Human Resources Management Commons^™

Training Tests, Megan Paul

Umbrella Summaries

What are training tests?

For this purpose, training tests include any form of knowledge assessment intended to gauge learning from training. Tests can be of varying lengths, formats (e.g., true/false, multiple choice, short answer), or labels (e.g., quiz, learning checks). The important feature is that they require learners to practice retrieving training-related information from memory. Thus, the focus here is on knowledge and understanding, versus skill acquisition.

Why are training tests valuable?

Training tests are valuable because the act of taking a test improves subsequent learning outcomes. More specifically, people who take a test perform better on later assessments of …

Organizational Cynicism, Dana Hollinshead, Megan Paul

Umbrella Summaries

What is organizational cynicism?

Organizational cynicism is defined as “a negative attitude toward one's employing organization, comprising three dimensions: (1) a belief that the organization lacks integrity; (2) negative affect toward the organization; and (3) tendencies to disparaging and critical behaviors toward the organization that are consistent with these beliefs and affect” (Dean et al., 1998, p. 345). Measures of organizational cynicism include statements such as “I’ve pretty much given up trying to make suggestions for improvements around here” (Tesluk et al., 1990, p. 283) and “I believe that [the organization] says one thing and does another” (Brandes et al., …

Coaching, Megan Paul, Tara Myers

Umbrella Summaries

What is coaching?

There is no single universally recognized definition of coaching. In the context of the workplace, common elements of coaching definitions include a one-on-one systematic relationship, learning, behavioral change, self-awareness, and improved performance (Grover & Furnham, 2016). Some notable differences in definitions include who receives the coaching, who conducts the coaching, the type of behavior change that is targeted, and the nature of the coaching behaviors. For example, several definitions focus more exclusively on top leaders receiving coaching from external, professional coaches (e.g., Kilburg, 1996); known more commonly as executive coaching, this was a common arrangement when workplace …

Navigating The Murky Middle: Understanding How Career Aspirations And Experiences Influence The Career Progression Of Women Identifying, Student Affairs, Middle Managers, Lindsey Gilmore

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Capstones

Even though women have made tremendous strides in many facets of education, ascending the administrative and leadership ranks within universities at a proportionate ratio to the number of women who peak as middle managers is not one of them. In the past 40 years, the number of women serving as presidents of universities across the nation has increased less than 10% from 21.1% in 1975 to 30.1% in 2016 (ACE, 2018). If a woman does find herself serving at the helm of an institution, it is more than likely at a “private, liberal arts schools rather than at doctoral granting, …

Gratitude, Stephanie Weddington, Megan Paul

Umbrella Summaries

What is gratitude?

There are three ways of thinking about gratitude—as a state, a trait, or a tendency that can be improved through practice. A person can experience a brief state of gratitude in response to a specific event or another person’s kind actions (Emmons & McCullough, 2003). Gratitude is also considered a more enduring personality trait, disposition, or life orientation in which an individual has a general propensity to feel grateful for, notice, and appreciate the positives in day-to-day life (McCullough et al., 2002; Wood et al., 2010). Finally, individuals can enhance their tendency to feel grateful over time …

Pre-Training Interventions, Megan Paul

Umbrella Summaries

What are pre-training interventions?

Pre-training interventions refer to strategies that are implemented prior to training, for the purpose of enhancing training outcomes. Thus far, the primary strategies that have been most frequently investigated include (a) attentional advice, (b) meta-cognitive strategies, (c) advance organizers, (d) goal orientation, and (e) preparatory information (Cannon-Bowers et al., 1998; Mesmer-Magnus & Viswesvaran, 2010).

Attentional advice includes guidance to orient the learner to what they will learn. Examples include going over the main learning objectives or highlighting essential aspects of the training and how they relate to the job.

Meta-cognitive strategies include approaches for learners to …

Sleep, Megan Paul

Umbrella Summaries

What is sleep?

In the context of the workplace, investigations into sleep tend to focus on two main aspects: sleep quantity and sleep quality. Though sleep is occasionally measured using objective measures that assess physiological indicators, subjective self-report measures are most often used (Litwiller et al., 2017). There are dozens of measures for assessing sleep quality or quantity, some of which are single items and others that include multiple items. A more commonly used multidimensional measure is the 19-item Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, which assesses factors like sleep duration, sleep disturbance, and sleep efficiency, among others (Buysse et al., 1989). …

Public Service Motivation, Megan Paul

Umbrella Summaries

What is public service motivation?

Public service motivation (PSM) is defined as “an individual’s predisposition to respond to motives grounded primarily or uniquely in public institutions” (Perry & Wise, 1990). In other words, it is about a person’s desire or interest to serve the public, often in the public sector, but also in the private, non-profit sector. It was developed in response to calls to revive interest in working in government, to restore the country’s faith in public institutions (Perry & Wise, 1990). The goal of the research was to explore whether people had such values and interests and, if …

Union Commitment And Participation, Tara Myers, Megan Paul

Umbrella Summaries

What are union commitment and participation?

Union commitment refers to the extent to which employees are dedicated to their union (Cooper-Hakim & Viswesvaran, 2005; Gordon, Philpot, Burt, Thompson, & Spiller, 1980). Union participation is active involvement in the union such as attending meetings, serving on committees, holding office, campaigning, voting, assisting with contracts and negotiations, managing union funds, and filing grievances (Anderson, 1979). Many researchers consider union participation as part of union commitment (e.g., Gordon et al., 1980). Others have speculated that union participation is a consequence of union commitment (e.g., Parks, Gallagher, & Fullagar, 1995). Additional ways to conceptualize …

Emotional Intelligence Training, Megan Paul

Umbrella Summaries

What is emotional intelligence training?

Emotional intelligence (EI) refers to abilities or tendencies related to recognizing, understanding, and managing emotions. Because of its connections to important work outcomes such as job satisfaction, organizational commitment, job performance, and turnover intentions (e.g., Joseph, Jin, Newman, & O’Boyle, 2015; Miao, Humphrey, & Qian, 2016), there has been great interest in developing EI via coaching and training, even though it has not traditionally been regarded as something that is amenable to change through training. EI is conceptualized, and measured, in three different ways (Ashkanasy & Daus, 2005). When it was first conceived, EI was …

Emotional Labor, Tara Myers, Megan Paul

Umbrella Summaries

What is emotional labor?

Emotional labor is “the management of feelings to create a publicly observable facial and bodily display” as necessary at work (Hochschild, 2012, p. 50). Thus, people engage in emotional labor when they ensure their facial expressions and body language match what is expected for the job (Grandey, 2000). Clear display rules (e.g., always smile, show empathy, stay neutral, seem stern) are most typically seen within service industries (e.g., customer service, protective services, law enforcement). People accomplish this adherence to display rules through surface acting—managing the expression of emotions—or through deep acting—managing the experience of emotions (Hochschild, …

Workaholism, Megan Paul

Umbrella Summaries

What is workaholism?

The term was coined 50 years ago and referred to the uncontrollable need to work incessantly (Oates, 1971). Since then, many different definitions have emerged, with variations related to what exactly workaholism looks like (e.g., degree of enjoyment and engagement), why it occurs (e.g., personality), and its outcomes (e.g., on health, work-life balance), among others (Clark, Smith, & Haynes, 2020). Because many of these approaches confuse workaholism with related but distinct concepts (e.g., causes and effects), the following definition has recently been suggested as a more pure description: 1) an inner pressure or compulsion to work, 2) …

Addressing Work-Related Traumatic Stress Nebraska - Resiliency Reminders Guidebook, Quality Improvement Center For Workforce Development

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This guide is intended for child welfare professionals implementing a workforce effort to address secondary traumatic stress (STS). It was developed as part of CFS Strong, a joint effort of the Quality Improvement Center for Workforce Development (QIC-WD) and the Nebraska Department of Human Services’ Department of Children and Family Services (CFS), to address the cumulative effects of STS that is part of the day-to-day work of the child welfare workforce. CFS Strong included: (1) an adaptation of Resilience Alliance (RA) to teach skills and strategies to manage STS and build team cohesion, (2) Restoring Resiliency Response (RRR) to allow …

An Integrative Study Of Service And Safety Climate And Performance: Do Climates Compete?, Jeffrey B. Paul

Selected Faculty Publications

Organizational scholars continue to expand our knowledge of the contextual forces influencing employee behavior in organizations. A notable stream in this research agenda includes organizational climate studies that describe the social processes guiding employee perceptions of their environment. These shared perceptions formulate climate constructs that have demonstrated through theorizing and empirical findings relationships with attitudinal, behavioral, and performance outcomes across multiple levels of analysis. Contemporary climate studies have focused on facet-specific climates, such as a service climate or safety climate, and have linked facet climates with the same facet related performance (e. g. safety climate predicts increased safety performance). Given …

Decipher The Effect Of Gamification In Harnessing Boredom And Improving Performance, Zhuoyi Zhao

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

My thesis investigates the effectiveness of gamification in harnessing boredom and improving performance in a repetitive work process. In video games, “loot” rewards are unpredictable, intermittent gains used to motivate players to repeat boring actions. In a 2 X 2 experiment, I examine how loot rewards in point form may impact 1) disengagement, which is an immediate outcome of boredom, and 2) performance in settings where the points have and do not have cash value, respectively. More specifically, I manipulate the level of point reward unpredictability (fixed versus loot) and whether point rewards have cash value (absent versus present).

In …

Toward A More Perma(Nent) Conceptualization Of Worker Well-Being? A Cross-Cultural Study Of The Workplace Perma Profiler, William P. Jimenez, Xiaoxiao Hu, Rebecca Garden, Xiaofei Xie

Psychology Faculty Publications

We examined the factor structure of the recently developed worker well-being measure the Workplace PERMA Profiler and relationships between PERMA dimensions (i.e., positive emotions, engagement, positive relationships, meaning, accomplishment) and job performance (viz., task performance, organizational citizenship behaviors benefiting individuals and the organization at large). The measure exhibited metric (i.e., weak) invariance across samples of participants from the U.S. (N = 284) and China (N = 420). Additionally, for participants who responded to both the Workplace PERMA Profiler and the performance measures, there was a general pattern of positive PERMA–performance relationships across both …

Fake It Till You Make It With Your Boss? Surface Acting In Interactions With Leaders, Xiaoxiao Hu, Yujie Zhan, William P. Jimenez, Rebecca Garden, Yi Li

Psychology Faculty Publications

Due to its influence on important workplace outcomes, surface acting has drawn increasing attention from researchers in recent years. Most of the research in this area has focused on employees’ interactions with individuals external to the organization, such as customers and clients (Bolton, 2005; Grandey et al., 2013). With the current study, we contribute to and extend the literature by focusing on employees’ leader-directed surface acting and examining how leader-directed surface acting (i.e., faking positive emotions and suppressing negative emotions in interactions with one’s leader) relates to leader ratings of employee task performance. Data collected from 414 employees and 103 …

Emotional Dissonance And Exhaustion Among Library Professionals During Covid-19, Mubashir Majid Baba

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

The COVID-19 pandemic is having a dramatic impact on societies and economies around the world. The virus is affecting millions of lives worldwide, not only physically but also emotionally in the form of panic attacks, obsessional behavior, anxiety, stress and fear. Library professionals are also exposed to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and are facing high levels of stress and anxiety. The aim of this exploratory study was to analyze the association between emotional dissonance and emotional exhaustion among library professionals during COVID-19 and to study the impact of demographics on the variables under study. The data collected were analyzed using …

Reference Checks, Tara Myers, Megan Paul

Umbrella Summaries

What are reference checks?

Reference checks are hiring tools, typically used as one of the last steps in the hiring process. “A reference check generally involves contacting applicants’ former employers, supervisors, coworkers, and educators to verify previous employment and to obtain information about the individual’s knowledge, skills, abilities and character” (Society for Human Resource Management, 2020, p. 1). For example, potential employers use this as an opportunity to get additional information about applicants’ job performance, communication, time management, teamwork, professionalism; honesty; and attention to detail (Hendricks, Rupayana, Puchalski, & Robie, 2018). The questions used on reference checks depend on the …

A Comparison Of The Two-Option Versus The Four-Option Multiple-Choice Item: A Case For Fewer Distractors, Allan Bateson, William R. Dardick

Personnel Assessment and Decisions

Multiple choice test items typically consist of the key and 3-4 distractors. However, research has supported the efficacy of using fewer alternatives. Haladyna and Downing (1993) found that it is difficult to write test items with more than one plausible distractor, resulting in items with a correct answer and one alternative, also known as the alternate choice (AC) format. We constructed two 32-item tests; one with four alternatives (MC4) and one with two (AC), using an inter-judge agreement approach to eliminate distractors. Tests were administered to 138 personnel working for a U.S. Government agency. Testing time was significantly less and …

Is It Complicated? Validity Of Personality Interactions For Predicting Performance, Jacob C. Bradburn, Ann Marie Ryan, Anthony Boyce, Tamera Mckinniss, Jason Way

Personnel Assessment and Decisions

Research on personality within the organizational sciences and for employee selection typically focuses on main effects, as opposed to interactive effects between personality variables. Large, multi-organizational datasets involving two different measures of personality were examined to test theoretically driven trait by trait interactions in predicting job performance. Interactive effects of Agreeableness and Conscientiousness, Agreeableness and Extraversion, Extraversion and Conscientiousness, and Emotional Stability and Conscientiousness were hypothesized as predicting overall job performance. However, these hypothesized effects were generally not supported. Implications for personality assessment are discussed.

The Relationship Between Criminal Records And Job Performance: An Examination Of Customer Service Representatives, Jakari N. Griffith, Todd C. Harris

Personnel Assessment and Decisions

Between 70 million and 100 million Americans—or as many as one in three—have some type of criminal record (Vallas & Dietrich, 2014). Having even a minor criminal record often functions as a significant impediment to gainful employment and resultant economic security. This is especially problematic given that: (a) many companies now incorporate background checks within their hiring process and (b) little empirical research exists about the relationship between criminal records and job performance. Thus, this study examined the relationship between criminal records and objective performance of customer service representatives (N = 627) in a large telecommunications firm. Our regression analyses …

The Machines Aren’T Taking Over (Yet): An Empirical Comparison Of Traditional, Profiling, And Machine Learning Approaches To Criterion-Related Validation, Kristin S. Allen, Mathijs Affourtit, Craig M. Reddock

Personnel Assessment and Decisions

Criterion-related validation (CRV) studies are used to demonstrate the effectiveness of selection procedures. However, traditional CRV studies require significant investment of time and resources, as well as large sample sizes, which often create practical challenges. New techniques, which use machine learning to develop classification models from limited amounts of data, have emerged as a more efficient alternative. This study empirically investigates the effectiveness of traditional CRV with a variety of profiling approaches and machine learning techniques using repeated cross-validation. Results show that the traditional approach generally performs best both in terms of predicting performance and larger group differences between candidates …

Editorial: Five Years In, Scott Highhouse

Personnel Assessment and Decisions

No abstract provided.

Building Capacity To Effectively Share And Use Data, Robert Blagg

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In child welfare, the need to utilize meaningful data to ensure that the services provided are effective in supporting children and families represents a continuing challenge. There is a large volume of data from sources that are internal and external to child welfare agencies; and it increases almost exponentially on a regular basis. It is difficult for leaders and practitioners to quickly and meaningfully synthesize, make use of, and share new information with colleagues who need it to make sound decisions. Even when data is transformed into knowledge, challenges remain around the preferred method of ensuring information reaches the individuals …

Organisational Creative Climate And Knowledge Sharing In Fostering Innovative Work Behaviour Among Startups In Malaysia, Rosintansafinas Munir

Student Works (2020-2029)

Startups are crucial as it contributes to the thriving economy and national growth of Malaysia. Indeed, various government programmes and initiatives have been implemented over the years to flourish the startups entrepreneurial activities to ensure its sustainability. Noticeably, a significant number of startups failed within five years of business due to the high level of uncertainties and risks. In the new era of innovation, startups need to inculcate an innovative work behaviour to support the business performance as its creative and innovative mindset are the mechanisms to capture the competitive market rather than focus on the innovative product. Unfortunately, the …

Occupational Commitment, Megan Paul, Anita Barbee

Umbrella Summaries

What is occupational commitment?

Occupational commitment refers to the extent to which employees are committed to their line of work (Meyer, Allen, & Smith, 1993). Over the past 40 years, various researchers also labeled the construct as career commitment or as professional commitment, but the term occupation is intended to convey that the concept (a) does not apply to a more general concept of a career, which may involve different occupations over time and (b) applies to both professional and non-professional occupations (Meyer et al., 1993). Occupational commitment is one of many forms of work-related commitment. Some of the other, …

Task Performance And Adaptive Performance In Royal Service Corps: Role Of Individual Ambidexterity And Extent Of Change, Muhamad Fadzly Abd Kadir

Student Works (2020-2029)

The Revolution in Military Logistics has impacted military logistics business processes. It requires logisticians to adapt to changes and perform their tasks. However, it also resulted in inconsistent performance of employees. The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between individual and situational factors and individual work performance of logisticians at the Royal Service Corps of the Malaysian Army. Individual factors (i.e. openness to experience and social intelligence) and a situational factor (i.e. workplace relationship) are the independent variables. Individual ambidexterity acts as a mediating variable, and the extent of change acts as a moderating factor. The dependent …

More Research Is Needed On The Impact Of Workplace Violence, Bullying And Sexual Harassment In Child Welfare, Anita Barbee

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Many employees working in social services are exposed to workplace violence (described in Andersen, et al., 2018) and bullying (discussed in Whitaker, 2012). The workplace violence paper showed not only that up to three-fourths of social workers are exposed to violence at work, but that organizational structures and dynamics set the stage for violence to occur. Settings where staff lacked role clarity and predictability, and where emotional demands, role conflict, and work family conflict were high, also were associated with more threats and violence among employees and by clients. These findings, in addition to studies on bullying, seem to point …

Organizational Stressors As Predictors Of Burnout, Kristen Albritton

Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to determine if organizational stress, measured by role conflict and role ambiguity, predicts burnout among employees. A review of the related literature identified variables that demonstrate a relationship with burnout, supported by the Maslach (1998) theory of burnout and Katz and Kahn’s (1966) organizational role theory. The researcher also examined whether organizational level and demographic variables (gender, education level, and job tenure) moderate the relationships between role conflict, role ambiguity, and burnout.

The study follows a non-experimental, cross-sectional design using data collected from a survey. Results of linear regression analyses reveal role conflict and …