Personality and Cognitive Ability as Predictors of Job Search and Separation Among Employed Managers

Traditional models and research on employee job search and separation focus on situationally-specific variables, those that change with time or between particular employment situations. More enduring individual characteristics, such as personality and cognitive ability, may create predispositions that affect search and separation in consistent ways across different situations. The research reported here extends traditional turnover models by incorporating two enduring individual characteristics – personality and cognitive ability – into the search and separation process. This extended model is then tested on a sample of executives. Cognitive ability as well as the personality dimensions of agreeableness, neuroticism and openness to experience related positively to job search. The effects of cognitive ability and the personality dimensions of agreeableness and openness to experience on job search were partially mediated by the array of situational factors, while the effect of neuroticism on job search was fully mediated. The relationship between extraversion and job search became significant in the presence of situational factors, suggesting a suppressor effect. With regard to separation, a similar suppressor effect was found for extraversion. Implications for future research and practice are discussed

Situationally edited empathy: an effect of socio-economic structure on individual choice

Criminological theory still operates with deficient models of the offender as agent, and of social influences on the agent’s decision-making process. This paper takes one ‘emotion’, empathy, which is theoretically of considerable importance in influencing the choices made by agents; particularly those involving criminal or otherwise harmful action. Using a framework not of rational action, but of ‘rationalised action’, the paper considers some of the effects on individual psychology of social, economic, political and cultural structure. It is suggested that the climate-setting effects of these structures promote normative definitions of social situations which allow unempathic, harmful action to be rationalised through the situational editing of empathy. The ‘crime is normal’ argument can therefore be extended to include the recognition that the uncompassionate state of mind of the criminal actor is a reflection of the self-interested values which govern non-criminal action in wider society

Second-chance punitivism and the contractual governance of crime and incivility: New Labour, old Hobbes

The growing application of mechanisms of contractual governance to behaviour that breaches social norms, rather than the criminal law, appears to represent an ethopolitical concern with delinquent self-reform through the activation of technologies of the self. In fact, there is little empirical evidence that the contractual governance of incivility leads to such self-reform. Beneath the ideology of contractual agreement to observe social norms lies what this paper calls a ‘second-chance punitivism’ which operates to crystallise behavioural elements of the Hobbesian social contract, after breach, into a more specific form. The responsibilising and individualising properties of this form of contractual governance set the moral-ideological platform for a retributive punitivism, when the rational agents it creates fail to live up to their image, and are taken to have wasted their ‘second chance’

Cultural Influences on the Antecedents of Trust in B2B Relationships : A Study of Financial Services in the United Arab Emirates

This study investigates the impact of cultural values on trust in the corporate banking industry in the United Arab Emirates. A substantial literature exists concerning trust in inter-firm relationships, and considerable research has been conducted into trust in the banking industry. However, uniquely, this study focuses on trust in business-to-business relationships within the banking industry in the cultural context of an Arab country. The bulk of the empirical research reported concerning trust in business-to-business relationships has been conducted in Europe and North America, while a considerable amount of research into related concepts such as guanxi has been conducted within Chinese cultures. However, little empirical research has investigated trust in business-to-business relationships from the perspective of an Arab culture. Culture in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is influenced by Islamic tradition and by Bedouin tribal values. The social and cultural characteristics that prevail in the Arab context are very different from those in nations influenced by Western or Chinese culture. Consequently, this study yields unique insights that would develop our understanding of culture and ‘shared values’ in the development of trusting business relationships with Arab businesses. The focus of this research is on the individual and on individual practices in their social setting, to explore the role of culture as antecedents of trustPeer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

Online Education: The Impact of Economics and Politics on Teacher\u27s Situationally Constrained Choice

Online education has been increasing at an astounding rate, and advocates contend this trend will transform schooling as we know it. The current research has been centered on the student outcomes in online education. However, this myopic focus on outcomes underestimates the broader systemic factors that may be driving the implementation and everyday practices which impact student outcomes. This study investigates the economic, political, and organizational factors that influence the situationally constrained choices of an online teacher. This study identifies the ways in which higher education budgets, policies, and technological resources impact what teachers do in the classroom while investigating the everyday practices of teachers that may challenge or reinforce the opportunities and constraints created by these systemic factors at a community college. After talking with faculty and administrators, it became clear that the economic enrollment and retention pressures combined with increased faculty course loads do not encourage the development of an academically rigorous course. Furthermore, the lack of clarity surrounding the mission and the organizational practice of using copied course shells encourage teachers to create a course that promotes retention over academic quality

Situationally influenced tinnitus coping strategies: a mixed methods approach

Purpose: The primary aim of this study was to identify coping strategies used to manage problematic tinnitus situations. A secondary aim was to determine whether different approaches were related to the level of tinnitus distress, anxiety, depression, and insomnia experienced. Materials and methods: A cross-sectional survey design was implemented. The study sample was adults interested in undertaking an Internet-based intervention for tinnitus. Self-reported measures assessed the level of tinnitus distress, depression, anxiety, and insomnia. An open-ended question was used to obtain information about how problematic tinnitus situations were dealt with. Responses were investigated using qualitative content analysis to identify problematic situations. Further data analysis comprised of both qualitative and quantitative methods. Results: There were 240 participants (137 males, 103 females), with an average age of 48.16 years (SD: 22.70). Qualitative content analysis identified eight problematic tinnitus situations. Participants had either habituated to their tinnitus (7.9%), used active (63.3%), or passive (28.8%) coping styles to manage these situations. Those who had habituated to tinnitus or used active coping strategies had lower levels of tinnitus distress, anxiety, and depression. Conclusions: The main problematic tinnitus situations for this cohort were identified. Both active and passive coping styles were applied to approach these situations. The coping strategies used most frequently and utilised in the widest range of problematic situations were using sound enrichment and diverting attention

Perceived fairness of organizational drug testing policies: An examination of voice and consistency

Increasingly, organizations are implementing drug testing programs as a means of reducing the high costs of drug use. Although employees\u27 attitudes towards various policies have been examined, two issues have not been addressed. First, justice research indicates that individuals react favorably to procedures that allow them an opportunity to express their views and arguments (i.e., voice). However, this policy has not been examined within the drug testing context. Additionally, research has not examined reactions to policies that allow managers discretion in applying procedures in order to take extenuating circumstances into account. Reactions to these drug testing policies were assessed using data from 128 undergraduate psychology students. A main effect of voice on perceptions of procedural and distributive justice was hypothesized. Voice effects were expected to be magnified in the situationally guided conditions in comparison with the rule-guided conditions. A voice by policy type interaction was predicted for trust, bias, and perceptions of relevant information. Specifically, the supervisor was expected tobe perceived as more trustworthy, less biased, and as using more relevant information in arriving at his decision of what consequence the employee was to receive when a situationally guided policy was used and voice was permitted than in the other three conditions. Partial support for the hypotheses was found. In general, subjects indicated a preference for rule-guided policies, particularly when voice is not permitted. In addition, a trend of negative reactions to the situationally guided no voice condition emerged. Specifically, in this condition, the supervisor was perceived as more biased and as using irrelevant information in the decision of what consequence the employee would receive. Implications for drug testing policy implementation is discussed