Call centers have become an important customer access channel as well as an important source of customer‐related information. Frequently, call center employees experience role stress as a result of the conflicting demands of the company, supervisors, and customers. In this article, antecedents and consequences of role stress in a call center setting are examined. Specifically, we investigate which forms of empowerment and leadership styles decrease role stress and how this subsequently effects job satisfaction, organizational commitment, performance, and turnover intentions. It was found that particularly the autonomy dimension of empowerment has a role‐stress‐reducing effect. Interesting substantive direct positive effects of empowerment competence and leadership consideration on job satisfaction were found. Job satisfaction was found to be conducive to job performance. Furthermore, it was found that job satisfaction reduces turnover intentions, directly and indirectly via organizational commitment. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and Direct Marketing Educational Foundation, Inc.

Rewards have been shown to impair performance of a reinforced behavior. The work surrounding these detrimental effects of rewards has not been met with unanimous support. Does this phenomenon described in Deci's Cognitive Evaluation Theory concerning the detrimental effects of reward exist? Is Deci's Cognitive Evaluation Theory adequate to explain this phenomenon? A meta-analysis was employed to determine the existence of the detrimental effects of extrinsic rewards on intrinsic motivation. Results from this analysis showed that within strictly defined parameters the phenomenon defined by Deci exists. Implications from this analysis exemplify researchers' need for closer supervision of the operationalization of variables based on the theoretical framework.

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Far from being the leader, the US has been a ‘domino’ belatedly falling into line in the global rush toward bilateral and regional free trade arrangements. Often the initiative for negotiations has come from seemingly weaker trading partners. Once in the game, however, and aware of the asymmetries of market power and issue salience that enhance US bargaining leverage, the US has been aggressively pursuing a variety of commercial and diplomatic interests, both tactical and strategic, that include bolstering local democratic institutions and processes of economic reform, strengthening US security ties, accelerating region‐wide commercial liberalisation by allying with a regional leader, establishing new precedents to use as bench markers in future trade negotiations, and otherwise using free trade accords to advance its comprehensive global trade policy agenda. Bilateralism and regionalism have opened the door to an explicit introduction of political criteria, in contradiction to GATT/WTO apolitical universalism. While often reactive to the initiatives of other nations, the US has not been indiscriminate, deflecting the entreaties of suitors where US international political economy interests are not served.

As expected, older adults undergoing emergent/urgent surgical treatment for diverticulitis have significantly increased risks of poor outcomes compared with elective patients. While advancing age is associated with a substantial increase in mortality, intestinal diversion and 30-day readmission after surgery for diverticulitis, this affect is especially evident among patients undergoing elective colectomy. Our data suggest that given the considerable risk of prophylactic colon resection in elderly patients with sigmoid diverticulitis, a reappraisal of the proper role of elective colectomy in this population may be warranted.