Erik R. Eddy

What's in a Name? A Literature-Based Approach to Understanding Mentoring, Coaching, and Other Constructs That Describe Developmental Interactions

Employee development can take a variety of forms including “developmental interactions” such as coaching, mentoring, apprenticeship, and action learning. The broad literature on approaches to development lacks agreement on what these constructs represent. Rather than impose new construct definitions on the field, the current research addressed the need for construct clarification using existing descriptions of common developmental interactions to create a snapshot of the developmental interaction literature. A qualitative, literature-based approach developed a nomological network of 13 common developmental interaction constructs. A total of 227 construct descriptions were extracted from 182 sources. These were systematically analyzed for the characteristics that help explain construct meanings. A model (i.e., nomological network) was developed to summarize the current understanding of developmental interaction constructs. Analysis of this model provides better understanding of the current state of the literature, identifies gaps in the literature, and informs and directs future research on developmental interaction constructs.

The importance of personal and professional leadership

Organizational viability depends in part on effective leadership. Effective leaders engage in both professional leadership behaviors (e.g. setting a mission, creating a process for achieving goals, aligning processes and procedures) and personal leadership behaviors (e.g. building trust, caring for people, acting morally). A model of professional and personal leaderships impact on willing cooperation was developed and tested. Respondents provided perceptions of the leadership of their organizations and reported the extent to which they willingly cooperate with their organizations leadership. Perceptions of “organizational” leadership as opposed to individual leaders were measured. The direct effects of personal and professional leadership on willing cooperation were examined. Personal leadership was also examined as a mediator of professional leaderships impact on willing cooperation. Results revealed support for a mediated model. Specifically, professional leadership was related to the presence of willing cooperation (β=0.44) and personal leadership was related to the presence of willing cooperation (β=0.71). Finally, following a strategy developed by Baron and Kenny, personal leadership was shown to be a mediator of the relationship between professional leadership and the presence of willing cooperation. Limitations as well as research and practical implications are discussed.

Mentoring as a learning tool: enhancing the effectiveness of an undergraduate business mentoring program

Mentoring can be used as a pedagogical alternative both to extend and augment the educational experience of business students. This article addresses a gap in the literature regarding the use and effectiveness of mentoring in undergraduate business education by examining improvements to an existing mentoring program. After reviewing the mentoring literature and identifying four critical elements for program success (matching, preparation, interaction and outcome assessment), the researchers used a cohort design and developed a survey to assess baseline participant satisfaction with these elements. Interventions were developed to enhance the mentoring program, and a second cohort allowed the authors to assess the benefits of these interventions. With statistically significant improvements in two out of four program elements (and a third showing marginally significant differences), the results demonstrate that the authors’ approach to evaluating and enhancing mentoring program effectiveness is useful in business education.

The Impact of National Culture on the Continuous Learning Environment

Abstract Companies spend billions of dollars on formalized training, and other less formal methods of learning are perhaps even more pervasive. For these expenditures to be fruitful, organizations must ensure that their employees continually learn from an appropriate mix of sourcestraining and otherwise-and that the work environment encourages the acquisition and application of new skills and ideas. This exploratory research examined the continuous learning environment in four countries: United States, Japan, Korea, and China. The goals of this research were to (1) examine whether a continuous learning environment survey developed in the United States would translate well into other languages, and (2) gather initial data on the patterns of factors that influence continuous learning in these countries. Results suggest that the importance of learning, the sources of learning, and the conditions under which continuous learning is enhanced differ among countries. Implications for future research are presented.

Explaining engagement in personal activities on company time

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore rationalizations individuals provide for engaging in personal activities on company time.Design/methodology/approach – Data were collected from 121 survey respondents working in a variety of organizations and backgrounds. Respondents provided information on the number of times they engage in various personal activities while at work, the amount of time engaged in these activities, and their rationalizations for performing personal activities during work hours.Findings – Results suggest that employees spend nearly five hours in a typical workweek engaged in personal activities. More than 90 per cent of this time is spent using the internet, email, phone, or conversing with co‐workers. Employees use a variety of rationalizations for such behavior, but only two rationalizations (i.e. boredom and convenience) were statistically reliable predictors of the extent to which they engaged in personal activities on company time.Practical implications – The current re...

The relationship between enduring leadership and organizational performance

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to replicate previous findings exploring the mediating effect of personal leadership on professional leadership and intentions to cooperate, and to extend the model by examining organizational performance. Design/methodology/approach – Employees from two school districts (one high performing, the other low performing) in New York State completed a survey designed to gather their perceptions of study variables. Findings – Professional and personal leadership are positively related to employee intentions to cooperate, personal leadership mediates the effect of professional leadership on employee intentions to cooperate, and employees in the high-performing organization rated all study variables higher than employees in the low-performing organization. Research limitations/implications – Limitations include predictor and outcome data both collected from the same respondents and all measures collected via survey. Both of these issues raise concerns with regards to common...

Personal and professional leadership in a government agency

Purpose – The aim of this paper is to replicate previous research findings, exploring the mediating effect of personal leadership on professional leadership and willing cooperation, and to extend the leadership model to include job satisfaction and organizational commitment.Design/methodology/approach – Employees from a government agency located in Western New York State completed a survey designed to gather their perceptions of study variables.Findings – Professional and personal leadership are positively related to all three outcomes and personal leadership mediates the effect of professional leadership on all three outcomes.Research limitations/implications – Limitations include predictor and outcome data both collected from the same respondents and all measures collected via survey. Both of these issues raise concerns with regards to common method bias. Actual performance data were not measured. Future research should examine the impact of leadership behaviors on organization outcomes.Practical implic...

The importance of team task analysis for team human resource management

Recent reports suggest that the use of teams in organizations is increasing (Guzzo & Shea, 1992). In fact, many organizations are moving towards team-based approaches, where teams become the centerpiece of organizational structure. As a result of this emphasis on teamwork, it is becoming increasingly important for organizations to become skilled at identifying the task and skill requirements, as well as the cognitive demands of teams and team members. Effective identification of necessary team characteristics can inform several human resource management challenges for teams, including, team design, team training, rewards for team performance, team member selection, and the diagnosis and promotion of team effectiveness. This paper suggests that one way to increase our understanding of teams is through the use of team task analysis (TTA). TTA is a process of analyzing and describing the tasks of teams and the jobs of team members and can be used to identify the knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs), and attitude requirements relevant to team performance. Despite the obvious importance of TTA, reviews of the literature (Baker, Salas & Cannon-Bowers, 1998; Levine, Penner, Brannick, Coovert & Llobert, 1988) have found very little systematic work on the topic. Further, an examination of traditional job analysis sources (e.g. Gael, 1983; Gael, 1988; Harvey, 1992) revealed twelve pages devoted to TTA (Dieterly, 1988). Based on the apparent lack of attention given to TTA, one purpose of this paper is to update previous work on TTA, by reviewing and integrating the existing literature. Another purpose of this paper is to offer researchers a foundation for additional theoretical work. Finally, we hope to contribute towards a framework, and/or tool, to aid practitioners in the delivery of human resource management services to teams. In our review, we provide a comparison of individual task analysis vs. TTA and provide key points of departure between the two concepts. Additionally, a summary of TTA is provided as well as warnings to practitioners and researchers based on previous research and theorizing regarding the aggregation of data (e.g. Bowers, Baker & Salas, 1994; Brenner, Sheehan, Arthur & Bennett, 1998; Kenny & LaVoie, 1985; Klein, Dansereau & Hall, 1994; Rousseau, 1985). In particular, our warnings focus on the potential dangers associated with aggregating individual level information (e.g. individual job analysis data) to higher (e.g. team) levels. Next, methods that have been used to collect TTA information are reviewed and classified. Then, the type of information gathered, such as, team competencies/skills (e.g. Cannon-Bowers, Tannenbaum, Salas & Volpe, 1995; Stevens & Campion, 1994), job characteristics (e.g. Campion, Medsker & Higgs, 1993; Campion, Papper & Medsker, 1996), and cognitive information (e.g. Brenner et al., 1998; Klein, 1993) are reviewed and categorized. Additionally, comparisons of individual cognitive task analysis (i.e. the mental processes needed to accomplish an individual task) and cognitive TTA (i.e. the integrative team mental processes needed to accomplish a team task) are provided. We conclude with a presentation of criteria for evaluating TTA methodologies and a series of suggestions to guide both practitioners and researchers regarding future work in TTA. Our emphasis is on explaining the value of TTA and what it means to the reader, regardless of his/her occupation (e.g. practitioner or researcher).

Expanding the Training Evaluation Criterion Space: Cross Aircraft Convergence and Lessons Learned from Evaluation of the Air Force Mission Ready Technician Program

This study reports the analyses of data collected from an evaluation effort for 2 Mission Ready Technician (MRT) training programs for C-141 transport and F-16 fighter aircraft crew chiefs. We obtained ratings from over 100 trainees in each program, as well as from their trainers and supervisors, both during training and in the field via survey. The goal of this research was to explore the criterion space set up for this evaluation. Whereas past evaluation research has explored task difficulty, frequency, and importance, this research explores an expanded criterion space, including task confidence, task performance, task difficulty, and task frequency. Descriptive statistics, predictive regressions, and exploratory factor analyses are reported. We conclude that the data show a similar factor structure for both aircraft and that MRT frequency of task performance and confidence ratings are highly predictive of field performance. A major implication is that one way to optimize the effectiveness of training is to emphasize the development of trainee confidence at a relatively micro level, such as the task level.