The ritual of reorganization in a public bureaucracy

Cultural aspects of complex organizations have recently captured the attention of scholars, yet empirical studies in this area remain rare. This paper explores the paradox that reorganizations are common in modern bureaucracies even though they have been found to have few instrumental effects. The present study of a state regulatory agency found that while reorganization had little instrumental consequence, it did provide the context for a power struggle between the administrative and occupational spheres of authority. In fact, reorganization proved to be a highly ritualized arena for significantly altering the agency's informal structure by replacing an entrenched dominant subculture. By examining the symbolic and ritualistic nature of this process, this paper looks beyond the ineffectual manifest functions of reorganization to uncover its power latent functions.Donald D. Stull is Associate Professor of Anthropology and a research associate with the Institute for Public Policy and Business Research at the University of Kansas. Steven Maynard-Moody is Associate Professor of Public Administration in the Division of Government and Director of the Policy Analysis Program in the Institute for Public Policy and Business Research at the University of Kansas. Jerry Mitchell is Assistant Professor of Public Administration, Baruch College, City University of New York. Support for this research was provided by a grant from the General Research Fund of the University of Kansas. An earlier draft of this paper was presented at the annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association in Denver, Colorado, in November 1984. We wish to thank F. Allan Hanson for his critique of an earlier version of this paper. We are grateful for the patience and openness of those working in the Kansas Department of Health and Environment.     

A review of two measures of pathological gambling in the United States

This paper addresses a debate that has emerged in the field of pathological gambling research. This debate concerns measurement of the prevalence of pathological gambling in the general population. Two instruments have been used to measure prevalence in the United States, the South Oaks Gambling Screen and the Cumulative Clinical Signs Method. These instruments are described and several problems with the statistical properties of the Cumulative Clinical Signs Method are discussed. The authors conclude with a call for continued research in the area of prevalence studies of pathological gambling.This research was partly funded by the Antisocial and Violent Behavior Branch of the National Institute of Mental Health (MH-44295).The authors would like to acknowledge the contribution of Henry J. Steadman, Ph.D. to the initial formulation of the ideas presented here.     

Feedback-conditional regret theory and testing regret-aversion in risky choice

Regret is an aversive emotion experienced upon the discovery that, had a different choice been made, a higher level of utility would have obtained than actually did. Because regret can be anticipated prior to choice it can lead to regret-minimising decisions. It has been shown that the experience of post-decisional regret is generally dependent on discovering the outcome of foregone acts as well as chosen acts. The most popular version of regret theory does not include an explicit account of the impact of foregone act resolution on anticipated regret-aversion as a decision motive. This restricts its domain of applicability. This paper modifies regret theory to accommodate the impact of outcome feedback on anticipated regret-aversion. The theoretical and empirical implications of this new version of regret theory are discussed.     

Social Cognitive Approach to Career Development: An Overview

This article provides an overview of a social cognitive framework for understanding career interest, choice, and performance processes. Derived primarily from Bandura's (1986) general social cognitive theory, the framework features several variables (self-efficacy, outcome expectations, personal goals) through which people help to guide their own career development. It also includes a discussion of how these variables interrelate with other aspects of persons (e.g., gender) and their environments (e.g., supports, barriers) within the process of career development. The framework is intended as a base both for unifying existing career theories and for conceptualizing developmental and remedial career interventions.     

Perceptions of and reactions to the homeless: A survey of fourth-grade, high school, and college students in a small Midwestern community

A total of 459 fourth-graders, high school students, and undergraduates completed a Homelessness Questionnaire developed for use in this study. Although participants generally expressed positive and supportive attitudes toward the homeless, attributing homelessness to either social maladjustment (e.g., drug problem) or negative characteristics (e.g., laziness) within the homeless was positively associated with “fear of and anger toward the homeless” for all groups of participants. In addition, perceptions of and reactions to the homeless were influenced by both the participants’ gender and age group. Although high school and college students’ interest in helping the homeless was associated with various attitudes and reactions (e.g., feelings of sympathylsupport), their indication that they had ever helped homeless people (either directly or indirectly) was consistently associated only with the acknowledgement that their mother and father had ever helped homeless people (either directly or indirectly). Among these older participants, homelessness in the United States was rated as a more serious problem at the end of the questionnaire than at the beginning.     

MODERNIZATION, STRUCTURAL CHARACTERISTICS, AND SOCIETAL RATES OF CRIME: AN APPLICATION OF BLAU'S MACROSOCIOLOGICAL THEORY

The objectives of this article are to examine the relationships between several structural characteristics associated with modernity and the ratio of property crimes to homicides, and to develop a theoretical interpretation for such relationships. The proposed interpretation involves an application of Blau's general macrosociological theory. Blau's (1977) theory is concerned with the determinants of intergroup associations. The key to applying his theory to the phenomenon of crime lies in the conceptualization of property crimes as characteristically intergroup interactions, and homicides as ingroup interactions. Blau's theorems concerning the structural determinants of rates of intergroup associations in general can then be extended to account for the relative frequency of these two types of crime. Several specific hypotheses are derived from Blau's theory and are tested with cross-national data. The results are for the most part in accord with theoretical expectations. Moreover, the proposed interpretation for the relationship between modern social structures and the ratio of property crimes to homicides is more consistent with the full pattern of results than are some plausible alternative interpretations.