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This study assesses the impact of different job security rules on federal employees’ organizational commitment by looking at the effects of changes in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) precipitated by MaxHR, introduced to DHS in 2005. The 2005 job security rule changes, as part of the “reformed” personnel system of the new DHS, reduced employee job security, which in turn weakened organizational commitment. The study found subsequent repeal of the job security rules in 2007 boosted organizational commitment among DHS workers by as much as 10 percentage points. Taken together, the results of difference-in-differences (DID) analysis for the new job security rules in the period 2005-2006 and subsequent repeal of the job security rules in the period 2007-2010 suggest that employees’ commitment to DHS was more favorable after the repeal of the job security rules than prior to the 2005 reforms.

For most of the 20th century, public employers granted their employees high levels of job security. The 21st century has brought a reversal of fortunes, with emphasis increasingly on at-will employment systems. Both distant and recent policy choices about job security have been based largely on normative and ideological considerations rather than behavioral science evidence. This article synthesizes public- and private-sector job security research to provide a more evidence-based footing for future public job security policy. Although changes related to job security are global, our attention is primarily on the United States. The article reviews job security research with origins in organizational behavior research, at-will employment research, and institutionalization and public trust research across sectors. Based on the review of the literature, we develop an integrative model of job security. We highlight practical implications that flow from the model and discuss future research needs.

To explore the psychological mechanism of public service motivation (PSM), we used a time-lagged design to examine the mediating effects of organizational identification on the relationship between PSM and work attitudes (i.e., job satisfaction) and behavior (i.e., community citizenship behavior). A two-wave study of 241 public servants from District A of a large metropolitan city in Eastern China was conducted. Controlling job security and demographic variables, results from a structural equation modeling showed the relationship between public service motivation and job satisfaction and the relationship between public service motivation and community citizenship behavior were partially mediated by organizational identification. Results also demonstrated that in comparison with job security, public service motivation contributed more to community citizenship behavior than job satisfaction. The study contributes to our understanding of public service motivation by illuminating a mechanism through which public service motivation influences work attitudes and behavior.

Our purpose was to report efficacy of hypofractionated cavity stereotactic radiotherapy (HCSRT) in patients with and without prior whole brain radiotherapy (WBRT). 32 surgical cavities in 30 patients (20 patients/21 cavities had no prior WBRT and 10 patients/11 cavities had prior WBRT) were treated with image-guided linac stereotactic radiotherapy. 7 of the 10 prior WBRT patients had “resistant” local disease given prior surgery, post-operative WBRT and a re-operation, followed by salvage HCSRT. The clinical target volume was the post-surgical cavity, and a 2-mm margin applied as planning target volume. The median total dose was 30 Gy (range: 25–37.5 Gy) in 5 fractions. In the no prior and prior WBRT cohorts, the median follow-up was 9.7 months (range: 3.0–23.6) and 15.3 months (range: 2.9–39.7), the median survival was 23.6 months and 39.7 months, and the 1-year cavity local recurrence progression-free survival (LRFS) was 79 and 100%, respectively. At 18 months the LRFS dropped to 29% in the prior WBRT cohort. Grade 3 radiation necrosis occurred in 3 prior WBRT patients. We report favorable outcomes with HCSRT, and well selected patients with prior WBRT and “resistant” disease may have an extended survival favoring aggressive salvage HCSRT at a moderate risk of radiation necrosis.

The latter 20th and beginning of the 21st century have ushered in new forms of governance, opening the gates to what has been variously described as a “new public service,” a “multisectored public service,” and a “state of agents.” As government authority is dispersed, we increasingly rely on these new public servants for service delivery and policy implementation. But who are now the agents of the state? How might the changed makeup of a new public service alter our expectations about democratic governance? The questions we investigate in this study are, first, now that the public sector has been transformed, what are the characteristics of the agents of the new governance? And are the new public servants, in the words of Charles Goodsell, “ordinary people”? We use the General Social Survey to shed light on our focal question. Our results suggest that public servants in for-profit settings resemble traditional civil servants in many ways. The growing ranks of social, health, and education public servants in nonprofit settings are distinct in many ways from civil servants and for-profit public servants. Implications of the changing composition of the public sector in an era of transformed governance are discussed.

Motivation scholars have argued that intrinsic motivation is an important driver of employee attitudes. This research tests the influence of intrinsic motivation on employee attitudes and explores three factors conditioning the effects of intrinsic motivation: managerial trustworthiness, goal directedness, and extrinsic reward expectancy. The analysis demonstrates that intrinsic motivation is substantively associated with both employee satisfaction and turnover intention. It also reveals that the three conditional factors interact with intrinsic motivation. Managerial trustworthiness and goal directedness increase the leverage of intrinsic motivation on employee satisfaction, whereas extrinsic rewards expectancy decreases the leverage. With respect to turnover intention, the factors directly influence it rather than affect it indirectly through intrinsic motivation. The implications of the results for theory and managerial strategies for employee motivation are discussed.

Although there has been an intense interest in the care of the adult with congenital heart disease (ACHD), these guidelines are usually not focused on the concepts of immediate postoperative care. The 2 most common perioperative complications are heart failure and atrial dysrhythmias. The broad etiological categories for ACHD and heart failure include primary pump failure (systolic dysfunction) and hypertrophy (diastolic dysfunction) of the right, left, or single ventricle. Some conditions with a pressure-loaded systemic right ventricle as well as patients with a functionally single ventricle may be particularly prone to develop heart failure; in others, right heart failure may occur in patients with Ebstein anomaly or with tetralogy of Fallot after corrective repair but with varying degrees of pulmonary insufficiency, and left heart failure can be a result of mitral or aortic insufficiency. The management of postoperative atrial tachycardia in the ACHD patient actually begins prior to surgery. Assessment of arrhythmia history, complete determination of risk, inducibility and arrhythmia substrate, preoperative planning of pacing sites, and optimal pacing strategies all assist to bring about optimal postoperative outcomes. Ideal perioperative care of the ACHD involves a multidisciplinary team of pediatric and adult cardiologists, pediatric and adult intensivists, cardiac surgeons, and nursing staff along with a myriad of adult subspecialists such as pulmonology, nephrology, endocrinology, and others including psychiatry.

Functional theory suggests that people choose activities based on their perception of how well the work matches their personal motives.This process implies that worker motivations vary by activity even when controlling for typical motivational antecedents. Although this perspective is common in the volunteering literature, the public service motivation (PSM) literature has not formally considered functional theory hypotheses.Yet PSM theory asserts a relationship not to government work itself, but to activities related to public service such as volunteering.This study evaluates functional theory in regard to PSM based on using a survey of recipients of the Daily Point of Light Award (DPOL) and the President’s Community Volunteer Award (PCV). After controlling for common PSM antecedents such as gender, level of education, religious participation, and age, PSM and its subdimensions exhibit some variance across volunteering domains (viz., religious, educational/school, human services, and other), though most differences involve religious organizations.

Case summary A 15-year-old female spayed domestic shorthair cat was presented for hyporexia and acute development of L4–Cd myelopathy (urinary incontinence, pelvic limb paresis with hyporeflexia and absent tail tone). Humane euthanasia was elected owing to the rapid neurological deterioration and necropsy was performed. Post-mortem examination identified a right-sided anal sac mass and medial iliac lymphadenopathy. No gross lesions were evident in the cauda equina or peripheral nerves. Histopathology and immunohistochemistry utilizing wide-spectrum cytokeratin confirmed apocrine gland carcinoma of the anal sac with lymph node, peripheral nerve and cauda equina metastasis. Relevance and novel information This is the first report of feline anal sac adenocarcinoma metastasizing to perineural tissue. In addition, it provides a novel differential diagnosis for L4–Cd myelopathy and urinary incontinence in a cat.

This article develops a strategic research agenda for public human resource management. The agenda originates from the perception that research about public human resources has matured during the Review of Public Personnel Administration’s 30 years of publication and now is an appropriate juncture to initiate an intentional and strategic agenda. The author identifies criteria for developing a strategic research agenda that seeks to advance useable knowledge about public human resource management, build theory, and mark out content distinctive to public institutions. The article inventories research as reported by the Review of Public Personnel Administration and two other leading human resource management journals. These inventories help to anchor the agenda in timely issues and to triangulate on distinctively public issues. The article concludes with five priority research agenda based on the criteria the author developed and the inventory of research: direct compensation, motivation, culture and political context, efficacy and effectiveness, and training and development.

This study investigates cross-national diffusion of the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 (CSRA). Two theoretical lenses are used to analyze the diffusion of performance appraisal, merit pay, the Senior Executive Service (SES), and the separation of positive and regulatory functions. The analysis indicates that most CSRA provisions have diffused more broadly internationally than would be expected based on their technical efficiency and effectiveness in the United States. Both the extent and patterns of diffusion indicate that institutional theory better explains diffusion than does communication theory. Although communication theory is helpful for explaining the early diffusion of CSRA provisions, primarily to English-speaking countries, later diffusion appears to be the result of institutional isomorphism. Regardless of which theories account for their diffusion, provisions from CSRA have diffused widely among OECD countries. The analysis suggests that CSRA has profoundly influenced civil service systems around the world.

President Jimmy Carter initiated the most sweeping reforms of the U.S. federal civil service in 95 years when he signed the Civil Service Reform Act (CSRA) on October 13, 1978. This introduction reviews the substantive reforms whose implementation began with creation of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM), on January 1, 1979. CSRA's provisions were wide-ranging. They included reorganization of the agencies tasked with civil service management and regulation, establishment of a Senior Executive Service, creation of performance appraisal and merit pay programs, and clarification and simplification of appeal procedures for personnel actions. The introduction concludes with summaries of the five articles that appear in the symposium and their significance in the context of CSRA and developments of the past 30 years.

This study explores the impact of campaign web sites on electoral civic engagement by examining 2004 Internet Tracking Survey data. Propensity score matching and the recursive bivariate probit model are employed to deal with endogeneity and the missing data problem, which are often ignored in existing literature. Findings show that effects of campaign web sites vary across individual engagements and generally support reinforcement theory rather than mobilization theory.

This article explores the process by which formal management systems foster the creation of shared organization values, addressing the basic question: Can workplace values be “managed?” Drawing upon interviews conducted at a Department of Defense installation with civilian employees and managers over a 5-year period, we use comparative case analysis to explore differences in the relationships between installation practices and social values across high-performing and low-performing work units. Our findings suggest that strategic values are motivating to employees to the extent that they reflect employees' internal affective, normative, and task-oriented values, a zone of existing values. Although values management is a social process that results from routine interactions, formal management systems provide opportunities to enhance the social interactions that are motivating to employees. Middle managers play key roles in using formal management systems to integrate the organization's strategic practices with values that derive from employees' societal, cultural, and religious experiences.

Civic service is well established in North America, where the United States and Canada are among the world leaders. The evolution of civic service has not been a story of continuous growth but rather one of episodic and cyclical development. The past decade’s events indicate that civic service is in a new cycle of growth and innovation. Among the reasons for the health of civic service in North America are the institutional structures there that define it. Civic service institutions in Mexico, largely because of its status as a developing country, are less accessible and less supportive of the service role than institutions in the rest of North America, where civic service is widely accessible to all types of servers and all social sectors are legitimately perceived as civic service providers. Open access is complemented by incentives and support for servers and organizations providing service opportunities. Several priorities are identified for further research.

This study offers both an analytical framework of and empirical evidence on the key management strategies and capacities for successful information technology (IT) outsourcing by public agencies. T...

The 1990s ushered in a new era for service as a problem-solving strategy, with a concomitant expansion in the service-related literature. The authors report the results of a bibliographic survey of the literature that assessed the contents of more than 2,500 abstracts. Service-related research has diffused to a wide array of disciplines and policy fields. However, the common interest across disciplines has not translated into a more coherent understanding of service. The most recent research is fragmented across disciplines and outcomes. In addition, much of the most recent research diverges from traditional definitions of volunteerism. Few attempts have been made to synthesize the latest wave of research results and integrate them with previous research and theory. Recommendations are offered to increase convergence among investigators and improve the quality of service-related research.

Goal setting theory predicts that the initial needs, interests, and aspirations that volunteers bring to organizations are guiding forces in their work behaviors. Other theorists argue that environmental constraints and conditioned responses to positive or negative reinforcement of earlier behaviors are better predictors of subsequent behaviors than initial goals. In this study, the relationship of initial goals to subsequent service outcomes, satisfaction, and intention to volunteer was empirically investigated. Among a sample of 362 AmeriCorps members, the goals that stipended volunteers brought to their service were found to influence outcomes related to those goals 1 year later. Self-esteem was an important moderator of the relationship between goals and outcomes. The overall match of goal importance to goal achievement predicted both satisfaction and likelihood of future volunteering. The results have implications for research on volunteers and volunteer management.

The idea of citizen service has been given increasing attention as a remedy for problems of civic disengagement. This study reviews 37 empirical studies about the relationship between service and citizenship. A formal model of change is used to guide the review. Six types of citizenship outcomes are discussed: citizenship-related cognitive understanding, citizenship attitudes, citizenship skills, institutional change, philanthropic and civic behaviors, and political behavior. Based on the review, several conclusions are drawn about what is known about the service-citizenship relationship.

This paper discusses the effects of tactile cueing on performance in a fixed base simulated helicopter hover task. Sixteen active-duty military helicopter pilots participated in a repeated measures two minute stationary hover test. Participants performed the hover task under four treatment conditions; tactile cueing (on/off) and secondary arithmetic task (on/off). Following each 2-minute hover, participants reported subjective situation awareness using the five point China Lake Situation Awareness Scale (CLSA). Total time on target improved with tactile cueing with a significant task by display interaction. Performance on the arithmetic task remained consistent across conditions and no significant change was seen on CLSA scores between the tactile/no tactile conditions. Results demonstrate that tactile cues can be used to improve performance in spatial tasks, such as hovering a helicopter, especially in the presence of distracting secondary workload tasks. The lack of a significant difference in SA scores may be more related to the pilots' overall high confidence in their SA, despite their variation in performance, and highlights some of the difficulties encountered when attempting to measure SA.

One of the most ambitious and simultaneously most controversial programs of Bill Clinton's presidency is AmeriCorps, the national service program authorized in 1993 by the National and Community Service Trust Act. This article presents findings from an examination of the community-building effects of the AmeriCorps program in five communities. We focus our attention on AmeiCorps' impact on local community-based organizations by examining change in the capacity of the organizations in which AmeriCorps members work and in the degree to which AmeriCorps has fostered interorganizational cooperation to achieve community goals. We conclude with a discussion of the findings and ways to enhance AmeriCorps' community-building potential.

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Thegrowing importance of human resources for organizational success has led to increasing interest in making personnel management a more integral, strategy-driven activity in organizations. This trend is particularlyrelevant forthe federal government where personnel activities are often perceived as constrained, complex, and separate from the manage ment process. This article proposes changing the relation ship between the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and federal agencies, redefining their respective roles, and altering the roles of personnel specialists and line managers.

Two models of the factors leading to organizational commitment are compared: the member-based model, which holds that commitment originates in the actions and personal attributes of the organizational member, and the organization-based model, which is based on the premise that commitment reflects a member's reciprocation for the organization's having provided resources that satisfy important needs. Although the latter model received more support from the data, both models explained significant amounts of variance in commitment. Contrary to the preponderance of related research findings, extrinsic aspects of satisfaction were more strongly associated with organizational commitment, than were intrinsic aspects. This finding was attributed to the composition of the respondent sample, a group of blue-collar, unionized employees.

Civil service systems are a key analytic unit in modern public administration, but theory about them lags behind their practical importance and the attention they have received from scholars. This article argues that theory building has focused on bureaucracy rather than civil service systems per se and that empirical research has been dominated by functionalist logic. Future research needs to define more rigorously and measure the properties of civil service systems and study them more holistically, particularly in relation to their environments. Three ideal types are discussed to illustrate some of the implications of these recommendations.

This article tests a model of the influence of chief executive support on innovation outcomes in local government organizations. Propositions taken from the literature are causally ordered and tested using path analysis. The model is weakly supported by the analysis. Several explanations are offered for the results.

Contingent pay has become very popular in response to criticisms of traditional pay policies in government. The new systems, however, have generally failed to increase productivity. Although many scholars have attributed failures of merit pay to poor implementation or weak top manage ment commitment, an alternative explanation is that the theory on which merit pay is based is flawed. It is argued here that merit pay is not appropriate for managerial work, imposes excessive informa tion demands on an organization, and diminishes an organization's ability to coordinate interdependencies.

A merit pay pool consists of individuals who are grouped together for the purpose of making merit pay computations. This paper investigates the consequences of variations in merit-pay-pool design and management for the linkage between performance and pay.

Adoptability is the probability that an innovation will be incorprated by an organization. This study explores the question of the adoptability of an innovation for a particular class of technological innovations, computer applications, within the context of American local governments. Four conceptual dimensions are explored to determine their likely independent and interactive influences upon the adoptability of an innovation.

An investigation was conducted among 120 college men and women to study their attitudes toward a worker described in scenarios using the dimensions of competence and age. The attitude measure included 7 questions to be rated. Ratings were analyzed using 2 × 2 × 2 randomized groups design. Results indicated that the competence variable was significant for 6 of the 7 questions. On these 6 questions the highly competent worker was viewed more positively than the worker of average competency. Males indicated less preference to work for an older worker than did females. Students viewed the older worker as making fewer future valuable contributions and as catching on to new ideas less quickly. There was no over-all negative evaluation to the older worker except in regard to these mental and physical abilities.

The Senior Executive Service (SES) was considered the cornerstone of the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 by its framers. A longitudinal investigation of the SES, among employees in grade levels 13 and above in five federal agencies, reveals that after the first two years virtually none of the major objectives of the architects of the SES are perceived as having been met. The theoretical underpinnings of the SES are reviewed and provide a basis for the investigation, which indicates that a number of factors appear to be producing an increasingly stronger negative affect toward the program over time. The likely causes of this negative affect are discussed and an approach is offered for reversing the trend.

Pay-for-performance programs have become increasingly popular in recent years. The federal government introduced a merit pay system for managers under the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978. The failure of the system led to its reform in 1984. The current program, the Performance Management and Recognition System (PMRS), is described and assessed. The paper offers a prognosis for PMRS's future. Other public sector experience is reviewed to identify the probable success of managerial merit pay.

For many years the Purdue Pegboard (PPB) has been part of the battery of tests which is used at the New York Association for the Blind (NYAB) in the vocational evaluation of blind men and women. In 1953, Gertrude Bigmanl made a study of the PPB test performance of 345 legally blind clients. The test proved to be useful in recommending prevocational training and in predicting adaptabiliry to the training programs offered at the NYAB. It was less reliable in predicting success at power sewing machine operation. Scores for the test population as a whole were lower than those for the seeing induscrial applicants reported in the PPB test manual (1948). In generalizing somewhat from her data, Bigman reported that, for the placing of pins, the 95th percentile for blind clients approximated the 50th percentile for seeing industrial applicants and that the 50th percentile for the blind fell below the first percentile for the seeing. A better showing was made on assembly where spatial orientation seemed to be less of a problem. According to her visual criteria, Bigman's test population was divided into three groups. Group 1 included those with some degree of usable vision (from approximately 5/200 up to and including 20/200 with optimum correction in the better eye). In Group 2 were those who had been totally blind, or who had not more than 5/200 vision for the greater part of their lives. Those in Group 3 were more recently totally blinded. She found chat on the whole, clients with some vision did better than those who were totally blind, and that those who were most accustomed to functioning without useful sight (Group 2 ) did better than those whose blindness was more recent (Group 3 ) . Other evaluators have reported on the use of the PPB with blind clients (Curtis, 1950; Dishart, 1959; Hoffman, 1958; Rothschild, 1959). A criticism of its use has been made by Mary Bauman (1946), who dropped che PPB from her battery because she felt it made too heavy demands in the way of spatial orientation. There seems to be no doubt but that spatial orientation does play a role in reducing the scores of blind people, since the scores are based solely on speed of performance. If used in actual industrial placement procedures, this test could give a false impression of what an applicant's potential might be after a reasonable period of on-the-job work experience. However, clients seeking training at the NYAB are not ready for induscrial

Attitudes of 56 adults toward a person 25 to 35 yr. old and toward a person 70 to 78 yr. old were studied. Italian immigrants, Polish immigrants, Scottish immigrants, and native-born Americans rated 21 questions. Data were subjected to a 2 × 4 analysis of variance with age as a repeated measure. The Italian and Polish groups viewed the older person as being active, happy, and leading a full life. The Scottish and native-born American groups viewed the older person as more inactive but not necessarily unhappy. The native-born American group did not indicate a strong negative attitude toward the aged as had been predicted.

Preface 1. Introduction: Conceptualizing Civil Service SystemsNHans A. G. M. Bekke, James L. Perry, and Theo A. J. Toonen Part I: Theory and Data 2. Theory and MethodologyNB. Guy Peters 3. Data Requirements and AvailabilityNEugene B. McGregor, Jr. and Paul Solano Part II: History and Structure 4. The Evolution of Civil Service SystemsNJos C. N. Raadschelders and Mark R. Rutgers 5. Internal Labor MarketsNLois Recascino Wise 6. Civil Servants and RepresentativenessNFrits M. van der Meer and Renk L. J. Roborgh Part III: Context 7. Politicization as a Civil Service DilemmaNWilliam P. Hojnacki 8. Social Control of Civil Service SystemsNMichael Hill and Desi Gillespie 9. Public Opinion Towards the Civil ServiceNHal G. Rainey Part IV: Configurations 10. Configurations of Civil Service SystemsNFarrel Heady 11. Analyzing Fields of Change: Civil Service Systems in developing CountriesNE. Philip Morgan Part V. Change and Transformation 12. External Stress and Internal Strains: The Reform Agenda for National Civil Service SystemsNPatricia W. Ingraham 13. Exploring Variations in 1980s Public Management ReformNChristopher Hood 14. The Diffusion of Civil Service ReformNJohn Halligan 15. Conclusion: Assessment of Progress and a Research AgendaNHans A. G. M. Bekke, James L. Perry, and Theo A. J. Toonen

The present study was designed to investigate the differences between present and expected life satisfaction when one is older. Do persons perceive themselves and others as less satisfied with life when they are older? Some recent researchers (1, 3, 6) have found negatlve aspects of certain components of life satisfaction to be a large part of the stereoryped view of old age. Ninety-six university students, 18 to 26 gr. of age, responded to an 18-item life satisfaction scale (4) under four different instructions: (a) as they saw themselves presently, (b) as they thought the items would be applied to themselves when they became 70 yr. old, (c) as subjects thought items would be true or false for most 70yr.-old men, and (d) whether items would be true or false for most 70-yr.-old women. Order of insuuctions varied. Each scale was then scored to indicate the strength of life satisfaction. Scores on each scale were subjected to a 2 X 4 analysis of variance which yielded a significant P ratio (P = 63.99, df = 3/92, p = ,001). There w3s a consistent decline in life satisfaction from the self-ratings to self-ar-70 ratings to males-at-70 to females-at-70 rarlngs. There were no significant sex differences on the ratings. The significant decline from present to expected life satisfaction indicated that subjects expected to become markedly less satisfied with life as they aged. However. the difference between self-expectations and expectations for others indicated that sub jects saw themselves more positively as aging individuals than they saw others who were aged. The negative nature of attitudes toward old age has been pointed out (2, 5). Stereotypes of aging may very well be related to individuals' self-perceptions. Present subjects expressed largely negative attitudes for both self and others as a result of getting older.