Time pressure is often cited as a problem experienced by members of formal organizations. Moreover, it is an administratively interesting factor, since it is one over which management may have substantial influence.The folklore about managing scientific laboratories includes two competing approaches to the management of time pressure:(1) provide professional staff with an unhurried "academic" environment, and (2) approximately two-thirds of the judges were supervisors (the man's own and chief might be among them) ,^one-third were senior-level non-supervisors.Since the judges showed reasonably good agreement, their evaluations were combined into a single percentile score (on each quality) for each respondent. s is usually found for scientists and engineers, these performance measures varied according to the respondent's length of experience, seniority, and formal training (Pelz & Andrews, 1966
These data were collected and analyzed under NASA grant NsG-489/23-005-014 w part of a long range investigation of scientists and engineers. Dr. Donald C. Pels is the general director of this research program.
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PERSONNEL PSYCHOLOGY
Source of the DataThe study was conducted in a NASA research center and focused on 94 non-supervisory scientists who comprised 21 small teams. These men were engaged in exploring the effects of extreme physical conditions on various materials. The number of scientists in each team, not counting the supervisor, ranged from 1 to 11 (median = 5). Each team had its own supervisor and was a reasonably stable entity (two-thirds of the non-supervisors had worked under their present chief for at least two years).
Performance and the Supervisory GroupMeasures of Performance Data were obtained about each non-supervisor's performance. The non-supervisors themselves provided information about their output of a) technical reports (over the past five years). Also, four qualities of each man's performance were judged by other professionals within his lab. The qualities were : b) Innovation-the extent the man's work had "increased knowledge in his field through lines of research or development which were useful and new." c) Productiveness-the extent the man's work had "increased knowledge in his field along established lines of research or development or as extensions or refinements of previous lines." d) Contribution-the extent the man's work had "contributed to general technical or scientific knowledge in his field." e) Usefuhess-the extent the man's work had been "useful or valuable in helping his R & D organization carry out its responsibilities." These qualities were independently assessed by an average of 4.4 judges, each of whom claimed to be familiar with the man's work. Two-thirds of the judges were supervisors (the man's own chief might be among them), one-third were seniorlevel non-supervisors. Since the judges showed reasonably good agreement (median gamma for 21 pairs of judges = .8 on the
This paper examines the influence of the structural positions of different demographic groups in the science and engineering labor force on their access to the allocation of favorable work experiences and their effect on decisions about the evaluation of their performance. Our hypotheses challenge assumptions in the management literature that each group will necessarily express ingroup bias and outgroup derogation. Instead, we call attention to the status hierarchy that develops from status construction processes, the prototypicality that emerges from social categorization processes, and a framework of stereotype content that is based on an analysis of structural positions among groups in the society. Using hierarchical linear modeling with survey data from scientists and engineers in research and development in 24 major corporations, we find that U.S.-born white males, who constitute the normative ingroup, receive advantages in both allocation and evaluation decisions from all evaluators, not just from other white men. We also find that normative outgroups (non-male, non-whites, and/or non-U.S. born) receive ambivalent or indifferent more than discriminatory or biased treatment, depending on their structural position in relation to U.S.-born white men, and that these effects are independent of who is doing the rating.
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