Group & Organization Management

Information on job characteristics, facet satisfaction, overall satisfaction, and organizational commitment were obtained from bank employees both before the announcement of an acquisition (n = 108) and after the actual acquisition (n = 49). Correlational analysis and a repeated measures ANOVA indicated significant declines in perceived job characteristics, satisfaction, and organizational commitment after the acquisition. The nature of these changes is discussed along with recommendations for minimizing the disruptive effect of an acquisition.

This article examines the effects of various individual and organizational variables on two measures of career plateau, an objective measure of job stability and a subjective evaluation of having reached a dead end. The study is based on a sample of 2,183 managers from all organizational ranks, representing 41 business establishments and three Canadian economic sectors. The results show wide differences between the variables explaining the fact of having reached a career plateau and the feeling of being in a dead end. The best predictors of objective plateau are objective factors such as past success, age, and education. For the subjective plateau, personal variables such as desire for advancement and personality (locus of control) play the most important role. In both cases, individual factors come out as better predictors of career plateau than familial and organizational factors.

This study examined hypotheses linking three categories of variables, top management team demography, environmental uncertainty, and firm performance, to the extent to which retail banks engage in a formal strategic planning process. The specific variables studied included: mean tenure, mean age, mean education level, functional background heterogeneity, and education major heterogeneity under team demography; environmental complexity and instability under environmental uncertainty; and performance level and volatility under firm performance. Results show that low tenure mean, functional heterogeneity, environmental complexity, and performance volatlity all had positive effects on strategic planning formality.

The present study extends the research on organizational commitment by examining (a) the dimensionality of O'Reilly and Chatman's (1986) psychological attachment instrument, (b) the relationships between psychological attachment and correlates of traditional organizational commitment measures, and (c) the relationships between psychological attachment and preferences regarding the early developmental experiences of newly hired, "high-potential" employees. Psychological attachment is demonstrated to be a multidimensional construct that is reasonably well-assessed with O'Reilly and Chatman's instrument. The dimensions of psychological attachment are found to relate in predictable ways to job characteristics, attitudes, and preferences for changes in an entry-level development program. Implications for management scholars and practitioners are discussed.

Using a sample (n = 297) of private sector firms, this article considers the role that firm characteristics, work force characteristics, location, and employee benefits practices have in explaining employee attrition. Hierarchical regression analyses suggest that benefit practices are associated with turnover, even when controlling for firm characteristics, firm setting, and work force characteristics. Specifically, firms where benefits were a higher percentage of total labor costs and firms whose benefits packages were described to be of higher quality experienced less attrition. Implications of the findings for human resource management are discussed.

A sample of 164 business students rated the fairness and appropriateness of 14 justifications for someone receiving a salary of $2 million a year. The occupation (marketing executive, movie star) and the gender of the person being rated were manipulated. Also manipulated was the response condition: whether one responded as if they were the $2 million salary recipient or whether the recipient was someone else. The results show that certain types of factors (e.g., inputs such as hard work, talent, and performance) are seen as better justifications than other factors (e.g., external factors such as positive benefits to society or difficulty of the job). There were very few gender differences in justifications, but the different occupations were related to different justifications. Also, people felt the salary was fairer and more justified when they were perceived as receiving the money than when it was someone else. The results are discussed in terms of theoretical and practical issues related to student perceptions of executive compensation.