Search

The study aimed to verify the prediction of general work performance by a perception of a leader as a security provider (LSP) in tram drivers. Contextual performance (job dedication) was a mediator in the predictive model. The research sample consisted of 196 tram drivers, 62.22% of the organization's tram drivers. All participants shared the same leader, the head of the tram operation. They completed quantitative cross-sectional self-administered surveys. Results showed that job dedication (contextual performance) predicted the general performance. Job dedication as a partial mediator enhanced the percentage of the general performance's explained score from 15.3% to 26.3%--predicted by perceiving the leader as a safe figure. Discussion suggested further analyzing the functions of a leader as an attachment figure in work settings and their connections to the other organizational behavioral variables. Functions of emotionality and separation distress did not relate to the work performance of tram drivers. Secure-based leadership and focus on job dedication fostered the tram drivers' general work performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research has demonstrated that individuals improve their performance of a task after observing and evaluating others perform that task, a phenomenon known as the observer effect. Most of the research has demonstrated this when the observers were aware that their performance of the task was also being observed, suggesting that reactivity may play an important role. The current study examined this by evaluating the impact that observing others’ safety performance had on the observers’ subsequent safety performance under reactivity and nonreactivity conditions. Results suggest that the observer effect might be more robust when observers are aware that their performance is also being evaluated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated whether faking in personality assessments affects the prediction of job performance and consequences of selection decisions when a nonlinear relationship was assumed between personality scores and job performance. It was also examined whether a selection strategy suggested for nonlinear relationships reduces the adverse impact of faking on consequences of selection decisions. The findings from the item response theory-based simulations indicated that the prediction of job performance was affected by faking, whereas selection accuracy was not substantially affected by faking. The improvement in selection accuracy due to the strategy suggested for a nonlinear relationship was not noticeable. However, the suggested strategy reduced adverse impacts of faking on the estimation of selected applicants' performance scores. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A critical step in the development and use of tests of physical fitness for employment purposes (e.g., fitness for duty) is to establish 1 or more cut points, dividing the test score range into 2 or more ordered categories reflecting, for example, fail/pass decisions. Over the last 3 decades elaborated theories and methods have evolved focusing on the process of establishing 1 or more cut-scores on a test. This elaborated process is widely referred to as "standard-setting". As such, the validity of the test score interpretation hinges on the standard-setting, which embodies the purpose and rules according to which the test results are interpreted. The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of standard-setting methodology. The essential features, key definitions and concepts, and various novel methods of informing standard-setting will be described. The focus is on foundational issues with an eye toward informing best practices with new methodology. Throughout, a case is made that in terms of best practices, establishing a test standard involves, in good part, setting a cut-score and can be conceptualized as evidence/databased policy making that is essentially tied to test validity and an evidential trail. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Histrionic thinking and behavior derive more from emotion than from reason, creating a condition that causes problems for both those who display this emotional style and those they interact with. When histrionic people “manage” others in the workplace, a destructive dynamic often supervenes as employee and manager pursue the goals of work, frequently at cross purposes. In a naturalistic study, three incidents from my experience with histrionic managers are described and the underlying phenomenon of the histrionic manager is identified. This phenomenon is postulated to be universal, which is to say that managers with a histrionic style will be found wherever work is done. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The 'happy-productive worker thesis' has long intrigued organisational researchers and practitioners. Despite mixed empirical evidence from decades of research, there is support in the literature for this thesis. An account is provided on a variation on the enduring debate of the happiness-productivity theme, to support an emerging 'happy-performing managers proposition'. An empirical study is presented to establish the dimensions of managers' job happiness (operationalised as affective well-being and intrinsic job satisfaction) associated with contextual and task performance. The emphasis was on investigating an aspect of human behaviour with the potential to enhance managerial performance. These findings inform the broader debate on what determines the job performance of managers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The most important fact emerging from the combination of my article and the three commentaries is the consensus judgment that content validity is appropriate scientifically and professionally for use with tests of specific cognitive skills used in job performance. This is important because the 1978 Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures have typically been interpreted as not permitting such usage, and this is particularly the case in the interpretation given to the Guidelines by federal government enforcement agencies. Although the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology Principles and the Standards do not prohibit such usage, many industrial-organizational psychologists believe that it is not professionally or scientifically appropriate to employ content validity methods with cognitive measures. The hope is that this series will convince them otherwise. On this point, all four authors in the series are in agreement. The major disagreement among us concerns whether specific cognitive skills used in content valid tests must be considered constructs or not. My position, and apparently that of Kehoe, is that they need not be so considered. I argue that constructs must be invoked only in the context of a substantive theory. Sackett and Ployhart, on the other hand, argue that all measures taken on people must be viewed as constructs, regardless of whether any theoretical propositions and assumptions are involved. In this response, I present reasons why this need not be the case. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes power in the organizational space by means of a praxeological perspective. It focuses the theoretical discussion on what we call practices of power, those circumscribed both in the structure and in more localized practices of discipline and control mechanisms, and the tactics of power - improvisation, the intelligent practices of competent actors in their the day-to-day work experiences. It uses qualitative research, based on in-depth interviews and participant observation over a period of approximately one year of investigation. The results of the research present the following practices of power: spatial organization and ranking; ordering of work time, and rules prohibiting the consumption of food in the work area; surveillance by the supervisor, and the system for controlling the work and conduct. And the tactics of power include: obedience to the rules established by the organization - playing the power game for self-preservation; bodily manoeuvres to eat without being seen; group tactics for increasing the rest time; knowledge of the surveillance - adapting to the "script" when the monitoring is in progress and relaxing when it is not. The article also revives discussion on themes such as causality, conflict, "class" and reproduction in the debate on power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study tests the general idea that people in different organizational positions can have different perspectives on what performance means in a particular job and that these different perspectives are reflected in their implicit trait policies (ITPs) about performance in that job. We test the hypothesis that prison inmates harbor ITPs about the importance of agreeableness and conscientiousness in correctional officers' performance that are different from the ITPs harbored by officers and supervisors. Our results show that critical incidents of officers' performance that are generated by inmates emphasize agreeableness more and conscientiousness less than critical incidents generated by officers and supervisors. Our results also show that inmates' ratings of the effectiveness of officers' behavior described in critical incidents are more strongly associated with the agreeableness of the behavior and less strongly associated with the conscientiousness of the behavior than are officers' and supervisors' ratings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the method to enhance user's job performance in relation to the use of tangible reward as motivation for accurate scheduling performance. This assesses the possible impact and development on user's task valuation when motivation is uploaded. This is undertaken relevant to the inaccurate performance of users to reach actual runtime schedule. In particular, the study deals on the grid high-performance computing environment, highlighting the user-provided job script containing essential configuration information. Furthermore, information that aims to improve accuracy and completeness of users performance, despite the less impact of reward is undertaken.

The effect of experience on the goal-setting behavior of Type A and Type B individuals was assessed using anagram tasks. Sixty men and 60 women were administered the Jenkins Activity Survey as well as a questionnaire assessing their previous experience with anagram tasks. Before each of three anagram trials, subjects set a performance goal and indicated how certain they were that they could reach that goal. The analyses indicated that Type A men had the largest differences between performance goals and actual performance, even though men, in general, were more certain that they would reach their goals. Differences across trials, however, decreased for all individuals. Men with the most prior self-reported experience were least satisfied with their performance. Of interest was the finding that Type B women had higher difference scores than did Type A women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A key concern in Information Systems (IS) research has been to better understand the linkage between information systems and individual performance. The research reported in this study has two primary objectives: (1) to propose a comprehensive theoretical model that incorporates valuable insights from two complementary streams of research, and (2) to empirically test the core of the model. At the heart of the new model is the assertion that for an information technology to have a positive impact on individual performance, the technology: (1) must be utilized and (2) must be a good fit with the tasks it supports. This new mode! is moderately supported by an analysis of data from over 600 individuals in two companies. This research high-lights the importance of the fit between technologies and users' tasks in achieving individual performance impacts from information technology. It also suggests that task-technology fit, when decomposed into its more detailed components, could be the basis for a strong diagnostic tool to evaluate whether information systems and services in a given organization are meeting user needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Five sources of feedback (the formal organization, supervisor, co-workers, the task, one's own self) were investigated for their "informativeness" as providers of information about what the job requirements are (referent) and the extent to which they were met (feedback). Findings indicate that there is a greater reliance on intrinsic sources (sources psychologically "closer" to the individual) than on more external sources for feedback information, this reliance being reduced for referent information. These findings are discussed in terms of job description items which indicate that various characteristics of the external sources are associated with a reduced reliance on intrinsic sources. Implications for future research and organizational life are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]