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ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY

ARTICLE 1

Goffin, R. D., Rothstein, M. G., Rieder, M. J., Poole, A., Krajewski, H. T.,

Powell, D. M., Mestdagh, T. (2011). Choosing job-related personality

traits: Developing valid personality-oriented job analysis. Personality

and Individual Differences, 51(5), 646-651. Retrieved from

www.scopus.com

The current study was carried out by a multidisciplinary team of Canadian

researchers and was publicly funded. The aim was to develop a new empirically

tested Personality-Oriented Job Analysis (POJA) after literature research revealed

that only three peer-reviewed POJA articles have been published to date.

Goffin et al. (2011) found that Costa et al.’s article (1995) approached personality

requirements of jobs in a superficial, descriptive manner, and that Sumer et al.’s

(2001) research on application of factor analysis methodology was hard to interpret.

Although a more relevant article by Raymark et al. (1997) focused on a POJA

approach called Personality-Related Position Requirements Form (PPRF), Goffin et

al. (2011) found that it had validity weaknesses which the authors aimed to solve by

carefully developing their construct definitions and by assuming a bidirectional

relationship between personality traits and job performance and so providing a

study with strong internal validity.

Participants in this within-subjects design study were medical students of both

sexes, but no reference is made to diversity issues like participants’ ethnicities,

nationalities or creed, relevant to the external validity of the research. The

methodology used was simple and based on fictional job rotations in which all

participants took part, with performance rated by I/O psychologists. Individual

differences of participants were controlled for as all incumbents took part in each

rotation. Given the shortness of rotations (six weeks), there was concern about

participants’ performance resembling the “transition” rather than the “maintenance”

phase of jobs where performance is maximal and personality-performance relations

are not as strong as during typical performance (Marcus et al., 2007).

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Goffin et al. (2011) concluded that their findings support their aims and that their

POJA validational results need comparison with traditional job analysis methods. It

would be interesting to see how this POJA complements KSAOs analysis and how

well POJA correlates with PPRF and Employee –Self Descriptive Index (ESDI).

Like cognitive task analysis (Vincente, 1999), POJA, PPRF and ESDI are new

trends in job analysis and, therefore, an open field for research.

Employers and / or I/O Psychologists could use this information as a model,

combining traditional job analysis techniques like observation and interviews

(especially of critical incidents) with the newer above described techniques to better

fit candidates with positions in the context of rapidly changing workplaces, which

aligns with what Goldstein and Ford (2002) suggested with their competency

modelling of job analysis.

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ARTICLE 2

Zysberg, L. (2012). Hope in personnel selection. International Journal of

Selection and Assessment, 20(1), 98-104. Retrieved from

www.scopus.com

Dr Leehu Zysberg, an I/O Psychology professor and researcher at the Tel Hai

College in Galilee (Israel), designed this cross-sectional study to find support for his

hypothesis based on the works by Cascio (1991) and Dubrin (2004) that hope is

associated with personnel selection process success and that this is mediated by

coping. The author’s sample had the strength of consisting of over one hundred

real-life candidates of both sexes and with similar qualifications applying for a real

job. Candidates filled out a demographic questionnaire, which was followed by

Snyder et al.’s Hope Scale (1991), a Hebrew version of Carver, Scheier, and

Weintraub’s COPE questionnaire (1989), and randomly administered other tests of

personality, general mental ability, personal interviews and a group simulation task.

Although Zysberg (2012) used well researched and validated measures which

certainly enhanced the internal validity of the study, external validity is limited given

the differential characteristics of the majority Hebrew population in Israel, an

individualist, masculine, low-power distance culture, when compared with

individualist, feminine and/or high power distance cultures in keeping with

Hofstede’s theory of cultural differences (1984). Aligning with Triandis’ (1995)

variation of Hofstede’s theory, the minority Israeli Kibbutz candidates, a collectivist

horizontal culture, could be compared with vertical ones like the other, majority,

Israeli candidates, and with the similar Chinese or the Greek cultures for further

external validity purposes.

Findings in this study support the author’s hypothesis that hope mediated by an

action/problem-solving coping style influences candidates’ selection outcomes, but

only partially, as a surprising result arose indicating that hope and coping may have

their own indirect ways of affecting selectors’ decision making, meaning that

personnel selection biases and external influences may be confounds not taken into

account in this research, warranting further study.

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Should further research support the key findings of this study, the author suggests

that hope could be considered for inclusion in personality assessment protocols for

personnel selection and even for training purposes. Furthermore, how hope may

influence candidates’ selection processes could lead to the implementation of

changes in selection batteries and performance assessments. Issues not

considered by the author with regard to personnel selection include failure to take

into account other key stakeholders in staffing decisions, like managers and co-

workers. However, as already mentioned, selector bias was a concern of the

researcher’s. Nyfield and Baron’s theory on fairness in staffing decisions (2000)

considers Zysberg’s selection methods and includes post-screening techniques like

reference checking and actuarial approaches to decision making which, despite

being commonplace in the context of selection processes, were not taken into

account in this study and, therefore, their influence could not be established.

Further research building on this very recent, current study should cover these

deficiencies with the aim to shed light to understanding the factors involved in the

delicate and complex process of personnel selection.

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ARTICLE 3

Yan, M., Peng, K. Z., & Francesco, A. (2011). The differential effects of job

design on knowledge workers and manual workers: A quasi-

experimental field study in China. Human Resource Management, 50(3),

407-424. doi:10.1002/hrm.20428

This innovative, longitudinal, quasi-experimental field study done in China aimed to

show for the first time in published literature that the strong current trend (Bartlett,

2007; Hartmann, 2006) among human resource managers and I/O psychologists of

universal job enrichment (Patten, 1977) to enhance job satisfaction and

performance applies only to knowledge workers (KW) but not to manual workers

(MW), with Taylorism (Taylor, 1947) being the most efficient job design for MW, and

that, therefore, KW and MW should be treated differently with respect to job design.

The authors, based on an extensive literature research (Kuipers & Stoker, 2009;

Mohr & Zogi, 2006; Kelly, 1982; Patten, 1977; Taylor, 1947) claim that job

enrichment designs involve participation in managerial decisions regarding goal

settings for high performers, with great autonomy, who view challenge

accomplishment as job satisfaction, as is the case of KW. On the other hand, MW

who have limited knowledge and skills, challenging goals represent a burden in

their workload resulting in increased effort, stress and reduced job satisfaction and

performance.

Yan, Peng, and Francesco (2011) designed a 3-phase, well-controlled between-

groups study with detailed discussion about how internal validity threats were

identified and held constant, like the maturation threat or the t-test evaluation that

showed that no significant different were found in sex, age or organizational tenure

in the four groups, i.e.: KW and MW in the control and treatment groups. The first

phase established a baseline of enrichment equivalence in the four groups. Job

enrichment was measured using the Job Diagnostic Survey (JDS) developed by

Hackman and Oldham (1974). The second, 4-week, phase was task performance

including questionnaires of job enrichment (manipulation or independent variable)

and satisfaction. Job satisfaction was measured using a short version of the

Michigan Organizational Assessment Questionnaire (Seashore, Lawler, Mirvis, &

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Cammann, 1982). During the third and final phase which lasted six months 10

supervisors rated workers performance using an abbreviated form of Van Dyne and

LePine’s (1998) task performance scale.

The statistical analysis design, a 2x2x2 repeated-measures ANOVA, showed

significant between-participant Work Type x Condition interaction of satisfaction and

performance scores, revealing positive effects of job enrichment on KW and

negative effects on MW. Constant levels over time for the two variables in the

control groups allowed the researchers to reject the “reverse causality” hypothesis

that perceptions of enrichment are the result and not the cause of positive job

satisfaction and performance (Yan et al., 2011).

Although the authors do a good job at showing the relationship worker type-

redesign strategy, they failed to take into account worker’s attributes like personality

type, motivation, and emotion. Similarly, job performance was done using a

judgemental method when an objective, quantitative method like sales volumes or

output may have offered additional value to the study, which is consistent with

Malos’ (1998) theory about performance appraisal procedures: they should be

objective, within control of the ratee, and related to specific and not global functions.

However, the Chinese is a collectivist culture, with high power distance, which

expects group evaluation being done from top-down and therefore Malos’ (1998)

Western theory does not apply here completely.

The practical implications of Yan et al.’s research for I/O Psychologists is that

Taylorism and job enrichment theories are not mutually exclusive, they just should

not be applied universally to all employees, as MW prefer, and benefit the most

from, a Taylorist job design, and KW get the most out of an enriched one.

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ARTICLE 4

Onnismaa, J. (2008). Age, experience, and learning on the job: Crossing the

boundaries between training and workplace. Journal of Employment

Counseling, 45(2), 79-90. Retrieved from www.ebscohost.com

The aim of this case study was to reveal participants’ views about age, experience,

tacit knowledge and workplace counselling (Onnismaa, 2008) in the context of an

adult engineering apprenticeship programme for employees aged over 40 years in

Finland, with the objective of retaining experienced employees, improving their

competencies and therefore their profitability at a reasonable cost (Onnismaa,

2011). This approach is a win-win situation for employees, employers and society

as based on Warr’s (2007) theory of job loss: paid employment is related to positive

health outcomes of workers and is central to the functioning of societies. Onnismaa

(2011) challenges contemporary cultural older-individual objectification trends

stating that age is culturally determined and that in ever-aging societies with an

ever-increasing life expectancy, it makes sense to keep older, more experienced

employees doing profitable work at the same time as, they serve as more-

knowledgeable others or scaffolds allowing the learning to move along zones of

proximal development (ZPD), using Vygotsky’s (Berk, 2010) socio-cultural learning

theory in the context of older-to-younger adult knowledge transfer.

Based on Bandura’s learning theory (Berk, 2010), modelling or imitation of

observed behaviour in Onnismaa’s study lead to trainees’ skills mastering which in

turn enhanced their self-efficacy, confidence and overall performance. Onnismaa’s

study (2011), however, fails to identify how another key learning theory applied to

his participants, that is, how Skinner’s operant conditioning theory of rewards (Berk,

2010).

Findings in this case study showed a vertical and horizontal advancement of

expertise from trainee to specialist, regardless of age, and that the learning process

is multidirectional, from expert to trainee, from vertical to horizontal levels, where a

favourable environment and culture also play a key role. According to Hofstede’s

theory of cultural differences (1984) Finland is a feminine, individualistic, low-power

culture that favours knowledge transmission. External validity issues may arise if

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the results of this study were considered for application in masculine, collectivist,

high-power cultures, like the Chinese, whose nationals are a group of workers

becoming more and more representative in countries like Australia and New

Zealand, and whose cultural idiosyncrasy should be considered for practical

purposes in the context of Human Resource Management and I/O Psychology in

these latter countries, whose indigenous populations make organizational protocols

even more challenging if discrimination of any kind, be it adverse treatment or

impact, is to be avoided.

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ARTICLE 5

Boachie-Mensah, F. O., & Seidu, P. (2012). Employees' perception of

performance appraisal system: A case study. International Journal of

Business & Management, 7(2), 73-88. doi:10.5539/ijbm.v7n2p73

Boachie-Mensah and Seidu (2012) are Business professors in Tarodaki Polytechnic

School in Ghana. The authors set out to study employees’ perceptions of

performance appraisals (PA) and how to improve acceptance, reduce error rates

and enhance the whole PA system outcomes. The methodology used was a

descriptive survey design for data collection from 140 resident academic and

administrative workers. The semi-structured interview schedule used aimed to

reduce interviewer bias and increase consistency (Boachie-Mensah & Seidu, 2012).

Statistical data analysis was done using SPSS for its reliability.

The only demographic information provided about participants in this study is their

age range and education level. Ghana has a high religious mix population, with

traditionalists and Muslims being the majority. In this context, the authors may not

have considered women in their study, as it is “understood” that they do not

normally form part of higher education programmes, especially polytechnic ones.

However, they consider the effects of gender in the leader-subordinate relationship

in their study of PA, stating that female managers rate employees lower than

female employees without providing a reference for it (Boachie-Mensah & Seidu,

2012). This culturally determined and, therefore, possibly unintentional

discriminatory behaviour, is in itself a significant flaw of this study, one that, not

surprisingly, is not acknowledged by the authors.

Culture clearly influences PA (Hofstede, 1984): 360º evaluations apply to low-power

distance cultures, masculine cultures emphasize achievement not relationships,

and low uncertainty tolerance cultures are characterized by harsher evaluations, as

is the case here. In this context, the authors claim that PA is negatively perceived

by rates, as it is viewed as subjective, error-prone (specifically to similarity and halo

effect biases), non-participative and beyond the ratees’ control (Boachie-Mensah &

Seidu, 2012). However, PA is viewed as important by both raters and rates, and the

researchers make recommendations to improve the system that are standard

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procedure in developed countries, like objectivity, standardization of the PA tools

and process, formal communication of PA date and PA feedback, allow ratees to

review and comment PA tools and outcomes, include multiple raters handling

multiple sources of information, and properly train raters. Among those

considerations are not systems to detect and avoid discrimination, discrimination

understood not as differentiation but as segregation.

This otherwise commendable and well-written work by Boachie-Mensah and Seidu

(2012) raises concerns about the equality gap between developed and

underdeveloped countries, the pervasive effects of culture and tradition in third

world countries and the implications of all those factors in the Human Resource

Management and I/O Psychology context. Our Western theories of PA, like those of

Rotundo and Sackett ‘s (2004), Harvey’s (1991), or Landy and Farr’s (1980), simply

do not apply to all cultures.

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11 REFERENCE LIST

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