Extensive research highlights the importance of work engagement – employees’ morale and involvement with work – as determinant of individual and organizational performance. Large-scale studies show that engagement is positively correlated with a wide range of important business outcomes, such as organizational commitment, citizenship, innovation, and team performance, and negatively correlated with turnover intentions, strain, and burnout (Maslach, Schaufeli, & Leiter, 2001; Seibert, Wang, & Courtright, 2011). Furthermore, meta-analytic evidence indicates that higher engagement levels are directly translated into higher business revenues and profits (Harter et al, 2009). These findings have prompted organizations to monitor engagement levels via regular employee surveys. According to Gallup, who surveys millions of employees every year, only 30% of Americans are engaged at work, and the most common reason for disengagement is employees’ direct boss or line manager. Thus leadership is a critical antecedent of engagement (Wollard & Shuck, 2011).

Leadership is typically defined as the ability to build and maintain high-performing teams (Hogan, 2007). As engagement is a key driver of individual-, team-, and unit-level performance, it has been argued that leaders influence organizational effectiveness by engaging employees, or failing to do so (Schaufeli & Salanova, 2007). Meta-analyses suggest that leadership effectiveness increases employees’ job satisfaction and commitment (Dumdum, Lowe, & Avolio, 2002; Fuller, Patterson, Hester, & Stringer, 1996; Lowe, Kroeck, & Sivasubramaniam, 1996), while independent studies report strong correlations between transformational leadership and employee engagement (Zhu, Avolio, & Walumbwa, 2009), where engagement mediates the relationship between transformational leadership and subordinates’ turnover intentions (Wefaltd et al, 2011). Although these findings support the idea that leadership is a major cause of employee engagement, an important unaddressed questions remains, namely what causes performance differences in leadership?  

To this end, this symposium includes four integrated presentations that highlight the role of leaders’ personality as determinant of subordinates’ engagement levels and discuss how this knowledge can be translated into actionable organizational recommendations.

First, SIOP Fellow Robert Hogan, who pioneered the use of personality assessments in organizational settings, presents a causal model for understanding the relationship between personality, leadership, and engagement. This model posits that personality characteristics drive individual differences in leadership effectiveness because they impact on employee engagement.

Then, Justin Black, Strategic Advisor at Sirota Survey Intelligence, puts Hogan’s model to the test by examining longitudinal effects of managers’ personality on their direct reports’ engagement in a multinational technology firm. Results highlight causal paths between managers’ reputation – how others’ evaluate them – and subordinates’ engagement: prudent and empathic managers engage; passive-aggressive and volatile managers disengage.

Next, Christine Fernandez, Director of Organizational Effectiveness at Starwood, discusses linkages between CEO’s competencies, employee engagement, and customer satisfaction in 398 worldwide hotels. Results show strong associations between CEOs interpersonal skills, multisource feedback, employee engagement, and guest loyalty, as well as providing a detailed account on the personality of successful hotel CEOs.

The final presentation, by Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, Professor of I-O Psychology at University College London and VP of Innovation at Hogan, examines the role of managers’ and employees’ emotional intelligence as determinant of employee engagement and job performance in a large retail chain, integrating both top-down and bottom-up perspectives on engagement.

This symposium will be held Thursday, May 15.

References available

As the pace of innovation increases, so does the need to test innovations to determine their worth.  Items enhancing quality of life are widely adopted.  For example, software such as SAS and SPSS allow us to instantly run analyses that would have previously taken days or weeks.  More recently, online data collection has replaced paper-and-pencil data collection and manual entry (Horton, Rand, & Zeckhauser, 2010).  Similarly, websites like Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (MTurk) may allow quick and inexpensive access to hundreds of thousands of participants, but a critical review is needed to determine its worth as an innovative data collection resource.

MTurk is an example of a crowdsourcing website where researchers outsource data collection to online participants rather than using laboratory and other samples (Chandler, Mueller, & Paolacci, in press).  Websites such as Crowd Cloud and Crowd Flower also facilitate crowdsourcing (Gaggioli & Riva, 2008), but we focus on MTurk because it is currently the dominant crowdsourcing application for social scientists.  In fact, research conducted using MTurk has already appeared in peer-reviewed journals (Holden, Dennie, & Hicks, 2013; Jonason, Luevano, & Adams, 2012; Jones & Paulhus, 2011).

Using MTurk, participants called “workers” browse Human Intelligence Tasks (“HITs”) posted by “requesters” conducting research.  After selecting and completing HITs, workers are paid a pre-determined fee.  Because MTurk offers access to a large and diverse pool of over 500,000 participants from over 190 countries, researchers’ interest in MTurk as a potential new data collection resource is understandable (Bohannon, 2011; Mason & Suri, 2011).

The goal of this symposium is to bring professionals together to conduct a critical review of MTurk as an avenue for conducting psychological research.  Before turning our session over to our discussant, presenters will share data to evaluate MTurk against other samples.

The Gaddis and Foster paper uses MTurk to test items for developing and maintaining assessments.  The authors compare MTurk data to samples of students as well as applicants and incumbents from organizations.  This paper also includes lessons learned and recommendations for professionals interested in using MTurk.

The Harms and DeSimone paper explores a data cleaning approach to assessing the quality of MTurk data.  Using seven statistical data screens, the authors investigate the prevalence of low-quality data in a large sample of MTurk data.  Results from this paper differ with those from the existing research literature.

The Woolsey and Jones paper recounts a first-time user’s experience using MTurk to conduct international research.  The authors detail practical, methodological, and ethical issues they encountered using MTurk to collect data in the U.S. and Japan.  The paper concludes with questions about the future of crowdsourcing as a means of collecting data.

The Cavanaugh, Callan, and Landers paper reviews a research study comparing MTurk workers to undergraduates on individual difference variables and an online training task.  This paper fills a gap in the existing literature by examining the feasibility of MTurk as an avenue for conducting research on training processes and outcomes.

This symposium will be held Thursday, May 15.

References available

The discipline of leadership is highly romanticized (Meindl, 1985). In particular, the popular press sensationalizes leaders by assigning them heroic qualities and crediting them with herculean feats of success. Common observation, however, suggests great people are almost always bad people (Acton, 1887) and that power is abused with surprising regularity (Kellerman, 2004). A relatively new wave of leadership research has exposed this phenomenon under a variety of banners, including petty tyranny, destructive leadership, and managerial derailment. Abusive supervision is one such area that focuses on the hostile actions perpetuated by a supervisor against their subordinates.

Although abusive supervision is a relatively low base-rate phenomenon (Tepper, Duffy, Henle, & Lambert, 2006), the annual damages it perpetuates in terms of health, productivity, retaliation, and employee withdrawal has been estimated to exceed $20 billion (Tepper, 2007). Clearly, the reduction of such behavior would greatly benefit followers and firms alike. While an impressive literature has been amassed on the consequences of abusive supervision (see Schyns & Schilling, 2013), relatively less empirical work has addressed why leaders – intentionally or otherwise – engage in subordinate mistreatment. At the time of his major review, Tepper (2007) noted only three studies on the antecedents of abuse, leading to calls for future research into its origins. Recognizing the likelihood abusive supervision is a multilevel and dynamic phenomenon, the goal of the current symposium is to address this question from a variety of vantage points, including leader characteristics, leader self-concepts, and environmental forces. Our ultimate aim is to help guide future research into this burgeoning arena.

The first study revisits the “great man,” or, in this case, “terrible man,” approach to leadership by pitting the normative side of personality (the Big Five) against its darker or maladaptive counterparts. Further, as a new trait model, Simonet, Bolen, and Nei argue derailing tendencies (as assessed by the Hogan Developmental Survey, HDS), owing to their interpersonally dysfunctional nature, should incrementally predict an abusive proxy above and beyond normative trait models. Using sequential logistic regressions and dominance analyses, they find multiple dysfunctional tendencies (e.g., excitable, cautious, leisurely, dutiful) increase the likelihood of classifying a supervisor as being too forceful and insensitive in their leadership style. Limitations are stressed and implications discussed.

Next, adopting a person-situation interactional approach, Schilling and Schyns provide a more likely portrayal of how supervisors’ dark side traits express themselves in harmful ways. Specifically, they found a main effect for Machiavellianism predicting abusive supervision. This finding was moderated by stress indicating Machiavellianism is less predictive of abusive supervision under high stress situations. They also found a main effect for narcissism predicting abusive supervision. This finding was moderated by procedural justice indicating that narcissism is more predictive of abusive supervision under low procedural justice situations.  Collectively, findings suggest self-interested persons are more likely to mistreat subordinates, a tendency which is exacerbated by unfair procedures and potentially, at least for Machiavellian individuals, mitigated by stress.             

The final panelist considers an array of macro-environmental factors which, to date, are woefully underrepresented in contemporary studies of abusive supervision. Using an ecological framework, Mulvey further develops the model of abusive supervision by considering the contextual factors of instability, perceived threat, cultural values, and an absence of checks and balances. Mulvey argues that this perspective allows for a richer and more useful set of research questions and conclusions. As such, this paper highlights the limitations of a purely behavioral perspective providing a contrast to the other papers.

This symposium will be held Thursday, May 15.

References available

It’s the start of a new year which means our researchers have already started preparing for SIOP 2014 where they will present recent Hogan research, attend sessions, and learn about other advances in the I-O community. As a little teaser preview to this year’s Hogan SIOP lineup, here are the dates and presentation titles of Hogan presenters and panelists.

Thursday, May 15
9:30, Symposium
From Leader’s Personality to Employee Engagement
Robert Hogan & Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic

11:00, Symposium
Evidence-Based Practice in Pre-Employment Integrity Testing: Validity, Applicability, and Usability
Dara Pickering

11:00, Symposium
A Critical Review of Mechanical Turk as a Research Tool
Blaine Gaddis & Jeff Foster

11:30, Poster
Evaluation of Leadership Development Coaching: The Impact of Personality
Heather Bolen

1:30, Symposium
Personality's Flynn Effect: Recent Upward Trends in Personality Scores
Blaine Gaddis

2:00, Symposium
The Emergence of Abusive Supervisors: What Makes them Mean?
Kimberly Nei & Dan Simonet

Friday, May 16
TBA, Panel Discussion
Holistic Challenges, Narrow Answers
Robert Hogan

9:00, Symposium
The Dark Side of Personality and Leadership
Jeff Foster

11:00, Panel Discussion
Not All Shall Lead: Selection and Development for Unique/IC Jobs
Jackie VanBroekhoven & Jocelyn Hays

11:00, Symposium
Going Global with Assessments: Geographic Findings and Benchmarking Challenges
Dara Pickering

2:00, Symposium
Comparing Apples to Oranges: Leveraging Mapping to Drive Survey Action
Darin Nei

2:00, Panel Discussion
Multi-Language Supply & Demand in the Assessment Industry
Jeff Foster

Saturday, May 17
7:30, Poster
Predicting Emotionally Competent Behavior: Developing a Model and Predictor Scales
Heather Bolen

7:30, Poster
Emotional Intelligence Competencies and Leadership Status in Real-World Organizations
Renee Yang

8:30, Poster
Training to Detect Fit Through Employee Interviews
Kimberly Nei

9:00, Symposium
The Narcissistic Leadership Paradox: Causes, Consequences, and Responses
Robert Hogan

11:00, Panel Discussion
Lost in translation: Identifying and managing high-potentials around the world
Michael Sanger, Jocelyn Hays, & Jackie VanBroekhoven

12:30, Panel Discussion
Searching for the Perfect Translation: Test Translation Best Practices
Steve Nichols

The original Field Guide to SIOP blog post was a hit so I've added a few additional species you may encounter at SIOP this year. Please enjoy this second installment.

1. The Supermarket Sampler – Often confused with The Tourist, this similar species can be found in the exhibitor’s hall which it calls home.  However, The Supermarket Sampler stalks the space in search of edible treats and may make repeated trips through favored booths, attempting to pass off such trips as their first.
2. The Eager Seeker – This adorable and younger form of The Card Dealer eagerly and broadly distributes his/her resume or CV to anyone wearing a SIOP name badge. This species is most typically observed at the placement center, but may also be found in search of opportunities in the exhibitor’s hall. In some cases, The Eager Seeker may have its own business cards printed to mimic the more-experienced Card Dealer.
3. The One-Upper – The easiest way to identify the One-Upper is to tell a story around them. Whatever the story, chances are they can quickly follow it with a similar story of higher achievement. If you published on a topic last year, chances are they will remind you that they published on the same topic in a better journal three years ago.
4. The Stalker – If you’re a SIOP fellow, you’ve probably encountered The Stalker. This species is typically seen waiting after sessions have ended or nervously pacing by the fringes of booths to meet the big names in the field. The Stalker may have an idea to offer, or may just want to meet the face behind the name. If you find yourself cornered by the Stalker, offer them your autograph – they may faint.
5. The “We Should Collaborate” – Like the casual acquaintance who suggests getting together more often after a few drinks, this creature makes plans with colleagues every year to collaborate on research for journal publication or future conferences. This creature is the Publisher’s Clearing House of the SIOP kingdom, so don’t plan on them actually following up on such offers.
6. The Sales Robot – Found in exhibitor’s hall and various parties, receptions, restaurants, and bars, the sales robot is a particularly aggressive creature. This species holds the notion that SIOP is the perfect opportunity to pitch their latest you’ve-got-to-hear-me-out-on-this, don’t-miss-this-opportunity product or service. You can identify them by their trouble with the words “no thanks."
7. The Spy – To The Spy, SIOP is an opportunity for covert intelligence operations on competitors. This sly creature may obscure his/her professional affiliation in an attempt to gain access to sensitive information they can later use as a competitive advantage against others. The Spy is often observed in the exhibitor’s hall, where they may attempt to find information before and/or after hours.
8. The Substitute – This species can be found in conference poster sessions and symposia, where they typically present research conducted primarily by other more senior professionals. Many members of this species are younger graduate students presenting research on which they collaborated with advisors, but this creature may sometimes endure into professional careers.
9. The Are-You-at-the-Right-Conference? – A rare find at SIOP, but not entirely unknown. With no apparent connection to the I-O community (or perhaps psychology as a whole), this species attends the conference but may appear lost or unfamiliar with their surroundings. This creature is easy to spot due to a lack of familiarity with even basic I-O concepts.

Armed with the full Field Guide to SIOP, we hope you enjoy the SIOP Conference this year. See you in Houston!

It’s April again, which means three things – taxes are due, my March madness bracket is hanging by a thread, and SIOP season is here! Every year, I look forward to SIOP for the opportunity to present recent Hogan research, the chance to attend sessions and learn about other advances in the I-O community, and the informal reunions with friends and colleagues. More than anything, however, I look forward to people watching at SIOP. There are certain types of people you can find in the exhibitor’s hall or attending sessions, but to date no attempt has been made to catalog these species. So, with tongue firmly planted in cheek, we provide the first ever field guide to people watching at SIOP.

1. The Tourist – Frequently seen in its natural habitat of the exhibitor’s hall, this creature wanders the booths with the sole purpose of gathering souvenirs from as many vendors as possible. This species is often noted for having a SIOP conference bag or other tote stuffed with its various finds.
2. The Loiterer – These curious squatters can be found in the exhibitor’s hall looking for available seating inside vendors’ booths. Confusing these seats for common hotel meeting areas, The Loiterer takes up indefinite residence without even attempting to engage vendors in conversation.  They may catch up on emails, chat with colleagues, interview job candidates, or even nap, but make no mistake about it – these uninvited guests are hanging out until they’re good and ready to leave. 
3. The Party Crasher – This nocturnal species is seen from the late afternoons through the very late nights. Lacking proper invitations to popular parties and receptions, they attempt to gain access by identifying invited guests they know, entering with groups of invited guests, or finding unguarded entries.
4. The Rager – Although long removed from graduate school, The Rager attempts to relive glory days and party like it's 1999. They may not actually attend conference sessions to learn, but can frequently be seen starting after lunch. Although The Rager and The Party Crasher are easy to confuse, telltale markers of Ragers are bloodshot eyes, complaints of headaches or lack of memory, and wearing the previous day’s clothes. 
5. The Bro – These younger males often confuse SIOP with spring break and are relatively unconcerned with learning and developing their professional network. Known for their overly casual appearance, tight shirts, flip-flops, and indoor use of sunglasses, this creature wants everyone at SIOP to know just how cool they really are.
6. The Party Girl – The female counterpart to The Bro is The Party Girl.  Scientists suspect that this species may also confuse SIOP for spring break as evidenced by a manner of appearance more typically seen in bars or dance clubs than professional conferences. Because of their striking appearance, The Party Girl is frequently surrounded by many Bros.
7. The Card Dealer – This creature just had 500 business cards printed, and between Thursday and Sunday will hand ALL of them out. They give out cards to former colleagues, eager students, presenters, waiters, bartenders, the maid, and drop them in containers for every drawing and contest they see. 
8. The Lifelong Learner – This species is known for an overly serious approach. They attend all advanced workshops and CE courses, and their program may be torn and tattered from overuse.
9. The Contrarian – This curious creature attends many sessions at SIOP, but with the sole purpose of arguing against the topics discussed. This species mourns the loss of debate sessions at the conference, and may attempt to revive them informally by frequently arguing against ideas and those offering them. 
10. The Human Acronym – This species is observed across herds of academics and practitioners. They may be known as Professor Dr. John/Jane Doe, Ph.D., or may hand you a business card that reads John/Jane Doe, M.S., MBA, PHR, ABD, BA. The Human Acronym frequently lists all their achievements since high school in an attempt to wow fellow SIOP attendees.

We hope this Field Guide helps you prepare for the conference jungle and all the creatures you may encounter there. The Society for Industrial/Organizational Psychology is a phenomenal organization and Hogan is proud to sponsor the conference each year. We're looking forward to seeing you in Houston!

If you're attending the 28th Annual Conference of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology in April, check out some of our esteemed Hogan colleagues as they present our latest research.

THURSDAY, APRIL 11

International Perspectives on Combining Personality and Multirater Feedback Data
Many organizations include personality assessments and multirater feedback instruments in selection batteries or development initiatives, but they rarely combine these sources of information to maximize developmental outcomes that mutually benefit individuals and the organization. Participants will share international perspectives on combining these sources of information and the ROI of doing so.
Blaine Gaddis

Comparability of Scores: Equivalence Issues in Testing Across Countries
This study considers approaches to a range of issues relating to score comparability in multinational testing. These range from use of DIF and generalizability theory through applications of SEM to more general considerations of the impact of cultural differences on attitudes to testing.
Kevin Meyer, Jeff Foster

Job Analytic Comparisons of Competency Requirements in Global Managerial Jobs
Existing research has examined similarities and differences in global leader behavior. However, these initiatives focus on the individual as their unit of analysis. This research uses jobs as the unit of analysis, analyzing archival job data to examine similarities and differences in competencies required for managerial jobs around the world.
Dara Pickering, Blaine Gaddis

Identifying Critical Job Family Competencies: Within and Across Job Families
This study used data-driven best practices to identify the most critical competencies for 4 job families: service and support; professionals, operations, and trades; and technicians and specialists. Although subject matter experts rated 4 competencies as critical across the 3 job families, other competencies were unique to each job family.
Ashley Palmer, Steve Nichols

A Sticky Topic: Using Personality Tests in Selection Settings
Industry remains hesitant to utilize personality tests in applicant screening due to low criterion validity in predicting job performance. An expert panel is consulted on the use of personality tests in selection settings toward improving criterion validity and offers recommendations promoting the use of personality data in selection.
Kevin Meyer

The Role of Theory in Advancing Personality Assessment at Work
Toward making innovations “stick,” 4 leading personality researchers discuss the role of theory in advancing personality test use in work settings. Key issues include why theory is especially important in this area, which theoretical principles are important, hurdles blocking utilization of theory, and the future of personality assessment at work.
Robert Hogan

FRIDAY, APRIL 12

Leadership Assessment: Contemporary Issues and Challenges in Demonstrating Value
Identifying and developing leadership talent continues to be a key concern for organizations. Recent advances in technology and research have spurred the development of automated assessments and models to leverage data, making leadership assessment more accessible and affordable. This session explores opportunities to demonstrate the value of assessment to organizations.
Ryan Ross

Why Is the Leadership Development Industry Failing?
Since 1995, leadership development has grown 30% into a $12B industry in the U.S. In the same time, public confidence in leadership has declined 30%, and most corporations report lacking adequate leadership capacity. This session discusses why the leadership industry seems to be failing and what to do about it.
Robert Hogan

Industry Differences: Mine Is Unique…Right?
Organizations believe important differences between industries exist and request industry-specific comparisons. This symposium will explore the size of differences in personality traits, values, competencies, and attitudes between industries. Job function and managerial level differences are also presented. Implications, including those for selection and development, are discussed.
Steve Nichols, Jeff Foster

Advances in the Use of Personality to Predict Workplace Criteria
Although research relating personality to work outcomes has progressed, more is needed to refine the criteria that are predicted by different traits and relevant boundary conditions involved. This session presents 4 papers that approach the issue of what is understood about using personality tests to predict criteria from different perspectives.
Ashley Palmer

SATURDAY, APRIL 13

Linking Personality and 360 Assessments to Coach and Develop Leaders
This session examines the combination of personality and 360 (multirater) assessment for the development of leaders. Two empirical studies demonstrate how coaching insights are produced by the convergence of the 2 types of assessments. In addition, 2 large-scale organizational case studies demonstrate the application and practical utility of the approach.
Rodney Warrenfeltz

Destructive Leadership: A Holistic View for Minimizing its Toxic Influence
This session focuses on consolidating current research on destructive leadership to support a more comprehensive definition. It emphasizes the importance of considering leaders, followers, and the environment in the destructive leadership process. Moreover, it examines this process in a specific context to gain insight into preventing destructive leadership in organizations.
Robert Hogan

Drs. Robert and Joyce Hogan will be joined by Robert Kaiser of Kaiser Leadership Solutions, Darren Overfield of Kaplan DeVries, Inc, Maret Kassner and Rene Kusch of Metaberatung GmbH, Michael Benson of Johnson & Johnson, and Peter Moser of Swissport International Ltd, to present 4 integrated presentations on the topic of theory-driven, personality-based leadership development.

This session will demonstrate how the socioanalytic theory of personality can inform the development of managers into better leaders. It features an overview of the theory, new research, application models, and a case study of a global project to develop airport managers.

The session will be held Thursday, April 26 at the 27^th Annual SIOP Conference in San Diego.