Métodos de seleção de pessoal: discussões preliminares sob o enfoque do behaviorismo radical

A seleção de pessoal visa a introduzir na organização os candidatos mais apropriados as suas necessidades. Existe uma carência de literatura behaviorista radical acerca desse tema, sendo necessário o desenvolvimento de trabalhos que orientem atuações coerentes com essa teoria. O objetivo deste estudo é discutir os métodos utilizados na seleção à luz dos pressupostos conceituais do behaviorismo radical. Os métodos de seleção existentes são analisados e discutidos em termos de aumento do controle das variáveis presentes no contexto da seleção a fim de proceder à identificação dos repertórios comportamentais dos candidatos. Propõe-se uma análise de cargo baseada nos conceitos behavioristas, discute-se a possibilidade de condução de entrevistas de seleção focadas no comportamento bem como o uso de técnicas de simulação que permitam a identificação de repertórios comportamentais. Conclui-se que é necessário desenvolver discussões teóricas e instrumentos operacionais facilitadores de uma prática psicológica vinculada aos pressupostos behavioristas radicais.

Protected Species – Research Permits and the Value of Basic Research

The complexities involved in obtaining permits for field research using protected species continue to increase. In October 1988, Congress amended the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) to increase the documentation required to obtain a scientific research permit (PL 100-711). Applicants for scientific research permits must now submit “information indicating that the taking is required to further a bona fide scientific purpose and does not involve unnecessary duplication of research.”

Self-Perceived Attractiveness and Its Influence on the Halo Effect and the Similar-to Me Effect

The present research examined the influences of the halo effect and the similar-tome effect on physical and sexual attractiveness for hiring decisions. It was hypothesized that the halo effect would cause applicants rated highly in physical and sexual attractiveness to receive higher ratings of hireability than unattractive applicants.However, if the similar-to-me effect is influential for levels of attractiveness in hiring situations, participants who rated themselves as less attractive should favor unattractive applicants. The results did not show an interaction between participant self-ratings and ratings of hireability, indicating the similar-to-me effect does not apply to physical or sexual attractiveness. There was a main effect of sexual attractiveness of the applicant forhireability, showing support for the halo effect. This effect was only found for White applicants, potentially due to in-group bias and out-group homogeneity.

Training-related modulations of the autonomic nervous system in endurance athletes: is female gender cardioprotective?

The risk of sudden death is increased in athletes with a male predominance. Regular physical activity increases vagal tone, and may protect against exercise-induced ventricular arrhythmias. We investigated training-related modulations of the autonomic nervous system in female and male endurance athletes. Runners of a 10-mile race were invited. Of 873 applicants, 68 female and 70 male athletes were randomly selected and stratified according to their average weekly training hours in a low (≤4 h) and high (>4 h) volume training group. Analysis of heart rate variability was performed over 24 h. Spectral components (high frequency [HF] and low frequency [LF] power in normalized units) were analyzed for hourly 5 min segments and averaged for day- and nighttime. One hundred and fourteen athletes (50 % female, mean age 42 ± 7 years) were included. No significant gender difference was observed for training volume and 10-mile race time. Over the 24-h period, female athletes exhibited a higher HF and lower LF power for each hourly time-point. Female gender and endurance training hours were independent predictors of a higher HF and lower LF power. In female athletes, higher training hours were associated with a higher HF and lower LF power during nighttime. In male athletes, the same was true during daytime. In conclusion, female and male athletes showed a different circadian pattern of the training-related increase in markers of vagal tone. For a comparable amount of training volume, female athletes maintained their higher markers of vagal tone, possibly indicating a superior protection against exercise-induced ventricular arrhythmias.

The Charity and the Poverty

At the end of the middle Ages, financial savings institutions developed, largely in response to the increasingly usurious money-lending practices of the Jews and to the adaptation of church authorities to the by then well developed commercial and financial operations. It was the Franciscan Order that took the initiative to develop such institutions, first in Italy and later in other western European Mediterranean towns. These were the so-called Monte di Pieta, which lent money at low rates of interest taking objects in pawn as security. However, as they had to operate with circulating capital and on the principles of savings banks, they may be considered to be the predecessors of modern banks. Although charity was declared in the very names of these institutions, this was no longer in the sense of the medieval mercy towards the virtuous poor, but more a support for impoverished members of higher social strata, as loan applicants had to place valuable movable property in pawn, meaning that they first had to possess such property. In spite of this, the institutions had the character of the primeval accumulation of capital, although not so much for individuals as for a community or, in the latter's name, for a commune, i.e. the local authority, which at least in the cases of Koper and Piran was also the founder. However, the stagnation of trade with the hinterland and the decline in the economic power of the Venetian Republic, particularly in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, pushed pawnshops into a more miserable existence, with ups and downs linked with the irregularities of profit-making on behalf of the institution, particularly by its clerks.

Opinion of headhunters about the ability of strabismic subjects to obtain employment

BACKGROUND: Through the opinion of Swiss headhunters, we wanted to determine the influence of strabismus on the ability to obtain employment. METHODS: Out of 31 randomly selected Swiss headhunters, 20 could be interviewed using a validated questionnaire. RESULTS: Forty-seven percent of the headhunters judged that strabismic subjects have more difficulties in obtaining a job. Gender has no influence on discrimination (p > 0.1). Asked about six facial disfigurements, strabismus was found to have the second largest negative impact on employment directly after acne. Strabismus was estimated to decrease the attractiveness of job applicants (p < 0.0001) and to have a negative impact on the overall judgment of a potential employer (p < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: Visible strabismus influences negatively the ability to obtain a job. Because of its impact on the employability of a person, we believe that strabismus surgery in adults cannot be considered to be only a beautifying procedure.

Das radikale Milieu im vorrevolutionären Russland

This article traces the networks in the Russian revolutionary underground from the 1860s untill 1917 and subsumes them under the term radical milieu. Though there existed ideological differences all Russian radicals shared a common identity as „anti-society“ against the tsarist regime. In the radical milieu with its own values the participants tried to create their own reality, where all members regardless of their social origin or sex were seen as equal. The radical milieu was backed by a sphere of sympathisers that constituted the main source of material support and the main recruiting field. But the radicals were very careful when selecting new members for their underground world. Applicants had to fulfil defined criteria. The radical milieu in Russia was in a permanent danger to be infiltrated by the secret police. This situation between fear and hope was the background where ideas of solidarity but also visions of violence and revenge against the “traitors” were ripening and then became realised.

The gender typicality of faces and its impact on visual processing and on hiring decisions

Past research has shown that the gender typicality of applicants’ faces affects leadership selection irrespective of a candidate’s gender: A masculine facial appearance is congruent with masculine-typed leadership roles, thus masculine-looking applicants are hired more certainly than feminine-looking ones. In the present study, we extended this line of research by investigating hiring decisions for both masculine- and feminine-typed professional roles. Furthermore, we used eye tracking to examine the visual exploration of applicants’ portraits. Our results indicate that masculine-looking applicants were favored for the masculine-typed role (leader) and feminine-looking applicants for the feminine-typed role (team member). Eye movement patterns showed that information about gender category and facial appearance was integrated during first fixations of the portraits. Hiring decisions, however, were not based on this initial analysis, but occurred at a second stage, when the portrait was viewed in the context of considering the applicant for a specific job.

Wie fremdenfeindlich ist die Schweiz? Fünf Feldexperimente über prosoziales Verhalten und die Diskriminierung von Ausländern

Umfragen über Vorurteile führen oft zu verzerrten Ergebnissen, da die Befragten häufig „sozial erwünschte“ Antworten geben. In unserer Studie über Vorurteile und Diskriminierung haben wir dagegen vier Feldexperimente in der Stadt Zürich durchgeführt, in denen jeweils von Angehörigen verschiedener Nationalitäten oder religiöser Gruppen eine Hilfeleistung erbeten wurde. Beispielsweise wurden Passanten von einer Person mit Kopftuch um eine Hilfeleistung gebeten; in der Kontrollbedingung dagegen ohne Kopftuch. In einem anderen Experiment wurden Personen in Hochdeutsch angesprochen und in der Kontrollsituation im Schweizer Dialekt. Ein fünftes Experiment bezog sich auf die Reaktionen von Arbeitgebern auf Initiativbewerbungen. Es zeigte sich, dass im Alltagsverhalten keine signifikanten Unterschiede im Ausmaß der Hilfeleistung zwischen den Gruppen nachweisbar waren. Alle vier Experimente zu kleinen Hilfen im Alltag ergaben weder bezüglich Deutschen noch muslimischen Minderheiten Hinweise auf diskriminierendes Verhalten. Deutliche Hinweise gibt es dagegen für die Diskriminierung bestimmter ethnischer Gruppen auf dem Arbeitsmarkt, auch wenn Bewerber die gleiche Qualifikation wie Schweizer und die Schweizer Staatsbürgerschaft besitzen.

An MBLP model for scheduling assessment centers

Firms aim at assigning qualified and motivated people to jobs. Human resources managers often conduct assessment centers before making such personnel decisions. By means of an assessment center, the potential and skills of job applicants can be assessed more objectively. For the scheduling of such assessment centers, we present a formulation as a mixed-binary linear program and report on computational results for four real-life examples.

Three essays on prices and selection

Competitive Market Segmentation Abstract In a two-firm model where each firm sells a high-quality and a low-quality version of a product, customers differ with respect to their brand preferences and their attitudes towards quality. We show that the standard result of quality-independent markups crucially depends on the assumption that the customers' valuation of quality is identical across firms. Once we relax this assumption, competition across qualities leads to second-degree price discrimination. We find that markups on low-quality products are higher if consuming a low-quality product involves a firm-specific disutility. Likewise, markups on high-quality products are higher if consuming a high-quality product creates a firm-specific surplus. Selection upon Wage Posting Abstract We discuss a model of a job market where firms announce salaries. Thereupon, they decide through the evaluation of a productivity test whether to hire applicants. Candidates for a job are locked in once they have applied at a given employer. Hence, such a market exhibits a specific form of the bargain-then-ripoff principle. With a single firm, the outcome is efficient. Under competition, what might be called "positive selection" leads to market failure. Thus our model provides a rationale for very small employment probabilities in some sectors. Exclusivity Clauses: Enhancing Competition, Raising Prices Abstract In a setting where retailers and suppliers compete for each other by offering binding contracts, exclusivity clauses serve as a competitive device. As a result of these clauses, firms addressed by contracts only accept the most favorable deal. Thus the contract-issuing parties have to squeeze their final customers and transfer the surplus within the vertical supply chain. We elaborate to what extent the resulting allocation depends on the sequence of play and discuss the implications of a ban on exclusivity clauses.

Gender-Fair Language in Organizations: Attracting Potential Leaders and Promoting the Organizational Image of Gender Equality

In many languages, masculine generics are the traditional way of referring to women and men. However, gender-fair forms (e.g., feminine-masculine word pairs) can enhance gender equality: for instance, they counteract male biases in mental associations (Stahlberg et al., 2007) and evoke more neutral perceptions of gender-stereotypical professions (Merkel et al., 2013). Compared to masculine forms, use of gender-fair language in advertisements for leadership positions also helps to achieve gender equality in hiring decisions (e.g., use of German Geschäftsführerin/Geschäftsführer 'CEO fem/masc' instead of Geschäftsführer 'CEO masc', cf. Horvath & Sczesny, 2012). The present research investigates how potential applicants react to the use of gender-fair vs. masculine forms in German job ads for leadership positions (Study 1) and how the respective organization is perceived in response to these forms (Study 2). In Study 1, 251 participants showed higher intentions to apply for a leadership position when it was advertised with a feminine-masculine word pair instead of a masculine form; this was mediated by job appeal and organizational attraction. In Study 2, 154 participants perceived the organization as more discriminatory when masculine forms were used. This was mediated by the organizational image of gender equality. Thus, gender-fair language affects the social perception of a job and the respective organization and can impact social behavior in an organizational context.

Essays on behavioral aspects of the design and disclosure of compensation contracts

This thesis consists of four essays on the design and disclosure of compensation contracts. Essays 1, 2 and 3 focus on behavioral aspects of mandatory compensation disclosure rules and of contract negotiations in agency relationships. The three experimental studies develop psychology- based theory and present results that deviate from standard economic predictions. Furthermore, the results of Essay 1 and 2 also have implications for firms’ discretion in how to communicate their top management’s incentives to the capital market. Essay 4 analyzes the role of fairness perceptions for the evaluation of executive compensation. For this purpose, two surveys targeting representative eligible voters as well as investment professionals were conducted. Essay 1 investigates the role of the detailed ‘Compensation Discussion and Analysis’, which is part of the Security and Exchange Commission’s 2006 regulation, on investors’ evaluations of executive performance. Compensation disclosure complying with this regulation clarifies the relationship between realized reported compensation and the underlying performance measures and their target achievement levels. The experimental findings suggest that the salient presentation of executives’ incentives inherent in the ‘Compensation Discussion and Analysis’ makes investors’ performance evaluations less outcome dependent. Therefore, investors’ judgment and investment decisions might be less affected by noisy environmental factors that drive financial performance. The results also suggest that fairness perceptions of compensation contracts are essential for investors’ performance evaluations in that more transparent disclosure increases the perceived fairness of compensation and the performance evaluation of managers who are not responsible for a bad financial performance. These results have important practical implications as firms might choose to communicate their top management’s incentive compensation more transparently in order to benefit from less volatile expectations about their future performance. Similar to the first experiment, the experiment described in Essay 2 addresses the question of more transparent compensation disclosure. However, other than the first experiment, the second experiment does not analyze the effect of a more salient presentation of contract information but the informational effect of contract information itself. For this purpose, the experiment tests two conditions in which the assessment of the compensation contracts’ incentive compatibility, which determines executive effort, is either possible or not. On the one hand, the results suggest that the quality of investors’ expectations about executive effort is improved, but on the other hand investors might over-adjust their prior expectations about executive effort if being confronted with an unexpected financial performance and under-adjust if the financial performance confirms their prior expectations. Therefore, in the experiment, more transparent compensation disclosure does not lead to more correct overall judgments of executive effort and to even lower processing quality of outcome information. These results add to the literature on disclosure which predominantly advocates more transparency. The findings of the experiment however, identify decreased information processing quality as a relevant disclosure cost category. Firms might therefore carefully evaluate the additional costs and benefits of more transparent compensation disclosure. Together with the results from the experiment in Essay 1, the two experiments on compensation disclosure imply that firms should rather focus on their discretion how to present their compensation disclosure to benefit from investors’ improved fairness perceptions and their spill-over on performance evaluation. Essay 3 studies the behavioral effects of contextual factors in recruitment processes that do not affect the employer’s or the applicant’s bargaining power from a standard economic perspective. In particular, the experiment studies two common characteristics of recruitment processes: Pre-contractual competition among job applicants and job applicants’ non-binding effort announcements as they might be made during job interviews. Despite the standard economic irrelevance of these factors, the experiment develops theory regarding the behavioral effects on employees’ subsequent effort provision and the employers’ contract design choices. The experimental findings largely support the predictions. More specifically, the results suggest that firms can benefit from increased effort and, therefore, may generate higher profits. Further, firms may seize a larger share of the employment relationship’s profit by highlighting the competitive aspects of the recruitment process and by requiring applicants to make announcements about their future effort. Finally, Essay 4 studies the role of fairness perceptions for the public evaluation of executive compensation. Although economic criteria for the design of incentive compensation generally do not make restrictive recommendations with regard to the amount of compensation, fairness perceptions might be relevant from the perspective of firms and standard setters. This is because behavioral theory has identified fairness as an important determinant of individuals’ judgment and decisions. However, although fairness concerns about executive compensation are often stated in the popular media and even in the literature, evidence on the meaning of fairness in the context of executive compensation is scarce and ambiguous. In order to inform practitioners and standard setters whether fairness concerns are exclusive to non-professionals or relevant for investment professionals as well, the two surveys presented in Essay 4 aim to find commonalities in the opinions of representative eligible voters and investments professionals. The results suggest that fairness is an important criterion for both groups. Especially, exposure to risk in the form of the variable compensation share is an important criterion shared by both groups. The higher the assumed variable share, the higher is the compensation amount to be perceived as fair. However, to a large extent, opinions on executive compensation depend on personality characteristics, and to some extent, investment professionals’ perceptions deviate systematically from those of non-professionals. The findings imply that firms might benefit from emphasizing the riskiness of their managers’ variable pay components and, therefore, the findings are also in line with those of Essay 1.

Externalities in recruiting

External recruiting at least weakly improves the quality of the pool of applicants, but the incentive implications are less clear. Using a contest model, this paper investigates the pure incentive effects of external recruiting. Our results show that if workers are heterogeneous, opening up a firm's career system may lead to a homogenization of the pool of contestants and thus encourage the firm's high-ability workers to exert more effort. If this positive effect outweighs the discouragement of low-ability workers, the firm will benefit from external recruiting. If, however, the discouragement effect dominates the homogenization effect, the firm should disregard external recruiting. In addition, product market competition may mean that opening up the career system becomes less attractive for a firm since it increases the incentives of its competitors’ workers and hence strengthens the competitors.