Effect of a Referent's Status on the Evaluation of Job Applicants

In this study, the authors found that the status of employment referents might affect the employers's evaluations of job applicants.     

Mapping and/or Discovering Meaning in Family Therapy: An E-Mail Conversation

Editor's Note: Because of the provocative and stimulating nature of the study reported on by Steven Kogan and Jerry Gale in their article "Decentering Therapy," I have invited one of our Advisory Editors, Chris Beels, to provide some comments about the study and its implications. However, rather than use the standard for mat of a formal "Commentary," followed by an "Authors' Response," Beels, Kogan, and Gale have instead carried out a series of e-mail exchanges, with reactions and responses going back and forth in the form of a dialogue. What follows is a slightly edited version of their conversation. As you will see, this exchange has afforded Beels, Kogan, and Gale the opportunity not only to critique each other's ideas, but also to raise questions and to puzzle together about the linkages that might be forged between the Kogan and Gale study and earlier therapy process research carried out by Beels using Scheflen's context analysis techniques. The use of a conversation format seemed more consonant with the research being discussed, research that urges a stance of openness and curiosity rather than formal hypothesis testing and closure. Hence my decision to endorse this experiment in "commentary as conversation," rather than "commentary as debate." What follows is the first three rounds of this "conversation," with the "roughess" of ordinary e-mail communications retained, but with some minor editing in order to facilitate clarity and narrative flow .     

GENERIC WORK BEHAVIOR: AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE DIMENSIONS OF ENTRY-LEVEL, HOURLY JOB PERFORMANCE

Generic work behavior is defined as behavior that contributes to the performance of virtually any job independent of technical job roles. Variations in generic work behavior are primarily dependent on differences in volition, and the effects of generic work behavior are likely to be the most prevalent in jobs where performance does not depend heavily on job-specific knowledge, skills, or ability. Analysis of supervisor ratings of specific employee behaviors gathered from 18,146 employees in 42 different hourly, entry-level jobs in predominantly retail settings suggests the existence of at least eight specific dimensions of generic work behavior: industriousness, thoroughness, schedule flexibility, attendance, off-task behavior, unruliness, theft, and drug misuse. These components were integrated with performance components identified in previous studies to develop a taxonomy of generic work behavior. Implications of this taxonomy for the measurement, prediction, and conceptualization of job performance are discussed.     

THE EFFECTS OF UNREPRESENTED STUDIES ON THE ROBUSTNESS OF VALIDITY GENERALIZATION RESULTS

Researchers conducting meta-analyses such as validity generalization can never be certain that their review contains all studies relevant to the research domain. Indeed, several authors in the past have noted ways in which research reviews may be systematically biased. A few techniques have emerged for addressing the issue of "missing studies" including the use of Rosenthal's (1979) file-drawer equation. Noting that Rosenthal's technique is inappropriate when applied to validity generalization findings, this paper develops a new method for assessing the vulnerability of validity generalization results to unrepresented or missing studies. The results of this new procedure are compared to the results of file-drawer analyses for 103 findings from validity generalization studies. We illustrate that this procedure more appropriately estimates the robustness of validity generalization results.     

THE INFLUENCE OF LAYOFF SEVERITY ON POSTLAYOFF UNION COMMITMENT AMONG SURVIVORS: THE MODERATING EFFECT OF THE PERCEIVED LEGITIMACY OF A LAYOFF ACCOUNT

This study used a moderated cross-level design to predict union commitment among 355 union survivors after layoffs. Survivors experiencing varying degrees of layoffs at 15 job sites judged the legitimacy of the company's layoff explanation. In each case, the account implicated the union as the agent responsible for the layoff decision. Company records were used to aggregate layoff severity within job site. Survey measures were used to assess retrospective belief in the account and commitment to the union after the layoff event. Based on interactional justice theory, a significant interaction was predicted between layoff severity and belief in the account as related to postlayoff union commitment. Survivors with higher levels of belief in the account were expected to be less committed to the union than those with moderate or lower levels of belief under more severe layoffs. Moderated regression analyses of overall commitment supported the expected interaction. Regression analyses of commitment components revealed that only willingness to work for the union was affected by the interaction. Additional analyses, in which the willingness to work component was regressed onto layoff severity within high to low belief subgroups, were also consistent with the prediction. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings for company and union officials in managing union survivors are discussed.     

ORGANIZATIONAL RECRUITING AS MARKETING MANAGEMENT: AN INTERDISCIPLINARY STUDY OF ENGINEERING GRADUATES

With the intent of encouraging interdisciplinary research, this study applies principles, theories, and practices of marketing management to examine engineering recruitment as a process of "job marketing." Six hypotheses concerning campus recruiters and strategic recruiting issues were proposed and investigated through a national survey of 242 graduating engineers representing five engineering fields. Survey responses revealed that both overall satisfaction with recruiting processes and likelihood of job acceptance were significantly related to recruiter interpersonal skills and interview information provided about compensation/benefits, job/career, and security/success issues. Further, student satisfaction with recruiting processes was significantly related to recruiter/job applicant similarity in gender and educational characteristics. Contrary to conventional inferences of recruiting research, students did not respond more favorably to line management or engineering recruiters than to personnel representatives. Implications of these findings are identified and discussed in terms of both the marketing and management literatures.     

INTRODUCING NEW METHODS FOR CONDUCTING TRAINING EVALUATION AND FOR LINKING TRAINING EVALUATION TO PROGRAM REDESIGN

While training has been conceptualized as a continually evolving process, the existing literature fails to provide adequate strategies for linking training evaluation to training needs reassessment and program redesign. This article presents two studies which describe methodologies developed for a police recruit training program to address these deficiencies in the literature. In Study 1, Lawshe's (1975) Content Validity Ratio (CVR) approach was used to establish the job relatedness of the content of the training program. Results supported the job relatedness of the training program as the average CVR value was 27 ( p < 05; N = 105). In study 2, a new methodology, the Matching Technique, was used to directly compare current training emphasis with training needs. Results demonstrated a close match of emphasis and training needs for the training program. One content area of relative training deficiency was further examined to illustrate the power of the Matching Technique for identifying areas requiring training redesign.     

Family Rituals

Family rituals, consisting of celebrations, traditions, and patterned family interactions, are defined and illustrated in this paper. The power of ritual practice in families is explained by three underlying processes — transformation, communication, and stabilization — concepts whose roots lie in anthropology and ethology. We propose that all families struggle with finding a suitable role for rituals in their collective lives but their actual achievement varies greatly. Commitment to ritual and adaptability of ritual practice throughout the family life cycle are important considerations. The utility of these concepts in the assessment and treatment of families is discussed.     

The Value of the U.S. Employment Service Automated Reporting System to Employment Counselors

This article discusses the value of the Employment Service Automated Reporting System, which assists labor market planners in employment and training agencies in developing necessary programs for reducing unemployment at the local level. It is postulated that more states should use the data from the system but be careful to avoid misleading approaches.