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The study was designed to examine the effects of extra task stimulation and extra rest on performance and fatigue of haul truck drivers engaged in a simulated driving task. Sixty male subjects, randomly selected from the population of truck drivers in a large mining company, operated a driving simulator for a period of 7 h. A 2 x 3 experimental design was employed including two levels of rest conditions and three levels of secondary-task manipulations. The results show that performance and perceived fatigue were significantly higher when a secondary task involving voice communication was added to the basic driving task, but an added vigilance task had less effect. An extra 30-minute rest period in the middle of the experimental session significantly alleviated the reported experience of fatigue but did not affect performance. The results are discussed in terms of their relevance to actual industrial driving tasks.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to compare patterns of impression management in two organizational systems, namely, organic and mechanistic.Design/methodology/approachQualitative data were gathered from 23 employees by means of in‐depth, semi‐structured interviews. In addition, questionnaires pertaining to the use of impression management strategies toward superiors and peers were given to 208 employees from military and R&D organizations.FindingsThe results suggest that employees in mechanistic systems engage more in impression management behavior and direct their efforts more often toward their superiors than toward their peers, most frequently by using the strategy of "Ingratiation". On the other hand, employees in the organic system sample use impression management to a lesser extent, and they direct it more equally toward superiors and peers. Their predominant strategy is "Initiation." These results are discussed in light of the differences in the norms and structural characteristics of the two organizational systems.Research limitations/implicationsThe mechanistic system was represented by a military organization and there is disproportionate representation of males in the survey sample.Originality/valueThe paper demonstrates the importance of the specific characteristics of an organizational system in shaping employees' impression management behavior.

The study examined the effects of two context variables, such as work experience and opponent's power on the styles of handling interpersonal conflict. 480 subjects were asked to consider a short critical incident describing an interpersonal conflict in an organization and to indicate their response to the situation in terms of the five conflict management styles: integrating, obliging, avoiding, dominating, and compromising. The results suggest that under the low‐power opponent condition there was a higher preference for dominating and a lower preference for avoiding, obliging, and integrating. Inexperienced subjects did not change their choice of using the different conflict management styles in view of their opponent's power. The results also showed significant interaction effects of the two independent variables. The implications for the study are discussed.

Examined the effects of two context variables -- work experience & opponent's power -- on styles of handling interpersonal conflict. Data were from 480 university students in Israel who considered a short critical incident describing an interpersonal conflict in an organization & responded to the situation in terms of five conflict management styles: integrating, obliging, avoiding, dominating, & compromising. Results suggest that under the low-power opponent condition there was a higher preference for dominating & a lower preference for avoiding, obliging, & integrating. However, inexperienced subjects did not vary their conflict management style according to view of their opponents power. Results also showed significant interaction effects of the two independent variables. Implications for future research & organizational culture are discussed. 1 Table, 28 References. Adapted from the source document.

The effect of ambiguity is investigated with regard to the success of a venture on the initial choice of interpersonal conflict management strategy of the venture's initiator. In the experiments reported here, subjects were asked to imagine a hypothetical situation in which the decision‐maker, in a capacity as an organization member, seeks the use of an organizational resource in order to initiate the venture. The conflict arises as another member of the organization also lays claim to the same resource. Subjects, taking on the role of the decision‐maker, show more collaboration in managing the conflict when experts disagree about the probability of successful outcome of the venture. Similar inclinations are revealed when the possible long‐term adverse consequences of the conflict are made explicit. These findings support the interpretation of ambiguity effect in terms of increased loss aversion due to personal responsibility.

A survey of the literature on organizational politics (OP) reveals a lack of consensus among authors on a definition of this term. This paper presents a review and discussion of the various OP definitions in an attempt to further clarify the nature of this intriguing and important field of study. The definition elements are discussed in terms of their implications for future research toward the understanding of OP in work organizations.

The purpose of this study was to examine the relative effect of three sets of variables, namely, organizational characteristics, task characteristics, and extraorganizational variables, on job satisfaction and burnout. A total of 266 prison guards from four prison facilities in Israel were administered questionnaires containing scales of intraorganizational conflict, ambiguity, management support, and task charac teristics, as well as measures of family role conflict, community support and appreciation of the employee's job, job satisfaction, and burnout. The results suggest that both intraorganizational variables and external variables account significantly for the two criteria. Extraorganizational support and appreciation was the single best correlate of job satisfaction, while management support was the major correlate of burnout. The results are discussed in terms of their practical implications for organizational diagnosis and intervention, and in particular the importance of dealing with extraorganizational factors in OD practice.

Drivers were stopped 200 m after passing a warning sign and were tested for recall and recognition of the sign. It was predicted that at night, when the view of the road ahead is severely restricted, sign registration levels would be higher than during the day, when drivers can obtain most of their information directly from their view of the road ahead. The results supported this hypothesis; sign recall levels ranged from 3 to 6% during the day and from 14 to 18% at night. Other variables that were measured (sign content, roadway environments, and subjective levels of fatigue and boredom) had no significant effects on sign registration.