Tove Helland Hammer

Expanding the Psychosocial Work Environment: Workplace Norms and Work-Family Conflict as Correlates of Stress and Health

This study examined the contributions of organizational level norms about work requirements and social relations, and work-family conflict, to job stress and subjective health symptoms, controlling for Karaseks job demand-control-support model of the psychosocial work environment, in a sample of 1,346 employees from 56 firms in the Norwegian food and beverage industry. Hierarchical linear modeling analyses showed that organizational norms governing work performance and social relations, and work-to-family and family-to-work conflict, explained significant amounts of variance for job stress. The cross-level interaction between work performance norms and work-to-family conflict was also significantly related to job stress. Work-to-family conflict was significantly related to health symptoms, but family-to-work conflict and organizational norms were not.

Locus of control and career self-management among nonsupervisory employees in industrial settings

Abstract The effects of locus of control on career self-management and career experiences of nonsupervisory workers were examined in different organizational environments. In organizational settings which encouraged personal initiative in career development through personnel policies and promotion practices. Internals played a more active role in their career progress than Externals by initiating their own job searches, and they had more favorable career experiences. In situations which hampered self-initiative, locus of control had little effect on career self-management and subsequent job experiences.

Combining Qualitative and Quantitative Methodologies to Study Group Processes:An Illustrative Study of Acorporate Board of Directors

In this demonstration article, the authors explain procedures for combining the richness of detail that is characteristic of qualitative data collection with the hypothesis testing advantage of statistical inference techniques. Qualitative data came from a 5-year participant observation study of a corporate board of directors. Quantification of the participant observer’s qualitative field notes was achieved by using content analysis to code directors’ verbal behaviors. Based on counts of directors’ verbal behaviors, the authors tested illustrative hypotheses concerning group process within the board. Univariate (Cox-Stuart’s test of trend), bivariate (Kendall’s nonparametric correlation), and multivariate (log Poisson regression with post hoc contrasts) analyses were conducted. The study’s use of qualitative and quantitative information promoted both “discovery” (i.e., theory development) and “justification” (i.e., theory evaluation) and facilitated a “discovery-justification-discovery cycle” that was particularly useful for understanding group processes with the corporate board.

A Yo-Yo Model of Cooperation: Union Participation in Management at the Rath Packing Company

The authors hypothesize that union leaders who enter into union-management cooperative programs alternate between cooperative and adversarial behavior: they agree to cooperate in order to avert corporate ruin or obtain benefits, but revert to their adversarial view of labor-management relations when cooperation incurs costs to the union or threatens their control of union members. Analysis of union-management collaboration at the Rath Packing Company between 1978 and 1985 shows that during the life of that program, the union leaders withdrew from and returned to collaboration three times, in response to changes in the cost to the union of continued participation.

A test of some assumptions underlying the path goal model of supervision: Some suggested conceptual modifications☆

Abstract In an attempt to further delineate the psychological meaning of the leadership dimensions of Consideration and Structure within a path-goal approach to employee motivation, this study investigated the relationship between these two leadership dimensions and supervisor-subordinate as well as intragroup agreement on subordinate path-goal perceptions. Contrary to the hypothesis advanced by Evans (1970) and House (1971) that leader structure has an effect on employee path-goal perceptions, agreement on path-goal perceptions between supervisor and subordinates, as well as among subordinates was positively related to Consideration and negatively related to Structure. Although some post hoc explanations of these data were advanced, it was concluded that the usefulness of trying to integrate Consideration and Structure with the vaguely defined concepts of path and goal may be limited. A modified conceptual approach was suggested.

Intraorganizational Mobility and Career Perceptions Among Rank and File Employees in Different Technologies

Rates and directions of intraorganizational job mobility as well as perceptions of mobility requirements among rank and file employees were found to differ by technology. Career experiences were po...