Claims

Negative specialization–role interdependence relationship holds only in offices low on workgroup process

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · associational r1 · q2 · i1 small
Currency · newest study 1974 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person · overdue for a recheck since 1979: baselines and conditions change
Evidence quality · No study behind this claim is a peer-reviewed article with a DOI: it rests on an ERIC document (a report, conference paper or thesis). It is kept because a design page cites it; treat it as a lead to check, not an established finding.

Subclaims

Reading the evidence codes

q is the design tier, i the impact, n the sample, and the kind with its r the rigour judged within that kind: what each code means.

This claim: no standardized effect is recorded in observations/ for it yet, so no benchmark reading is possible.

q2 i? The negative relationship between specialization and role interdependence holds only in offices where employees view colleagues as having competing goals (r = -.37 versus -.08). → Pennings 1974

Evidence

Pennings 1974

Pennings, Johannes M. (1974). Differentiation, Interdependence, and Performance in Formal Organizations. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED099988

q2 · i1 · associational · r1

Moderator analysis (Table 2) comparing offices high versus low on the workgroup-process index. In low workgroup-process offices the specialization–role interdependence correlation was r = -.37; in high offices it was r = -.08, a surprising absence of correlation where goals are seen as compatible.

"The negative relationshipbetween specialization and role inter- dependence which was established in table 1 between role interdependence and specialization seems to hold only in those offices where employees tend to view their colleagues as having competing goals (e.g., r = -.37 versus -.08)."

Discussion

Page metadata
Field Value
type claim
id specialization-role-interdependence-moderated-by-social-climate
title Negative specialization–role interdependence relationship holds only in offices low on workgroup process
description Negative specialization–role interdependence relationship holds only in offices low on workgroup process
status review
evidence_strength moderate
newest_evidence 1974
recheck_by 1979
generated by process:wiki-ingest on 2026-09-25
trust unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content
sources 1 — pennings-1974

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