The very separate worlds of academyc and practitioners[1].docx

8/10/2019 The very separate worlds of academyc and practitioners[1].docx

1/23

Academy

of

Management

Journal

2007, Vol. 50, No. 5, 9871008.

THEVERYSEPARATEWORLDSOFACADEMICANDPRACTITIONERPERIODICALSINHUMAN

RESOURCEMANAGEMENT:IMPLICATIONSFOREVIDENCE-BASEDMANAGEMENT

SARA

L.

RYNES

TAMARAL.GILUKKENNETHG.BROWNUniversityofIowa

Itishardlynewsthatmanyorganizationsdonot

implementpracticesthatresearchhasshowntobe

positively associated with employee productivityand firm financial performance (e.g., Hambrick,1994;Johns,1993;Pfeffer&Sutton,2000).Indeed,the failure to implement research-supported prac-

tices

has

been

observed

in

nearly

every

field

wherethere is a separation between those who conduct

researchandthosewhoareinapositiontoimple-

mentresearchfindings(Lewis,2003;Rogers,1995;Straus,Richardson,Glasziou,&Haynes,2005).Thegapbetweenscienceandpracticeissoper-

sistent and pervasive that some have despaired ofitseverbeingnarrowed.Nevertheless,overthepastdecade or so, attempts to deal with the problemhave evolved in the form of movements toward

evidence-based practice in such fields as medi-cine,education,marketing,rehabilitation,andpsy-chology (APA Task Force, 2006; Ford, 2005; Law,2002;

Southworth

&

Conner,

1999;

Straus

et

al.,

2005).In the field of management, the nascent move-

ment toward evidence-based practice is known asevidence-basedmanagement,orEBM.Accordingto Rousseau, Evidence-basedmanagementmeanstranslating principles based on best evidence into

organizational practices. Through evidence-basedmanagement,practicingmanagersdevelopintoex-pertswhomakeorganizationaldecisionsinformedbysocialscienceandorganizationalresearchpartofthezeitgeistmovingprofessionaldecisionsaway

from

personal

preference

and

unsystematic

experi-

ence toward thosebasedon the best available sci-

entificevidence(2006:256).For evidence-based management (EBM) to take

root, it is necessarythough far from sufficientthat managers be exposed to, and embrace, scien-

TheauthorswouldliketothankBennettPostlethwaiteforinsightfulcommentsonearlierversionsofthisarticleandToddDarnoldandJaclynThollfortheirassistanceincodingthedata.

tificevidence.Althoughthispointmayseemobvi-

ous, it is hardly trivial. For example, unlike

medicine, education, or law, management is not

trulyaprofession(Leicht&Fennell,2001;Trank&

Rynes,2003).Assuch,thereisnorequirementthat

managersbeexposedtoscientificknowledgeabout

management,

that

they

pass

examinations

in

ordertobecomelicensedtopractice,orthattheypursue

continuing education in order to be allowed to

maintaintheirpractice.Furthermore,sincethefirst

choiceofmostmanagersseekinginformationisto

consult other managers (e.g., Brown & Duguid,

2002; Wenger, McDermott, & Snyder, 2002) and

sinceextremelyfewmanagersreadacademicpub-

lications(Rynes,Colbert,&Brown,2002),theques-

tion of how to inform managers about scientific

evidenceisanythingbuttrivial.

One way in which aspiring managers can learn

about

management-related

evidence

is

through

for-

maleducation.However,eventheacquisitionofa

formalmastersorbachelorsdegreeinbusinessisno guarantee that a student has learned evidence-

based principles. This is because many textbooks

donotcoverresearchfindings,andmanyindivid-

uals teaching in business schools do not have

Ph.D.s and are unlikely to know about scientificevidence in their field of instruction (Trank &

Rynes, 2003). Furthermore, there are millions of

managerswhodonotholdformaldegreesinman-

agement.Howmightthesemanagersreceiveinfor-mation

that

is

consistent

with

the

best

available

scientific

evidence

about

how

various

management

practicesinfluencebusinessoutcomes?Onepossiblewayisthroughperiodicalsaimedat

practitioners,

either

in

specialty

areas

or

in

general

management. For example, in the area of humanresource (HR) management, Rynes, Colbert, andBrown (2002) found that by far the most widelyread periodical is HR Magazine, which is pub-lished by HRsmajor professional association, theSocietyforHumanResourceManagement(SHRM)and has a circulation of more than 200,000. An-

987

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Academy

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otherHR periodical that is relativelywidely read,

and that aims specifically to create a bridge be-tweenscientistsandpractitionersofHR,isHumanResourceManagement.Alternatively, inthecaseofgeneralmanagement,themosthighlyregardedpe-riodicalistheHarvardBusinessReview,whichhasa circulation of 240,000 and is published in 12

languages.

HBR

is

another

publication

that

at-

temptstobridgetheworldsofscienceandpractice

and that has at least some readership among HRmanagers,directors, and vice presidents (Rynes etal.,2002).Inthiseditorial,weexaminetheextenttowhich

three important HR-related research findings arebeing translated and transferred to practitio-ners via these three widely read periodicals. We

thendiscusssomeimplicationsofourfindingsfortheprospectsofEBMinHRMandinvitecommen-taries from other individuals who are in a goodposition to reflecton our findings. First, however,we

explain

how

we

chose

our

topics

of

study.

WHATSCIENTIFICEVIDENCESHOULD

WESTUDY?

Because the task of moving toward EBM is so

daunting,prioritiesmustbesetastowhatspecifictypes of scientific evidence are most important totranslateandtransfer.Attheriskofmakingasome-whatobviouspoint,RousseauandMcCarthy(2007)

arguedthatscholarsshouldbeginEBMbyfocusing

on issues about which there is a clear scientific

consensus

on

findings.

In

addition,

an

issue

shouldbe important rather than trivial (Priem & Rosen-

stein,2000).Touseamedicalanalogy,weshouldfocusonnumberonekillerissuesbeforemovingon to less consequential concerns. Third, weshould focus most of our attention on topics forwhich the scientific findings are not obvious to

practitionersthat is, on problems that managers,left to their own devices, will likely solve bydoing something other than what sound researchevidence would support (Gordon, Kleiman, &Hanie,1978;Priem&Rosenstein,2000).

StudyingPractitioners Views

In the HR area, previous research has already

identifiedanumberofclearscientificfindingsthatarenotobvioustopractitioners.Specifically,Rynesand her colleagues (Rynes et al., 2002) surveyednearly 1,000 HR vice presidents, directors, andmanagerstoidentifywhichof35well-documentedresearch findings HR practitioners widely disbe-lieve. Their results showed widespread disagree-mentorlackofknowledge(i.e.,morethan50per-

cent of practitioners actively disagreeing with or

not knowing about) the following research

findings:1

Intelligence predictsjobperformancebetterthan

conscientiousness(Schmidt&Hunter,1998).

Screening for intelligence results in higherjobperformancethanscreeningforvaluesorvalues

fit

(Meglino

&

Ravlin,

1998;

Schmidt

&

Hunter,

1998).

Being very intelligent is not a disadvantage for

performingwellon a low-skilledjob (Hunter,

1986;Schmidt&Hunter,1998).

Personality inventories vary considerably interms of how well they predict applicantsjob

performance(Barrick&Mount,1991;Gardner&

Martinko,1996).

Integrity tests successfully predict whether

someonewillsteal,beabsent,orotherwisetake

advantage of employers, even though individu-

als

can

fake

good

on

them

(Ones,

Viswesvaran,& Schmidt, 1993; Ones, Viswesvaran, & Reiss,

1996).

Integrity tests do not have adverse impact on

racialminorities(Ones&Viswesvaran,1998).

Goalsettingismoreeffectiveforimprovingper-

formance than is employee participation in de-cisionmaking (Locke, Feren,McCaleb, Shaw,&

Denny, 1980; Locke & Latham, 1990; Wagner,

1994).

Thetendencytomakeerrorsinperformanceap-

praisal is very difficult to eradicate through

training(London,Mone,&Scott,2004).

Peoples

actual

behavior

suggests

that

pay

is

muchmoreimportanttothemthantheyimplyinsurveys (Rynes, Gerhart, & Parks, 2005; Rynes,

Schwab,&Heneman,1983).

As these findings show, the two largest areas in

which a gap looms between research results and

practitionerknowledgeorbeliefsare(1)theimpor-

tanceofintelligenceinpredictingjobperformance

and (2) the usefulness of personality and integrity

tests for predictingjob performance and counter-

productive work behaviors. However, Rynes and

colleagues

(2002)

did

not

determine

the

extent

to

which the HR research community regarded each

oftheir35itemsasimportant.

Web

Survey

of

HR

Researchers

Therefore, to provide this third necessary piece

ofinformationforprioritizing researchfindingsfor

1SeeRynesetal.(2002)foradditionaldocumentation

regardingtheseresearchfindings.


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Rynes,

Giluk,

and

Brown 989

EBM, we conducted a Web-based survey of HR

researchexperts.Specifically,wesurveyedtheed-itorial board members of fourjournals: PersonnelPsychology(PP),theJournalofAppliedPsychology

TABLE1

EditorialBoardMembersAssessmentsoftheMostFundamentalFindingsfrom

Human

Resources

Researcha

(JAP),theAcademyofManagementJournal(AMJ),and Human Resource Management (HRM).2 Eachboard member was asked the following question,

which

was

answered

in

an

open-ended

format:

In

your opinion,what are the fivemost fundamental

findings from human resources research that allpracticing managers should know? Your answerneednotcitespecificstudiesweareinterestedinfundamental,generalizableprinciples.Inall,208board members were contacted. Usable responseswere received from 85 board members, for a 41percentresponserate.Ofthese,174servedonone

board,30ontwoboards,andfouronthreeboards.Toanalyzetheresults,thefirstauthorevaluated

Finding

Generalmentalabilityisthestrongest,oroneof

the

strongest,

predictors

of

performance

Setting

goals

and

providing

feedback

is

a

highly

effectivemotivationalpractice

HRpracticesareimportanttoorganizational

outcomes

Structuredinterviewsaremorevalidthan

unstructured

ones

Valid

selection

practices

are

very

important

to

Number

of

Responses

22

22

21

16

15

theitems,sortedthemintotheme-basedcategories,and attached tentative names to the categories.3The

second

author

was

then

provided

with

the

category names and asked to independently sortthe items. The two raters agreed on 71 percent of

thecategorychoices,andthethirdauthorresolved

thedifferences.

Table 1 presents our results for the six topicsreceiving at least ten mentions. This table showsthat seven of the nine items identified by Rynes,Colbert,andBrown(2002)asexhibitinglargegapsbetweenscientificfindingsandpractitionerbeliefs

are also regarded as very important findings by

researchers: the three items pertaining to intelli-

gence

(also

known

as

general

mental

ability,

orGMA), the three items relating to personality,

and the item concerning the effectiveness of goalsettingforimprovingperformance.4

performanceoutcomes

Personality

is

related

to

performance

11

aFindingswithtenormoreresponsesonaWeb-basedsurvey

ofboardmembersfromasetofacademicjournals.

CombiningthefindingsfromRynesetal.(2002)

and the board member survey reveals that three

content

areas

stand

out

as

both

containing

clear

and

important research findings and suffering a gapbetween HR researchers and HR practitionersevaluations of these findings: the importance of

intelligence or GMA for performance; the impor-

tance

of

goal

setting

and

feedback

for

performance,and the validity ofpersonality (of which integrity

tests are one representation) for predicting perfor-

mance.Thus,thesebecamethethreecontentareasexamined for coverage in practitioner and bridgejournalsduringthemainphaseofourresearch.

2In the case ofAMJ, we surveyed only those board

membersforwhomHRwasaprimaryresearcharea.ForHRM,wesurveyedonlythoseboardmemberswhowereacademics.

3Itemscouldalsobesortedintomorethanonecate-

gory, if appropriate. For example, the item, Cognitiveabilityandpersonalitytestsarevalidpredictorsofper-formance,

was

sorted

into

both

the

general

mental

abil-

ityandpersonalitycategories.4Illustrative responses for the GMA category in-

cluded, Cognitive ability is the single most importantpredictor of human performance, Ability tests havehigh validity, and General mental ability is a validpredictorofalljobperformance.Responsesforthegoalsettingcategoryincluded,Goalsreallymatter,Settingspecific, difficult attainable goals increases perfor-mance, Specific, difficult goals with feedback arehighly effective motivators, and The power of goal-settingandsimilarmotivational techniques.Responses

ResearchQuestions

Threemajorquestionsgovernedourexamination

ofcoverageofthesethreetopicsintelligence, per-sonality, and goal settingin practitioner andbridgeperiodicals:

1. Howmuchcoveragedideachofthesethreetop-

ics receive inmajor practitioner and bridge pe-riodicalsbetween2000and2005?

2. To what extent is the content of coverage in

practitioner and bridge journals consistent or

for personality included, Conscientiousness predicts

performanceinmostjobs,[Weshould]hirepeopleonthebasisofabilityandpersonality,andEffectofper-sonalityonperformance.


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inconsistent with peer-reviewed researchfindings?

3. Whatsourcesofevidencearepresentedineachperiodical?

METHODS

Sample

To investigate the extent towhich the three im-

portantHRresearchfindingshadreceivedcoveragein practitioner and bridgejournals since Rynes et

al. (2002) collected their data (in 1999), we con-

structed a database of articles from HR Magazine,HumanResourceManagement(HRM),andtheHar-vardBusinessReview(HBR)forthesix-yearperiod200005. Each of these periodicals represents asomewhat different slice of the practitioner do-main.HRMagazineisaspecialistperiodical,focus-

ing on HR managers. Patterns of both readership

and

authorship

suggest

that

HR

Magazine

has

avery strong practitioner focus. For example, 84.2

percentofthepractitionerssurveyedbyRynesandhercoauthors(Rynesetal.,2002)usuallyoral-waysreadHRMagazine,andveryfewofitsarti-cleshave academic authors or coauthors (only 6.6percent between 2000 and 2005). HRM is also aspecialist periodical, read by fewer practitioners

than HR Magazine, but more likely to be read bythose with higher education and position levels

(Rynes et al., 2002). Between 2000 and 2005, aca-demics authored the majority of HRM articles(64%); practitioners authored 20 percent, andmixes

of

academics

and

practitioners

wrote

16

per-

cent.Finally,HBRisthemostwidelyreadandmost

highly respected generalmanagement bridgejour-

nalformanagers.Weregarditasmoreofabridg-ing than practitionerjournal because it is readby both academics and managers, and because itsarticles are almost evenly authored by academicsand practitioners (from 2000 through 2005, aca-demics authored 41 percent;practitioners, 45per-cent;andcombinations,14percent).5The intent of the content analysis was to seek

5We realize there are other practitioner and bridge

periodicals that contain HR-related content. However,webelieve that the three selected periodicals representthe clearest exemplars of the three genres (specialistpractitioner, specialistbridge, andgeneralist bridge), atleastinNorthAmerica.Forexample,DeadrickandGib-son (2007) also chose HR Magazine and HRM as theirprofessional-orientedcomparisonpointstotwoHRac-ademicjournals,theJournalofAppliedPsychologyandPersonnel

Psychology, in their analysis of the HR re-

search-practicegap.

coverage of GMA, personality, and goal setting in

thethreeperiodicals, witharticlesbeingtheunitof

analysis. However, we excluded all articles that

werenotatleastafullpagelong,asarticlesoflessthanapagearequitecommoninHRMagazineandgenerallydonotcontainresearch-relevant informa-tion(e.g.,bookandproductreviews,currentevent

updates,

awards,

or

profiles

of

companies

or

HR

practitioners). In addition, we eliminated the

Forethought sections of HBR (because thesepiecesare,again,lessthanapagelong),aswellas

HBRs fictional case studies. Application of these

criteriaresultedinthecodingof1,490articles:785forHRMagazine,168forHRM,and537forHBR.

Database

Informationabouteachofthe1,490articleswas

gathered from Business Source Premier and en-

tered into a spreadsheet. For each article, we re-corded

the

abstract

and

the

first

five

keywords

listedbyBusinessSourcePremier,aswellasbasicbibliographic information (e.g., authors, journal,

volume,andpagenumbers).Inaddition,wecoded

whethertheauthorswereallacademics,allpracti-

tioners,oramixofacademicsandpractitioners.

Tofacilitatearticlesearchesonparticulartopics,

webeganbycreatingamasterlistofthekeywords

thatoccurredinHRMagazine,HRM,andtwotop-tier academicjournals specializing in HR content

(theJournal ofApplied Psychology and Personnel

Psychology).6 This process resulted in 289 key-

words.

To

reduce

this

large

number

of

keywords,allthreeauthorsjointlyusedthecardsortmethod

to create a smaller set of broader categories. For

example,

the

general

categoryselectionincluded

thefollowingkeywords:abilitytesting,appli-cations for positions, assessment centers, cog-nitive abilities test, employee screening, em-

ployee selection, employment interviewing,

employment tests, examinations, interview-

ing, interviews, and personality tests. We

placed all keywords that were difficult to classify

inamiscellaneous category.Thesestepsresulted

in

57

initial

categories.

An

advanced

graduate

stu-

dentinhumanresourcesthenperformedthesame

6We used two academicjournals, a bridgejournal,

andapractitionerjournalinHRingeneratingkeywordsinordertomakesurethatbothpractitionerandacademic

concepts of the field of HR management were incor-porated. We did not incorporate HBR at the keywordgeneration stage because it is a general managementjournal with many keywords being clearly outside therange of HR management (e.g., marketing, operationsmanagement).


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card sort using the author-generated categories,

placing 76 percent of the items in the author-gen-eratedcategories.Discussionbetweenthethirdau-

TABLE2

PercentCoverageofGeneralMentalAbility,

Personality,andGoalSetting,byPeriodicala

thor and the graduate student was used to createconsensusontheremainingkeywords.Tosearchforarticlesrelatedtotheuseofeither

Topic

HR

Magazine

HumanResource HarvardBusiness

Management Review

intelligence/GMA or personality in selection, we

initially

conducted

a

broad

search

by

focusing

on

articles including any of the keywords that re-

Ability 0.0% 1.2% 0.4%

Personality

0.4

1.2

0.6

Goalsetting

0.6

0.6

0.6

flectedeitherselection orrecruiting7(sincethetwo functions often occur simultaneously and aredifficulttoseparateinpractice),oranymentionof

Total

number

ofarticles

785 168 537

intelligence,oranypersonalitytrait.Thissearchyielded 98 articles from HR Magazine, 21 fromHRM, and 23 from HBR. Interrater reliability wasnot an issue, since the keywords were taken di-

rectly from the spreadsheet. However, becausesomeofthekeywordswereverybroad(e.g.,psy-chologicaltests,collegestudents),notallofthekeyword-identifiedarticlestrulyfocusedonselec-tion.

To

deal

with

this

reality,

the

first

and

second

authors independently reviewed all 142 articlesand highlighted those they thought were inappro-

priatelycategorized.Thefewcasesofdisagreement

(lessthan10percentineachofthethreecategories)

wereresolvedviajointdiscussion.Theomissionofnon-selection-relatedarticlesresultedinasubsetof116 articles: 91 from HR Magazine, 20 from HRM,and5fromHBR.Similarstepswerefollowedforgoalsettingthat

is,initialkeywordsearches(keywordswerefeed-back,goals,andgoalsettinginpersonnelman-

agement),

followed

by

examination

of

abstractsand article content to eliminate irrelevant articles

(e.g.,oneson360-degreefeedbackthatdidnotcon-tainanydiscussionofgoals).Thesestepsproduced12goalsettingarticles:5fromHRMagazine,1fromHRM,and6fromHBR.

RESULTS

ResearchQuestion1:ExtentofCoverage

Ourfirstsearchwasforarticlesrelatedtotherole

of GMA injob performance. Despite the high de-

gree

of

importance

placed

by

research

academics

on the findings related to the intelligence-perfor-mancelink,oursearchrevealedalmostnocoverageof this topic in the three practitioner and bridgeperiodicals. Specifically, HR Magazine had no ar-ticles (of 785 total, 0%) regarding GMA over that

timeperiod(seeTable2).HRMhadtwoarticles(of

7Keywords for recruiting were college stu-

dents,

employeesrecruiting of, and help-wantedadvertising.

aFigures

represent

the

percentages

of

all

full-length

articles

appearingineachperiodicalbetween2000and2005generated

by

both

keyword

and

manual

searches

of

article

content

by

two

ofthethreeauthors(seethetextfordetails).Tobeincludedin

thetable,articlesonpersonalityhadtodiscusspersonalityin

the

context

of

selection

(as

opposed

to

postselection

manage-

mentofdifferentpersonalitytypes).

168, 1.2%) that discussed the ability-performance

link,

and

HBR

also

had

two

(of

537,

0.4%).8

Results were not much different for personality

orgoalsetting.Theroleofpersonalityinselectionwasthetopicofthreearticles(0.4%)inHRMaga-zine,twoinHRM(1.2%),andthree(0.6%)inHBR.Similarly, there were five articles (0.6%) on goal

setting in HR Magazine, one (0.6%) in HRM, and

threeinHBR(0.6%).

Thus,thereisacleargapintheextentofcoverage

of GMA, personality, and goal setting between ac-

ademicjournalsontheonehand9andpractitionerand bridge periodicals on the other. The nearly

nonexistent

coverage

of

intelligence,

personality,

andgoalsettingbypractitionerandbridgejournals

isconsistentwith(andmaybelinkedto)Ryneset

al.s (2002) finding that the largest gaps between

research findings and practitioner beliefs occur in

theseareas.

ResearchQuestion2:ResearchConsistency

ofCoverage

Beyondthisdifferenceinquantityofcoverage,it

is also interesting to examine the extent to which

8Ingeneral,wewouldnotexpectHBRtoprovideas

much relative coverage of HR issues as the other twoperiodicals,giventhatitisageneralmanagement(ratherthananHR-focused)periodical.

9Forexample,analogousfiguresinJournalofApplied

Psychology,atop-tieracademicjournalinthisarea,were3.2percentforGMA,5.9percentforpersonality,and2.5percentforgoalsetting.Figuresforanothertop-tieraca-demicjournal, Personnel Psychology, were 6.9 percentforGMA,6.3percentforpersonality,and4.2percentforgoalsetting.


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coverageofthesetopicsinpractitionerandbridge

journals is consistent with research evidence. Wediscusseachofthethreetopicsinturn.

Intelligence/GMA. NoarticlesonGMAappearedin HR Magazine over the relevant time period.However, two articles in HRM did deal with theroleofGMAinselection.Inthefirst,OLeary,Lind-

holm,

Whitford,

and

Freeman

(2002)

explained

the

recruitmentandselectionpracticesoftheU.S.fed-

eralgovernment.Thesepracticesincludetheuseofa variety of cognitive and noncognitive tests de-signedtomatchindividualsabilities,personality,andsocialskillswiththerequirements offourdif-ferent occupational groups (administrative sup-port, professional, managerial, and trades/labor).The authors cited a considerable amount of aca-

demic research on both the validity and utility ofalternativeselectiondevicesandprovideddescrip-tions of how research findings guide OPMs inter-nalselectionandplacementresearch.Inshort,thearticle

frequently

references

the

academic

literature

onGMAandishighlyconsistentwithit.The other relevant HRM article was part of a

special issue (Burke, Drasgow, & Edwards, 2004)

designed to illustrate how psychology-based re-

searchcanbeusefullyappliedinHRmanagement.Articlesforthisissuewereauthoredbyacademic-practitioner teams in nine areas of HR practice,includingrecruitmentandselection.Becauseofthespecialissuesoverridingfocusontheapplicability

of psychological research, the article on recruit-

ment and selection (Ryan& Tippins, 2004) is also

highly

consistent

with

research

evidence.

For

ex-ample,RyanandTippins(2004)drewonprevious

researchtocomparevariousselectiontools(includ-ingGMAtests,integritytests,andmeasuresofcon-scientiousness) on validity, costs, and sizes of av-eragegroupdifferencesinscores(e.g.,maleversusfemale, and white versus black, Hispanic, and

Asian). In addition, they discussed various selec-

tiontoolsandstrategiesintermsofboththeiruse-

fulnessforreducingadverseimpactandtheirlikelyimpact on applicants perceptions (an importantaspect in recruitment). Thus, the HRM articles on

GMA,

though

not

numerous,

are

highly

consistent

withresearchfindings.

HBR also published two articles on intelligenceduringthisperiod.InHiringforSmarts,Menkespresented a largely research-consistent argumentforassessingintelligencewhenhiringmanagers:

Somuchhasbeenwrittenaboutleadershipperson-

alityandstylethathiringmanagersareindangerofneglectingthemostcriticalfactorinexecutivessuc-cess:intelligence.... Historically, theonlyreliablemeasureofsuchbrainpowerhasbeenthestandardIQ test which, for good reasons, is rarely used in

business settings. But in rejecting IQ testing alto-gether,hiringmanagershaveturnedtheirbacksonthe single most effective assessment of cognitiveabilities, simply because there isnt a version thatappliestothecorporateworld.Theyhavedismissedtheonemethodthatcouldhelpthemidentifybusi-nessstars.(2005:100)

He

recommended,

as

a

remedy,

situational

inter-views that focus on cognitive subjects associated

withexecutivework:accomplishingtasks,working

withandthroughothers,andjudgingoneself.The

questions shouldnt require specific industry ex-pertiseorexperience.Anyknowledgetheycallformust be rudimentary and common to all execu-tives (Menkes, 2005: 102). This recommendationisconsistentwithaconsiderableamountofempir-

icalevidence(e.g.,Latham&Saari,1984;Schmidt

&Hunter,1998,2000)andprovidesacounterpoint

to the commonly held (but incorrect) assumption

that

intelligence

can

only

be

assessed

with

intel-

ligencetests.

In the second article related to intelligence,DeepSmarts,LeonardandSwapwrote:

When a person sizes up a complex situation and

comestoarapiddecisionthatprovestobenotjustgood but brilliant, you think, That was smart.Afteryouvewatchedhimdothisafewtimes,yourealizeyoureinthepresenceofsomethingspecial.Itsnotrawbrainpower,thoughthathelps.Itsnotemotional intelligence, either, though that, too, isofteninvolved.Itsdeepsmarts,thestuffthatpro-

duces that mysterious quality, good judgment.

(2004:

88)

This articlemaps lesswellontopeer-reviewed re-

search

findings

than

does

the

Menkes

(2005)

arti-

cle. For example, what Leonard and Swap calldeep smarts is what academic researchers callexpertjudgmentaprocesswherebyindividuals

subconsciously match complex environmental

stimuliwithsomedeeplyheldcategory,pattern,or

feature acquired over many years of experience

(Dane & Pratt, 2007; Simon, 1996). As such, the

termdeepsmartscontributes towhatresearchers

call

construct

proliferation,

or

creating

new

la-

bels for phenomena that have already been well-

researchedunderanothername.

Inaddition,byintroducingthewordsmartsto

indicate a combination of intelligence and experi-

enceinaparticulartypeofjoboractivity,allthree

constructs (smarts, intelligence, and experience)

become muddied. And although it is true that in-

telligence (what the authors call raw smarts) isinsufficientforproducingdeepexpertknowledge,it will still be the best predictor of it at any givenlevel of experience (i.e., holding experience con-


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and

Brown 993

stant). This is because of what intelligence is and

thewayitworks:

Intelligence is the ability to grasp and reason cor-

rectlywithabstractions(concepts)andsolveprob-lems.However,perhapsamoreusefuldefinitionisthatintelligenceistheabilitytolearn.Higherintel-ligenceleadstomorerapidlearning,andthemore

complex

the

material

to

be

learned,

the

more

this

istrue.... Why doesGMA predictjob performance?

The primary reason is that people who are moreintelligent learn morejob knowledge and learn itfaster.... Evenwhenworkershaveequaljobknowl-edge the more intelligent workers have higherjobperformance. This is because there are problemsthat come up on thejob that are not covered bypreviousjobknowledge,andGMAisuseddirectlyon thejob to solve these problems. (Schmidt &Hunter,2000:35)

Moregenerally,keywordsearchesinHBRturned

up a number of additional articles that furthermuddy

the

construct

waters

with

respect

to

in-

telligence and its relationship tojob performance.For example, in the period 200005, HBR con-tainedmorearticlesthatcoveredemotionalintel-ligence and social intelligence (e.g., Coutu,2004;Goffee& Jones, 2005;Goleman, 2000, 2004)thanarticlesthatcoveredintelligenceorcogni-tiveability,despitethefactthatemotionalintelli-gence and social intelligence have far weaker re-search bases in top-tier peer-reviewed psychology

journals and that some definitions of emotionalintelligence are so broad as to include nearly all

important

human

traits,

including

a

hefty

chunk

ofGMA(Murphy,2006).

Insum,ofthetwoperiodicalsthataddressedtheusefulness of intelligence in selection, only HRMprovided research-consistent information. How-ever,HBRprovidedmixedcoverage,withthearti-clebyMenkes(2005)providingresearch-consistent

information, but articles by Coutu (2004), Goffee

and Jones (2005), Goleman (2000, 2004) and Leo-

nard and Swap (2004) providing either research-inconsistent or, at best, only partially research-consistentinformation.

Personality.

The

two

HRM

articles

that

covered

GMA in a research-consistent fashion (OLeary et

al.,2002;Ryan&Tippins,2004)alsoreviewedthe

researchevidenceonthevalidityofvariousaspects

of personality in selection. As such, although onewouldnotdescribeHRMscoverageoftheseissuesasextensive,itisconsistentwiththebestavail-able scientific evidence on personality, as wasHRMscoverageofGMA.AlthoughHRMagazinedidnotcoverGMAatall

intherelevantperiod,itdidpublishthreearticlesonpersonalityassessmentasapredictorofvarious

behaviors:Andrews(2005),Bates(2002),andKrell

(2005).Andrews(2005)beganwithadiscussionof

personal and business ethics and then asked

whether personality tests can help detect thoselikely to engage in unethical or other counterpro-ductive behaviors. For themost part, she took theresearch-consistentpositionthattheycan,citinga

variety

of

research

psychiatrists

and

psychologists

tosupportthecase.

On the other hand, some claims made in the

article go far beyond scientifically substantiated

evidence.Forexample,atonepoint,Andrewscited

a senior vice president of HR as saying, You canpickupamultitudeofcluesaboutapersonschar-acterby simply having a restaurantmeal together.Youllseehowtheyinteractwiththewaiterorthe

people sitting at adjacent tables. I sometimes say,

Gee, how much of a tip do you think we shouldleave? Then, based on whatever percentage theysuggest, I ask why. I want to see how they makethose

decisions.

A

lot

of

it

bears

on

how

they

view

theworldinamoregeneralsense(2005:56).Thistype of screeningbehavior is not supported by re-

search findings. Rather, it is an example of using

non-job-related criteria that are likely to reflect a

hiringmanagerspersonalpredilectionsmorethanacandidatesabilitytodoajob.Assuch,thisquoterepresentsaselectiontacticthatislowinvalidity

and utility but high in exposure to potential legalliability.

AsecondHRMagazinearticlebyBates(2002)is

alsoamixofresearch-consistentandquestionable

claims.

For

example,

in

keeping

with

research

evi-dence,hewrotethatconsensusisbuildinginthe

research community that five factors shape our

overallpersonality(Bates,2002:30).However,the

fivetraitshecited(needforstability,whetherweare solitary or social, whether we strive more forinnovation or efficiency, the degree to which we

stick to our positions or accept others ideas, and

whether we are more linear or flexible in our ap-

proachtogoals[Bates,2002:30])arenotentirely

consistent with the Big Five that have generally

been used in selection research: emotional stabil-

ity,

extraversion,

openness

to

experience,

agree-

ableness,andconscientiousness(Barrick&Mount,

1991; Digman, 1986; McCrae & Costa, 1987). This

confusion was exacerbated later in the article,

wherethefivedimensionsofaproprietaryperson-

ality inventory offered by a consulting firm were

listedasneedforstability,extraversion,original-ity, accommodation, and consolidation (Bates,2002:31).In addition, Bates stated that there are no

wrong answers to personality testsonly resultsthat suggest an individual is better-suited to one


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typeofworkthananother(2002:30).Althoughitistruethatcertainpersonalitytraits(suchasextra-version) are more predictive of performance insomejobs than others, one of the Big Five traits(conscientiousness)hasbeenfoundtobeapositivepredictorofperformanceinalljobtypes(Barrick&Mount, 1991). In addition, scores on three of the

Big

Five

factors

(conscientiousness,

emotional

sta-

bility, and agreeablenessthe factors that domi-nate most personality-based integrity tests) havebeenfoundtobegoodpredictorsofcounterproduc-tivebehaviorssuchasfighting,stealing,andabsen-teeism over alljob categories (Ones et al., 1993).Moreover, when employers use personality-basedintegrity tests, they are certainly counting someanswers as better than others, regardless of thejobinquestion.

Thefinalpersonality-relatedarticleinHRMaga-zine (Krell, 2005) describes how personality testsarebeingusedforavarietyofpurposesotherthanexternal

hiring.

These

include

individual

develop-

ment, team communications, conflict resolution,coaching, and placement.Overall, the article con-

tains a mixture of research-consistent and -incon-

sistentstatements,alongwithsomeclaimsthatare

difficulttolinktoanyclearresearchliterature.Ontheresearch-consistentside,Krell(2005),like

Bates(2002),correctlyindicatedthatmostexpertsbelieve there are between four and six basic per-sonalitydimensionsandthatacceptanceofperson-

alityassessmentisgrowing.Healsodescribedone

companys use of concurrent empirical validation

of

personality

measures

(a

desirable

practice

if

suf-ficient sample sizes are available) and referred

readerstoavarietyofonlinesupporttoolsforusingpersonality assessments (including SHRM whitepapersontestvalidationandusingpersonalityas-sessmentsinselection,andalegalreportabouttheuseofintegritytesting).

On the other hand, the article also discussed a

numberofpracticesthatdonothaveclearresearch

foundationsandmaybeproblematic.Forexample,one quoted executive enthused: The science be-hind cultural fit is extremely important and goes

right

to

the

bottom

line

(Krell,

2005:

51).

In

fact,

the scienceof cultural fit suggests that although

there are clear relationships between cultural fit

and employee satisfaction and retention, results

with respect tojob or unit performance are muchmoreopentoquestion(e.g.,Janis,1983;Meglino&Ravlin,1998).In another place,Krell quoted a consultantwho

argued:UsingpersonalityassessmentstoconfirmHR professionals instincts is a benefit of thesetools.... You know you like them.... Now youcan determine exactly why that is and use that

criteria[sic]forselection,development,andreten-

tion(2005:4950).Fromascientificperspective,

this suggested use of personality assessments

amountstocapturingthecurrentdecisionmodelof a decision maker. Unfortunately, however, itdoesnotdemonstratethatanapplicantsoassessedcandothejoborthatthedecisionmakerscurrent

model

is

a

valid

one.

In

fact,

related

research

(on

employment interviews) suggests that interviews

are considerably more valid if managers are not

allowed to develop preconceptions (e.g., byviewing resumes) prior to conducting interviews

(e.g., McDaniel, Whetzel, Schmidt, & Maurer,1994). As such, this suggested use of personalityassessments is more likely to entrench idiosyn-craticjudgments of hiringmanagers, providing an

auraofscientificrespectabilitytowhataremerely

individual assumptions, predilections, or biases

thatselectionresearchershavebeenarguingagainst

foryears.Overall,

then,

the

few

articles

appearing

in

HR

Magazine on the topic of personality assessmentrepresent a mixture of research-consistent and re-

search-inconsistentinformation.Althoughtheyac-

curatelyportraytheascendancyoffive(giveortake

one) dimensions of personality in the research

realmandthefactthatsomeofthedimensionsare

differentially associated with performance on dif-

ferenttypesofjobs,theydonotconveythefactthatconscientiousnessisapredictorofperformancein

alljobs,orthatacombinationofconscientiousness,

emotional stability, and agreeableness is a good

general

predictor

of

counterproductive

behaviorsacrossoccupations.Inaddition,theymakeanum-

ber of claims that are inconsistent with existing

research

findings.

The

general

sense

that

we

were

leftwithafterreadingthesearticleswasanimpres-sionthattheyoverpromisedastowhatpersonalityassessments can do, underexplained the differ-

ences between types of personality assessments,

and overreached in terms of their legitimate

applications.

Turning to HBR, we found 12 articles that con-

tain personality-related keywords and 4 that con-

tain

selection

keywords.

However,

upon

exam-

ining the articles, we found that very few of

them make any direct references to the use of

personality variables in selection. Rather, most

focusonthemanagementofindividualswithpar-

ticular (usually problematic) personality char-acteristics (Waldroop & Butler, 2000), or discuss

how dysfunctional personality characteristics of

CEOscanbebettermanagedorself-managed(e.g.,Goffee & Jones, 2000; Khurana, 2002; Maccoby,2000;Tedlow,2001).Anothersetofarticlesfocusesonhowleadersrelationshipswithcloseconfidants


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and

Brown 995

(Sulkowicz, 2004), coaches (Berglas, 2002), or fol-

lowers(Offermann,2004)candegenerateintopsy-chologically destructive patterns that compromisealeaderseffectiveness.Additionally,thefourarti-cles about selection in general (Bennis& OToole,2000; Butler & Waldroop, 2004; Sorcher & Brant,2002;Wetlaufer,2000)focusmostlyonhiringpro-

cedures

(e.g.,

agreeing

on

the

job

description,

cre-

ating interview questions, resolving political con-

flicts)andcandidateskillsorbehaviorsratherthanpersonalitytraits.However,twoofthesearticlesdealatleastpartly

with the evaluation of personality traits in a CEOselectioncontext.InDontHiretheWrongCEO,Bennis and OToole (2000: 174175) warnedagainstcandidateswhoactlikeCEOs.... Boardsoften are seduced by articulate, glamorousdarewe say itcharismatic dreamerswho sendmulti-ple frissons down their collective spines.... Infact,(however),manyofthegreatestcorporatelead-ers

come

up

short

on

the

charisma

scale,

because

charismatypicallygoeshand-in-handwithinflatedego. Similarly, in The Curse of the SuperstarCEO, Khurana also warned about the dangers ofcharismatic leaders: When companies look fornew leaders, the one quality they seek above allothersischarisma.Theresult,moreoftenthannot,isdisappointmentorevendisaster(2002:60).Inother words, the two HBR articles that deal withpersonalityinleaderselectionareessentiallywarn-

ingsagainstcharismaticleaders.

How do these warnings square with academic

research

on

charismatic

leadership?

In

one

sense,

itisdifficulttomakecomparisons,becausetheterm

charismaticleaderseemstobeuseddifferentlyinthe academic and practitioner literatures.10 In thepractitionerliterature, charismaisasynonymforcharm or mysticism. Indeed, Khurana traced thewordcharismatothevariouscharisms,orgifts

of the Holy Spirit, that Christians may possess(2002:60).Thisuseofthewordsuggeststhatcha-

rismaisstyleratherthansubstance.Relatedly,HowellandShamirwrote,Theoriesofcharismaticleadership have been accused of promoting a he-

roic

leadership

stereotype

(Beyer,

1999;

Yukl,

1998),whichdepictsleadersasheroicfiguresthat

aresingle-handedlycapableofdeterminingthefate

and fortunes of groups and organizations. In this

heroic conception, the leader is omnipotent, andfollowers are submissive to the leaders will anddemands(2005:96).In contrast, in the academic literature, charis-

10WethankAmyColbertforhelpininterpretingthe

academicandpractitionerliteraturesonleadership.

matic leadership tends to be defined much more

broadlyandisoftenequatedwithtransformational

leadership, especially transformational leader-

ships visioning and role modeling dimensions. Itincludes not only having a dynamic, charismaticstyle,butalsocommunicatingacompellingvisionand serving as a role model of the values of an

organization.

In the academic literature, personalized and so-

cialized charismatic leadership are often distin-

guished. Personalized charismatic leaders tend tobe described as self-centered and sometimes even

manipulative.Theyareinterestedinpursuingtheirowngoals,ratherthanthegoalsofacollective:

Inthepersonalizedrelationship,followersarecon-

fused and disoriented beforejoining the relation-ship, and the relationship provides them with aclearersenseofselfandgreaterselfconfidence.Thistype of relationship is based mainly on followerspersonalidentification withtheleader,ratherthanon their identification with or acceptance of the

leadersmessage.(Howell&Shamir,2005:100)

Incontrast,socializedcharismaticleadersworkfor

thegoodofthecollective:

Inthesocializedrelationship,followershaveaclear

senseofselfandaclearsetofvalues,andthechar-ismaticrelationshipprovidesthemwithameansforexpressingtheirimportantvalueswithintheframe-workofacollectiveaction.Followersinthistypeofrelationshipderivetheirsenseofdirectionandself-expressionnotfrompersonalidentification withthe

leader

but

from

the

leaders

message.

In

this

rela-tionshipfollowersplaceconstraintsontheleaders

influence, play an active role in determining thevaluesexpressedbytheleader,arelessdependentontheleader,andarelessopentomanipulationbytheleader.(Howell&Shamir,2005:100)

Thisdistinctionhelpstoexplainwhytheauthors

inHBRseecharismaticleadershipasgenerallyneg-

ative,butacademicresearchersseeitasambiguous,

though generally more positive. Overall, there is

accumulatingevidencethatdemonstratesboththepositive and negative outcomes of charismatic

leadership

(Howell

&

Shamir,

2005:

97).

However,

moreoftheacademicevidencefallsonthepositive

side(Judge&Piccolo,2004)aresultthatisprob-

ablydueinparttothefactthatacademicstendto

measure charismatic leadership in a way that is

consistent with socialized charismatic leadership.

In contrast, Khurana (2002) and Bennis and

OToole(2000)seemtobedescribingpersonalizedcharismaticleadership,orthedarksideofchar-ismaticleadership.Viewed from the vantage point of EBM, it is

significant that the HBR articles on personality


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996

Academy

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including those that deal with management and

self-management, as well as selectionmake nomentionwhatsoever of the huge scientific discov-

eryoftherobustBigFivepersonalityfactors.This

omissionisparticularlystrikinginthatthediscov-ery of the Big Five goes back more than 20 years(e.g., Digman, 1986; McCrae & Costa, 1987). As

such,

none

of

the

excitement

that

academics

havefelt about being able to consolidate research evi-

dence on these meta factors of personality (asopposed to having to deal with dozens or even

hundreds of narrower personality traits) has

reached HBRs audience. Similarly, the academicdistinction between personal and socialized

charismaticleadershipseemstohavepassedHBRsnotice,despitethefactthatitmighthelptoclearup

someoftheconflictingviewsaboutthemeritsand

shortfallsofcharismaticleaders.

Overall, in all threejournals, the amount of at-

tention

paid

to

personality

is

not

very

great,

and

certainly smaller than the amount of attention de-

votedtoitinacademicjournals.However,itscov-

erageinHRMtendstoberesearch-consistent,while

coverage in HR Magazine represents a mixture ofresearch-consistent (e.g., the Big Five and the po-

tential for using personality in selection is clearly

there) and non-research-consistent reporting (e.g.,

occasional recommending of nonbehavioral inter-

viewquestionsorquestionsthathavenothingtodowith the predictive dimensions of the Big Five).Finally, treatment of personality in HBR seems to

be

completely

divorced

from

academic

research

on

personality, withnomentionoftheBigFive,con-tinueddiscussionofnarrowratherthanbroadper-sonality traits, and no research-based summary of

generalizablepersonality-performance relationships.

Goal setting. Turning next to goal setting, wefoundthatlessthan1percentofthearticlesinHR

Magazinefocusontheusefulnessofgoalsettingforimproving performance.Of the five articles in HRMagazinethatmentionsgoalsetting,threeofthemmentions it rather incidentally (i.e., as part of a

variable pay system in Frase-Blunt [2001] and

Garvey

[2000],

or

as

an

available

feature

in

an

on-

line performance management system in Robb

[2004]).

However, in The Under-management Epi-

demic, Tulgan (2004) hit the basic findings from

goalsettingresearchrightonthehead.Specifically,hediscussedthevalueofspecific,challenging,and

meaningful goals; accurate monitoring and docu-

mentation of progress toward goals, and specific

feedback on performance with guidance for im-provement(Latham,2006).Tulganwentontosay:

Inanefforttobehands-offandnotbecomeamuch-

maligned micro-manager, supervisors have gone

to the opposite extreme and completely abdicated

theirprimaryroleasmanagers.... Under-manage-mentistheoverwhelmingcommondenominatorin

mostcasesofsuboptimalworkplaceperformanceat

alllevels.Theunder-managedworkerstrugglesbe-

cause his supervisor is not sufficiently engaged to

provide

the

direction

and

support

he

needs

and,

therefore,isunabletohelpwithresourcesandprob-

lem-solving.Themanagercannotjudgewhatexpec-

tationsarereasonable,andhecannotsetgoalsand

deadlines that are ambitious but still meaningful.

(2004:119)

Inshort,Tulganprovidedagoodexplanationofthestrongresearchfindingthatgoalsettingwithfeed-back is a far more effective motivator of perfor-mance,onaverage,thanisempowerment(Latham,2006;Lockeetal.,1980;Rynesetal.,2002).

In

the

final

article

in

HR

Magazine

that

we

exam-

ined, Carrison (2003) focuses on a particular form

ofgoalsetting:settingdeadlines.Hedescribescom-

monalities in management practices over three

largeconstruction projectsthatallmanagedtomeet

ambitious scheduling goals. These commonalities

includedgivingthegoalsagreatdealofpublicity,

stressing the schedule at allpoints in the process,

holding emergency meetings at the first signs of

slippage,holdingallmanagersaccountabletoeach

other,gettingmanagersinputonandcommitment

totheschedule,andcelebratingon-timemilestones

along the way. All these principles are consistentwith

the

results

of

goal

setting

research

(Latham,

2006). In short, when HR Magazine did report ongoal

setting

as

the

central

topic

of

interest,

it

tended

todosoinaresearch-consistentfashion.

HBR published six articles that deal at leastpartlywithgoalsorgoalsetting.Onceagain,how-

ever,someofthearticlesaretangentialtotheissues

covered by thewell-documented body of goal set-

ting research. For example, one article deals with

assessmentsofindividualmotivationsandcompet-

ing commitments (Kegan & Lahey, 2001), and an-

other discusses ways to reframe goals to tap into

individual

differences

in

motivation

(Nicholson,

2003).

However, three articles discuss principles of

goal setting that map onto academic research.These articles focus mostly on the principles offrequent feedback with respect to progress towardgoals,aswellastheimportanceofgoalacceptance.For example, in Management by Whose Objec-tives?,Levinsonarguedthatoneofthereasonsforthe failure of Management by Objectives is thatunitmanagersareforcedtocommittogoalsthey


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dontbelievearerealistic(2003:107).11Relatedly,Parcells(2000)focusedontheimportanceofsettinggoalsthatpermitsmallwins,ratherthananul-timate goal that seems unattainable. In the thirdarticle, Turning Great Strategy into Great Perfor-mance, Mankins and Steele (2005) emphasizedtheimportanceofcommunicatingstrategicgoalsin

simple,

concrete

language

and

of

clearly

identify-

ingpriorities.Alltheserecommendationsarecon-

sistentwithgoal setting research, althoughno ref-erence is made to this research, and pieces of therelevant goal setting findings are not emphasized(particularly, theimportanceofsettingdifficultbutattainablegoals).Finally,HRMpublishedonehighlyresearch-con-

sistentarticleongoalsetting(Londonetal.,2004).

This article was part of the same special issue onapplicationsofpsychologicalresearchtoHRman-agementthatwasmentionedinprevioussections.In summary, coverage of goal setting in the se-

lected

practitioner

and

bridge

publications

was

quitescarce,particularlywhenthelargeeffectsizesfound in goal setting research are taken into ac-

count.Moreover,approximatelyhalfofthearticles

thatdidmentiongoalsettingdidsoonlyperipher-

ally. Of the very small number of all articles thatdealt more than incidentally with goal setting,however,thecoveragewaslargelyresearch-consis-tent(particularlywithrespecttotheimportanceofgoalacceptance).

Summary.Our analysis of ResearchQuestion 2

suggeststhatwithrespecttotheimportanceofin-

telligence

or

GMA

to

job

performance,

there

hasbeen only sporadic (but accurate) transfer of re-

search findings to HRM, limited but mostly re-search-inconsistenttransfertoHBR,andnotransferto HR Magazine. With respect topersonality, theresultsforHRMmirrorthosewithrespecttointel-ligenceverylimited,butresearch-consistent,cov-

erage.InthecaseofHRMagazine,coverageisalsoat a very low level (

1%), and claims are a mix

of research-consistent and research-inconsistent.However, on the positive side, HR Magazine is atleast transmitting information about there being

five

(or

so)

basic

personality

characteristics,

which

cannot be said of HBR. In fact, HBR mentioned

neither the discovery of the Big Five personality

traits,northeacademicliteratureoncharismaticor

transformational leadership. With respect togoalsetting,wefoundonerelevantandresearch-consis-tentarticleinHRM;fivearticlesinHRMagazine,ofwhichthreeprovidedonlyperipheralcoverageandtwoprovidedresearch-consistentinformation;and

11

HBRoriginallypublishedthisarticlein1970.

six in HBR: three tangential and three research-

consistent,althoughtheircoveragewaspartial.

ResearchQuestion3:SourcesofEvidence

The preceding analyses suggest little correspon-

dence between what is being published in aca-

demic

versus

practitioner

and

bridge

journals

with

respecttothethreemostimportantfindingsofHR

research (as perceived by researchers). Areas con-

sideredtobeveryimportantbyresearchersreceive

little coverage in practitioner and bridgejournals

and,whentheydoreceivecoverage,itisaslikelytoberesearch-inconsistentasresearch-consistent, ex-ceptinHRM.This situation makes the question of who, or

what,iscitedasevidenceinpractitionerandbridge

journalsaninterestingone.Thus,weexaminedall

152 articles that dealt with selection/recruitment

(n 141)orgoalsetting(n 11)toexaminewhatsources

of

evidence

each

periodical

used.

These

analyses provide some indication as to whatsources of information are viewed as most legiti-

mateorcredibleateachperiodical.

HRM. We tallied the evidentiary bases of the

threejournals in different ways, because the con-

tent and format of each periodical differ. Of the

three, HRM most closely resembles top-tier aca-demicHRjournals such as theJournal ofAppliedPsychology and Personnel Psychology. For exam-

ple,likearticlesinacademicjournals,HRMarticles

tendtociteafairnumberofpeer-reviewedresearch

articles

as

sources

of

evidence

(36.7

citations

onaverage,with a standard deviation of 20.2). In ad-

dition, journals receiving the most citations in

HRM are research- rather than practice-oriented.Specifically, the top fivejournals cited in HRMover this period were all peer-reviewed ones: theJournal ofApplied Psychology (9.8% of all cita-

tions),PersonnelPsychology(6.4%),theAcademy

of ManagementJournal (5.6%), HRM (4.4%), and

theAcademy of Management Review (2.5%). In

contrast,HBRandHRMagazine(neitherofwhich

ispeer-reviewed) eachaccountedforonly1.1per-

cent

of

HRMs

total

citations.

Another similarity to top-tier journals is that

most HRM articles are either original research or

literature reviews. For example, of the 21 recruit-

ment,selection,andgoalsettingarticlesfoundbe-

tween 2000 and 2006, 7 reported the results of

surveyresearch(eitherquestionnaire- orinterview-

based),6werebasedoneithersingle-ormultiple-

organizationcasestudies,5presentedliteraturere-views,2reportedtheresultsofexperiments,and3presented typologies or best practices based oneithercasesorqualitativeanalyses.


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HRMagazine.Thisperiodicalwasanalyzedina

rather different way in order to reflect the typicalcontentofitsarticles.MostarticlesinHRMagazineare produced by staffwriters, consultants, or free-

TABLE3

TypesofEvidenceCitedinRecruitment,

Selection,andGoalSetting

Articles

in

HR

Magazinea

lancejournalistswhopresentmultipleviewpointsonsomecurrenttopicofinterest.Intheprocessofreporting, HR Magazine authors generally inter-

view

a

variety

of

people

about

the

selected

topic.

Type

of

Evidence

Percentage

of

Total

Evidence

Cited

Percentage

within

CategoryFollowing a quick review of the 96 articles on re-

cruitment, selection, or goal setting, we devised acoding scheme to capture most of the evidentiarysourcesusedinHRMagazine.At the broadest levelof analysis, two coders in-

dependentlyrecordedthenumberoftimesanarti-clecitedevidencefromeachofthefollowingfourcategories: people, quantitative data or surveys,

laws or regulations, and case law or legal settle-ments. At the next-lower level of analysis, typesof people were further subclassified as (1) profes-sionals,managers,or employeesof companies, (2)consultants

or

vendors,

(3)

attorneys,

(4)

authors,

(5) academics, (6) professional or trade associa-tionrepresentatives,(7)applicants,or(8)psychol-

ogists and psychiatrists. In addition, quantitative

data or surveys were characterized by the follow-

ing sources: (1) individual companies, (2) profes-sional or trade associations, (3) government, (4)consultingfirms,and(5)academia.Detailedcodinginstructions for each category were given to bothcoders and are available upon request from the

authors.

We initially assessed reliability by counting the

percentage

of

times

that

the

two

coders

(the

secondauthor and an undergraduate student) reached ex-

actly the same tally for a source of evidence. Thisinitialanalysisshowedagreementof79percentorbetter on all but three categories: professionals,managers, or company employees; consultants orvendors; and company data and surveys. The first

authorthenindependentlycodedspecificcasesof

disagreement(n 116,or8.4percentoftotalcases)inthesethreecategories;sheagreedwithoneofthefirst two coders in 82 of the cases. For these 82cases,themajoritycodingwasused;fortheremain-

ing

33

items

(2.4

percent

of

all

coded

categories),

themedianfigurewasused.

Table3revealsthatonly15percentofthearticles

in HR Magazine on the investigated topics citedquantitativedataasaformofevidence.Instead,HRMagazine offers evidence primarily in the form ofquotes from various categories of people (78 per-cent of cited evidence), with 39 percent of suchquotescomingfrompracticingprofessionals,man-agers,andemployees,36percentcomingfromcon-sultants or vendors, and 4 percent coming fromacademics. Thus, overall, there are few links to

People 78

Professionals/managers/employees

39

Consultants/vendors 36

Academics 4

Attorneys 4

Authors/publishers 4

Professional/tradeassociation 4

representatives

Applicants 3

Psychologists/psychiatrists 1

Other 5

Quantitativedata/surveys 15

Consulting

firms

26Individualcompanies

24

Professional/trade

associations

24

Government 17

Academia 3

Other 6

Laws/legal

regulations 4

Caselaw/legalsettlements 4

a

Analysis

is

based

onHRMagazinearticles(200005)con-

tainingatleastoneselectionorrecruitmentkeyword(n 98)

and

surviving

a

subsequent

check

for

relevant

content

by

the

firsttwoauthors(n 91).

either academics or quantitative data (from any

source)inHRMagazine.HBR.

Because

of

the

diversity

in

the

types

of

articlesitpublishes,HBRrequiredyetanothertypeof coding scheme.Generally, our 30-article subsetcontained three types of HBR articles. In the first

(n 14;47%),individuals(usuallyacademics)pre-

sented their own research findings. In the second

typeofarticle(n

13;43%),individuals(usually

consultants) offered advice or assessment on a

topicbasedontheirown(ortheirintervieweesor

clients)

expertise.

In

the

third

and

smallest

(n

3)

set, HBR staffers presented articles on rather dis-

paratetopics(e.g.,managingmillionaires, thequal-

ity of resilience, and working as a room service

waiterattheRitzCarlton).

In these three types of articles, HBR, like HR

Magazine,didnotincludemuchquantitativedataasevidence.Specifically,only8(27%)ofthearti-

cles cited any quantitative data, with more thantwo-thirds of these cases coming from academic-authoredarticles.Similarly, most HBR articles (24; 80%) did not


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Rynes,

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include

formal

research

documentation,

either

withinorattheendofanarticle.Ofthesixthatdid,threewereauthoredbyacademics,twobyconsult-ants,andonebyanHBRstaffer.Acrossarticles,20percent of the citations made were to other HBRarticles; 20 percentwere to academic articles, andthe rest were to other types of sources (mainly

books).

However,

the

main

source

of

evidence

in

HBR is the anecdote. One hundred percent of theHBRarticlesinoursampleusedanecdotesorsto-riestomaketheircases.

Summary.Overall,HRMpresentsevidenceina

way that is quite similar to that of academicjour-nals: academic works are cited and referenced,methods are described (although not in as muchdetail), and either original data or a literature re-

viewfiguresinmostarticles.Incontrast,HRMag-azine gets the vast majority of its information orevidencefrominterviewswithpracticingmanagersor consultants. Neither academics nor peer-reviewed

research

play

an

important

role

in

the

typical HR Magazine article. Finally, HBR fallssomewhatinbetween,presentinglittlequantitative

dataandfewresearchcitations.However,approx-

imately 50 percent of HBRs articles are academi-callyauthoredorcoauthored,suggestingthatrele-vant research data and quantitative evidence mayplay some behind-the-scenes role in the construc-tionofthosearticles.

DISCUSSION

Our

most

striking

finding

is

that

bridge

and

prac-titionerjournalshavebarelycoveredtopicsthatHR

researchersbelieve tobe among theirmost impor-tantfindings.Inotherwords,ourresultssuggestavery significant failure of academic research totransfer to important practitioner sources of infor-mation. The fact that practitioner-oriented period-

icalsprovidesolittlecoverageofthesetopicsand

that,when they do, theirmessages are often quite

different from the ones transmitted by academicjournals,maybemorethancoincidentallylinkedtoRynesetal.s(2002)findingthatinallthreeareas,

practitioner

beliefs

diverge

considerably

from

researchfindings.

In presenting this evidence, we are well aware

thatourstudyisnotwithoutlimitations.Forexam-

ple,wehavenotreviewedseveraltypesofalterna-tivemedia that practitionersmay use to get infor-mation about HR practices, such as informationalWeb sites provided by professional associations(e.g., SHRM or the Human Resource Planning So-ciety), business books (Furnham, 2000), and busi-nessdailies(e.g.,WallSt.Journal,FinancialTimes)and weeklies (e.g., BusinessWeek, Fortune). Nor

haveweexaminedthemostfrequentlyusedsource

of information for HR practitionersother HR

practitioners. However, earlier evidence suggests

thatonaverage,informationprovidedbyHRpeersabout intelligence, personality, and goal setting ismorelikelytobeinaccurate thanaccurate(Rynesetal.,2002).

Another

limitation

is

that,

of

the

many

HR-re-

latedperiodicals, weonlyexaminedonepractition-

er and two bridging periodicals. Thus,we left out

otherpractitioner outletswithsmallercirculations

than HR Magazine (e.g., HR Executive), some HRbridgingjournalswithnarrowercontentthanHRM(e.g.,HRPlanningJournal),andsomegeneralman-agementperiodicalswithsmallercirculations thanHBR(e.g.,theMITSloanManagementReviewand

California Management Review). However,we be-

lieve we selected the most appropriate exemplars

ineachofthesethreeimportantclassesofperiod-

icals; note that Deadrick and Gibson (2007) alsopicked

HR

Magazine

and

HRM

as

counterpoints

to

the HR academicjournals they examined (specifi-cally, theJournal ofApplied Psychology and Per-

sonnelPsychology).

Despitetheselimitations, webelieveourresults

raiseseriousquestionsforbothresearchandprac-

tice in HR. For the remainder of this article, we

speculate about the potential implications of our

findings, first forHR researchers, and then forHRperiodicals and the future of HR as a profession.

Finally,weplaceourresultsinthebroadercontext

of science-practice gaps over a whole range of

disciplines.

QuestionsandChallengesforResearchers

For

some

time

now,

academic

management

re-

searchers have been losing ground to consultants(and more recently, journalists [e.g., Friedman,

2006]) as sources of ideas and advice for practi-

tioners and policy makers (Abrahamson & Eisen-

man, 2001; Bartlett, 2007; Rigby, 2001). Unfortu-

nately, this decline is occurring at the same time

that academics dependence on practitioners for

resources

is

increasing

(Trank

&

Rynes,

2003)

and

global competition and growth are increasing the

needforbothmoreeffectiveandmoresustainable

organizations (Abrahamson & Eisenman, 2001;

Bansal&Gao,2006).Somebelievethatourfailure

tomattermore(Hambrick,1994)isapproachingacrisisstage(e.g.,Bartlett,2007).

The decline of academic influence in theworld

ofpolicyandpracticeraisesanumberofquestions.Perhaps the first one is,Are our major researchfindingstrulyunimportanttopolicyandpractice?Certainly,meta-analyticfindingsofeffectsizesfor


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therelationshipsbetweenintelligence,personality,

andgoalsettingontheonehandandindividualorunit performance on the other, suggest otherwise(Latham, 2006; Schmidt & Hunter, 1998). If thesefindings arenot in factunimportant, thenwhydotheyreceivesolittlepositivecoverageamongprac-titionerandbridgepublications?Inthecaseofin-

telligence,

it

seems

that

the

reasons

reflect

some

combination of socio-political, legal, and ego-pro-

tectivefactors(Boehm,1982;Gould,1996;Pinker,2002). However, the explanations for goal settingandpersonalityaremoremysterious.With respect togoal setting,one possible expla-

nationisthatitspositiveeffectshavebeenknownfor so long that they are no longer news. How-ever, our review of Personnel Psychology and the

Journal ofApplied Psychology over 200005 sug-gests that goal setting is still a vibrant area of re-search.Inaddition,thefactthatthousandsofnewindividualsentertheHRprofessioneveryyearsug-gests

that

information

about

the

sizable

effects

of

goal settingmightwellbe news to a lotofprac-titioners.Furthermore,for-profitorganizationsnearly

alllivebyfinancialgoals,whichreceiveintensescru-

tinyandemphasis(somewouldargueoveremphasis)

on at least a quarterly basis. And finally, executivepay is increasingly a function of meeting explicitgoals. Given all this, why is goal setting researchnearlyabsentfromthepractitionerliterature?With respect to personality, restricted coverage

of the Big Five dimensions is also a bit puzzling.

Clearly, personality is an area of great interest

among

the

general

public,

and

managers

commonlystresstheimportanceofpersonality-joborperson-

ality-organizationfitinhiring(Bretz,Rynes,&Ger-hart, 1993; Kristof-Brown, 2000). Moreover, theMyers-Briggs Personality Type Indicator is stillwidelyusedinbusiness,withmanagersofteniden-tifyingthemselvesasanESFPoranINTJ(two

Myers-Briggstypes)asawayofexplainingtheirbehavior.AndourexaminationofHBRrevealedatleastsomedegreeoffascinationwiththepersonal-ity flaws of employees, particularlymanagers. So,we are puzzled: Why is there so little coverage of

the

really

big

scientific

discovery

of

the

Big

Five?

Let us for a moment make the reasonable as-

sumption (see Latham, 2006; Schmidt & Hunter,

1998,2000)thattheresearchfindingsinthesethree

areas are truly important to managers.12 Further

inpractitioner and bridgeperiodicals a result of

academics reluctance topublish in such outlets?

Many researchers believe that this is at least par-

tially the case, arguing that there are insufficientincentivesforacademicstopublishinpractitioneroutlets (e.g., Shapiro, Kirkman, & Courtney, 2007;Vermeulen,2007).However,academicsatthemost

prestigious

schools

(e.g.,

Harvard;

Stanford;

MIT;

UC, Berkeley; the University of Pennsylvania) do

notseemreluctanttopublishinHBRorotheruni-

versity-sponsoredpublications thatarespecifically

designed to bridge the gaps between research and

practice (e.g., the California Management Reviewand MIT Sloan Management Review). Similarly,academics are strongly represented in the bridgepublication HRM. Finally, the fact that they are

poorlyrepresentedinHRMagazineseemstobeas

mucharesultofeditorialpolicyasacademicslackofinterestinpublishingthere.13

Still,itseemsclearthattheunderlyingincentivestructures

in

business

schools,

along

with

many

academics limited interest in producing articlesfor practitioner or bridge publications, are a sub-

stantialpartoftheproblem.Inaddition,however,

some who have studied the problem believe that

some academics are not so much uninterested as

fearfulofattemptingtomovefrompurelyacademicpublishingdomainstothosethataremoreoriented

toward practitioners. For example, Vermeulen(2007)notedthatformanyseasonedacademics,it

is actually much harder to write bridge or practi-

tioner articles than academic ones. Although this

may

not

be

true

for

everyone,

there

is

little

doubtthatdifferentskillsareinvolvedandthattheytake

timeandefforttodevelop(e.g.,Staw,1995).Carry-

ing

the

argument

somewhat

further,

Markides

wor-

riedthatbyattemptingtodevelopincentives andsystems that encourage both academic and mana-gerially relevant research, we may get ourselves

stuckinthemiddle(2007:763)forexample,by

presenting an inconsistent image to others or by

failingtomasterthetrade-offsinherentinnotonly

different, but in some ways incompatible, activi-

ties.Totheextentthatfearfulnessisafactortobe

reckoned

with,

academics

might

benefit

from

more

explicitactivitiesdesignedtodevelopthecraftof

being simultaneously rigorous and relevant (e.g.,

Shapiro et al., 2007; Tushman & OReilly, 2007;

Vermeulen,2007).

questionsthusarise,suchas:Isthelackofcoverage

trait or construct in all of psychology, and the most12

Forexample,withrespecttointelligence,SchmidtandHuntersay:Noothertraitnotevenconscientious-nesspredicts so many important real-world outcomessowell.Inthissense,intelligenceisthemostimportant

successful traitinappliedpsychology(2000:4).13

Anelectronicmailcommunication fromtheeditor

ofHRMagazineonDecember13,2000,tothefirstauthorsuggeststhispolicy.


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Anotherimportantquestiontoaskisthefollow-

ing: Even if we assume that the research results

examined in thispaper are important forpracti-

tioners,areHRacademicsproducingworkwithan

optimal mix of research topics? Research on theutilityofusingvalidselectionsystemsleaveslittle

doubt that getting the right people into the right

organizations

and

the

right

jobs

can

make

a

big

difference (Schmidt & Hunter, 1981; Tenopyr,

1981). Popular business publications have deliv-

eredasimilarmessageregardingselectioninthe

bestseller Good to Great, for example, Collins(2001) wrote about the importance of getting theright people on the busyet most practitioners

still arent aware of some of the most important

findings from selection research. Given this, is it

fruitful for HR researchers to continue to pursueever-more

specialized

knowledge

on

selection

techniques?

We

believe

it

is

time

for

a

serious

discussion

aboutwhethertheacademicmarketplaceforideasis producing an optimal solution with respect to

academic HR research. First, a case can be made

that scholars have already gathered most of the

low-hanging fruit that is likely to make a bigdifferencetoselectionoutcomes(e.g.,generalizable

validity of intelligence, conscientiousness, and

structured interviews). As such, additional effort

might be more profitably expended on better dis-seminating this research, or on studying some of

theareasthatDeadrickandGibson(2007)foundto

be

of

far

greater

interest

to

practitioners

(e.g.,

com-

pensationandrewards).Second,thereisatleastsomeevidencethatboth

the academic and practitioner markets are calling

forarebalancingofHRresearch.Forexample,one

consultancysurveypresentedatthe2006AcademyofManagementmeetingssuggestedthatthetopfive

research needs of HR vice presidents were execu-

tive compensation, compensation and benefits,

special skills development, leadership develop-

ment, and outsourcing (Fay, 2007). Similarly, inourownsurveyoftheJournalofAppliedPsychol-ogy,

Personnel

Psychology,

HRM,

and

AMJ

editorial

boards, we asked, What are five fundamentalquestionsthatHRresearchershaveyettoanswer?A first-pass sort of the responses into categories

yieldedthefollowingfivemajorthemes:

How can/should HR systems be aligned with

strategy and how can they be made internallyconsistent?

How do HR practices affect firm performance(e.g.,processesandcausaldirections)?

What are the most important contingencies orcontextual moderators of HR practice-perfor-

mancerelationships?

What are the trade-offs involved in various HR

policy decisions (e.g., validity versus diversity,fitversusflexibility,personalizedtreatmentver-

susfairness)?

Why

does

HR

have

such

low

status

in

organiza-

tions,andwhatcanbedoneaboutit?

A few thoughts come to mind in looking at thislist.First,theseseemtobeverybigpictureques-tions.(Insayingthis,though,weshouldpointoutthat the individual items comprising some of thecategories were often much more micro; for in-stance,individualswonderedaboutspecificpolicy

trade-offsorparticularcontingencies.)Second,the

questions seem to be framed mostly at the organi-

zational, rather than individual, level of analysis,

linking to the types of strategic HR issues dis-cussed

by

Becker

and

Gerhart

(1996)

and

Becker

andHuselid (2006). Third, they are questions thatwould seem to be of great interest to practitioners

aswell as academics. Indeed, Becker and Huselid

(2006) argued that the growth of strategic HR re-

search has increased managerial interest in HRsacademic findings. Moreover, they suggested that

strategicHRwasofbroadinterestinsidetheacad-

emy as well, pointing to the fact that among allarticles published inAMJ since 1990, three of the

ten most highly cited articles were in the area of

strategicHR:BeckerandGerhart(1996),Deleryand

Doty

(1996),

and

Huselid

(1995).However,thenumberofunresolvedissuesthat

are related to contingencies, nonlinearities, trade-

offs

and

so

on

also

seems

to

raise

some

steep

chal-

lenges for evidence-based management. Althoughmeta-analysis holds the promise of identifyingmainoraverageeffectsthatcanprovideabasis

for managerial action (Rousseau, 2006), concepts

suchascontingencies,configurations,complexity,

equifinality, and trade-offs all raise questions

abouttheextenttowhichaveragefindingscanbeusefully generalized (e.g., Benbya & McKelvey,

2007;

Cappelli

&

Sherer,

1991;

Doty,

Glick,

&

Hu-

ber,1993).Thus,anotherchallengeforHRacadem-

icsisthis:Istheexistenceofconfigural,contingent,

orpath-dependent effects sufficiently extensive as

tomakeevidence-basedmanagement(ormanage-

mentasscience)impractical?

Finally, a somewhat related question is this:

Given that scientific findings changeand some-timesevenreversethemselvesovertime,howdowe(oreven,shouldwe)persuademanagerstouseourbestavailablescientificevidence?Thisissueis certainly not unique to HR management, as a


16/23

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glance at a recent news story (Study Now SaysEstrogenIsSafe)shows:

Nearly five years after government scientists told

women that taking estrogen replacement therapyincreased their risk of heart attacks and strokes,researchershaveconcludedthatthedrugsareben-eficialformanyafterall.Continuinganalysisofthe

original

data

indicates

that

the

researchers

raised

afalse alarm for most women and that, if women

begintakingthehormonesshortlyaftermenopause,thedrugsdonotraisetheriskofheartdiseaseand,infact,mightlowerit.Thelatestpieceofevidence,intodaysNewEnglandJournalofMedicine,showsthat taking estrogen for seven years or more aftermenopausereducescalcificationofthearteriesoneofthekeyindicatorsofatherosclerosisbyasmuchas60%.(WashingtonPost/LATimes,2007:1A)

Similar examples of flip-flopping are readilyidentifiable in HR. For example, during the late

1970s

and

early

1980s,

HR

underwent

a

dramaticshiftfromthereigningdogmaofsituational spec-

ificitytooneofbroadgeneralizabilityformanyphenomena,butmostnotably,fortheroleofintel-ligence in job performance (Schmidt & Hunter,1981). Similarly, the oldnotion thatpersonalitywas a poor predictor of performance has been re-

placed with the new notion that conscientious-ness is a generalizable predictor of performance

and that other Big Five traits also predict perfor-manceincertainbroadclassesofjobs(e.g.,Barrick&Mount,1991).Similarly,theoldnotionthatsat-isfaction and performance are virtually unrelatedhas

been

replaced

with

the

new

finding

that

the

truemeancorrelationbetweensatisfactionandper-

formanceis.30(Judge,Thoresen,Bono,&Patten,2001).Finally,eventhemeta-analyticfindingthat

structuredinterviewsaremorevalidthanunstruc-turedones(e.g.,McDanieletal.,1994)hasrecentlybeen challenged (Oh, Postlethwaite, Schmidt, &McDaniel,2007).GiventheapparentinstabilityofsomeofthemajorscientificHRfindings,whataretheimplicationsforourroleaspotentialadvisorstopractice?

QuestionsandChallengesforHRPeriodicals

Althoughthecurrentfindingsraiseseriousques-

tions for HR academics, they also provide chal-lengesforHRperiodicals.Oneofthefirstquestionsthat comes to mind is this:Arepractitioner andbridgejournalsdoingenoughtoeducatetheirread-ers about how to evaluate the strength of variousclaims? One of the patterns we observed in bothHBRandHRMagazinewastheoverwhelmingten-dency to focus on claims and testimonials from

individuals that were unsupported by any refer-

encestoempiricalevidence.Intheabsenceofsuch

evidence, readers are left completely to their own

devicesinchoosinghowtodecideamongcompet-ing claims. Evidence suggests that under such cir-cumstances,peoplearelikelytochoosetheclaimsthat most closely conform with their prior beliefs

(e.g.,

Tetlock,

2000).

As

a

result,

the

odds

that

any-

one will actually learn something new or change

his or her behavior as a result of reading such

periodicalswouldseemtobequitesmall.14

Onceagain,thisissueishardlyrestrictedtocov-

erage of HR research. Indeed, issues of the rela-tivecredibilityofcompetingscientificclaimshavebecome part of the national political conversa-tion (e.g., Begley, Conant, Stein, Clift, & Philips,

2007; Gore, 2007; Mooney, 2006; Sarnoff, 2001).

Assciencebecomesmoreandmoresubjecttoma-

nipulation by commercial and political interests,

peoplebecomeincreasingly accustomedtotheideathat

you

can

find

an

expert

who

will

argue

anything

and that no ones point of view is more valuablethananyoneelses(Gutek,1997).However,asCarl

Sagan once said, If all ideas have equal validity

thenyouarelost,becausethen,itseemstome,no

ideashaveanyvalidityatall(quotedinShermer,2002:vi).

Thus, it seems to us that any periodical that

aspirestobeeducationalhasasocialobligationtofindwaysofdifferentiating amongthestrengthsof

alternative claims.Moreover,wethinkthisobliga-

tion is particularly important for periodicals that

are

associated

with

educational

institutions

or

pro-fessional associations, since both types of institu-

tions are important in privileging certain lines of

thought

and

delegitimizing

others

(e.g.,

Green-

wood,Suddaby,&Hinings,2002).Intheabsenceofempirical evidence, the only clues of credibilityoffered to readers are the presumed status of the

speakers,asindicatedbytitlesand/orshortbiogra-

phies. Thus, like Abrahamson and Eisenman

(2001), we believe that it is necessary to educate

practitioners about how to better evaluate claims,

evidence,andresearchfindings.This,ofcourse,is

not

just

a

challenge

for

periodicals

alone,

but

also

for researchers themselves, to use as many means

as possible (teaching, consulting, and transla-

tionsforpractitionerandbridgejournals).

Inaddition,wewonderwhetherpractitionerand

bridgejournals might do more toprofessionalize

practitioners through increased coverage of ab-

14Of course, the likelihood of behavioral change is

oftenquitesmallevenwhenstrongevidenceisprovided(e.g.,Sherman,Nelson,&Steele,2000).


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