Comparison of "real life" assessments of management potential with situational exercises, paper-and-pencil ability tests, and personality inventories.

Abstract

The major component of evaluation from a 2-day assessment program covering 47 members of a large national marketing organization consisted of ratings of degree of active participation in the group situational exercises, followed by ratings of administrative and decision-making ability Paper-and-pencil ability tests and personality inventories were less clearly related to assessments of managerial potential. Ratings of management potential developed from a careful review of company personnel records were as highly correlated with the assessment center data as were overall ratings from the 2-day program, except for ratings dealing with interpersonal behavior.

High potential programs and employee outcomes

“…Past empirical research suggests that management's ratings from the assessment center, along with the management evaluations of promotion potential, are important tools to predict employees' promotion and advancement in the organization (Hinrichs, 1969;1978). Recently, there has been an increasing trend for large corporations to dedicate efforts to the HiPo assessment and development (Church, Rotolo, Ginther, & Levine, 2015).…”

Organizational and Situational Influences on Adjudicative Decisions

“…First, compared to other selection tools, development and implementation costs, both financially and in amount of time spent, of using case-files are relatively low (Ash, et. al., 1989;Hinrichs, 1969). Next, the amount of effort expended on the part of both managers who make selection decisions and job candidates is considerably less than most paper-and-pencil testing systems or assessment centers (Ash, et.…”

“…Finally, several studies have found that case-file information is a good predictor of future work performance when interpersonal factors are not important (Brown, 1991;Hinrichs, 1969;Lowry, 1994).…”

“…Obvious biases may include gender, race, and age biases, all of which could pose serious legal consequences should decisions statistically reflect a significant amount of bias. Less obvious biases may arise when personal information not related to the job in question arouses underlying prejudices of which the evaluator may not be aware (Hinrichs, 1969;Lowry, 1994). For example, the evaluator's opinions of an applicant's previous employer might inadvertently, and inappropriately, influence a selection decision and consequently bias the entire selection procedure.…”

“…al, 1989), 2) the problems with using personnel records in HR decisions (Gardner, 1977;Lowry, 1994), and 3) the practicality of using case-file information to make personnel decisions (Hinrichs, 1969;Lowry, 1994;Salthouse, McKeachie, & Lin, 1978;Thornton & Morris, 2001). Few, if any, of these studies, however, have examined the consistency, accuracy, and quality of HR decisions based on casefile information.…”