Absenteeism among hospital nurses: an idiographic-longitudinal analysis.

For several months, nurses completed ratings of the degree to which certain events relevant to absence were present during each of their scheduled workdays. The event ratings for days when the nurses decided to be absent were then compared with those for days when the nurses attended. As expected, certain events, such as ill health and tiredness, tended to covary and proved to be consistently related to absenteeism across nurses. Also as expected, some events that were not especially relevant for the nurses as a whole, like having a sick family member or friend and concerns about previous poor attendance, nonetheless emerged as being relevant to the absence behavior of certain individuals. Finally, some events were consistently related to the nurses' expressed desire to be absent but not to actual absences. We discuss these differences from two perspectives, one emphasizing the role of attribution bias and the other, a two-stage process in which such bias has no major role.     

Situational specificity in assessment center ratings: A confirmatory factor analysis.

Assessment center ratings of eight abilities from each of five situational exercises were examined for their cross-situational consistency and discriminant validity. A series of confirmatory factor analyses revealed that the ratings were largely (if not totally) situation specific, and that assessors failed to distinguish among the eight target abilities. These results combined with previous research suggest that the assessment center method measures mainly situation-specific performance, not cross-situational managerial abilities. We suggest that the intended constructs might be better measured if more ability-related behaviors were elicited within each exercise and if the cognitive demands placed on assessors were reduced. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Further assessments of Bass's (1985) conceptualization of transactional and transformational leadership.

B. M. Bass (1985) proposed that the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire consists of 5 factors: 2 facets of transactional leadership (Contingent Reward and Management-by-Exception) and 3 facets of transformational leadership (Charismatic Leadership, Individualized Consideration, and Intellectual Stimulation). A confirmatory factor analysis involving hospital nurses revealed some support for this 5-factor representation, but a 2-factor Active-Passive model was also tenable, because the transformational components and Contingent Reward were all highly correlated. Alternatively, differential relationships to a series of outcomes, including intent to leave and J. P. Meyer and N. J. Allen's (1991) facets of organizational commitment, were observed as a function of the leader behaviors involved. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Further assessments of Meyer and Allen's (1991) three-component model of organizational commitment.

Assessed the construct validity of J. P. Meyer and N. J. Allen's (1991) 3-component model of organizational commitment. Despite the large error components associated with some of the items from Meyer and Allen's scales, the existence of 3 facets of commitment (affective, continuance, and normative) was generally supported by a confirmatory factor analysis of data from 2,301 nurses. Moreover, some of the expected differential relationships of these facets to antecedents and outcomes of commitment were observed in both the nurse sample and a sample comprising 80 bus operators. However, the facets generally did not relate strongly or differentially to a set of rating and nonrating measures of job performance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)