Stephen A Woods, Fiona C Patterson, Bart Wille and Anna Koczwara
The purpose of this paper is to re-examine the role of personality in occupational specialty choice, to better understand how and in what ways personality traits might influence…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to re-examine the role of personality in occupational specialty choice, to better understand how and in what ways personality traits might influence vocational development after a person has chosen a career.
Design/methodology/approach
The study tested hypotheses in a sample of UK medical students, each of whom had chosen their specialty pathway, and completed a measure of the Big Five personality traits. Associations of the junior doctor’s Big Five personality traits with the Holland’s realistic, investigative, artistic, social, enterprising, conventional (RIASEC) profiles of their medical specialty selections (derived from the O*NET database) were examined.
Findings
Findings provided good support for the hypotheses. Junior doctors’ agreeableness (with social) and neuroticism (with realistic, artistic and enterprising) were the main predictors of the RIASEC profiles of their specialty selections.
Research limitations/implications
The findings suggest that personality traits influence specialty selection in predictable ways, and differently compared to occupational choice. The paper discusses findings within a theoretical framework that explains how and why trait influences on within occupational specialty selection differ from influences on occupational interest and choice more broadly. The potential mechanisms underlying these associations are explored in the context of motivational aspects of agreeableness and neuroticism.
Practical implications
Within-occupation specialties should feature in career guidance discussions and interventions more explicitly to enable people to decide whether occupational specialties are available that appeal to their individual differences.
Originality/value
This is the first study to examine the relations of personality and occupational specialty through the lens of the RIASEC model, and the first to propose cross-occupation theoretical pathways from personality to specialty choice. The data from the field of medicine enable us to test the propositions in a suitably diverse set of occupational specialties.
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Keywords
Marjolein Feys, Frederik Anseel and Bart Wille
The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of co‐workers receiving recognition on two types of responses, namely emotions (positive and negative) and behavioral intentions…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of co‐workers receiving recognition on two types of responses, namely emotions (positive and negative) and behavioral intentions (interpersonal counterproductive behavior and interpersonal citizenship behavior).
Design/methodology/approach
This study is an experimental scenario study with a 2×2 between‐subjects design with 246 employees from a local health care organization.
Findings
The findings reveal that the relation between the recognition of others and positive or negative emotions was moderated by the quality of the relationship between both actors. Further, as hypothesized, the relation between the recognition of others and interpersonal counterproductive behavior was moderated by relationship quality. Contrary to the authors' expectations, relationship quality did not moderate the relation between employee recognition and interpersonal citizenship behavior.
Practical implications
This study provides useful suggestions for managers to diminish undesired (i.e. negative emotions and interpersonal counterproductive behavior) and enhance desired emotions and behaviors (i.e. positive emotions and interpersonal citizenship behavior).
Originality/value
This study is the first to show that employee recognition may have negative effects on the emotions of others and interpersonal behavior (i.e. interpersonal counterproductive behavior).
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The Departmental Committee appointed to inquire into the use of preservatives and colouring matters in the preservation and colouring of food, have now issued their report, and…
Abstract
The Departmental Committee appointed to inquire into the use of preservatives and colouring matters in the preservation and colouring of food, have now issued their report, and the large amount of evidence which is recorded therein will be found to be of the greatest interest to those concerned in striving to obtain a pure and unsophisticated food‐supply. It is of course much to be regretted that the Committee could not see their way to recommend the prohibition of all chemical preservatives in articles of food and drink; but, apart from this want of strength, they have made certain recommendations which, if they become law, will greatly improve the character of certain classes of food. It is satisfactory to note that formaldehyde and its preparations may be absolutely prohibited in foods and drinks; but, on the other hand, it is suggested that salicylic acid may be allowed in certain proportions in food, although in all cases its presence is to be declared. The entire prohibition of preservatives in milk would be a step in the right direction, although it is difficult to see why, in view of this recommendation, boric acid should be allowed to the extent of 0·25 per cent. in cream, more especially as by another recommendation all dietetic preparations intended for the use of invalids or infants are to be entirely free from preservative chemicals; but it will be a severe shock to tho3e traders who are in the habit of using these substances to be informed that they must declare the fact of the admixture by a label attached to the containing vessel. The use of boric acid and borax only is to be permitted in butter and margarine, in proportions not exceeding 0·5 per cent. expressed as boric acid, without notification. It is suggested that the use of salts of copper in the so‐called greening of vegetables should not be allowed, but upon this recommendation the members of the Committee were not unanimous, as in a note attached to the report one member states that he does not agree with the entire exclusion of added copper to food, for the strange reason that certain foods may naturally contain traces of copper. With equal truth it can be said that certain foods may naturally contain traces of arsenic. Is the addition of arsenic therefore to be permitted? The Committee are to be congratulated upon the result of their labours, and when these recommendations become law Great Britain may be regarded as having come a little more into line— although with some apparent reluctance—with those countries who regard the purity of their food‐supplies as a matter of national importance.
The Board of Agriculture, by virtue of the powers conferred upon them by the Sale of Food and Drugs Act, 1899, have made regulations whereby it may be presumed, until the contrary…
Abstract
The Board of Agriculture, by virtue of the powers conferred upon them by the Sale of Food and Drugs Act, 1899, have made regulations whereby it may be presumed, until the contrary is proved, that milk containing less than 8·5 per cent. of solids‐not‐fat, or less than 3 per cent of fat, is adulterated within the meaning of the Act. The suggested limit for fat in milk recommended by the special committee appointed by the Board of Agriculture was 3·per cent., and it will therefore be observed that the new regulations have fixed a standard for milk‐fat which is even lower than the low limit recommended by the committee. There are even rumours that a further lowering of this standard is to bo urged upon the authorities. Although from the point of view of Public Analysts and the officials responsible for the enforcement of the Food and Drugs Acts it is satisfactory that an official standard for the composition of milk has at last been set up, it is idle to suppose that the fixing of such a limit will materially improve the character of the milk‐supply as a whole. It should be remembered that milk which contains only 3 per cent of fat, although under the new regulations legally “genuine,” is, as a matter of fact, of the poorest quality, and is only produced by a cow when in bad condition, or by a particular breed of cow which is remarkable more for the quantity than for the quality of the fluid yielded. Producers and vendors of milk of good quality have been placed in a very unfortunate position by the new regulations, as the tendency of the trade will be to lower all milk to the official limits, with the result that those dealers who are still desirous of maintaining a high standard of quality will have to compete in the matter of price with less conscientious traders, who, taking advantage of the protection afforded by the regulations, will be enabled to sell to the public “genuine” milk, from which all “superfluous” fat has been removed. Gradation of quality in an article of food cannot, of course, be provided for by official regulation, and for the purpose of legal classification it is only possible to differentiate between legally “genuine” and adulterated articles. Therefore, in a legal sense, and also in a popular sense, a milk containing 4 per cent. of fat is no more “ genuine ” than one containing 3 per cent., although the former is, of course, a superior article. Competition in the dairy trade, which has of late years become very keen, will, as the result of the fixing of this standard, become more acute than before, and to keep their position it will be necessary for those milk‐vendors who are desirous of maintaining their reputation as vendors of milk of good quality to give to their customers some guarantee that their product is indeed superior to the legalised article. Any statements of the traders themselves upon this point will naturally be received by customers with reserve, as proceeding from an interested source, and the guarantee, to be effective, must therefore be given by an authority whose statements are above suspicion. It is hero that the system of Control will be found to be a necessity both to the milk dealer and milk consumer.
We are requested to publish the following Manifesto:—
The great difficulties which attach to the fixing of legal standards of composition for food products have now to be grappled with by the Departmental Committee appointed by the…
Abstract
The great difficulties which attach to the fixing of legal standards of composition for food products have now to be grappled with by the Departmental Committee appointed by the Board of Agriculture to consider and determine what regulations should be made by the Board, under Section 4 of the Sale of Food and Drugs Act, 1899, with respect to the composition of butter. As we predicted in regard to the labours of the Milk and Cream Standards Committee, so we predict now that the Butter Committee will be unable to do more than to recommend standards and limits, which, while they will make for the protection of the public against the sale of grossly adulterated articles, will certainly not in any way insure the sale of butter of really satisfactory, or even of fair, composition. Standards and limits established by law for the purposes of the administration of criminal Acts of Parliament must of necessity be such as to legalise the sale of products of a most inferior character, to which the term “genuine” may still by law be applied as well as to legalise the sale of adulterated and sophisticated products so prepared as to come within the four corners of the law. It is, of course, an obvious necessity that official standards and limits should be established, and the Board of Agriculture are to be congratulated upon the manner in which they are endeavouring to deal with these extremely knotty problems; but it is important that misconception on the part of the public and the trade with respect to the effect of the regulations to be made should be as far as possible prevented. All that can be hoped for is that the conclusions at which the Committee may find themselves compelled to arrive will not be such as to place too high and too obvious a premium upon the sale of those inferior and scientifically‐adulterated products which are placed in such enormous quantities on the food market.
ON the face of it the Report of the Royal Commission on Local Government in Greater London might seem to be of no concern to authorities outside the area, but it is certain that…
Abstract
ON the face of it the Report of the Royal Commission on Local Government in Greater London might seem to be of no concern to authorities outside the area, but it is certain that all concerned with local government have their eyes firmly glued on the eventual fate of the Report. For what happens in Greater London could well be a pointer for local government reform in the rest of the country. Librarians are among the many people who have an intense interest in this, despite the fact that only one of the Report's 1,011 paragraphs dealt with libraries.
At a recent inquest upon the body of a woman who was alleged to have died as the result of taking certain drugs for an improper purpose, one of the witnesses described himself as…
Abstract
At a recent inquest upon the body of a woman who was alleged to have died as the result of taking certain drugs for an improper purpose, one of the witnesses described himself as “an analyst and manufacturing chemist,” but when asked by the coroner what qualifications he had, he replied : “I have no qualifications whatever. What I know I learned from my father, who was a well‐known ‘F.C.S.’” Comment on the “F.C.S.” is needless.
The question has been recently raised as to how far the operation of the Sale of Food and Drugs Acts of 1875, 1879, and 1899, and the Margarine Act, 1887, is affected by the Act…
Abstract
The question has been recently raised as to how far the operation of the Sale of Food and Drugs Acts of 1875, 1879, and 1899, and the Margarine Act, 1887, is affected by the Act 29 Charles II., cap. 7, “for the better observation of the Lord's Day, commonly called Sunday.” At first sight it would seem a palpable absurdity to suppose that a man could escape the penalties of one offence because he has committed another breach of the law at the same time, and in this respect law and common‐sense are, broadly speaking, in agreement; yet there are one or two cases in which at least some show of argument can be brought forward in favour of the opposite contention.