DEVELOPMENT ENGAGEMENT WITHIN AND FOLLOWING DEVELOPMENTAL ASSESSMENT CENTERS: CONSIDERING FEEDBACK FAVORABILITY AND SELF–ASSESSOR AGREEMENT

This study sought to understand employees' level of behavioral engagement in response to feedback received in developmental assessment center (DAC) programs. Hypotheses were drawn from theories of self‐enhancement and self‐consistency and from findings in the multisource feedback and assessment center literatures regarding recipients' perceptions of feedback. Data were gathered from 172 U.S. middle managers participating in a DAC program. Results suggested that more favorable feedback was related to higher behavioral engagement. When discrepancies between self‐ and assessor ratings were examined, overraters (participants whose overall self‐ratings were higher than their assessor ratings) tended to show less engagement in the program compared to underraters. However, pattern agreement on the participant's dimension profile did not significantly correlate with behavioral engagement. Based on these findings, avenues for future research are presented and practical implications are discussed.     

Construct Validity of Multi‐Source Performance Ratings: An Examination of the Relationship of Self‐, Supervisor‐, and Peer‐Ratings with Cognitive and Personality Measures

Although more and more organizations prefer using multi‐source performance ratings or 360° feedback over traditional performance appraisals, researchers have been rather skeptical regarding the reliability and validity of such ratings. The present study examined the validity of self‐, supervisor‐, and peer‐ratings of 195 employees in a Dutch public organization, using scores on an In‐Basket exercise, an intelligence test, and a personality questionnaire as external criterion measures. Interrater agreement ranged from .28 to .38. Variance in the ratings was explained by both method and content factors. Support for the external construct validity was rather weak. Supervisor‐ratings were not found to be superior to self‐ and peer‐ratings in predicting the scores on the external measures.     

Self‐Supervisor Agreement: The Influence of Feedback Seeking on the Relationship Between Self and Supervisor Ratings of Performance1

Self‐assessment research has continued to search for those factors that increase self‐other rating agreement. The current field study investigated the feedback‐seeking strategies (i. e., monitoring and inquiry) used by 125 employees to obtain performance information, as well as the relationship between feedback‐seeking strategy use and self‐supervisor performance‐rating agreement. Results indicate that the frequency of monitoring reported by employees significantly moderated the relationship between self and supervisor ratings of performance. Individuals who reported higher levels of feedback seeking through monitoring were more likely to have self‐assessments that were congruent with their supervisors' ratings of performance.     

Multisource Assessments of Behavioral Competencies and Selection Interview Performance

This study sought to determine whether and how ratings of leadership in a developmental multisource feedback program compare against those obtained by leadership selection decision makers. Seventy‐seven senior managers received feedback on eight competencies that also formed the basis of a subsequent promotional interview for senior executive positions. Each rating source displayed a unique perspective on the participants, but only the supervisor and peer ratings predicted performance on the interview. As well, peer, subordinate, and self‐ratings failed to improve upon the supervisors' predictions. The results also suggested a general performance factor underlying both the multisource assessments and the interview ratings.     

Self–Observer Rating Discrepancies of Managers in Asia: A study of derailment characteristics and behaviors in Southern and Confucian Asia

Antecedents to self–observer rating discrepancies in multisource instruments have been established at the individual and organizational level. However, research examining cultural antecedents is limited, which is particularly relevant as multisource instruments gain popularity around the world. We investigated multisource ratings of 860 Asian managers from the regions of Southern Asia (n=261) and Confucian Asia (n=599) and analyzed cultural differences in self–observer rating discrepancies. Multivariate regression procedures revealed that the self–observer rating discrepancy was wider for managers from Southern Asia as compared with Confucian Asia. The reason for the discrepancy was driven by managers' self‐ratings being different across cultures than by observer ratings from managers' bosses, direct reports, or peers; the predictor is related to self‐ratings not observer ratings, producing differential self–observer ratings due to self‐ratings. We discuss cultural differences in self‐ and observer ratings within Asia and provide implications for the practice of multisource assessments.     

Agreement in Self–Other Ratings of Leader Effectiveness: The role of demographics and personality

Personality and demographic attributes for a set of 1221 focal managers were examined as correlates of leadership effectiveness evaluations that were obtained via a 360° feedback program. Polynomial regression was used to study the congruence of self‐ratings provided by focal managers relative to the different evaluative perspectives (i.e., immediate superior, peer, and subordinate). Analyses supported the prediction that focal manager's sex and age would be associated with the ratings provided by themselves and others. Plus, the tendency to overestimate one's own leader effectiveness relative to evaluations provided by others was found to be greater for males and older managers. Focal managers who expressed greater social sensitivity were evaluated more favorably by subordinates and peers, although not by superiors. Ratings of leader effectiveness from immediate superiors were, instead, more readily predicted by judgments of the performance of the focal manager's organizational unit relative to comparable units. Results of polynomial regression analysis, however, indicated that self–other agreement was related to the focal's sex, social sensitivity, and social dominance. Implications for understanding obstacles to openness to change are discussed.     

Self‐ratings in Training Programs: An Examination of Level of Performance and the Effects of Feedback

The level of agreement (mean differences and correlations) between self, peer and training staff ratings were examined in this study. The sample consisted of 545 participants who were undertaking a Royal Australian Airforce officer training program. Consistent with previous research there was strong agreement between training staff and peers and weak agreement between self‐ratings and ratings by others (training staff and peers). Accuracy of ratings was examined by (a) comparing the mean ratings of outstanding, average and below‐average performers; and (b) correlating difference scores with a measure of performance. The findings showed that below‐average performers have a less accurate view of themselves compared to outstanding performers. Finally, we examined the effects of negative feedback on self‐perceptions. The analyses indicated that after receiving negative feedback, average performers adjusted their self‐ratings. Various explanations were proposed together with practical implications for training.     

360 Degree Feedback and Developmental Outcomes: The Role of Feedback Characteristics,Self‐Efficacy and Importance of Feedback Dimensions to Focal Managers' Current Role

This longitudinal study investigates whether developmental changes following 360 degree feedback are predicted by the favourability of ratings received, and moderated by focal individuals' self‐efficacy and perceived importance of feedback. Five developmental criteria are investigated longitudinally: (i) self‐assessments, (ii) line managers' ratings, (iii) amount of developmental activity, (iv) global self‐efficacy and (iv) self‐efficacy for development. Feedback ratings from certain rater groups predicted changes in ratings, but not changes in self‐efficacy or amount of developmental activity. Self‐efficacy significantly moderated the feedback–performance association for certain rater groups, but feedback importance did not. Contrary to expectations, the focal individual's initial self‐assessment predicted changes in self‐efficacy, over the favourability of ratings received. The implications of these findings for organizations using 360 degree feedback for developmental purposes are discussed.     

Ethnic identity and self‐esteem among Asian and European Americans: When a minority is the majority and the majority is a minority

Three studies were conducted to examine the impact of being a numeric majority or minority in Hawai'i and U.S. mainland on the ethnic identity and self‐esteem of Asian and European Americans. Results of Study 1 (N = 214, M age = 19.85 years) and Study 2 (N = 215, M age = 18.20 years) showed that Asian Americans who grew up on the U.S. mainland, where they are a numeric minority, reported higher ethnic identity than did Asian Americans who grew up in Hawai'i, where they are a numeric majority. In addition, ethnic identity was significantly associated with self‐esteem for Asian Americans from the U.S. mainland and European Americans from Hawai'i (numeric minority), but not for Asian Americans from Hawai'i and European Americans from the U.S. mainland (numeric majority). Study 3 (N = 88, M age = 18.12) examined ethnic identity and self‐esteem among Asian and European Americans who had moved from the U.S. mainland to attend a university in Hawai'i over a 1 year time period. The results showed significant relations between ethnic identity and self‐esteem for Asian Americans when they initially moved to Hawai'i, but this relation decreased after they had lived in Hawai'i for 1 year. The findings highlight contextual variations in ethnic identity and self‐esteem for members of both minority and majority groups in the U.S. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Are observer ratings of applicants’ personality also faked? Yes,but less than self‐reports

Although self‐report personality tests are a comparatively cheap and easy‐to‐administer personnel selection tool, researchers have criticized them for not predicting enough criterion‐related variance. Researchers have suggested using observer‐ratings of personality (e.g., as part of a reference check from a supervisor) because observer‐ratings have been reported to be more predictive. However, it is theoretically and empirically unclear whether supervisors also engage in faking (the intentional distortion of responses). Study 1 explored faking among managers who were first asked to imagine that a subordinate had to leave his/her job for private reasons and then to rate the personality of the subordinate. A week later, managers rated their subordinates honestly. A repeated‐measures MANOVA indicated that managers did fake. Study 2 (among supervisors of working students) replicated the above findings but also showed that there is less faking in supervisor‐ratings than in self‐ratings. Furthermore, we found no evidence that the validity of personality scales for predicting academic performance depends on self‐ versus observer‐ratings or on an applicant versus an honest condition. These two studies thus show that practitioners should not equate personality ratings obtained from observers in a selection context with honest personality ratings.     

Using Personality Item Characteristics to Predict Single‐Item Internal Reliability,Retest Reliability,and Self–Other Agreement

The use of reliability estimates is increasingly scrutinized as scholars become more aware that test–retest stability and self–other agreement provide a better approximation of the theoretical and practical usefulness of an instrument than its internal reliability. In this study, we investigate item characteristics that potentially impact single‐item internal reliability, retest reliability, and self–other agreement. Across two large samples (N = 6690 and N = 4396), two countries (Estonia and The Netherlands), and two personality inventories (the NEO PI‐3 and the HEXACO‐PI‐R), results show that (i) item variance is a strong predictor of self–other agreement and retest reliability but not of single‐item internal reliability; (ii) item variance mediates the relations between evaluativeness and self–other agreement; and (iii) self–other agreement is predicted by observability and item domain. On the whole, weak relations between item length, negations, and item position (indicating effects of questionnaire length) on the one hand, and single‐item internal reliability, retest reliability, and self–other agreement on the other, were observed. In order to increase the predictive validity of personality scales, our findings suggest that during the construction of questionnaire items, researchers are advised to pay close attention especially to item variance, but also to evaluativeness and observability. Copyright © 2016 European Association of Personality Psychology     

Personal initiative,commitment and affect at work

This paper reports two studies on the relationships between employees' personal initiative, affect and commitment. The results of Study 1 among 390 health care sector employees show that individuals' self‐rated personal initiative is related to affect as well as affective commitment to four distinguishable foci, namely the organization, supervisor, work‐group and career. Commitment explains unique variance in personal initiative, even when controlling for demographic variables and positive and negative work affect. As Study 1 relied solely on self‐report data, multi‐source data were gathered for Study 2 (N = 80). This allowed retesting the hypotheses using both self‐ and manager‐ratings of initiative. Results showed that commitment explains variance in both self‐ and manager‐rated initiative beyond demographics and affect. For self‐rated initiative, team commitment explains most variance, whereas for manager‐rated initiative, organizational commitment does.     

The Association Between Life Satisfaction and Self‐Reported Health Status in Europe

Previous research has shown that life satisfaction (LS) and self‐reported health status are strongly related to each other. However, it is not clear whether this association holds across different nations or whether certain country‐level indicators significantly affect this association. The study was based on nationally representative samples of 32 countries from the first six rounds of the European Social Survey (N = 291 686). Results from hierarchical multilevel modelling indicated that there was a positive association between LS and self‐reported health status across countries, but this association was slightly stronger in countries where governments spent less on the health care of their residents. Self‐reported health ratings were also more strongly tied to LS judgements in countries where variability in LS ratings was larger. These results suggest that, especially in less wealthy European countries, policies should target reducing overall social inequality and the negative impact of governments' underinvestment in health care on LS. Copyright © 2015 European Association of Personality Psychology     

Effects of personality and gender on self–other agreement in ratings of leadership

We explore the role of leader personality (i.e., the Big 5 traits: Conscientiousness, Agreeableness, Openness, Extraversion, and Neuroticism) and gender in self–other (dis)agreement (SOA) in ratings of leadership. We contend that certain aspects of the leader's persona may be more or less related to self‐ or other‐ratings of the leader's behaviour if those aspects are (1) more or less observable by others, (2) more or less related to internal thoughts versus external behaviours, (3) more or less prone to self‐enhancement or self‐denigrating biases, or (4) more or less socially desirable. We utilize statistical methodologies that capture fully the effects of multiple independent variables on the congruence between two dependent variables (Edwards, 1995 , Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 64, 307), which previously have not been applied to this area of research. Our results support hypotheses predicting less SOA as leader Conscientiousness increases and greater SOA as Agreeableness and Neuroticism increase. Additionally, we found gender to be an important factor in SOA; female leaders exhibited greater SOA than did their male counterparts. We discuss the implications of these findings, limitations, and future research directions.

Practitioner points

• Popular practices such as 360‐degree feedback may reveal discrepancies between a person's self‐ratings and other's ratings.
• Although often attributed to a lack of self‐awareness, these discrepancies also may be explained by factors such as the personality and gender of the focal individual.

     

Better Late than Never? The Relationship between Ratings of Attendance,Punctuality, and Overall Job Performance among Nursing Home Employees

This study examined the relationship between lateness, absenteeism, and overall job performance among nursing home employees. We addressed four issues: (a) agreement between subordinate and superior in their ratings, (b) the stability of rated lateness and rated absenteeism over 6 months, (c) the correlation between ratings of lateness and absenteeism assigned by the worker to himself or herself and the corresponding ratings from supervisors, and (d) the relationship of rated lateness and rated absenteeism to impressions of overall job performance. Neither attendance nor punctuality showed inter‐rater agreement between the worker and his/her supervisor on either of the two occasions. Ratings of attendance were not stable across time for either the subordinate (r=.16) or the supervisor (r=.04), but punctuality ratings showed moderate temporal stability over 6 months for both subordinate (r=.59) and supervisor (r=. 41) impressions. On the first administration of the rating form, attendance and punctuality were not significantly correlated to each other in either the workers' self‐ratings (r=.17) nor the supervisors' ratings of the workers (r=.08). On the second administration, however, these two facets were moderately correlated with each other in both workers' (r=.54) and supervisors' (r=. 39) impressions of employee behavior. Compared with attendance, punctuality was somewhat more highly correlated with impressions of overall job performance from the perspective of the worker herself/himself as well as the supervisor.     

The Influence of a Manager's Own Performance Appraisal on the Evaluation of Others

This study examined the possibility that the performance appraisal process is affected by a pervasive and inherent effect that has heretofore been unidentified. This effect derives from the results of the performance appraisal most recently performed on the manager who subsequently conducts appraisals of others. The nature of this effect was examined in four studies. In a case study, the ratings received by two area coordinators in a university academic department affected their subsequent ratings of faculty. In a simulation, 30 managers received hypothetical feedback regarding their own job performance. The managers subsequently evaluated an employee on videotape. Managers who received positive feedback about their performance subsequently rated the employee significantly higher than managers who received negative feedback regarding their own performance. This occurred despite the fact that the managers knew the evaluation of them was bogus. The results of two follow‐up field studies involving 74 manager–employee dyads in a manufacturing company in Canada and 39 manager–subordinate dyads in a retail organization in Turkey are consistent with the view that one's own performance appraisal is related to the subsequent appraisal of one's subordinates. Both anchoring with insufficient adjustment and a mood induction may explain this effect, but the results are more consistent with the former explanation than the latter.     

Multisource Feedback and Leaders' Goal Performance: Moderating effects of rating purpose,rater perspective,and performance dimension

The main purposes of this study are to examine whether multisource feedback ratings predict leaders' organizational goal performance, and whether the relationships are consistent across the two rating purposes (developmental, administrative), two leadership dimensions behaviors (Consideration, Initiating Structure), and three rating perspectives (supervisor, self, and ‘other’ raters, i.e., peers and subordinates). Leaders (n=396) in a large organization in the transportation industry participated in two multisource feedback programs, the first for developmental purposes and the second 8 months later for administrative purposes. Approximately 1 month later, they were rated by their supervisor on their effectiveness in attaining five organizational performance goals (financial, safety, customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction, diversity). Results revealed that both developmental ratings and administrative ratings uniquely predicted leaders' goal performance. However, both leadership dimension and rater perspective moderated these relationships. Leadership behaviors associated with Consideration were stronger predictors of goal performance for supervisor ratings, whereas behaviors associated with Initiating Structure were stronger predictors of goal performance for self and other ratings.     

Aggressive strategies and victimization during adolescence: grade and gender differences,and cross‐informant agreement

The purpose of this study was twofold: (1) to analyze the frequency of physical, verbal, and indirect aggression as well as victimization across two genders and grades and (2) to assess the concordance among different informants. According to the answers provided by 257 fifth and seventh graders (mean age 11.4 and 13.5, respectively) in the Peer Estimated Conflict Behavior Questionnaire, four types of ratings were calculated: same‐ and opposite‐gender rating, rating by both genders, and self‐report. Additionally, teacher ratings were collected. In contrast to earlier findings, boys were found to be directly, as well as indirectly, more aggressive than girls, thus challenging the universality of indirect aggression as a strategy more frequently employed by girls. Consistencies among different informants varied, with peers showing the strongest agreement with each other and self‐views conforming the least to other ratings.Aggr. Behav. 00:1–12, 2005. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

Individual Goal Orientations,Team Empowerment,and Employee Creative Performance: A Case of Cross‐level Interactions

Intrigued by relationship between team motivational context and individual characteristics in the organizational reality, we developed and tested a cross‐level model to investigate the interactive effects of team empowerment and individual goal orientations on individual creative performance through the mediating mechanism of an individual's creative self‐efficacy. Using multi‐wave multi‐source data from 63 R&D teams in three IT companies, we found that (1) team empowerment, individual learning goal orientation, and individual performance orientation are all positively related to individual creative performance through mediation of creative self‐efficacy; (2) learning orientation and performance approach orientation could both supplement the effects of team empowerment on individual creative self‐efficacy. Our findings point to the importance of individual goal orientation in shaping the effects of team motivation climates and provide insights for both scholars and practitioners. The specific practical implications include but are not limited to (1) individuals with learning and performance approach orientations should be identified during hiring procedures given that they could still thrive in less empowered teams and maintain a relatively high level of creative self‐efficacy and creative outcomes; (2) managers should consider assigning employees who are more learning oriented to more empowering and open‐ended tasks in order to obtain better creative results.     

Guilty,But Not Ashamed: “True” Self‐Conceptions Influence Affective Responses to Personal Shortcomings

The current research examined how true self‐conceptions (who a person believes he or she truly is) influence negative self‐relevant emotions in response to shortcomings. In Study 1 (N = 83), an Internet sample of adults completed a measure of authenticity, reflected on a shortcoming or positive life event, and completed state shame and guilt measures. In Study 2 (N = 49), undergraduates focused on true versus other determined self‐attributes, received negative performance feedback, and completed state shame and guilt measures. In Study 3 (N = 138), undergraduates focused on self‐determined versus other determined self‐aspects, reflected on a shortcoming or neutral event, and completed state shame, guilt, and self‐esteem measures. In Study 4 (N = 75), undergraduates thought about true self‐attributes, an achievement, or an ordinary event; received positive or negative performance feedback; and completed state shame and guilt measures. In Study 1, differences in true self‐expression positively predicted shame‐free guilt (but not guilt‐free shame) following reminders of a shortcoming. Studies 2–4 found that experimental activation of true self‐conceptions increased shame‐free guilt and generally decreased guilt‐free shame in response to negative evaluative experiences. The findings offer novel insights into true self‐conceptions by revealing their impact on negative self‐conscious emotions.