Hogan’s scientific foundation and commitment to research distinguishes us from the competition. Each year, Hogan and our affiliates publish works that contribute to the knowledge and development of (a) the Hogan assessments and (b) the field of personality and psychology. These publications build the Hogan brand and allow us to better serve our clients worldwide.

Hogan employees work to promote our brand through publishing in well- known academic outlets and presenting at professional conferences. Also, we leverage the Hogan Academic Network, a group of researchers, professors, and students across the globe, to disseminate Hogan-related research through theses, dissertations, peer-reviewed journals, and professional conferences.

This year has been no exception to our commitment to progressing the science of personality. This list details Hogan-related publications and presentations from 2013. Take a look.

In a recent article on ABC News, Alan Farnham highlights the ranking of the fastest-growing occupations provided by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). I was pleasantly, while not completely, surprised to see that Industrial-Organizational Psychologists made the top of the list. The article highlights two important facts about the small size of the field: a) with the field only including around 1,600 psychologists, a 53% increase doesn’t result in as many jobs as other fields and b) not many people know much about the field.

It was refreshing to read an accurate and positive description of the field in the media for once. I recently read an article describing us as occupational therapists, which is very inaccurate, but a step past my peers thinking I read minds in the work place for a living. Beyond being a mouthful to say, I am often given a blank stare and a “What the heck is that?” when I mention that I am an Industrial-Organizational Psychologist.

Farnham describes I-O Psychologists as consultants that can be hired to improve the efficiency of an organization and that their contribution can be directly linked to improved business performance. This is a very important distinction because one of the most difficult jobs an I-O Psychologist faces is explaining what we do to non-I-O psychologists. Our job is very important in that we are not only seeking to improve the efficiency in an organization, but we must also remain agents of the court (keep companies from violating employment law). For the most part, this involves conducting rigorous research to find validation evidence to support our methods.

All of our R&D staff, as well as several of our consultants and coaches are I-O psychologists. As a Consultant on the R&D team at Hogan, I spend most of my time conducting selection research for domestic clients and multinational corporations. As Farnham mentioned, we are able to demonstrate causality between our contribution and business performance. Our assessments predict performance and we have the numbers to back it up. The hard part is putting this in a business language that can be used and understood by stakeholders in an organization. Companies that have dealt with I-O psychologists get it quickly. Companies new to the idea take longer to convince. Other scientists are often the most skeptical of psychologists calling themselves scientists. In the end, the numbers speak for themselves and our ability to provide return on investment (ROI) is valuable.  

It's difficult to find time to read every new piece of rersearch that could impact the I/O field. However, to be effective, it is important to stay up to date on current research. To help, the Hogan Research Division collects and summarizes important articles every quarter. Click on the authors' names for more information about the studies.

Withholding Bosses Kill Engagement
High scores on scales comprising the Hogan Development Survey’s moving-away factor are most harmful to engagement, job satisfaction, and burnout. High scores on scales comprising other HDS factors produce mixed results (Leary et al.).

CEO, Senior Executive Personalities Impact Performance
Although it is no surprise that CEO personality and the collective personality of senior executives both influence firm performance, what may be surprising is that the two act relatively independently of one another (Colbert et al.).

Virtual Harassment More Damaging Than Face-To-Face
Virtual workplace harassment (i.e., harassment via computer-based communications) can be just as psychologically damaging as face-to-face harassment, but even more so when the person doing the harassing is anonymous or from outside of the organization (Ford).

Is Too Much Creativity a Bad Thing?
All organizations need creative people, but overall levels of creativity might be less beneficial or even detrimental to large or risk-prone organizations (Gong et al.).

Values Predict Self-Starters in Ambiguous Jobs
Individual values predict how proactive employees will be on the job, but only in weak employment situations where ambiguity is high (Grant and Rothbard).

For Extraversion, Moderation is Key
When it comes to the relationship between extraversion and call center performance, individuals with moderate extraversion scores tend to do better than individuals with either low or high scores (Grant).

Shared Leadership Drives Innovation
Shared leadership within teams helps drive innovation (Hoch).

Neurotic People May Also Be Smarter
Both neuroticism and openness to experience are significantly related to certain aspects of higher level cognitive functioning (Murdock et al.).

Workplace Bullying Impacts Mental Health
Workplace bullying not only impacts performance, but also the overall mental health of employees (Nielsen et al.).

Conscientiousness More Important in Low-Level Jobs
Although generally predictive across jobs, conscientiousness may be particularly important for lower level jobs that are highly structured and less cognitively demanding (Shaffer & Postlewaite).

No one has time to read every new piece of research that could impact our field. As a result, it is hard to know what important new findings might pass us by. Luckily, the Hogan Research Division is here to help (and we welcome your contributions in return). Below are a handful of articles we found interesting.

• Helping others might make us feel better about ourselves, but is this a universal phenomenon? Akin et al. found that spending money to help others makes people happy regardless of whether they live in rich or poor countries. They argue that the positive feelings we get from helping others might be ingrained in human nature regardless of country or culture.
• Jansen et al. examined the validity of structure interviews and assessment centers with a unique twist. They found that individuals who were better at identifying what was being measured (e.g., Communication, Problem Solving, etc.) not only did better but their scores were more predictive of job performance. They call this ability the assessment of situational demands. Why, then, is it called faking in the personality literature?
• The debate over bandwidth in personality continues with recent work from Salgado et al. In a large sample of police officers, they found that individual facets of Conscientiousness did not show incremental validity over the scale-level measure, thereby supporting the notion that broad scales work just as well as facets. Why, then, have so many researchers over the years found that facets are often more predictive? Perhaps it has something to do with all of the different samples and/or measures that have been used over the years to example this issue.
• McAbee & Oswald reported meta-analytic results examining relationships between personality and GPA. But perhaps more importantly, the compared results aggregated across different personality instruments to those when treating each personality instrument separately. With Conscientiousness, results were fairly consistent across measures, but results varied for other FFM personality measures. So, when reviewing research examining relationships between personality and other outcomes of interest, keep in mind that all personality assessments cannot be treated equally.

Be sure to check out Part 1 and Part 2 of our review in case you missed them.

And again, we invite you to provide information relating to any other articles from the first three months of 2013 that we failed to include here.

Good empirical studies examining coaching and development are always hard to find. But here two from Q1 we thought coaches might enjoy:

• In an effort to determine what influences a client's perception of coaching effectiveness, de Haan et al. examined a number of potential factors using data from over 150 client-coach pairs. They found the perceived quality of the client-coach relationship, or working alliance, was most critical in determining how clients perceive coaching effectiveness.  
• Do you know someone who is dealing with emotional exhaustion or low job satisfaction? If so, research conducted by Hulsheger et al. on the effects of mindfulness might be the answer. In general, employees who are attentive to and accepting of what is going on around them are generally more satisfied with their jobs. The article provides a brief review of and references to additional information concerning mindfulness training.

• Do you need more evidence indicating that delivery method (e.g., paper and pencil v. internet) does not impact results? If so, recent work by Weigold et al. not only supports previous research finding that both methods produce equivalent results, but provides a nice outline of potential problems with studies that have failed to find equivalence.  
• Are you trying to figure out how to increase survey response rates?  Research by Fauth et al. shows you might be up against than you realize. Aside from job satisfaction, several group-level variables, such as work group size, heterogeneity in tenure, and heterogeneity in gender, significantly influence response rates. One positive takeaway is social influences likely matter, so, when trying to increase participation, peer pressure may help.
• On the statistics front, coefficient alpha continues to be the most widely used reliability estimate. For that reason, it is also probably the most widely criticized. Peterson & Kim examined differences between alpha and a popular alternative, composite reliability. Across thousands of estimates, they found that the average estimates from the two approaches differed by only .02. Based on these results, there is no reason to assume that coefficient alpha won’t continue to rain as the king of reliability estimates in I/O Psychology.

Next up, Part 3 of our review will cover a diverse range of articles we thought were worth sharing. And in case you missed it, be sure to check out Part 1 of our review, which summarized articles dealing with a variety of factors that drive performance in organizations. Again, we invite you to provide information relating to any other articles from the first three months of 2013 that we failed to include here.

No one has time to read every new piece of research that could impact our field. As a result, it is hard to know what important new findings might pass us by. Luckily, the Hogan Research Division is here to help (and we welcome your contributions in return).

Below is a quick rundown of several articles from Q1 that examined a variety of individual and organizational characteristics that drive performance. This is not an all-inclusive list. So, if you’ve read any new publications or reports from the last three months we failed to include, feel free to write a comment telling us about them.

• In a review of customer service-related variables, Hong et al. provide a nice outline of how leadership impacts a company’s bottom line. First, leadership practices shape an organization’s service climate, which influences employee behaviors. Behaviors impact customer satisfaction, which then drives financial performance. This research provides an excellent demonstration of the Leadership Value Chain at work.
• In reviewing safety-related variables, Hogan & Foster presents research demonstrating how individual employee personality characteristics predict important work outcomes. Using data from multiple samples representing a variety of jobs, organizations, and industries, we show that personality influences safety-related behaviors, which in turn predict major workplace accidents and injuries. In other words, personality doesn’t influence work outcomes by itself, but does so because of its influence in important work-related behaviors.
• We have all heard that self efficacy and performance are correlated with one another, but does one actually cause the other? Research by Sitzmann and Yeo suggests that performance drives self-efficacy, but not necessarily the other way around. Instead, individuals who are confident in their abilities likely do better on many tasks simply because they’ve done well on similar tasks in the past.  
• Is conflict within teams good or bad? According to research by Bradley et al., it all depends on the personality characteristics of your team. When team members are generally high in Emotional Stability or Openness, conflict can drive good performance, but the opposite is true when either characteristic is generally low. So, when dealing with conflict within teams, it helps to know your team members.  
• Abusive supervision continues to be a hot topic these days. In examining the impact of abusive supervision, Shoss et al. found that when employees identify an abusive supervisor with their company, they are more likely to retaliate against the company itself through both counterproductive behaviors and lower job performance.  

In 1987, Drs. Robert and Joyce Hogan founded a company based on social justice in the workplace. They have since become widely recognized as pioneering authorities in personality assessment, leadership, and organizational effectiveness. Former professors, the Hogans instilled a tradition of academic research and collaboration within their company. The Hogan Research Division (HRD), comprised of doctorate- and master-level Industrial-Organizational Psychology professionals, continues this legacy by working closely with university faculty and students in our Hogan Academic Network.

Each year, HRD collaborates with graduate students and professors around the world on research activities involving Hogan assessments. Hogan is committed to providing ongoing support for student researchers by providing them access to data from the Hogan archive (validation studies on more than 400 job titles and evidence from more than 250 criterion-related validation studies) and the use of Hogan tools to conduct their own research. Several universities use Hogan assessments in their coursework. In addition, students who take our assessments as part of a course often receive developmental feedback from a Hogan Certified Coach.

If you would like more information on our collaborative research efforts, contact us!

Hogan’s scientific foundation and commitment to research distinguishes us from the competition. Each year, Hogan and our affiliates publish works that contribute to the knowledge and development of the Hogan assessments and the field of personality and psychology. These publications build the Hogan brand and allow us to better serve our clients worldwide.

Hogan employees work to promote our brand through publishing in well-known academic outlets and presenting at professional conferences. Also, we leverage the Hogan Academic Network, a group of researchers, professors, and students across the globe, to disseminate Hogan-related research through theses, dissertations, and peer-reviewed journals.

Be sure to check out this past year’s Hogan-related publications and presentations. Make sure you click through to access our white papers and ebooks!