Nonlinear judgment analysis: Comparing policy use by those who draft and those who coach

ObjectivesIn the NBA draft, talent potential is assessed by a group of evaluators (e.g., coaches, personnel directors, general managers) who determine the order in which players are drafted, and talent actualization is assessed by a second group of evaluators (coaches) who determine how much time players spend on the court. This study examines the cue use by these two groups and considers the utility of a nonlinear assessment technique.MethodThe implicit policies used by talent evaluators were examined using both linear regression and nonlinear backpropagation.ResultsAlthough both groups heavily value scoring, discrepancies were observed among the other characteristics. The use of a nonlinear technique produced better cross-validated fits than linear regression, but the rank ordering of cue importance produced by both models was generally similar.ConclusionsPlayers favored by draft personnel primarily become scorers whereas coaches value a wider range of skills. The nonlinear approach better captured the policies of groups of evaluators and should be used to assess potential incongruities among judges of talent.     

DIMENSIONS AND CHARACTERISTICS OF PERSONNEL MANAGER PERCEPTIONS OF EFFECTIVE DRUG-TESTING PROGRAMS

This study examines several dimensions and characteristics of drug-testing programs that are associated with personnel managers' judgments of the programs' effectiveness. The data gathered from 190 human resource management (HRM) executives indicate that firms with drug-testing policies differ from non-drug-testing organizations. Drug-testing programs considered to be effective are supported by ancillary activities such as employee assistance programs, supervisory training, and employee drug-awareness communications. Organizations perceived to have effective drug-testing policies engage in drug testing for targeted groups of employees and focus on the rehabilitation of those individuals who test positive.     

Negotiating with Nonlinear Subjective Utilities: Why Some Concessions Are More Equal Than Others

An implicit but unnecessary assumption of the traditional logrolling approach to integrative negotiations is that disputants have linear subjective utility functions. The analysis of bargaining concessions described in this paper uses linear subjective utilities as a point of departure and explores the implications of non-linear subjective utilities for the process of valuing concessions and trade-offs in negotiation exchanges. Several apparent paradoxes are revealed and discussed. The analysis concludes by examining the implications of preference function mutability in light of non-linear subjective utility functions. Implications for negotiation theory and practice are discussed, including the possibility of a "concession evaluation heuristic" by which disputants confuse the relative importance of specific concessions with the relative importance of the issues on which those concessions are given and taken.     

Estimating social and nonsocial utility functions from ordinal data

This paper reports an experiment testing two hypotheses. The first is that the value or utility associated with a payment to one's self and a payment to a co-worker can be represented as an additive function of a utility for own payment (nonsocial utility) and a utility for the difference between own and other's payment (social utility). The second hypothesis is that changes in the amount of work accomplished by one's self and/or the other should influence the social, but not the the nonsocial utilities. Support for both hypotheses is reported.     

Family Policy Initiatives in Latin America: The Case of Colombia and Ecuador

Family policy initiatives in Colombia and Ecuador have targeted primarily families living in poverty. This paper discusses some of the major policy initiatives oriented to improve the living conditions of economically disadvantaged families in both countries. We argue that, even though governments recognize the importance of family policies, existing policies and programs for families living in poverty do not directly focus on family issues. They represent more implicit than explicit family policies. We analyze some of the issues that may hinder the development, implementation, and evaluation of family policies in Colombia and Ecuador. Such issues stem from political and economic instability, legislation, changing family demographics, as well as coordination among agencies that develop, implement, and evaluate policies. We discuss challenges related to family policies in both countries and recommendations to improve existing policy initiatives.     

Former Soviet Union Immigrant Engineers in Germany and Israel: the Role of Contexts of Reception on Economic Assimilation

This article focuses on the employment experiences of engineers from the Former Soviet Union who immigrated to Germany and Israel. By comparing the experiences of highly skilled immigrants with similar backgrounds in two different host countries, we contribute to a better understanding of the ways contexts of reception create different pathways to economic integration. The analysis is based on in-depth interviews conducted with engineers who immigrated to either country after 1989. We identified several factors in the contexts of reception of the destination societies that promoted or hindered immigrants’ incorporation into the labor market: the balance of labor supply and demand in the field of engineering, differences in the two countries’ integration policies, and characteristics of the vocational training programs offered in either country. These differences provided Former Soviet Union (FSU) engineers with different starting points for integrating into the labor market of each.     

A Preliminary Study of DSM–5 PTSD Symptom Patterns in Veterans by Trauma Type

The all-volunteer status of the military, combined with an increasing desire to employ individuals with the requisite knowledge, skills, and abilities to perform highly sophisticated tasks, has intensified competition between military and private sector organizations attempting to attract and retain qualified personnel. In an effort to remain competitive with employers in the private sector labor market, U.S. military organizations have directed their attention to various personnel support programs aimed at meeting the needs of servicemembers and contributing to their overall quality of life. More specifically, these military services have focused on the development and validation of conceptual models that link quality of life to desired military outcomes, including personnel retention, readiness, and performance. This study extended recent quality of life research efforts by determining the applicability of a model developed and validated for Navy personnel to another branch of the military, the U.S. Marine Corps. Structural equation modeling results suggested that the Navy model provided an adequate fit to the Marine Corps data for each of the subgroups considered. Results and implications are discussed.     

TO LEAD, LAG, OR MATCH: ESTIMATING THE FINANCIAL IMPACT OF PAY LEVEL POLICIES

In this study, the Boudreau and Berger (1985a) retention/acquisition model is modified in order to develop a utility model that can be used to assess the impact of alternative pay level policies. This paper then demonstrates how the model could be used to assess the financial impact of alternative pay level policies for an organization whose current policy is to match the market. In demonstrating this, estimates of the effect of pay level on employee and applicant behaviors are presented. The utility model is then used to translate these effects into financial terms and compare them against the wage costs associated with alternative pay level policies. Finally, break-even analysis is used to suggest how decision makers might use utility results when making decisions about pay level policy. The implications for pay level policy and the role of utility analysis in compensation decision making are discussed.     

Job satisfaction and women's spheres of work

Job satisfaction for women workers is traditionally researched from the job-gender model in which sex roles generate the research framework. Women employed in the labor market are viewed as responding primarily to the confines of sex roles, as opposed to the structural rewards and constraints of the labor market itself. We reexamined earlier studies that found no effect of the labor market on job satisfaction for women. Reanalysis of the 1972–1973 Quality of Employment national survey revealed significantly different levels of job satisfaction, which are in part structured by the characteristics of the labor market sectors in which women and men work. Women working in labor market sectors that are predominantly male or have a balanced proportion of male and female workers jobs have high job satisfaction. This job satisfaction is predicted almost exclusively by their perceptions of fewer income problems, flexibility of hours, and use of job skills. Factors related to maternity benefits and leaves are related only marginally to job satisfaction for women workers in either labor market sector. Women in predominantly female sectors of the labor market have similarly high job satisfaction scores, but these are related to a wider cluster of factors, including fewer perceived income problems, skills, and challenge factors, as well as the socioemotional rewards of their work. This pattern is most similar to males who work in predominantly male sectors. In contrast, males who work in predominantly female or gender-proportionate jobs have significantly lower job satisfaction scores, even after controling for income issues and other benefits. Labor market sectors and the rewards available within them are important structural dimensions of job satisfaction for women and men employees.     

Sustaining work force inclusion and well-being of mothers on public assistance: Individual deficit and social ecology perspectives

This study compared theoretical perspectives on the psychological and paid labor activity implications of mandating mothers initially on US welfare to participate in labor force activities. Data were collected that reflected these areas: government public policy interventions, family social ecology measures, mother’s psychological and human capital, and community capital. A quasi-experimental design was used, and multiple source data was collected over time. In the initial part of the study, 144 welfare mothers and one of their children between 9 and 13 years were interviewed. Results indicated that having high levels of individual human and psychological capital and lower levels of family social ecological barriers predicted higher levels of maternal paid labor market activity and psychological well-being. Using archival records, additional analyses involved a 32-month review of state records for nearly 1200 mothers initially on welfare. Results revealed that the lower one’s initial capital—either educational (lacking GED or high school diploma) or community-based (residents spending a high percentage of gross income on rent), the greater one’s economic dependence on public welfare, regardless of whether one was assigned to a welfare to work program or to a control group. Thus, mandating labor market activity as a government public policy was not effective as an isolated strategy to uphold employability over time. These results suggest that employers and government leaders need to provide individual human capital and community capital investments to sustain work force inclusion of low-income mothers.     

Labor market experiences and expectancies

Comparisons are made of the labor market experiences of a national sample of employed Black and White men and women. While women had invested in their human capital nearly as often as men, they less often had tried job training or job changes, and more often had acquired additional schooling, to improve their market positions. Compared to White men, both groups of women also expressed lower work-related expectancies. Part of the White male expectancy edge can be attributed to differences in past investment strategies. Black and white women who had tried to make work changes did not differ from White men in present expectancies. While the causal relationship between experiences and expectancies needs further examination, especially in longitudinal studies, these results suggest that adult socialization in the labor market, while generally neglected, is a potentially important area of research on women's employment.     

Decomposition,Interdependence and Precision in Multiattribute Utility Measurements

Traditionally, parameters of multiattribute utility models, representing a decision maker's preference judgements, are treated deterministically. This may be unrealistic, because assessment of such parameters is potentially fraught with imprecisions and errors. We thus treat such parameters as stochastic and investigate how their associated imprecision/errors are propagated in an additive multiattribute utility function in terms of the aggregate variance. Both a no information and a rank order case regarding the attribute weights are considered, assuming a uniform distribution over the feasible region of attribute weights constrained by the respective information assumption. In general, as the number of attributes increases, the variance of the aggregate utility in both cases decreases and approaches the same limit, which depends only on the variances as well as the correlations among the single-attribute utilities. However, the marginal change in aggregate utility variance decreases rather rapidly and hence decomposition as a variance reduction mechanism is generally useful but becomes relatively ineffective if the number of attributes exceed about 10. Moreover, it was found that utilities which are positively correlated increase the aggregate utility variance, hence every effort should be made to avoid positive correlations between the single-attribute utilities. We also provide guidelines for determining under what condition and to what extent a decision maker should decompose to obtain an aggregate utility variance that is smaller than that of holistic assessments. Extensions of the current model and empirical research to support some of our behavioural assumptions are discussed. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

EXPANDING THE CONTEXT OF UTILITY: THE STRATEGIC IMPACT OF PERSONNEL SELECTION

Others have demonstrated that traditional applications of the Brogden-Cronbach-Gleser (BCG) selection utility formula are deficient in responding to the financial context of managerial decisions (Boudreau, 1983a, 1983b; Cronshaw & Alexander, 1985, 1991). We demonstrate that traditional estimates of selection utility also fail to reflect the strategic context faced by managerial decision makers. We modify the traditional BCG model to yield an estimate of total utility derived from human resources ( U_total ) that can be directly compared to firms' strategic need at a particular point in time ( U^target )-Further, we demonstrate that, while strategic need is rarely constant over time, the capacity of a selection system to meet that need is also likely to change as r_xy and SD_y change over time. Re-examination of what is important to strategic human resource decision makers (selection utility vs. total utility and strategic need) and changing selection system contributions over time yields a more realistic view of how firms benefit from personnel selection.     

Lesbian,gay, bisexual,and transgender youth: Limited representation in school support personnel journals

Many lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) youth experience harassment and discrimination in schools and these experiences lead to increased negative social-emotional outcomes. Youth who can identify at least one supportive adult at school report better outcomes than youth who cannot identify a safe adult. Yet, many educators report feeling uncomfortable or unprepared to support LGBT youth. One reason for educators' discomfort may be that content related to issues unique to LGBT youth is sometimes missing or covered minimally in university training programs. We hypothesized that LGBT content may be covered minimally in school support personnel journals, as well. This study analyzed eight school support personnel journals across the disciplines of school counseling, school nursing, school psychology, and school social work for LGBT content published between 2000 and 2014 to gain a better understanding of the visibility of LGBT issues in the research. Results suggested that there has been a lack of presence of LGBT issues in journals across disciplines. These results also suggest a need for an intentional focus on issues relevant to LGBT youth in school support personnel journals. Thus, the article concludes with an introduction to two articles in this special topic section, including Russell, Day, Ioverno, and Toomey's (in this issue) study on teacher perceptions of bullying in the context of enumerated school policies and other supportive sexual orientation and gender identity related practices and Poteat and Vecho's (in this issue) study on characteristics of bystanders in homophobic bullying situations. The broad goal of these three studies is to increase visibility of critical LGBT issues in school support personnel journals.     

Job insecurity in the younger Spanish workforce: Causes and consequences

The Spanish labor market is currently an example of a flexible labor market. However, it involves a set of detrimental conditions for its workforce, such as lower employability in the labor market and underemployment (i.e. over-qualification and underemployment in time). In this study, we assume that all these conditions promote higher job instability, which is especially serious for the younger population. Hence, the present study aims to examine, on the one hand, how these specific labor conditions affect younger employees' concerns about job loss or job insecurity and, on the other, how this job insecurity can affect their current job performance and the future development of their career. The study sample was composed of 3000 Spanish younger employees. Results showed a significant relationship between employability and underemployment and job insecurity, as well as a significant association between job insecurity and work involvement. Indeed, the relationship between employability and underemployment and work involvement was mediated by job insecurity. Lowemployable, overqualified and temporary young workers experience higher levels of job insecurity, which, in turn, negatively affects their work involvement.     

Labor as Embodied Practice: The Lessons of Care Work

In post‐Fordist economies, the nature of laboring activities can no longer be subsumed under a Taylorized model of labor, and the service sector now constitutes a larger share of the market. For Maurizio Lazzarato, Michael Hardt, Antonio Negri, and other theorists in the post‐Marxist tradition, labor has changed from a commodity‐producing activity to one that does not produce a material object. For these authors, this new type of labor is immaterial labor and entails communicative acts as well as added worker agency. This paper reflects on this new paradigm of labor by examining the paid practices of care defined as the activities performed by individuals who have a mandate to help another adult accomplish the tasks of self‐care. Because care workers take care of other bodies, care labor exemplifies an embodied practice. I make use of the corporeality of care to put forward the notion of thin and thick embodiment in order to examine critically the meaning of immaterial labor and to support my claim that immaterial labor, as conceptualized by Hardt and Negri, erases both the materiality and relationality of care labor. Furthermore, typifying care labor as immaterial only serves to maintain its marginalized status. Care Assistant. Required to work within a private residential center to assist nursing staff. Experience desirable, qualifications an advantage, but caring and understanding more important than either. Must have good English to understand instructions and be co‐operative to work in a friendly team environment (Toynbee 2007, 220).     

Labor Exploitation and Health Inequities Among Market Migrants: A Political Economy Perspective

Previous discourses have recognized institutionalized forms of racism and pointed to structural violence embedded in Canadian policies, institutions, and labor markets. However, there is limited connection of these experiences to health. This paper theorizes a novel connection of health inequities experienced by racialized and immigrant peoples in Canada as a result of globalization and market liberalism. Beginning with a brief historical overview of the slave trade and indentured workers’ experiences, it is suggested that today there is a new variant of slave labor and indentured work. Employing a political economy perspective, this paper suggests the exploitation of “Market Migrants” in Canada. Racialized and migrant workers in Canada experience high levels of precarious work, denizenship, social exclusion, social inequality, and eventually health inequities, which is a result of discrimination experienced by these groups. It reveals that the government has failed to address these issues because of control and lobby through powerful economic and political structures that benefit from the situation as it stands. However, given that there are economic losses to migrant skill underutilization and the growing frustrations manifest in uprisings against these systems of dominance, the current situation is unsustainable and transformation is expected.     

Fostering Creativity Through Educational Video Game Development Projects: A Study of Contextual and Task Characteristics

The increasing demand for creative individuals in the labor market requires well-prepared professionals, capable of enhancing competitiveness through new ideas and innovative actions. Educational programs should, therefore, rely on approaches and learning environments that foster creativity. In this study, video game development projects were used as an approach to foster creativity in educational contexts. Conceptual frameworks focused on contextual creativity enablers indicate that specific environment and task characteristics can facilitate the development and expression of creativity. This study explored the extent to which students perceived that educational game development projects mimicking real-world dynamics recreated contextual conditions appropriate to foster creativity, and whether they associated these conditions with their self-perceived creativity improvement. Questionnaires were administered to 38 students enrolled in 2 educational game development programs. Findings suggest that video game development creates a remarkable setting to promote and facilitate the expression and development of students' creativity, due to characteristics of the task and of the work environment generated by this activity.     

Tú velas por los tuyos: Weak Labor Markets and the Importance of Social Networks

Literature on the economic incorporation of immigrants to new destinations has been missing a discussion on how the strength of the local economy affects immigrants’ need for social networks and how it might also affect the relative importance of strong versus weak ties for immigrant job seekers. Through the use of in-depth interviews, the role and importance of social networks in the labor market incorporation of Hispanic immigrants in economically weak cities is examined, as well as the consequences to those immigrants who are unable to command or lack access to social networks and/or ethnic resources. This paper contextualizes the importance of strong ties for immigrants in economically weak new destinations and argues that in places with such a constricted labor market and stagnant economies, it is imperative for recent arrivals to access and/or construct these strong ties in order to more effectively gain entry into the host society’s labor market.