Dissertation Information for Caroline Coughlin NAME: - Caroline Coughlin
DEGREE:
- Ph.D.
DISCIPLINE:
- Library and Information Science
SCHOOL:
- Rutgers University (USA) (1976)
ADVISORS: - Ernest Deprospo
COMMITTEE MEMBERS: - Ralph Blasingame - Thomas H. Mott Jr. - John R. Martin
MPACT Status: Fully Complete
Title: AN EXPLORATION OF THE USEFULNESS OF THE PERSONNEL PRODUCT CLASSIFICATION SCHEME OF GEORGE ODIORNE IN SIX ACADEMIC RESEARCH LIBRARIES
Abstract: Over a number of years, George Odiorne, a student in the field of the personnel management, developed a concept he calls a personnel product classification scheme. There are four products in the scheme -- advice, services, control, and research. Odiorne claims that discovering the mix of the products in the scheme -- advice, service, control, and research. Odiorne claims that discovering the mix of the products extant in a given personnel department will aid that personnel department in determining its objectives for the future. In Odiorne's writings he also develops a management styles typology. It is meant to illustrate the conceptual levels found in decision making. In this study, Odiorne's typology and Herbert Simon's ideas about programmed and nonprogrammed decision making have been developed as a test variable, conceptual level. The purpose of this study was to explore the usefulness of the personnel product classification scheme and its relation to the variable conceptual level in six academic research libraries. A search of the management literature revealed the genesis of the personnel product classification scheme and the fact that it had not been subject to previous systematic empirical testing.
The desire to explore the usefulness of the scheme lead to a decision about the appropriate test environment. Six sample cases were carefully selected to fulfill the researcher's aim for a study group -- diversity within the boundaries of the environment of academic research libraries. The kinds of diversity, or the selection criteria for the cases, included the presence of a person responsible for personnel functions in the library, the degree of library participation in collective bargaining, management studies and affirmative action programs, the size of the staff, the geographical location, and the public or private affiliation of the institution.
The primary technique used in the study was a variant of content analysis. Document files, representing the work in human resources management for a five-year period for each participating library, were compiled and analyzed. The independent line of validation was a questionnaire given to a group of staff and a second questionnaire given to all the library personnel officers in the study.
The research design involved the exploration of four main variables: product, conceptual level, program, and source. The proposition tested was that there was a positive relationship between two of the categories of the product, conceptual level, program, and source. The proposition tested was that there was a positive relationship between two of the categories of the product variable, research and advice, and one of the categories of the conceptual level variable, conceptual level A. Two other products, service and control, would be associated with conceptual level B primarily. The second working proposition was that the initiation of a program would increase the amount of research and advice products and the amount of conceptual level A activity after the introduction of a program with human resources management implications.
findings indicate that the first working proposition can be accepted; there is a moderately strong or very strong positive relationship between research and advice products and conceptual level A in each of the six case institutions selected. The other propositions did not hold in each case. What did occur was that the various sources had a variety of impacts on the relationship between the product and level of program variables. Some sources weakened the relationship; others strengthened it.
In general, the personnel product classification scheme was found to be capable to describing differences in the work done by sources involved in human resources management. Problems remain with the scheme. Further research needs to be done to develop norms for the product and level relationships of various sources operating in different organizational structures at various points of the organization's history in the area of human resources management.
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MPACT Scores for Caroline Coughlin A = 0
C = 1
A+C = 1
T = 0
G = 0
W = 0
TD = 0
TA = 0
calculated 2008-02-25 02:55:42
Advisors and Advisees Graph
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