The Many Potential Uses for a Job Analysis

2017 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 124-128
Author(s):  
Linda D. Waters ◽  
Olga Mironova ◽  
James X. Stobinski

Abstract A job analysis is an integral component in the development of a certification examination. A job analysis, also referred to as a role delineation study, is an expensive, resource-intensive endeavor. The job analysis, the task and knowledge statements, and survey findings, are among the most valuable assets held by a certification organization, but this asset is often underutilized. This article presents alternative uses for job analysis results and strategies for increasing the return on investment for this asset.

2015 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 603-609 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Castille ◽  
Katina Sawyer ◽  
Christian Thoroughgood ◽  
John Buckner V

For industrial and organizational psychologists who are unfamiliar with the mindfulness literature, Hyland, Lee, and Mills (2015) nicely introduce the concept by highlighting key findings from prior studies. Although their review focuses on the many benefits of mindfulness, we believe that mindfulness research should address certain questions that will help us understand whether mindfulness interventions result in a cost-effective positive return on investment. In alignment with the perspective of evidence-based practice (Briner & Rousseau, 2011; Pfeffer & Sutton, 2006), we call for a holistic evaluation of mindfulness, including a consideration of when or how unintended side effects emerge. Importantly, we discuss the potential mechanisms by which mindfulness generates valued outcomes (e.g., performance and collective psychological climate) and the need for more sophisticated research to isolate these causal effects. We also consider how the judicious use of utility analytics (e.g., cost effectiveness and return on investment) might help demonstrate the value of mindfulness interventions while also acknowledging questions of causality that must be addressed for such value to be experienced. We close by clarifying that we have the intention of promoting research to further evidence-based practices. There are organizations that have already begun providing mindfulness meditation interventions, and it is our hope that our commentary will help practitioners in these settings to consider the evidence suggesting that there may be unknown nuances regarding mindfulness practice. Ultimately, we believe that mindfulness is an important burgeoning area of research deserving of more scholarly attention.


2008 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 160
Author(s):  
Allison Cline ◽  
Rosiland McKeon

Author(s):  
William J. Palm ◽  
Daniel E. Whitney

Companies that develop new products increasingly outsource design, a trend that has prompted much concern but little prescription on how best to manage such projects. One challenge is the lack of understanding of what constitutes success in outsourced design. To provide clarity, this paper identifies academic and practical perspectives on success from the literature as well as our own interviews with design consultants and consulting clients, organizes the perspectives into a typology featuring seven distinct dimensions of success, and then prioritizes the key success measures using a survey of 194 additional practitioners. The results suggest that past research has generally focused on the wrong success measures, overstating the impact of problems during development and the relative importance of return on investment, and omitting key measures such as working relationship quality, project value, and client satisfaction. Not all success measures are well correlated; a project may do very well on some but poorly on others. While each measure has it merits, client satisfaction appears to be a promising summary measure.


Author(s):  
Terry Wireman

Maintenance — a function within most corporations, that most people do not understand. Unfortunately, too many people think they understand the maintenance function. This is evident by the many differing methods currently used to organize and perform maintenance in American corporations. It is no secret that many corporate and plant executives have concentrated on operations or manufacturing management, while management of the more technical disciplines such as maintenance have been ignored or placed in a secondary status. Maintenance, for example, has been viewed as an necessary evil or insurance policy, where money is paid and nothing (in their lifetime) is ever seen as a return. Paper published with permission.


2018 ◽  
Vol 41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wei Ji Ma

AbstractGiven the many types of suboptimality in perception, I ask how one should test for multiple forms of suboptimality at the same time – or, more generally, how one should compare process models that can differ in any or all of the multiple components. In analogy to factorial experimental design, I advocate for factorial model comparison.


2020 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Spurrett

Abstract Comprehensive accounts of resource-rational attempts to maximise utility shouldn't ignore the demands of constructing utility representations. This can be onerous when, as in humans, there are many rewarding modalities. Another thing best not ignored is the processing demands of making functional activity out of the many degrees of freedom of a body. The target article is almost silent on both.


2020 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Tomasello

Abstract My response to the commentaries focuses on four issues: (1) the diversity both within and between cultures of the many different faces of obligation; (2) the possible evolutionary roots of the sense of obligation, including possible sources that I did not consider; (3) the possible ontogenetic roots of the sense of obligation, including especially children's understanding of groups from a third-party perspective (rather than through participation, as in my account); and (4) the relation between philosophical accounts of normative phenomena in general – which are pitched as not totally empirical – and empirical accounts such as my own. I have tried to distinguish comments that argue for extensions of the theory from those that represent genuine disagreement.


1997 ◽  
Vol 161 ◽  
pp. 179-187
Author(s):  
Clifford N. Matthews ◽  
Rose A. Pesce-Rodriguez ◽  
Shirley A. Liebman

AbstractHydrogen cyanide polymers – heterogeneous solids ranging in color from yellow to orange to brown to black – may be among the organic macromolecules most readily formed within the Solar System. The non-volatile black crust of comet Halley, for example, as well as the extensive orangebrown streaks in the atmosphere of Jupiter, might consist largely of such polymers synthesized from HCN formed by photolysis of methane and ammonia, the color observed depending on the concentration of HCN involved. Laboratory studies of these ubiquitous compounds point to the presence of polyamidine structures synthesized directly from hydrogen cyanide. These would be converted by water to polypeptides which can be further hydrolyzed to α-amino acids. Black polymers and multimers with conjugated ladder structures derived from HCN could also be formed and might well be the source of the many nitrogen heterocycles, adenine included, observed after pyrolysis. The dark brown color arising from the impacts of comet P/Shoemaker-Levy 9 on Jupiter might therefore be mainly caused by the presence of HCN polymers, whether originally present, deposited by the impactor or synthesized directly from HCN. Spectroscopic detection of these predicted macromolecules and their hydrolytic and pyrolytic by-products would strengthen significantly the hypothesis that cyanide polymerization is a preferred pathway for prebiotic and extraterrestrial chemistry.


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