Michael L. Vasu

Fostering Organizational Trust in North Carolina: The Pivotal Role of Administrators and Political Leaders

Theoretically, organizational trust establishes the framework for productivity. Trust creates an environment that encourages cooperation and allows employees to concentrate their attention on the task. Employing regression analysis with cross-sectional data from the 1994 State Employee Survey, this research examines employee attitudes of organizational trust toward those in top management positions. Demographic controls (education, pay level, race, and gender) exhibit no substantive effect. Attitudes assessing internal job characteristics (benefits, extrinsic rewards, and work environment) demonstrate a relationship in fostering trust. External work characteristics (job satisfaction, supervisory evaluation, and political interference) also emerge as determinants of organizational trust.

Supervisory Perceptions of the Impact of Public Sector Personnel Practices on the Achievement of Multiple Goals: Putting the Strategic into Human Resource Management

Strategic human resource management enhances productivity and the effectiveness of organizations. Research shows that when organizations employ such personnel practices as internal career ladders, formal training systems, results-oriented performance appraisal, employment security, employee voice and participation, broadly defined jobs, and performance-based compensation, they are more able to achieve their goals and objectives. Using ordinal regression analyses of data from a survey of North Carolina county social service directors and supervisors, this study examines the extent to which strategic human resource management is perceived to affect outcome assessments (or performance measurements) for welfare reform. Although strategic human resource management practices are perceived to be present, with training and employment security having notable impacts, they clearly are not a predominant feature in North Carolina counties.

Strategic Human Resource Management: Perceptions among North Carolina County Social Service Professionals

Strategic human resource management (SHRM) enhances productivity and the effectiveness of organizations. Research shows that when organizations employ such personnel practices as internal career ladders, formal training systems, results-oriented performance appraisal, employment security, employee voice/participation, broadly defined jobs, and performance-based compensation, they are more able to achieve their goals and objectives. Using a survey of North Carolina county social service professionals, this study examines (1) the extent to which strategic human resource management is perceived, (2) the relationship of these SHRM practices to demographic variables such as age, ethnic status, sex, education, supervisory status and tenure, and county population, and (3) the relationship between SHRM and outcome assessments for welfare reform (unemployment change and organizational report card measures). While SHRM practices are perceived to be present in North Carolina counties, they clearly are not a predominant feature. Weak demographic influences, especially in terms of population and supervisory status and tenure, are evident. Especially disturbing are the influences those demographic influences have on employment security. Few relationships are found (and those only weak) involving outcome assessments.

Integrated Planning for School and Community: the Case of Johnston County, North Carolina

OR/Ed Laboratories and the Johnston County schools created a planning system, Integrated Planning for School and Community, to forecast enrollments, to compare the enrollment projections to capacity, to find the optimal locations for new school buildings, and to set distance-minimized boundaries forall schools to avoid over crowding and to meet racial balance guidelines. Implementing the system has increased the school districts success in passing bond issues, reduced pupil transportation costs, and eliminated frequent adjustments to school-attendance boundaries.

A Rich-Media Solution for Distance Education

MediaSite by Sonic Foundry is a web communication and content management system that automatically webcasts lectures and presentations. These presentations can be viewed as a live stream or as an archive over the Internet. MediaSite is frequently used to supplement traditional classes and distance education applications. In this review, the authors share their experience in using a rich-media tool MediaSite that added a great teaching quality and affectivity to an undergraduate survey methodology course within distance education format. Their experience leads them to believe that this technology can enhance a methods course such as survey research by providing visual reinforcement of what are otherwise textbook lectures. This is also true with respect to the expectations of assignments and reviews for final exams.

Professional Notes: Analysis of Ethical Dynamics in Public Personnel Administration

n a now classic 1962 article in the Public Administration Review, Robert T. t Golembiewski (1962) argued that when we seek theoretical explanations for the complex phenomena that we call organizations we must address two general types of questions. The first is, what is related to what in organizations? The second, what relations are desirable and how are they to be achieved in organizations? Answers to the first question provide the substance of an empirical theory about behavior in complex organizations. Answers to the second question require a moral or value orientation that provides prescriptions about how various sets of desired ends may be achieved. These prescriptions, Golembiewski argues, are goal-based empirical theories, a type of conceptualization that has not been particularly common in the development of organizational theory. These goal-based or normative theories incorporate and transcend pure empirical theory, while using elements of it. These action theories (e.g., organizational development) as they are sometimes called, tend to view organization as a moral problem. As such, action theories attempt to devise ways and means of achieving specific goals and values (such as the goal of an organization where workers are able to influence the environment within which they work) using empirical knowledge about organizational behavior to achieve these goals. Golembiewski’s work provides a theoretical platform for uniting the &dquo;practical&dquo; and the &dquo;ethical&dquo; dimensions of organizations for the purpose of ethical discourse. In a very broad sense, the practical dimensions of organizations include those features of organizational design most likely to enhance

Teaching Methodology to Distance Education Students Using Rich-Media and Computer Simulation

This article addresses the two major issues involved in the teaching of an introductory methodology course versus face-to-face instruction. The first issue incorporates a rich-media solution, specifically streaming video, to precede traditional notes on any topic and second the use of a computer simulation software created by the authors, which can be placed on a matriculated distance education students desktop remotely, without the legal or logistical problems of using commercial software, for example, Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) or Statistical Analysis Software (SAS). Technical and pedagogical dimensions of these particular issues are discussed as well.

Administrative capacity and welfare reform in North Carolina: does administration matter?

This study examines the administrative role played by the state of North Carolina in the provision of welfare. A survey of county professionals was conducted in April 2000 assessing perceptions of how well the state was performing its administrative functions. Fifty-three survey items composed ten indices that were grouped into three categories of resources, leadership and accountability. Logistic regression analyses examined perceptions of the states Resources, Leadership, and Accountability administrative capacity in relationship to the four Work First Report Card measures of (1) putting people to work, (2) having them stay off of welfare, (3) reducing the number on welfare, and (4) collecting child support. Findings indicate that the states efforts are not perceived as contributing to the success of welfare reform. Administrative capacity perceptions account for little of the variation explained by the logistic regressions. The state is not perceived as contributing to putting people to work or helping them to stay off of welfare subsequently. It actually is seen as slightly hindering efforts at reducing the welfare rolls. Only in the area of child support collection does state administrative capacity (in leadership and budgeting) improve the odds for success.

The nature of virtual organizations and their anticipated social and psychological impacts

Virtual organizations are goal-driven associations of intellectual agents working within the information space. The development of virtual organizations and their agents is a natural continuation of the long movement in western society towards organizing for efficient commerce and communication. For at least 800 years cities and traditional organizations fulfilled these purposes, but now with the advent of high-speed communication and rich interconnectivity, a general diaspora of commerce and education may be expected. All of the technology needed to nurture the rise of virtual organizations is in place, albeit in a primitive form. The authors argue that in the next decade this technology will reach such a level of sophistication that traditional universities and schools with their massive physical assets will no longer be sustainable, and will be replaced by virtual organizations delivering education and training with a minimum of physical infrastructure

Computer-Assisted Survey Research and Continuous Audience Response Technology for the Political and Social Sciences

Survey research is chosen as this years theme in the review of the state of the art of computing in political science because of its importance to this discipline. However, coverage applies to other social science disciplines as well. This essay reviews use of computers in computer-assisted survey research (CASR), computer-assisted interviewing, computer-assisted telephone interviewing (CATI), computer-assisted personal interviewing (CAPI), touch-tone data entry (TDE), and related technologies. A second portion of the essay gives special attention to continuous audience response technology (CART), with an example—the California Proposition 103 campaign. Keywords: survey research, interviewing, computers, CATI, CART.