Search results

In his study of Canadian schools (mean teacher size 25) Andrews concluded that the use of the OCDQ is valid in both elementary and secondary schools. In this study of 36 large Illinois high schools (mean teacher size 93) Carver and Sergiovanni reveal that 72% of the schools were classified as having a closed climate. No school was placed on the open half of the climate continuum. This distribution differs greatly from that of the original Halpin and Croft study but is more in accord with the results of Watkins' study of nine secondary schools (mean teacher size 52). Carver and Sergiovanni conclude that the OCDQ is unsuited for use in large secondary schools (mean teacher size more than 25–30). With some modifications the instrument might reflect climate in large secondary schools with department chairmen as respondents.

The major purpose of this study is to test the applicability of an eight‐variable axiomatic theory of organizations to the secondary school. Three corollaries, derived from the seven major propositions of the theory, were tested with data from 36 secondary schools in Illinois. The methodological processes employed to obtain measures of complexity, adaptability, and job satisfaction are presented following explication of the larger theoretical framework. An extended discussion of the findings and their implications for the theory applied to schools concludes with suggestions for methodological changes and an expanded research approach.

Although there is some support for the use of the OCDQ in secondary schools, more recent studies of organizational climate have raised doubts as to the validity of the instrument in such a situation—particularly in “large” secondary schools. From his study of 45 “large” secondary schools in New Jersey (mean number of teachers 80; mean student enrollment 1240) the author concludes that (I) the prototypic profile method of designating discrete climates among secondary schools is not useful, (II) the subtests of the OCDQ tap and measure important aspects of the organizational climate of secondary schools.

All too often in education the “band wagon” has played an important role in the adoption of innovations. An innovation is often dropped into the schools' environment by enthusiastic leaders who have the expectation that anyone can recognize its obvious merits and will adapt his behavior accordingly. Subordinates, however, make their own judgements on how to respond to the innovation and, in varying degrees, elect to accept or subvert its conditions. Within a framework of organizational theory, this study attempts to explain the differing positive/negative responses of distinct groupings of educators toward the adoption of various classifications of innovations. The findings in this study suggest that the educational subsystem or subsystems which, in order to adopt the innovation, are required to make the greatest modifications in their normal procedures of operation will raise the highest level of resistance.

Libraries and the information community have moved rapidly into an era of powerful networked scholarly workstations, large quantities of information accessible in electronic formats, and dispersed information sources connected to regional and national networks. This rich diversity poses new challenges for the provision of appropriate reference services. The University of Texas at Austin General Libraries successfully implemented and tested a prototype solution to the problem of providing reference assistance to scholars who are accessing networked information resources and who are at locations remote from expert librarians. Librarians were able to intervene directly in information access and retrieval sessions, remotely assisting the user during the real‐time, online process. The testbed for the project was a CD‐ROM network delivering U.S. government information to DOS workstations via Ethernets connected to a routed TCP/IP wide‐area network and utilizing off‐the‐shelf remote control software. Although problems with existing technology were discovered, this mode of providing reference assistance is a valid model for future services.

Through the years, positive feedback has been accepted as an effective method of improving employee performance. However, recent research reviews question across individual consistency of this effect. This inconsistency may arise from the interaction of feedback type (positive and negative) with individual differences. A Contingency Model of Feedback is proposed. This model integrates previous theory and research. It has implications which would allow service sector managers to select the most appropriate feedback type for each employee.

This research underlines the usefulness of Civil Rights Geographic Information Systems (CR-GIS) for understanding the social struggles and assessing the critical needs of the disempowered population of Alabama’s “Black Belt.” The social struggles have been persistent for decades in the Southern states, particularly in Alabama. Researchers have recognized the political and historical root causes and implications for these social struggles. The geographic region of Alabama’s Black Belt is significant because it became the epicenter of the Civil Rights struggle and still represents the vestiges of the social policy known as “Jim Crow.”

Although GIS has a great potential to explore social and political struggles, currently, it is not profoundly associated with Civil Rights studies. This research employs CR-GIS to illustrate the impact of the disfranchisement caused by biased geopolitics in three selected cases/issues: (1) gerrymandering and voting rights, (2) transportation, and (3) poverty in the State of Alabama. While there has been some progress in overcoming the social struggles in the Black Belt, there is a need for qualitative and quantitative analyses to understand persistent social, economic, and Civil Rights struggles in the region. GIS could be a valuable tool to understand and explore the social struggles in the disempowered communities of the “Black Belt” in Alabama. By incorporating the existing information and conducting ground truth studies, this research will lay the basic foundation for extended research by creating a policy template for empowering the disempowered for better social, economic, and political integration in the “Black Belt region.”

Iowa City is located on banks of the Iowa River in a gently rolling region in the eastern half of Iowa, about 250 miles west of Chicago. It was the state capital until 1858, when the government was moved to a more central location in Des Moines. In 1919, the year the Frank H. Knight family moved to Iowa City, it was a small university community of about 15,000. No doubt Knight and his wife Minerva found it a pleasant enough place to live and raise their young family. To Frank, the town and surrounding area must have seemed much like that of Bloomington, IL, near where he was born and raised. For the first few years in Iowa City the Knight family lived in an 1890s vintage house close to the campus, and just around the corner from a public elementary school.³

Recent years have seen an upsurge of interest in the study of emotions in organizations. Research, however, has been hampered by the ephemeral nature of emotions and a lack of an integrated multi-level model. This article therefore presents a five-level model of emotions in organizations. At the lowest level is within-person variation, defined in terms of affective events theory. Levels of the model then proceed through individual, dyadic relationship, group, and organization-wide perspectives. The article also outlines the neurophysiological processes that underlie the experience, perception, and communication of emotion; it concludes with a discussion of implications for research and practice.

In everyday life, as well as in work organizations, we engage in frequent and quite comfortable discourse about the nature of reputations, and wealso see personal reputation used as a basis for important human resources decisions (e.g., promotions, terminations, etc.). Unfortunately, despite its recognized importance, there has been very little theory and research on personal reputation in organizations published in the organizational sciences. The present paper attempts to address this need by proposing a conceptualization of personal reputation in organizations. In this conceptualization, reputation is presented as an agreed upon, collective perception by others, and involves behavior calibration derived from social comparisons with referent others that results in a deviation from the behavioral norms in one's environment, as observed and evaluated by others. Implications of this conceptualization are discussed, as are directions for future research.