John W. Dickson

R&D Work Climate and Innovation in Semiconductors

The article discusses a research on research-and-development (R&D) work climate and innovation in the semiconductor industry. The perceptions of respondents with regard to work climate were compute...

Perception of Risk as Related to Choice in a Two-Dimensional Risk Situation

A risky choice was created by manipulating two dimensions of risk for 21 managers attending a conference. The first dimension varied risk by altering the difference in expected value between two alternatives of widely differing variance. The second dimension varied the expectancy of achieving a particular outcome. Whereas choice was significantly related to both dimensions of risk, it was not significantly related to estimates of the subjective risk inherent in the choice situation. It appears that subjective risk does not mediate between objective risk and choice.

Beliefs About Work and Rationales for Participation

The relation of beliefs about work to rationales for participation were examined in a Scottish and an Arizona sample. Evidence was found for both similarities and differences in cognitive sets. Humanistic beliefs were associated with beneficial outcomes (such as decision quality and acceptance) and an educative process. Marxist beliefs were associated with a moral purpose, beneficial outcomes, and a lack of inhibition of management. Organization beliefs (value of group working) were related to an educative process. Some belief-rationale relations were found only in the Scottish sample and some only in the Arizona sample. These indicate potential differences in the way participation is used as a managerial technique in the two countries. U.S. managers possess a more differentiated cognitive set and an appreciation of participation as a social technology.

Participatory Forums and Influence

The article presents a study which examined whether the presence of a formal participatory body is associated with higher levels of interaction, communication to upper managers, communication from upper managers, influence from upper managers and effect on decisions. 82 lower level managers working for one of seven large business organizations in Tucson, Arizona have served as respondents of the study. The study revealed that formal forums do enhance perceptions of some component processes of participations, but perceived upper managerial influence is unaffected by the existence of participatory bodies.

SUBJECTIVE RISK AND CHOICE AS RELATED TO THE TRANSITIVITY CONDITION

Subjects who did not break the transitivity condition in a simple choice situation showed a significant linear relation between choice and their rating of risk, an ordinal scale of risk in other choice situations, a self-reported level of risk taking related to the choices made. Subjects breaking transitivity did not fulfill the above conditions and were more random in choice and reported that they made risky choices. In fact there was no significant difference between the transitive and non-transitive subjects in the number of risky choices made throughout the experiment.

Technological innovation in the semiconductor industry

A comprehensive list of innovations in the semiconductor industry during 1970 to 1980 was derived. The patterns of innovation across eight organizations showed consistency between the stages of initiation, adoption and implementation. Smaller organizations compared to large implemented a lower percentage of the innovations they initiated. The value of organization net sales and the dollar amount of the R&D budget, but not the number of organization of R&D personnel were significantly related to the number of innovations.