Managerial Assessments of the Applications of Regression Management

The commentary of the article begins with the subject of the research in the article: Organizational Politics within Academic Departments. This subject is valid of research as it is a factor of which many students are unaware, yet are apart of and by which they are affected. Uninformed views or stereotypes of academia may not include the order of politics evident among faculty and staff within each department, yet they exist. Therefore the first piece of criticism is to validate the subject matter of the study. Furthermore, the authors argue for the importance of their study as there is little research in the area, for reasons that some of which are obvious and self evident.

The specific behavioral focus for the article is conflict. The authors wish to understand the nature of conflict within organizations and the impact conflict has upon perceptions. There are nine hypotheses the researchers intend to prove or invalidate, some of which are:

Hypothesis 1: Departments with higher levels of intra-departmental task and relationship conflict will have more politicized climates. Hypothesis 3: Paradigm development will be negatively related to political climate such that departments belonging to well-developed paradigms will exhibit lower levels of politics. Hypothesis 6: Those experiencing high...

Hypothesis 7: Intra-departmental task and relationship conflict will mediate the relationships between role perceptions and political climate. Hypothesis 9: At the departmental level, the relationship between rank heterogeneity and political climate level will be mediated by task and relationship conflict. (Darr & Johns, 2003,-Page 37-39)
Nine hypotheses are perhaps too many hypotheses to endeavor to research within the scope of this study. Some of the hypotheses could be condensed or eradicated. It is the opinion of the author that it would have behooved the researchers and the research to narrow the scope and focus of the study of political climates in academic departments to five or less hypotheses. Some of the hypotheses may function better in the Discussion/Results/Conclusion section rather than earlier on in the description of the study. Noting factors such as conflict, climate, paradigms, perceptions, relationships, and role perceptions benefits the researchers and the data. Delineation inclusion of terms or factors such as these reflects the intelligence and awareness of the researchers. Particularly, studying the issue of role ambiguity as it pertains to conflict and political climate is particularly astute, as this is a factor of great study and scrutiny by researchers in such disciplines as…