B. M. Bass (1985) proposed that the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire consists of 5 factors: 2 facets of transactional leadership (Contingent Reward and Management-by-Exception) and 3 facets of transformational leadership (Charismatic Leadership, Individualized Consideration, and Intellectual Stimulation). A confirmatory factor analysis involving hospital nurses revealed some support for this 5-factor representation, but a 2factor Active-Passive model was also tenable, because the transformational components and Contingent Reward were all highly correlated. Alternatively, differential relationships to a series of outcomes, including intent to leave and J. P. Meyer and N. J. Allen's (1991) facets of organizational commitment, were observed as a function of the leader behaviors involved.

The construct validity of J. P. Meyer and N. J. Allen's (1991) 3-component model of organizational commitment was assessed. Despite the large error components associated with some of the items from Meyer and Allen's scales, the existence of 3 facets of commitment (affective, continuance, and normative) was generally supported by a confirmatory factor analysis of data from 2,301 nurses. Moreover, some of the expected differential relationships of these facets to antecedents and outcomes of commitment were observed in both the nurse sample and a sample comprising 80 bus operators. However, the facets generally did not relate strongly or differentially to a set of rating and nonrating measures of job performance.Organizational commitment is of interest to both behavioral scientists and practicing managers (cf. Mowday, Porter, & Steers, 1982). Although most practitioners are inclined to associate high commitment with increased productivity and lower turnover, organizational scientists strive to understand the facets of commitment and their differential relationships to both antecedents and work outcomes (cf.

Assessment center ratings of eight abilities from each of five situational exercises were examined for their cross-situational consistency and discriminant validity. A series of confirmatory factor analyses revealed that the ratings were largely (if not totally) situation specific, and that assessors failed to distinguish among the eight target abilities. These results combined with previous research suggest that the assessment center method measures mainly situation-specific performance, not cross-situational managerial abilities. We suggest that the intended constructs might be better measured if more ability-related behaviors were elicited within each exercise and if the cognitive demands placed on assessors were reduced.Most well-known applications of the assessment center method were designed in part to measure constructs assumed to represent conceptually distinct job-related abilities. For example, IBM's centers required assessors to use constructs such as oral communications, decision making, and administrative ability (Hinrichs, 1978). Typically, the task of the assessors has been to integrate observations of assessee behavior from a series of situational exercises, such as the in-basket and group discussion. These observations have then been used as a basis for ratings supposed to reflect the constructs of interest (Sackett & Dreher, 1982.Noting that many centers were designed to measure complex abilities, several investigators (see, e.g., Sackett & Dreher, 1982;Turnage & Muchinsky, 1982) used the multitrait-multimethod matrix approach (cf. Campbell & Fiske, 1959) to evaluate the construct validity of assessment center ratings. This involved intercorrelating the ratings across exercises and examining the correlations to determine (a) the extent to which ratings of the same ability were similar across measurement methods (convergent validity) and (b) the extent to which ratings of different abilities were uncorrelated (discriminant validity). Convergent and discriminant validity help justify inferences regarding construct validity (Campbell & Fiske, 1959).So far, the multitrait-multimethod matrix findings pertaining to assessment centers have not been positive. In centers studied by Sweeney (1976) and by Sackett and Dreher (1982), ratings of the same abilities were virtually uncorrelated across ex-We gratefully acknowledge both John Arnold, who originally suggested using confirmatory factor analysis, and the very helpful comments of two anonymous reviews.

It has been proposed that the break from work provided by an occasional absence may help employees cope with various types of stress and thereby lead to an improvement in their overall condition when they return. In this study, the mean levels of nurses' daily ratings of personal problems, tiredness, ill-health, sleep disruption, stress and job dissatisfaction were compared statistically across a period encompassing one shift of attendance, an absence, and another shift of attendance. As expected, significant decreases in most variables were observed between the day of the absence and the subsequent shift. However, improvements were seldom found between the shifts immediately preceding and subsequent to the absence. The findings were interpreted as suggesting that occasional absences may help maintain physical and psychological states at manageable levels even if they do not result in immediately noticeable improvements on the part of returning employee.

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