediction of Absenteeism from Attitudes, Prior Absenteeism, and Performance

In a four‐year longitudinal study, data from 117 mental health employees in two organisations were used to examine baseline year absenteeism, performance, and attitudes as predictors of subsequent absenteeism. Results indicated that baseline absence behaviour was a strong predictor of subsequent absenteeism over the comparatively long temporal course of the study. Performance contributed little unique variance as a predictor when the influence of baseline absenteeism was accounted for. Baseline year attitudes increased in strength as predictors of subsequent absenteeism over the four years. Moreover, the substantial total variation explained by the set of variables showed in little deterioration between the first (adjusted R⊃2 = 0.29) and last (adjusted R⊃2 = 0.27) criterion years of this four year study. Results are compared to earlier findings in a framework of tentative implications for future research.

Women Entering Management: Differences in Perceptions of Factors Influencing Integration.

Responses of male and female managers in state public welfare organizations are analyzed to determine perceptions and differences in perceptions con cerning the impact of certain variables which may positively or negatively affect the initial movement of women into managerial positions and the promotion of women in the management hierarchy in these organizations.

Front-end success factors and the impact on high technology industry new product development

This investigation identified factors in the initial phase of the product development process that influence product development success. Specific factors that were investigated included new product strategic fit, product definition, project definition, and project roles. Both external market based performance and project internal operational based performance were included in the analyses. Generalizability analyses were conducted and the relationship between front-end factors and product development performance were found to be generalizable across three levels of product innovation.

Cycle Time Reduction in Defense Acquisition

OVERVIEW: Embodied in the current concept of schedule as an independent variable, cycle time reduction is a subject of significant interest to the U.S. Department of Defense. In this review, research based on commercial product development is applied to defense acquisition and a model summarizing critical factors is presented. The model includes preconditions for cycle time reduction such as pervasive support, technological maturity, potential for non-developmental components, and customization of the acquisition process. Furthermore, the model identifies factors influencing cycle time such as setting requirements through dialogue, concurrent engineering, team composition, design for manufacturability and maintainability, prime contractor/supplier integration, user integration, design flexibility, continuity of expertise, incentives, and leadership by a product champion.