Personality, personnel selection, and job performance

Job Performance: The term job performance can either refer to the objective or subjective outcomes one achieves in a specific job (e.g., the profit of a sales persons, the number of publications of a scientist, the number of successful operations of a surgeon) or to work-related activities (e.g., writing an article, conducting specific surgical acts). In the majority of research on this topic, job performance as an outcome is used. Personnel selection: Personnel selection refers to the process of selecting the best employees for specific jobs. Introduction One major application of personality research is in the area of personnel selection. The key question in this area is to which extent personality can predict how well a candidate will perform on the job he or she is applying for. Most scholars in this area acknowledge that personality has predictive validity for job performance. In line with this, personality assessment is part of the selection procedure in many organizations

Personality scale validities increase throughout medical school

Admissions and personnel decisions rely on stable predictor-criterion relationships. The authors studied the validity of Big Five personality factors and their facets for predicting academic performance in medical school across multiple years, investigating whether criterion-related validities change over time. In this longitudinal investigation, an entire European country's 1997 cohort of medical students was studied throughout their medical school career (Year 1, N = 627; Year 7, N = 306). Over time, extraversion, openness, and conscientiousness factor and facet scale scores showed increases in operational validity for predicting grade point averages. Although there may not be any advantages to being open and extraverted for early academic performance. these traits gain importance for later academic performance when applied practice increasingly plays a part in the curriculum. Conscientiousness, perhaps more than any other personality trait, appears to be an increasing asset for medical students: Operational validities of conscientiousness increased from .18 to .45. In assessing the utility of personality measures, relying on early criteria might underestimate the predictive value of personality variables. Implications for personality measures to predict work performance are discussed

The significance of sputum ECP levels in differential diagnosis of asthma in children

Asthma and chronic bronchitis are diseases:that may present similar symptoms. Because eosinophil granulocytes play an,important role in the pathogenesis of asthma, the assessment of eosinophilic inflammation may be useful in making a differential diagnosis of these two diseases. This study investigated the serum and sputum eosinophil cationic protein (ECP) levels in children with asthma and chronic bronchitis and compared them with controls. Fifty asthmatic patients being treated for mild or moderately severe asthma at a university hospital were enrolled in the study. Fifteen children with symptoms of cough and sputum production lasting more than 3 months were studied in the chronic bronchitis group and 25 healthy children were included in the control group. Asthmatic patients were divided into subgroups:according to the presence or absence of asthmatic exacerbations. Clinical evaluation and determination of ECP concentrations in serum and sputum were performed for each group. In-creased activity of eosinophils was found in patients with asthma as assessed by high serum ECP (mean 21.44 +/- 20.33 mu g/L) and sputum ECP (mean 129.65 +/- 125.01 mu g/L) levels. In patients diagnosed with chronic bronchitis, serum ECP levels were similar to those of the control group (mean serum ECP 11.04 +/- 10.23 mu g/L and 12.07 +/- 6.12 mu g/L, respectively). More importantly, sputum ECP levels of the chronic bronchitis group were much lower (mean 53.36 +/- 55.43 mu g/L) than those in patients with asthma (mean 129.65 +/- 125.01 mu g/L). The serum and sputum ECP levels of the asthmatic patients who were evaluated during an acute exacerbation were also higher than those in the chronic bronchitis group. Sputum ECP levels may be helpful in the differential diagnosis of asthma and chronic bronchitis in children

Professionelle Strategien zur Auswahl von Führungskräften

Obwohl die richtige Besetzung von Führungspositionen zu den wichtigsten Investitionsentscheidungen eines jeden Unternehmens gehört, werden an dieser neuralgischen Stelle häufig suboptimale Methoden eingesetzt. Die eklatanteste Folge dieses Missstandes markiert das Phänomen des Derailments: neu eingesetzte Führungskräfte scheitern nach wenigen Monaten ihn ihrer Funktion und müssen das Unternehmen wieder verlassen oder werden zumindest degradiert. Dabei stellt Derailment nur die Spitze des Eisbergs personeller Fehlentscheidungen dar. Ziel des vorliegenden Kapitels ist es, Personalverantwortliche in die Prinzipien einer diagnostisch professionellen Personalauswahl von Führungskräften einzuführen. Hierzu werden sukzessive alle Bausteine eines aussagekräftigen Vorgehens von der Analyse der Anforderungen bis zum Assessment Center vorgestellt und durchgängig anhand eines realen Praxisbeispiels – Der Besetzung einer Geschäftsführungsposition – erläutert