Knowledge that Transforms

101 incumbents of 25 service jobs rated their respective tasks on relative time spent, difficulty of learning, criticality, and overall importance. Although scale convergence varied as a function of job title, task criticality and importance ratings were similar and presented low to moderate levels of convergence with both time-spent and difficulty-of-learning ratings. Different composites of task importance were compared. All composites and the overall judgments of importance wer moderately correlated with each other and showed similar levels of interrater agreement. Several conclusions regarding the choice of scales and the use of composites in task analysis are drawn

Final offer salary arbitration in major league baseball offers a unique institutional arrangement that creates a naturally occurring non-equivalent groups repeated measure research design. The structural arrangements allow for examination of anticipatory expectancy effects and for assessment of behavioral responses consistent with equity theory predictions. Additionally, equity theory can be tested without the methodological problems inherent in defining the referent other. Performance and mobility were examined for major league baseball position players who won and lost their arbitration hearings. Pre-arbitration performance was found to significantly predict arbitration outcome. Despite similar patterns of post-arbitration performance between winners and losers, a significant relationship was noted between losing arbitration and postarbitration performance declines. Analyses also suggested that losers were also significantly more likely to change teams and leave major league baseball. The causality of the relationship between performance and arbitration outcome is discussed along with expectancy and equity effects as they relate to performance and mobility following the arbitration intervention.

The standard design used in research on assimilation and contrast effects in performance appraisal suffers from methodological flaws that preclude unambiguous interpretation of experimental results. The standard design is compared with two other designs that provide more appropriate tests of context effects. Analyses of the alternative designs revealed problems with the positive context manipulation, assimilation effects in the positive context, contrast effects in the negative context, and pretest effects.

This article compares the accuracy of several formulas for the standard error of the mean uncorrected correlation in meta-analytic and validity generalization studies. The effect of computing the mean correlation by weighting the correlation in each study by its sample size is also studied. On the basis of formal analysis and simulation studies, it is concluded that the common formula for the sampling variance of the mean correlation, V r =V/ r /K where K is the number of studies in the meta-analysis, gives reasonably accurate results. This formula gives accurate results even when sample sizes and ps are unequal and regardless of whether or not the statistical artifacts vary from study to study. It is also shown that using sample-size weighting may result in underestimation of the standard error of the mean uncorrected correlation when there are outlier sample sizes

Utility analysis suggests that human resources policies can have an economically significant impact on business organizations. Confidence in such conclusions, however, requires an accurate estimate of SD y . This article provides a validity check on prevailing subjective methods of SD y estimation by directly estimating SD y from unique field data. Using both simulated and field data, we first illustrate the range of potential bias associated with predictor unreliability in regression analysis and show how to calculate corrected values. We then discuss the methodological problems of directly estimating SD y with organizational data and provide a range of estimates for SD y . Our direct estimation of SD y yielded values ranging from 74% to 100% of mean salary, which are considerably greater than conventional subjective judgments

Previous research and anecdotal reports have suggested that when certain teaching approaches are used, students not only learn more but also experience greater satisfaction with the training process. This study examined the effects of integrative-learning-based (IL) training in relation to lecture-based training. Employees enrolled in a 3-day manufacturing resource planning training course were randomly assigned to either IL or traditional training. Subjects reacted more favorably to IL-based training. Trained subjects performed significantly better than those in a no-treatment control group, but no differences were noted between training interventions.

The effects of awareness of crime-relevant information on the detection of deception with the Guilty Knowledge Test were examined. Student subjects were assigned to 1 of 3 groups: a guilty group, members of which commited a mock crime; an innocent group aware of details about the crime; or an innocent group unaware of such information. After following instructions, subjects were tested on the polygraph with a 10-item Guilty Knowledge Test and were offered $20.00 for an innocent test outcome. Skin resistance responses scores of guilty subjects lying about crime-relevant information were higher than the scores of innocent informed subjects, whose scores in turn were higher than those of innocent unaware subjects.