Jone L. Pearce

Toward an organizational behavior of contract laborers: Their psychological involvement and effects on employee co-workers.

This study investigated differences in the psychological involvement and task assignments of labor-contractor and employee engineers and the effects of the contractors on the attitudes of their emp...

Task interdependence and extrarole behavior: A test of the mediating effects of felt responsibility.

Author(s): Pearce, JL; Gregersen, HB | Abstract: A model hypothesizing that task interdependence affects supervisor-reported extrarole behavior indirectly through employee felt responsibility was tested in this study. The model was supported by path analysis in a sample of 290 health-care and administrative employees in two hospitals. The results (a) demonstrate the importance of asymmetric felt responsibility to extrarole behavior and (b) show the need to include mediating psychological states when testing the effects of workplace structures on extrarole behaviors. New scales for measured employee-perceived task interdependence are introduced.

Conditions Under Which Employees Respond Positively to Enriched Work.

Abstract : The research tests the moderating effects of (1) employee growth need strength and (2) level of satisfaction with the work context on employee responses to enriched work. Data were collected from 201 employees who work on 25 jobs in a bank. Results show that employees who have strong growth needs and also are satisfied with the work context (i.e., with their pay, job security, co-workers and supervisors) respond more positively to enriched jobs than do employees who have weak needs for growth and/or who are dissatisfied with the work context. Implications for the practice of work redesign are discussed.

Effects of changes in job characteristics on work attitudes and behaviors: A naturally occurring quasi-experiment

Abstract The effects of changes in the motivational properties of jobs on work attitudes and behaviors were assessed in a quasi-experimental design. A number of clerical jobs in a metropolitan bank were redesigned because of a technological innovation. Changes were made without regard for the motivational characteristics of the jobs, and without cognizance by bank personnel that there might be motivational consequences of the changes. Some jobs were made more complex and challenging, some less so, and the motivational properties of still others were essentially unaffected. Measures of job characteristics, employee attitudes, and work behaviors were collected before and after the changes. Results showed that general satisfaction, growth satisfaction, and internal motivation were affected by changes in job characteristics. Satisfaction with the work context was not affected. Effects of the changes on absenteeism and performance depended on the strength of employee growth needs, which also tended to moderate attitudinal reactions to the changes. Contrary to expectation, employee growth needs themselves were not affected by the altered motivational characteristics of the jobs.

Managing the Unknowable The Effectiveness of Early-stage Investor Gut Feel in Entrepreneurial Investment Decisions

Using an inductive theory-development study, a field experiment, and a longitudinal field test, we examine early-stage entrepreneurial investment decision making under conditions of extreme uncertainty. Building on existing literature on decision making and risk in organizations, intuition, and theories of entrepreneurial financing, we test the effectiveness of angel investors’ criteria for making investment decisions. We found that angel investors’ decisions have several characteristics that have not been adequately captured in existing theory: angel investors have clear objectives—risking small stakes to find extraordinarily profitable investments, fully expecting to lose their entire investment in most cases—and they rely on a combination of expertise-based intuition and formal analysis in which intuition trumps analysis, contrary to reports in other investment contexts. We also found that their reported emphasis on assessments of the entrepreneur accurately predicts extraordinarily profitable venture success four years later. We develop this theory by examining situations in which uncertainty is so extreme that it qualifies as unknowable, using the term “gut feel” to describe their dynamic emotion-cognitions in which they blend analysis and intuition in ways that do not impair intuitive processes and that effectively predict extraordinarily profitable investments.

11 The Effects of Governments on Management and Organization

Abstract We review and integrate existing research from organization theory, strategy, organizational behavior, economics, sociology and political science on the effects of governments on organization and management, with a focus on how governing ideology and government capability influence independent organizations’ forms, strategies, and their participants’ behavior. When brought together these works suggest significant research opportunities in the fields of management and organization, as well as new perspectives on public policy challenges. Several avenues of potentially profitable empirical research include more attention to the influence of government on corporate strategies, more research on the strategies of pursuing corruption and government capture for competitive advantage, the role of government in fostering innovation and the growth of entrepreneurial organizations, and extra‐organizational contextual effects on managerial and employee organizational behavior. Possible public policy implicat...

Effectiveness of Merit-Pay-Pool Management

A merit pay pool consists of individuals who are grouped together for the purpose of making merit pay computations. This paper investigates the consequences of variations in merit-pay-pool design and management for the linkage between performance and pay.

Apathy or Self Interest? The Vollinteer's Avoidance of Leadership Roles

This paper presents exploratory data with the intention of bettering our understanding of the leadership of voluntary organizations. &dquo;Organizational leaders&dquo; are those holding official positions with the legitimate authority to direct the behaviors of others; these positions hold titles such as executive director, president, treasurer, etc. The leadership function in business and government organizations staffed by employees has been extensively investigated. The effects of leader and follower personality characteristics, characteristics of the environment or situation, and now, contingency theories focusing on the interaction between individual and situational characteristics of the leadership in employing organizations have been painstakingly explored (see Vroom, 1976; Fleishman, 1971 for summaries).

Revolutionizing Bureaucracies: Managing Change in Hungarian State‐owned Enterprises

Analyses two Hungarian state‐owned companies seeking to reorient themselves as their national economy changes from state‐socialist to market‐driven. These companies were selected from a larger longitudinal study because they reflected one Hungarian‐directed successful implementation of revolutionary change and one previously unsuccessful adaptation. Analyses their change processes using Tushman and Romanelli′s description of the process of frame‐breaking change in Western corporations and Gersick′s theory of change in small groups. Finds that the successful Hungarian organization shared characteristics of Western management succession and a dedicated visionary cadre of top managers with daily active involvement in implementation. However, these managers have not had to direct substantial attention to overcoming resistance within the organization to change, since most managers and employees passively accepted the vision of the cadre.

Palace politics: Resource allocation in radically innovative firms

Abstract The work of Max Weber (1947) on “traditional authority” forms the basis for a theoretical analysis of resource allocation decisions in radical-product innovative organizations. Decisions to support particular projects must be made on arational criteria, because radical product innovation destroys existing competencies and is not subject to economic calculation. The limitations of both bureaucratic and charismatic models of the political processes governing this kind of innovation in large organizations are described. This is followed by a discussion of the traditional practices of selling offices, favoritism toward fellow kinsmen, and nonmerit evaluation criteria in the allocation of resources to innovative projects. The politics of innovative units is better characterized by reference to medieval structures of palace favorites, liege lordship, and fiefdoms, rather than to more familiar bureaucratic concepts. The argument concludes with a discussion of both the theoretical implications and the advantages and disadvantages of traditional approaches to the allocation of resources for radical product innovation.