The employment contract: A test of the transaction cost theory

This paper tests some predictions derived from Williamson's transaction cost theory of the organization of work, which holds that the form of the employment relationship is determined largely by the idiosyncrasy of work—that is, the nature of skills and knowledge used in production. It examines the occurrence of theoretically relevant provisions in collective bargaining agreements in the United States and finds they are related to a contract-level proxy for idiosyncrasy (based on bargaining structure) as predicted by the theory. An analysis of an individual-level variable, the difficulty of finding a comparable job, provides some additional support. Finally, several alternative explanations of the results are considered, and it is argued that none are consistent with the evidence. The analysis thus finds strong, if necessarily provisional, support for the theory.     

Gender,academic careers,and the social psychology of aging

Because of cultural, historical and other social structural factors, men and women with the same chronological age have had quite different career trajectories. This paper examines how the different career-paths of men and women academics create differences in their images of aging, self and work. In-depth interviews (N=47) were conducted with a sample of male and female professors, currently between fifty and sixty years of age. Male respondents nearly uniformly followed continuous, linear careers while the women's careers were, with equal uniformity, discontinuous. Data suggest that this difference in career routes fashions different gender timeclocks, i.e., different experiences of aging.     

Communication apprehension and reactions to proxemic violations

An experiment was designed to examine the role of a person's predispositions toward communication in reactions to violations of proxemic expectations. Working with Burgoon's (1983) violations of nonverbal expectations model, Buller and Burgoon (1986) predicted that predispositions may bias evaluations of initiator reward and violation valence. Apprehensive individuals should unfavorably evaluate the initiator, negatively valence a violation and comply less, while nonapprehensive individuals should favorably evaluate the initiator, positively valence a violation, and comply more. Alternately, this paper proposes that predispositions may affect arousal-induction rather than initiator evaluation and violation valencing. Following Patterson (1983), apprehensives should experience more arousal and comply more to reduce the arousal, whereas nonapprehensives should experience less arousal and comply less. Four initiators engaged 90 subjects in experimental conversations which ended with a request for the subjects' signature on a petition. Initiators either remained at the normative distance, moved one seat closer, or moved one seat farther from the subject. Results showed that apprehensives and subjects experiencing close violations complied more, suggesting that communication apprehension influences arousal-induction. Communication apprehension had no main effect on perceptions of initiator attractiveness and similarity, implying that arousal not perceptions of the initiator is affected by predispositions toward communication. Initiator gender again emerged as an important characteristic which influences a subject's perceptions of initiator reward.     

Recent trends in the process of stratification

Using the 14 annual cross-sections from the General Social Survey, we specify a "basic model" of attainment and describe the year-by-year fluctuations in its parameters. The results are partially consistent with theories describing the gradual growth of universalistic patterns of stratification and mobility. Under a linear model of educational achievement, we find that the direct effects of race are weakening and the returns to class-based advantages are declining in tandem. The contours of the socioeconomic "gender gap" are also changing in important ways, with the male intercept declining at a rapid pace and the female term registering small and insignificant year-by-year gains. At the same time, the returns to experience and schooling are increasing for men, whereas the corresponding returns for women have remained stable over the 15-year period. This pattern of interaction effects implies that the size of the gender gap varies over time and across different population groups.     

Exploration to Foster Career Development

Responses to the Adult Career Concerns Inventory (ACCI: Super, Thompson, Lindeman, Myers, & Jordaan, 1988) were organized through cluster analysis to identify different ways in which adults use exploratory behavior to cope with career development tasks. Significant differences in life-role salience among the types of adult career explorers identified were also investigated. Findings indicated a variety of ways in which adults use exploratory behavior. However, no significant differences were found in life-role salience among the types of career explorers. The discussion explains how career counselors can interpret their clients' ACCI profiles to select appropriate career interventions.     

The Limitations and Opportunities of Business Process Re-engineering in a Politicized Organizational Climate

This paper is concerned with the organizationalchange and project management issues raised by theimplementation of a business process re-engineering(BPR) approach in the politicized hospital context. This is a report of research in progress,focusing on the issues arising at the problem definitionand project planning stages of a BPR application in anoperating theaters department experiencing problems with scheduling and delays. The research designrelies on a case study approach, with the researcher asparticipant observer, as both an adviser to the projectteam and as field interviewer. The paper argues that an ambitious BPR agenda is compromised inat least two regards. First, the lack of precisionsurrounding the focus and methodology of BPR givespolitically motivated actors considerable influence with respect to defining terms of reference in wayswhich will shape potential outcomes in their favor.Second, the complexity and indeterminacy of the businessprocess or patient trail can also diluteredesign attempts. The principal limitations of theapproach thus concern the impracticality of embarking onrapid and radical change working from a blanksheet of paper with respect to organizational and job design. BPR, unlike other organizationdevelopment interventions, is not a contextsensitive approach. The role of project manageris critical in establishing a working balance betweenindividual, occupational, and organizational goals in a manner perceivedto be legitimate in the context. Effective BPR projectmanagement thus requires a combination of political andprocess analysis skills. The principal opportunities of BPR derive from its process orientation,which brings a fresh perspective to a traditionally andfunctionally fragmented organizational setting, andwhich presents a potentially valuable platform for anevolutionary approach to process improvement.     

The problem of reconciling divergent perspectives on urban crime: Personal experience,social ideology and scholarly research

The author examines influences of his personal experience with crime, his ideology, and his theoretical knowledge on his approach to the study of crime. Personal experience led to observations that (a) responses to crime are often gut-level rather than rational, (b) both street crime and the criminal justice system are characterized by incompetence, and (c) the retributive impulse must be considered in the study of crime. The radical ideology of the author led to the conclusion that crime is linked with the structure of the economic system. Finally, the author's scholarly knowledge led to recognition of the importance of the causality/meaning and determinism/voluntarism debates for the study of crime and for policy planning. He concludes that one must recognize the importance of all three sources of one's understanding of crime in order to engage in criminological research.

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