Seog Kyeun Kwun

Affective states in job characteristics theory

The potential consequences of affective experience at work prompt an examination of whether job characteristics are related to affect. Using two measurement models, we examined associations between perceptions of five job characteristics and self-reported mood. One model was based on traditional measures of ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ affect. The second model utilized a more differentiated measurement scheme consisting of four unipolar mood scores. Using both approaches achieves both broad and specific assessments of the links between affective states and job characteristics. Regression analyses of the survey data from 370 managers in 26 organizations indicated that job characteristics explained an average of 19 per cent of the variance in activated pleasant affect and an average of 11 per cent of the variance in activated unpleasant affect. Task significance and task autonomy were positively associated with activated pleasant affect. Skill variety was positively related, and task identity and task feedback were negatively correlated with activated unpleasant affect. Finally, Growth Need Strength (GNS) moderated the relation between the Motivating Potential Score (MPS) from the combined job characteristics and both activated pleasant and activated unpleasant affect. Using a four-factor model of affect (enthusiasm, fatigue, nervousness, and relaxation), we discuss preliminary implications for the design of work. Copyright

Peer evaluation in self-managing work groups

A series of 3 experiments with business students examined how a raters relative performance affects peer ratings. In Study 1, with 36 groups consisting of 178 Ss, outstanding contributors were the most discriminating evaluators. In Study 2, with 39 groups consisting of 186 Ss, individuals rated their own performance as well as that of their peers. Once again, outstanding contributors were the most discriminating evaluators, and self-evaluations were higher than the respective ratings received from peers. In Study 3, with 12 groups consisting of 61 Ss, below-average and average contributors may have discounted their individual performance outcomes by making allowances for external factors that affected their contributions. Together, these studies indicate that self-other comparisons in a work group influence peer-performance evaluations

Public policy toward the innovation-driven economy in Korea

This paper delineates and assesses the public policies aimed at upgrading the national innovation system under the Government of People, led by President Kim Dae-jung. In the past four years, the government has taken policy initiatives for the long-term planning of national innovation, the promotion of basic research, and the increase of national R&D investment, whilst carrying out various steps for strengthening HRST development, enhancing the utilisation of HRST, and expanding the career opportunities of women HRST. In addition, it has promoted venture businesses as the new private innovation dynamos by facilitating the start-up of venture businesses and their technological innovation, and improving the financial infrastructure and incentives for those venture companies. The current administrations policy effort appears to have gained notable achievement in terms of R&D intensity, the volume of R&D investment, the development and utilisation of HRST, international patents, SCI publication, and the number of private research institutes. The current administrations policies can be characterised as government-initiated, target-oriented or plan-based, and input-focused, which has caused its inability to tackle existing problematic practices (including the weak interface among innovation actors and with foreign agencies, under-utilisation of research resources in universities, and low mobility of HRST) and created such unexpected problems as moral hazard and loss of entrepreneurship among venture businesses, and private innovation actors continued reliance on governments initiatives. In conclusion, public innovation policies in Korea are undergoing the test of reshaping in their progress to a knowledge-based economy.

ROLE OF SELF-ESTEEM IN RESOLVING INEQUITY

In spite of considerable evidence of the effects of self-esteem on equity behavior in some of the early studies, the construct of self-esteem has not yet been given systematic attention. From the interactionist standpoint, this work was done to examine the role of self-esteem in responses to inequitable situations. Presented are hypotheses about individuals choices of inequity resolution methods that focus on the interaction of self-esteem with the contextual features of reward conditions and exchange relationships.