John Rohrbaugh’s research while affiliated with University at Albany, State University of New York and other places

Organizational citizenship behaviour (OCB) includes employees' discretionary actions not explicitly recognized by formal reward systems that in the aggregate promote the effective functioning of the organization (Organ, 198849. Organ , D.W. 1988. Organizational Citizenship Behavior: The Good Soldier Syndrome, Lexington, MA: Lexington. View all references). The present study was the first group-level investigation of OCB antecedents in governmental organizations using the office or bureau, not the government employee, as the primary unit of analysis. The hypotheses foundational to the investigation posited that aggregate employee perceptions of the importance and challenge of work assigned in an office would predict, in part, the degree of overall job satisfaction, and that all three variables would be associated with the level of OCB reported in an office. The present study was conducted with an organizational survey of all employees in geographically dispersed offices of a state government agency. Altogether 2136 usable questionnaires were returned for an overall response rate of 82 per cent and subsequently partitioned into sixty-five distinct office groups. Results based on a multivariate path model suggested that the overall levels of job importance and job challenge in an office had positive relationships with collective job satisfaction and explained over two-thirds of the variability observed. Job satisfaction did not fully mediate the connection of work importance and work challenge to OCB; all three independent measures were linked directly to the amount of OCB reported in these offices (R 2 = .45). One important implication of the study is that OCB may serve as a compensatory mechanism in government offices for the assignment of somewhat inconsequential tasks and responsibilities.

This study examined the shared perceptions of 739 professional and technical employees regarding organizational climate and the strength of affective commitment in fifty-one geographically dispersed offices of an agency of state government. The results indicated that the level of affective commitment in these offices could be predicted reliably (adjusted R2 = .75) from three of the eight dimensions of organizational climate included in the study: goal ambiguity, social cohesion and fairness and equity. Implications of these results with respect to developing effective human resource management strategies in public sector organizations are discussed in detail.

This article examines government career commitment and its relation to perceptions of the work environment as well as reports of career decisions and behaviors. The results of a field survey of 385 government employees from 11 state agencies suggested that stronger government career commitment was linked to reports of greater job involvement, more organizational commitment, and lower turnover intention. Results also suggested that government career commitment has a positive relation with perceptions of situational characteristics such as human resource development, performance feedback, variety, challenge, and mission importance. Occupational differences were reviewed to examine whether they influenced the extent to which government career commitment had shaped employees’ perceptions of their jobs, office, and agencies, as well as their reports of job involvement, organizational commitment, and turnover intention. Findings indicated that the government career commitment of professional/technical employees was related to their perceptions of jobs, offices, and agencies, but minimal effects were found in occupational categories of secretarial/clerical or managerial/executive.

In an effort to understand how proximal work environment shapes public sector employees' work attitudes, this study examined how perceptions of psychological climate were related to the extent of affective commitment in three occupational groups: clerical, professional, and managerial/executive. Data were gathered from 267 employees in 11 New York State agencies. Results indicated that the strength of association between measures of psychological climate and affective commitment varied across occupational groups. Implications of these results with respect to developing effective strategies for enhancing public sector employees' organizational commitment are discussed in detail.

Value knowledge management (VKM) comprises the process structuring required to make individual and/or group values explicit in a manner so that such initially tacit knowledge appropriately informs decision making. This paper presents a case in which VKM is used for structuring an organizational preparation process for a new and substantial initiative. Fundamental group conflicts exist with respect to this initiative and, more immediately, with respect to the extent of preparation envisioned. The relative importance of two key values is at issue: increasing human capital and reducing project costs. The case illustrates a three-stage approach to VKM and demonstrates how the articulation of group judgment policies, the development of a shared resource allocation model, and the application of analytical mediation can make a substantial contribution to organizational problem solving or opportunity seeking. KeywordsKnowledge management–Values–Judgment analysis–Resource allocation–Analytical mediation

This study examined the sources, patterns, and implications of incongruence in 360-degree feedback ratings in public organizations using the Competing Values Framework for organizational effectiveness. Performance self-ratings from 68 high-performing, middle-level public sector managers, as well as parallel ratings provided by their supervisors, peers, and subordinates, were assembled and analyzed. Results indicated that rating incongruence existed across organizational roles and resulted from raters' unique role perspectives. Implications of incongruence in 360-degree feedback ratings with respect to developing effective systems for management development in public organizations are discussed in detail.

Ideally, meeting evaluations hsould enable a facilitator to diagnose a group's strenghts and weaknesses and select appropriate interventions to help the group improve its effectiveness. John Rohrbaugh and Bradley Wright critique various approaches to the evaluation of group decision-making and suggest that evaluations should focus on processes rather than outcomes, address the group rather than the individual roles and behaviours, and view the group on organizational context rather than in isolation. Building on the Competing Values Approach (CVA) to organizational analysis, they describre four perspectives on group decision processes: empirical, rational, political, and consensual. They present a case in which a validated evaluation instrument, based on the CVA, was used to gain insight into the decision-making processes of an executive team. While the reliance on team management by organizations has increased (Bennis & Biederman, 1997; Dyer, 1995; Schrage, 1995; Schwarz, 1994), so has the number of interventions that have been developed and promoted to improve group decision making with the intention of achieving ever greater group effectiveness and performance (Bostrom, Watson, & Kinney, 1992; Coleman & Khanna, 1995; Kleindorfer, Kunreuther, & Schoemaker, 1993; Morecroft & Sterman, 1994; Van Gundy, 1988). Of course, no single tool or technique will prove best under all circumstances. The intervention most suited to the needs of a particular group depends on a variety of situational factors such as group size and composition, task characteristics, available time, and organizational resources.

Value knowledge management (VKM) comprises the process structuring required to make individual and/or group values explicit in a manner so that such initially tacit knowledge appropriately informs decision making. This paper presents a case in which VKM is used for structuring an organizational preparation process for a new and substantial initiative. Fundamental group conflicts exist with respect to this initiative and, more immediately, with respect to the extent of preparation envisioned. The relative importance of two key values is at issue: increasing human capital and reducing project costs. The case illustrates a three-stage approach to VKM and demonstrates how the articulation of group judgment policies, the development of a shared resource allocation model, and the application of analytical mediation can make a substantial contribution to organizational problem solving or opportunity seeking.

The advent of Decision Support Systm redefines the primary professional role for institutional researchers.