Terry C. Blum

Matching Creativity Requirements and the Work Environment: Effects on Satisfaction and Intentions to Leave

In a survey of 2,200 individuals, the authors examined the degree to which work environments are structured to complement the creative requirements of jobs. Regression analyses indicated that proximal job characteristics were more strongly associated with a combined objective and perceptual measure of job-required creativity than were distal organizational characteristics. Furthermore, higher job satisfaction and lower intentions to leave were found for individuals whose work environments complemented the creative requirements of their jobs.

Work-Family Human Resource Bundles And Perceived Organizational Performance

Although typically excluded from strategic human resource models, bundles of work-family policies may be an HR approach related to competitive advantage. Symbolic action and resource-based views pr...

HETEROGENEITY AND INTERMARRIAGE

public use sample of the 1970 U.S. Census. The two theoretical predictions are: (1) a groups relative size is inversely related to the proportion of its members who are outmarried; and (2) an SMSAs heterogeneity is directly related to the rate of intermarriage in it. The underlying assumption is that the structural constraints of size distributions affect marriage notwithstanding cultural values promoting ingroup marriages. The data confirm the two predictions (corroborating the underlying assumption) for most size differences and most forms of heterogeneity examined. Thus, heterogeneity in national origins, mother tongue, birth region, industry, and occupation raise intermarriage rates in these respects. Although racial heterogeneity does not have this predicted effect, the reason is that the great socioeconomic differences between races consolidate racial boundaries and thereby counteract the influence of heterogeneity on intermarriage. Empirical evidence supports this explanation: when racial income differences are controlled, the predicted positive relationship between racial heterogeneity and intermarriage becomes apparent.

Organization-Level Determinants of Women in Management

This study investigated the association of organizational characteristics with the percentage of management positions held by women in a group of medium-sized to large private sector workplaces. Re...

Cracks in the Glass Ceiling In What Kinds of Organizations Do Women Make it to the Top

This study investigates variables that differentiate work establishments that have women in top management positions from those that do not. Women occupied top management positions in slightly more than half of the 228 medium- to large-sized private sector establishments the authors studied. The authors found that women are more likely to occupy top management ranks in establishments that have more lower level management positions filled by women, have higher management turnover, have lower average management salary levels, place greater emphasis on development and promotion of employees, and operate in nonmanufacturing industries.

Effects of marital and co-worker relationships on negative affect: Testing the central role of marriage

Abstract Many authors have noted the importance of the marital relationship for regulating mood. Marriage is asserted to be a primary source of both social support and interpersonal stress. In the current investigation, an index of salient social support irrespective of source and an index of salient interpersonal stress irrespective of source were found to be related to level of negative affective symptoms. As predicted, the marital relationship was found to be the most frequently named source of support, but co-workers were named equally often as a source of interpersonal stress. Marital satisfaction was found to be the most consequential interpersonal variable for predicting level of negative affect.

Employee satisfaction in work groups with different gender composition

This study investigates the relationship between the gender composition of an employees work group and the employees job satisfaction, using a random sample over 1600 U.S. workers. After controlling possible confounding variables, our analysis shows that the level of an employees job satisfaction is related to the gender composition of the employees work group, and that the relationship of these variables does not differ between male and female employees. Both men and women working in gender-balanced groups have higher levels of job satisfaction than those who work in homogeneous groups. Employees working in groups containing mostly men have the lowest levels of job satisfaction, with those working in groups containing mostly women falling in the middle. These results are consistent with predictions based on Blaus theory of social structure, that satisfaction would be highest for employees in more heterogeneous groups.

Subclinical depression and performance at work

The relationship between subclinical depression and the fulfillment of important work roles is the focus of this study. The analysis controls for social processes (i.e., interpersonal stress) that may precede the development of depressive symptomatology and potential depressive distortion associated with selfreport of symptoms and performance. Using interview data collected from 265 community-dwelling adults, multiple regression analyses indicated that depressive symptomatology was significantly related to externally rated performance at work. This relationship was independent of other important social influences of interpersonal stress attributed to coworkers, spouses and others, and job stress related to dissatisfying work. Subclinical depression thus appeared related to decrements in job performance. Further, this effect was not entirely due to other social influences not measured in previous studies or to the problem of depressive mood affecting the direction of self-report measures.

Organizational Structure and Job Satisfaction Do Bureaucratic Organizations Produce more Satisfied Employees

Popular and social scientific critiques of the bureaucratic model of organizational behavior argue that employment in highly structured, bureaucratic work organizations adversely affects worker attitudes and behavior. In particular, these critics suggest that bureaucratic structure is associated with lower employee job satisfaction. Several empirical studies, however, have yielded an unexpected positive relationship between bureaucratic structure and satisfaction. In this research, the authors argue that this paradoxical pattern is the result of these studies having used measures of organizational structure that conflate job and organizational characteristics. The authors show that among members of an emerging profession, highly structured organizational activities have a negative effect on employee satisfaction when job characteristics are controlled.

Exploring predictors of alternative job changes

Previous studies have found that the variables that predict employee turnover vary considerably across situations. This lack of consistency may reflect limitations imposed by viewing turnover only as a decision to leave a current job. The variables that predict turnover may depend on the type of job change that an employee makes after leaving. This study explored which variables predicted leaving a job and moving to three alternative types of job change. The results show that different variables predicted employee moves to a new type of job in the same organization, the same job in a different organization, and a different job in a different organization. This supports the concept that turnover may be better modelled as a decision not only to leave a job, but also to move to a different work situation.