Representational predicaments for employees: Their impact on perceptions of supervisors\u27 individualized consideration and on employee job satisfaction

A representational predicament for a subordinate vis-à-vis his or her immediate superior involves perceptual incongruence with the superior about the subordinate\u27s work or work context, with unfavourable implications for the employee. An instrument to measure the incidence of two types of representational predicament, being neglected and negative slanting, was developed and then validated through an initial survey of 327 employees. A subsequent substantive survey with a fresh sample of 330 employees largely supported a conceptual model linking being neglected and negative slanting to perceptions of low individualized consideration by superiors and to low overall job satisfaction. The respondents in both surveys were all Hong Kong Chinese. Two case examples drawn from qualitative interviews illustrate and support the conceptual model. Based on the research findings, we recommend some practical exercises to use in training interventions with leaders and subordinates. © 2013 Copyright Taylor and Francis Group, LLC

Religious Beliefs: a hidden variable in the performance of science teachers in the classroom (previous version)

replaced by: http://hdl.handle.net/10036/3513This article focuses on some of the challenges of teaching science in a culture where science and religion sometimes appear to be or are set at odds with each other. Apparent conflicts between scholarly claims and religious claims are not limited to science, however – they occur in almost every subject. Many topics included in science education are acknowledged as controversial issues, for example, evolution, cloning, abortion and genetic engineering. These issues pose problems for science teachers, especially in a religiously based culture, because of the nature of the conflict between the implications of a scientific study of some of these issues and religion. Some other issues may not formally conflict with religion but teachers’ views, or the way they interpret the religious view regarding these controversial issues, can create a false contradiction, which might influence their performance and, in turn, influence their students’ learning. Therefore, there is a need to understand teachers’ personal religious beliefs and practices around some of these, and the way their beliefs influence their performance in the classroom. This article describes a study conducted to address these needs. The study looks at the role and influence of religion on the science teacher’s performance. The findings highlighted the powerful influence of teachers’ religious beliefs in dealing with or gaining new knowledge (the epistemology and the ontology of science). Also, the findings found that teachers’ religious beliefs are among the major constructs that drive teachers’ ways of thinking and classroom practices about scientific issues related to religion

Taking cues on Europe?: voter competence and party endorsements in referendums on European integration

One of the criticisms often levelled against direct democracy is that citizens lack sufficient knowledge to vote directly on policy issues. The ‘No’ votes in the French and Dutch referendums on the Constitutional Treaty have highlighted the importance of examining voter competence in referendums. This article proposes a theoretical framework for evaluating competence in EU referendums. It suggests that competent voting in EU referendums is based on issue-specific preferences and requires political information. Since most voters have little detailed knowledge of European integration, they rely on heuristics and cues when deciding how to vote. The important question is how much and which type of information voters require to make competent choices. This article examines whether and under what conditions the use of party endorsements as information cues can enhance competent voting in EU referendums. These theoretical questions are examined in an analysis of the 1994 Norwegian referendum on EU membership

Does political knowledge increase turnout? Evidence from the 1997 British general election

A number of recent formal models predict a positive effect of political knowledge on turnout. Both information acquisition and turnout, however, are likely to be determined by a similar set of variables, rendering hard the identification of a causal link in empirical investigations. Available empirical regularities should therefore be interpreted as mere correlations. I address this problem by using an intrumental variables approach, where the instruments are represented by various proxies of information supply on mass media. Using survey data from the 1997 British General Election Study, I show that political knowledge has a sizeable influence on the probability of voting and that mass media play an important role in influencing political participation. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2007Voting, Information, Mass media, Political participation, Information aggregation, British politics,