Personnel Psychology and HRM: A Reader for Students and Practitioners

Citation

Morrell, K. (2003), "Personnel Psychology and HRM: A Reader for Students and Practitioners", Personnel Review, Vol. 32 No. 1, pp. 114-119. https://doi.org/10.1108/pr.2003.32.1.114.1

Overview

Both these books contain ten chapters covering a range of topics relating to managing people at work. Each will be of interest to practitioners, students and researchers. Personnel Psychology and HRM is strongly focused on the processes relating to recruitment and selection, and the first five chapters in this book relate to either selection, or assessment, or both (selection, international uses of selection methods, assessment centres, multisource/360 degree feedback, cognitive ability and job performance). The second half of this book covers a range of themes that are more explicitly “HRM”, with chapters on development, absence, organizational commitment, turnover, and psychological contracts.

Well‐being in Organizations is divided into three sections. Section one looks at health related issues (employee control and health, bullying, work time and health/performance, betrayal, job and off‐job role conflict). Section two has two chapters on gender (women’s careers and stress, masculinity at work). Section three examines individual/organizational adjustment (drug and alcohol programmes, person‐environment fit, vacations/other respites and stress at work). This review will look at each book in turn, and by chapter.

Personnel Pychology and HRM

As the introduction claims, the first five chapters:

… provide an up‐to‐date and comprehensive view of the status of research in personnel selection and assessment.

Salgado’s chapter reviews research on selection up until autumn 1997 and incorporates material from the leading academic journals, and also feedback from over 100 researchers in the field. As a result, he is able to provide an extremely comprehensive literature review, which would be indispensable for anyone interested in conducting research into selection, and his suggestions for future research are well formulated. Although the sheer scale of his review means this chapter is occasionally heavy going, there is much in here that would also be of interest to practitioners working in a range of industries as he provides recent research on the utility of different measures (e.g biodata, cognitive ability, references) and methods (e.g. interview, assessment centre).

Newell and Tansey provide a thoughtful and well‐written account exploring differences in selection practices across different countries. They also provide evidence that:

… in virtually all countries there remains heavy reliance on those methods of selection and assessment which are not the most valid. In other words, the methods used are not the most valid in terms of accurately measuring individual differences and so deciding on how suitable a person is for a particular job.

Newell and Tansey draw out the implications of research exploring difference in nationality and difference in attributional processes (such as a greater emphasis on collective goals in some cultures), emphasising that selection bias can occur because of cultural predispositions and not just because of differences in the validity of a particular method.

Lievens and Klimoski analyse:

… the individual and collective processes and factors [that] affect the quality of assessor decisions.

They recount evidence from studies of interviewer ratings where candidates differ in specific dimensions (male/female, pregnant/not pregnant, highly attractive/not attractive etc.) and use these to develop a theoretical framework of the assessing process, where the assessor is seen as a social information processor, and the assessment centre itself is seen as a process of social judgment. This has implications for how we see assessment centres, and consequently affects assessment centre design, as well as influencing training and development needs of assessors.

Fletcher and Baldry offer a review of the literature on multi‐source, multi‐rater (MSMR) assessment systems, which encompasses discussion of 360 degree assessment, but also includes sections with particular discussion on the validity of the following: self‐rating, subordinate rating, peer rating, rating by internal and external customers. They make a persuasive case for the need for including an academic element in the design and development of MSMR systems, by reporting how a pilot 360 degree feedback system was studied and it was found:

(1) not to measure the competencies it purported to; (2) to have a massive level of redundancy amongst the questionnaire items, such that it seemed only to measure one construct; (3) not to correlate with other measures of performance used within the organisation.

Ree and Caretta provide a very entertaining and wide‐ranging review of the literature analysing the link between general cognitive ability (g) and job performance. They offer an account of the history of the measurement and factor structure of g, and outline a broad range of correlates. Because the industrial/organizational psychology literature does not offer any account of the physical correlates with g, they spend some time on documenting these and this makes for interesting reading. Potential directions for future research (into g and job performance) are not articulated as explicitly in this chapter as in some of the other chapters. Nonetheless, it represents a valuable addition to the literature on ability and occupational performance, partly because it offers an account of physiological correlates of g, but also because there is a concise and well formulated account of the history of research into general cognitive ability.

Warr and Allan’s chapter on learning strategies and occupational training will give any reader plenty of food for thought in terms of their own personal development. It will also be helpful for those responsible for designing and implementing training interventions. They offer a thoughtful account of the difference between study skills, learning styles and learning strategies and present several scales (inventories) that measure individuals’ learning strategies. After outlining the given inventory, they present a concise analysis of the empirical evidence derived from tests of these scales. They also discuss how ability to learn can be improved by developing learning strategies, improving existing strategies or better understanding the role of strategy in learning. They discuss this mainly from an organizational perspective, but it is possible to apply their insightful analysis to one’s own learning.

Johns offers an excellent review of the literature on absenteeism. He groups recent research findings in terms of underlying ways of seeing absence, or models. Starting with the general class of process and decision models, he moves on to discuss the withdrawal model (absence is withdrawal from unpleasant work circumstances), demographic models (absence correlates with variables such as age, gender etc.), the medical model (absence is caused by sickness), the stress model, social and cultural models (absence could be a function of cultural norms), the conflict model (absence is a form of resistance to managerial control), the deviance model (absence is a breach of legal/psychological contracts, or caused by “malingerers”) and finally the economic model (as income increases, taking time off becomes more attractive). There is plenty in this chapter to interest managers wishing to reduce absence.

Meyer’s chapter on organizational commitment will be of great interest to a wide range of researchers and students. He offers detailed, helpful advice to researchers interested in exploring organizational commitment, but this chapter should also be required reading for those interested in HRM, given that commitment is an HRM shibboleth. Understanding how to analyse and interpret the meaning of different forms of employee commitment is vital if one is to make any sense of the rhetoric surrounding HRM, or high commitment management.

Maertz and Campion present an excellent review of recent research into a crucially important organizational phenomenon, namely employee turnover. I should perhaps express an interest as someone doing research in this area currently, but there is little doubt that many organizations do not manage turnover effectively and so the need for greater understanding of this process is substantive, given the large associated and indirect costs of turnover. This reviews research over the last 25 years, and critiques several approaches to understanding the phenomenon.

Millward and Brewerton review the research on a contemporary HR theme, namely the role of psychological contracts. They discuss several ways of understanding what this contract is, and present research analysing the nature of this exchange, and the role the psychological contract has on employees’ behaviour. They offer a careful and thoughtful analysis of the nature of contract violation, and provide a highly detailed, systematic agenda for areas requiring further exploration as well as outlining limitations in much of the research done to date.

Well‐being in Organizations

The chapters in the first half of this book cover a series of health‐related issues in organizations, and the second half relate to gender and individual/organizational adjustment (or person – environment “fit”). The opening chapter by Terry and Jimmieson on “Work control and employee well‐being”, explores the idea that where employees have control over their work, this can mitigate the negative effects of high job demands. In this sense, work control may act as a “stress‐buffer”. Terry and Jimmieson review research over the last ten years and suggest future directions for research, as well as succinctly presenting what has been learnt so far about the relationship between control and job demands. They suggest a range of method improvements, as well as suggestions to improve construct clarity.

Hoel, Rayner and Cooper offer a review of the research on workplace bullying, initially drawing out a definitional framework, and describing bullying in terms of its incidence and a brief “victim profile”. They move on to talking about the effects of bullying and offer different perspectives for understanding it, such as aggression theory (bullying may be an outcome of stress or frustration, or symptom of cultural and environmental factors) and attribution theory (people explain their own behaviour with reference to their environment, yet explain the behaviour of others in terms of their personality), or seeing bullying as a form of stress.

The chapter by Cooper and Spurgeon on “working time, health and performance” will be of interest to any manager, but will have particular relevance for those working in an organization which operates flexitime, shiftwork, or where overtime is prevalent. Surprisingly perhaps, they report that some of the most useful data collected relating to long hours and performance was at an engineering works in the UK at the end of the nineteenth century. They suggest a number of directions for future research, such as exploring the interaction between individual differences, long hours and performance and the influence of employee attitudes and motivation.

Pearce and Henderson’s chapter on acts of betrayal offers a review and exploration of the notion of betrayal in industrial/organizational psychology. They stop short of offering a definitive framework for understanding betrayal, but they go some way towards illuminating what is a frequently articulated idea in different literatures (in theories of trust, theories of workplace justice and writing on psychological contract violation), as well as indicating that betrayal is inadequately defined in the existing industrial/organizational psychology literature.

O’Driscoll’s chapter on the interface between work‐ and non‐work roles centres on the conflict/enhancement debate. That is to say, is it the case that individuals have finite resources and demands from different roles will tax these limited resources (work and non‐work roles conflict)? Or, can involvement in several roles enhance the individual’s resources by energizing and motivating them (work and non‐work roles potentially enhance each other)? He offers (pp. 150‐1) an informative discussion and analysis of Zedeck and Mosier’s five models of the relation between work and non‐work roles, (segmentation – they are separate, spillover – the boundaries between them are permeable, compensation – deficits in one domain are made up for in another, instrumental theory – assuming one role can provide the necessary resources to fulfil the other, conflict – outlined above).

Langan‐Fox, writing on women’s careers and occupational stress, outlines four assumptions that structure the chapter (p. 179). The first being that “multiple roles would cause difficulty and stress, and that women in dual career situations would experience more stress than men” (the “conflict” position O’Driscoll identifies). Second, women in non‐traditional jobs are likely to suffer more stress as “pioneers” and thus subject to discrimination. Third (in common with men) women in jobs experiencing change as a result of technological advancement are likely to suffer a range of stressors, such as having to learn new technology, organizational restructure, job loss. Finally, women will be better at coping than men, as they traditionally are more effective at seeking out support structures.

Burke and Nelson discuss “organizational men: masculinity and its discontents”, which I found to be the most thought‐provoking chapter of this book. The table on p. 224 lists 37 “facets of male privelege”, (e.g. “I can talk to other men without being accused of gossiping”, “As a male my marital status won’t reduce my prospects for promotion”). All or part of this table would serve as an excellent discussion device for seminars on gender in organizations, universities or schools, and there are many other interesting elements in this chapter (such as the section on “workaholics/corporate bigamists”).

Harris and Trusty review the literature on drug and alcohol programs in the workplace, and there are points of interest here for organizations keen to pursue monitoring, testing or develop employee assistance programs. There are references to three countries outside North America: New Zealand, Sweden and Germany, but many of the points made here apply in the UK. One thing not discussed in detail is the impact testing would have on employees in terms of the psychological contract and trust, and dimensions of monitoring, control and resistance.

Tziner and Meir writing on work adjustment, develop the theme of person‐organization fit and involve some of the literature on turnover and satisfaction by discussing the relationships: (employee) correspondence > satisfaction > work adjustment > tenure; (organization) correspondence > satisfactoriness > work adjustment > tenure. They build on these models to provide an extended (though untested) theory of work adjustment, concluding with a discussion of congruence theory.

The final chapter by Eden is titled, “Vacations and other respites: studying stress on and off the job”. As well as covering the relevant literature, I thought this chapter was notable for offering a sophisticated discussion of methodological issues relating to the limitations of cross sectional research and causal inference (p. 307), the role of replication (p. 316) and the validity of relying on self‐reports and recall (pp. 324‐5). As such the chapter should be of interest to a wide body of researchers, as well as to practitioners and researchers interested in the dynamic between stress and respite. This is a joint review with Well‐being in Organizations: A Reader for Students and Practitioners.