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.     

From Blind to Creative: In Defense of Donald Campbell's Selectionist Theory of Human Creativity

Both Perkins and Sternberg recognize Campbell's selectionist theory of knowledge generation as accounting for certain types of learning and human creativity. However, they argue that his theory cannot account for the full spectrum of human creativity, with Sternberg having more serious reservations than Perkins. I argue in this commentary that while blind variation and selective retention (BVSR) may not be involved in all forms of human behavior and thought, Campbell has made a compelling (if often misunderstood) case that all genuine forms of human creativity and invention involve BVSR. To support this broad application of Campbell's theory, I argue for the complementarity of among-organism and within-organism BVSR as well as for the complementarity of prior and current BVSR in all forms of creative human endeavor.     

Ego Identity and Drug Experimentation: The Fable of the Arrested Abstainer

Students at a traditional, conservative, independent college were measured for identity achievement status and drug use. Drug abstainers were found to be more foreclosed than drug experimenters, as implied by previous research. Unlike the findings and implications of previous research, however, drug experimenters were not more identity achieved than drug abstainers. Further analysis revealed an interaction between drug use and the experience of crisis and commitment. In comparison with drug experimenters, abstainers had higher scores on commitment, without a corresponding decrease in scores on crisis. These findings were compared with previous research. The hypothesis that the development of drug abstainers has been arrested at the identity foreclosure stage was not supported for this subculture at this time.     

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.     

THE IMPORTANCE OF UNDERSTANDING AND CHANGING EMPLOYEE OUTCOME EXPECTANCIES FOR GAINING COMMITMENT TO AN ORGANIZATIONAL GOAL

Senior management and the union executive committee of a forest products company set an organizational goal to reduce theft from approximately a million dollars a year to zero. Salaried and hourly employees, selected at random, were interviewed regarding their outcome expectancies for honest and dishonest behavior. The responses were categorized within a 2 × 2 empathy box (honest/dishonest behavior vs. positive/negative outcome expectancies) to allow the organization's leadership to understand from the employee's perspective why there was so much theft. This information was subsequently used to alter employee outcome expectancies which, in turn, changed behavior. Theft dropped to near zero.     

THE PRACTICALITY OF BEHAVIORAL OBSERVATION SCALES, BEHAVIORAL EXPECTATION SCALES, AND TRAIT SCALES

The practicality of three appraisal instruments were measured in terms of user preference, namely, behavioral observation scales (BOS), behavioral expectation scales (BES), and trait scales. A questionnaire containing items pertaining to differentiating good from poor performers, objectivity, providing feedback, suggesting training needs, and ease of use was administered to managers and their subordinates. In all instances, BOS were preferred to BES, and in all but two instances, BOS were viewed as superior to trait scales. Trait scales were felt to be as good if not better than BES. A second questionnaire administered to attorneys indicated that BOS would be easier to defend in the courtroom than either BES or trait scales.     

Development of a Selection Measure for Access to Public Employment Assistance Programs

The author provides a prototype measure of employability to be used as a tool in public employment programs political and ethical implications pertaining to the use of such a selection instrument for welfare recipients are considered.