Statement of Interests

Most of the research that I conduct falls under one or more of the following categories:

(1) Testing and counterproductive work behaviors

(2) Personality measurement in industrial psychology

(3) Personnel selection and staffing

(4) International- & cross-cultural industrial psychology

(5) Psychometric meta-analysis & applied methodology

My research stream on integrity tests and counterproductive work behaviors (e.g., theft, drug and alcohol use, property damage, accidents) has focused on the validities of integrity tests for various behaviors on the job. We have also examined mean gender, race, and differences on integrity tests. My doctoral dissertation research examined the construct validity evidence for integrity tests. Over the last few years, I have worked on several projects examining validities of integrity tests for absenteeism, turnover and violence on the job.

My research on personality measurement in industrial, work, and organizational psychology has examined the validities of personality measures for predicting job performance, and social desirability influences on psychometric properties of personality scales. In another vein, my colleagues and I have examined bandwidth/fidelity trade-off as it applies to personality inventory use in personnel selection. Currently projects are being completed meta-analytically examining: (a) validities of personality scales (including Managerial Potential scales) for predicting work behaviors among managerial samples; (b) race, sex, and age differences on personality scales; and (c) the heritability of the Big Five personality dimensions and social desirability scales. Various projects examining the dimensionality of multiple personality inventories are also underway. Another project focuses on presidential personality. Much of my research in personality is helping advance a theory of conscientiousness at work.

In personnel selection, I have devoted much of my research career to examining the validity of personality measures (including integrity tests) and cognitive ability for predicting performance at work. Recently, my focus in this area has been selection for public safety job (police officers, sheriffs, firemen) as well as on identifying individuals that have the potential to be effective executives and managers. Much of this work has benefited from my collaboration with my colleagues Leaetta Hough and Chockalingam Viswesvaran. Our most recent work asks the question whether there is a general factor across different job performance dimensions.

Most of my research in the international arena is simply an extension of my work on personality, integrity, and testing for personnel selection for use in other cultures. I am currently collaborating with international colleagues on a number of long term projects for translating tests into other languages as well as cross-cultural psychometric comparisons among measures used in personnel selection. Another important stream of international industrial, work, and organizational psychology research I have conducted has focused on factors contributing to expatriate worker adjustment and job performance. We have also explored the role of personality factors in explaining both overseas adjustment and job performance both from a theoretical point of view and based on empirical data from expatriates.

The methodological studies I undertake are a response to the needs of particular studies I am conducting in personnel selection, personality measurement and integrity testing. The dominant methodology that I have utilized in most of my research has been meta-analysis. In our previous work, we outlined a new approach to theory testing: Combining psychometric meta-analysis and structural equations modeling. I am particularly hopeful about this new technique in that it will enable us to answer many substantive issues.

Currently, I am also co-editing the International Journal of Selection and Assessment (with Jesus F. Salgado). In 2001, my colleagues Neil Anderson, Handan Kepir Sinangil, Chockalingam Viswesvaran and I edited the two volume Handbook of Industrial, Work, and Organizational Psychology. The two volume set includes over 40 chapters addressing the entire spectrum of topics examined in industrial, work, and organizational psychology from some of the most eminent researchers in their fields.