The Impact of Nondiagnostic Information on Selection Decision Making: A Cautionary Note and Mitigation Strategies

Selection decision makers are inundated with information from which to make decisions about the suitability of a job candidate for a position. Although some of this information is relevant for making a high-quality decision (i.e., diagnostic information), much of the information is actually unrelated to the decision (i.e., nondiagnostic information). Although the deleterious effects of nondiagnostic information on selection decision making have been demonstrated, the prevalence and impact of this type of information is increasing, especially with recent advances in new selection methods used by employers. The purpose of this paper, therefore, is to caution selection decision makers, and/or those advising them, to the impact nondiagnostic information has on decisions. We also present different types and prevalence estimates of nondiagnostic information given the changes to the ways applicants are screened and selected. We conclude with suggestions for mitigating the use and/or negative impact of nondiagnostic information

Understanding the Social and Job Performance Consequences of Leader Advice-Taking: A Theoretical Model and Empirical Test

Leaders in today\u27s rapidly changing organizations make many complex and critical decisions. Despite robust findings in the advice literature which suggests that incorporating advice into the decision-making process is highly beneficial, people, particularly those with authority and influence (e.g., leaders) fail to take advice, even from experts. Leaders are hesitant to take advice because they assume that doing so would make them appear weak or less competent to others in the workplace. However, the impact or consequences of leader advice-taking (e.g., performance and social perceptions) have not been widely examined to support those assumptions. In this dissertation, I propose a theoretical model that integrates the advice-taking and leadership literatures to investigate how leader advice-taking behavior influence subordinate evaluations and outcomes to better understand when and why advice-taking may be particularly (dis)advantageous for leaders. Competing theoretical frameworks from employee voice and help literatures suggest that leader advice-taking can result in either favorable or unfavorable perceptions. I reconcile the competing perspectives by drawing on social judgment theory to propose that leader advice-taking can result in both positive and negative perceptions, but in separate dimensions (i.e., interpersonal and job competence). Results from field and lab studies demonstrate a pattern of results showing that subordinates perceive leaders who frequently take advice as interpersonally warmer, and contrary to what was hypothesized, more competent on the job. Additionally, those perceptions also positively impacted the subordinates\u27 work well-being outcomes. The findings from this dissertation suggest that, unlike leaders who rarely take advice, leaders who take advice more often can expect more positive evaluations from subordinates as well as positive impact on their subordinates\u27 work experiences

The Influence of Organizational Personality and Social Identity Consciousness on Organizational Attraction: A Humanness Perspective

Organizational affiliations serve a social identity function for employees because others will typically infer information about them based on their place of employment. To the extent that job seekers are concerned about these inferences, they will attempt to maintain a positive social identity by joining organizations they believe are viewed as favorable by the public. Research has examined whether social identity needs interact with organizational personality perceptions (i.e., a type of symbolic inferences) but with some inconsistent findings. I argue that the existing organizational personality taxonomy may suffer from bandwidth correspondence issues that may be attenuating large interaction effects. In the first study of this investigation, I conceptualize an alternative taxonomy as well as develop a scale of organizational personality perceptions grounded in humanness theory (Haslam, Bain, Douge, Lee, & Bastian, 2005) that better reflects job seekers’ identity needs relevant to organizational attraction. In the second study, I examine whether social identity concerns moderate the relations between humanness personality perceptions and recruitment outcomes. Results showed strong psychometric properties and construct validity of the humanness organizational personality measure. Additionally, social identity concerns predicted participants’ job choice behaviors and interacted with humanness personality perceptions to influence recruitment outcomes. The findings suggest that given one’s social identity concerns, perceptions of an organization’s personality in humanness traits matter for important recruitment attitudes and behaviors

Telling stories to communicate the value of the pre-employment structured job interview

In an effort to bridge the scientist-practitioner gap in employee selection, some researchers have advocated telling stories to better communicate the value of evidence-based hiring practices to human resource (HR) professionals. In this paper, we conducted two experiments that examine the efficacy of storytelling for overcoming managers’ resistance to using structured job interviews. In two experiments, we found that participants who read a story regarding the effectiveness of structured interviews, as opposed to receiving evidence-based advice, reported more favorable attitudes toward structured job interviews. Serial mediation analysis revealed that the observed attitude change was mediated by an increase in narrative transportation and reduction in counterarguing. Implications for using stories in communicating the value of evidence-based HR practices are discussed

Modification of STIM1 by O-linked N-Acetylglucosamine (O-GlcNAc) Attenuates Store-operated Calcium Entry in Neonatal Cardiomyocytes

Background: Increased cellular O -GlcNAc levels decrease store-operated Ca 2+ entry (SOCE), however, the mechanism is not understood. STIM1 regulates SOCE, but effect of O -GlcNAc on STIM1 function is not known. Results: Increased cardiomyocyte O -GlcNAcylation attenuated STIM1 puncta formation, SOCE and increased O -GlcNAc modification of STIM1. Conclusion: O -GlcNAc modification of STIM1 plays a key role in regulating SOCE. Significance: Protein O -GlcNAcylation regulates SOCE, a central Ca 2+ signaling pathway. Store-operated calcium entry (SOCE) is a major Ca 2+ signaling pathway responsible for regulating numerous transcriptional events. In cardiomyocytes SOCE has been shown to play an important role in regulating hypertrophic signaling pathways, including nuclear translocation of NFAT. Acute activation of pathways leading to O -GlcNAc synthesis have been shown to impair SOCE-mediated transcription and in diabetes, where O -GlcNAc levels are chronically elevated, cardiac hypertrophic signaling is also impaired. Therefore the goal of this study was to determine whether changes in cardiomyocyte O -GlcNAc levels impaired the function of STIM1, a widely recognized mediator of SOCE. We demonstrated that acute activation of SOCE in neonatal cardiomyocytes resulted in STIM1 puncta formation, which was inhibited in a dose-dependent manner by increasing O -GlcNAc synthesis with glucosamine or inhibiting O -GlcNAcase with thiamet-G. Glucosamine and thiamet-G also inhibited SOCE and were associated with increased O -GlcNAc modification of STIM1. These results suggest that activation of cardiomyocyte O -GlcNAcylation attenuates SOCE via STIM1 O -GlcNAcylation and that this may represent a new mechanism by which increased O -GlcNAc levels regulate Ca 2+ -mediated events in cardiomyocytes. Further, since SOCE is a fundamental mechanism underlying Ca 2+ signaling in most cells and tissues, it is possible that STIM1 represents a nexus linking protein O-GlcNAcylation with Ca 2+ -mediated transcription

Short-chain fatty acid producers in the gut are associated with pediatric multiple sclerosis onset.

OBJECTIVE: The relationship between multiple sclerosis and the gut microbiome has been supported by animal models in which commensal microbes are required for the development of experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis. However, observational study findings in humans have only occasionally converged when comparing multiple sclerosis cases and controls which may in part reflect confounding by comorbidities and disease duration. The study of microbiome in pediatric-onset multiple sclerosis offers unique opportunities as it is closer to biological disease onset and minimizes confounding by comorbidities and environmental exposures. METHODS: A multicenter case-control study in which 35 pediatric-onset multiple sclerosis cases were 1:1 matched to healthy controls on age, sex, self-reported race, ethnicity, and recruiting site. Linear mixed effects models, weighted correlation network analyses, and PICRUSt2 were used to identify microbial co-occurrence networks and for predicting functional abundances based on marker gene sequences. RESULTS: Two microbial co-occurrence networks (one reaching significance after adjustment for multiple comparisons; q < 0.2) were identified, suggesting interdependent bacterial taxa that exhibited association with disease status. Both networks indicated a potentially protective effect of higher relative abundance of bacteria observed in these clusters. Functional predictions from the significant network suggested a contribution of short-chain fatty acid producers through anaerobic fermentation pathways in healthy controls. Consistent family-level findings from an independent Canadian-US study (19 case/control pairs) included Ruminococaccaeae and Lachnospiraceae (p < 0.05). Macronutrient intake was not significantly different between cases and controls, minimizing the potential for dietary confounding. INTERPRETATION: Our results suggest that short-chain fatty acid producers may be important contributors to multiple sclerosis onset