SIOP 2008 Preconference Workshop Descriptions

Wednesday, April 9, 2008
The Hilton San Francisco, California

Workshop 1 (half day)

Doing Competencies Well in Applied Settings

Presenters:      Michael A. Campion, Purdue University
                         Alexis A. Fink, Microsoft Corporation  
                         Brian J. Ruggeberg, Aon Talent Solutions Consulting
Coordinator:     Margaret G. Barton, U.S. Office of Personnel Management

This workshop is based on the 2006 SIOP Program Committee’s top-rated practice forum, “Doing Competencies Well.”  It is intended for practitioners who develop competency models and use them to design HR systems in organizations.

The purpose of the workshop is to present a set of best practices for competency modeling based on the experiences and lessons learned from all the major perspectives on this topic including major companies, major consulting firms, major universities, and the SIOP committee on competency modeling. 

From all these different perspectives and experiences, we delineate a set of best practices and then illustrate them with practical examples.  For each of the best practices, we explain the issue, make recommendations, and then provide illustrations from actual organizations.   

The workshop is designed to help participants develop best-practice competency modeling in their organizations by:

• Collecting and analyzing job information
• Organizing job information
• Using job information to structure models

Michael A. Campion is a professor of management at Purdue University (for the last 20 years).  He previously worked 8 years at IBM and Weyerhaeuser Company.  He is among the 10 most published authors in the top journals in I-O for the last 2 decades.  He is past editor of Personnel Psychology and past president of the SIOP.  He manages a small consulting firm that has conducted over 300 projects for 90 organizations, including a large number of competency modeling projects for organizations as diverse as Honda of America and the U.S. Department of State.  He has also conducted over 35 job analysis projects and was heavily involved in the initial development of O*NET.  Finally, he has managed a small I-O recruiting firm for the last 10 years that has placed psychologists in over 50 organizations. 

Alexis A. Fink is Culture and Talent Enablement Group Manager at Microsoft Corporation.  In her role, she is responsible for the broad talent strategy at Microsoft, for the annual employee survey program and associated research projects, and for helping drive large-scale culture change for the company to help meet future business challenges.  Alexis’ work at Microsoft includes global responsibility for Microsoft’s competency models and the deep integration of competency models into HR systems.  Alexis has over a decade of experience in organizational change and research.

Brian J. Ruggeberg has nearly 20 years of experience in conducting job analyses and designing competency models for leading organizations.  He is currently senior vice president in Aon’s Talent Solutions Consulting group and serves as the Northeast area practice leader for Aon’s overall Human Capital practice.  During his 12 years with Aon, Brian has used a variety of competency modeling techniques to design models that have, in turn, served as the foundation for a myriad of other HR programs.  Brian will provide a somewhat unique perspective to the workshop by drawing on his external consulting background and work with a large number of organizations of different sizes, industries, and HR sophistication.  Brian received his PhD in I-O psychology from Old Dominion University.

Workshop 2 (half day)

Making Mergers and Acquisitions Work: The Basics and Beyond

Presenter:         Mitchell Lee Marks, San Francisco State University and JoiningForces.org
Coordinator:      Linda Carr, Sun Micro Systems

Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) are occurring at a record pace in both the for-profit and not-for-profit sectors.  For 25 years, I-O psychologists have documented the impact of M&A on employee well-being and organizational effectiveness.  And, they have developed interventions to minimize unintended consequences of being merged or acquired—including employee distraction from performance and culture clash—and to maximize opportunities to use the combination as an opportunity to build a new and better organization.  However, managing the human, cultural, and organizational aspect of M&A still tends to be an afterthought as combinations are planned and implemented.  Fully 75% of all mergers and acquisitions fail to achieve their desired financial or strategic results.

This workshop is organized around two distinct modules.  The first module examines the basics of “the human side” of M&A.  It reviews the human, cultural, and organizations issues that have the most impact on eventual M&A success and presents interventions available to address these issues.  The second module reflects on and considers the question “If we have known these issues and interventions for over 2 decades, how come most M&A’s continue to produce disappointing results?”  In this second module, we examine some emerging trends in M&A implementation (e.g., using the period between merger announcement and legal closing to prepare for combinations) as well as discuss how I-O psychologists—both internal and external to the firm—can gain “a seat at the table” in M&A planning. 

Participants are encouraged to bring actual cases they are currently or recently involved with.  Time will be provided to develop action plans for enhancing the integration process.

This workshop is designed to help participants:

• Describe the three phases of the M&A process
• Identify the causes of employee stress and distraction from performance during the M&A process
• Identify the causes and stages of culture clash in mergers and acquisitions
• List strategies and tactics for managing employee stress and distraction from performance during a merger or acquisition
• List strategies and tactics for addressing cultural dynamics in mergers and acquisitions
• Describe various ways in which I-O psychologists can advise on the M&A process

Mitchell Lee Marks has been studying and advising on the planning and implementation of mergers and acquisitions for 25 years.  He has worldwide experience in over 100 mergers and acquisitions, covering practically all industry sectors, and has been dubbed a “merger maven” by Fortune magazine.  He has lectured on the M&A process at the Harvard Business School, Smithsonian Institution, and to a wide variety of scientific and practitioner audiences.  He regularly works with organizations to enhance their integration management capabilities.  He is the coauthor, with Philip Mirvis, of Joining Forces: Making One Plus One Equal Three in Mergers, Acquisitions and Alliances.  Currently on the faculty of the College of Business at San Francisco State University, Mitchell received his PhD in I-O psychology from the University of Michigan.

Workshop 3 (half day)

Creating a Compelling Offer:  Aligning Your Employee Value Proposition to Key Talent Segments

Presenters:      Anthony McBride, Bristol-Myers Squibb Co.
                         Maria Amato, CLC Solutions
Coordinator:     Robin R. Cohen, Bristol Myers Squibb Co.

The renewed war for talent has increased the need for organizations to focus on attracting and retaining critical talent.  Moreover, changing workforce demographics are forcing organizations to tailor their messages to drive attraction and commitment in different key talent segments.  This workshop will focus on how organizations develop, market, and measure the impact of their employee value proposition (EVP)—the set of attributes that the labor market and employees perceive as the value they gain through employment in the organization.  Research on best practices in creating segmented EVPs will be discussed.  In addition, real-world examples of how several companies redesigned their EVPs will be presented.  This workshop should be of interest to practitioners who are responsible for recruiting, employee retention, and employment branding either in a consulting or internal role.

This workshop is designed to help participants:

• Develop a compelling business case for investing in articulating and segmenting their organizations EVP and building an employment brand
• Learn to apply market research principals to building an EVP
• Identify the pros and cons of segmented EVPs particularly for global organizations
• Identify the key steps in delivering and communicating a compelling EVP

Anthony McBride, is vice president, Human Resources, for Bristol-Myers Squibb’s Commercial Pharmaceuticals Division. Since joining Bristol-Myers Squibb in 1995, Anthony has held a number of key roles in the human resources organization including generalist and specialist assignments.  His experiences span U.S., European, and global roles.  In addition to his initial work as a director in BMS’s Center for Leadership Development, he also served as the senior director, Leadership Development and Staffing, for the U.S. Medicines Division, where he was responsible for BMS corporate-wide strategic sourcing and staffing strategies. In the senior generalist roles that he has held—such as vice president, Human Resources, Europe; vice president, Human Resources, International Medicines and Global Marketing: and vice president, Human Resources US Pharmaceutical Commercial business—his chief accountabilities included partnering with the business to build organizational and workforce solutions that drive business performance, determining the talent strategy for the business units, and working with the line organization to enhance workforce quality, cost effectiveness, and performance.  Before joining Bristol-Myers Squibb Co., he was a consultant in the New York office of Personnel Decisions, Inc.  He specialized in organizational development, executive coaching, talent selection, and management development consulting.  Anthony earned a BS degree in psychology from the University of Texas, Austin, and a MS and PhD in I-O psychology from Texas A&M University.

Maria Amato is the practice leader for CLC Solutions, a membership of senior human resources executives from more than 100 organizations around the world. In her current role, she leads the development of new practice areas, applying quantitative rigor to the most pressing areas of concern for HR executives. Maria also provides decision support to individual member companies, using tools and techniques from the Corporate Leadership Council canon of best practices. Her clients include multiple Fortune 500 organizations such as Lockheed Martin, Sprint, Lowe’s, Intel, Marriott, Duke Energy, Nokia, BP, and Altria. She is currently focused on developing new approaches in the areas of compensation and benefits optimization, leadership development, and employment branding. Her research has concentrated on many aspects of human resources, including the effect of affirmative action on employee performance and retention tactics for high-performing employees. Maria holds a BA from Colgate University with a strong liberal arts background and a concentration in research methodology in psychology (highest honors), as well as an MA in experimental psychology from the State University of New York at Buffalo. Maria attended the PhD program in social psychology at McGill University in Montreal, with a concentration on the effect of HR policies on employee performance and engagement (currently ABD status).

Workshop 4 (half day)

Closing the Business Acumen Gap: Moving From an HR Expert to an Influential Business Partner

Presenters:      Adam Ortiz, Executive Development Consulting
                         Jeffrey A. Smith, Barclays Global Investors
Coordinator:     Shane Douthitt, Morehead Associates

I-O practitioners often face the challenge of connecting their work to real business outcomes and garnering the attention of business executives. Although utility analysis, causal modeling, and other approaches have attempted to make this empirical connection, the real trick is to communicate to business professionals in terms they understand. This requires an understanding of how a particular business makes money, as well as a grasp of the key challenges/priorities the business is facing. This workshop will leverage the expertise of two I-O practitioners with broad consulting and industry experience. The workshop will include (a) practical approaches to connecting human resource practices to the bottom line and to meaningful business outcomes, (b) suggestions for branding oneself as a business partner, and (c) approaches to assessing client needs and delivering value against those needs. This workshop should be of interest to all practitioners, both internal and external to organizations.

This workshop is designed to help participants:

• Speak in a language that business professionals understand
• Define business acumen, that is, understand how businesses make money
• Create a personal brand that matters to businesses
• Understand the perspective of a front-line manager and the implications of that perspective
• Meet clients where they are, understanding needs and how to connect to those needs
• Connect their work with critical business outcomes

Adam Ortiz is the founder of Executive Development Consulting. He provides executive assessment, coaching, and leadership development services aimed at creating sustainable improvements in individual and organizational performance. Adam brings a broad and pragmatic perspective to his client’s unique business needs and circumstances. This perspective has evolved over the last 20 years through working with leaders from around the world and across a wide range of Fortune 500 companies in industries such as financial services, technology, manufacturing, retail, and energy. Adam has held executive leadership positions at Time Warner and Bank of America. In these organizations, he was instrumental in the design and implementation of talent management and development solutions. In addition, he spent several years with the internationally recognized consulting firm Personnel Decisions International.  Adam began his career with the United States Air Force. Adam graduated with a degree in social psychology from Park College and received his doctorate in counseling psychology from the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, MN. He is a licensed psychologist in the state of Minnesota.

Jeffrey Smith leads a global team that is responsible for all aspects of recruiting, leadership and management development, succession planning, and helping employees build critical skills (competency-based, technical, functional) from the time they join to throughout their career at Barclays Global Investors (BGI).  Prior to BGI, Jeff was the vice president, People Development, for Time Warner Corporate in New York.  Prior to assuming this role, he served as the AOL division’s director of organization development.  Before joining Time Warner, Jeff was a senior consultant at Personnel Decisions International, which specializes in executive assessment, leadership development, and executive coaching.  Jeff helped companies with people strategy, development of key executives, and succession planning.  He was an executive coach for senior leaders of Fortune 100 companies and worked closely with executive leadership teams to enhance their effectiveness.  He also played key roles in designing performance-management and other feedback tools, and talent-management systems.  Jeff was educated at the University of Connecticut (BS) and received a PhD in I-O psychology from Virginia Tech.  His work appears in many top-tier journals including Leadership Quarterly, and he has presented at conferences all over the world.

Workshop 5 (half day)

Using Technology to Enhance Assessment and Development Programs

Presenters:      Deborah E. Rupp, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Coordinator:    Barbara A. Fritzsche, University of Central Florida 

This workshop focuses on how to develop integrated assessment and development programs that use technology to enhance each step in the process.  Participants will learn how competencies can be used to integrate all HR functions. Participants will be walked through the process steps common to all assessment programs (i.e., observe and record behavior, classify behavior into competencies, obtain ratings/scores on competencies, compute final scores, rank order candidates, provide feedback).  Then, advice will be offered for how technology can be used to enhance each of these steps. To illustrate these points, the technological enhancements that have been made to operational developmental assessment centers in the U.S. and abroad will be shown via pictures, equipment specifications, and video demonstrations.  Then, other technologies that have implications for assessment and development programs will be discussed or demonstrated, such as Skype, HP’s Halo project, Apple’s integrated technology systems, avatars, and clickers.  Workshop participants will map their assessment/development programs onto the process steps common to all assessment programs, infuse technology where it is appropriate, and set goals for technologically enhancing their programs.  

This workshop is designed to help participants:

• Understand how competencies can be used to integrate all HR functions
• Map their assessment and development programs onto the process steps common to all assessment programs
• See and experience a variety of technological enhancements that are currently used in operational developmental assessment centers
• Set goals for technologically enhancing their assessment and development programs

Deborah Rupp’s work on behavioral assessment specifically focuses on assessment center validity, the use of the method to foster professional development, and the use of technology to enhance assessment and development. She is the director of the Laboratory for the Study of Developmental Assessment Centers (DACLab), a multinational and multidisciplinary group of researchers and practitioners conducting many projects in this area, which includes a program offering DAC assessments to managers and executives in both the U.S. and Asia. Rupp has coauthored the new edition of Assessment Centers in Human Resource Management with George C. Thornton and was the first ever recipient of the Douglas W. Bray and Ann Howard Award (for research on leadership assessment and development). This work has appeared in outlets such as Research in Personnel and Human Resource Management, The Psychologist Manager Journal, and The Comprehensive Handbook of Psychological Assessment. Her assessment center research is supported by funding from the SIOP Foundation, the State Farm Companies Foundation, the Korean Psychological Testing Institute, and the Center of Human Resource Management. She has also been published in outlets such as Academy of Management Review, Journal of Applied Psychology, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Journal of Management, Journal of Organizational Behavior, Journal of Vocational Behavior, Research in Multilevel Issues, Human Resource Management Review, and Corporate Governance: An International Review. She serves on the editorial boards of Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Journal of Management, and Journal of Organizational Behavior. Lastly, she is an active practitioner, having consulted on projects for groups such as the State University Civil Service System, the Korean Civil Service Commission, the SK Corporation, Virginia Department of Corrections, Sun Microsystems, Colorado Department of Human Services, CIB Marine Bancshares, Rockwell Automation, and Solutia (formerly Monsanto).

Workshop 6 (half day)

Qualitative Research Methods

Presenter:      David Fetterman, Standford University
Coordinator:   Tom Giberson, Oakland University

This workshop provides an introduction to qualitative methodology, including concepts and techniques. Concepts include emic (or insider’s perspective of reality), nonjudgmental, culture/subculture, intra and inter-cultural diversity, symbolism, and a holistic perspective.  These concepts are used as a lens in which to observe and interpret behavior.  Methods and techniques include fieldwork participant observation, informal interviewing, triangulation, and unobtrusive measures.  The workshop will also highlight Web-based tools to conduct qualitative research, ranging from online surveys to free video conferencing on the Internet.  The workshop highlights applied work with concrete case examples.  It also highlights how qualitative methods are used to build institutional capacity and foster organizational learning.

This workshop is designed to help participants:

• Summarize core concepts of qualitative methodology.
• Select appropriate qualitative methods and tools in applied and research settings.
• Apply qualitative methods to applied and research questions.
• Summarize the strengths and limitations of qualitative methods.

David M. Fetterman is the director of evaluation, Division of Evaluation in the School of Medicine at Stanford University.  He is also a collaborating professor, Colegio de Postgraduadors, Mexico and a distinguished visiting professor at San Jose State University.  For a decade he was a consulting professor of education and the director of the MA Policy Analysis and Evaluation Program in the School of Education at Stanford University. He was formerly professor and research director at the California Institute of Integral Studies, principal research scientist at the American Institutes for Research, and a senior associate and project director at RMC Research Corporation. He received his PhD from Stanford University in educational and medical anthropology. He has conducted fieldwork in both Israel (including living on a kibbutz) and the United States (primarily in inner cities across the country). David works in the fields of educational evaluation, ethnography, educational technology, policy analysis, and focuses on programs for dropouts and gifted and talented education.

Workshop 7 (half day)

Building and Managing Effective E-Learning Systems: How to Build a World-Class Technology-Based Training System in Which Employees Really Learn

Presenters:       Kurt Kraiger, Colorado State University
                          Kenneth G. Brown, University of Iowa
Coordinator:      Joan Gutkowski, KPMG

Yearly surveys of corporate training functions show that many organizations are increasingly relying on e-learning or Web-based training programs to broaden training outreach, provide just-in-time learning, and control training costs.  Unfortunately, many organizations simply translate an older lecture-style training program to an online version, creating dry, uninspiring Web-based training programs and turning the computer into an “electronic page turner.”  By taking full advantage of networked computers, however, Web-based training programs can instead be developed to be highly interactive and powerful learning tools that create learning environments that are at once highly individualized and embedded within a community of learning peers. This workshop will include (a) a review of research on instructional and contextual characteristics that optimize individual learning; (b) guidelines for designing effective and interactive learning environments; (c) guidelines for deciding whether or not to contract course development and management to e-learning vendors; (d) emerging media and methods for engaging learners (e.g., wikis, blogs, podcasts, interactive whiteboards, tagging, and social networking sites); and (e) an overview of strategies for evaluating e-learning effectiveness. This workshop will be of interest to practitioners responsible for planning, developing, upgrading, or maintaining e-learning systems.

This workshop is designed to help participants:

• List characteristics of effective e-learning systems;
• Decide on appropriate instructional characteristics for e-learning systems in their organizations;
• Decide whether or not to contract with external vendors to provide e-learning systems for their organization; 
• Know potential applications and value added for emerging e-learning methods;
• Develop effective e-learning evaluation instruments.

Kurt Kraiger has over 20 years of experience designing and evaluating effective instructional systems. He currently works at Colorado State University. He has a half-time appointment in the Department of Psychology where he conducts research on computer-based and Web-based training systems. He also has a half-time appointment in Continuing Education where he is designing an online master’s program and developing a university-based consulting practice centered on the delivery and evaluation of training and leadership development programs.  He is the editor of the 2002 SIOP practice series book on Creating, Implementing, and Managing Effective Training and Development Systems in Organizations: State-of-the-Art Lessons for Practice, and coedited a second book on training.

Kenneth G. Brown (PhD, Michigan State University) has been researching e-learning systems for almost 10 years. His consulting work includes training evaluation projects for Ford Motor Company, the National Center for Manufacturing Sciences, and the University of Iowa, and training needs assessment projects at Tenneco Automotive, AegonUSA, Toyota Financial Services, and the Iowa Health Care System.  Ken’s published research includes chapters in several edited books and articles in numerous journals including Human Resource Management, Human Resource Planning, International Journal of Training and Development, Journal of Applied Psychology, and Personnel Psychology.  Ken has received a number of awards for his e-learning research, including the annual research awards by the American Society of Training and Development (2001) and the Society of Human Resource Management (2003).

Workshop 8 (half day)

Global Knowledge and Skills for Industrial-Organizational Psychology

Presenters:       Keith James, Portland State University
                          Jose M Péiro, University of Valencia, Valencia, Spain
                          Mo Wang, Portland State University
Coordinator:      John Howes, NIKE

Over recent decades, national economies have become linked into a global economy, increasing numbers of businesses have become international, and the movement of workers across national boundaries has increased.  Those trends require that I-O psychology attend more systematically to the types of knowledge, skills, and abilities necessary for its practitioners to be effective in the increasingly globalized world of work.  This workshop will include (a) a consideration of major new issues for I-O that come with globalization; (b) analysis of the fit and misfit of current I-O psychology KSAO’s with global organizations and a global economy; (c) examination of new KSAO’s that I-O psychology education, application, and research need to address for global effectiveness; and (d) information and strategies for dealing with some major demands practitioners experience when working with organizations and workers across national boundaries.  This workshop should be of value to practitioners, educators, and researchers interested in adapting their own work, as well as the field as a whole, to the increasingly globalized context of the workplace.

This workshop is designed to help participants:

• Understand the global workforce trends and implications for I-O psychology;
• Examine aspects of international (e.g., World Trade Organization) and comparative-national employment and corporate law;
• Analyze cross-cultural influences on global organizational effectiveness and demonstrate some approaches to cross-cultural success;
• Compare some current differences in the training and application of
   I-O psychology between Europe and the U.S.; and
• Create a taxonomy of the major global KSAO’s for I-O psychologists.

Keith James received a PhD in social psychology and organizational behavior from the University of Arizona.  He has held faculty positions at Columbia University, Colorado State University, the University of Alaska, York University (Canada) and the University of Calgary (Canada).  He was an associate of the Taylor Cox & Associates consulting firm for several years, and has consulted with organizations in several nations.  Keith is now professor of psychology at Portland State University.  His work focuses on creativity and innovation in organizations, work influences on health, cultural and diversity influences on organizations, and Native American/Native Canadian community sustainability. James has served on fellowship, grant review, or program advisory panels for the Ford Foundation/National Academy of Sciences, National Science Foundation, the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, and the Social Science & Humanities Research Council (Canada).  He has been a Fulbright Fellow and a Fulbright Distinguished Scholar, and is a Sequoah Fellow of the American Indian Science and Engineering Society.

Jose M. Peiró received a PhD from the University of Valencia, where he is now professor of work and organizational psychology, as well as director of the five-university Erasmus Mundus Work, Organizational, and Personnel Psychology graduate program.  He has extensive experience with international education, research, and practice.  Dr. Péiro has participated in more than 15 international research projects on topics such as organizational climate and culture, organizational socialization, and cross-cultural work interactions. He has also consulted with organizations on topics such as training for new technology and work effects on the health of immigrant workers.  He is currently president of the Organizational Psychology Division of the International Association of Applied Psychology, and a member of the SIOP study abroad subcommittee.  He is past-president of the European Association of Work and Organizational Psychology, and the former vice president of the European Academy of Occupational Health Psychology.  He is also a member of the European Union’s research program for the development of the European Diploma of Psychology and chair of an EU committee to develop an Advanced Diploma of Work and Organizational Psychology.

Mo Wang received a PhD in both I-O and developmental psychology from Bowling Green State University and is currently an assistant professor at Portland State University.  His research interests include expatriate management and global/cross-cultural HR practice, older worker employment and retirement, and advanced quantitative methodology in research and practice. Mo also does organizational health work, and helped found—and has helped lead membership recruitment for—the Society for Occupational Health Psychology. He has published in top-tier I-O and developmental psychology journals, such as the Journal of Applied Psychology, Personnel Psychology, Psychology and Aging, the Journal of Gerontology, Psychological Science, and Organizational Research Methods.  He has consulted with several Fortune 500 companies in the U.S., the People’s Republic of China, and other countries on cross-cultural HR practice.  He has also conducted I-O psychology-related workshops sponsored by both U.S. and Chinese governments. 

Workshop 9 (half day)

It’s All About the Fundamentals! Staying Statistically Savvy in a Point-and-Click World

Presenter:      Rodney A. McCloy, Human Resources Research Organization (HumRRO)
Coordinator:   S. Morton McPhail, Valtera Corporation

For many practitioners, the exigencies of applied and field research require working with nonoptimal datasets. Such datasets impose difficulties for statistical analyses that many practitioners may never have considered or have paid little attention to since leaving graduate school. In addition, the advent of widely available and easily used statistical software may lead applied researchers to use complex analytical techniques that are inappropriate for the situation and configuration of the data. Finally, some practitioners may return to statistical analyses after some time away from them, having forgotten (or repressed) their earlier acquired knowledge. These conditions can lead researchers to erroneous conclusions or to an inability to review and evaluate the research of others.

This workshop is designed to help participants:

• Identify which statistical techniques are appropriate in common applied situations and why they are appropriate
• Identify critical assumptions underlying the techniques and the implications of violating them in field settings
• Recognize and avoid common errors that practitioners make

Rodney A. McCloy has conducted and directed personnel research for nearly 20 years. He is well versed in many multivariate analytical techniques (e.g., covariance structure analysis, structural equation modeling, event history analysis, hierarchical linear modeling), and he has applied these techniques to numerous research questions, especially those involving personnel selection and classification, job performance measurement and modeling, and attrition/turnover. His recent research efforts include development of an unproctored, online, computer-adaptive figural reasoning test for use in a multiple-hurdle selection battery; technical support for development of an online career exploration tool; and development of methods for estimating interrater reliability in ill-structured research designs. He received his doctorate in I-O psychology, with specialization in psychometrics and statistics, from the University of Minnesota.

Workshop 10 (half day)

Leading an Ethical Culture in Organizations: How I-O Psychologists Can Help

Presenters:       Charles E. Ruthford, The Boeing Company
                          Michael E. Brown, Penn State-Erie
Coordinator:      Liberty J. Munson, Microsoft Corporation

Ethical culture and ethical leadership have been receiving increased attention from practitioners and academic researchers.  As many recent high-profile personal and organizational ethical lapses demonstrate, ethics is not only a moral concern.  Weak ethical leadership and culture can damage reputations, ruin careers, and hurt performance.   This workshop brings together the academic and practitioner perspectives to shed light on what we know about developing strong ethical leaders and organizational cultures.  In this workshop, Charles and Mike will (a) discuss the importance of ethical culture and ethics programs in the business context; (b) summarize what researchers have discovered about the antecedents, components, and consequences of ethical leadership as well as the factors that promote ethical culture; (c) demonstrate how ethical case studies and dilemmas (using actual Boeing case studies) can be used to promote a positive ethical culture; (d) facilitate a conversation with the audience that explores theses issues in greater detail; (e) tackle the question, what can I-O psychologists’ do to help foster ethical leadership and culture in their organizations?  This workshop should be of interest to practitioners who are involved with ethics management, leadership training and development, assessment, or selection systems.

This workshop is designed to help participants:

• Identify the antecedents, components, and outcomes of ethical leadership
• Discuss the business case for ethical culture and ethics management in business organizations
• Create and use ethical case studies and scenarios to promote ethical culture and leadership
• Assess ethical leadership and ethical culture within their organizations

Charles E. Ruthford is responsible for ethics program development for The Boeing Company.  He leads the development of ethics program focus and direction, ethics education, program effectiveness assessments, best practices sharing and research.  Charles has been with Boeing for 34 years, holding positions in engineering, manufacturing, computing operations, information technology, sales and marketing, ethics, software development, factory automation, systems management, and management development.  His assignments have taken him to Seattle, Washington, Washington DC, Palo Alto, California, and Huntsville, AL.  He received a BA in mathematics from the University of Washington and a MS in management from Stanford University.

Michael E. Brown is an assistant professor of management in the Sam and Irene Black School of Business at Penn State-Erie.  He is an active researcher who has authored/coauthored more than 25 journal articles, book chapters, and conference presentations.  He has published articles in such journals as the Journal of Applied Psychology, The Leadership Quarterly, Organizational Dynamics, and Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Making Processes. His primary research interests are in the areas of ethical leadership and other positive forms of leadership.  He teaches popular courses on leadership, ethics, and negotiations in Penn State-Erie’s MBA program.  He has provided ethics and management training to companies in a variety of industries.  He received his PhD in management from The Pennsylvania State University (University Park). 

Workshop 11 (half day)

The Impending Workforce Crisis: What I-O Psychologists Can Do

Presenters:      Wayne Cascio, University of Colorado
                         Peter Cappelli, University of Pennsylvania
Coordinator:     Debra Drenth Setzer, Franklin Templeton Investments

It is no exaggeration to say that the world at large and the world of organizations have changed forever.  Executives around the globe acknowledge that finding, retaining, and growing talent are among their toughest business challenges. Yet to address this concern, many are turning to talent-management practices that no longer work—because the environment they were tailored to no longer exists.  The changes are due largely to shifts in demographics, the Internet, work distributed all over the globe, e-commerce, and the need for speed and agile responses to opportunities and threats in the marketplace.  In this workshop we will review these trends, as well as present new ideas and approaches to talent management, and how those change workforce-planning strategies and tactics in addition to management-succession planning. 

This workshop is designed to help participants:

• Understand and appreciate workforce trends: demographic, technological, and strategic
• Identify options for addressing those trends
• Balance developing talent in-house with buying it on the open market
• Improve the accuracy of their talent-need forecasts
• Optimize both workforce—and management—succession planning 
• Replicate external job market dynamics by creating an in-house market that links available talent to jobs

Wayne F. Cascio is U.S. Bank Term Professor of Management at the University of Colorado at Denver.  He is chair of the Society for Human Resource Management Foundation (2007), past chair of the HR Division of the Academy of Management (AOM), a former member of the AOM Board of Governors, and past president of SIOP.  He has authored more than 135 journal articles and book chapters, and 20 books, including Investing in People (with John Boudreau, forthcoming), Managing Human Resources: Productivity, Quality of Work Life, Profits (8th ed., in press), Applied Psychology in Human Resource Management (6th ed., 2005 with Herman Aguinis), and Responsible Restructuring: Creative and Profitable Alternatives to Layoffs (2002).  He is an elected Fellow of the Academy of Management, the American Psychological Association, and the National Academy of Human Resources.  He received a PhD in I-O psychology from the University of Rochester and an honorary doctorate from the University of Geneva, Switzerland.

Peter Cappelli is the George W. Taylor Professor of Management at The Wharton School and director of Wharton’s Center for Human Resources.  He is also a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research in Cambridge, MA and serves as senior advisor to the governments of Bahrain and Singapore on employment-policy issues.  He has degrees in industrial relations from Cornell University and in labor economics from Oxford. He has served on three committees of the National Academy of Sciences and two panels of the National Goals for Education, and was recently named by Vault.com as one the 25 most important people working in the area of human capital, one of the top 100 people in the field of recruiting and staffing by Recruit.com., and was elected a Fellow of the National Academy of Human Resources.  He is the founding editor of the Academy of Management Perspectives, and the author of Change at Work (Oxford University Press, 1997), The New Deal at Work: Managing the Market-Driven Workforce (Harvard Business School Press, 1999), and Talent on Demand (Harvard Business School Press, forthcoming).

Workshop 12 (half day)

EEO Update 2008
Adding, Deleting, or Altering Selection Instruments:  Required, Permitted, or Prohibited?

Presenters:      Keith M. Pyburn, Jr., Fisher & Phillips, LLP
                         John A. Weiner, PSI Services LLC
Coordinator:     Bill Sipe, Mercer

Organizations commonly rely upon assessment instruments and other procedures to guide selection decision making for talent acquisition. Alternative uses of assessments abound.  The use of employee selection procedures is subject to fair employment legislation, case law, and federal and state regulatory actions, which are continuously evolving. I-O practitioners are well advised to keep abreast of these developments in order to balance psychometric and organizational concerns with legal considerations and risk. This session will review current legal issues, enforcement trends, and cases related to alternative uses of selection instruments (e.g., cut scores, scoring and decision strategies, alternative content and methods), along with corresponding issues, research, and considerations for practitioners who work with organizations to design and implement talent selection systems.

This workshop is designed to help participants:

• Identify current trends in enforcement agency activity
• Summarize legal requirements and issues related to choosing and justifying tests
• Summarize legal issues and cases regarding test use and decision making
• Identify alternative strategies for test scoring and use, and their effects upon validity and adverse impact
• Summarize legal issues and cases related to modifying assessments to increase selectivity, reduce adverse impact and/or increase validity
• Identify psychometric and practical impact of modifying assessments to increase selectivity, reduce adverse impact and/or increase validity

Keith M. Pyburn, Jr. is a partner of the law firm Fisher & Phillips, LLP, and has represented management in the practice of labor relations and employment law since 1975.  Mr. Pyburn is a member of the ABA, Section of Labor Employment, Equal Employment Law Committee (1976–present), and has served as a member of the Planning Board and its Executive Committee of the Multi-State Labor and Employment Law Conference since 1990. Pyburn has published and lectured on a variety of employment-related topics, such as sexual harassment, ethics, and various testing issues, such as Legal and Technical Developments in the Use and Challenges to the Use of Testing in Employment; Testing and the Law; EEOC Litigation, Affirmative Action and the Use of Tests; and Evolving Technical and Legal Standards for Employment Testing and the Setting of Cut Points.  He received his JD from Tulane University School of Law in 1974 and is a member of the Louisiana Bar Association.

John A. Weiner has over 25 years of experience in assessment research and HR applications. He is currently vice president of Products and Services at PSI, where he has led the development and implementation of assessments for talent acquisition at all levels, from hourly to executive. John has consulted with hundreds of business and government organizations to provide psychometrically sound and legally defensible assessment instruments and systems for a wide range of applications. He has authored numerous technical publications and has presented frequently at SIOP and other national conferences on a variety of topics related to selection and assessment, including Legal Issues in the Use of Cut Scores; Validity Generalization in the Workplace; Impact of Testing Conditions on Online Assessment; Cross-Cultural Employment Testing; HR Technology Applications; Issues in Unproctored Internet-Based Testing; and Employee Turnover Research. He holds a master’s degree in psychology from California State University, Sacramento, specializing in quantitative methods and industrial psychology.

Workshop 13 (half day)

Performance Testing: A New Frontier for I-O Psychologists

Presenters:      Deirdre J. Knapp, Human Resources Research Organization (HumRRO)
                         David J. Pucel, Performance Training Systems, Inc. and the University of Minnesota
Coordinator:     Bill Strickland, Human Resources Research Organization (HumRRO)

The use of tests in a selection context is an area with which I-O psychologists are very familiar.  Unfortunately, the use of tests as predictors is often the only model that an I-O psychologist encounters, and the measurement of performance comes down to ratings.  On the other hand, those who practice in the certification or licensure arena—whether they are I-O psychologists or not—are routinely confronted with the requirement to not only use but also develop performance-based measures of knowledge or skill. Much of this research and development work is currently conducted by people in other disciplines (e.g., professionals in educational measurement), and there is much that I-O psychologists can both learn from and contribute to this arena. This workshop will focus on the design, development, and use of performance-based tests, using specific examples of alternatives to multiple-choice, paper-and-pencil tests. The workshop should be of interest to academics wanting to explore research opportunities in performance-based testing and to practitioners wanting to develop or enhance their skills in this arena.

The workshop will enable participants to:

• Contrast typical predictor development with the development of performance-based assessments
• Discuss issues for consideration in designing, developing, and validating performance-based assessments, including job analysis and statistical approaches
• Describe multiple assessment methods in addition to multiple choice paper-and-pencil tests
• Identify research opportunities in the design, scoring, and evaluation of performance-based assessments

Deirdre J. Knapp has over 20 years of experience in employment-related testing research and development. Her primary area of expertise is designing and developing performance assessments, most recently identifying and addressing challenges in computer-based performance testing. Her experience has covered many different contexts (e.g., occupational certification programs, performance assessment for promotion systems, criterion measurement for validation research), many different types of jobs and organizations (e.g., Army enlisted and civilian occupations, supervisors and managers in federal government agencies, technically oriented professional associations), and a variety of assessment methods (e.g., multiple-choice tests, live work sample simulations, computerized adaptive testing). Deirdre has been actively involved with several organizations devoted to testing, including SIOP, the Association of Test Publishers, and the National Organization for Competency Assurance. She coedited Exploring the Limits in Personnel Selection and Classification (2001) with John Campbell. She has authored or coauthored several book chapters, including a chapter in Performance Measurement: Current Perspectives and Future Challenges. Deirdre has a PhD in I-O psychology from Bowling Green State University (1984) and is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association (Divisions 14 and 19).

David J. Pucel is an internationally known expert and author in performance-based education, training, assessment, and competency certification systems. Dave has spent over 30 years as a professor at the University of Minnesota teaching performance-based curriculum development and testing. He is also president and founder of Performance Training Systems, Inc. Dave has published about and developed systems for performance-based training, performance-based assessment, HR development systems evaluation, certification testing, and related psychometrics. He currently is the psychometrician for a number of professional certification associations and is coauthoring a chapter in an upcoming handbook on performance-based testing. His history of publications and presentations related to performance-based testing includes the 2005 book, Developing and Evaluating Performance-Based Instruction (third edition). He has given invited presentations on measuring skill performance with computer simulations at meetings of the Performance Testing Council, the Association of Test Publishers Conference, and the International Conference on Computers and Advanced Technology in Education. He has delivered keynote presentations on “Performance-Based Training and Evaluation” to business executives, consultants, and university professors in Tokyo. Dave has a PhD in vocational-technical education with an emphasis in educational psychology (measurement and psychometrics).

Workshop 14 (half day)

Executive Talent Management: Creating and Implementing Practices That Drive Business Results

Presenters:       Pradnya Parasher, Microsoft Corporation
                          Suzan L. McDaniel, Bristol-Myers Squibb
Coordinator:      Deborah L. Whetzel, U.S. Postal Service

In today’s global, dynamic business environment, carefully nurturing leaders who can navigate the company through the turbulence is a business imperative.  It is also critical to identify and develop the next generation of leaders to achieve their potential.  As I-O and HR professionals, we have approached this challenge through multiple avenues, including succession management, customized leadership development programs, action learning projects, assessment/development centers, coaching, and on-boarding.  Integration of all these approaches into a strategic initiative yields a high value to the organization.  In this workshop, we will provide a framework and some best practices that could assist practitioners in implementing such initiatives in a variety of organizations.

This workshop is designed to help participants:

• Understand the framework for integrated executive talent management
• Recognize strategies that organizations can use to build integrated executive talent management practices
• Compare best practices from two different companies with regard to how they deal with the challenge of executive talent management.

Pradnya Parasher is Talent Assessment Program manager at Microsoft, currently managing a world-wide program for assessment and development of senior talent at Microsoft.  Pradnya has a rich and diverse work experience, spanning the U.S. and India.  Prior to her current role, Pradnya was the director, People and Organization Capability, for Microsoft (India), where she was responsible for people and organization development for all Microsoft business groups in India.  Prior to her employment with Microsoft, Pradnya was the senior director of HR for eFunds International, leading the HR function for the country.  She was responsible for overall HR strategy, including staffing, compensation and benefits, and organization development.  Pradnya holds a master’s and PhD in I-O psychology from the University of South Florida.

Suzan McDaniel is executive director, Global Talent Management at Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS) Company.  She works with the senior leadership to determine the talent needs of the company to execute the company strategy that includes a focus on executive talent in the areas of assessment, succession management, selection, development, coaching, integration, and engagement.  She is also responsible for designing core people processes at an enterprise level and workforce analytics.  Prior to her current role at BMS, Suzan was an HR business partner for a global research and development function of 1,600 employees worldwide, responsible for the human resources strategy and execution.   Prior to joining BMS in 2001, she was a consultant for 5 years at Hogan Assessment Systems and also worked at Ford Motor Company.  Suzan holds a master’s and PhD in I-O psychology from the University of Tulsa. 

Workshop 15 (half day)

From Scientific Progress to Improved Practice: A Practitioner-Oriented Primer on Cutting-Edge I-O Research

Presenters:       Gilad Chen, University of Maryland
                          Joshua Sacco, Aon Consulting
Coordinator:      Kate Zimberg, Microsoft Corporation

Throughout its history, the field of I-O psychology has valued the scientist–practitioner model.  Inherent in this model is a need for continuous dialogue between scientists and practitioners.  In accordance with the scientist–practitioner model, the purpose of this workshop is to survey some of the most important recent developments in the science of I-O psychology and discuss implications of this scientific progress to the advancement of I-O psychology practice.  This workshop will target I-O psychology practitioners whose jobs often make it difficult to keep up with the rapid scientific progress of our field.  Areas of coverage will include (a) developments in the conceptualization and measurement of work performance, (b) multilevel models of human resource management, (c) contextual influences on employee engagement, (d) advancements in the measurement of individual differences in the context of employee selection, (e) emerging theories of employee turnover, and (f) specific implications of progress in these areas to core I-O practice areas, such as staffing, training and development, job design, and performance management.  Throughout the workshop, dialogue regarding areas of practice where additional scientific progress is needed will be encouraged.  Key references for each area of scientific progress will also be provided.

This workshop is designed to help participants:

• Describe key trends in current I-O psychology research
• Identify areas where I-O psychology science has made the most progress
• Apply new scientific principles to the improvement of selection, training, and performance management practices
• Generate future areas of research that would be especially relevant for practitioners

Gilad Chen is an associate professor of management and organization in the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland.  He received his BA in psychology from the Pennsylvania State University and his MA and PhD in I-O psychology from George Mason University.  He has published more than 20 articles and chapters on topics such as work motivation, teams, leadership, training, and newcomer socialization.  He is currently serving on the editorial boards of the Academy of Management Journal, Journal of Applied Psychology, Personnel Psychology, and Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes.  He has served as chair of SIOP’s Scientific Affairs Committee, as a representative-at-large for the Research Methods Division of the Academy of Management, and on several other SIOP and Academy of Management committees.  He is a recipient of several professional awards, including SIOP’s Distinguished Early Career Contributions Award and the Academy of Management Journal Outstanding Reviewer Award.

Joshua Sacco is a senior manager in the Los Angeles office of Aon Consulting.  He received his BA in psychology summa cum laude from the State University of New York at Geneseo.  He received a MA and PhD in I-O psychology from Michigan State University, where he held a Michigan State University Distinguished Fellowship and a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship.  He has published more than a dozen articles on topics such as personnel selection, measurement, and diversity.  He has won the Michigan Association of I-O Psychologists’ Best Student Paper Award, the Journal of Management’s Best Paper Award, SIOP’s S. Rains Wallace Dissertation Award, and SIOP’s Owens Scholarly Achievement Award. 

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