EXPLORING THE INFLUENCE OF DECISION MAKERS' RACE AND GENDER ON ACTUAL PROMOTIONS TO TOP MANAGEMENT

The effects of decision makers' race and gender on promotion decisions about applicants of diverse race and gender for 51 top management positions in a cabinet-level U.S. federal department over a 12-year period were examined. Promotion decisions were made in a 2-stage process. First, a review panel decided which applicants to refer for the position. Second, the selecting official selected one of the referred applicants for the position. Overall, decisions by review panels of different race and gender composition and by selecting officials of different race and gender were to the advantage of female applicants and to the disadvantage of African American and Hispanic male applicants. These effects were not fully accounted for by race or gender differences in applicant qualifications, or by any of several theoretical explanations for the effects of race and gender on promotions to top management.     

MEASUREMENT ERROR IN RESEARCH ON HUMAN RESOURCES and FIRM PERFORMANCE: HOW MUCH ERROR IS THERE AND HOW DOES IT INFLUENCE EFFECT SIZE ESTIMATES?

Studies of the relationship between human resource (HR) practices and firm performance typically use a single respondent to assess firm level HR practices or HR effectiveness. However, previous research in other substantive areas suggests that rater differences are a potentially important source of measurement error. We demonstrate analytically the potential consequences of both random and systematic measurement error in research on HR and firm performance. However, our main focus is on random error and we show how generalizability theory can be applied to obtain better estimates of reliability by simultaneously recognizing multiple sources (e.g., items, raters) of random measurement error. These more inclusive reliability estimates, in turn, offer the possibility of more precisely quantifying substantive relationships in the HR and firm performance literature. In our sample, reliabilities (as estimated by generalizability coefficients) for single-rater assessments of HR variables were generally below .50. This degree of measurement error, if present in substantive studies on HR and firm performance, could lead to considerable bias, given that an unstandardized regression coefficient is corrected for measurement error in the independent variable by dividing by its reliability coefficient (not its square root). We also found only limited convergent validity between HR and line managers ratings of a second type of HR measure, HR effectiveness. In general, our findings suggest that future researchers need to devote greater attention to measurement error and construct validity issues. Our study provides an example of how generalizability theory can be useful in this pursuit.     

WHY DOES PROACTIVE PERSONALITY PREDICT EMPLOYEE LIFE SATISFACTION AND WORK BEHAVIORS? A FIELD INVESTIGATION OF THE MEDIATING ROLE OF THE SELF-CONCORDANCE MODEL

We integrated the proactive personality and the self-concordance model literatures to hypothesize and test a model that explicates the processes through which proactive personality relates to employee life satisfaction, in-role performance, and organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs). Across 3 time periods, data were collected from 165 employees and their supervisors. Results indicated that more proactive individuals were more likely to set self-concordant goals and attain their goals, which in turn predicted psychological need satisfaction. Psychological need satisfaction subsequently predicted employee life satisfaction, in-role performance, and OCBs. Further, goal attainment directly predicted employee life satisfaction. Our results also indicated that proactive personality's relations with employee life satisfaction, in-role performance, and OCBs were entirely indirect through goal self-concordance, goal attainment, and psychological need satisfaction.