Students as Partial Employees: A Metaphor for the Student-Institution Interaction

Hoffman, K. Douglas; Kretovics, Mark A.

doi:10.1023/b:ihie.0000048793.19622.ae

Cited by 28 publications

(27 citation statements)

References 21 publications

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“…Briefly stated, the answer to this question lies in the disagreement among scholars about its very nature. In the management education literature, the university student has alternately been broadly described as a member of one of two groups: (a) service consumers, including customers (Lomas, 2007), and clients (Armstrong, 2003) and (b) organizational members, including employees (Hoffman & Kretovics, 2004), and junior partners (Ferris, 2002(Ferris, , 2003. Although the disagreement among educational scholars on this issue is at times contentious (Franz, 1998), to date, the empirical evidence on the nature of the population has been scant.…”

Section: Studying Commitment In a University Setting: A Theoretical Cmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Relationship Between University Student Commitment Profiles and Behavior: Exploring the Nature of Context Effects

McNally

Irving

2010

Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies

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Commitment has been extensively examined by researchers in a wide variety of contexts. The construct is considered important because it has been shown to be predictive of work-related attitudes and behaviors. However, the construct has only rarely been used to explain behavioral outcomes in educational contexts. It is likely that commitment has important implications for student behavior in colleges and universities. Based on the extant commitment literature in traditional workplace contexts, there may be reason to believe that high levels of commitment might be positively associated with students' engagement and negatively associated with students' intention to quit school. As such, the purpose of this study is to examine the construct of commitment and its outcomes in a university setting. Specifically, it provides a test of Meyer and Herscovitch's (2001) theoretical predictions about the combined effects of different components of undergraduate students' commitment to their university on their focal and discretionary behaviors. We contend that this study makes three important theoretical contributions to the organizational commitment literature in that it (a) investigates the interactive effects of different components of commitment on focal and discretionary behaviors which, with only a few exceptions (e.g., Gellatly, Meyer, & Luchak, 2006;Sinclair, Tucker, Wright, & Cullen, 2005;Wasti, 2005), has not been adequately done in the commitment literature; (b) examines the generalizability of the Meyer and Herscovitch (2001) model, particularly the outcomes of commitment, to a university student population; and (c) provides a starting point for the development of a synthesis of knowledge about behavior between the organizational behavior and management education literatures.A fourth purpose of this study is to examine the notion of the existence of a commitment "context effect" for normative commitment (NC). As explained in depth in the following AbstractTheoretical concepts from the organizational behavior literature, including commitment, are rarely used to help explain university student behavior. The benefits of doing so might include the development of a synthesis of knowledge about the behavior of students in an organizational setting. Such a synthesis is important because it will help extend organizational commitment literature to student samples and will help explain student behavior as a result of their commitment. As such, the purpose of this study was twofold: (a) to test theoretical propositions advanced by Meyer and Herscovitch concerning the interactive effects of affective, normative, and continuance commitment on students' focal and discretionary behaviors and (b) to provide an exploratory examination of the notion of a commitment profile "context effect" for normative commitment for students in a university setting. Study measures were gathered from a sample of 287 undergraduate business students. Results showed support for interactive effects of the three components of commitment for both focal a...

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Section: Studying Commitment In a University Setting: A Theoretical Cmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Relationship Between University Student Commitment Profiles and Behavior: Exploring the Nature of Context Effects

McNally

Irving

2010

Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies

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“…Another way to describe the relationship and interaction students have with the institutions is to see them as partial employees (Hoffman & Kretovics, 2004). The traditional metaphors of students as customers, products and employees fail to convey the complexity of students' roles in educational settings.…”

Section: Footnotesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Yet, we see students as an independent entity and as an essential as well as an indispensable part of the university, regardless of their time-restricted membership. Students are highly involved in the university, are active members of the educational process, and they often perform according to role expectations (Hoffman & Kretovics, 2004). We believe that they are highly attached with the organization and identify with their alma mater.…”

Section: Footnotesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Predictors of change in postmerger identification during a merger process: A longitudinal study.

Gleibs¹,

Mummendey²,

Noack³

2008

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

100

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“…Others have focused on student and faculty roles. Hoffman and Kretovics (2004) references to students as products, customers, or employees, and Vadeboncoeur and Torres (2003) analysed metaphors of faculty as gardeners, givers of knowledge, agents of change, or mediators of culture. Such educational studies reflect conflicting representations concerning student and faculty roles and suggest the usefulness of metaphors as a medium to communicate and negotiate values, assumptions, and practices.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mentoring expectations and realities: an analysis of metaphorical thinking among female undergraduate protegés and their mentors in a university mentoring programme

Storrs

Putsche

Taylor

2008

Mentoring & Tutoring: Partnership in Learning

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This article describes the differences between mentors' and protégés' expectations and realities regarding mentoring relationships and goals. Faculty and senior undergraduate mentors and female undergraduate protegés who participated in a formal, university mentoring programme at the University of Idaho, organised by the institution's Women's Centre, were asked to describe their ideal and actual mentoring relationship through metaphor; the responses were analysed qualitatively to explore protégés' and mentors' expectations and experiences. Results indicate that protégés held more traditional and hierarchical mentoring ideals at the beginning of the programme and that most mentoring ideals differed from actual experiences. Given this disparity and because metaphorical processes have the capacity to enhance mentoring experiences due to their generative and expansive capacities, we suggest that metaphors be employed in explicit ways to align expectations and realities between mentors' and protégés' expectations through shared reflection. We conclude with metaphorical exercises that can be used in formal mentoring programmes in higher education to help participants negotiate expectations and help organise relationships in ways that are aligned with the mission and goals of particular mentoring programmes.

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Students as Partial Employees: A Metaphor for the Student-Institution Interaction

Cited by 28 publications

References 21 publications

The Relationship Between University Student Commitment Profiles and Behavior: Exploring the Nature of Context Effects

The Relationship Between University Student Commitment Profiles and Behavior: Exploring the Nature of Context Effects

Predictors of change in postmerger identification during a merger process: A longitudinal study.

Mentoring expectations and realities: an analysis of metaphorical thinking among female undergraduate protegés and their mentors in a university mentoring programme

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