Effects of psychological contract breach on performance of IT employees: The mediating role of affective commitment

In this study, we investigated the relationships between psychological contract breach, affective commitment, and two types of employee performance (i.e. civic virtue behaviour and in-role performance). It was predicted that an experience of contract breach can severely hurt the affective commitment of the employees and this, in turn, results in poor in-role performance and less civic virtue behaviours. Results revealed that affective commitment had differential mediating effects on the two types of employee performance. That is, affective commitment mediated the relationship between breach and self-reported and supervisor-rated civic virtue, but not the relationship between breach and in-role performance.

The normative ontology of the law - Peter Cane's responsibility in law and morality

Implications of Peter Cane's analysis of responsibility in 'Responsibility in Law and Morality' - Cane's preconceptualisation of the 'symbiotic' relationship between law and morality - a principal criticism is that Cane does not develop his seven methodological principles into a more ambitious argument.

Subordinate-manager gender combination and perceived leadership style influence on emotions, self-esteem and organizational commitment

A theoretical model was developed to investigate the relationships among subordinate-manager gender combinations, perceived leadership style, experienced frustration and optimism, organization-based self-esteem and organizational commitment. The model was tested within the context of a probabilistic structural model, a discrete Bayesian network, using cross-sectional data from a global pharmaceutical company. The Bayesian network allowed forward inference to assess the relative influence of gender combination and leadership style on the emotions, self-esteem and commitment consequence variables. Further, diagnostics from backward inference were used to assess the relative influence of variables antecedent to organizational commitment. The results showed that gender combination was independent of leadership style and had a direct impact on subordinates' levels of frustration and optimism. Female manager-female subordinate had the largest probability of optimism, while male manager teamed with a male subordinate had the largest probability of frustration. Furthermore, having a female manager teamed up with a male subordinate resulted in the lowest possibility of frustration. However, the findings show that the gender issue is not simply female managers versus male managers, but is concerned with the interaction of the subordinate-manager gender combination and leadership style in a nonlinear manner. (C) 2003 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Measuring entangled qutrits and their use for quantum bit commitment

We produce and holographically measure entangled qudits encoded in transverse spatial modes of single photons. With the novel use of a quantum state tomography method that only requires two-state superpositions, we achieve the most complete characterization of entangled qutrits to date. Ideally, entangled qutrits provide better security than qubits in quantum bit commitment: we model the sensitivity of this to mixture and show experimentally and theoretically that qutrits with even a small amount of decoherence cannot offer increased security over qubits.

Perceptions of organisational subculture and their significance for organisational commitment

This paper investigates the relationship between perceptions of organisational culture, organisational subculture, leadership style, and commitment. The impact of culture and leadership style on commitment has been previously noted, but there is a lack of detail regarding how different types of culture and leadership styles relate to commitment. The paper particularly addresses the notion of organisational subcultures and how the perception of those cultures relates to commitment, subculture being a neglected variable in the commitment literature. These issues were addressed in a survey of 258 nurses drawn from a range of hospital settings and wards within the Sydney metropolitan region. Results indicate that perceived organisational subculture has a strong relationship with commitment. Furthermore, the results identify the relative strength of specific types of leadership style and specific types of subculture with commitment. Both innovative and supportive subcultures have a clear positive relationship, while bureaucratic subcultures have a negative relationship. In terms of leadership style, a consideration style had a stronger relationship with commitment than a structuring style. Regression analysis was used to investigate the possible role of subculture as a mediator for the influence of leadership on commitment. Both direct and indirect effects of leadership on commitment were found. Implications for practice and for further research are discussed.

Sample registration of vital events with verbal autopsy: a renewed commitment to measuring and monitoring vital statistics

Registration of births, recording deaths by age, sex and cause, and calculating mortality levels and differentials are fundamental to evidence-based health policy, monitoring and evaluation. Yet few of the countries with the greatest need for these data have functioning systems to produce them despite legislation providing for the establishment and maintenance of vital registration. Sample vital registration (SVR), when applied in conjunction with validated verbal autopsy, procedures and implemented in a nationally representative sample of population clusters represents an affordable, cost-effective, and sustainable short- and medium-term solution to this problem. SVR complements other information sources by producing age-, sex-, and cause-specific mortality data that are more complete and continuous than those currently available. The tools and methods employed in an SVR system, however, are imperfect and require rigorous validation and continuous quality assurance; sampling strategies for SVR are also still evolving. Nonetheless, interest in establishing SVR is rapidly growing in Africa and Asia. Better systems for reporting and recording data on vital events will be sustainable only if developed hand-in-hand with existing health information strategies at the national and district levels; governance structures; and agendas for social research and development monitoring. If the global community wishes to have mortality measurements 5 or 10 years hence, the foundation stones of SVR must be laid today.

Normative influence and rational conflict decisions: Group norms and cost-benefit analyses for intergroup behavior

The present paper articulates a model in which ingroup and outgroup norms inform 'rational' decision-making (cost-benefit analysis) for conflict behaviors. Norms influence perceptions of the consequences of the behavior, and individuals may thus strategically conform to or violate norms in order to acquire benefits and avoid costs. Two studies demonstrate these processes in the context of conflict in Quebec. In the first study, Anglophones' perceptions of Francophone and Anglophone norms for pro-English behaviors predicted evaluations of the benefits and costs of the behaviors, and these cost-benefit evaluations in turn mediated the norm-intention links for both group norms. In the second study, a manipulated focus on supportive versus hostile ingroup and outgroup norms also predicted cost-benefit evaluations, which mediated the norm-intention relationships. The studies support a model of strategic conflict choices in which group norms inform, rather than suppress, rational expectancy value processes. Implications for theories of decision-making and normative influence are discussed.

Explaining landholders' decisions about riparian zone management: The role of behavioural, normative, and control beliefs

Water quality is a key concern in the current global environment, with the need to promote practices that help to protect water quality, such as riparian zone management, being paramount. The present study used the theory of planned behaviour as a framework for understanding how beliefs influence decisions about riparian zone management. Respondents completed a survey that assessed their behavioural, normative, and control beliefs in relation to intentions to manage riparian zones on their property. The results of the study showed that, overall, landholders with strong intentions to manage their riparian zones differed significantly in terms of their beliefs compared to landholders who had weak intentions to manage their riparian zones. Strong intentions to manage riparian zones were associated with a favourable cost-benefit analysis, greater perceptions of normative support for the practice and lower perceptions of the extent to which barriers would impede management of riparian zones. It was also evident that willingness to comply with the recommendations of salient referents, beliefs about the benefits of riparian zone management and perceptions of the extent to which barriers would impede riparian zone management were most important for determining intentions to manage riparian zones. Implications for policy and extension practice are discussed. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Tympanometric findings in children at school entry: A normative study

This study presents tympanometric normative data for Australian children at school entry in view of the lack of age-specific population-based data for this group. Participants were 327 children (164 boys, 163 girls) aged between 5 and 6 years, who had no history of middle ear infection, and passed pure-tone screening at 20 dB HL. Normative values for static admittance (SA), ear canal volume (ECV), tympanometric peak pressure, tympanometric width (TW) and tympanometric gradient were established. Based on these normative data, the use of the ASHA (1997) guidelines for medical referral, in which ECV > 1.0 ml in the presence of a flat tympanogram, SA < 0.3 ml, or TW > 200 daPa may not provide the best criteria for Australian children aged between 5 and 6 years. If SA < 0.3 ml were used instead of SA < 0.16 ml, a greater proportion of Australian children would have failed tympanometry, thus increasing the false alarm rate.