Erin E. Makarius

Personality Retesting for Managing Intentional Distortion

Self-report personality questionnaires often contain validity scales designed to flag individuals who intentionally distort their responses toward a more favorable characterization of themselves. Yet, there are no clear directives on how scores on these scales should be used by administrators when making high-stakes decisions about respondents. Two studies were conducted to investigate whether administrator-initiated retesting of flagged individuals represents a viable response to managing intentional distortion on personality questionnaires. We explored the effectiveness of retesting by considering whether retest responses are more accurate representations of a flagged individuals personality characteristics. A comparison of retest scores to a baseline measure of personality indicated that such scores were more accurate. Retesting should only work as a strategy for dealing with intentional distortion when individuals choose to respond more accurately the second time. Thus, we further explored the emotional reaction to being asked to retest as one possible explanation of why individuals who engage in intentional distortion respond more accurately upon retest.

Edutainment: Using Technology to Enhance the Management Learner Experience.

Edutainment, while seemingly a new and trending idea, is quite simply the combination of education and entertainment, or improving learning by making it more engaging. What began as a way to teach ...

Tether or Stepping Stone? The Relationship between Perceived External Reputation and Collective Voluntary Turnover Rates

Signaling theory suggests that resources such as firm reputation can send multiple signals that create dual pressures on stakeholders. These tensions are apparent when examining the relationship between a firm’s reputation and the collective voluntary turnover rates it experiences. On the one hand, a favorable reputation may tether employees to the firm due to the perceived desirability of working for a reputable company, resulting in lower voluntary turnover rates. On the other hand, a favorable reputation may make employees believe they are more marketable and thus may serve as a stepping stone relating to higher voluntary turnover rates. The purpose of this study is to investigate whether and when reputation acts as a signal of desirability or a signal of ease of movement in predicting collective voluntary turnover rates. We find some evidence for an overall tethering effect for more reputable firms. In addition, our findings demonstrate that reputation is more likely to result in stepping stone effects in certain signaling environments including when firms are in more munificent industries, are younger, and have higher pay levels. Tethering effects are observed when firms are in less munificent industries, are older, and have lower pay levels.

Choosing the Company You Keep: Racial Relational Demography Outside and Inside of Work

Individuals can differ on demographic characteristics, such as race, from those with whom they interact. This relational demography can lead to poor affiliative outcomes at work when individuals are assigned to work together. However, relationships between dissimilar individuals that occur by choice and develop naturally over time may be of higher quality than those that occur due to structural causes, such as being put together in a work group. In this study, we focus on racial dissimilarity in choice relationships both outside and inside of work and find that greater racial heterogeneity in choice relationships outside of work is related to positive affiliative outcomes at work, such as trust in supervisor and extra-role behaviors, through its effects on relationships inside of the workplace. This has implications for the research on choice and relational demography in organizations, suggesting that relational demography that is a function of choice has benefits for affiliative outcomes at work and that relational demography that is a function of assignment or structure does not. This also contributes to the literature on boundary spanning suggesting that ones pattern of relational demography of relationships outside of the workplace can spillover and relate to the relationships one develops inside the workplace.

Drivers of Collective Human Capital Flow: The Impact of Reputation and Labor Market Conditions

An emerging body of research examines collective human capital flow via context-emergent turnover (CET) theory, which builds on resource-based theory and the literature on human capital. CET theory indicates that collective human capital flow—or employee movement into and out of organizations—is of growing significance to scholars and practitioners given the effects that it has on important organizational outcomes. Yet, a better understanding of what drives systematic variance in collective outflows and inflows is needed so that employers can strategize and plan ways to manage human capital flow. We use CET theory to highlight the role of a firm’s reputation as an antecedent to human capital flow. Moreover, because CET theory emphasizes the significance of context, we consider how labor market conditions change the nature of these relationships. We predict and find that a positive reputation helps employers reduce several types of collective human capital flow, yet more reputable employers are better able to do so in slack, rather than tight, labor markets. These results shed light on the importance of context on collective human capital flow and indicate the potential of CET theory to understand not only the consequences but also the drivers of collective movement in and out of organizations.