Richard W. Scholl

Work Motivation: The Incorporation of Self-Concept-Based Processes

This paper proposes a metatheory of work motivation incorporating theories of self-concept that have been proposed in the sociological and psychological literatures. Traditional theories of work motivation are reviewed, and the selfconcept-based sources of motivation are presented. How the self-concept influences behavior in organizations is explained and used to develop a metatheory of motivational sources. Both research and managerial implications of the model are presented.

Motivation Sources Inventory: Development and Validation of New Scales to Measure an Integrative Taxonomy of Motivation:

Scales are developed and tested based on an integrative taxonomy of motivation sources. The sources, as measured on the Motivation Sources Inventory include intrinsic process, instrumental, external self-concept, internal self-concept, and goal internalization. The development procedures produced five subscales with six unique loading items per subscale that seem to capture the domains of interest for each source of motivation. Proposals for research using the inventory are also discussed.

Information processing style and decision making

Information processing style, often termed cognitive style, has gained prominence in the organizational behavior literature as researchers use it as a basis for studying decision making behavior, conflict, strategy development, and group processes. However, the many operational definitions and measures of cognitive style have produced inconsistent and confusing results. This study tested the interrelationship among four measures of this construct: the Myers–Briggs Type Indicator, the Group Embedded Figures Test, the Learning Styles Inventory, and the Decision Style Inventory. Measures that appeared to be conceptually linked through their underlying theories were compared. Results indicate that the various measures are not strongly interrelated and appear to be measuring different aspects of information processing and decision making. Copyright

Career Lines and Employment Stability

This research examined the influence of organizational career line variables, such as career line length, career line ceiling, position ratio, position mobility opportunity, on such variables as tu...

Strategic Issues and Determinant Factors of an Interorganizational Macroculture in the Lodging Industry

This article presents an empirical study of lodging industry executives’ beliefs regarding strategic issues that they consider to be most important. The authors theorize that fundamental factors exist indicating certain commonalties regarding executives’mental models about strategic issues.The possible influence of an industry macroculture is investigated as a source of similarity of mental models among executives competing in the lodging industry, and hypotheses are developed and tested regarding the sources of the macroculture. The results of an exploratory factor analysis indicate that among 20 potential strategic issues rated by executives in the study, 3 fundamental strategic directions exist. Furthermore, the results of the study indicate that professional journals, associations, conferences, and previous employment may be sources of the macroculture. Implications for research and practice are presented.

The Use of Job Evaluation to Eliminate Gender Based Pay Differentials

The comparable worth issue has placed considerable emphasis on the use of job evaluation in eliminating gender based pay differentials. Specifically the reliability and validity of job evaluation, especially generic forms of job evaluation, have been questioned. This study examines the process of comparable worth determination. Job evaluations were performed on a set of male-dominated and female-dominated job descriptions using both the MIMA system and Factor Evaluation system (FES). Estimates of reliability and convergence were calculated. The resultant salaries, calculated using five different approaches to worth computation, were also compared. The results indicate that the generic FES is as reliable as the job family based MIMA system of job evaluation. The FES shows strong convergence with the MIMA system as well as to market pay rates and present salaries.

An Analysis of Macro Models of Organizations The Goal and Political Models

Macro theories of organizations generally rely on the concept of the goal as the mechanism that gives direction and achieves solidarity of organizational action. In recent years, research and theory building has begun to recognize the importance of such concepts as resource dependence, power, and conflict and to incorporate them into open systems models of organizations. While these open systems models do allow for change in organizational direction, they generally hold to the contention that environmental influence on organizational direction is achieved through a goal-setting process. Likewise, the concepts of power and conflict are incorporated into a goal model. An alternative model, termed the political model, is presented that allows for system openness at ad levels of an organization and does not rely on the concept of the goal in explaining direction or solidarity. Points of conflict between the goal model and the political are discussed along with some of the implications of adopting a political perspective in studying organizational behavior.

Reliability of job evaluation: Differences across sex-typed jobs

Recent work has questioned whether a single job evaluation instrument can reliably measure jobs from different job families. To test this, a generalizability study was done to determine the reliability of three job evaluation instruments: one for male-dominated jobs, MIMA-Shop, one for female-dominated jobs, MIMA-office and one which evaluated both types, FES. Initial results indicated that the latter instrument suffered no loss in reliability, and that all three instruments were equally highly reliable. A second analysis evaluated the reliability of the FES for male-dominated jobs separately from the reliability of the FES for female-dominated jobs. These results indicated no significant difference in reliability for male-dominated jobs and for female-dominated jobs. Implications of these findings were discussed.