A healthy work environment for the business-office team requires a balance among the components of organizational leadership, collective continuous improvement, and individual caring. (MLF)

An attorney provides the legal background for sexual harassment suits. Defines actions that school administrators can take to limit exposure to a charge of sexual harassment or to provide a good defense once a charge has been filed. Contains a sample effective sexual harassment policy and a 17-item sexual harassment quiz. (MLF)

Total quality management (TQM) has become a U.S. social movement. This commentary analyzes the writings of W. Edwards Deming, Joseph Juran, and Kaoru Ishikawa to assess TQM's coherence, distinctiveness, and likely perseverance. Rhetoric is winning over substance, unrelated interventions are being herded under the TQM banner, and research is not…

Evaluation of job-related tension as perceived by 52 New Zealand rehabilitation service providers found a positive relationship between job tension and general psychological distress, a negative relationship between self-esteem and both job tension and distress, and a moderating effect of positive self-esteem on effects of job tension. (Author/DB)

Explores 40 urban principals' perceptions concerning obstacles to school effectiveness. Schools as organizational workplaces are plagued by stress, frustration, and alienation. There is a growing gap between school culture and the larger society. Kids who no longer buy into the American dream often fail to meet educator-imposed expectations.…

Focuses on the challenges and needs faced by early career faculty. Draws on case study interviews to point out the problems that exist for younger faculty as they struggle to attain tenure. Provides recommendations about how the system might be improved. (MJP)

Analyzes how locus of control affects teachers instructional perceptions, their perceived workload, and their professional satisfaction. Reveals that teachers emphasizing an internal locus of control are satisfied professionally, see teaching as demanding, and positively view their instructional practices; teachers emphasizing an external locus of…

A study proposed a structural model of college faculty worklife and tested its generalizability by examining possible differences in the model across three cross-sectional samples of probationary faculty at a major research university over an eight-year period. Identified trends in faculty perceptions about their worklife over time can be used as…

Techniques for supervising day camp staff so that they develop responsibility include holding daily morning meetings with the entire staff, taking the "open door" to staff, encouraging information sharing, managing by walking around, ending the day with a short assembly, and observing staff at the end-of-the-day dismissal and other major…

Examined social-contextual conditions that led teachers to be more autonomy supportive versus controlling with students. Using structural equation modeling the authors observed that the more pressure teachers perceive from above and from below, the less they are self-determined toward teaching. In turn, the less they are self-determined, the more…

The employee-employer relationship has changed. Previously, employees believed that their employers would recognize their loyalty and good work with steady compensation increases and job security. Since the mid-1980s, however, a steady stream of events has eroded this relationship: globalization, unfriendly takeovers, downsizing, and the efforts…

Addressing the problems of increasing antisocial behavior, declining civility, and decaying morals, this book contains a collection of essays that consider the origins and the development of America's character, the factors that influence it, and the consequences for society of inadequate character development. Essays include the following: "The…

This collection consists of analyses based on data from the 1979, 1980, and 1981 National Longitudinal Surveys of Youth Labor Market Experience. In a paper entitled "A Description of Employed and Unemployed Youth in 1981," Michael E. Borus describes employed, unemployed, and discouraged workers between the ages of 16 and 21. Next, Tom K.…

Parents of children with autism face many challenges that arise from the practical, day-to-day issues of living with autism. The specific goals of this guide are to help parents: (1) Find information about autism; (2) Distinguish between research-based and non-research-based information; (3) Become savvy consumers of information by giving them the…

The effect of welfare time limits on families in different states was examined in a comprehensive study that involved the following activities: (1) a survey of state welfare administrators regarding states' time-limit policies and experiences to date; (2) site visits to five states; and (3) a synthesis of research on time limits. The following…