A question of balance

Dr W. Warner Burke is Professor of Psychology and Education and Chair of the Department of Organization and Leadership at Teachers College, Columbia University in New York. He is also Chairman of W. Warner Burke Associates, Inc., an organization consulting firm. Burke earned his BA from Furman University and his MA and PhD from the University of Texas, Austin. Prior to Teachers College, he served in senior positions at Clark University, the NTL Institute, and as Executive Director of the OD Network. Dr Burke's consulting experience has been with a variety of organizations in businessindustry, education, government, religious and medical systems. A Diplomate in 1/0 Psychology, the American Board of Professional Psychology, he is also a Fellow of the Academy of Management, the American Psychological Society, and the Society of Industrial and Organizational Psychology, and past editor of both Organizational Dynamics and the Academy of Management Executive. He has authored over 100 articles and book chapters on OD, and authored, co-authored or edited thirteen books. He has received numerous awards, including, in 1989, the Public Service Medal from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, in 1990, the Distinguished Contribution to Human Resource Development Award and, in 1993, the Organization Development Professional Practice Area Award for Excellence—The Lippitt Memorial Award—from the American Society for Training and Development. He has been working in the field of OD for over thirty-five years.

Seth A. Berr, MA, is a Research Associate at W. Warner Burke Associates, Inc. He received his BA in Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania and MA in Organizational Psychology from Teachers College, Columbia University. He currently specializes in the co-ordination and planning of executive development and feedback-based programmes.

Allan H. Church, PhD, RODC, is a Principal at W. Warner Burke Associates, Inc., an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Teachers College, Columbia University, and edtor of both the Organization Development Journal and The Industrial-Organizational Pychologist. He has published more than eighty articles and several book chapters, and was recently awarded the 1999 OD Consultant of the Year Award from The OD Institute.     

Make or buy? That’s the question!

The author discusses the question if and in which HR processes, tools or programs the implementation of an internal coach pool makes sense or where companies should continue to buy this service from the external market. For this purpose the article introduces a definition of internal Coaching. The central concept of this outline is a blueprint of an offering of internal or external coaching. The author presents a generic model for the analyzing the risks of such a project, which increases the probability of a decision which leads in the right direction. The author concludes that internal coaching makes sense in specific settings e.g. in order to ensure the ROI of learning opportunities. If this however in every situation has to be called “Coaching” should be discussed in the context of another essay.     

Don't ask the question if you don't want to know the answer

Consultants can and do play many different roles for the client that hires them. In many cases, it is not as simple as it may appear in terms of laying out the problem and then letting the consultant you have contracted with either solve it for you or present you with options from which to pick the best solution. The retaining of outside expertise is usually done for one or more of the following reasons (by no means inclusive): Lack of "in-house" manpower or time to deliver a product. The need for an external expert to bring credibility to the project;. Getting someone outside your organization to deliver unpopular or bad news. Genuine interest in the independent findings and recommendations of the consultant. Whatever the motivation for seeking the advise of outside counsel, be sure you are prepared for the answer they may give to the question you have asked.     

Living in the shadow of OD: HRD and the search for identity

The paper attempts to describe the similarities and differences between organizational development (OD) and human resource development (HRD). While it is argued that HRD practitioners need to acquire some of the skills of OD consultants, these are likely to be limited to the development of personal skills and learning in the attempt to achieve intrapreneurialism and personal transformations. We argue that HRD is living in the shadow of OD because it is slow to recognize its roots in the debates of that discipline. It is therefore suggested that HRD will recognize its true potential only when it identifies its core knowledge and skills. We argue that HRD can find its essential identity in four main ways: by focusing on the organization's business strategy; by devolving responsibility to line managers; by adopting an employee-centred approach to learning; and by emphasizing workplace learning. However, a wider behavioural understanding and a greater degree of reflectiveness in relation to the politics of change and the skills of the change agent must inform this identity.     

Physician-owned health care ventures: the question of patient referrals.

This article explores the various legal and ethical restrictions governing physician-owned health care ventures to which the physician-investors expect to refer patients. The article also suggests ways to structure such enterprises so as to minimize the risk of liability to the physician-investors as well as to the health care venture itself.     

Specialist versus primary care: not an easy question

The central focus in the debate to reform our nation's health care system is on cost, quality, and access. There is general agreement that there are too many specialists in the wrong places, which is said to contribute to the rising cost of health care. Physician profiling has supported the concept that some specialists are more costly than primary care physicians, although the severity of illness in patients treated by specialists may often be greater. Increasing the number of primary care providers may be a solution to reduce costs and will clearly improve access. The study reported in this article was carried out to examine the efficiency of primary care physicians and endocrinologists, a specialty that has been cited as one in which resource utilization is high, in caring for hospital inpatients with diabetic ketoacidosis.     

Living Behind Dikes: Mimicking Flooding Experiences

Delta areas like the Netherlands are threatened by global climate change. Awareness is, however, rather low. Our research objective was to investigate whether coping responses to flooding risks could be enhanced in a virtual environment (VE). A laboratory experiment was conducted in which participants were exposed to a simulated dike breach and consequent flooding of their virtual residence. We tested the hypothesis that an interactive 3D flood simulation facilitates coping responses compared to noninteractive film and slide simulations. Our results showed that information search, the motivation to evacuate, and the motivation to buy flood insurance increased after exposure to the 3D flood simulation compared to the film and slide simulations. Mediation analyses revealed that some of these presentation mode effects were mediated by a greater sense of being present in the VE. Implications to use high‐end flood simulations in a VE to communicate real‐world flooding risks and coping responses to threatened residents will be discussed.     

The Adjustment of Japanese Expatriates to Living and Working in Britain

Ninety-one Japanese managers and professionals on international assignments in the London offices of trading houses and insurance companies responded to a wide-ranging survey on work and non-work adjustment. Dependent variables included standardized measures of adjustment, well-being, mental health and modes of adjustment (personal change and role innovation). In comparisons with samples from other studies, the expatriates experienced lower work well-being and mental health, and, compared with a sample of United Kingdom domestic job changers, engaged in less role innovation but recorded higher personal change, especially in their values. Predictor variables, including predeparture experience, family factors, self-rated job performance, self-efficacy, work-non-work spillover, social interaction and perceived company purpose in the assignment, were found to be differentially related to outcome measures. A new method of retrospectively recording changes in feelings over time in the work and non-work domains was also applied, supplying tentative evidence for a negative shift in affect on arrival, especially in the non-work domain, and a further fall after arrival, especially in the work domain. In most cases, this latter dip was followed by a recovery, providing some evidence in favour of the U-curve hypothesis. Implications for theory and practice are reviewed.     

Fast Equilibrium Selection by Rational Players Living in a Changing World

We study a coordination game with randomly changing payoffs and small frictions in changing actions. Using only backwards induction, we find that players must coordinate on the risk‐dominant equilibrium. More precisely, a continuum of fully rational players are randomly matched to play a symmetric 2×2 game. The payoff matrix changes according to a random walk. Players observe these payoffs and the population distribution of actions as they evolve. The game has frictions: opportunities to change strategies arrive from independent random processes, so that the players are locked into their actions for some time. As the frictions disappear, each player ignores what the others are doing and switches at her first opportunity to the risk‐dominant action. History dependence emerges in some cases when frictions remain positive.     

Book Review: Living Democracy or Anti-Progress?

Public Organization Review -     

Operant leadership and employee citizenship: A question of trust?

The present study replicates and extends previous research examining the relationship between operant leader behavior and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). Drawing on recent theory proffering trust as an important explanatory mechanism, we hypothesized that employee trust mediates the relationship between operant leader behaviors and OCB. Further, we argue that the valences associated with reward and punishments augment the effects of both contingent and non-contingently administered behaviors. Using data collected from 475 employees of a United States manufacturing firm, results indicate that trust fully mediates the relationship between operant leadership and OCB. Further, results confirmed that contingently based reward and punishment leader behaviors are more constructive in engendering trust and citizenship than non-contingent leader behaviors.     

Living beyond the unanticipated sudden death of a partner: a phenomenological study

This research project explored grief and its impact upon men and women who have experienced the sudden and unanticipated death of his or her partner. It included what grief meant to them, how it was manifested in his or her everyday lives and how his or her partner's death had impacted upon his or her relationship with themselves, with others and the world. A Husserlian phenomenological approach was used to explore the experiences of the ten women and five men whose partner had died up to five years prior to being interviewed. The need for the surviving partner to continue to participate in everyday life placed great strain upon the internal resources of the surviving partner. The surviving partner needed to reinvent him or herself, in an attempt to become independent and regain functionality, whilst dealing with the sadness and loss that they had experienced. The surviving partner discovered that a new life order emerged that included hope, optimism, planning for the future and perhaps the prospect of a new relationship. The death of a partner left the surviving partner with a loss that would always be a part of them, with the memories of his or her relationship being maintained within them that will never be replaced by somebody else. The results of this research project reinforce the need for ongoing education of the community in grief and bereavement issues in order to increase the awareness of the support needs of the bereaved person. The length of time and amount of energy required to incorporate the experience into the survivor's life, is greatly underestimated by the community, and perhaps by some of the health and caring professionals. Colonial and hospital based bereavement support services need to be established and be proactive using outreach programs, actively offering the suddenly bereaved partner and family support and information.     

党风建设必须从领导干部的生活作风抓起

<中共中央关于加强和改进党的作风建设的决定>指出:"党的作风建设既是一项长期而艰巨的任务,又是一项现实而紧迫的工作.必须把总体要求同阶段性目标结合起来.     

Design,Disability and the Planning Challenge: The Reality of Living with Severely Disabled Children

This paper investigates the effects of the speculative and standardized house building model dominant in the UK on the residential experience of families with severely disabled children and evaluates the barriers to the provision of inclusive accommodation through the planning and development process. Unlike previous studies on the theme, this paper draws together, compares and contrasts, within one location, the experiences of families that include severely disabled members, local planners and housing developers. The results indicate that, as a result of the deficiencies of mainstream housing design and delivery, real and substantial stress can be created for families with disabled children. Moreover, it was found that institutional and attitudinal inertia restricts communication between developers and planners in responding to the needs of these families. It is argued that evidence based on experiential knowledge of the needs of disabled groups is a critical first step in meeting their requirements for appropriately designed housing.