The crucible of public health practice: major trends shaping the design of the Management Academy for Public Health.

Public health leaders and managers need new leadership and management skills as well as greater entrepreneurial acumen to respond effectively to broad demographic, socioeconomic, and political trends reshaping public health. This article asserts that the need for such training and skills was the impetus for the conceptualization, design, and launch of the Management Academy for Public Health--an innovative executive education program jointly offered by the schools of business and public health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Managing job seekers' organizational image beliefs: the role of media richness and media credibility.

In this article, the authors assessed job seekers' organizational image beliefs before and after they experienced 3 recruitment media. The authors examined whether perceptions of media richness and credibility were related to improvements in the correspondence between job seekers' image beliefs and firms' projected images. Both media richness and credibility perceptions were associated with correspondence between job seekers' image beliefs and firms' projected images.

The phenomenology of fit: linking the person and environment to the subjective experience of person-environment fit.

The authors distinguished 3 approaches to the study of perceived person-environment fit (P-E fit): (a) atomistic, which examines perceptions of the person and environment as separate entities; (b) molecular, which concerns the perceived comparison between the person and environment; and (c) molar, which focuses on the perceived similarity, match, or fit between the person and environment. Distinctions among these approaches have fundamental implications for theory, measurement, and the subjective experience of P-E fit, yet research has treated these approaches as interchangeable. This study investigated the meaning and relationships among the atomistic, molecular, and molar approaches to fit and examined factors that influence the strength of these relationships.

Leadership, collective personality, and performance.

By viewing behavior regularities at the individual and collective level as functionally isomorphic, a referent-shift compositional model for the Big 5 personality dimensions is developed. On the basis of this compositional model, a common measure of Big 5 personality at the individual level is applied to the collective as a whole. Within this framework, it is also hypothesized that leadership (i.

Changing roles for primary-care physicians: addressing challenges and opportunities.

Direct-to-consumer advertising is but one example of a process called disintermediation that is directly affecting primary-care physicians and their patients. This paper examines the trends and the actors involved in disintermediation, which threatens the traditional patient-physician relationship. The paper outlines the social forces behind these threats and illustrates the resulting challenges and opportunities.

Socialization tactics, employee proactivity, and person-organization fit.

This study examined the linkage between organizational socialization tactics and person-organization (P-O) fit and examined the moderating influence of employees' proactivity behaviors. Results from a sample of 279 employee-supervisor pairs from 7 organizations in South Korea revealed a positive relationship between institutionalized socialization tactics and P-O fit perceptions. However, the association between firms' socialization tactics and P-O fit was facilitated or negated by several proactive behaviors that employees used to gain control over their environment.

Resource slack and propensity to discount delayed investments of time versus money.

The authors demonstrate that people discount delayed outcomes as a result of perceived changes over time in supplies of slack. Slack is the perceived surplus of a given resource available to complete a focal task. The present research shows that, in general, people expect slack for time to be greater in the future than in the present.

Complementary and supplementary fit: a theoretical and empirical integration.

Complementary and supplementary fit represent 2 distinct traditions within the person-environment fit paradigm. However, these traditions have progressed in parallel but separate streams. This article articulates the theoretical underpinnings of the 2 traditions, using psychological need fulfillment and value congruence as prototypes of each tradition.

Climate as a moderator of the relationship between leader-member exchange and content specific citizenship: safety climate as an exemplar.

The present study integrates role theory, social exchange, organizational citizenship, and climate research to suggest that employees will reciprocate implied obligations of leadership-based social exchange (e.g., leader-member exchange [LMX]) by expanding their role and behaving in ways consistent with contextual behavioral expectations (e.

The convergent and discriminant validity of subjective fit perceptions.

This study examined whether employees develop perceptions about 3 different types of fit: person-organization fit, needs-supplies fit, and demands-abilities fit. Confirmatory factor analyses of data from 2 different samples strongly suggested that employees differentiate between these 3 types of fit. Furthermore, results from a longitudinal design of 187 managers supported both the convergent and discriminant validity of the different types of fit perceptions.

Role of slotting fees and trade promotions in shaping how tobacco is marketed in retail stores.

Objective: To examine how the retail environment in which tobacco is sold has changed because of the slotting fees and trade promotions paid by the tobacco companies. Public policy options for dealing with this environment are also evaluated.

Data Sources: A literature review, telephone interviews, and observation.

The norm of self-interest and its effects on social action.

Four studies investigated whether people feel inhibited from engaging in social action incongruent with their apparent self-interest. Participants in Study 1 predicted that they would be evaluated negatively were they to take action on behalf of a cause in which they had no stake or in which they had a stake but held stake-incongruent attitudes. Participants in Study 2 reported both surprise and anger when a target person took action on behalf of a cause in which he or she had no stake or in which he or she held stake-incongruent attitudes.

The nature and outcomes of work: a replication and extension of interdisciplinary work-design research.

Research into the changing nature of work requires comprehensive models of work design. One such model is the interdisciplinary framework (M. A.

On the nature and direction of relationships between constructs and measures.

Theory development typically focuses on relationships among theoretical constructs, placing little emphasis on relationships between constructs and measures. In most cases, constructs are treated as causes of their measures. However, this causal flow is sometimes reversed, such that measures are viewed as causes of constructs.

Evaluating the quality control system for managed care in the United States.

Though idiosyncratic, the system for controlling managed care in the United States is surprisingly robust. This article reviews the mechanisms available to providers, patients, insurers, and governments to assess ongoing quality of care. It suggests that those contracting for care use the Donabedian Matrix to assess where contracts are strong and where the provisions are weak.

Work and Family Stress and Well-Being: An Examination of Person-Environment Fit in the Work and Family Domains.

Research indicates that work and family are significant sources of stress. However, this research has underemphasized the cognitive appraisal process by which work and family generate stress. This study used person-environment fit theory to examine how the comparison of work and family experiences to the person's values relates to stress and well-being.

Balancing collaboration and competition: the Kingsport, Tennessee experience.

Background: In 1988, business, health care, and community leaders in Kingsport, Tennessee, initiated the Kingsport Area Health Improvement Project (KAHIP) to improve the health status of local citizens. The community has good conditions for collaboration: (1) a large employer that was a 1993 winner of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, (2) community structures for the implementation of collaborative efforts, (3) relative stability in community employment and income, (4) adequate medical resources, (5) outside support from foundations and national organization, and (6) the confidence and commitment of its leaders to make quality efforts work.

Barriers To Improvement: Barriers to improvement have included 1) two large acute care hospitals competing for many of the same physicians and patients, 2) the uncertainties introduced by the restructuring of the community's largest employer, and 3) ongoing moves in the managed care arena by some key players, which have left a degree of anger and mistrust.