Roland Simons

Collaborative climate and effectiveness of knowledge work – an empirical study

Suggests that collaborative climate is one of the major factors influencing effectiveness of knowledge work. Discusses the concept of collaborative climate and develops a survey instrument to measure it. Presents results based on data from 8,277 respondents in a wide variety of public and private sector organisations. Collaborative climate tends to improve with age, education level and managerial role. It is generally better in private firms, and seems to peak with mid‐size firm level. Employees tend to experience a U‐formed appreciation of the collaborative climate. Theories proposing that people reach a “professional plateau” (an S‐formed curve) have been supported to some degree. Finally, collaborative climate in the private sector is generally better than in the public sector. Uses the data to identify gaps and potentials for improving effectiveness. Further investigates two cases of good and bad practice and identifies strengths and weaknesses.

Promoting Family: A Contingency Model of Family Business Succession

Succession is a challenge to family businesses for a number of reasons, including the need to address the issue of intergenerational handover. This article focuses on one aspect of succession in family business by investigating when family members are preferred as successors. Results from 860 family businesses indicate that specific (tacit) knowledge characteristics combined with a favorable transaction atmosphere, in certain contexts, make a family member the most suitable successor. A conceptual model is presented that outlines when inside-family succession is preferred.

Hand-scoring error rates in psychological testing.

Despite the comprehensive treatment of test validity in most technical manuals, test authors appear to routinely assume that clients and professionals will score their instruments without error. Recently Allard and Faust challenged this assumption by suggesting that error rates “may not be rare or benign” and demonstrated that tests with more complex scoring procedures were associated with a greater number of scoring errors. This study investigated error rates that resulted from hand scoring seven psychometric tests commonly employed in psychological practice. Significant and serious error rates were identified for both psychologist and client scorers across all tests investigated. Scoring complexity was found to predict the base rate of scorer errors. The findings suggest that greater development in and attention to test-scoring procedures is required to restrict the likelihood of scorer error.

Measuring vocational interests: a call for multi‐sample norms

Increasing trends toward casualization of the workforce and job mobility have increased the need for delivery of targeted career counselling relevant to the specific needs of individuals but have not been matched by refinements to vocational interest instruments, which have largely remained focussed on student‐based norms. By investigating the interests and factor structure of the Vocational Interest Survey for Australia (VISA), this study has replicated earlier findings that the unemployed appear to respond with higher mean interest levels on the VISA in comparison to the instrument’s normative sample of secondary students. In comparison to an earlier study of unemployed white‐collar workers, the present study suggests that unemployed managers are able to discriminate between more dimensions of vocational interests than their non‐managerial counterparts. This observation is interpreted as support for a call to investigate the need for multi‐sample norming for vocational interest instruments.

The vocational interest survey for Australia: Its use with unemployed individuals

Arising from the growing need for a comprehensive career-guidance service for adults, and in particular for unemployed people in Australia, this study reports results that can be interpreted as generally supporting the use of the VISA with the unemployed. Additionally, the factor analyses, particularly the higher order factor analysis, raised questions about the utility of the eight VISA subscales and suggested that a two-factor solution of the VISA data might be more practical for practitioners providing vocational counselling to the unemployed. Descriptive statistics for the unemployed Australian population suggest that if a two-factor solution is used to Interpret the data, then the unemployed are significantly more likely to nominate their interests toward the things pole of a people–things dimension than Australian secondary school students. The study begins to address the dearth of research in the area of career guidance for the unemployed.

Psychologist hand‐scoring error rates on the Rothwell – Miller Interest Blank: A comparison of three job allocation systems

Hand scoring errors are known to occur on a range of psychological tests. The present study conducts an investigation into the existence of scoring errors by 27 professional occupational psychologists using the Rothwell-Miller Interest Blank (RMIB; Miller, Tyler & Rothwell, 1994). Building on investigations into the impact of work allocation practices on work quality in other professions, this study explored whether psychologist scoring error rates differed between three work allocation systems. Data from 1175 completed RMIB survey forms indicated error rates for the three systems ranged from five to 16.3 percent, with the self-managed work allocation system resulting in the lowest error rate. The discussion focuses on possible ways for psychologists to overcome scoring error rates with the RMIB and the potential implications these results have for allocating case work to psychologists. Suggestions for test developers and organisations designing work allocation systems are proffered.

Predicting B2C start-up survival after two years: the wisdom of traditional conceptions

The present study sought to use new proxies for traditional notions of strategy and structure to predict survival prospects for a group of 300 e-business start-ups operating in the B2C retail environment. Results indicated that after two years less than 55 firms had survived. Using a longitudinal multi-method design, it was demonstrated that strategy and structure could be used to predict firm survival and performance. The results carry implications for the relevance of traditional concepts of business success.