Work Ethic and Work Outcomes in an Expanded Criterion Domain

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to investigate relationships between dimensions of work ethic and dimensions of organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) and counterproductive work behavior (CWB).

Design/Methodology/Approach

Data were collected from employed individuals in MBA and undergraduate management courses and their work supervisors (N = 233). Participants represented diverse occupations with respect to job levels and industries. Participants completed the work ethic inventory, and participants’ managers completed ratings of OCB and CWB.

Findings

The work ethic dimension of centrality of work was positively related to both dimensions of OCB (i.e., OCB-I and OCB-O), and the work ethic dimension of morality/ethics was negatively related to one of the dimensions of CWB (i.e., CWB-I).

Implications

Modern perspectives on job performance recognize the multidimensional nature of the domain (i.e., the expanded criterion domain). In addition, noncognitive predictors such as work ethic have value as individual differences that are associated with performance outcomes. The assessment of such constructs can help inform selection and placement activities where a focus on OCB and CWB is important to managers.

Originality/Value

This study provides additional evidence on the relationship between work ethic and performance outcomes. Previous research has provided limited information on the relationship between dimensions of work ethic and dimensions of OCB, and no information existed on the relationship between work ethic dimensions and CWB.

     

An internal consistency check for scale values determined by the method of successive intervals

The method of successive intervals is a psychological scaling procedure in which stimuli are classified into successive intervals according to the degree of some defined attribute which they are judged to possess. A psychological continuum is defined and the scale values are then taken as the medians of the distributions of judgments on the psychological continuum. It is assumed that the distributions of judgments for each stimulus are normal on the psychological continuum as defined.An internal consistency check indicates that the cumulative distributions of empirical judgments for the various stimuli can be reproduced by means of a limited number of parameters with an average error that compares favorably with that usually reported for paired comparison data. Furthermore, the scale values obtained by successive interval scaling, for the data reported, are shown to be linearly related to those obtained by the method of paired comparisons.This paper was written while the first author was a post-doctoral Research Training Fellow of the Social Science Research Council studying at the University of Chicago. It reports research undertaken in cooperation with the Quartermaster Food and Container Institute for the Armed Forces. The views or conclusions contained in this report are those of the authors. They are not to be construed as necessarily reflecting the views or endorsement of the Department of Defense.     

Resistance can be good or bad: how theories of resistance and dissonance affect attitude certainty

This research investigated how lay theories about resisting persuasion can affect attitude certainty. Specifically, people who believed that resistance was negative (i.e., implies close-mindedness) showed different levels of attitude certainty after resisting persuasive messages than people who believed resistance was positive (i.e., implies intelligence). When people held positive lay theories of resistance and overcame ostensibly strong arguments, they showed increased attitude certainty (compared to those who overcame ostensibly weak arguments). However, individuals who believed that resistance was negative did not show increases in attitude certainty when overcoming strong arguments. Experiment 2 suggests that the effect of lay theories and perceived argument strength on attitude certainty was due to dissonance created by believing that resistance is undesirable but nonetheless resisting persuasion.     

Training metric accuracy in distance estimation skill: pictures versus words

Training metric accuracy in distance estimation skill for distances up to 300 m was done using three different feedback methods: Direct verbal feedback in the field, indirect visual feedback consisting of presentation of labelled markers in the field, and indirect visual feedback consisting of presentation of labelled markers in pictorial depictions of the field. Results from Experiment 1 showed that all three feedback methods resulted in rapid acquisition of skill in estimating perceived distance from a stationary viewpoint and that the skill transferred to a new field setting. Results from Experiment 2 replicated these results for the estimation of traversed distance along routes. These findings have important implications for the use of pictorial presentations, including virtual reality technology, to train generalizable spatial skills. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Impact of Case Characteristics and Prior Jury Experience on Jury Verdicts1

An archival analysis of records from 206 criminal cases was used to evaluate the impact of personal and situational factors on jury verdicts. In particular, we evaluated whether repeated jury service produced bias in jurors that was sufficient to affect jury decisions. A variety of case characteristics and indices of prior jury experience was examined for their relative impact on trial outcomes. Several of the case characteristics were related to verdicts, but the personal characteristics were not. Although more than half of the juries contained experienced jurors, juror experience had little influence on verdicts in either major or subsidiary analyses. However, there was a slight tendency for small juries with large proportions of experienced jurors to convict. This result is consistent with data from Kentucky; a meta-analysis across the two data sets indicates that it is a reliable finding. The results have implications for the determination of jury size. We suggest that future research examine the possibility that increasing jury size may reduce the influence of an individual's bias by providing a balance of other jurors with no or offsetting biases.     

Moving Forward Indirectly: Reanalyzing the validity of employment interviews with indirect range restriction methodology

This study provides updated estimates of the criterion‐related validity of employment interviews, incorporating indirect range restriction methodology. Using a final dataset of 92 coefficients (N = 7,389), we found corrected estimates by structural level of .20 (Level 1), .46 (Level 2), .71 (Level 3), and .70 (Level 4). The latter values are noticeably higher than in previous interview meta‐analyses where the assumption was made that all restriction was direct. These results highlight the importance of considering indirect range restriction in selection. However, we found a number of studies involving both indirect and direct restriction, which calls into question the viability of assuming all restriction is now indirect. We found preliminary empirical support for correction of one of these multiple restriction patterns, indirect then direct.     

Comments on Guyer

Paul Guyer's paper “Naturalistic and Transcendental Moments in Kant's Moral Philosophy” raises a set of issues about how Kantian ethics should be understood in relation to present day “philosophical naturalism” that are very much in need of discussion. The paper itself is challenging, even in some respects iconoclastic, and provides a highly welcome provocation to raise in new ways some basic questions about what Kantian ethics is and what it ought to be. Guyer offers us an admirably informed and complex argument, both historical and philosophical, that tangles with some of the most difficult problems in Kant's moral philosophy. It begins with some ambitious and controversial claims about Kant's moral philosophy prior to the Groundwork of 1785. It then offers an interpretation, and also a fundamental criticism, of the Groundwork's attempt to establish the moral law based on the idea of freedom of the will. And finally, it raises – and expresses some opinions on – the large and vexed questions of the relationship between transcendental philosophy and philosophical naturalism, and whether Kantian ethics can be made consistent with a naturalistic philosophical outlook. In these comments I will have something to say on each of these three topics, without pretending (any more than Guyer does) to have exhausted what might be said about them.     

The Art of Nature: Hegel and the Critique of Judgment

This essay examines the reasons for Hegel's frequently professed claim that Kant's Critique of Judgment simultaneously reveals the internal limits of critical philosophy and opens the door to his own system of speculative idealism. It evaluates Hegel's contention that the conceptions of aesthetic experience, organic purposiveness, and the intuitive intellect developed in the third Critique together conspire to undermine the epistemological and metaphysical foundations of the theories of nature and freedom advanced in the first and second Critiques . Finally it explains how Hegel understands his logic and real philosophy as a realist and quasi-naturalistic alternative to Kant's subjective idealism, one that purports to generate a system of categories adequate not only to dead matter but also to organic life and free self-conscious spirit.     

Active (not passive) spatial imagery primes temporal judgements

In order to identify the cognitive processes associated with target tracking, a dual-task experiment was carried out in which participants undertook a dynamic multiple-object tracking task first alone and then again, concurrently with one of several secondary tasks, in order to investigate the cognitive processes involved. The research suggests that after designated targets within the visual field have attracted preattentive indexes that point to their locations in space, conscious processes, vulnerable to secondary visual and spatial task interference, form deliberate strategies beneficial to the tracking task, before tracking commences. Target tracking itself is realized by central executive processes, which are sensitive to any other cognitive demands. The findings are discussed in the context of integrating dynamic spatial cognition within a working memory framework.