Occupational stress and strains in rehabilitation service provision : some moderating affects of a sense of coherence : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Psychology at Massey University

The sense of coherence was investigated as a potential moderator between psychological climate (PC) stressors and job satisfaction, intent to quit the organisation/profession and psychological well-being. Respondents were a heterogeneous group of rehabilitation providers (n=89) drawn from a list provided by the New Zealand Rehabilitation Society, and from a list of individuals who had completed a post graduate diploma in rehabilitation at Massey university. The relationships between demographic variables and other variables were examined using Pearson r's correlations and t-tests. Significant demographic variables that were entered as control variables in a series of hierarchical multiple regressions. Hierarchical multiple regressions were also performed to analyse potential moderating effects. The results of the study, found that the PC variables role ambiguity, management awareness, job variety and challenge, and leader trust and support significantly predicted job satisfaction. Role ambiguity was also found to be significant predictor of positive affect and general happiness. The SOC subscales of meaningfulness, comprehensibility and manageability were found to be significant predictors of job satisfaction. Meaningfulness was also found to be a significant predictor of intent to quit the profession and organisation, and manageability and meaningfulness significantly predicted positive affect and negative affect. The interaction analyses found that meaningfulness moderated the effects of role ambiguity on job satisfaction, and manageability moderated the effects of role ambiguity on general happiness. Meaningfulness was found to be the pivotal aspect of the SOC construct. The research limitations and implications were discussed along with recommendations for future research

Economische Organisatietheorieen

Onze samenleving is een georganiseerde samenleving. Niet alleen de produktie, maar ook de consumptie, het onderwijs, de vrije-tijdsbesteding en de religie worden in organisaties bedreven. Vele wetenschappen hebben zich met het bestuderen van organisaties beziggehouden. Vergeleken met de inbreng van andere disciplines is de bijdrage van de economic tamelijk bescheiden gebleven. Met name de laatste tien jaar zijn er in de economische theorie echter interessante ontwikkelingen gaande die nieuw licht op het verschijnsel organisaties werpen. Dit artikel biedt een inleidend overzicht van enkele recente aanzetten tot economische theorievorming omtrent organisaties

A COMPARISON OF ALGORITHMS FOR SELECTING AN OPTIMUM SAMPLE FROM H STRATA USING k VARIABLES

In stratified sampling with k different variables and H strata it is often of interest to minimize the survey cost with respect to variance restrictions on each of the k variables. This problem has previously been solved using compromise solutions or using a linear approximation to this nonlinear problem. In this paper a nonlinear optimization routine is tested on this problem. The formulation of the problem in its original form proved problematic. For the test cases run, the transformation th = l/nh, where nh is the number of samples in stratum h, performed best when k and H are less than 7. As the number of strata and variables increase, the transformation th = nh 2 performs better. In addition, simple modifications to the routine used can improve the convergence

A REEVALUATION OF THE GROWTH DECLINE IN PINE IN GEORGIA, AND IN GEORGIA-ALABAMA COMBINED

Using an improved testing procedure based on bootstrap and weighted jack-knife confidence intervals with the same model as used in Bechtold et al. (1991) and Ruark et al. (1991), analysis in this paper generally confirm the results of a significant decrease in growth rate in pine in Georgia and Alabama for 1972 - 1982 (5th cycle) relative to 1961 - 1972 (4th cycle) discussed in these papers