Jai Ghorpade

BURNOUT AND PERSONALITY: EVIDENCE FROM ACADEMIA

Using multiple theoretical perspectives (stress, conservation of resources, and deviance), we investigated the relationship between burnout and personality. Burnout is measured with the Maslach Burnout Inventory (emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and personal accomplishments), and personality is captured with the Mini-Marker Inventory (extroversion, conscientiousness, agreeableness, openness to experience, and emotional stability). Regression analyses controlling for demographic characteristics, based on 265 instructors of a large state university, indicated that emotional exhaustion is negatively related to extroversion and emotional stability and positively related to openness to experience. Depersonalization is negatively related to agreeableness and emotional stability. Personal accomplishments are positively related to extroversion, conscientiousness, agreeableness, and emotional stability. Implications of the results are discussed.

RESEARCH: "Intrinsic Religious Orientation Among Minorities in the United States: A Research Note"

We developed and tested a refined version of the intrinsic religious orientation (IRO) component of the Religious Orientation Scale (ROS) using a lay sample of 4 minority ethnic groups (African Americans, Asian Americans, Filipinos, and Latinos) that are collectively now an increasing proportion of the population of the United States. We explored whether IRO is affected by ethnicity, religious affiliation, and gender, and also whether levels of IRO have implications for psychological acculturation of minority groups into White, Anglo American culture and alienation from society. Ethnicity, religious affiliation, and gender explained 41% of the variation of IRO. Relative to Asian Americans, African Americans and Filipinos were more likely to be intrinsically religious. In comparison to those who had no religious preference, Roman Catholics, Protestants, and Evangelical Christians were more likely to be intrinsically religious. Women showed a higher level of IRO than did men. IRO, in turn, was negatively correlated with psychological acculturation and positively correlated with alienation. The negative correlation between IRO and psychological acculturation held true for Asian Americans and African Americans, and the positive correlation between IRO and alienation applied to Asian Americans.

Peer Evaluation in the Classroom: A Check for Sex and Race/Ethnicity Effects

Abstract Using a sample of 221 undergraduate students enrolled in human resource management courses taught in a business school, this study checked for sex and race/ethnicity effects in peer ratings of classroom presentations. Student age and student presenter frequency of participation in the classroom were the control variables. Our primary goal was to find out whether peer ratings were susceptible to the same-group preference bias. Results showed no consistent tendency by students to favor student presenters from their own groups. Frequency of participation by presenters in classroom discussions turned out to be a better predictor of student ratings of presentations by peers than any of the other factors studied.

Work Group Collectivism and the Centrality of Work A Multinational Investigation

This study examined relationships at the individual level of analysis between work group collectivism and work centrality and pride in work, and the moderating effects of nations on these relationships. Participants from Ecuador, Germany, India, Mexico, and the United States completed questionnaire measures of the constructs of interest. Multiple-groups confirmatory factor analyses were performed to evaluate and control for psychometric nonequivalence in the measurement of latent constructs, prior to multiple-groups structural equation modeling analyses of the relationships between work group collectivism and work centrality and pride in work. Results showed positive relationships between collectivism and work centrality and work pride in each country, and non-significant differences between countries in these relationships. Tests of mean differences at the nation level of analysis also showed somewhat higher work centrality and pride in work among countries that scored higher in work group collectivism.

Equal Opportunity in the Classroom: Test Construction in a Diversity-Sensitive Environment

Although civil rights groups have successfully challenged the fairness of tests used in admission decisions by universities from an equal opportunity perspective, testing practices used by professors in the classroom have gone largely unquestioned. In this study, levels of performance of a sample of 231 students in six human resource management classes were compared on two multiple-choice tests and one essay test. Comparisons of scores between men and women and between Whites and minorities over the multiple-choice tests yielded statistically insignificant results. In the essay test comparisons, females scored significantly higher than males, and Whites scored significantly higher than minority students. Implications of the findings are discussed and suggestions are offered for test construction to meet the diversity challenge in the classroom.

Intrinsic Religious Orientation: The Conservative Christian Connection

This study investigated the claim that intrinsic religious orientation (IRO), as developed by Gordon Allport, has an inherent conservative Christian bias that may be denominationally identified. We tested this claim in two ways by using a sample of 546 churchgoers drawn from five congregations representing four denominations (two Unitarian Universalist, two Mainline Protestant, and one Evangelical). First, we correlated IRO scores with a measure of conservative Christian beliefs (CCBs). A high, significant correlation was obtained suggesting that, in general, high IRO scores go with CCBs. Second, we divided the sample into two groups: those who scored high and those who scored low on four measures of religious commitment: participation in church activities, and frequency of attendance, prayers, and meditation. This comparison also confirmed the IRO and conservative Christian connection: the IRO scores of the Evangelical congregation were significantly higher than those of other congregations in both the high and low religious commitment groups. But judgment needs to be reserved about the low commitment group as the number of Evangelicals that fell in this category was very small for two of the four commitment measures: church attendance and prayers.

Intrinsic Religious Orientation: ethnic differences within a lay sample

This article examines the demographic antecedents and psychological correlate, alienation, of Intrinsic Religious Orientation (IRO) in lay sample in the USA. Our data show that IRO differs significantly across ethnicity, religious affiliation and gender. In addition, IRO is positively correlated with alienation. We conclude that IRO, a type of religious commitment that emphasises belief in God, serves as a form of psychological refuge from the tensions of society and provides a means of coping with demand.

Management and the human resource function: a model based on social systems theory

Even though human resource management (HRM) has made great progress as a discipline in recent years, questions still linger about its place in management. This paper uses concepts from social systems theory to build a model of HRM that links it systematically with general management, and shows how these concepts can be used for defining the mission of HRM, and for designing effective HRM systems for attaining it. Implications of the model are discussed for HRM practice and research.

Organizational Ownership Patterns and Efficiency: A Case Study of Private and Cooperative Sugar Factories in South India

This study investigated the relative organizational efficiency of two types of organizational systems currently competing for resources and political patronage in India. The samples consisted of 26...

Neutral Responses to Structured Questionnaires within Organizational Settings: Roles of Rater Affective Feelings and Demographic Characteristics.

This study is a follow-up to a prior publication by the authors dealing with influences behind neutral responses to structured questionnaires. The earlier study found rater affective feelings, nationality, and age to be significant influences, while sex was not. The questionnaire used in the first study dealt primarily with supervision and relied on a three-point scale. The present instrument covers a broader range of topics and uses a five-point Likert-type scale. The results on the influence of rater affective feelings are consistent with previous studies, but there is some variation in the demographic influences. Implications of the findings are discussed and suggestions are offered for additional research.