Perceptions of the effectiveness of not-for-profit board development opportunities

Human service not-for-profit organizations provide goods and services that support the well being of members of society. While these organizations can vary in the goods and services that they provide and in the models that they use to provide those goods and services, they are all similar in that they are accountable to volunteer boards of directors. The literature contains myriad prescriptions boards can follow that will help them provide adequate governance to their organizations. In addition, researchers have identified specific competencies that are able to distinguish between low-performing and high-performing boards. Finally, research has suggested that a relationship exists between board performance and organizational success. The primary goal of this study was to explore internal stakeholders’ perceptions of the effectiveness of initial orientations and ongoing training and development opportunities in increasing board members’ facility in the board competencies that have emerged in the literature. The data suggest that while stakeholders believe that initial orientations effectively prepare board members to fulfill their responsibilities, many of the not-for-profit organizations in the sample are missing a potential opportunity to improve board performance and organizational success by failing to offer systematic ongoing training and development opportunities to board members

Effects of Personality Retesting on Validity Coefficients as Moderated by Situational Strength

The use of valid selection tests enables organizations to better select employees who have the knowledge, skills, abilities, and other characteristics that are necessary for success. While cognitive ability tests are one of the best predictors of performance, they have well-known limitations. Specifically, they can result in adverse impact, and there is clear evidence of retest effects. The use of personality tests, when included in a selection battery, can ameliorate adverse impact and can provide incremental validity. Personality tests, however, also have limitations. Namely, they can be faked, the construct can be measured in various ways (i.e., there are myriad constructs, many of which can be measured at a trait level and a facet level), and there are numerous moderators of the personality–performance relationship. This lab study investigated the facet-level conscientiousness–performance relationship, explored evidence regarding practice effects in personality tests, examined whether situational strength moderated the personality–performance relationship, and looked at the form of the relationship between personality and performance. A unique contribution of this study is that performance was operationalized by using an in-basket that assessed four different dimensions of performance. In general, the hypotheses were not supported, underscoring the need for future research

Web-Based Recruitment: Strategies for Attracting LGBT Employees

Organizations are interested in workforce diversity for a variety of reasons. One way to foster employee diversity is through the use of targeted recruitment practices. While this topic has received attention in the literature, most of the work has examined the effectiveness of recruiting people whose minority status is apparent. Thus, the goal of this research is to explore the effectiveness of recruitment strategies targeted toward individuals whose minority status is not immediately obvious, namely lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender adults. Two specific recruitment strategies were used: providing information about domestic partner benefits and providing information about community partnerships. The results of this study suggest that the targeted recruitment strategies were equally effective in eliciting higher levels of perceived P–O fit and organizational attraction among a sample of LGBT adults. These findings suggest that organizations can effectively use targeted recruiting to influence LGBT people’s perceptions of organizations. Future research can help identify whether targeted recruitment has a negative impact on straight people’s perceptions of organizations that use recruitment strategies targeted toward members of the LGBT community

Critical Team Composition Issues for Long-Distance and Long-Duration Space Exploration: A Literature Review, an Operational Assessment, and Recommendations for Practice and Research

Prevailing team effectiveness models suggest that teams are best positioned for success when certain enabling conditions are in place (Hackman, 1987; Hackman, 2012; Mathieu, Maynard, Rapp, & Gilson, 2008; Wageman, Hackman, & Lehman, 2005). Team composition, or the configuration of member attributes, is an enabling structure key to fostering competent teamwork (Hackman, 2002; Wageman et al., 2005). A vast body of research supports the importance of team composition in team design (Bell, 2007). For example, team composition is empirically linked to outcomes such as cooperation (Eby & Dobbins, 1997), social integration (Harrison, Price, Gavin, & Florey, 2002), shared cognition (Fisher, Bell, Dierdorff, & Belohlav, 2012), information sharing (Randall, Resick, & DeChurch, 2011), adaptability (LePine, 2005), and team performance (e.g., Bell, 2007). As such, NASA has identified team composition as a potentially powerful means for mitigating the risk of performance decrements due to inadequate crew cooperation, coordination, communication, and psychosocial adaptation in future space exploration missions. Much of what is known about effective team composition is drawn from research conducted in conventional workplaces (e.g., corporate offices, production plants). Quantitative reviews of the team composition literature (e.g., Bell, 2007; Bell, Villado, Lukasik, Belau, & Briggs, 2011) are based primarily on traditional teams. Less is known about how composition affects teams operating in extreme environments such as those that will be experienced by crews of future space exploration missions. For example, long-distance and long-duration space exploration (LDSE) crews are expected to live and work in isolated and confined environments (ICEs) for up to 30 months. Crews will also experience communication time delays from mission control, which will require crews to work more autonomously (see Appendix A for more detailed information regarding the LDSE context). Given the unique context within which LDSE crews will operate, NASA identified both a gap in knowledge related to the effective composition of autonomous, LDSE crews, and the need to identify psychological and psychosocial factors, measures, and combinations thereof that can be used to compose highly effective crews (Team Gap 8). As an initial step to address Team Gap 8, we conducted a focused literature review and operational assessment related to team composition issues for LDSE. The objectives of our research were to: (1) identify critical team composition issues and their effects on team functioning in LDSE-analogous environments with a focus on key composition factors that will most likely have the strongest influence on team performance and well-being, and 1 Astronaut diary entry in regards to group interaction aboard the ISS (p.22; Stuster, 2010) 2 (2) identify and evaluate methods used to compose teams with a focus on methods used in analogous environments. The remainder of the report includes the following components: (a) literature review methodology, (b) review of team composition theory and research, (c) methods for composing teams, (d) operational assessment results, and (e) recommendations