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Education, orderly work careers, and organizational participation: a replication and extension of Wilensky's model.

University of British Columbia

This thesis treats two problems simultaneously.It performs a replication test and extension of a given model of differential social participation, and a test for differing conclusions at three measurement levels. This involves secondary analyses of a two-cluster random sample. The Wilensky causal-sequence model of education, orderliness of work careers, and organizational participation is tested under several controlled conditions, i.e., several subsamples, and in a random sample of a small one-Company industrial city. That particular linear, independent-effects model is not supported in any of the samples. Education is found to explain directly some of the participation. Furthermore, Wilensky's central relation, the primacy of orderliness as a predictor of participation, is not supported except in a sample very similar to his "middle-mass" sample. A cumulative interaction model, involving education, orderliness of work careers, intra-generational mobility, and length of residence is proposed. Although the new model per se does not explain any more variation in social participation when compared to the model of the additive effects of those factors, the (cross-products) interaction terms do add a statistically significant amount of explained variation when combined with the additive effects in a single model of relationships. The analyses close with suggestions for further exploring new interaction arrangements and with the conclusion that the best fit to the present data is the model of combined additive and interactive effects. The dual assumptions of Davis, with regard to (1) non-differing conclusions about people at measurements levels, and (2) crudeness in statistics being the same as conservatism, are directly challenged by the analyses. Under the rigid application of the criteria (1) of magnitude in correlation values, and (2) of consistency in the signs of relations, interpretative models differ somewhat from measurement level to level, especially when interpreting the empirical relations for each indicator of organizational participation. Underlying interaction among variables, tested by a linear model, enhances a crude statistic.

Text

2011-04-13

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http://hdl.handle.net/2429/33620

Sociology

University of British Columbia

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