Gedrag & Organisatie - Volume 22, Issue 1, 2009

De redactie en redactieraad hebben vorig jaar uitgebreid gesproken over het toekomstprofiel van Gedrag & Organisatie. G&O wil met de tijd meegaan en interessant blijven voor lezers, en voor auteurs een goed publicatiemedium blijven. Het 'mission statement' van G&O blijft:

Motives for Non-compliance: A Study Among Business Entrepreneurs

S. Goslinga and A. Denkers, Gedrag & Organisatie, volume 22, March 2009, nr. 1, pp. 3-22

Starting from the idea that to be effective, law enforcement should target on the main motives for non-compliance with legal rules, this study examined which factors influence non-compliance intentions of business entrepreneurs. Data were collected by means of a telephone survey among 1.377 Dutch business entrepreneurs. Besides background variables, the questionnaire assessed motives and intentions with regard to compliance and non-compliance. Regression analysis showed that non-compliance intentions are stronger when personal and social norms do not support compliance. Furthermore, non-compliance intentions increase when economic deterrence (based on the perceived chance of detection and sanction severity) is weak and there are more opportunities to deviate from the rules. In addition, results show that economic deterrence has little effect on non-compliance intentions when social norms support compliance and that social norms have more impact on non-compliance intentions when the personal norm does not support compliance. Implications of these findings for the enforcement of rules and regulations that apply to business entrepreneurs are discussed.

In the eye of the beholder: how is feedback seeking behaviour interpreted in organisations?

K.E.M. de Stobbeleir, S.J. Ashford, M.F. Sully De Luque and D. Buyens, Gedrag & Organisatie, volume 22, March 2009, nr. 1, pp. 23-40

This study examined how the pattern of feedback seeking affects how feedback-seeking behaviour is evaluated in organisations. Controlling for the performance history of the feedback seeker, we studied how the type of the sought feedback (strengths versus weaknesses) and the frequency of seeking (frequent versus occasional) affect targets' impressions of feedback seekers and their seeking. We also assessed how the targets' implicit person theory and their attributions for feedback seeking affect the relationship between feedback-seeking behaviour and targets' impressions. Results show that targets' attributions for feedback seeking are one of the underlying mechanisms for why feedback seeking behaviour affects important individual outcomes in organizations and that the targets' implicit person theory is a relevant moderator of these effects.

Elton Mayo, mules and the discovery of 'social space'

L.A. ten Horn, Gedrag & Organisatie, volume 22, March 2009, nr. 1, pp. 41-49

The Human Relations movement has fundamentally altered the way we look at the relationship between work and the individual. This shift is traced using publications by Elton Mayo. Over a period of more than twenty years he reported several times on the same research project done in the spinning department of a textile mill in 1923/1924. Both his description and his interpretation changed dramatically between publications from 1924 to 1945. The changes were caused by and ran parallel to the Hawthorne studies in which he was deeply involved. The comparison of publications illustrates how fundamental and incisive this change in thinking was and how difficult it was to make the mental shift necessary. In addition, it questions the extent to which the development of knowledge over time is the result of strict rationality.

Validation of a Questionnaire on Applicants' Expectations about Selection Procedures

B. Schreurs, E. Derous, K. Proost, G. Notelaers & K. De Witte, Gedrag & Organisatie, volume 22, March 2009, nr. 1, pp. 50-75

In this paper we present the development and validation of the Applicant Expectation Survey (AES-15), which intends to measure applicants' expectations about the characteristics of selection procedures. The AES-15 contains 15 items and is a shortened, more elaborated version of the original AES-26, which contains 26 items (Schreurs, Derous, Proost, Notelaers & De Witte, 2008). The AES-15 further consists of five scales: Warmth/respect, Chance to demonstrate potential, Difficulty of faking, Unbiased assessment, and Feedback. In this paper, results from three studies with applicants for public service, clerical, and managerial positions (total N = 2178) provided support for the hypothesized 5-factorial model, both for applicants with and without prior selection experience. Significant relationships were found with theoretically related factors such as attractiveness of the job, organizational attractiveness, belief in tests, positive and negative affect, and applicant perceptions (as measured after the procedure). Based on the results, it is concluded that the AES-15 is a reliable and valid measure that can contribute to the literature on applicant perceptions and to the selection practice.

After the brainstorm: The importance of effective idea selection

E. Rietzschel, B. Nijstad & W. Stroebe, Gedrag & Organisatie, volume 22, March 2009, nr. 1, pp. 76-87

This article addresses the question how generating creative ideas (as done in brainstorming sessions) contributes to effective innovation. Several experiments are discussed, which show that creative idea generation in itself is not sufficient to come to the selection of good ideas; instead, using the right selection criteria is essential. Implications for management practice are discussed.