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This symposium focuses on the individual and the organization in resource allocation decisions. Budgeting is an information exchange function involving “relational learning,” according to John P. Forrester and Charles J. Spindler. Their framework for assessing budget participant interactions and learning can guide future research on public budget theory. As if in a direct response to Forrester and Sprindler’s call for an examination of "the role played by the executive budget office,” Kurt Thurmaier dissects the microbudgeting decision making process by budget analysts in a state budget office. He examines the rationalities adopted by budget analysts as they shape budget problems (agency requests) into solution sets for consideration by the chief executive. Adopted budgets have implications for employees, especially when allocations challenge organizational culture. Mark A. Glaser and Lee E. Parker assess the impact of a community policing strategy on police officer perceptions as resources respond to a mission-accomplishment focus. I want to thank the ad hoc reviewers for this symposium, including Wes Clark, Ed Clynch, Arie Halachmi, Ken Klase, Earle Klay and Cliff McCue. The authors and reviewers deserve the credit for the quality of the symposium, while I assume any problems that arise from this collective effort

How do racial meanings structure the institution of higher education and the organizations and networks it encompasses? This chapter develops a theory of racial activation to usefully link conceptualizations of race and organizations. This theory examines how racial meanings shape organizational fields, forms or types of organizations, and the strategic use of racial meanings by actors in organizations to create a more robust understanding of the processes by which organizations are themselves made racialized. Predominant scholarship on race can largely be characterized as theorizing the mechanisms by which race is constructed or uncovering the patterns and consequences of inequality along racial lines. Much existing research hovers above at a macro level where national, state, and global powers are understood to impose racial categories, symbols, meanings, and rules onto daily life while higher education has largely been studied as a site where we see the effects of broader social disparities play out. This chapter draws on insights from inhabited institutionalism to develop a theory of racial activation that usefully links conceptualizations of race and organizations to provide an intersectional and interactional approach to the study of fields.

Research on coping at work has tended to adopt a between-person perspective, producing inconsistent findings on well-being outcomes. This focus on interindividual differences is in contrast to many theories that position coping as process, hence, as an intraindividual process that unfolds over time in response to job stressors and appraisals. The authors propose that focusing more on the within-person coping processes and integrating them with learning perspectives has the potential to advance our understanding. More specifically, coping behavior and well-being can be seen as an outcome of current and past learning processes. In this chapter, the authors discuss three mechanisms that explain how coping processes can produce positive versus negative effects on well-being, and how coping can be integrated into a learning framework to explain these pathways. First, the stress process entails encoding and evaluation of the situation and, as a consequence, deployment of suitable coping behavior. Over and above the efforts that have to be invested to understand the stressful situation, the coping behavior itself also requires time and energy resources. Second, coping behavior likely co-occurs with learning processes such as reflection, exploration, and exploitation. These learning processes require further time and cognitive resources. Third, although coping behaviors and their accompanying learning processes have the potential to drain resources at the within-person level, they can also build up interindividual coping resources such as a broader repertoire and coping flexibility. These between-level differences equip employees to deal with future stressors.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the influences of job insecurity on life satisfaction and to assess the moderating effects of several facets of job satisfaction between job insecurity and life satisfaction.

Drawing on the survey conducted in Seoul, this paper runs the hierarchical regression models.

The results of this study suggest that job insecurity is detrimental to life satisfaction. Satisfaction with pay and co-workers enhances life satisfaction. Only satisfaction with co-workers exerts a moderating influence.

The results obtained from Seoul may reflect sample-specific dynamics that may be different from other areas, which may limit the generalizability of the findings of this paper.

Organizations would be dysfunctional if workers are not satisfied with their life. Therefore, human resource professions must be vigilant about fostering conditions supportive human relations.

Previous studies revealed that job insecurity has the undermining impact on employees’ life satisfaction. However, there has been little research done to examine the moderating factors of job satisfaction. In this study, it is argued that satisfaction with co-workers is a critical condition in moderating the effect of job insecurity on life satisfaction.

The study of markets encompasses a number of disciplines – including anthropology, economics, history, and sociology – and a larger number of theoretical frameworks (see Plattner, 1989; Reddy, 1984; Smelser & Swedberg, 1994). Despite this disciplinary and theoretical diversity, scholarship on markets tends toward either realist or constructionist accounts (Dobbin, 1994; Dowd & Dobbin, forthcoming).¹ Realist accounts treat markets as extant arenas that mostly (or should) conform to a singular ideal-type. Realists thus take the existence of markets as given and examine factors that supposedly shape all markets in a similar fashion. When explaining market outcomes, they tout such factors as competition, demand, and technology; moreover, they can treat the impact of these factors as little influenced by context. Constructionist accounts treat markets as emergent arenas that result in a remarkable variety of types. They problematize the existence of markets and examine how contextual factors contribute to this variety. When explaining market outcomes, some show that social relations and/or cultural assumptions found in a particular setting can qualify the impact of competition (Uzzi, 1997), demand (Peiss, 1998), and technology (Fischer, 1992). Constructionists thus stress the contingent, rather than universal, processes that shape markets.

The purpose of this paper is to study how the interplay of the emotion of fear and the personality trait of resilience affect time to reemployment after job termination. The authors carried out the research by extending affective events theory (AET) beyond the workplace.

This paper is a conceptual paper intended to lay the groundwork for future analysis in the areas of fear and resilience, specifically in the time after job termination.

The paper suggests that fear is a natural response to job termination, and there are two responses to fear: one of action to rid oneself of fear (“fight or flight”) and one of paralysis, in which an individual remains in a fear state. The authors put forth that one's level of resilience is a factor in determining time to reemployment.

While there are numerous studies on the role emotions play in the workplace and in particular, the role of fear about potentially getting fired, there are few, if any, studies on the role of fear after losing a job. The authors feel this is a warranted area of study as fear can have both positive and negative responses. The authors also contend that a major diver of these fear responses is an individual's level of resilience, and this can be a significant predictor of the individual's time to reemployment.