Past Job Research Articles

What is in Applicants' Minds When They Fill Out a Personality Test? Insights from a qualitative study

Many practitioners fear that applicants will fake if they are asked to fill out a personality test. Although this fear has inspired much research, it remains unknown what applicants think when they fill out a questionnaire. Thus, we conducted a qualitative interview study that was guided by grounded theory principles. We interviewed (a) real applicants directly after filling out a personality test; (b) real applicants who had filled out a personality test in their past job hunt; (c) hypothetical job applicants whom we asked to imagine being an applicant and to fill out a personality test; and (d) hypothetical applicants who had much experience with personality tests. Theoretical saturation was achieved after interviewing 23 people. A content analysis showed that much is going on in applicants' minds – that which is typically subsumed under the expression ‘faking’ actually consists of many facets. In particular, participants assumed that the interpretation of their responses could be based on (a) the consistency of their responses; (b) the endorsement of middle versus extreme answers; and (c) a certain profile, and these assumptions resulted in corresponding self‐presentation strategies. However, these strategies were not used by all participants. Some answered honestly, for different reasons ranging from honesty as a personality trait to the (false) belief that test administrators can catch fakers. All in all, this study questions whether measuring mean changes in classical faking studies captures all important facets.

The effects of objective career success on subsequent subjective career success

We use a sample of working adults (N=638) to explore the effects of past objective career success (mobility, promotions, and salary change) on current subjective success (human capital assessments by one's managers, core self evaluations, satisfaction with one's career) by gender, across an economic cycle (2004–2011), controlling for career stage. Results support a strong influence of past promotions, and less so for salary changes, on subjective career success. These effects were stronger for men and during the economic contraction, with managers being affected in their assessments based on the employees' past promotions. In contrast, past job mobility did not relate to subjective career success for either gender in periods of economic expansion or contraction. Evidence for an interactive perspective of career success whereby past objective success affects current subjective success is presented, as well as potential implications of the findings.

PerfXplain

While users today have access to many tools that assist in performing large scale data analysis tasks, understanding the performance characteristics of their parallel computations, such as MapReduce jobs, remains difficult. We present PerfXplain, a system that enables users to ask questions about the relative performances (i.e., runtimes) of pairs of MapReduce jobs. PerfXplain provides a new query language for articulating performance queries and an algorithm for generating explanations from a log of past MapReduce job executions. We formally define the notion of an explanation together with three metrics, relevance, precision, and generality, that measure explanation quality. We present the explanation-generation algorithm based on techniques related to decision-tree building. We evaluate the approach on a log of past executions on Amazon EC2, and show that our approach can generate quality explanations, outperforming two naïve explanation-generation methods.

Analogical foundation of the scope of organizational change

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to attempt to analyze how the distance of analogies used during the strategy formulation process is a critical driver used to explain the different scopes of implemented changes.Design/methodology/approachThis study was based on field research using primary data gathered from 70 firms by means of an 83‐item survey. The questions were carefully constructed and answered by top managers according to a four‐point scale. The three hypotheses were analyzed using multiple linear and quadratic regression analysis.FindingsThe study defines a new concept of analogy's distance. Firms implement incremental changes when top managers use either short‐ or long‐distance analogies within the strategic formulation process, whereas radical changes are implemented when top managers apply medium‐distance analogies.Research limitations/implicationsEven though the response rate was higher than recommended by specialists (21.5 percent), the sample was small, and also, more valid and reliable measures of different analogical distances and scopes of change are needed. The findings of this study allow us to make theoretical extensions to the cognitive theory of the strategy formulation process, strategic renewal theory, knowledge‐based view of the firm, storytelling theory of organizations, and the upper echelon theory.Practical implicationsScholars from various disciplines and practitioners agree that analogies are a useful tool for many organizational matters (i.e. design strategy, renewal strategy, conflict management, understanding complex environments, facilitating communications, creating the need for change, and so on). If the firm's upper managers are familiar with external business models, they may use those as analogies in order to obtain strategic recommendations and advice which can be used to design an effective strategy, understand complex management issues, create the need for change, exploit new opportunities to achieve competitive advantages, and so on. Thus, managers have an advantage when they have accumulated a wealth of knowledge about other business models along with life experiences that may come from their past job experiences, participation in development programs with case‐oriented methodology, and being part of business workshops and congress. This information could be used as analogies for undertaking organizational changes to meet daily challenges faced by the firm.Originality/valueThe current literature does not address the different distances of analogies and how they are related to the magnitude of organizational changes. This study emphasizes the importance of the type of analogy being used as a tool to build the firm's business model. The concept of analogical distance has not been discussed in management literature.

Historical Amnesia: The Humphrey-Hawkins Act, Full Employment and Employment as a Right

Economist William A. Darity has proposed a federal job guarantee with decent wages for all job seekers, an idea with deep, but largely forgotten, roots in US history. The article briefly explores some New Deal job-creation efforts and President Franklin Roosevelt's proposal for an Economic Bill of Rights. It then focuses on two major attempts to secure full employment through legislation. The Full Employment Bill of 1945 was defeated; the compromise, the Employment Act of 1946 did not have full employment as its goal. After years of struggle, a much-weakened Humphrey-Hawkins Full Employment and Balanced Growth Act of 1978 passed, but then was violated and virtually ignored. Full employment shifts power from capital to labor, so major opposition can be expected from efforts to obtain it. Proponents need more power and a strong movement, including at the grassroots level, pushing for jobs for all–not just jobs for me or my group. Publicizing the benefits of past job programs and reintroducing the idea of a decent-paying job as a right are suggested, as well as making decent jobs for all the center of economic policy. This requires a fundamental break with neoliberalism and reallocating political power away from big business and Wall Street toward middle and working-class people and the working- and non-working poor.

A Novel Approach for Load Balancing in Grid Computing

Computational grids are becoming increasingly vital in organizations with ever growing IT infrastructure and the need to increase the productivity of the computing infrastructure by ensuring optimal throughput for their computational jobs. Key to computational grids in the load balancer and job scheduler that is involved in decision making about when and which node to basically use to execute a job/task submitted to the grid. Most of the existing grids use a load function that evaluates the existing resources on the nodes, accesses the resource requirements of the task submitted and decide whether to withhold the job in the queue or schedule it on a node where the resources are available for the job. This decision making process becomes more challenging with jobs that are long duration, I/O intensive and resource requirements vary at different times during the task execution. Most current grid engines factor in the maximum requirement as stated at the time of job submission and are not good at analyzing the variation in resource requirements based on past history of the same job execution and use the information gathered in the decision making process. In this paper, we try to analyze how we can change the load balancing function to introduce more statistical analysis of history of past jobs in the scheduling decision process thereby ensuring we do not end up in trashing situations for I/O intensive jobs while at the same time utilize the available resources as efficiently as possible.

How to Stay Sane as a Dean or VP

How to Stay Sane as a Dean or VP

Sequential stochastic assignment under uncertainty: estimation and convergence

This paper generalizes the sequential stochastic assignment problem, involving the assignment of workers to sequentially arriving jobs, by introducing uncertainty into the job value distribution. Three estimators are presented that address various levels of uncertainty while simultaneously improving worker assignments. Specifically, each estimator is designed to utilize the unbiased and consistent properties of the sample mean to estimate the expected job value, while suppressing high variance effects during start-up. The key contribution is that closed-loop decision policies involving past job value observations can responsively adapt to changing environments and improve the overall reward resulting from pairing workers with jobs. Examples of applications that can benefit from these results include aviation passenger screening and the real estate market, as well as applications of the stochastic knapsack problem.

The character to lead: A closer look at character in leadership.

This study explored The Worthy Leadership Model’s (Thompson, Grahek, Phillips, & Fay, 2008) “Character to Lead” construct, which encompasses three factors (Personal Integrity and Ethics; Organizational Integrity and Courage; and Humility, Gratitude, and Forgiveness) and nine dimensions (personal integrity, ethics, openness, organizational integrity, courage, power, humility, gratitude, and forgiveness). This article reports the results of an empirical test of the model’s character construct using a behavioral measure of character in leadership. The measure (The Worthy Leadership Profile for Executives, WLPe) consisted of self-ratings by director and executive-level leaders (N 275) along with ratings of these leaders by their managers, direct reports, peers, and others (N 4,127 raters). Psychometric characteristics of the ratings are reported along with the relationship of ratings of character in leadership to selected personality variables. The article also examines the degree to which managers, peers, and direct reports perceived factors of character (as compared to factors of capacity and commitment) as being important to leaders’ roles and to the likelihood of future success and/or failure. Finally, the study explored the degree to which ratings on the character construct were related to employees’ perceptions of selected job-related outcomes (past job performance, failure to reach full potential, perceived support for the leadership efforts of others, and overall perceptions of worthy leadership).

A longitudinal investigation on the factors affecting newcomers' adjustment: evidence from Japanese organizations

Using the longitudinal survey data of newcomers working for Japanese firms, this study demonstrates that the socialization tactics used by Japanese firms were positively related to the degree of socialization of newcomers, which eventually correlated positively with the time-series differences in organizational commitment and achievement motivation from the first year (T1) to the second year (T2) of their organizational entry, and negatively with the longitudinal change in turnover intention from T1 to T2. In addition, the results show that the newcomers' attitudes toward their pre-entry job search efforts, as with their entry (T1), had a negative influence on the change in value commitment from T1 to T2, indicating that those who rated their past job search activities as successful tended, as of their entry into the organization, to diminish their level of acceptance of their organization's values over a year. Findings are used to discuss how firms can effectively manage their entry-level employees to facilitate their adjustment and retention.

A Key Ingredient to a Successful Career: Why Emotional Intelligence Matters

A Key Ingredient to a Successful Career: Why Emotional Intelligence Matters

Resource selection in grid: a taxonomy and a new system based on decision theory, case‐based reasoning, and fine‐grain policies

AbstractResource selection on current brokers still presents challenges for achieving the best solution in the decision‐making process, especially when considering many factors. We approach this problem considering user preference for specific resource selection objectives such as expected performance for an application execution, resource access restriction, execution application cost, and resource reliability. For each objective, we employ different techniques and combine them in a decision theory model. By considering performance in the selection process, we use the case‐based reasoning technique based on similar past job executions to predict a new job time execution. With the resource access restriction as a selection factor, we develop a fine‐grain policy‐based model for distributed resource access verification. Unlike a global access policy, which applies to all resources in a virtual organization, a fine‐grain policy establishes rules for specific resources and users. In this case, a previous access restriction verification prevents a resource selection, which may deny access to a requisition, resulting in an unsuccessful submission. The decision model uses the multi‐attribute utility theory, which relates the important objectives above and allows different proportions of user preferences for each objective. The complete solution is distributed and implemented using a multi‐agent system, acting as a resource broker. All models of this paper are analyzed in a real environment, presenting appropriate functional behaviors. Results show that our prediction model is accurate and efficient in the prediction process and our distributed model runs faster than centralized approaches and considers access restriction heterogeneities. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Occupational physical activities and long‐term functional and radiographic outcomes in patients with ankylosing spondylitis

We sought to identify specific occupational activities associated with functional limitations and radiographic damage in patients with longstanding ankylosing spondylitis (AS). We asked patients diagnosed with AS for >or=20 years to report all past occupations, which we mapped to specific physical activities using the Occupational Information Network, which is the US Department of Labor job classification database. For each occupation reported, we obtained ratings for 13 physical abilities of the worker and 13 aspects of the work environment or work tasks (work context) thought to be most relevant to patients with AS. Averages for each measure, weighted by the number of years in each job, were related to the degree of functional limitation as assessed by the Bath AS Functional Index (BASFI) and to the extent of spinal radiographic damage as assessed by the Bath AS Radiology Index for the spine (BASRI-s). Among 397 patients, those with a history of jobs requiring dynamic flexibility (the ability to repeatedly bend, stretch, twist, or reach) had more functional limitations than those whose past jobs required little or no dynamic flexibility (adjusted mean BASFI score 48.3 in the top quartile versus 38.1 in all others). Those whose past jobs required more dynamic flexibility, extent flexibility, and exposure to whole body vibration also had significantly higher BASRI-s scores. Bending, twisting, and stretching are the occupational activities associated with greater functional limitations and radiographic damage in patients with longstanding AS. Exposure to whole body vibration was also associated with more radiographic damage.

Still "Treading Air"? Looking at the Post-Enlargement Challenges to Democracy in the Baltic States

In the novel Treading Air by Estonian novelist Jaan Kroos, the character Ullo shares his story about changes during the Soviet occupation following World War II.1 Ullo concentrates on the changes brought about by Sovietization and uses the metaphor treading air to illustrate working hard for no return. With the Soviet occupation, political, economic, and cultural life was transformed in the Baltic region. Likewise, Europeanization is reshaping Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Of the post-Soviet states, the Baltic states have outshone all others in terms of democratic and economic transition. Even in terms of Central and Eastern Europe, the Baltic states have done well alongside countries such as the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland. Nevertheless, they still have challenges to democracy, like all states. Never have politicians in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania considered enlargement to be the solution to all of their problems, but rather a strategy for improving their ability to deal with these challenges. Over three years on from European Union (EU) enlargement, I look at the persistent challenges to democracy in the Baltic states and ask the question, are they still treading air?As a way of teasing out these challenges, I concentrate on two areas prevalent in the three Baltic states, to lesser and greater degrees. The first issue is the state of political corruption. Corruption still dogs Baltic politics, especially in Latvia and Lithuania, although Estonia is not immune. Most recently, questions of corruption have developed surrounding the Ventspils mayor and new Latvian president, Valdis Zatlers, who has confirmed taking bribes in his past job as a medical doctor. Although no country is free of corruption, the Baltic states still experience particular opportunities for corruption that are largely to do with economic and political transition. Second, I look at the status of the social integration projects in Estonia and Latvia. Each state has chosen similar but varied paths to dealing with the large Russian-speaking communities in their midst. With the recent bronze solider riots in Tallinn in mind, I examine whether the social integration projects are working. Before I look at these challenges in the Baltic context, I discuss how far the Baltic states have come.From One Union to AnotherEstonia's, Latvia's, and Lithuania's trails from Soviet republics to EU member states are quite remarkable. While the Baltic states experienced interwar independence, the three societies largely had to build new states from scratch. Even before the end of occupation, the Baltic Republics, along with the rest of the Soviet Union, began to experiment with electoral democracy. The democratically elected fronts led the way to Baltic independence and to three burgeoning democracies. In Estonia and Latvia, the moderate fronts vied for political power with the nationalist citizen's com-mittees. In both states, the parties, Isamaa and Tevzemei un Brivibai, respectively, gained control of the government in the first post-Soviet elections. The purpose of the Fatherland parties was to titularize (confirming to the nation's title) the two states; thus Estonia for Estonians and Latvia for Latvians.2 The result of the two national elections was the establishment of an exclusive restorationist state. On the other hand, the Lithuanian electorate took a different path altogether.3 The moderate people's front, Saju dis, and the social democratic Lithuanian Democratic Worker's Party (LDDP), Lietuvos demokratine darbo partija, gained the most seats to gear the country to a new inclusive state. These early choices would differentiate the two northern littoral states from the one in the south in many ways, although all three would take a similar path to EU membership.The new governments' role was to engineer and manage several simultaneous and interrelated processes. Arguably the most important process has been democratization coupled with titularization. …

Interfirm Mobility, Wages, and the Returns to Seniority and Experience in the U.S.

In this paper, we follow on the seminal work of Altonji and Shakotko (1987) and Topel (1991) and reinvestigate the returns to seniority in the U.S. These papers specify a wage function, in which workers’ wages can change through two channels: (a) returns to their seniority; and (b) returns to their labor market experience. We start from the same wage equation as in previous studies, and, following our theoretical model, we explicitly include a participation-employment equation and an interfirm mobility equation. The employment and mobility decisions define the individual’s experience and seniority. Because experience and seniority are fully endogenized, we introduce into the wage equation a summary of the workers’ entire career and past jobs. The three-equation system is estimated simultaneously using the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID). For all three education groups that we study, returns to seniority are quite high, even higher than what was previously obtained by Topel. On the other hand, the returns to experience appear to be similar to those previously found in the literature.

Treatment of Apathy With Methylphenidate

Treatment of Apathy With Methylphenidate

Age and learning during unemployment

Summary This study investigated age, past job control, social support and financial hardship as predictorsof continuous learning among a sample of unemployed job seekers. A total of 172 participantscompleted measures of continuous learning (motivation to leam, education initiative andupdating behaviour) and of potential predictors. Analysis showed that age was not related tomotivation to leam and education initiative. Past job control and social support moderated therelationship between age and continuous learning. Age was positively related to some types ofcontinuous learning for unemployed people with high social support and high past job control.Future research should identify more individual and situational characteristics, which supportcontinuous learning throughout the lifespan. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Introduction Global competition, technological innovations, new production and job concepts call for continuousand lifelong learning (Howard, 1995; Ilgen & Pulakos, 1999; London & Mone, 1999; Thayer, 1997).Orgatiizations expect that their employees are able and willing to update their knowledge and skills on aregular basis. Frequent changes of job requirements and the pursuit of multiple careers during workinglives make learning a necessity for today's employees (Hall & Mirvis, 1995; Ilgen & Pulakos, 1999).There is cross-sectional and longitudinal evidence that learning has positive effects on individual andorganizational level outcomes (e.g. Colquitt, LePine, & Noe, 2000; Tharenou, 2000). Moreover, studiesexamined how employees improve their knowledge and skills (e.g. Sonnentag & Kleine, 2000). Inaddition, empirical studies addressed the question if individual differences such as age and motivation(e.g. Birdi, Allan, & Warr, 1997), and situation characteristics such as management support and teamclimate (e.g. Allen, Russell, Poteet, & Dobbins, 1999; Warr, Allan, & Birdi, 1999) support or hinderleaming activities (for an overview see Sonnentag, Niessen, & Ohly, 2004).However, continuous and life-long leaming is not only important for enhancing employees'development, but also for preventing skill obsolescence of unemployed persons. While seeking a newjob, individuals may find that their knowledge and skills have become obsolete. For example, acomputer scientist who is no longer familiar with recent developments in progratnme languages willexperience particular difficulties in finding a new job. Wanberg, Hough and Song (2002) suggested thatseeking additional training while unemployed is one important part of the jobless persons' humancapital that can enhance their skill level and employability. There is some evidence that retrainingduring unemployment is one strategy that helps to accelerate reemployment (Leana, Feldman, & Tan,

I need you, you need me: a model of initiated task interdependence

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to address two gaps in the existing literature. The first is why some team members have peers depend on them for material, information, and support (referred to as initiated task interdependence) more so than do others, ceteris paribus. The second is the appropriateness of initiated interdependence given a team's composition.Design/methodology/approachIn an ex post facto field study, task interdependence in 267 members of 18 intact teams were examined. The teams worked on complex and inherently interdependent tasks in a high‐technology manufacturing organization.FindingsWhether team members perceived initiated task interdependence was explained by the degree to which members themselves depend on their peers (received interdependence), team members' belief in the value of teamwork, and team members' self‐efficacy for teamwork. As predicted, both collectivism and past job performance were associated with self‐efficacy for teamwork. The relationship between initiated interdependence and individual effectiveness was moderated by the team's collectivist orientation, such that team members were considered relatively effective by their peers when they were high in initiated task interdependence and when their team was composed of collectivists; or when they were low in initiated interdependence and when their team was composed of individualists.Research limitations/implicationsAlthough a one‐factor test suggests that common method bias is not an overriding concern in interpreting our findings, the possibility of common method bias inflating the associates tested cannot be rules out. Also, we cannot say with certainty that exogenous variables “caused” changes in endogenous variables.Practical implicationsStudy findings suggest ways to resolve a lack of task interdependence and the importance of team composition when considering peer performance ratings.Originality/valueThis paper offers a significant contribution to the literature on task interdependence and person‐group fit.

Age and learning during unemployment

Summary This study investigated age, past job control, social support and financial hardship as predictorsof continuous learning among a sample of unemployed job seekers. A total of 172 participantscompleted measures of continuous learning (motivation to leam, education initiative andupdating behaviour) and of potential predictors. Analysis showed that age was not related tomotivation to leam and education initiative. Past job control and social support moderated therelationship between age and continuous learning. Age was positively related to some types ofcontinuous learning for unemployed people with high social support and high past job control.Future research should identify more individual and situational characteristics, which supportcontinuous learning throughout the lifespan. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Introduction Global competition, technological innovations, new production and job concepts call for continuousand lifelong learning (Howard, 1995; Ilgen & Pulakos, 1999; London & Mone, 1999; Thayer, 1997).Orgatiizations expect that their employees are able and willing to update their knowledge and skills on aregular basis. Frequent changes of job requirements and the pursuit of multiple careers during workinglives make learning a necessity for today's employees (Hall & Mirvis, 1995; Ilgen & Pulakos, 1999).There is cross-sectional and longitudinal evidence that learning has positive effects on individual andorganizational level outcomes (e.g. Colquitt, LePine, & Noe, 2000; Tharenou, 2000). Moreover, studiesexamined how employees improve their knowledge and skills (e.g. Sonnentag & Kleine, 2000). Inaddition, empirical studies addressed the question if individual differences such as age and motivation(e.g. Birdi, Allan, & Warr, 1997), and situation characteristics such as management support and teamclimate (e.g. Allen, Russell, Poteet, & Dobbins, 1999; Warr, Allan, & Birdi, 1999) support or hinderleaming activities (for an overview see Sonnentag, Niessen, & Ohly, 2004).However, continuous and life-long leaming is not only important for enhancing employees'development, but also for preventing skill obsolescence of unemployed persons. While seeking a newjob, individuals may find that their knowledge and skills have become obsolete. For example, acomputer scientist who is no longer familiar with recent developments in progratnme languages willexperience particular difficulties in finding a new job. Wanberg, Hough and Song (2002) suggested thatseeking additional training while unemployed is one important part of the jobless persons' humancapital that can enhance their skill level and employability. There is some evidence that retrainingduring unemployment is one strategy that helps to accelerate reemployment (Leana, Feldman, & Tan,

A Formative Evaluation of a Rent Subsidy Program for Homeless Substance Abusers

This article reports a formative evaluation of the Bridge to Home Program which provides rental subsidies and supportive services to working shelter residents with histories of substance abuse. This evaluation focused on the first 80 participants who departed the program. Thirty-eight percent successfully completed the 2-year program; 26% voluntarily withdrew; and another 36% were terminated for non-compliance. Logistic regression identified several past and present characteristics which significantly increased the odds of successful completion. Among those clients who voluntarily withdrew from the program, variables associated with past independent living experience and recent job terminations distinguished them from those who completed the program. Among those who were involuntarily dismissed from the program, variables associated with past job instability and lack of personal investment at the current job distinguished them from those who completed the program. These characteristics were used to derive working hypotheses for program service delivery revisions. The relevance of these findings for maintaining housing stability and financial self sufficiency for this population were also discussed.