D. Brent Smith

Is Everyone in Agreement? An Exploration of Within-Group Agreement in Employee Perceptions of the Work Environment

Multilevel researchers often gather individual-level data to measure group-level constructs. Within-group agreement is a key consideration in the measurement of such constructs, yet antecedents of within-group agreement have been little studied. The authors found that group member social interaction and work interdependence were significantly positively related to within-group agreement regarding perceptions of the work environment. Demographic heterogeneity was not significantly related to within-group agreement. Survey wording showed a complex relationship to agreement. Both evaluative items and socially undesirable items generated high within-group agreement. The use of a group rather than individual referent increased within-group agreement in response to descriptive items but decreased within-group agreement in response to evaluative items. Items with a group referent showed greater between-group variability than items with an individual referent.

Which Comes First: Employee Attitudes or Organizational Financial and Market Performance?

Employee attitude data from 35 companies over 8 years were analyzed at the organizational level of analysis against financial (return on assets; ROA) and market performance (earnings per share: EPS) data using lagged analyses permitting exploration of priority in likely causal ordering. Analyses revealed statistically significant and stable relationships across various time lags for 3 of 7 scales. Overall Job Satisfaction and Satisfaction With Security were predicted by ROA and EPS more strongly than the reverse (although some of the reverse relationships were also significant); Satisfaction With Pay suggested a more reciprocal relationship with ROA and EPS. The discussion of results provides a preliminary framework for understanding issues surrounding employee attitudes, high-performance work practices, and organizational financial and market performance.

Personnel selection and the five-factor model: Reexamining the effects of applicant's frame of reference

Recently, 2 separate yet related criticisms have been levied against the adequacy of the five-factor model (or Big Five) as a descriptive taxonomy of job applicant personality: frame of reference effects (M. J. Schmit & A. M. Ryan, 1993) and socially desirable responding (A. F. Snell & M. A. McDaniel, 1998). Of interest, although both criticisms suggest that the five-factor model is inadequate, the frame of reference effects criticism suggests that the factor structure should be more complex, whereas socially desirable responding suggests that it should be less complex in job applicant contexts. The current research reports the results of a new study demonstrating the adequacy of the five-factor model as a descriptor of job applicant, job incumbent, and student personality. Implications for personality assessment and concurrent validation designs using personality measures are also discussed.

Bounding the Concept of Test Banding: Reaffirming the Traditional Approach

Recently, Aguinis, Cortina, and Goldberg (1998) questioned the logic underlying the traditional Cascio, Outtz, Zedeck, and Goldstein (1991) method of developing test bands. In this article, we examine their criticisms and argue that the traditional banding approach is not flawed. We discuss the logic underlying the traditional test band methodology and show that it is consistent with conceptual models of the validation process as used by personnel psychologists. We also examine the alternative banding procedure suggested by Aguinis et al. and identify several problems with this procedure.