Browsing by Author "Hughes, Michael"

Now showing 1 - 8 of 8
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    An examination of the relationship of structural and attitudinal variables to occupational and organizational commitment
    Little, Robert Eugene (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1982)
    This study attempted to test the predictive utility of two competing theoretical arguments present in the job commitment literature. The first argument, called the ''structural" approach, maintains that commitment is best explained by structural traits of workers. Such traits refer to objective characteristics of individuals and include, for example, the educational level of workers, their occupational length of service, and age. The second argument, labeled the "attitudinal'' approach, claims that various subjective characteristics of workers best account for commitment. Such attitudes include, for example, employees' perceptions of their satisfaction and role conflict within their jobs. Variables representing each theoretical argument, as well as scales measuring occupational and organizational commitment were used in a 1975 survey of a sample of park and forest rangers working in the state of Virginia. In 1980, follow-up data were collected from the original sample. Difference of mean tests, zero-order correlation, multiple correlation, and multiple regression were used in the data analysis. The results of this study show that both occupational and organizational commitment significantly declined among the rangers surveyed from 1975 to 1980. During the time period of the study, the structural variables accounted for a greater percentage of the variance explained in both occupational and organizational commitment. Implications for the two theoretical arguments are discussed.
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    Pipelines and Power: Psychological Distress, Political Alienation, and the Breakdown of Environmental Justice in Government Agencies’ Public Participation Processes
    Bell, Shannon E.; Hughes, Michael; Tuttle, Grace; Chisholm, Russell; Gerus, Stephen; Mullins, Danielle R.; Baller, Cameron; Scarff, Kelly; Spector, Rachel; Nalamalapu, Denali (Elsevier, 2024-01-25)
    Environmental health research has demonstrated that living near industrial activity is associated with increased stress, depressive symptoms, and feelings of powerlessness. Little is known, however, about the effects of new natural gas pipelines—or the institutional processes dictating their approval and construction—on the mental health of local residents. Through our analysis of a mail survey, an online survey, and a set of semi-structured interviews, we examine how engagement with public participation processes associated with new interstate natural gas pipelines affects mental health. Our results suggest that the public participation opportunities offered by regulatory agencies during the pipeline certification process are primarily performative, and we find that many of the people who have taken part in these performative public input opportunities experience psychological distress, stress-activated physical health effects, and a loss of trust in government institutions. We argue that when people engage in public participation processes that have little or no effect on agency decision-making, it not only disempowers, but can harm those individuals and erode their trust in government institutions. Furthermore, we contend that providing the public with participation opportunities that are merely performative, with little ability to influence decision-making outcomes, is a violation of both procedural and recognition justice, two of the core tenets of environmental justice.
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    Race, class and the quality of life of black people
    Thomas, Melvin E. (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1986)
    Wilson (1980) argued that social class has superseded race as the most important determinant of life chances for black Americans. His statements have sparked a heated debate in the sociology of race relations. This dissertation is an empirical test of the “declining significance of race" thesis in relation to the quality of life of black Americans. It assumes that "life chances” include not only economic criteria but also the possibility of attaining a happy, satisfying, and healthy life. Two perspectives on the relationship between race and well-being were distinguished. The “class" perspective identifies the source of the problems blacks face as increasingly a class phenomena rather than one of race. The “race” perspective sees race as increasingly the source of the problems blacks face. These two perspectives were tested using data from three different sources: the NORC General Social Survey; the Quality of American Life, 1971 and 1978 (Campbell and Converse, 1971, 1978); and Americans View Their Mental Health, 1957 and 1976: Selected Variables (Veroff, Douvan and Kulka, 1978). The effects of race and class (and other demographic variables) were compared across the years of each survey on selected measures of subjective well-being. The results revealed a persistent race effect on all of the quality of life measures except for the scales measuring psychiatric symptoms. Most of the race effects persisted even when controlling for social class, sex, marital status, and age across all the years examined. These results support the "race" perspective that “being black" is detrimental to the psychological well-being of blacks regardless of their social class status. There was, however, no discernible trend of race increasing or declining in significance--only its continuing significance.
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    Rediscovering the classical roots in the sociology of emotion: Comte, Pareto, and Durkheim
    Walton, Charles (Virginia Tech, 1995)
    This study details the extent to which classical scholars -- Comte, Pareto, and Durkheim -- conceptualized emotion as reflected in their respective works. This interpretive work seeks to further substantiate a classical grounding for the sociology of emotions, that is, to show that there is a breadth of material in the classical repertoire that has gone untapped by contemporary scholars of emotion, and further, that this neglected material may inform current discussions of emotions. It is clear from the review of the three theorist’s works that each maintained a conceptualization of emotion, and considered emotion to be a central concept in the discipline. Pareto’s conceptualization of emotion most clearly resembles an organismic account. Comte’s conceptualization of emotion is both an organismic and an interactive account, and Durkheim’s conceptualization of emotion most clearly resembles an interactive account. Comte’s career in particular is characterized by a shift from a theory that holds no place for emotion to a theory that is clearly dependent on the conceptualization of emotion. Each of the three theorists reviewed conceptualized emotion as a source of motivation for action. In addition, Comte and Durkheim, viewed emotion as an integral part of the process of social cohesion, as instrumental in the integration of individuals into the various institutions that comprise society.
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    The relationship among organizational involvement, commitment, and success: a case study of Amway Corporation
    Johnston, George P. (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1987)
    Traditionally, organizational commitment has been proposed as an important factor leading to desired behavioral consequences (Angle and Perry, 1981). Organizationally-committed individuals remain in an organization, perform reliably, and are even willing to make contributions to an organization's operation which go beyond what is expected of them (Schein, l980; Steers, 1977). One company that seems to rely heavily on the organizational commitment or its participants is Amway Corporation. Amway Corporation is a multi-level direct sales company that specializes in personal and home care products. In just 25 years it has grown from a low-budget company serving a regional market into a multimillion dollar corporation with markets in over 45 countries and territories and approximately one million distributors. Although some of Amway's remarkable organizational success must be attributed to product quality and its dynamic and inclusive recruitment policy, it seems possible that much of Amway's success must be traced back to the organizational commitment of its distributors. Amway Corporation attempts to enhance distributor commitment to the organization by providing material and non-material incentives, thereby promoting what Weber ( t 978) referred to as instrumental and value-rational, as well as affective forms of social action. The present study focused on the following research questions: What is the relationship between organizational commitment and successful Amway distributor task performance? What effect does the nature of distributor's organizational involvement have on the relationship between organizational commitment and distributor success? What role docs emotional attachment to Amway play in promoting successful distributor task performance? These different types of social action suggest different types of organizational involvement that might be exhibited by individuals in a complex organization. Based largely on the theoretical work of Etzioni (1961, 1975), and Clark and Wilson (1975), organizational involvement is conceptualized in the present study as the importance or material, purposive, and solidary incentives for distributor's continuing participation in Amway, and may be distinguished into two types: calculative and moral. Based on data collected on 121 Amway distributors, using two separate samples, this study found that there is a positive relationship between organizational commitment and distributor success. It was also found that organizational involvement and commitment are highly related. The hypothesis proposing that combining calculative and moral involvement greatly enhances the relationship between organizational commitment and overall distributor success was not supported. Calculative involvement and organizational commitment were found to have an interactive effect on overall distributor success. It was found that various time-use factors, such as number of months respondents had been in Amway, number of hours spent weekly motivating downline distributors, and the number of hours spent weekly selling products were also related to overall distributor success. The total number of hours spent weekly on Amway-related activities, and the number of hours spent weekly showing the Amway Sales and Marketing Plan were not significantly related to overall distributor success.
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    Return migration: socioeconomic determinants for state in- migration
    Pippert, John Marvin (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1985)
    The central concern of this study is to determine the role of return migration in the changing economic and noneconomic determinants of state in-migration. It was hypothesized that the transition from primarily economic to noneconomic determinants of in-migration in the United States in the last decade was directly related to changes in the components of the migration stream itself; that is, that an increasing proportion of return migrants in the in-migration stream contributes to the movement toward noneconomic reasons for migrating. This study compares the selective characteristics of lifetime and five-year non migrants, and primary, secondary and return migrants using Public Use Sample data for 1960, 1970, and 1980. In addition, it analyzes four economic and six noneconomic determinants of migration for 1970 and 1980 usinq a data set that includes published data on state migration and socioeconomic characteristics. An analysis of the selectivities of migration has both supported and rejected existing literature. In a comparison of migrants and non migrants, migrants tend to be younger, better educated persons from white collar occupations with higher incomes and smaller households than non migrants. When migrant types are compared, return migrants tend not to be as well off as other migrants socioeconomically. They tend to have lower education, come from blue collar occupations, have larger households, be a little older and have less income than other migrants. The most significant finding is the distinction of five-year from lifetime nonmigrants. The regression analysis on the determinants of state in-migration reveals that there has been a shift from economic to noneconomic reasons for migrating from 1970 to 1980. In addition, the relative proportion of primary, secondary and return migration has changed over time. Contrary to the hypothesis, however, the trend from economic to noneconomic determinants of migration has not been related to changes in the proportion of return this study points to the relationship migration in the stream. Rather, further research that investigates between secondary migration and the changing determinants of state in-migration.
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    Social bonding and delinquency: a multivariate analysis
    Gardner, Robert LeGrande (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1984)
    This study presents a multivariate analysis of the basic propositions of social bonding theory, including the refinement of some of the basic indicators and the addition of many relevant variables as indicated by recent research. A synthesized model is proposed and six general propositions are derived: (a) attachment to significant others, commitment to conventional institutions, belief in conventional values, and involvement in conventional activities will vary positively with each other; (b) fear of sanctions is positively related to commitment to conventional institutions and attachments to significant others; (c) attachment to significant others, commitment to conventional institutions, belief in conventional values, involvement in conventional activities and fear of sanctions will be inversely related to participation in delinquent activity; (d) participation in delinquent activity is inversely related to the conventionality of .significant others; (e) females will experience greater levels of affective attachments, and conventional commitments, involvements, and beliefs than will males and also will be less involved in delinquent behavior than males; and (f) rural respondents will experience higher levels of conventional belief than urban respondents and will be less involved in delinquent behavior than urban respondents. The model was tested using primary data on 733 middle and high school students from public schools in Richmond, Virginia and in Franklin County, Virginia. Nearly all proposed relationships are supported; significant exceptions are discussed. The importance of the synthesized bonding model for integrated theories of delinquency is discussed.
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    Transformational leadership theory: creative advance or theoretical desperation
    Mann, Ronald Jackson (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1987)
    Transformational leadership is held by its theorists to consist of charisma (mission articulation, empowerment, and confidence in followers), intellectual stimulation, and individualized consideration. lt is alleged to result from flexible structure, crisis, and high socio-economic status (except for charisma in connection with the latter) and to produce a favorable organizational climate, identification with the organization, expectation of success, and, most of all, extra effort. The present research, however, discloses serious problems with the model based upon theory: the inability of a principal component analysis to distinguish the leadership dimensions and the outcomes of identification and expectation of success; an absence of effects of SES and crisis on the leadership variables; and the direct effects of the exogenous variables on organizational climate. Even with regard to the central concept of charisma, considerable ambiguity is found. The conclusion of the present research is that transformational leadership theory represents "theoretical desperation" in a sociological sub-discipline increasingly perceived to be unproductive of significant results. While the relationship between charisma and extra effort holds up in the present study, the connection is problematic, since extra effort is uncorrelated with positive changes in the churches. A possible interpretation of the lack of correlation between extra effort and substantive changes is that leadership operates to create and maintain fictions functional for both the leader and his/her host organization. The use of language in the development of meaning also highlights the importance of' incorporating the idea of power in leadership studies.