Job Search Behavior of Employed Managers

Job search typically has been thought of as an antecedent to voluntary turnover or job choice behavior. This study extends the existing literature by proposing a model of the job search process and examining the job search behavior of employed managers. Managers were initially surveyed about their job search activity over the past year. Approximately one year later, the same managers were surveyed to assess whether they had changed jobs since the initial survey, and the circumstances surrounding the job change. This survey data was matched with job, organizational, and personal information contained in the data base of a large executive search firm. Results suggest that dissatisfaction with different aspects of the organization and job were more strongly related to job search than were perceptions of greener pastures. Moreover, although some job search activity does facilitate turnover, a considerable amount of search does not lead to turnover. Thus, it appears that search serves many purposes. Implications of managerial job search on organizations are discussed

Job and Life Attitudes of Male Executives

Despite executives\u27 important positions in organizations, their attitute have not received much research attention. In an attempt to remedy this deficiency, the present study tested a hypothesized model of executive attitudes involving job satisfaction, life satisfaction, job stress, and work-family conflict. Using data gathered from a large, representative sample of male executives (due to the small number of female executives in the study, the analyses were confined to males only), LISREL results indicated support for the overall model and the specific relationships within the model. These results are the first to simultaneously consider job and life satisfaction, job stress, and work-family conflict, and also constitute the most comprehensive evidence to date on executive attitudes. The meaning and contributions of the findings are discussed

Effects of Personality, Cognitive Ability, and Fit on Job Search and Separation Among Employed Managers

The present study attempted to provide a constructive replication and extension of a study on managerial job search completed by Bretz, Boudreau, and Judge (1994). Beyond examining the same variables as Bretz et al. (1994), the effects of personality, cognitive ability, challenge and hindrance related job stress, and fit on job search and turnover also were examined. Data were collected from a 1995 survey of employed U.S. managers and a 1996 follow-up survey of respondents. Results based on a sample of 1,886 managers generally replicated the Bretz et al. results. Furthermore, hindrance related stress, cognitive ability, extraversion, openness to experience, and agreeableness were associated with search and/or separation

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

An Empirical Investigation of the Predictors of Executive Career Success

The present study examined the degree to which demographic, human capital,motivational, organizational, and industry/region variables predicted executive career success. Career success was assumed to comprise objective (pay, ascendancy) and subjective (job satisfaction, career satisfaction) elements. Results obtained from a sample of 1,388 U.S.executives suggested that demographic, human capital, motivational, and organizational variables explained significant variance in objective career success and in career satisfaction. Particularly interesting were findings that educational level, quality, prestige, and degree type all predicted financial success. In contrast, only the motivational and organizational variables explained significant amounts of variance in job satisfaction. These findings suggest that the variables that lead to objective career success often are quite different from those that lead to subjectively defined success

Discovering clinical phronesis.

Phronesis is often described as a 'practical wisdom' adapted to the matters of everyday human life. Phronesis enables one to judge what is at stake in a situation and what means are required to bring about a good outcome. In medicine, phronesis tends to be called upon to deal with ethical issues and to offer a critique of clinical practice as a straightforward instrumental application of scientific knowledge. There is, however, a paucity of empirical studies of phronesis, including in medicine. Using a hermeneutic and phenomenological approach, this inquiry explores how phronesis is manifest in the stories of clinical practice of eleven exemplary physicians. The findings highlight five overarching themes: ethos (or character) of the physician, clinical habitus revealed in physician know-how, encountering the patient with attentiveness, modes of reasoning amidst complexity, and embodied perceptions (such as intuitions or gut feeling). The findings open a discussion about the contingent nature of clinical situations, a hermeneutic mode of clinical thinking, tacit dimensions of being and doing in clinical practice, the centrality of caring relations with patients, and the elusive quality of some aspects of practice. This study deepens understandings of the nature of phronesis within clinical settings and proposes 'Clinical phronesis' as a descriptor for its appearance and role in the daily practice of (exemplary) physicians

The ATLAS Simulation: an LHC Challenge

The simulation program for the ATLAS experiment at CERN is currently in a full operational mode and integrated into the ATLAS common analysis framework, Athena. The OO approach, based on GEANT4, and in use during the DC2 data challenge has been interfaced within Athena and to GEANT4 using the LCG dictionaries and Python scripting. The robustness of the application was proved during the DC2 data challenge. The Python interface has added the flexibility, modularity and interactivity that the simulation tool requires in order to be able to provide a common implementation of different full ATLAS simulation setups, test beams and cosmic ray applications. Generation, simulation and digitization steps were exercised for performance and robustness tests. The comparison with real data has been possible in the context of the ATLAS Combined Test Beam (2004) and ongoing cosmic ray studies

An empirical and philosophical exploration of clinical practice.

Previous empirical work among physicians has led us to propose that clinical practice is experienced by clinicians as an engagement-in-the-clinical-situation. In this study, we pursue our exploration of clinical practice 'on its own terms' by turning to the experience of patients. Phenomenological analysis of in-depth individual interviews with 8 patients. We describe the patient experience as a set of three motifs: the shock on the realization of the illness, the chaos of the health care environment, and the anchor point provided by an engaged physician. We draw on Heidegger's notion of solicitude to show that patients are actively ascertaining the physician's engagement in their care. These findings lead us to question the classical "dual discourse" of medicine that offers a dichotomous account of clinical practice as the addition of care to cure, art to science, humanism to technique, and person to medical case. We found no such distinctions in our empirical investigation of clinical practice. Rather, in our synthesis, practice appears as a unitary experience. The physician's solicitude for the patient entrains engagement in the clinical situation. Moreover, the solicitous, engaged physician constitutes an anchor point for the patient

Impact of Seabed Resuspension on Oxygen and Nitrogen Dynamics in the Northern Gulf of Mexico: A Numerical Modeling Study

Resuspension affects water quality in coastal environments by entraining seabed organic matter into the water column, which can increase remineralization, alter seabed fluxes, decrease water clarity, and affect oxygen and nutrient dynamics. Nearly all numerical models of water column biogeochemistry, however, simplify seabed and bottom boundary layer processes and neglect resuspension. Here we implemented HydroBioSed, a coupled hydrodynamic-sediment transport-biogeochemical model to examine the role of resuspension in regulating oxygen and nitrogen dynamics on timescales of a day to a month. The model was implemented for the northern Gulf of Mexico, where the extent of summertime hypoxia is sensitive to seabed and bottom boundary layer processes. Results indicated that particulate organic matter remineralization in the bottom water column increased by an order of magnitude during resuspension events. This increased sediment oxygen consumption and ammonium production, which were defined as the sum of seabed fluxes of oxygen and ammonium, plus oxygen consumption and ammonium production in the water column due to resuspended organic matter. The increases in remineralization impacted biogeochemical dynamics to a greater extent than resuspension-induced seabed fluxes and oxidation of reduced chemical species. The effect of resuspension on bottom water biogeochemistry increased with particulate organic matter availability, which was modulated by sediment transport patterns. Overall, when averaged over the shelf and on timescales of a month in the numerical model, cycles of erosion and deposition accounted for about two thirds of sediment oxygen consumption and almost all of the sediment ammonium production. In coastal waters, oxygen and nitrogen levels affect the health of fish and other organisms. In the Gulf of Mexico, for example, low-oxygen regions called hypoxic areas or dead zones form in the summertime near the seabed in bottom water . It can be difficult to understand and quantify variations in bottom water oxygen and nitrogen levels, however, because: (1) water quality there is affected by many different physical and biological processes; and (2) observational studies are limited by cost, safety and technological advances. To complement previous observational studies, this paper used a new numerical modeling approach that accounts for many physical and biological processes in the seabed and water. Specifically, we used the model to evaluate how resuspension, especially the entrainment of organic matter from the seabed into the water, affected oxygen and nitrogen levels in the Northern Gulf of Mexico. Model results indicated that resuspension increased the decomposition of organic matter, decreasing oxygen levels and increasing ammonium (a form of nitrogen) levels in bottom water. This effect was largest in regions with abundant seabed organic matter and frequent resuspension. These modeling results can help scientists and environmental managers understand how resuspension affects oxygen and nitrogen levels in bottom waters

Pattern Analysis of Microtubule-Polymerizing and -Depolymerizing Agent Combinations as Cancer Chemotherapies

Subcellular distribution of mass can be analyzed by a technique that involves culturing cells on interferometers and digitizing their interference contours. Contour sampling resulted in 102 variables per cell, which were predictors of oncogenic transformation. Cell phenotypes can be deconstructed by use of latent factors, which represent the covariance of the real variables. The reversal of the cancertype phenotype by a combination of microtubule- stabilizing and -depolymerizing agents was described previously. The implications of these results have been explored by clinicians who treated patients with the combination of docetaxel and vinorelbine (Navelbine®). The current study was performed to determine the effects of different combinations on phenotype and in phases of the cell cycle other than mitosis. Combinations of paclitaxel with either colchicine, podophyllotoxin, nocodazole, or vinblastine caused phenotype reversal. Paclitaxel analogue, 7-deoxytaxol, by itself caused reversal. Factors #4, (filopodia), #5 (displacement and/or deep invaginations in the periphery), #8, and #12 took on values typical of normal cells, whereas the values of #7 (p21-activated kinase), and #13 (rounding up) shifted toward the cancer-type. All combinations altered microtubule arrangement at the cell edge. Delivery schedules and drug ratios used in clinical studies were subjected to analysis. Clinical response rates were better when the combination was not interspersed with a single agent (P=0.004). The results support the idea that efficacy depends upon simultaneous exposure to both agents, and suggest a novel mechanism for combination therapies. These therapies appear to restore in transformed cells some of the features of a contact-inhibited cell, and to impede progress through the cell cycle even when provided at nanomolar concentrations