Group & Organization Management

Even though the use of myths, rituals, symbols, and metaphors in organization development is becoming increasingly common, there has been little written on specific ways to use metaphors in organizational change interventions. This article summarizes work to date and presents conceptual and intervention models using metaphorical analysis. A case application is presented, and suggestions for further research are offered.

This article examines potential sex differences in self- and organization-referent attitudes and compares sex versus occupancy of a supervisory position and position in the organizational hierarchy as predictors of self- and organization-referent attitudes for 683 employees of a social service agency. In contrast to beliefs often expressed in the popular media, the results confirm the researchers' expectation that women's self- and organization-referent attitudes will not necessarily be lower than men's in conditions where accurate and realistic feedback about performance is available. Furthermore, the results suggest that position characteristics may help explain potential differences in self- and organization-referent attitudes that have frequently been attributed to sex or gender by previous theorists. Implications for changing the sex segregation patterns of organizations are discussed.

According to Lord's categorization theory of leadership, people identify others as leaders or nonleaders based on the frequency and nature of displayed leader behaviors. Although this relationship has been empirically established, the impact of power attributions on leadership perceptions has not yet been studied. The present research employed LISREL to investigate the linkages of power and behavior to leadership impressions through cognitive schemata. Results indicated that leader behavior had direct effects on perceptions of leadership, whereas leader power did not. However, leader power did affect perceptions of leader behavior, in keeping with categorization theory. In addition, displayed leader behaviors contributed to the development of power perceptions. The practical implications of these findings are discussed at length.

The present study examined the hypothesis that procedural justice and distributive justice are positively related. In other words, when individuals perceive fairness in how decisions are made, they are likely to perceive the outcomes as fair. Similarly, when individuals perceive a fair outcome, they are likely to believe that fair procedures led to that outcome. In line with the Tyler group-value model of procedural justice, it was hypothesized that this would hold true primarily when the individual has a long-term view of organization membership, a view influenced by the individual's disposition to delay gratification or reward. Hierarchical-moderated multiple regression analyses on data collected from workers in a small American tooling plant supported this hypothesis. These results have implications for attempts to enhance perceptions of justice.

Agency research has concluded that executive compensation through fixed salary promotes managerial opportunism, whereas equity ownership promotes managers' compliance with stockholders' interests. Using an experimental design, this study examined the extent to which these motivational effects of compensation are conditioned by the level of board control and conditions in the managerial labor market. Participants' opportunistic behavior was negatively affected by the level of board control. This effect was reinforced by high fixed salary compensation and favorable conditions in the managerial labor market.

In a test of Hersey and Blanchard's situational leadership theory, 91 full-time nurses and their supervisors provided data on employee performance, maturity, and affect as well as leader style. Although directional results were obtained that supported the theory in the low- and moderate-maturity conditions, the magnitude of these results was not significant. Further research in this area is encouraged, with a goal of overcoming the shortcomings of prior research and the obstacles that may be inherent in the study of the proposed processes.