Ralph Katz

The effects of group longevity on project communication and performance.

In his research on engineering project teams, for example, Allen (1977) carefully demonstrated that only 11 percent of the sources of new ideas and information could be attributed to written media; the rest ocurred through interpersonal communications. This study investigated the communication behaviors and performances of 50 R&D project groups that varied in terms of group longevity, as measured by the average length of time project members had worked together. Analyses revealed that project groups became increasingly isolated from key information sources both within and outside their organizations with increasing stability in project membership. Such reductions in project communication were also shown to affect adversely the technical performance of project groups. Furthermore, variations in communication activities were more associated with the tenure composition of project groups than with the project tenures of individual engineers. These findings are presented and discussed in the more general terms of what happens in project groups with increasing group longevity.

External Communication and Project Performance: An Investigation into the Role of Gatekeepers

Research indicates that certain boundary spanning individuals, labelled gatekeepers, can be an important linking mechanism between organizations and their external environments. This study investigates the role of gatekeepers in the transfer of information in a single RD they appear to facilitate the external communication of their more local project colleagues. Direct contact and contact mediated by gatekeepers, then, are two contrasting ways to link project groups with their external areas. The relative effectiveness of these linking mechanisms is contingent on the nature of the projects work.

Project performance and the locus of influence in the R&D matrix

This study examines the relationship between project performance and the relative influence of project and functional managers in 86 R&D teams in nine technology-based organizations. Performance re...

Job longevity as a situational factor in job satisfaction.

This study investigates the relationships between overall job satisfaction and the five task dimensions of skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy, and feedback-from-job for employees at different stages of their careers, as measured by their length of employment on their current jobs, as well as in their current organizations. Basically, the analysis shows that the strength of the relationships between job satisfaction and each of the task dimensions depends on both the job longevity and organizational longevity of the sampled individuals. For employees new to an organization, for example, only task significance is related positively to job satisfaction, while autonomy has a strongly negative correlation. The study presents other significant correlational differences and discusses the implications of its findings for task design, as well as for managing new employees. Approximately 3500 respondents from four different governments--two metropolitan, one county, and one state--participated in the collection of survey data.

An investigation into the managerial roles and career paths of gatekeepers and project supervisors in a major R&D facility

This study investigates the role of gatekeepers in the transfer of information within a single RD in contrast, one half of the non-gatekeeping project leaders had ascended the technical ladder. This implies that higher managerial levels demand strong interpersonal as well as technical skills.

A Longitudinal Study of the Effects of Boundary Spanning Supervision on Turnover and Promotion in Research and Development

An investigation of the influence of boundary spanning project supervisors on the turnover and promotion of engineering professionals found that, in general, boundary spanning supervisors had littl...

The Influence of Job Longevity on Employee Reactions to Task Characteristics

The present study investigated the moderating influence of job longevity and growth-need strength on the relationships between overall job satisfaction and the five task dimensions of skill variety, identity, significance, autonomy, and feedback. Basically, it was found that the strength of the task dimension-job satisfaction relationships are significantly affected by job longevity regardless of age and growth-need strength. More specifically, three separate stages of job longevity are deduced, i.e., a learning, a responsive, and an unresponsive stage. Only during the responsive stage were the satisfaction reactions of employees significantly correlated with all of the task characteristics. Furthermore, satisfaction was related most significantly to the outcomes of performance and turnover during the responsive stage. Individual differences, as measured by growth-need strength, were also investigated within the job longevity framework. Survey data from 3,085 public sector employees belonging to four different governmental organizations were used to investigate the hypothesized relationships.

ORGANIZATIONAL ISSUES IN THE INTRODUCTION OF NEW TECHNOLOGIES

More than ever before, organizations competing in today’s world of high technology are faced with the challenges of “dualism,” that is, functioning efficiently today while planning and innovating effectively for tomorrow. Not only must these organizations be concerned with the success and market penetration of their current product mix, but they must also be concerned with their long-run capability to develop and incorporate in a timely manner the most appropriate technical advancements into future product offerings. Research and development-based corporations, no matter how they are organized, must find ways to internalize both sets of concerns.

The Loci of Work Satisfaction: Job, Interaction, and Policy

Three thousand five hundred subjects from four governmental organizations (two municipalities, one county, and one state) were interviewed to investigate the nature ofjob satisfaction in the public sector. The intent of the study is to examine the relationships between components of satisfaction and various conceptually objective design variables of the work environment including characteristics of the assigned tasks, work assistance, pay, promotions, and communications, among others. Using the techniques of multidimensional scaling and clustering, a tripart locus of work satisfaction is derived involving job properties, interactional features, and organizational policy variables. Each of the loci is shown to be analytically distinct and related to a specific set of design features. The implications of these findings for change programs such as job enrichment are subsequently discussed.

Motivating technical professionals today

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