Search results

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the importance of norms and inference, while providing national overall and subgroup norms for the updated Job Descriptive Index and Job in General measures of job satisfaction.

A stratified random sample was drawn from an online panel to represent the US working population on key variables. Validity evidence is provided. Determination of subgroup norms was based on practical significance.

The revised measures fit the theorized model and patterns of results are consistent with the literature. Practical subgroup differences were found for some stratification variables. Subgroup norms are made available; the first US overall norms are provided.

An updated job satisfaction measurement system is made available, complete with nationally representative overall and subgroup norms. A major limitation and direction for future research is the lack of norms for other nations.

The revised measurement system is available for use in practice. National overall norms improve decision-makers’ ability to infer respondents’ relative standing and make comparisons across facets and employees. The JDI is useful for dimensional diagnostics and development efforts; the JIG is useful for evaluating overall job satisfaction levels.

By facilitating valid inferences of job satisfaction scores, the revised measurement system serves to enhance the quality of life at work.

The authors provide the only publicly available job satisfaction measurement system that has US national overall norms.

Economic assumptions of self-interest and opportunism have sparked a debate about their impact on management behavior. This paper addresses this debate in the context of US hospitals. More specifically, the paper addresses whether self-interest and opportunistic behavior describe pre-existing behavior in hospitals. Our analysis concludes that there is no evidence that opportunism was an underlying industry wide behavior prior to the 1980s when economic theories began to shape policies and the industry. While we cannot determine from the evidence why it emerged, it may be linked to system incentives to reduce costs and/or the propagation of economic theories in health administration programs and business schools. Consequently, there is a necessity for on-going debate and future empirical research on this topic.

The purpose of this paper is to compare two conflicting theoretical frameworks that predict or explain police decision making. Klinger's ecological theory proposes that an increased level of serious crimes in an area decreases the likelihood an officer will deal with order‐maintenance issues, while Fagan and Davies suggest an increase in low‐level disorder will increase order maintenance behavior of police officers.

Using a vignette research design, the authors examines factors that may contribute to police officers’ decision to make a traffic stop in four jurisdictions with varying levels of serious crime. Ordered logistic regression with robust standard errors was used in the analysis.

Analysis of the findings demonstrates that officers who work in higher crime areas are less likely to stop a vehicle, as described in the vignettes. Additional predictors of police decision to stop include vehicles driven by teenaged drivers and drivers who were speeding in a vehicle.

The current research is limited to an adequate but fairly small sample size (n=204), and research design that examines hypothetical scenarios of police decision making. Further data collection across different agencies with more officers and more variation in crime levels is necessary to extend the current findings.

This paper adds to the literature in two primary ways. First, it compares two competing theoretical claims to examine a highly discretionary form of police behavior and second, it uniquely uses a vignette research design to tap into an area of police behavior that is difficult to study (e.g. the decision not to stop).

Increasing minority representation in law enforcement has long been viewed as a primary means to improve police-citizen relations. The recommendation to diversify police departments was endorsed by the Kerner Commission and, most recently, the President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing. While these recommendations make intuitive sense, little scholarly attention has examined whether greater levels of minority representation translate into positive police-community relations. The purpose of this paper is to use the representative bureaucracy and minority threat frameworks to assess the impact of the racial/ethnic composition of both police departments and municipalities on disparities in traffic stops.

A series of ordinary least squares regression analyses are tested using a sample of more than 150 local police agencies from Illinois and Missouri.

Higher levels of departmental representativeness are not associated with fewer racial/ethnic disparities in stops. Instead, the racial/ethnic composition of municipalities is more predictive of racial patterns of traffic stops.

This study provides one of the few investigations of representative bureaucracy in law enforcement using individual departments as the unit of analysis. It examines Hispanic as well as black disparities in traffic stops, employing a more representative sample of different size agencies.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the issue of racial profiling when the traffic stop outcome is a search using focal concerns theory as a theoretical explanation for police officer decision making and propensity score matching (PSM) as a better analysis to understand the race of the driver.

The data for this study come from traffic stops conducted by the Louisville Police Department between January 1 and December 31, 2002.

The results show that the elements of focal concerns theory matter most when it comes to if a traffic stop that resulted in a search even though racial profiling was evident. The use of PSM provides evidence that it is a better statistical technique when studying racial profiling. The gender of the driver was significant for male drivers but not for female drivers.

The data for this study are cross-sectional and are self-report data from the police officer.

This paper serves as a theoretical explanation that other researchers could use when studying racial profiling along with a better type of statistical analysis being PSM.

The findings based on focal concerns theory could provide an explanation for police officer decision making that police departments could use to help citizens understand why a traffic stop search took place.

This is the first study of its kind to the researcher’s knowledge to apply focal concerns theory with PSM to understand traffic stop searches.

Analyzes selected Canadian public libraries' holdings of young adult fiction with gay, lesbian, bisexual and/or transgender content published between 1998 and 2002 in order to measure access to such fiction and to determine whether any evidence of bias on the part of selectors exists. Identifies 35 titles published between 1998 and 2002, a slight decrease from the previous five‐year period. These titles attracted 34 percent fewer reviews per title as compared to a randomly selected control group of non‐lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender fiction for teens (LGBT) titles. On average, in the nine Canadian public libraries studied, significantly fewer copies of each LGBT title were held, as compared to the list of control titles. Without further investigation, the paper could not conclude whether this difference constitutes evidence of significant bias on the part of selectors. However, the data do show that certain libraries are significantly more likely to purchase the control titles that the LGBT titles, and that access to these titles varies according to one's location in Canada.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how chronological age and work experience affect emotional labor strategies (i.e. deep acting and surface acting) through emotional intelligence (EI).

Structural equation modeling analysis provided support for the hypotheses based on a sample of 256 flight attendants working for four South Korean airlines.

The results showed that chronological age has a positive effect on both surface and deep acting. The study also found that work experience has a negative influence on surface acting, whereas it has a non-significant effect on deep acting. In addition, the investigation suggests that EI mediates the relationship between work experience and deep acting.

The current study will add to the growing body of research on emotional labor by examining the effect of chronological age and work experience on emotional labor strategies through EI.