...Organization Management Journal Linking Theory & Practice: EAM White Papers Series 2006 Vol. 3, No. 3, 210-231 © 2006 Eastern Academy of Management ISSN 1541-6518 www.omj-online.org Effective Empowerment in Organizations GARY A. YUKL University at Albany WENDY S. BECKER University at Albany Psychological empowerment is the perception that workers can help determine their own work roles, accomplish meaningful work, and influence important decisions. Empowerment has been studied from different perspectives, including employee perceptions, leadership behaviors, and management programs. Despite positive rhetoric, programs designed to increase empowerment seldom achieve the benefits promised. Inconclusive and seemingly contradictory outcomes stem from the fact that few companies give employees significant control and access to management information. A half century of research suggests that empowerment strategies can offer real benefits. We outline facilitating conditions for effective empowerment, including characteristics of organizations, leaders, employees, and the work itself. Keywords: Empowerment, Leadership, Teams, Power Sharing Effective Empowerment in Organizations Psychological empowerment in organizations is the perception by members that they have the opportunity to help determine work roles, accomplish meaningful work, and influence important decisions. Over the past several decades an interest in empowerment can be seen in many subject areas within psychology...
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...1 Comparative methodology and statistics in political science |CONTENTS | | |1.1 Introduction |3 | |1.2 The Comparative Approach to Political and Social Science: | | |Theory and Method |6 | |1.3 Comparing Data: Selecting Cases and Variables |8 | |1.4 Developing Empirical-Analytical Comparative Analysis |13 | |1.5 How to Use This Book |15 | |1.6 Endmatter |16 | |Topics highlighted |16 | |Questions |16 | |Exercises |16 | |Further reading |17 | 1. Introduction Almost everyone watches daily TV, regularly reads a daily newspaper and often discusses what goes on in the world. These activities shape our views on society and, in particular...
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...Understanding Society – SOSC 1850 Notes Lecture 1 Common Question Answers 1) Britain and US highest teenage pregnancy 2) 36% of US believe in Aliens 3) Suicides highest number of deaths 4) 60% of gun related were suicides 5) False not double stress of US that results in higher rates of suicide 6) Over 65 most suicides 7) Canada and Australia have highest kidnapping rates 8) Sweden highest rape rate 9) ¾ steal in office 10) False couples live tgt more satisfied 11) True, Womens brain are smaller 12) 11 women in legco 13) Plumber is a women 14) Margaret Thatcher did Chemistry for undergraduate Lecture 2 What is Sociology? - The big picture. * The group, culture, of organization, rather than the individual. Lots of people talk about society, but are they sociologists? No they are individualistic thinkers. They talk about individual people and cases instead of the group. Individualistic thinking at Universities: Professors award individual students with grades based on their ‘individual’ merits. What would the SOCIOLOGIST ask? Do some students have to work to earn money? Do some students have to spend time commuting to campus (no dorms!)? Do some students have family responsibilities.? Do some courses/majors have more generous grading procedures than others? Why are there more A students now than there were twenty years ago??? When and Why did sociological thinking begin? SOCRATES: “An unexamined life is not worth living...
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...NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION: USE ONLY IN COMPLIANCE WITH COPYRIGHT: DAVID RISSTROM AN INTERPRETATION OF LAW IN CONTEXT Bottomley, S., Gunningham, N. and Parker, S., 1991, Law in Context, The Federation Press, Leichhardt. { } = additional material from lectures. ( ) = my comments. (See ‘x’) refers to book page number. A short (somewhat boring) message from the summary executioner before you dive in; These notes are an interpretation of the book Law in Context and the lectures given as part of the 1991 Course. They are not a satisfactory substitution for reading the text. You are only likely to get the maximum value out of this summary by reading it in conjunction with the text. The question of ‘the law in whose context’ may be worth keeping in mind as you read. This is an interpretation seen through my eyes, not yours. My comments are not unbiased, as it is as equally unlikely that yours may be. So my ‘advice’ is consider what is said here and in the book considering the need to understand the ‘mechanics’ that help make sense of the more involved themes that develop in the book as you progress through Law in Context. The observations, important in their own right, may be particularly useful for seeing how their often ubiquitous expression is taken as ‘normal’ in the areas of wider society, such as in discussions of economics and power. It is unlikely that you will find any ‘right answers’ from this summary, but I do hope it helps you in synthesising...
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...Conceptual analysis and specification of Morgan’s metaphors using the CAST method Taken from: Gazendam, Henk W.M. (1993). Variety Controls Variety: On the Use of Organization Theories in Information Management. Groningen: Wolters-Noordhoff. 400 pp. ISBN 90-01-32950-0. 4.2. An overview of Morgan's metaphors Morgan (1986) distinguishes eight metaphors for organizations: machine, organism, brain, culture, political system, psychic prison, flux and transformation, and instrument of domination. Each metaphor highlights other aspects of organizational life (see Figure 4.1.). For further analysis, the metaphors can be grouped into three groups: the machine group, the organism group, and the mind group. The machine group only contains the machine metaphor (Paragraph 4.3.). The organism group focuses on the dynamic relationship of organization and environment and contains the organism metaphor and the flux and transformation metaphor (Paragraph 4.4.). The mind group (Paragraph 4.5.) contains two subgroups. The first mind subgroup concentrates on the relationship between the minds of persons and the organization as a social construct; it contains the brain metaphor, the culture metaphor, and the psychic prison metaphor. The second mind subgroup focuses on coordination mechanisms and power plays, and encompasses the political system metaphor and the instrument of domination metaphor. metaphor machine highlights efficiency, quality, and timeliness of production processes in a machine...
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...American Political Science Review Vol. 106, No. 2 May 2012 doi:10.1017/S0003055412000093 The Missionary Roots of Liberal Democracy ROBERT D. WOODBERRY National University of Singapore T his article demonstrates historically and statistically that conversionary Protestants (CPs) heavily influenced the rise and spread of stable democracy around the world. It argues that CPs were a crucial catalyst initiating the development and spread of religious liberty, mass education, mass printing, newspapers, voluntary organizations, and colonial reforms, thereby creating the conditions that made stable democracy more likely. Statistically, the historic prevalence of Protestant missionaries explains about half the variation in democracy in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Oceania and removes the impact of most variables that dominate current statistical research about democracy. The association between Protestant missions and democracy is consistent in different continents and subsamples, and it is robust to more than 50 controls and to instrumental variable analyses. ocial scientists tend to ignore religion in the processes of post-Enlightenment modernization. In individual cases and events, the role of religious actors is clear—especially in the primary documents. Yet in broad histories and comparative analyses, religious groups are pushed to the periphery, only to pop out like a jack-in-the-box from time to time to surprise and scare people and then shrink...
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...Names and Education – there will be 4 questions on Education. These are simply names – you do not need to remember them all – you need to choose which ones you want to remember. Cut and paste to reduce. It is vital that you also have a generaloverview of the key ideas so do the same for key concepts / theories 1. Theories of Education – What is the role and purpose of education? |Functionalism | | |E.Durkheim and T.Parsons |Passing on society’s culture: this then unites people together by giving them shared values (value consensus). | | |According to Durkheim schools are societies in miniature - he argues that the key role of education was to teach | | |children moral responsibilities in order to promote social solidarity. Education provides secondary socialisation. | | |(Meaning the teaching of norms and values of society) to add to the primary socialisation provided by the family. | | |Examples of the values that education teaches to children include the importance of achievement, meritocracy and | | |competition. ...
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...ETHICS 101 A COMMON ETHICS LANGUAGE FOR DIALOGUE Compiled by the Ethics Across the Curricula Committee DePaul University Institute for Business & Professional Ethics 1 E. Jackson Blvd, Ste 7000 Chicago, IL 60604 http://commerce.depaul.edu/ethics bf 208592 ETHICS 101 A COMMON ETHICS LANGUAGE FOR DIALOGUE Compiled by the Ethics Across the Curricula Committee ©2007 IBPE. All Rights Reserved Chaired by Patricia Werhane, Director, Institute for Business & Professional Ethics, DePaul University. A subcommittee of the Ethics Across the Curricula Committee created this document. The members include: Andrew Gold, Professor, College of Law; Laura Hartman, AVP & Professor of Business Ethics, Department of Management; Karyn Holm, Professor, Department of Nursing; Scott Paeth, Asst. Professor, Religious Studies Department; Charles Strain, Associate Vice President of Academic Affairs; Marco Tavanti, Asst. Professor, Public Services Graduate Program; David Wellman, Asst. Professor, Religious Studies Department. This guide draws from various resources prepared by others including copyrighted materials reprinted with the permission of the Markkula Center for a Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University (www.scu.edu/ethics), from Larry Hinman, Ethics: A Pluralistic Approach to Moral Theory, 3rd edition (Belmont CA: Thomson Learning, 2003), from Marco Tavanti, “Thinking Ethically” (unpublished), David Ozar, “A Model for Ethical Decision-Making.” (unpublished)...
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...PR Public Relations Review 38 (2012) 5–13 Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Public Relations Review Revisiting the concept “dialogue” in public relations Petra Theunissen ∗ , Wan Norbani Wan Noordin 1 School of Communication Studies, Faculty of Design & Creative Technologies, AUT University, Private Bag 92006, Auckland 1142, New Zealand a r t i c l e i n f o Article history: Received 2 October 2010 Received in revised form 14 September 2011 Accepted 14 September 2011 Keywords: Public relations Dialogue Two-way symmetric communication Risk a b s t r a c t This paper follows a critical approach in exploring the philosophical underpinnings and key features of dialogue in public relations practice and thinking. It argues that dialogue has been uncritically equated to two-way symmetrical communication, which has not done justice to the nature of dialogue, and has effectively stifled concrete development of a dialogic theory in public relations. The paper draws from a range of literature, including mainstream public relations and communication philosophy—in particular the philosophy of Martin Buber. The purpose of this paper is to inform public relations thinking by encouraging debate rather than proposing a new theoretical approach. As such, it sets out to explore the concept of dialogue and its philosophical underpinning, considers its practical application and suggests that it should not be seen as superior to persuasion...
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...DECENTRALIZATION, GOVERNANCE AND PUBLIC SERVICES THE IMPACT OF INSTITUTIONAL ARRANGEMENTS A REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE Omar Azfar, Satu Kähkönen, Anthony Lanyi, Patrick Meagher, and Diana Rutherford IRIS Center, University of Maryland, College Park September 1999 Table of Contents 1 2 INTRODUCTION............................................................................................1 IMPACT OF DECENTRALIZATION ON PUBLIC SERVICES: THEORY AND EVIDENCE ............................................................................................2 2.1 Theory.............................................................................................................................................. 2 2.1.a Allocative Efficiency............................................................................................................... 2 2.1.b Accountability ......................................................................................................................... 3 2.1.c Cost Recovery ......................................................................................................................... 3 2.2 Evidence........................................................................................................................................... 3 3 FACTORS INFLUENCING THE PERFORMANCE OF DECENTRALIZED SERVICE PROVISION...................................................................................5 3.1 The Political Framework..........
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...Northwestern University, recipient of the Distinguished Service Award for the U.S. Army, and a draftee for the U.S. Army Combat Engineers (Moskos). Currently, however, according to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, the official estimate of the American veteran population is approximately 24,816,000 (“Veteran”). Total U.S. population exceeds 301 million people (“The New Boomers”). In other words, the ratio of veterans to the total U.S. population is less than 10%. Comparison of these figures reflects that American enlistment ratios in the U.S. Armed forces have decreased dramatically since World War II. The U.S. is a dominant military force in the world today; however, it also has allies that it must help protect and defend in the name of democracy. As a result of the above, American forces are involved in multi-theater (or diverse worldwide) roles, both simultaneously and continuously, thus spreading out our troops over diverse areas. Additionally, the extended war on terrorism continues to deplete American military forces, and international news reflects American discord and varying degrees of enthusiasm in continued war efforts. Consequently, since only one in ten Americans has served in the armed forces, American understanding of military requirements is diminishing, right along with the unity that comes with such knowledge. Thus, the realization that American...
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...THE NATURE OF MAN Michael C. Jensen Harvard Business School mjensen@hbs.edu and William H. Meckling University of Rochester Abstract Understanding human behavior is fundamental to understanding how organizations function, whether they are profit-making firms, non-profit enterprises, or government agencies. Much disagreement among managers, scientists, policy makers, and citizens arises from substantial differences in the way we think about human nature—about their strengths, frailties, intelligence, ignorance, honesty, selfishness, and generosity. In this paper we discuss five alternative models of human behavior that are commonly used (though usually implicitly). They are the Resourceful, Evaluative, Maximizing Model (REMM), Economic (or Money Maximizing) Model, Psychological (or Hierarchy of Needs) Model, Sociological (or Social Victim) Model, and the Political (or Perfect Agent) Model. We argue that REMM best describes the systematically rational part of human behavior. It serves as the foundation for the agency model of financial, organizational, and governance structure of firms. The growing body of social science research on human behavior has a common message: Whether they are politicians, managers, academics, professionals, philanthropists, or factory workers, individuals are resourceful, evaluative maximizers. They respond creatively to the opportunities the environment presents, and they work to loosen constraints that prevent them from doing what they wish. They...
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.... Organization Theory Challenges and Perspectives John McAuley, Joanne Duberley and Phil Johnson . This book is, to my knowledge, the most comprehensive and reliable guide to organisational theory currently available. What is needed is a text that will give a good idea of the breadth and complexity of this important subject, and this is precisely what McAuley, Duberley and Johnson have provided. They have done some sterling service in bringing together the very diverse strands of work that today qualify as constituting the subject of organisational theory. Whilst their writing is accessible and engaging, their approach is scholarly and serious. It is so easy for students (and indeed others who should know better) to trivialize this very problematic and challenging subject. This is not the case with the present book. This is a book that deserves to achieve a wide readership. Professor Stephen Ackroyd, Lancaster University, UK This new textbook usefully situates organization theory within the scholarly debates on modernism and postmodernism, and provides an advanced introduction to the heterogeneous study of organizations, including chapters on phenomenology, critical theory and psychoanalysis. Like all good textbooks, the book is accessible, well researched and readers are encouraged to view chapters as a starting point for getting to grips with the field of organization theory. Dr Martin Brigham, Lancaster University, UK McAuley et al. provide a highly readable account...
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...would be impossible without the social conditions built before their lifetime.[1][2][3] |Contents | |[hide] | |1 Introduction | |2 Criticisms | |3 See also | |4 References | |5 External links | [pic][edit] Introduction Carlyle commented that "The history of the world is but the biography of great men," reflecting his belief that heroes shape history through both their personal attributes and divine inspiration.[4] In his book On Heroes, Hero-Worship and the Heroic in History, Carlyle set out how he saw history as having turned on the decisions of "heroes", giving detailed analysis of the influence of several such men (including Muhammad, Shakespeare, Luther, Rousseau, and Napoleon). Carlyle also felt that the study of great men was "profitable" to one's own heroic side; that by examining the lives led by such heroes, one could not help but uncover something about one's true nature.[5]. Alongside with Carlyle the Great Man theory was supported by American scholar Frederick Adams...
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...SID 1223384 A PROPOSAL TO EVALUATE THE IMPACT THAT FOREIGN AID HAS HAD ON DEVELOPMENT IN KENYA RESEARCH STUDIES MOD001774 SHIRLEY JONES SID 1223384 FACULTY OF HEALTH, SOCIAL CARE AND EDUCATION 2012/13 1 SID 1223384 ABSTRACT The aim of this study is to evaluate the impact of foreign aid on development in Kenya. The study will investigate the effect that foreign aid has had on development, appraising its benefits as well as exposing its shortcomings. Judging from the level of aid that the developing world receives and the economic development that takes place in third world countries, there appears to be an inverse relationship between aid and development. With this continuing debate, my interest of study has been to find out foreign aid’s impact to development in Kenya as it is dependent of aid but poverty still seems impossibility in the country for many decades. Therefore, the study will seek to expose these pitfalls of foreign assistance to a nation’s growth and development, using the Kenyan example to illustrate this relationship. The prevailing research methodology shall be of a qualitative positivist nature. Debates still exist around foreign aid dependency and economic development in the “Third World” countries as despite the input from developed countries there hasn’t been much change witnessed in the developing nations which are still drowning in poverty since 1960’s. The study will highlight on the demerit of excess foreign aid has development whereby...
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