Am I being treated fairly by my leaders? The roles of group identification and self-other comparisons in judgements of procedural justice

The current experiment focuses on the roles of social identity and social comparison in perceptions of procedural justice. Participants are randomly allocated to conditions in a 2 (whether the participant has the opportunity to voice an opinion), X 2 (whether the comparison other has the opportunity to voice an opinion), X 2 (whether the comparison other is an ingroup or an outgroup member), between subjects design. Participants are then asked to report the extent to which they perceive the procedure they are involved in to be fair. It is predicted that participants will have a strong feeling of procedural unfairness when they are not given an opportunity by the leader to voice their opinion, but learn that their comparison other is given that opportunity. It is also predicted that the feeling of unfairness should be stronger when the comparison other is an outgroup rather than an ingroup member. Additionally, participants receiving a fair treatment may regard the procedure as fair when their outgoup comparison other receives an unfair treatment. Results support these predictions and reveal that how people make judgments of procedural justice through social comparison is qualified by the social identities of the parties involved.

Exchange fairness and employee performance:An examination of the relationship between organizational politics and procedural justice

Data obtained from a manufacturing firm and a newspaper firm in India were used to examine the relationship between organizational politics and procedural justice in three separate studies. Study 1 constructively replicated research on the distinctiveness of the two constructs. Confirmatory factor analyses in which data from the manufacturing firm served as the development sample and data from the newspaper firm served as the validation sample demonstrated the distinctiveness of organizational politics and procedural justice. Study 2 examined the antecedents of the two constructs using data from the manufacturing firm. Structural equation modeling (SEM) results revealed formalization and participation in decision making to be positively related to procedural justice but negatively related to organizational politics. Further, authority hierarchy and spatial distance were positively related to organizational politics but unrelated to procedural justice. Study 3 examined the consequences of the two constructs in terms of task and contextual performance using data from the newspaper firm. Results of SEM analysis revealed procedural justice but not organizational politics to be related to task performance and the contextual performance dimensions of interpersonal facilitation and job dedication. © 2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The impact of e-business infusion on channel coordination, conflict and reseller performance

Manufacturer–reseller interactions are becoming more technology-enabled as channels of distribution increasingly utilize e-business tools on the Internet. This research examines the performance consequences for resellers as these technological advances are applied to distribution activities between channel members. Using a sample of 216 resellers of computer products, the research explores the impact of e-business tools in 2 areas of manufacturer–reseller interactions: supply tasks and demand tasks. The results suggest that e-business in supply tasks increases relationship coordination between manufacturer and reseller, whereas e-business in demand tasks increases coordination as well as conflict within the channel dyad. The increase of conflict constitutes a potential “dark side” of e-business in channel relationships that may provide an explanation for e-business implementation failures and negative returns on investment in technology.

Enabling innovation:knowledge control, sharing and coordination boundaries in UK and German manufacturing

We investigate how boundaries in knowledge control, sharing and co-ordination influence UK and German manufacturing firms’ innovation intensity (an indicator of the volume of product change) and product life (an indicator of the pace of generational change). In general UK plants more commonly face knowledge control boundaries related to plant ownership or control, while German plants more commonly face boundaries related to knowledge sharing and knowledge co-ordination between functional groups. Our empirical results emphasise the importance of the strategic management of innovation. Knowledge control boundaries – related to external ownership, group membership and decision making autonomy – have a weak negative influence on plants’ innovation outcomes. Strategic decisions relating to multifunctional working and networking are found to be more important in overcoming knowledge sharing and co-ordination boundaries. Knowledge sharing boundaries, related to plant or company boundaries, prove most important where a plant has no in-house R&D capability. Knowledge co-ordination boundaries related to functional or multi-functional working have strong but differential effects on different innovation output measures: functional boundaries increase product life in both countries, and in Germany maintaining functional boundaries is also associated with increased innovation intensity.

Transition metal ion coordination in hydrophilic polymer membranes

The research described within this thesis is concerned with the investigation of transition metal ion complexation within hydrophilic copolymer membranes. The membranes are copolymers of 4-methyl-4'-vinyl-2,2'-bipyridine, the 2-hydroxyethyl ester of 4,4'- dicarboxy-2,2'-bipyridine & bis-(5-vinylsalicylidene)ethylenediamine with 2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate. The effect of the polymer matrix on the formation and properties of transition metal iron complexes has been studied, specifically Cr(III) & Fe(II) salts for the bipyridyl- based copolymer membranes and Co(II), Ni(II) & Cu(II) salts for the salenH2- based copolymer membranes. The concomitant effect of complex formation on the properties of the polymer matrix have also been studied, e.g. on mechanical strength. A detailed body of work into the kinetics and thermodynamics for the formation of Cu(II) complexes in the salenH2- based copolymer membranes has been performed. The rate of complex formation is found to be very slow while the value of K for the equilibrium of complex formation is found to be unexpectedly small and shows a slight anion dependence. These phenomena are explained in terms of the effects of the heterogeneous phase provided by the polymer matrix. The transport of Cr(III) ions across uncomplexed and Cr(III)-pre-complexed bipyridyl-based membranes has been studied. In both cases, no Cr(III) coordination occurs within the time-scale of an experiment. Pre-complexation of the membrane does not lead to a change in the rate of permeation of Cr(III) ions. The transport of Co(II), Ni(II) & Cu(II) ions across salenH2- based membranes shows that there is no detectable lag-time in transport of the ions, despite independent evidence that complex formation within the membranes does occur. Finally, the synthesis of a number of functionalised ligands is described. Although they were found to be non-polymerisable by the methods employed in this research, they remain interesting ligands which provide a startmg pomt for further functionalisation.

A comprehensive solution to procedural knowledge acquisition using information extraction

Procedural knowledge is the knowledge required to perform certain tasks. It forms an important part of expertise, and is crucial for learning new tasks. This paper summarises existing work on procedural knowledge acquisition, and identifies two major challenges that remain to be solved in this field; namely, automating the acquisition process to tackle bottleneck in the formalization of procedural knowledge, and enabling machine understanding and manipulation of procedural knowledge. It is believed that recent advances in information extraction techniques can be applied compose a comprehensive solution to address these challenges. We identify specific tasks required to achieve the goal, and present detailed analyses of new research challenges and opportunities. It is expected that these analyses will interest researchers of various knowledge management tasks, particularly knowledge acquisition and capture.