DESIGNING, PLANNING, AND SELLING PROJECT A

Because of its size and its focus on an entire personnel system, Project A represents an unusual chapter in the support of personnel research and development (R & D) by a funding agency. This paper describes the events that led up to the decision to create such a Request for Proposals (RFP), and the conditions that made it possible. The conditions that seem necessary to maintain such a project over the course of its life cycle are also discussed.     

MANAGERIAL DECISION MAKING ABOUT EMPLOYEE DISCIPLINE: A POLICY-CAPTURING APPROACH

This study examined how personnel managers ( n = 19) and line managers ( n = 28) make disciplinary decisions. Using a policy-capturing approach, subjects were asked to respond to disciplinary incidents that varied in terms of three factors likely to affect managerial attributions about the cause of the disciplinary problem (managerial provocation, personal problems, or tenure). The incidents also varied in terms of factors made relevant by the economic, institutional/legal, and hierarchical contexts. Of the six variables manipulated, the factor relating to the institutional/legal context had the largest impact on the decisions made by the personnel managers, and the factor relating to the hierarchical context had the largest impact on the decisions made by the line managers. While provocation was relatively important for both line and personnel managers, personal problems, tenure, and the economic implications of the decision had more modest impacts on managerial decisions. The results also suggest that there is substantial variation across managers in terms of the decision rules employed when responding to disciplinary cases.     

MANAGERIAL DECISION MAKING ABOUT EMPLOYEE GRIEVANCES: THE IMPACT OF THE GRIEVANT'S WORK HISTORY

This study uses field data to examine whether managerial decisions about employee grievances are influenced by the grievant's work history with the organization. Additionally, because aspects of the grievant's history may be contractually relevant when evaluating grievances over disciplinary issues, the study examines whether the impact of the grievant's work history varies with the nature of the grievance. The results suggest that managers, at later stages of the grievance process, are influenced by the grievant's work history-even when that history is not relevant to evaluating the merits of the grievance. In finding this, the results suggest that inconsistencies exist in terms of the treatment of employees within the grievance system.     

Eclecticism revisited

Eclecticism as a counseling point of view has experienced a history of contempt and skepticism mixed with sporadic enthusiasm. A viewpoint described here as emerging eclecticism has promise as a counseling position for the practitioner faced with the needs to be comprehensive, flexible, and open in his theory and method. The emerging eclectic is a skilled observer in the scientific behavioral tradition; he knows the history of counseling theory and contemporary views; he is aware of his unique style and counseling setting. From these he forges his own comprehensive evolving view of behavior change.     

THE IMPLICATIONS OF PROFESSIONAL AND LEGAL GUIDELINES FOR COURT DECISIONS INVOLVING CRITERION-RELATED VALIDITY: A REVIEW AND ANALYSIS

Title VII court cases litigated since 1978 were reviewed to assess the implications of the latest professional and legal guidelines for court deliberations regarding the criterion-related validity of paper-and-pencil tests with adverse impact. Major topics important to an understanding of predictor, criterion, procedural, data analysis, and interpretation issues were examined. Among the major findings were the heavy reliance placed on test development procedures and the reluctance of many judges to accept recent research findings, often contained in professional guidelines, which are inconsistent with those in the Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures (1978). Suggestions are offered throughout to guide employers who are interested in successfully conducting or defending a criterion-related validation study.     

The Evaluative Consequences of Hedges,Hesitations, and Intensifies Powerful and Powerless Speech Styles

This article examines the separate and combined impact of hedges, hesitations, and intensifiers on perceptions of authoritativeness, sociability, character, and similarity, and the extent to which messages containing one or more of these language variables differs from a “prototypically” powerless message in evaluative consequences. A “prototypically” powerless message is one that contains not only hedges, hesitations, and intensifiers, but also contains polite forms and meaningless particles, such as “oh, well” and “you know.” Two studies indicated that hedges and hesitations individually affected perceptions of authoritativeness and sociability, but interactions among the variables were not found in the studies. Furthermore, only high intensifiers/low hedges/low hesitations and low intensifiers/low hedges/low hesitations messages differed significantly from the “prototypically” powerless message. The second study revealed that speaker status interacted to affect evaluative consequences. The results are discussed in terms of their implications for the power of speech style construct.