Sensemaking during organizational entry: Changes in newcomer information seeking and the relationship with psychological contract fulfilment

In this study, insight is given into the temporal nature of psychological contract‐related information seeking during organizational entry, by examining how the frequency of information seeking changes across the first year of employment for a sample of 280 newcomers. We examined the pattern of changes in the frequency of information seeking from four sources (supervisor, co‐workers, mentors, and other newcomers) and about two content dimensions of the psychological contract (organizational inducements and employee contributions). We also investigated if information‐seeking behaviours were related to the evaluation of the psychological contract and whether these relationships changed over time. The data were analysed using Latent Growth Modelling. The results indicated that information seeking about the psychological contract decreases significantly over the first year of employment, with the exception of information seeking from supervisors, indicating that for different targets of information different information seeking patterns exist. Employees seek more information on organizational inducements than on employee contributions. We found a positive association between information seeking during the initial weeks after entry and evaluations of psychological contract fulfilment after 3 months, but changes in information seeking after this initial period were not associated with changes in psychological contract fulfilment. Finally, we found that younger newcomers engaged more frequently in information seeking from co‐workers and other new hires compared to older newcomers. Implications for theories on psychological contract formation and future research are discussed.     

The career development of Christiaan Neethling Barnard: A psychobiography

This study employs a psychobiographical case study to describe and interpret the career development of Christiaan Neethling Barnard, who performed the first human heart transplant. It interprets Barnard's life history according to the career development model of Greenhaus, Callanan and Godshalk (2010), which proposes the following four stages: occupational and organisational choice, early, middle, and late career. Generally, Barnard's career progression matched the stages proposed by Greenhaus et al. (2010 Greenhaus, J. H., Callanan, G. A., & Godschalk, V. M. (2010). Career management (4th ed.). Los Angeles: Sage. [Google Scholar]). Exceptions were noted that relate to the first and fourth stages: Barnard experienced an extended occupational and organisational choice stage, while he showed no signs of career disengagement during the late career stage. The study confirmed the usefulness of the career development model of Greenhaus et al. within the psychobiographical research tradition.     

Comparison of optimal cutoff points for single and multiple tests in personnel selection

This paper compares the determination of optimal cutoff points for single and multiple tests in the field of personnel selection. Decisional skills of predictor tests composing the multiple test are assumed to be endogenous variables that depend on the cutting points to be set. It is shown how the predictor cutoffs and the collective decision rule are determined dependently by maximizing the multiple test's common expected utility. Our main result specifies the condition that determines the relationship between the optimal cutoff points for single and multiple tests, given the number of predictor tests, the collective decision rule (aggregation procedure of predictor tests' recommendations) and the function relating the tests' decisional skills to the predictor cutoff points. The proposed dichotomous decision-making method is illustrated by an empirical example of selecting trainees by means of the Assessment Center method.     

Precision and accuracy in the reproduction of simple tone sequences

In four experiments we investigated the precision and accuracy with which amateur musicians are able to reproduce sequences of tones varied only temporally, so as to have tone and rest durations constant over sequences, and the tempo varied over the musically meaningful range of 5-0.5 tones per second. Experiments 1 and 2 supported the hypothesis of attentional bias toward having the attack moments, rather than the departure moments, precisely times. Experiment 3 corroborated the hypothesis that inaccurate timing of short interattack intervals is manifested in a lengthening of rests, rather than tones, as a result of larger motor activity during the reproduction of rests. Experiment 4 gave some support to the hypothesis that the shortening of long interattack intervals is due to mnemonic constraints affecting the rests rather than the tones. Both theoretical and practical consequences of the various findings, particularly with respect to timing in musical performance, are discussed.     

Design research programs and the logic of their development

Design research programs attempt to bring together the properties of available materials and the demands derived from intended applications. The logic of problem states and state transitions in such programs, including assessment criteria and heuristic principles, is described in settheoretic terms, starting with a naive model comprising an intended profile and the operational profile of a prototype. In a first concretization the useful distinction between structural and functional properties is built into the model. In two further concretizations the inclusion of potential applications is motivated and described for the case of drug research as well as the inclusion of potential realizations for the case of complex products. Next, another line of concretization of the naive model, the incorporation of potentially relevant properties, is sketched. Then the partial analogy between product- and truth-approximation is indicated. We conclude with some remarks about the usefulness of our models for products reaching the market in comparison to the the so-called social construction of technology approach.     

Size invariance in visual number discrimination

Summary This study deals with the observer's ability to discriminate the numerosity of two random dot-patterns irrespective of their relative size. One of these two patterns was a reference one that was always composed of 32 dots randomly distributed within aK ×K invisible square window (K = 1.92°). The second one was the test pattern with one of the five magnifications (K = 0.64°, 1.28°, 1.92°, 2.56°, 3.20°) and the relative number of dots varied on 11 levels (N = –15, –12, –9, –6, –3, 0, 3, 6, 9, 12, or 15 dots). The observer's task was to indicate which of the two patterns contained more dots. The results show that the stimulus size, as an irrelevant stimulus attribute, can be ignored in the judgements about relative numerosity. This means that the perceived numerosity is size invariant, at least for a 1.6-times magnification and a 3-times reduction of the test pattern. The size invariance observed constrains the range of potential models, since the perceived numerosity can be identified only by means of a feature of the stimulus that will remain invariant after any change in the absolute stimulus size.     

Configurational effects on the enumeration of dots: Counting by groups

The processing time for quantifying numerosity of two-dimensional dot patterns was investigated as a function of both number of dots and relative proximity between dots. A cluster algorithm (CODE) was first developed as a formal model of how human subjects organize neighboring dots into groups. CODE-based predictions of grouping effects on number processing latencies were then tested with patterns consisting of n dots (range n = 13–23). The results largely confirmed CODE-based predictions and thereby indicated that large collections of dots are preferably counted by groups. Small (n ≤ 5) groups are subitized and their partial results are summed to a running total. Based on criteria other than dot proximity, large (n > 5), proximity-based groups are subdivided into smaller groups of two or three dots, which are again subitized.     

Interaural and monaural clicks and clocks: tempo difference versus attention switching

We describe a quantitative model capable of explaining the results of all reported investigations of the counting of interaural and monaural click sequencies. The model is developed by means of three convergent operations: (a) reanalyzing absolute-estimation data of apparent repetition rates of interaural and monaural sequences, (b) deriving interaural and monaural counting times from numerosity-judgement data, and (c) analyzing the time that observers needed to respond to the end of interaural and monaural sequences. The combined evidence demonstrates that the perceived onset asynchrony (POA) between interaural events is 24 msec longer than that between monaural events. The model has three components: (a) a "stimulus clock," which represents the stimulus onset synchrony (SOA) between events; (b) a "memory clock," which represents the POA between events, and (c) a "counting clock," which represents the counter increment time. The transfer functions between the three clocks are deduced from empirical data. Other proposals to explain interaural click counting results (attention switching, streaming by locus, counterincrement deficit) are discussed and rejected.     

Attention-switching and grouping in counting interaurally presented clicks.

The present study tests the hypothesis that attention-switching is time-consuming and performance-limiting. Analysis of previous research on counting interaurally presented clicks shows that estimates of ‘switch-times’ can be made, based on the data of Guzy and Axelrod (1972). In the earlier click-counting studies, however, the number of clicks to be counted and the number of physical switches between the ears were confouned. Hence the number of clicks, number of physical switches and interval between clicks were independently varied. The results showed that (a) counting performance did not decrease monotonically with increasing number of switches in the click sequence; (b) no difference in counting performance could be found between the monaural and completely alternating interaural presentation; (c) when the number of switches in the sequence was small and equal groups of clicks alternated between ears, performance dramatically improved. With these kinds of sequences, subjects presumably do not count the clicks one at a time, but subitize a group of clicks.