Thomas N. Martin

A Contextual Model of Employee Turnover Intentions

An integrative and expanded contextual model for investigating employee intentions to stay or leave an organization is proposed. Four structural/process variables (upward mobility, distributive jus...

THE EVENT OF CEO SUCCESSION, PERFORMANCE, AND ENVIRONMENTAL CONDITIONS

The article discusses the results of a research which examined the specific aspects of performance and environmental volatility that might be related to the event of executive succession. The autho...

Predictors of organizational commitment: The study of part-time army reservists

Abstract A predictive model built upon a multiple role conflict/felt responsibility conceptual framework and containing six previously untested predictors and nine previously tested organizational-related predictors of organizational commitment was investigated. The sample consisted of two battalions of U.S. Army Reserve members. Stepwise multiple regression analysis utilizing a double cross-validation design on each battalion was the data analytic technique. Increased job satisfaction and stronger intent to stay consistently entered each equation as the first and second predictors, respectively. Group cohesion also appeared in more than one equation. The variance explained across the four cross-validated samples averaged .46 and the results were very stable. The importance of the investigation of commitment for this part-time, voluntary organization was discussed, as were future research directions regarding organizational commitment.

Role Stress and Inability to Leave as Predictors of Mental Health

A new source of job stress, inability to leave, was investigated with role over-load, role ambiguity, participation in decision making, equity, and group cohesiveness and support for their predictive impact on acute and chronic mental health problems. Canonical correlation analysis was performed on this predictor-criteria framework across two hospitals consisting of 140 and 95 respondents, respectively. One significant canonical variate was derived for each hospital. Inability to leave ones job and role overload predicted acute and chronic mental health problems in both hospitals. Role ambiguity and lower group cohesiveness and support also predicted both health phenomenon in the smaller hospital. Discussion focused on the implications, limitations, and conclusions of these findings.

A Path Analytic Model of Human Capital and Organizational Job Characteristics on Female Job Satisfaction

This study attempts to integrate human capital theory (predominantly an economic theory) with the traditional organizational job characteristics found in the behavioral job satisfaction literature. Four human capital variables-formal education, marital status, length of service, and alternative job information-are posited to have direct influence on seven organizational job characteristics-pay, co-worker integration, promo-tional opportunities, job communications, equitable treatment, routiniza-tion, and centralization. These seven variables are then posited to have direct influences on job satisfaction. Human capital theory is found to be a powerful addition to the understanding of job satisfaction among female employees. The multiple relationships posited between human capital resources and job characteristics are quite evident in the path analytic test of the model. Furthermore, increased co-worker integration and reduced routinization were found to directly increase job satisfaction. Implications for changing certain organizational processes, structures, policies, and programs are discussed.

Nomothetical Nets and Higher Order Factor Analysis in Middle Range Theory Development

The purpose of this paper is to provide a conceptual and methodological approach that will contribute to the development of middle range theory. Nomothetical nets and higher order factor analysis represent these respective approaches.

End-of-Chapter Questions: a Neglected Pedogogy

Summer school is fraught with many learning problems. During an eight week summer session there seems to be very little time for students to truly learn class material, to do independent thinking, to become motivated, to enhance their communication skills, or to feel as if the instructor was treating them as genuine human beings. These learning problems represented unsettling thoughts for me. After teaching summer school for a number of years using a formal lecturing style, I felt it was time to seek out a pedagogy that would add learning enrichment to my classroom. I finally decided to utilize student presentations of endof-chapter questions as my major teaching technique. I hoped this would serve to make students accountable for disseminating technically correct information from each chapter, to motivate and help them interpret this information, and to motivate and engage them in some sort of integrative discussion about this information. Furthermore, I felt that the use of this approach could be grounded in motivational assumptions about students and in a theory or theories of learning. Let’s begin with the elaboration of what the end-of-chapter questions pedagogy represents as an instructional style.