What is the relation of organizational norms and personal values to community involvement and career choices? Results from a national survey of middle-level production managers indicate that most managers perceive their companies as having a policy encouraging community involvement. However, less than a third of the managers perceive norms concerning transfers. A strong relation exists between organizational norms encouraging involvement and managers' participation in community affairs. Values, though less important than norms, nonetheless help in understanding attitudes toward community involvement and actual involvement. While norms prescribing participation and transfers are in themselves independent, their influence through attitudes towards participation indicate that managers who follow norms and get involved in community organizations are less likely than their counterparts to opt for a community transfer.

The extent to which participation in voluntary organizations reflects autonomous decisions by individuals, rather than a less than fully voluntary response to social pressure, has been a matter of debate in the voluntary action literature. Middle- level managers of manufacturing companies are particularly likely to experience pressures regarding the extent and nature of their participation in local organiza tions. For this reason, a nationwide sample of production managers is used to explore the relative usefulness of personal interest in community affairs, of socio- demographic and structural characteristics known to be related to participation, and of company policy for predicting participation in local voluntary organizations. Participation is shown to reflect a number of factors, including company policy. However, the importance of community interest suggests that membership and participation in many organizations continue to be perceived as voluntary.

This article tests the "elephant burial grounds " hypothesis of Milward and Swanson. Based on a much more elaborate data set than was employed in the original Milward and Swanson analysis, this study finds little support for the contention that organizations isolate women and minorities in positions away from the core activities of the organization.

The extent of assumed sex differences in preferences for work attributes is explored utilizing data from five representative national samples. The results indicated only minimal differences in preferred job attributes between males and females. Both sexes identified meaningfulness of the work as the most important job attribute, and rank ordered the other four attributes studied in the following sequence: promotion, income, security, and hours. Factors such as education, occupational prestige, age and one's commitment to continue working were more important than sex of the respondent as predictors of job attribute preferences. However, these status variables did not affect the relationship of sex and job attribute preferences. Furthermore, these factors had approximately the same relative predictive value for both males and females. Nevertheless, these statistically significant predictors explained a small proportion of the variance in job attribute preferences. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

This paper examines the relationship between work and nonwork satisfaction based on data from the General Social Surveys, 1972–1980, of the National Opinion Research Center. The research revealed that a moderate positive relationship exists between job satisfaction and satisfaction in nonwork areas such as family, friends, marriage, hobbies, and place of residence. In addition, higher job satisfaction was associated with perceptions of life as exciting and people as helpful, fair, and trustworthy. These relationships show no significant changes over time. Not surprisingly, job satisfaction as well as satisfaction in nonwork realms of life were higher among the higher‐prestige occupations. However, the original associations between work and nonwork satisfaction remained unchanged when controls were introduced for occupational prestige. Implications of the findings are discussed.

This article presents information on a study which examined the salary differential between male and female administrators in higher education institutions in the United States. The focus of resear...

Normalization has gained wide acceptance as a goal that residential institutions for the mentally retarded should strive to achieve, but many organizations have been shown to have difficulty achieving the goal. Theo ries developed from the organizational contingency perspective suggest that or ganizations with bureaucratic structures will have particular difficulty accomplish ing the nonroutine tasks associated with normalization Our major purpose was to test the usefulness of such theories for the evaluation of mental retardation facilities by ascertaining whether a less bureaucratic organization for the mentally retarded would achieve greater success than a more bureaucratic organization. The closing of a large public hospital and the subsequent transfer of most of its residents to two new facilities (one of which was more bureau cratic than the other) allowed us to exam ine bureaucracy's effect on treatment A s predicted, the analysis showed that the less bureaucratic organization produced a greater average positive change in behavior than did the more bureaucratic organi zation A number of clinical and demo graphic characteristics of the residents which could have influenced the observed changes in behavioral level were identified and controlled. They were not found to ex plain the differences between facilities Other factors, which could not be con trolled in this study, provide suggestions for future research.

The effects of discrepancies between preferred and perceived control among church members are investigated in terms of amount and distribution of control. For each dimension of control, three categories of respondents are identified: those who preferred a greater amount or wider distribution of control than they perceived to exist within their churches (deficit); those whose preferred and perceived control scores were identical (balance); and those who preferred a lesser amount or more concentrated distribution of control in their churches than they perceived to exist (surplus). For both amount and distribution of control, a perceived deficit is more common than a surplus. Respondents experiencing discrepancies in either direction are more dissatisfied and alienated than those with a balance in desired and perceived organizational control. A deficit is associated with more dissatisfaction (but not necessarily more alienation) than a surplus. Subsample comparisons show these findings hold for both officers and non-officers. Regression analyses show that discrepancies regarding organizational control are important even after other aspects of control have been introduced.

We examine the impact of industrialization and technology on workers in two social and cultural settings—a highly industrialized societ (the United States) and a newly industrializing nation (Korea). Our major interest, stemming from convergence theory, is whether relationships between technology and workers' reactions (alienation and job satisfaction) are similar in different settings. Our data indicate that, while Korean workers are more alienated and less satisfied than American workers, the patterns of reactions to technology are similar. In both nations, workers in mechanized production situations are more alienated and less satisfied than those in craft and automated situations. The results are interpreted as indicating that convergence theory must be combined with attention to mechanisms of accomodation that develop as industrialization reaches higher levels.

In recent years social scientists have shown increasing interest in alienation as an empirically measurable concept. Seeman's (1959) contribution was to distinguish several uses of the concept alienation from the mass of sociological literature and to state them in a more empirically useful form. Since the variants of alienation isolated and developed by Seeman are, with modifications, adopted here, it seems appropriate to briefly note some criticisms Seeman's approach has attracted. First, both Browning (1961) and Israel (1971: 215) fault Seeman for failing to interrelate his five variants of alienation in a theoretical context. Both suggest that alienation may be best viewed as a process. While Israel is unsure of the proper causal sequence of powerlessness, meaninglessness, isolation, and self-estrangement, Browning is not. This important point has been pursued elsewhere (Shepard, 1972). Second, according to Israel (1971: 214-215), Seeman and those of scientific kin ignore the issue of discrepancy between

A theoretical framework is tested predicting that the lack of perceived status recognition within a status structure promotes social psychological withdrawal from that status structure. Scales of Powerlessness, Meaninglessness, and Normlessness were used as independent variables, representing aspects of the work status structure. Self-Evaluative Involvement in work and Instrumental Work Orientation scales were employed as two indicators of social psychological withdrawal from the work role. Some empirical support for the theoretical framework is presented.