Santa Clara University

This article brings together three current themes in organizational behavior: (1) a renewed interest in assessing person-situation interactional constructs, (2) the quantitative assessment of organizational culture, and (3) the application of “Q-sort,” or template-matching, approaches to assessing person-situation interactions. Using longitudinal data from accountants and M.B.A. students and cross-sectional data from employees of government agencies and public accounting firms, we developed and validated an instrument for assessing person-organization fit, the Organizational Culture Profile (OCP). Results suggest that the dimensionality of individual preferences for organizational cultures and the existence of these cultures are interpretable. Further, person-organization fit predicts job satisfaction and organizational commitment a year after fit was measured and actual turnover after two years. This evidence attests to the importance of understanding the fit between individuals' preferences and organiza...

Recently, the psychological construct mindfulness has received a great deal of attention. The majority of research has focused on clinical studies to evaluate the efficacy of mindfulness-based interventions. This line of research has led to promising data suggesting mindfulness-based interventions are effective for treatment of both psychological and physical symptoms. However, an equally important direction for future research is to investigate questions concerning mechanisms of action underlying mindfulness-based interventions. This theoretical paper proposes a model of mindfulness, in an effort to elucidate potential mechanisms to explain how mindfulness affects positive change. Potential implications and future directions for the empirical study of mechanisms involved in mindfulness are addressed.

This paper presents an algorithm for finding the K loopless paths that have the shortest lengths from one node to another node in a network. The significance of the new algorithm is that its computational upper bound increases only linearly with the value of K. Consequently, in general, the new algorithm is extremely efficient as compared with the algorithms proposed by Bock, Kantner, and Haynes [2], Pollack [7], [8], Clarke, Krikorian, and Rausan [3], Sakarovitch [9] and others. This paper first reviews the algorithms presently available for finding the K shortest loopless paths in terms of the computational effort and memory addresses they require. This is followed by the presentation of the new algorithm and its justification. Finally, the efficiency of the new algorithm is examined and compared with that of other algorithms.

The concept of self-control is incorporated in a theory of individual intertemporal choice by modeling the individual as an organization. The individual at a point in time is assumed to be both a farsighted planner and a myopic doer. The resulting conflict is seen to be fundamentally similar to the agency conflict between the owners and managers of a firm. Both individuals and firms use the same techniques to mitigate the problems which the conflicts create. This paper stresses the implications of this agency model and discusses as applications the effect of pensions on saving, saving and the timing of income flows, and individual discount rates.

ABSTRACT This study examines whether socially responsible firms behave differently from other firms in their financial reporting. Specifically, we question whether firms that exhibit corporate social responsibility (CSR) also behave in a responsible manner to constrain earnings management, thereby delivering more transparent and reliable financial information to investors as compared to firms that do not meet the same social criteria. We find that socially responsible firms are less likely (1) to manage earnings through discretionary accruals, (2) to manipulate real operating activities, and (3) to be the subject of SEC investigations, as evidenced by Accounting and Auditing Enforcement Releases against top executives. Our results are robust to (1) controlling for various incentives for CSR and earnings management, (2) considering various CSR dimensions and components, and (3) using alternative proxies for CSR and accruals quality. To the extent that we control for the potential effects of reputation and financial performance, our findings suggest that ethical concerns are likely to drive managers to produce high-quality financial reports. Data Availability: Data used in this study are available from public sources identified in the study.

The increasing reliance on teams in organizations raises the question of how these teams should be formed. Should they be formed completely of engineers or should they include a range of specialists? Should they be made up to people who have long tenure in the organization, or those with a wide range of experience? As teams increasingly get called upon to do more complex tasks and to cross functional boundaries within the organization, conventional wisdom has suggested that teams be composed of more diverse members. This study suggests that the answer may not be so simple. Using 409 individuals from 45 new product teams in five high-technology companies, this study investigates the impact of diversity on team performance. We found that functional and tenure diversity each has its own distinct effects. The greater the functional diversity, the more team members communicated outside the team's boundaries. This communication was with a variety of groups such as marketing, manufacturing, and top management. The more the external communication, the higher the managerial ratings of innovation. Tenure diversity had its impact on internal group dynamics rather than external communications. Tenure diversity is associated with improved task work such as clarifying group goals and setting priorities. In turn, this clarity is associated with high team ratings of overall performance. Yet diversity is not solely positive. While it does produce internal processes and external communications that facilitate performance, it also directly impedes performance. That is, overall the effect of diversity on performance is negative, even though some aspects of group work are enhanced. It may be that for these teams diversity brings more creativity to problem solving and product development, but it impedes implementation because there is less capability for teamwork than there is for homogeneous teams. These research findings suggest that simply changing the structure of teams (i.e. combining representatives of diverse function and tenure) will not improve performance. The team must find a way to garner the positive process effects of diversity and to reduce the negative direct effects. At the team level, greater negotiation and conflict resolution skills may be necessary. At the organization level, the team may need to be protected from external political pressures and rewarded for team, rather than functional, outcomes.

This study addresses the impact of certain audit committee characteristics identified by the Blue Ribbon Committee on Improving the Effectiveness of Corporate Audit Committees (BRC) on the likelihood of financial restatement. We examine 88 restatements of annual results (without allegations of fraud) in the period 1991–1999, together with a matched pairs control group of firms of similar size, exchange listing, industry and auditor type. We find that the independence and activity level (our proxy for audit committee diligence) of the audit committee exhibit a significant and negative association with the occurrence of restatement. We also document a significant negative association between an audit committee that includes at least one member with financial expertise and restatement. To test the robustness of the results we also consider a sample of 44 fraud and no-fraud firms and arrive at largely similar findings. Our results underscore the importance of the BRC's recommendations as a means of strengthening the monitoring and oversight role that the audit committee plays in the financial reporting process.

Over 200 years ago, the Industrial Revolution bent the curve of human development by almost 90°. The authors refer to this period of dramatic technological progress as the ‘first machine age’. Now ...

After a very long hiatus, economists have begun again to study the relationship between economics and religion. This article seeks to summarize and evaluate the principal themes and empirical findings that have appeared in some 200 recent papers on the economics of religion. Although some of the research concerns the economic consequences of religiosity, most applies standard economic theory to the study of individual religious activity, the characteristics of religious groups, and the impact of regulation and competition on religious markets.

In this study, the authors both developed and validated a self-report mindfulness measure, the Toronto Mindfulness Scale (TMS). In Study 1, participants were individuals with and without meditation experience. Results showed good internal consistency and two factors, Curiosity and Decentering. Most of the expected relationships with other constructs were as expected. The TMS scores increased with increasing mindfulness meditation experience. In Study 2, criterion and incremental validity of the TMS were investigated on a group of individuals participating in 8-week mindfulness-based stress reduction programs. Results showed that TMS scores increased following treatment, and Decentering scores predicted improvements in clinical outcome. Thus, the TMS is a promising measure of the mindfulness state with good psychometric properties and predictive of treatment outcome.

Extracting sentiment from text is a hard semantic problem. We develop a methodology for extracting small investor sentiment from stock message boards. The algorithm comprises different classifier algorithms coupled together by a voting scheme. Accuracy levels are similar to widely used Bayes classifiers, but false positives are lower and sentiment accuracy higher. Time series and cross-sectional aggregation of message information improves the quality of the resultant sentiment index, particularly in the presence of slang and ambiguity. Empirical applications evidence a relationship with stock values—tech-sector postings are related to stock index levels, and to volumes and volatility. The algorithms may be used to assess the impact on investor opinion of management announcements, press releases, third-party news, and regulatory changes.

The literature is replete with evidence that the stress inherent in health care negatively impacts health care professionals, leading to increased depression, decreased job satisfaction, and psychological distress. In an attempt to address this, the current study examined the effects of a short-term stress management program, mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR), on health care professionals. Results from this prospective randomized controlled pilot study suggest that an 8-week MBSR intervention may be effective for reducing stress and increasing quality of life and self-compassion in health care professionals. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.

This research concerns the self-fulfilling influences of social stereotypes on dyadic social interaction Conceptual analysis of the cognitive and behavioral consequences of stereotyping suggests that a perceiver's actions based upon stereotype-generated attributions about a specific target individual may cause the behavior of that individual to confirm the perceiver's initially erroneous attributions. A paradigmatic investigation of the behavioral confirmation of stereotypes involving physical attractiveness (e.g., "beautiful people are good people") is presented. Male "perceivers " interacted with female "targets" whom they believed (as a result of an experimental manipulation) to be physically attractive or physically unattractive. Tape recordings of each participant's conversational behavior were analyzed by naive observer judges for evidence of behavioral confirmation. These analyses revealed that targets who were perceived (unknown to them) to be physically attractive came to behave in a friendly, likeable, and sociable manner in comparison with targets whose perceivers regarded them as unattractive. It is suggested that theories in cognitive

In a sample of 296 8th-grade middle school students, the authors examined the role of personal achievement goals and feelings of school belonging in mediating the relation between perceptions of the school psychological environment and school-related beliefs, affect, and achievement. Sequential regression analyses indicated that perceiving a task goal structure in middle school was positively related to academic self-efficacy and that this relation was mediated through personal task goals. Perceiving an ability goal structure was related to academic self-consciousness and this relation was mediated through personal relative ability goals. Perceiving positive teacher-student relationships predicted positive school-related affect and this relation was mediated through feelings of school belonging. Feelings of academic efficacy and school belonging in turn were positively related to final-semester academic grades. Results are discussed in relation to current middle school reform efforts. During the early adolescent years, middle schools play an important role in facilitating or inhibiting successful adolescent development (Carnegie Council on Adolescent Development, 1989). Schools potentially can provide early adolescents with opportunities to develop their intellectual capacities, to experience a sense of competence and belonging, and to interact with supportive, nonparental adults. Unfortunately, just when adolescents are particularly in need of these opportunities, the middle-school learning environment often fails to provide them (Carnegie Council on Adolescent Development, 1989; Eccles & Midgley, 1989). For instance, at a time when adolescents are known to be sensitive about how they appear to others, middle schools emphasize relative ability and social comparison in learning situations (Midgley, Anderman, & Hicks, 1995); and at a time when adolescents are particularly in need of supportive relationships with adults outside the home, the quality of relationships with teachers is less than optimal (Midgley, Feldlaufer, & Eccles, 1989). Understanding how particular

The strength of strict churches is neither a historical coincidence nor a statistical artifact. Strictness makes organizations stronger and more attractive because it reduces free riding. It screens out members who lack commitment and stimulates participation among those who remain. Rational choice theory thus explains the success of sects, cults, and conservative denominations without recourse to assumptions of irrationality, abnormality, or misinformation. The theory also predicts differences between strict and lenient groups, distinguishes between effective and counterproductive demands, and demonstrates the need to adapt strict demands in response to social change. In 1972 Dean Kelley published a remarkable book titled Why Conserva-tive Churches Are Growing (Kelley 1986). In it he documented a striking shift in the fortunes of America's oldest and largest Protestant denomina-tions. After two centuries of growth that culminated in the 1950s, virtu-

BACKGROUND: Although mindfulness meditation interventions have recently shown benefits for reducing stress in various populations, little is known about their relative efficacy compared with relaxation interventions. PURPOSE: This randomized controlled trial examines the effects of a 1-month mindfulness meditation versus somatic relaxation training as compared to a control group in 83 students (M age = 25; 16 men and 67 women) reporting distress. METHOD: Psychological distress, positive states of mind, distractive and ruminative thoughts and behaviors, and spiritual experience were measured, while controlling for social desirability. RESULTS: Hierarchical linear modeling reveals that both meditation and relaxation groups experienced significant decreases in distress as well as increases in positive mood states over time, compared with the control group (p < .05 in all cases). There were no significant differences between meditation and relaxation on distress and positive mood states over time. Effect sizes for distress were large for both meditation and relaxation (Cohen's d = 1.36 and .91, respectively), whereas the meditation group showed a larger effect size for positive states of mind than relaxation (Cohen's d =.71 and .25, respectively). The meditation group also demonstrated significant pre-post decreases in both distractive and ruminative thoughts/behaviors compared with the control group (p < .04 in all cases; Cohen's d = .57 for rumination and .25 for distraction for the meditation group), with mediation models suggesting that mindfulness meditation's effects on reducing distress were partially mediated by reducing rumination. No significant effects were found for spiritual experience. CONCLUSIONS: The data suggest that compared with a no-treatment control, brief training in mindfulness meditation or somatic relaxation reduces distress and improves positive mood states. However, mindfulness meditation may be specific in its ability to reduce distractive and ruminative thoughts and behaviors, and this ability may provide a unique mechanism by which mindfulness meditation reduces distress.

This paper reviews the relevant literature on the problem of determining suitable ordering policies for both fixed life perishable inventory, and inventory subject to continuous exponential decay. We consider both deterministic and stochastic demand for single and multiple products. Both optimal and suboptimal order policies are discussed. In addition, a brief review of the application of these models to blood bank management is included. The review concludes with a discussion of some of the interesting open research questions in the area.

Preparation for the role of therapist can occur on both professional and personal levels. Research has found that therapists are at risk for occupationally related psychological problems. It follows that self-care may be a useful complement to the professional training of future therapists. The present study examined the effects of one approach to self-care, Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), for therapists in training. Using a prospective, cohort-controlled design, the study found participants in the MBSR program reported significant declines in stress, negative affect, rumination, state and trait anxiety, and significant increases in positive affect and self-compassion. Further, MBSR participation was associated with increases in mindfulness, and this enhancement was related to several of the beneficial effects of MBSR participation. Discussion highlights the potential for future research addressing the mental health needs of therapists and therapist trainees.

While the field of digital inequality continues to expand in many directions, the relationship between digital inequalities and other forms of inequality has yet to be fully appreciated. This article invites social scientists in and outside the field of digital media studies to attend to digital inequality, both as a substantive problem and as a methodological concern. The authors present current research on multiple aspects of digital inequality, defined expansively in terms of access, usage, skills, and self-perceptions, as well as future lines of research. Each of the contributions makes the case that digital inequality deserves a place alongside more traditional forms of inequality in the twenty-first century pantheon of inequalities. Digital inequality should not be only the preserve of specialists but should make its way into the work of social scientists concerned with a broad range of outcomes connected to life chances and life trajectories. As we argue, the significance of digital inequalities is clear across a broad range of individual-level and macro-level domains, including life course, gender, race, and class, as well as health care, politics, economic activity, and social capital.

Technology has been an important theme in the study of organizational form and function since the 1950s. However, organization science's interest in this relationship has declined significantly over the past 30 years, a period during which information technologies have become pervasive in organizations and brought about significant changes in them. Organizing no longer needs to take place around hierarchy and the collection, storage, and distribution of information as was the case with “command and control” bureaucracies in the past. The adoption of innovations in information technology (IT) and organizational practices since the 1990s now make it possible to organize around what can be done with information. These changes are not the result of information technologies per se, but of the combination of their features with organizational arrangements and practices that support their use. Yet concepts and theories of organizational form and function remain remarkably silent about these changes. Our analysis offers five affordances—visualizing entire work processes, real-time/flexible product and service innovation, virtual collaboration, mass collaboration, and simulation/synthetic reality—that can result from the intersection of technology and organizational features. We explore how these affordances can result in new forms of organizing. Examples from the articles in this special issue “Information Technology and Organizational Form and Function” are used to show the kinds of opportunities that are created in our understanding of organizations when the “black boxes” of technology and organization are simultaneously unpacked.