Jeffery S. Schippmann

A Meta-Analytic Review of Predictors of Job Performance for Salespeople

This meta-analysis evaluated predictors of both objective and subjective sales performance. Biodata measures and sales ability inventories were good predictors of the ratings criterion, with corrected rs of .52 and .45, respectively. Potency (a subdimension of the Big 5 personality dimension Extraversion) predicted supervisor ratings of performance (r = .28) and objective measures of sales (r = .26). Achievement (a component of the Conscientiousness dimension) predicted ratings (r = .25) and objective sales (r = .41). General cognitive ability showed a correlation of.40 with ratings but only .04 with objective sales. Similarly, age predicted ratings (r = .26) but not objective sales (r = -.06). On the basis of a small number of studies, interest appears to be a promising predictor of sales success.

Meta-analyzing the relationship between grades and job performance.

Employers and academics have differing views on the value of grades for predicting job performance. Employers often believe grades are useful predictors, and they make hiring decisions that are based on them. Many academics believe that grades have little predictive validity. Past meta-analyses of the grades-performance relationship have suffered either from small sample sizes or the inability to correct observed correlations for research artifacts. This study demonstrated the observed correlation between grades and job performance was.16. Correction for research artifacts increased the correlation to the.30s. Several factors were found to moderate the relationship. The most powerful factors were the year of research publication and the time between graduation and performance measurement.

An assessment of the contributions of general mental ability and personality characteristics to management success.

This study investigated the relationship of general mental ability and a select set of personality characteristics to a constructed criterion of management success which reflected relative rate of career progress. Data were collected in the context of an operational individual assessment program from a total of 296 persons in nonmanagement up through top management positions in a variety of service and manufacturing organizations. Primary (n=148) and hold-out (n=148) samples were identified and a stepwise multiple regression analysis was performed on the primary sample. Cross-validation indicated that a two-variable linear composite accounted for 20.9% of the variance in the dependent variable.

The content of management work: Formation of task and job skill composite classifications

The purpose of this study was to evaluate and integrate classifications of managerial tasks and job skills based on results of job analysis surveys using the questionnaire approach. Twenty-one studies which focused on the task composition of managerial jobs and 10 studies which focused of the job skill content of management work were obtained for analysis and evaluation. A qualitative analysis was then performed to group representative task and job skill content into homogeneous dimensions based on judged similarity. The resulting 21 dimension task and and 22 dimension job skill classifications were evaluated in terms of internal consistency using the kappa statistic (Fleiss, Nee, & Landis, 1979) and with reference to a standard or “correct solution” using the statisticG (Light, 1971). In both cases (task and job skill classifications), a sample of industrial psychologists (n=10) and a sample of business managers (n=10) demonstrated overall group agreement and agreement with the “correct” solution in their assignment of representative descriptors to the classification solutions. The resulting classifications constitute a composite description of management jobs in terms of task composition and job skill requirements. The results are compared to previous findings and the applications to major areas of human resource management are discussed.

WORK ROLES AND TRAINING NEEDS FOR THE PRACTICE OF INDUSTRIAL- ORGANIZATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY AT THE MASTERS AND PHD LEVEL

This article presents a description of the procedures used for obtaining detailed task information about the work roles of individuals who practice industrial-organizational psychology at the Masters and PhD-level. The results provide a classification of job content and a classification of job types. In addition, the results indicate that, while there is a substantial amount of overlap in the kinds of work activities performed by individuals with Mastersvs PhD degrees, there are also a number of mutually exclusive job classifications and job duties. The usefulness of information in this format for training and evaluation decisions is discussed, as are the specific implications of these results for graduate training in industrial and organizational psychology.

An alternative procedure for analyzing job analysis results for content-oriented test development

Content-oriented test development requires information derived from a comprehensive job analysis. The job data typically consist of task and skill statements identified by subject matter experts. These statements characterize a target job and are then used to develop the test plan and item budget. The predominant practice for combining data from the task and job skill domains to facilitate preparation of a test plan and item budget is an impressionistic approach. This study reports variations and extensions of an alternative quantitative procedure for linking task and job skill data (Hughes & Prien, 1989) using results obtained in field studies. The results indicate that the procedure reported by Hughes and Prien (1989) yields consistent results. Also, modifications to the procedure result in more detailed solutions.