Human Resources Management Commons^™

Signaler Credibility, Signal Susceptibility, And Relative Reliance On Signals: How Stakeholders Change Their Evaluative Processes After Violation Of Expectations And Rehabilitative Efforts, David Gomulya, Yuri Mishina

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Prior studies have shown that a firm’s violation of expectations might lead to less favorable evaluations of that firm by stakeholders. However, the literature has been silent on whether and how the process by which stakeholders evaluate a firm could change subsequent to the violation. Drawing from signaling and screening theory, we examine how evaluative processes might change in the context of financial restatements. We find that investors appear to shift their relative reliance on particular signals in determining a firm’s stock price following an earnings restatement. These changes are at least partly reversed following the replacement of an incumbent …

Learning From Others' Failures: The Effectiveness Of Failure Stories For Managerial Learning, Ronald Bledow, Bernd Carette, Jana Kuehnel, Daniela Pittig

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School of Business

We argue that other peoples' failures provide a neglected source of managerial learning that is associated with enhanced learning transfer. Due to their negative valence, stories about other peoples' failures as compared to stories about other peoples' successes should elicit a more pronounced motivational response, such that people elaborate the content of failure stories more actively. As a consequence, the knowledge gained from failure stories will more likely be applied on a transfer task. We expect this motivational response to failure stories and its benefits for learning to be most pronounced for people who view failures as valuable learning opportunities. …

Individual Differences And Their Measurement: A Review Of 100 Years Of Research, Paul R. Sackett, Filip Lievens, Chad H. Van Iddekinge, Nathan R. Kuncel

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This article reviews 100 years of research on individual differences and their measurement, with a focus on research published in the Journal of Applied Psychology. We focus on 3 major individual differences domains: (a) knowledge, skill, and ability, including both the cognitive and physical domains; (b) personality, including integrity, emotional intelligence, stable motivational attributes (e.g., achievement motivation, core self-evaluations), and creativity; and (c) vocational interests. For each domain, we describe the evolution of the domain across the years and highlight major theoretical, empirical, and methodological developments, including relationships between individual differences and variables such as job performance, job satisfaction, and …

Experimental Test Validation: Examining The Path From Test Elements To Test Performance, Stefan Krumm, Joachim Huffmeier, Filip Lievens

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Although the vast majority of validation studies rely on correlational validity evidence, there is an increased recognition that validity should also focus on whether variations in the focal psychological attribute lead to variations in the measurement outcomes. Therefore, calls have been made that validity evidence should also be gathered through experiments. Existing experimental validation strategies focus on manipulating psychological attributes and their effects on measurement outcomes. In the current manuscript, we present an additional and complementary approach that focuses on manipulating test elements (instead of psychological attributes) that are considered indispensable for test functioning. Examples from personality, situational judgment, emotional …

What Doesn't Kill You Will Only Make You More Risk-Loving: Early-Life Disasters And Ceo Behavior, Gennaro Bernile, Vineet Bhagwat, P. Raghavendra Rau

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The literature on managerial style posits a linear relation between a chief executive officer's (CEOs) past experiences and firm risk. We show that there is a nonmonotonic relation between the intensity of CEOs’ early-life exposure to fatal disasters and corporate risk-taking. CEOs who experience fatal disasters without extremely negative consequences lead firms that behave more aggressively, whereas CEOs who witness the extreme downside of disasters behave more conservatively. These patterns manifest across various corporate policies including leverage, cash holdings, and acquisition activity. Ultimately, the link between CEOs’ disaster experience and corporate policies has real economic consequences on firm riskiness and …

Performance Appraisals: Pitfalls And Promises, Singapore Management University

Research@SMU: Connecting the Dots

By having a better understanding the performance appraisal process, organisations can develop more effective performance appraisal systems, say Professors Gary Greguras and Jochen Reb.

See their papers:

Performance appraisals as heuristic judgments under uncertainty.

The Regret Elements Scale: Distinguishing the emotional and cognitive components of regret

Understanding performance ratings: Dynamic performance, attributions, and rating purpose

The Effects Of Predictor Method Factors On Selection Outcomes: A Modular Approach To Personnel Selection Procedures, Filip Lievens, Paul R. Sackett

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Past reviews and meta-analyses typically conceptualized and examined selection procedures as holistic entities. We draw on the product design literature to propose a modular approach as a complementary perspective to conceptualizing selection procedures. A modular approach means that a product is broken down into its key underlying components. Therefore, we start by presenting a modular framework that identifies the important measurement components of selection procedures. Next, we adopt this modular lens for reviewing the available evidence regarding each of these components in terms of affecting validity, subgroup differences, and applicant perceptions, as well as for identifying new research directions. As …

Building Gender-Inclusive Workplaces In Singapore: A Practical Guide For Companies And Human Resource Practitioners, Benjamin Tien Yong Wong, Gillian Pei Wen Loy, Claris Wan Xin Teo

Student Publications

We are a team of students from the Singapore Management University (“SMU”) Diversity Leadership Development Programme and SMU Women’s Connections. We believe that all employees are valuable members of many organisations that operate in Singapore. Companies can therefore harness the potential of stronger teams by ensuring that all employees feel safe, valued and included - regardless of one’s gender. In 2014, Singapore saw more women than men enter tertiary educational institutions. Despite this progress made, a study conducted in 2015 found that women were part of only 9.1 per cent of SGX- listed boards, with almost half of these boards …

Take A Break! Benefits Of Sleep And Short Breaks For Daily Work Engagement, Jana Kuhnel, Hannes Zacher, Jessica De Bloom, Ronald Bledow

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The current study investigates the benefits of a good night’s sleep and short work breaks for employees’ daily work engagement. It is hypothesized that sleep and self-initiated short breaks help restore energetic and self-regulatory resources which, in turn, enable employees to experience high work engagement. A daily diary study was conducted with 107 employees who provided data twice a day (before lunch and at the end of the working day) over 5 workdays (453 days in total). Multilevel regression analyses showed that sleep quality and short breaks were beneficial for employees’ daily work engagement. After nights employees slept better, they …

Perspectives From 22 Countries On The Legal Environment For Selection, Brett Myors, Filip Lievens, Eveline Schollaert, Greet Van Hoye, Steven F. Cronshow, Antonio Mladinic, Viviana Rodriguez, Herman Aguinis, Dirk D. Steiner, Florence Rolland, Heinz Schuler, Andreas Frintrup, Ioannis Nikolaou, Maria Tomprou, S. Subramony, Shabu B. Raj, Shay Tzafrir, Peter Bamberger, Marilena Bertolino, Marco Mariani

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

In the United States, the legal context plays a major role in how industrial/organizational (I/O) psychologists approach selection system development. The set of protected groups, the approaches to making an a priori case of discrimination (e.g., differential treatment vs. adverse impact), the key court cases influencing selection, and the prohibitions against preferential treatment (e.g., the 1991 ban on score adjustment or within-group norming) are well known. Selection texts (e.g., Guion, 1998) and human resource management texts (e.g., Cascio & Aguinis, 2008) give prominent treatment to the legal context. In recent years, there has been a growing internationalization of I/O psychology …

Organizational Image/Reputation, Filip Lievens

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Organizational image refers to people’s global impressions of an organization and is defined as people’s loose structures of knowledge and beliefs about an organization. Organizational image represents the net cognitive reactions and associations of customers, investors, employees, and applicants to an organization’s name. Accordingly, it serves as a template to categorize, store, and recall organization-related information.

How Future Work Selves Guide Feedback Seeking And Feedback Responding At Work, Frederik Anseel, Karoline Strauss, Filip Lievens

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Providing feedback is one of the most widely accepted psychological interventions for learning and development. The belief that giving feedback to employees is beneficial for individual and organizational performance is also strongly held in organizations. Therefore, providing feedback to employees lies at the heart of a wide range of often costly and time-intensive performance management tools in organizations. However, contrary to these beliefs, meta-analytic evidence shows that feedback interventions do not produce unequivocal positive effects on performance (Kluger & DeNisi, 1996).

Limited Attention, Marital Events And Hedge Funds, Yan Lu, Sugata Ray, Melvyn Teo

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We explore the impact of limited attention by analyzing the performance of hedge fund managers who are distracted by marital events. We find that marriages and divorces are associated with significantly lower fund alpha, during the six-month period surrounding and the two-year period after the event. Busy managers who manage multiple funds and who are not part of a team are more affected by marital transitions. Inattentive managers place fewer active bets relative to their style peers, load more on index stocks, exhibit higher R-squareds with respect to systematic factors, and are more prone to the disposition effect.

Careermapper: An Automated Resume Evaluation Tool, Vivian Lai, Kyong Jin Shim, Richard J. Oentaryo, Philips K. Prasetyo, Casey Vu, Ee-Peng Lim, David Lo

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The advent of the Web brought about major changes in the way people search for jobs and companies look for suitable candidates. As more employers and recruitment firms turn to the Web for job candidate search, an increasing number of people turn to the Web for uploading and creating their online resumes. Resumes are often the first source of information about candidates and also the first item of evaluation in candidate selection. Thus, it is imperative that resumes are complete, free of errors and well-organized. We present an automated resume evaluation tool called 'CareerMapper'. Our tool is designed to conduct …

Interpersonal Dynamics In Assessment Center Exercises: Effects Of Role Player Portrayed Disposition, Tom Oliver, Peter Hausdorf, Filip Lievens, Peter Conlon

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Although interpersonal interactions are the mainstay of many assessment center exercises, little is known about how these interactions unfold and affect participant behavior and performance. More specifically, participants interact with role players who have been instructed to demonstrate behavior reflecting specific dispositions as part of the exercise. This study focuses on role player portrayed disposition as a potentially important social demand relevant to participant behavior and performance in interpersonal simulations. We integrate interpersonal theory and trait activation theory to formulate hypotheses about the effects of role player portrayed disposition on participant behavior and performance in 184 interpersonal simulations. A significant …

Smu Is First Asian University To Offer Master’S Degree Accredited By International Professional Hr Body Cipd, Singapore Management University

SMU Press Releases and News

The Singapore Management University (SMU) has become the first university in Asia to offer a master’s degree accredited by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD). SMU joins prestigious universities such as the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and Kings College London to deliver the CIPD’s premier level accredited qualifications. SMU’s Master of Human Capital Leadership (MHCL) has been designed in partnership with the CIPD, the Human Capital Leadership Institute (HCLI), and the Wharton Centre for Human Resources (USA), resulting in a market-leading study programme that provides unparalleled professional qualifications, business acumen and academic knowledge.

Can Asians Be Creative?, Chua, Roy Y. J., Jerry Zremski

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

A crotchety American named Henry Ford invented a modern, fast and efficient way to manufacture automobiles and a Japanese man named Eiji Toyoda refined and perfected it. A series of innovators across the western world developed the television - and the tech specialists at Sony, Toshiba and a host of other Asian companies found ways to make TVs better, cheaper, faster. And an idiosyncratic Californian named Steve Jobs invented a company that made a smart phone for the masses - and then outsourced the manufacturing to China. If you detect a pattern here, you are not alone. Asia may be …

I Just Got Fired!, Nirmalya Kumar

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Prof Kumar takes about his experience of suddenly losing his position in the Tata Group, due to stepping down of the Chairman Cyrus Mistry.

When Do You Procrastinate? Sleep Quality And Social Lag Jointly Predict Self-Regulatory Failure At Work, Jana Kuhnel, Ronald Bledow, Nicolas Feuerhahn

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This study investigates antecedents of procrastination, the tendency to delay the initiation or completion of work activities. We examine this phenomenon from a self-regulation perspective and argue that depleted self-regulatory resources are an important pathway to explain why and when employees procrastinate. The restoration of self-regulatory resources during episodes of non-work is a prerequisite for the ability to initiate action at work. As sleep offers the opportunity to replenish self-regulatory resources, employees should procrastinate more after nights with low-quality sleep and shorter sleep duration. We further propose that people's social sleep lag amplifies this relationship. Social sleep lag arises if …

The Impact Of Power On Reliance On Feelings Versus Reasons In Decision Making, Yunhui Huang, Hannah H. Chang, Jiewen Hong

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We examine the impact of power on consumer decision making. Results from four experiments provide converging evidence thatpeople in high- (low-) power states are more likely to rely on affective feelings (cognitive reasoning) in making judgments anddecisions.

Actions Speak Louder Than Words: Outsiders' Perceptions Of Diversity Mixed Messages, Leon Windscheid, Lynn Bowes-Sperry, Deborah L. Kidder, Ho Kwan Cheung, Michele Morner, Filip Lievens

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

To attract a gender diverse workforce, many employers use diversity statements to publicly signal that they value gender diversity. However, this often represents a misalignment between words and actions (i.e., a diversity mixed message) because most organizations are male dominated, especially in board positions. We conducted 3 studies to investigate the potentially indirect effect of such diversity mixed messages through perceived behavioral integrity on employer attractiveness. In Study 1, following a 2 x 2 design, participants (N = 225) were either shown a pro gender diversity statement or a neutral statement, in combination with a gender diverse board (4 men …

Reassessing Board Member Allegiance: Ceo Replacement Following Financial Misconduct, David M. Gomulya, Warren Boeker

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Research summary: We examine how board members' reactions following financial misconduct differ from those following other adverse organizational events, such as poor performance. We hypothesize that inside directors and directors appointed by the CEO may be particularly concerned about their reputation following deceptive financial practices. We demonstrate that directors more closely affiliated with the CEO are more likely to reduce their support for the CEO following financial misconduct, increasing the likelihood of CEO replacement. Enactment of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act similarly alters governance dynamics by creating a greater expectation for sound corporate governance. We demonstrate our findings in U.S. public firms …

Validity And Reliability Of Situational Judgement Test Scores: A New Approach Based On Cognitive Diagnosis Models, Miguel A. Sorrel, Julio Olea, Francisco José Abad, Jimmy De La Torre, David Aguado, Filip Lievens

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Conventional methods for assessing the validity and reliability of situational judgment test (SJT) scores have proven to be inadequate. For example, factor analysis techniques typically lead to nonsensical solutions, and assumptions underlying Cronbach's alpha coefficient are violated due to the multidimensional nature of SJTs. In the current article, we describe how cognitive diagnosis models (CDMs) provide a new approach that not only overcomes these limitations but that also offers extra advantages for scoring and better understanding SJTs. The analysis of the Q-matrix specification, model fit, and model parameter estimates provide a greater wealth of information than traditional procedures do. Our …

The Digital Workforce And The Workplace Of The Future, Amy Colbert, Nick Yee, Gerard George

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The authors reflect on ways increased prevalence of technology and digital natives entering the workplace influence how work is approached. They talk about competencies of the digital workforce and suggests both digital natives and digital immigrants could have the skills needed to utilize technology for manipulating data, problem solving, and new product creation. They comment on interpersonal relating and identity development in digital work forces, and the utilization of technology at work.

Why Victims Of Undermining At Work Become Perpetrators Of Undermining: An Integrative Model, Ki Young Lee, Eugene Kim, Devasheesh P. Bhave, Michelle K. Duffy

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We develop and test an integrative model explaining why victims of workplace social undermining become perpetrators of undermining. Conceptualizing social undermining as a norm-violating and a resource-depleting experience, we theorize that undermining victimization lowers interpersonal justice perceptions and depletes self-regulatory resources, and these 2 mechanisms in tandem trigger a moral disengagement process that influences subsequent undermining behaviors. We further theorize that moral identity functions as a boundary condition: high moral identity attenuates whether interpersonal injustice and resource depletion shape moral disengagement and whether moral disengagement translates to subsequent undermining. A field study of bank employees provides empirical support for the …

The Benefits Of Bad Economies: Business Cycles And Time-Based Work-Life Conflict, Christopher M. Barnes, Alexandru Lefter, Devasheesh P. Bhave, David Turley Wagner

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Recent management research has indicated the importance of family, sleep, and recreation as nonwork activities of employees. Drawing from entrainment theory, we develop an expanded model of work-life conflict to contend that macrolevel business cycles influence the amount of time employees spend on both work and nonwork activities. Focusing solely on working adults, we test this model in a large nationally representative dataset from the Bureau of Labor Statistics that spans an 8-year period, which includes the “Great Recession” from 2007 through 2009. We find that during economic booms, employees work more and therefore spend less time with family, sleeping, …

The Role Of Occupational Emotional Labor Requirements On The Surface Acting-Job Satisfaction Relationship, Devasheesh P. Bhave, Theresa M. Glomb

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

In this study we employ two distinct lenses of emotional labor—EL as occupational requirements and EL as intrapsychic processes of surface acting—and examine their relationship with job satisfaction. In a large, occupationally diverse sample, results indicate that occupational EL requirements are positively related to job satisfaction, whereas surface acting is negatively related to job satisfaction. Additionally, occupational EL requirements have a cross-level moderation effect on the relationship between surface acting and job satisfaction. Nonlinear effects are also observed for surface acting: the initial negative relationship of surface acting with job satisfaction is exacerbated at high levels of surface acting. Overall, …

Situational Judgment Tests: From Measures Of Situational Judgment To Measures Of General Domain Knowledge, Filip Lievens, Stephan J. Motowidlo

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Situational judgment tests (SJTs) are typically conceptualized as contextualized selection procedures that capture candidate responses to a set of relevant job situations as a basis for prediction. SJTs share their sample-based and contextualized approach with work samples and assessment center exercises, although they differ from these other simulations by presenting the situations in a low-fidelity (e.g., written) format. In addition, SJTs do not require candidates to respond through actual behavior because they capture candidates' situational judgment via a multiple-choice response format. Accordingly, SJTs have also been labeled low-fidelity simulations. This SJT paradigm has been very successful: In the last 2 …

Ceo Overconfidence And Management Forecasting, Paul Hribar, Holly I. Yang

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

This paper examines how overconfidence affects the properties of management forecasts. Using both the ‘over‐optimism’ and ‘miscalibration’ effects of overconfidence to generate our predictions, we examine three research questions. First, we examine whether overconfidence increases the likelihood of issuing a forecast. Second, we examine whether overconfidence increases the amount of optimism in management forecasts. Third, we examine whether overconfidence increases the specificity and precision of the forecast. We use both options‐ and press‐based measures to proxy for individual overconfidence, and find support for all three research questions. We further find that the results are concentrated among firms that provide forecasts …

Female Board Representation And Corporate Acquisition Intensity, Guoli Chen, Craig Crossland, Sterling Huang

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

This study examines the impact of female board representation on firm-level strategic behavior within the domain of mergers and acquisitions (M&A). We build on social identity theory to predict that greater female representation on a firm's board will be negatively associated with both the number of acquisitions the firm engages in and, conditional on doing a deal, acquisition size. Using a comprehensive, multi-year sample of U.S. public firms, we find strong support for our hypotheses. We demonstrate the robustness of our findings through the use of a difference-in-differences analysis on a sub-sample of firms that experienced exogenous changes in board …