Patterns of work attitudes: A neural network approach Available to Purchase

In this paper we introduce a neural networks based approach to analyzing empirical data and models from work and organizational psychology (WOP), and suggest possible implications for the practice of managers and business consultants. With this method it becomes possible to have quantitative answers to a bunch of questions like: What are the characteristics of an organization in terms of its employees’ motivation? What distinct attitudes towards the work exist? Which pattern is most desirable from the standpoint of productivity and professional achievement? What will be the dynamics of behavior as quantified by our method, during an ongoing organizational change or consultancy intervention? Etc. Our investigation is founded on the theoretical achievements of Maslow (1954, 1970) in human motivation, and of Hackman & Oldham (1975, 1980) in job diagnostics, and applies the mathematical algorithm of the dARTMAP variation (Carpenter et al., 1998) of the Adaptive Resonance Theory (ART) neural networks introduced by Grossberg (1976). We exploit the ART capabilities to visualize the knowledge accumulated in the network’s long-term memory in order to interpret the findings in organizational research.