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Summary of Assigned Literature (Personnel Psychology)
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This summary contains all of the assigned articles for the third year course Personnel Psychology taught by Antje Schmitt.
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Article SummariesWeek 1: Introduction + Topics in Personnel Psychology
The Role of Scientific Findings in Evidence Based HR (Briner & Barends, 2016)
What is science for?
- Basic purpose of science: gather reliable and trustworthy information that helps to
answer questions about what things are like/how they work
- Response to problems of relying solely on personal knowledge and biases that can lead
to misinterpretation of information
- Gathering objective, external information rather than relying on solely on subjective
internal knowledge
- Scientific approach: actively searching for and collecting information relevant to decision
Science is not about “truth” or ” proof”
- About gathering information and testing assumptions (hypotheses) in a way that allows
estimate how likely it is that something is true
- We can never know for sure how likely it is that something is true
→ Always possible that new information will cast serious doubt on a
well-established theory (all claims are contingent and based on the data we
have)
→ Even when sth seems very close to being “proven” it well still be subject to
boundary condition (always depends on the situation) → data from other
situations might be contradictory
→ As new information is gathered it may become clear that theory was not quite
right/ specific enough
What does science have to do with HR?
- Attempting to do something with the intention of influencing some outcome generally
involves science
- HR is much about shaping thoughts, feelings and behavior of employees through range
of practices in selection, performance management , training and development, reward,
and communication
- HR is usually about cause and effect → scientific thinking and research findings are
important
The place of science in evidence-based HR
- Evidence-based practice: improving the chances of favorable outcomes from decision
making through the conscientious, explicit and judicious use of the best available
evidence from multiple sources by
1. Asking: translating a practical issue or problem into an answerable question
2. Acquiring: systematically searching for and retrieving the evidence
3. Appraising: critically judging the trustworthiness and relevance of the evidence
, 4. Aggregating: weighing and pulling together evidence
5. Applying: incorporating the evidence into the decision making process
6. Assessing: evaluating the outcome of the decision taken
- Conscientious: try hard and be careful in the way evidence is used and collected
- Explicit: write down, represent, discuss and explain the evidence
- Judicious: making judgements about the quality of the information available because not
all evidence is trustworthy
- Types of evidence to consider in HR: scientific research findings, organizational data,
personal experience and judgment, stakeholder’s values and concerns
Judging the reliability and trustworthiness of scientific information
- Judging quality of scientific evidence needs to be done in relation to the question asked
- Does the research fit the purpose and is designed in a way that adequately answers the
research question?
Better use of scientific evidence in HR practice
- Work as a team: discuss problem with colleagues, define problem, working together on
reading and understanding scientific papers
- Start small and do it quickly: focus on meta-analyses, don’t get overwhelmed
- Be prepared for HR preoccupations to be challenged- and learn to enjoy it
- Include information from other sources
- Don't claim perfection
- Do it again and again
,Employee Adjustment and Well-Being in the Era of COVID-19: Implications for
Human Resource Management (Carnevale & Hatak, 2020)
1. Introduction
- Lots of adjustment due to COVID: most employees now in home office, inability to seek
alternative workspaces, increased inability to separate work and private life
- Negative consequences of altered working conditions might lead to loneliness,
felt lack of purpose and associated negative effects on well-being
- COVID also offers opportunity for research
2.1 HRM challenges and opportunities in the era of COVID-19
- The erosion of “fit”: dramatic alterations in how and where employees do their work is
likely to have important implications for employees’ experiences of person-environment
fit (P-E fit)
→ P-E fit theory: individuals are attracted to and selected by organizations whose
work environments reflect the same values, cultures, and work features as their
own important beliefs, values, and desires
→ When P-E fit is maximized employees flourish and experience heightened levels
of satisfaction, engagement, and overall well being
→ When work environment that supports fulfillment of these needs and desires
drastically changes (as currently happening bc of covid) salience of growing
chasm between individual’s needs and current work environment → experiences
of misfit
→ People are attracted to organizations based on fundamental need for developing
relationships and striving for communication with others; cannot be satisfied
anymore in remote working environments → potential misfit stemming from this
newfound P-E incongruence
→ Critical to understand how to resolve potential misfits; more research is needed
to better understand how transformed community-building practices translate to
rebalancing the experienced P-E misfit
2.2 Disproportionate work-family effects
- As organizations navigate the challenges posed by COVID-19, they will also need to
remain attentive to employees who might be disproportionately affected by current
alterations of the work environment
- Work-family conflict: form of interrole conflict in which the role pressures from the work
and family domains are mutually incompatible in some respect
→ Is exacerbated by current health change
- In recent years increasing interest in and application of family-friendly workplace
practices (flexible work arrangements, on-site childcare, benefits including childcare
subsidies)
→ Important for reducing family to work conflict particularly in employees working
from home
, - As pandemic continues, potential for conflict between the work the family spheres may
be greater than ever
→ Employees have to manage childcare because schools are closed and cope with
concerns over health and safety of family and friends
- New demands further blurred work and family roles making it harder to maintain
adequate work-family role boundaries
→ Informational support increasingly necessary for balancing work-family roles; may
also help employees unaccustomed to new working conditions better adjust and
achieve fit while maximizing the effectiveness of practices aimed at reducing
work conflict
- Increasing job autonomy can help mitigate family-related pressures arising from remote
work environments by providing employees with resources to manage additional and
often incompatible demands
→ In those unaccustomed to remote working, extent to which provision of greater
job autonomy will be effective depends on extent to which individual values
autonomy and associated self-responsibility
- Self-affirmation interventions might be helpful in helping employees align values/needs
with altered environments; use of inductive approaches may also be helpful
2.3. Disproportionate effects on alternative family structures
- Single and childless employees may face unique forms of work-life conflict; may be at
particularly high risk of loneliness and feelings of social exclusion, felt lack of purpose
and isolation
- Societal and organizational measures to combat pandemic have increased employees’
feelings of loneliness and exclusion
- Lack of inclusion and belongingness may become especially salient among childless
and single employees → considerable risk to their mental health and well-being, as well
as the productivity of organizations
- Organizations may want to address issue by adopting a more inclusive and thereby
creative approach to supporting all employees, considering various forms of family status
→ Look toward enhancing relationship-oriented HR systems in order to combat the
greater risk of isolation among childless and single employees and better prepare
them for unanticipated events
3. Insights from entrepreneurship
- Entrepreneurship: focuses on the discovery, evaluation, and exploitation of opportunities
occurring in inherently ambiguous and dynamic environments
- Some of the issues employees are currently facing resemble entrepreneurs’ daily work
experience
→ Entrepreneurs are often confronted with demanding work conditions including
high levels of uncertainty and responsibility a need to flexibly and continuously
adjust to new situations and a strong interrelatedness of the work and family
spheres while they still manage to work efficiently
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