Robert Dubin

Unit Performance, Situational Factors and Employee Attitudes in Spatially Separated Work Units.

Abstract This study investigated the relationships between work unit performance on the one hand, and employee attitudes and situational characteristics on the other hand, among 411 female clerical workers in 37 branches of a bank. The branches are work units characterized by spatial separation and the performance of similar functions. Two independent dimensions of performance were empirically identified and their relationship to attitudes and situational characteristics studied within a multivariate framework by means of multiple discriminant analysis. The results indicate that employee attitudes were significantly related to a measure of branch performance reflecting job duties performed within the branch. Employees in branches rated high in performance had a higher level of attitudes toward aspects of both the branch in which they work and the larger organization of which it is a part, while individuals in low- and medium-performing branches had a lower level of attitudes that was similar. Situational characteristics of the branch were most highly related to the managers performance of loan functions, a large portion of which may take place outside the branch.

Central Life Interests and Organizational Commitment of Blue-Collar and Clerical Workers

Abstract : Central life interests (CLI) of male blue-collar and female clerical workers were measured along with their overall commitment to their employing organization and their attraction to twelve of its features. Workers with a CLI in work were more highly committed to their organization than those with a CLI in non-work institutions, while those with no preference in CLI appeared to give no special emphasis to the level of their organizational commitment. Some interpretations and conclusions are drawn from the data. (Modified author abstract)

Central Life Interests and Job Satisfaction.

Abstract The perceptual set of the individual worker regarding the centrality of work as a life interest is shown to be related to a measure of job satisfaction. Workers with a work-oriented Central Life Interest (CLI) had the highest job satisfaction measured by the Job Descriptive Index (JDI); those with a non-work-oriented CLI the lowest job satisfaction; and those with a flexible focus CLI an intermediated level of job satisfaction. Furthermore, it was found that a feature of work that was relatively undesirable was so rated on the JDI, regardless of the CLI orientation. Implications of these findings are discussed. Study is based on 430 male, blue-collar workers and 144 female clerical workers in a telephone company, and 336 female clerical workers in 37 branches of a bank.

Central life interests of American middle managers and specialists

Abstract Work as a central life interest was measured among American middle managers and management specialists. For a majority of respondents work was not a central life interest. The work milieu had least centrality for informal social relations and most centrality for behaviors relevant to formal organizational processes and technological performances. Comparisons are drawn with data from industrial workers and implications for attachment to work are suggested.

Workers' Central Life Interests and Personality Characteristics.

Abstract Industrial workers who perceive work as their central life interest (CLI) also describe themselves as having a higher level of decisiveness, initiative, and supervisory ability than workers with other CLI orientations. Workers with CLI orientations in nonwork institutions have the lowest scores on decisiveness, need for occupational achievement, and initiative, and the highest need for job security, of the groups studied. Workers with no anchored CLI had the highest need for self-actualization and need for occupational achievement, of all groups. These personality characteristics are seen as consistent with the CLI orientations of individual workers, suggesting that the personality does “fit” some institutional setting, but not necessarily all those in which the individual functions.

Workers Central Life Interests and Job Performance.

Abstract : Supervisors ratings of individual workers were related to the central life interests (CLI) of the workers. The group of workers who had a job oriented CLI received the highest ratings from their supervisors among the three CLI groups on initiative and application, cooperation, and quantity of work and were rated low on adaptability. The reverse pattern held for workers with a non-job CLI. Implications of these findings are discussed for their utility in interpreting supervisors orientations in making performance evaluations, as they relate to the characteristics of the rating system.

Attachments to Work Russians in Israel

Immigrants moving between contrasting industrial cultures carry work habits and perceptions of work from their culture of origin, not readily erased through assimilation. Russian émigrés to Israel persisted in a Soviet-like view of work authority, importance of their employing organization, and their union. They also emphasized self, self-expression, and personal achievement as one reaction to their having been minimized in the USSR. At the same time, Russians assimilated to global perceptions of satisfaction with job, organization, and work life in general, as well as many microfeatures of their work environments, responding in a manner similar to their Israeli counterparts. Assimilation to the Israeli work culture was clearly piecemeal.

CAUSALITY AND SOCIAL SYSTEMS ANALYSIS

In the study of social systems a causal orientation leads to the familiar two-variable analysis of components of the systems, rather than the analysis of the characteristics of the system as a whole. The result is that predictions made about social systems are usually either wrong or trivially correct. A general systems approach does not lean on causal analysis and, therefore, provides the analytical framework for comprehending system characteristics, and predicting their state.

The Impact of Task-Related Information on Performance Variability

The focus of this study was regulation/control. One hundred and fifty subjects participated in a laboratory experiment in which they were given varying amounts of task-related information, in the form of instructions, on how to complete an assembly procedure. This resulted in the subjects completing the experimental task with a low, moderate, or high degree of task information prescribed for them. Generally, the findings of the study demonstrated that subjects in the less-controlled experimental groups have considerably greater variability of performance times, while participants given maximum task information had only a minimum degree of variability in completion times. The findings suggest that as the amount and appropriate timing of task information is optimized, variability among individuals completing the task decreases.

Book Reviews : David Dunkerley: The Foreman: Aspects of Task and Structure. London & Boston: Rout ledge & Kegan Paul, 1975. pp. 192 + vii £ 5.95

as subject for analysis (3); places the position of foreman within the organizational subsystem in which he is a central actor (4); and then sets aside his systems analytical framework to examine leadership behaviors of foremen (5) and individual or personal characteristics of foremen (6). The most disappointing chapter is the last which is a set of practical suggestions that may be summarized in a phrase: give foremen training for their roles. This concluding chapter does not even employ the sys-