PLACE IN RETURN BOX to remove this checkout from your record.
To AVOID FINES return on or before date due.
MAY BE RECALLED with earlier due date if requested.

 

DATE DUE

DATE DUE

DATE DUE

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1/98 chlRCIDUoOquS—p.“

AN INTERACTIONIST APPROACH TO ASSESSING PERSONALITY IN WORK
CONTEXTS: CONSTRUCT VALIDATION OF A PREDICTOR OF CUSTOMER
SERVICE PERFORMANCE
By

Robert E. Ployhart

A DISSERTATION

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
Department of Psychology

1 999

ABSTRACT
AN INTERACTIONIST APPROACH TO ASSESSING PERSONALITY IN WORK
CONTEXTS: CONSTRUCT VALIDATION OF A PREDICTOR OF CUSTOMER
SERVICE PERFORMANCE
By

Robert E. Ployhart

The purpose of this dissertation was to develop an instrument that directly measures basic
personality traits within specific work contexts. This instrument was based on a
conceptualization of personality that suggests behavior is influenced by a dynamic
relationship between traits and situations. There were two main goals of this research.
The first was to develop a personality instrument that demonstrated greater predictive
validity than traditional measures of basic traits that ignore situational information. The
second was to ensure the instrument demonstrated evidence of construct validity. To
accomplish these objectives, an instrument was developed to predict customer service
performance by formally integrating specific situational and behavioral information
together. The construct relations of this instrument were then examined in a nomological
network of basic personality traits, contextualized traits, a direct predictor of customer
service orientation, and customer service performance. Results found that the proposed
instrument typically yielded stronger predictive validity estimates than alternative

measures, although evidence of construct validity was less conclusive.

COPyright by
ROBERT E. PLOYHART
1999

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This research was only possible (and tolerable) through the help of many
individuals. I would like to thank these people briefly.

First, my wife Lynn helped in just about every way possible. She spent countless
hours listening to my ideas, gave plenty of advice when I was not quite sure what to do,
helped provide ratings, and helped reduce the number of hours I had to spend getting this
research into graduate school format. There are untold other things she helped with, but
the point is that her constant support, help, and encouragement made this project much
more livable.

Second, my advisor, Ann Marie Ryan, was obviously a major influence on this
project and was instrumental for this being done in a timely fashion. It is simply a better
quality project because of her. Ann Marie has always provided encouragement for any
project I have done, and this one was certainly no exception. This dissertation benefits in
many, many places from her thinking. Similarly, I would like to thank my committee
members Rick DeShon, Dan Ilgen, Neal Schmitt, and (for the defense) John Hollenbeck.
Together, they ensured what were sometimes brutal but highly challenging discussions
during the pr0posal and defense, and again I thank these individuals for pushing my
thinking on a number of issues. I was very fortunate to have such an outstanding chair
and committee, and the skills I have learned fiom them extend well beyond anything
written here.

Third, I would like to thank my family, which has now become an extended

family. All of them help keep things sane, but in particular my parents continue to

iv

provide encouragement and support in countless ways. I might also add they were
instrumental in my getting to graduate school in the first place. My getting a Ph.D. is as
much a testament to their generosity as my own efforts.

Fourth, I’d like to thank the many people who helped on this project: Brad Bell,
Aleks Ellis, Mike Horvath, Karen Milner, Josh Sacco, Christine Scheu, Darin Wiechman,
and probably others who I can’t remember. There are others who deserve thanks: Mark
Schmit from PDI (who also provided some very good advice), Brenda Van Antwerp from
PAR, and John Weld from WPT.

Fifth, thanks to the many people who helped me obtain data: J et-Way Company,
Harwood State Bank, and many people at Michigan State University. Allison Brown is
the person who got me first entrance into the residence halls, and Carol Noud was the
person who helped me get into other halls. The residence hall directors/assistant directors
deserve considerable thanks, as do the many student supervisors and desk receptionist
personnel.

Finally, I need to thank three people whom I’ve never known, are dead, but
through their early vision continue to make life more fun. I’m referring to the Harley and
Davidson families. Harley-Davidson has certainly taken me to a lot of places I would
probably have never gone before, and I suspect always will. Ride forever.

To all these people: thank you very much!

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF TABLES ....................................................................................... ix
LIST OF FIGURES ...................................................................................... x
INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................... 1
Theoretical Underpinnings ............................................................................ 4
A Working Definition of Personality ....................................................... 5
Research on Personality and Dispositions ................................................ 6
Summary .................................................................................................... 13
Research on Situations ..................................................................... 14
Conceptualizations of Situations .................................................. 15
Interactionist Approaches: Integrating Personality and Situations. . .. . . . . . . ....19
The Situation-Response Tradition ............................................... 20
The Mche and Costa (1996) Conceptualization ............................. 22
The Mischel and Shoda (1995) Cognitive-Affective Personality System24
A Note on Situations as Information ............................................ 31

Implications of Basic Personality Research for Personality Assessment. . . . . .......32
Personality Research in Industrial/Organizational Psychology. 34

The Use of Personality in Personnel Selection .......................................... 35
The Conditional Reasoning Approach of James (1998) ............................... 42
Contrasting Personality in Selection with Basic Personality Research ............. 44
Situational Testing in Personnel Selection .............................................. 48
Present Study: Integrating Personality and Situational Judgment Testing .................. 51
Personality in the Prediction and Explanation of Customer Service Performance. . ........55
METHODS AND RESULTS ....................................................................... 64
Phase 1: Define Criterion Domain ....................................................... 66
Past Research on Customer Service Performance ............................ 66
Step 1.1: Generate Behavioral Statements ..................................... 71
Step 1.2: Define Customer Service Domain .................................. 72
Step 1.3: Retranslation of Customer Service Behaviors

to Criterion Dimensions ................................................................. 79
Phase 2: Linking Situations to Customer Service Behaviors ........................ 85

Step 2.1: Create Situations that Will Provide for Discrimination
in Work Behavior. . . .. .................................................................... 86

Phase 3: Linking Customer Service Dimensions and Situations. . ...........88
Step 3.1: Linking Situations to Customer Service Dimensions. . .. . . . . .....88
Step 3.2: Linking Specific Situations to Specific Customer

Service Behaviors ....................................................................... 89

Phase 4: Rating of Situations and Behavioral Response Options... .90
Step 4.1: Rating of Situations ................................................................... 91

Step 4. 2: Rating of Behavioral Response Options ........................... 93

Vi

Step 4.3: Comparing Ratings ofSituations and Behaviors. 97

Summary ........................................................................... 98
Phase 5: Assessing Construct Validity .................................................. 99
Participants and Data Collection Procedures. 104
Residence Hall .................................................................... 105
Other Service ..................................................................... 107
Subject Pool ....................................................................... 108
Measures ................................................................................... 110
Wonderlic Personnel Test ...................................................... 113
NEO-FFI, Generic ............................................................... 1 13
NEO-FFI, Work-Related ........................................................ 114
Achievement Striving and Self-Discipline ................................... 115
PDI Customer Service Inventory .............................................. 116
Step 5.1: Assessment of Performance Domain .............................. 118
Step 5.2: Development of the D81 ............................................ 127
Item Characteristics of DSI (evidence for Inference 4) ..................... 128
DSI Item-Construct Relationships (evidence for Inferences 4 and 8). . ..133
DSI Scale Construction (evidence for Inference 4) .......................... 140
Step 5.3: Assess Multitrait-Multimethod Matrix.............................148
Convergent Validity ............................................................. 148
Discriminant Validity ............................................................ 149
Step 5.4: Assessment of Predictive Validity (support for Inference 1)..151
Validities for Combined Sample (Table 14) .................................. 154
Validities for Employed Sample (Table 15) .................................. 159
Conclusion ............................................................................................... 163

Assessment of Multivariate Predictive Validity
(support for Inference 1)167

DISCUSSION ...................................................................................... 180
Construct Validity of the Dispositional-Situational Inventory ...................... 182
Contributions to Basic Personality Research .......................................... 189
Contributions to the Application of Personality for Personnel Selection

Research and Practice ............................................................ 193
Contributions to the Development and Use of Situational J udgrnent Tests ...... 198

Contributions to the Understanding of Customer Service Performance. . . . . .......203
Future Directions: Towards an Integration of Basic and Applied Perspectives.204

Contributions to Practice ................................................................... 206
Study Limitations ........................................................................... 206
Conclusion ................................................................................. 208
REFERENCES .................................................................................... 210
Appendix A: Behavioral Statements Clustered into Criterion Dimensions .................... 224
Appendix B: Initial Linking of Situations to Criterion Behaviors .................................. 234
Appendix C: Customer Service Situations and Behavioral Response Options .............. 257
Appendix D: Definitions of Personality Traits Used in Rating Tasks ............................ 306

vii

Appendix E: Final DSI Items Sorted by Situational Ratings, Behavioral Ratings,
and Criterion Dimensions .................................................................................... 308

viii

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1. Description of Each Factor in the Five Factor Model ................................. 9
Table 2. Dimensions of Customer Service Behaviors

(adapted from Parasuraman et al., 1985).. ............................................................ 68
Table 3. Revised Dimensions of Customer Service Behaviors .............................. 70
Table 4. Original Performance Dimension Definitions ........................................ 74
Table 5. Revised and Integrated Performance Dimension Definitions. ..................... 77
Table 6. Performance Dimension and Subdimension Definitions ........................... 81
Table 7. Demographic Breakdown of Study Participants .................................... 104

Table 8. Means, Standard Deviations, and Intercorrelations
among Predictor Measures ................................................................................... l 1 1

Table 9. Descriptive Statistics and Intercorrelations of Criterion Dimensions

for Both Raters. .................................................................................................. 1 19
Table 10. Intercorrelations of Customer Service Performance Dimensions ............... 125
Table 11. Descriptive Statistics for DSI Items ................................................ 129
Table 12. Correlations between DSI Items and Personality Constructs

(Corrected for Attenuation) .................................................................................. 135
Table 13. Internal Consistency Estimates for DSI Scales ..................................... 141

Table 14. Predictive Validity with Performance Dimensions (Combined Sample). . 1 55
Table 15. Predictive Validity with Performance Dimensions (Employed Sample). . ....160
Table 16. Regression Models. ................................................................... 170

Table 17. Regression Analyses for Overall Performance .................................... 173

ix

FIGURES

Figure 1. Process Model of Personality Proposed by

Mche and Costa (1995).. .............................................................................. 23
Figure 2. Example of Mischel and Shoda’s (1995)

Cognitive-Affective Personality System. . ............................................................ 28
Figure 3. Overview of Development Methodology Used in this Study ................... 65

Figure 4. Mapping of performance taxonomies. Solid boxes indicate measured
constructs. Solid lines indicate conceptual relations, and dashed lines indicate
instances where the constructs were combined into a single dimension... .. . .......76

Figure 5. Simplified validity model examined in this study. Note that measures
more proximal are more conceptually similar, with constructs on the same
horizontal axis representing variations of the same construct and those on the
vertical axis representing different constructs. Boxes indicate manifest measures,
circles indicate latent constructs, solid arrows indicate theoretical relationships,
and dashed arrows indicated relationships that were examined but not
theoretically expected. For clarity, only the D81 measure is shown to be related to
the criterion
dimensions ........................................................................................................... 100

INTRODUCTION

Despite early skepticism (Guion & Gottier, 1965), several factors have
contributed to a renewed interest in the use of personality testing in selection. First,
meta-analyses have shown that personality testing (as based on the Big 5 model) can
relate to a variety of criteria (e.g., Barrick & Mount, 1991; Hough; 1992; Hough, Eaton,
Dunnette, Kamp, & McCloy, 1990; Mount & Barrick, 1995; Tett, Jackson, & Rothstein,
1991). Second, consideration of personality consu'ucts helps to address and understand
neglected criterion dimensions untapped by general ability (e. g., contextual performance;
Borman & Motowidlo, 1997). Third, personality measures typically produce less adverse
impact than measures of cognitive ability (e. g., Sackett & Wilk, 1994; Schmitt, Clause, &
Pulakos, 1996). However, the use of traditional measures of personality has often faced a
validity “ceiling” of .30 (e.g., Hough, 1998; Mount & Barrick, 1995), which is not unlike
the ceiling commonly noted as the limit to cross-situational consistency (Mischel, 1968).
The fact that personality constructs demonstrate lower validity than cognitive ability tests
(e.g., Hough, 1998; Hunter & Hunter, 1984) suggests their sole use will result in more
prediction errors than the sole use of ability tests. Because of this concern, attempts are
being made to improve the validity of personality measures

Recently, Schmit, Ryan, Stierwalt, and Powell (1995) found that providing a
work-related frame-of-reference in personality tests can lead to increased validity. Thus,
one way to increase the predictiveness of personality tests is to incorporate situational or
contextual factors. However, Schmit et a]. (1995) only added the words “at work” to a

traditional set of personality items. As will be described in the following sections, there

are both theoretical and practical reasons to believe a more thorough examination of
contextual factors might increase the predictiveness and explanatory value of personality
tests.

One way to incorporate these contextual factors might be modeled after an
increasingly-used non-cognitive selection instrument called a situational judgment test
(SIT). This test provides for the relevant situations an employee might face on the job
and requires the applicant to indicate the correct response to each situation. Thus, this
type of test is somewhat akin to a paper and pencil version of a situational interview
(Latham, Saari, Pursell, & Carnpion, 1980). Motowidlo and colleagues (Motowidlo,
Dunnette, & Carter, 1990; Motowidlo & Tippins, 1993), along with Pulakos and Schmitt
(1996) have shown that a SJT can be a valid predictor of job performance (validities
around .25 to .30). Unfortunately, what SJTs measure is unclear, as is the transportability
of the situations to different organizations. As each situation and correct response option
is derived in a particular setting, the items (and thus overall test) are inherently
multidimensional and perhaps specific to a particular organization.

The purpose of this dissertation is to create an instrument that explicitly considers
situational information when assessing personality constructs in work contexts. In this
manner it is a measure of personality within work situations. To formally integrate
situational with behavioral information, the proposed instrument will contain questions
where the individual is presented with a work situation (i.e., the item) and then needs to
indicate what he or she will do in this situation (i.e., the behavioral response options).

Note that the response options are behaviors that reflect a range of a particular construct

in the situation (e.g., behaviors reflecting high to low agreeableness when dealing with a
customer).

Incorporating specific and explicit situational information directly into the
assessment of personality is something that has not (to my knowledge) been attempted
when predicting work behavior. Thus, the creation of such an instrument presents several
novel features. First, such an instrument should provide a more accurate assessment of
dispositions within the context one is most interested in (i.e., work situations). Second,
the instrument is based on more current and realistic conceptualizations of personality
than past approaches. Third, the method used to develop the instrument attempts to link
situations, traits, and behaviors. Fourth, the method also explicitly considers the nature of
the criterion domain to provide boundaries for the appropriate situations and behaviors.
Finally, the instrument attempts to create a job-relevant and context rich instrument that
still can be mapped onto a more basic personality taxonomy (i.e., the five factor model).

The successful development of such an instrument should provide several
desirable qualities. First, it should demonstrate higher predictive validity than the Big 5
constructs because the personality items are placed within job-relevant situations (e. g.,
Schmit et al., 1995). Second, the instrument should maintain moderate levels of fidelity
to the actual job context (e.g., Motowidlo et al., 1990). Third, the instrument should help
provide a better understanding of work behavior, as dispositional responses to situations
are carefully described and assessed (e.g.. Mischel & Shoda, 1995). Finally, the
instrument should exhibit relatively little or no adverse impact (e.g., Schmitt et al., 1996).

In summary, this dissertation will develop an instrument that attempts to directly

measure basic personality traits within specific work situations. There are two main goals

of this research. The first is to develop a personality instrument that is more predictive
than the best alternative methods (e.g., direct measures of the five factor model). The
second is to ensure that this instrument still measures basic personality constructs (as
based on the five factor model). Achieving high prediction without understanding what
the instrument measures is as unacceptable as developing an instrument that maps onto
the five factor model yet has no predictive validity. Thus, this dissertation considers the
possibility for a job-relevant, theoretically-derived, explanatory and predictive instrument
applicable to selection contexts. This insu'ument is conceptualized within the
nomological network surrounding the Big 5 personality constructs, yet is contextualized
to consider organizationally-relevant situations. This moves the assessment of
personality from relatively distal and context-flee measures to those more proximal to the
criterion behaviors of interest. In the Methods section the development of this instrument
is discussed, but first a careful explication of the theoretical fi'amework used to guide this
research is considered.
Theoretical Underpinnings

In the following sections, basic personality research and issues are discussed to
provide a framework and conceptual foundation for the proposed study. First, a working
definition of personality is provided. Second, I review basic research on traits and
dispositions, the traditional focus of personality research. Third, I consider the nature of
situations and delineate important issues for the study of personality. Fourth, I discuss
interactionist approaches that have attempted to integrate dispositional and situational
factors as influences on behavior. Finally, I provide a summary of the key implications

of this research for the development of a personality instrument to be created for selection

 

purposes. Note that this review is not exhaustive, as the amount of research directed
towards these topics is voluminous. Rather, I limit this review to research most relevant
for providing a conceptual grounding of the study proposed later in this manuscript.
Thus, this review devotes more attention to more recent theoretical and empirical research
than past approaches.
A Working Definition of Personality

Personality has been defined in many ways, and there is no one agreed upon
definition (Winter, John, Stewart, Klohnen, & Duncan, 1998). For example, Hogan
(1991) argues that “personality refers both to a person’s social reputation and to his or her
inner nature: The first is public and verifiable; the second is private and must be
inferred” (p. 875). In contrast, Krahe (1992) argues that definitions of personality are
somewhat dependent on the theoretical orientation of the researcher, although she notes
three features that are common to all researchers. Specifically, personality is: “the
reflection of individual uniqueness; enduring and stable; and .. .deterrnined by
dispositions that reside in the individua ” (p. 10). Phares (1991) suggests that
“personality is that pattern of characteristic thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that
distinguishes one person from another and that persists over time and situations” (p. 4).
Others who advocate a more flexible personality system (e.g., Mischel & Shoda, 1995)
choose a more dynamic definition. Endler (1983) suggests: “Personality is a person’s
coherent manner of interacting with himself or herself and with his or her environment”
(p. 179).

Based on these definitions, the present study adopts the following general

definition of personality: personality involves (a) a basic organizing structure (e. g., latent

traits or dispositions) that leads an individual to engage in (b) characteristic ways of
cognitively processing (e.g., attitudes, cognition, perception, goals) (c) environmental
information that (d) influences behavior in relatively stable or enduring ways. As will be
shown and more fully developed in the following sections, these points are consistent
with the majority of basic personality research.
REM—PW

From the general definition of personality presented above, we see that the
purpose of personality is to describe, predict, and explain behavioral regularities, such as
across time or situations (e.g., Hogan, 1991; Krahe, 1992). Traditionally, the most
common description of these behavioral regularities has been in terms of traits or
dispositions (Krahe, 1992). In fact, one might consider a m (or disposition) as a
specific cluster of similar cognition and behaviors that covary and are to some extent
enduring (e.g., Emmons, 1989). For example, speaking to strangers, talking to checkout
clerks, and spending hours talking at parties might be described by the trait “talkative.”
Notice that this definition of trait is essentially the same as what might otherwise be
known as a construct (Binning & Barrett, 1989; Cronbach & Meehl, 1955). Also note
that traits have traditionally been understood as dispositional entities; they originate and
operate within the person. Kanfer (1990) notes that personality traits may be considered
as distal influences on behavior, leading to basic tendencies to respond and act upon
environments through more proximal processes, such as goal setting or expectancies, in
characteristic ways.

In the personality literature, traits are conceptualized in two ways: a lexical

(descriptive) approach and a questionnaire (theoretical) approach. The lexical approach

 

 

attempts to study traits in terms of everyday language such as adjectives (e.g., Goldberg,
1993; Saucier & Goldberg, 1996). In perhaps the best known study of the lexical
approach, Allport and Odbert (1936) identified all words in the English dictionary that
could be used for describing another person. Cattell (1943) further refined this list into
what he considered to be the 16 primary factors of personality. An alternative approach
is called the questionnaire (or theoretical) approach (Block, 1995). The questionnaire
approach usually provides a one-sentence description of a behavior in a situation (e.g., “I
am often tired of working”). The best known proponents of the questionnaire approach
are Mche and Costa, who developed the NBC personality inventory (NEO-PI, Costa &
McCrae, 1992).

What distinguishes the questionnaire approach from the lexical approach is that,
rather than relying on one-word trait descriptors (e. g. energetic, achieving), one assess
traits via self-report questions (e.g., “I usually am nervous in groups”). It might be noted
that the lexical approach is often considered descriptive and the questionnaire approach
explanatory (Block, 1995; Saucier & Goldberg, 1996). This distinction is hard to
operationally identify, but the basic premise is that the lexical approach provides for a
surface-level description of a trait (and thus behavior) that exists in everyday language,
whereas the questionnaire approach is guided by theoretical notions and does not
necessarily rely on everyday language (Krahe, 1992; Saucier & Goldberg, 1996). This
distinction is not too important for the purposes of the present study, other than to limit
the examination of personality research primarily to questionnaire-based methods. Thus,
the questionnaire approach will be the focus in this paper, given the more theoretical and

explanatory nature of this method.

Early trait research sought to identify the structure of traits, and past research has
uncovered an overwhelming number of traits of varying levels of specificity and
inclusiveness. For example, a trait like extroversion may refer to a broad tendency to act
in interpersonally outgoing ways, and be composed of more specific traits such as
assertiveness and excitement-seeking. Unfortunately, much of this research has been
plagued by the use of sloppy terms, where the same name is used to describe different
constructs or different names to describe the same construct (Block, 1995). The result
has been a proliferation of terms and constructs with little evidence of construct validity.
However, more recent research has attempted to classify the many traits into an
organizing framework. Although considerably more research needs to be conducted, the
current result of this effort has led to the development of the Big 5 or five factor model.

Development of the Big 5 can be traced to several early attempts to reduce the
large number of trait types into a more parsimonious framework. Early research by Fiske
(1949), Tupes and Christal (1958, 1961), and Norman (1963) was among the first to
ascribe to five primary personality dimensions (see Block, 1995; Digrnan, 1990; 1996;
Goldberg, 1993). More recent research has attempted to refine this model, both in terms
of the lexical approach (Goldberg, 1993) and the questionnaire approach (Costa &
McCrae, 1992). The sum of this research has been to describe traits (and thus
personality) in terms of five broad dimensions, with each dimension composed of more
specific lower-level constructs. Thus, the five factor model is proposed as an organizing
fiamework upon which all other personality constructs can be mapped (Digrnan, 1990;
McCrae & John, 1992). A common conceptualization of the Big 5 contains the following

factors: Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness to experience, Agreeableness, and

Conscientiousness. The first two columns of Table 1 provide definitions for these factors
that are based on past research and that will be used throughout this paper (the remaining

column shows more specific applications of these traits and will be discussed shortly).

 

 

le . D ' ' f ' v
Original Description Hough’s Hough’s
Dimensions Dimensions Description ....
Neuroticism anxious, depressed, angry, o Adjustment 0 emotional
embarrassed, emotional, stability and
worried, insecure stress
tolerance
Extraversion sociable, active, assertive, e Affiliation 0 degree of
talkative, and gregarious o Potency sociability
0 amount of
energy
Openness to imaginative, cultured, o Intellectance 0 how
Experience curious, broad—minded, cultured
intelligent, and artistically person is;
sensitive curious
Agreeableness courteous, flexible, o Agreeableness - degree of
trusting, good-natured, pleasantness

cooperative, forgiving,
soft-hearted, tolerant,
altruism, nurturing, caring,
emotional support

Conscientiousness dependability, careful,

Achievement - Competency

 

thorough, responsible, . Dependability striving
organized, planful, o Conscientio
hardworking, achievement- usness
oriented, persevering
o Rugged o decisive and
Individualism independent

 

Note: This table draws heavily from Barrick and Mount (1991) and Digrnan (1990) to
describe each of the five factors (factor names adopted in Costa & McCrae, 1992 are

used). The column indicating the names of Hough’s dimensions is taken from Hough

(1998).

There is some disagreement over the number of factors and the elements that
comprise each factor. These issues are interrelated but will be discussed separately.
First, alternatives to the five factor model stress a different number of factors. For
example, Eysenck’s (1947) classic Big 2 contains only neuroticism and extraversion and
is still influential today (e.g., Eysenck, 1997). Similarly, Cattell (1956) suggested the
presence of 16 personality factors. Hogan (1986) suggests seven factors (obtained by
splitting extraversion into ambition and sociability dimensions). More recent research
(Digrnan, 1997) suggests the Big 5 may be composed of two higher order factors, alpha
(containing agreeableness, conscientiousness, and neuroticism) and beta (containing
extraversion and openness). Parenthetically, it might be noted that the alpha factor is also
similar to Ones, Viswesvaran, and Schmidt (1993) description of integrity. Although
there are still controversies over the number of factors, this issue most basically reduces
to the level of specificity at which personality description and measurement should occur.

This can be seen in the applied literature, where there has been disagreement over
the number of factors. I will review this research in more detail below, but the findings
from Hough and colleagues (e.g., Hough, 1992; 1998; Hough et al., 1990; Schneider &
Hough, 1995; see also Hogan & Shelton, 1998) are relevant here because they appear to
be industrial/organizational’s (I/O) major alternative to the Big 5. Specifically, these
researchers suggest that the Big 5 are too general for adequate prediction of work-related
criteria (e.g., job performance, training success) (see Schneider, Hough, & Dunnette,
1996). Their alternative and more specific taxonomy suggests eight factors are necessary
to provide optimal prediction and understanding (Hough, 1992; 1998); these are shown in

the third column of Table 1. Note that seven of these factors may be roughly mapped

10

onto the Big 5, but rugged individualism cannot. Rugged individualism is defined by
Hough (1998) as “masculine rather than feminine characteristics and values. A person
who is high on this construct is decisive, action oriented, independent, and rather
unsentimental” (p. 137). Although this taxonomy is just one of several alternatives to the
Big 5, the Hough (1998) taxonomy will be examined in addition to the Big 5. The
reasons are that (1) the Hough taxonomy was based on revising the Big 5 for optimal
prediction of various work-related criteria, (2) it provides an alternative and more specific
conceptualization of personality than the Big 5, and (3) it is almost identical to a
framework developed independently by Hogan and colleagues, whose seven factor
taxonomy is also a popular alternative to the Big 5 (e.g., Hogan, 1996; Hogan & Hogan,
1992; Hogan & Shelton, 1998). Thus, applications of Hough’s (1992; 1998) taxonomy
have improved predictive validities over the Big 5 (see Hough, 1998; Schneider &
Hough, 1995) and appear to be favored by many in 1/0. In this proposal I take the more
inclusive view and include both Hough’s (1998) more specific taxonomy and the Big 5.
Similarly, the second issue concerns the interpretation of the five factors. There is
substantial agreement over what the extraversion and neuroticism factors mean, but less
with the conscientiousness, openness, and agreeableness factors (Digrnan, 1990).
Conscientiousness traits ofien cross-load on the agreeableness dimension (Digrnan,
1990), which has been attributed to conscientiousness as being both a measure of
achievement (including academic achievement, persevering, e.g., Barrick & Mount,
1991; Smith, 1967; Wiggins, Blackburn, & Hackrnan, 1969) and dependability (e.g.,
careful, planned, responsible, thorough; Barrick & Mount, 1991). Similarly, openness

has been operationalized as a measure of intellect (but not intelligence), educational

11

aptitude, and cultural and artistic interests, although it is now considered more as the sum
of these elements (Digrnan, 1990). Clearly Hough’s (1998) eight factor model is one
attempt to clarify the meaning of the Big 5 (see Table 1).

Overall, the five factor model is still being refined (Goldberg & Saucier, 1995).
Despite the uncertainty about the exact nature of the five dimensions, the model provides
at the very least an organizing structure to a field that has been lacking one. For example,
the model allows a “language” or “map” upon which other traits can be compared and
contrasted (such as with Hough, 1998). It also allows applications to applied contexts by
providing a common link (i.e., common set of terms) between basic and applied research.
However, it should be noted that acceptance of the model is by no means universal (as
Hough’s, 1998, alternative attests). Concerns within the basic personality literature are
discussed at length by Block (1995), but these issues reduce to questions of whether
research actually supports five factors, or if personality researchers have tried to ascribe
five factors to their studies rather than deriving them from data. Similarly, Block (1995)
notes that even if the five factor model is correct, the model is descriptive and does little
to aid in understanding behavior. Finally, criticisms stem from the fact that the five
factors are not linked to other constructs in a process-oriented framework (i.e., there is no
consideration of the mediating psychological processes linking the Big 5 to behavior).
There is no theory of personality but only a short list of descriptive terms.

Finally, a more basic concern relates to the utility of a trait model of personality
(e.g., Mischel, 1968). This more fundamental attack questions the efficacy of the trait
approach versus more situationally—conditioned approaches (e.g., Magnusson & Endler,

1977). The primary attack on the trait position occurred more than 15 years before the

12

Big 5 gained prominence. Mischel (1968) is often credited with providing the most
damaging attack on the trait approach, and as a result affected the following decade’s
worth of personality research. Mischel’s (1968) critique suggested that there was little
evidence of cross-situational consistency in behavior, noting that stability coefficients
rarely extended beyond .30. He then went on to suggest the majority of the remaining
variance was attributable to situational influences. Although the importance of the
situation had been identified many years earlier (e.g., Lewin, 1936), it appeared to have
had little impact on personality research. Similarly, an entire research paradigm and
method based on the situation-response fi'amework (Endler, Hunt, & Rosenstein, 1962)
had existed for some time yet had received little popular attention. Despite this,
Mischel’s (1968) attack shook personality research to its very foundation. Unfortunately,
the response was to demonstrate the importance of traits (or more basically dispositions)
relative to situations. I say this was unfortunate because much effort was wasted trying to
prove one influence was more important than the other, when clearly both factors are
important (e. g. Magnusson, 1976). However, an interactionist approach to personality
research did result fi'om these efforts, one that explicitly noted the importance of both
situations and traits as determinants of behavior (e.g., Kenrick & Funder, 1988; Krahe,
1992; Magnusson & Endler, 1977; Magnusson, 1981; Mischel & Shoda, 1995; Ross &
Nisbett, 1991). The issues of situational influences on behavior and joint situational-
dispositional influences are of primary importance to applied contexts and are considered
next.

Summary. Although by no means universally accepted, the majority of basic

personality research to date supports the adoption of a five factor model of personalin

13

 

 

(see Digrnan, 1990). However, within the context of applied psychology and personnel
selection, dissatisfaction with the five factor model for the prediction of job performance
has led to an alternative conceptualization provided by Hough and colleagues (Hough,
1992; 1998; Hough et al., 1990). In this dissertation, I consider both the more basic (Big
5) and applied (Hough’s eight factor model) conceptualizations of personality because
Hough’s (1998) is largely a more specific (and more predictive of job performance) form
of the Big 5. As the purpose of this proposal is not to redefine either personality
framework but rather to apply these frameworks within an interactionist perspective to
predict job performance, it may be most informative to consider both frameworks.
Research on Simations
Compared to research on traits, relatively little personality research has explicitly
considered the influence of situations on traits and behavior. Although during the 1970’s
and early 1980’s there was a wave of experimental research on situational factors (for
reviews see Magnusson, 1981; Magnusson & Endler, 1977), trait research has always
been the main focus of attention. Clearly the task of identifying the important Situational
features that influence behavior is complicated and difficult, but an understanding of the
important features of situations is perhaps no less important than an understanding of
traits. Despite the increasing research that has been conducted on situations, there is little
common consensus about the key features or parameters of situations (F rederiksen,
1972). However, this is not to say progress has not been made in understanding
important situational characteristics. Rather, it reflects the fact that research on situations
is still very much at the beginning, perhaps where personality research was 40 years ago.

Thus, it is impossible to prescribe common terms or describe taxonomic structures or

14

frameworks when describing situations because none currently exist. Instead, I present
that research on situations that appears most relevant to the proposed study.
WW There have been several attempts to understand
the nature and content of situations. This research may perhaps be best summarized in
terms of some key issues and concerns. Unfortunately, each research effort seems to
describe these key issues somewhat differently, making cross-domain comparisons
difficult. However, Argyle, Fumharn, and Graham (1981), and Krahe (1992) provide a
summary of these issues.
First, research has considered the objective or subjective nature of situations (e.g.,
Krahe, 1992; Magnusson & Endler, 1977; see also Magnusson, 1981). The focus on
objective or subjective situations is partly dependent on one’s theoretical orientation, as
some disciplines (e. g., human factors) tend to study objective features while others (e. g.,
sociology) tend to focus on subjective features (e. g., Argyle et al., 1981). The distinction
between objective and subjective situations is important, as has long been known (e. g.,
Brunswick, 1957; F echner, 1860; Lewin, 1936). Krahe (1992) reviews past research on
this issue and suggests that subjective situations are the most proximal influence on
behavior. She suggests objective features of situations influence the individual’s
subjective interpretation of the situation, which in turn influences behavior. In a slightly
different conceptualization, Magnusson and Torestad (1992) argue that objective
situations are basically information that is actively processed in a selective manner by
individuals. Similarly, research on expertise (see Ericsson & Lehmann, 1996) suggests
that when both experts and non-experts are presented with identical objective stimuli

(e.g -, particular patterns on a chessboard), they manifest different ways of organizing and

15

 

 

acting upon the stimuli—their processing and subjective interpretations of the objective
stimuli differ. Thus, it appears that the subjective (as opposed to objective) experience of
situations may be the most proximal influence on behavior. I shall return to this point
later.

Second, research has examined the level of specificity of situations (see Krahe,
1992). One may contrast very specific features of objective situations, such as the
number of chairs in a room, to more inclusive features, such as the social interaction
involved in a retail encounter with a salesperson. However, this issue seems rather poorly
developed, as situations defined very specifically seem to be more objective than
subjective, but situations defined broadly are more amenable to subjective than objective
interpretations. For example, consider a grocery checkout line. One might describe this
situation specifically in terms of the number of people present (objective) or in terms of
the acceptable behavior (e. g., greet checkout clerk, pay for groceries) allowed in the
situation (subjective). Overall, there are no clear boundaries to help guide the choice of
level of analysis; rather it seems the practical considerations of the researcher and
research question should dictate the appropriate level of specificity.

Third, many attempts have been made to describe the dimensionality of situations.
Researchers have used categorical techniques, such as hierarchical cluster analysis (e.g.,
Argyle et al., 1981), and dimensional techniques, such as multidimensional scaling and
factor analysis (e.g., Forgas 1979). Argyle et a1. (1981) argue that categorical techniques
are most appropriate because different types of situations do not necessarily reflect

continuous underlying dimensions. Many researchers have attempted to discover the

maj or dimensions of situations (a variety of alternative approaches are described in

16

Magnusson, 1981; Magnusson & Ender, 1977). Of these many approaches, perhaps the
most ambitious program was that conducted by Argyle and colleagues (see Argyle et al.,
1981, for a review) to identify important situational features in sports contexts. These
researchers identified several situational factors (e.g., goals, roles, skill difficulty) that
influenced sports behavior. However, even in this comprehensive program there were
numerous difficulties, including the fact that many of the situational features were poorly
defined and relevant only for sports situations (the context within which the research was
conducted). Thus, despite several calls for such research (e.g., Frederiksen, 1972), there
are no universal situational dimensions that have been discovered, and it appears that the
number and type of dimensions are almost always dependent on a particular context (e.g.,
sporting contexts, social situations).

Finally, the type of behavioral responses elicited by the situation have been
considered (Argyle et al., 1981; Endler, Hunt, & Rosenstein, 1962). One objective of this
research has been show that the enactment of specific behaviors is conditional on specific
situational elements. Clearly this type of research requires an understanding of the
important antecedent influences on specific behavior responses along with knowledge of
the objective or subjective features of the situation (e. g., Hattrup & Jackson, 1996).

In a somewhat different attempt to integrate these concepts, Mischel (1977) tried
to classify situations according to their strength. Strong situations are ones where all
individuals perceive the situation in an identical fashion, share similar expectancies about
the appropriate behavioral responses, require similar skills at the same level of difficulty,

and maintain uniform rewards for identical behaviors. In contrast, weak situations are

perceived differently by different people, have different expectancies for the

17

appropriateness of various behaviors, provide different skill requirements for different
individuals, and maintain differential rewards for similar behaviors. Using this
distinction to illustrate a finding in the applied literature, it becomes more reasonable to
expect personality constructs to relate more strongly to contextual performance than task
performance—the reason may be that task performance situations are strong and
contextual performance situations are weak. Although Mischel’s (1977) concept of
situational strength is just one of many ways of conceptualizing situations, it has
maintained a level of popularity not held by alternative models.

Overall, there is little prescriptive advice one can use to guide research on
situations. There are perhaps two main conclusions one may make from this research.
The first is that the subjective experience and interpretation of situations is most proximal
to an individual’s behavior, and most researchers on personality agree that subjective
situations (i.e., cognitive interpretations of situations) provide the key to understanding
how situations influence behavior (Magnusson & Torestad, 1992; Mischel & Shoda,
1995). The second is that we are nowhere close to developing universal dimensions or
taxonomies of objective situations, or even to identifying what the key features of a given
situation might be. However, one might question the utility of such attempts in the first
place because the study of situations apart from individuals or within the greater
environmental context may have little relevance to personality research. That is, if the
subjective interpretation of the situation is most important, and this interpretation is
partially dependent on the characteristics of the individual and the more general physical

(objective) and social context, it may make little sense to search for universal features of

situations independent of these other factors. Instead, a more productive approach might

18

 

 

t'!’

,xu

. .
a; ”‘4!
-u .v,

"it's

I
I‘m-8 I

.- ...,
\
hut-

t..-

‘1'...

...
iv’ ,4
Rant:

"0 .

a
HV‘

.. .
u :-

...._

 

 

 

 

 

 

be to examine how situations (e.g., interpersonal episodes with customers) are related to
the behavior of a particular group of individuals (e.g., retail salespersons) in a particular
context (e. g., customer service setting).

It should be noted, however, that these issues do help clarify some basic
assumptions of a particular study. The level of specificity of the situation, the underlying
dimensions of the situation, the defining features of situations, and the types of behaviors
elicited by the situation are all important factors to consider. However, these issues only
become concrete when considered in the context of one’s research goals and behavioral
domain of interest (e. g., Wright & Mischel, 1987). Based on these considerations, one
might examine the ways in which individuals perceive and react to Situations . These
issues are discussed next.

Interactionist Approaghes: Integrating Personalig and Situations

Today, it is widely accepted by dispositional researchers that both situations and
traits are important to understand and predict behavior, and the battle between the relative
importance of situations and traits is more a matter of historical record (Kenrick &
Funder, 1988; Krahe, 1992). Furthermore, research suggests that although absolute levels
of consistent behavior may not occur across situations, relative levels of intraindividual
consistency may be found (e.g., Krahe, 1992; Wright & Mischel, 1987). For example, a
social individual may be likely to talk in line at a store but less likely to talk at a funeral.
Although variation does occur across situations with many traits (e. g., Funder & Colvin,
1991; Roberts & Donahue, 1994) and the Big 5 as well (e.g., Sheldon, Ryan, Rawsthome,

& Ilardi, 1997), traits have been shown to be relatively enduring over time (e. g., Costa &

McCrae, 1978). Thus, basic traits such as the Big 5 are relatively enduring, but the

19

strength and behavioral manifestations of the traits are more variable across specific
situations (e.g., Murtha, Kanfer, & Ackerrnan, 1996). An important implication of this
research is that the behavioral manifestation of traits will differ to varying degrees across
different situations (e. g., Roberts & Donahue, 1994; Sheldon et al., 1997; Wright &

Mi schel, 1987). It is for this reason that it should be useful to design a personality
instrument that explicitly considers contextual information.

Conceptualizations for studying person-situation interactions are presented next.
The first (situation-response tradition) and third (cognitive-affective personality system)
models have been used to generate a considerable amount of empirical research, although
their methods differ considerably. Together, these conceptualizations share the
fundamental implication that one must consider both situations and basic traits to
accurately predict a given set of behaviors.

The Situation-Response Tradition. Endler et a1. (1962) provided a method for the
study of person x situation interactions. Their application of what they called the
“situation-response” (or S-R) inventory led to a research program that still finds
advocates in recent times (e.g., Grote & James, 1991). The S-R model attempts to
identify the sources of variance attributable to persons, situations, and their interaction.
As such, it is based on the analysis of variance method for decomposing variance to
different sources. Essentially the S-R inventory requires one to first identify different
situations relevant to a particular domain (e.g., anxious situations). Next, one-sentence
descriptions of situations are provided (e.g., “You are going to meet a new date”).

Finally, each description is rated in terms of behavioral indicators of the focal construct

(e.g., “Your heart beats faster” is rated on a 5 point scale). Thus, the S-R method crosses

20

 

 

all situations with all behavioral ratings, and the variance attributable to the situations,
behavioral responses (dispositions), and situation x disposition interaction is estimated.
Notice that this model is similar to traditional applications of generalizability theory.
The S-R method proposed by Endler et a1. (1962), and some minor variations of
the method, led to a number of applications in different substantive areas (e.g., Dworkin
& Kihlstrom, 1978; Endler & Hunt, 1968; Grote & James, 1991; Lanning, 1988).
However, there are some clear limitations of the method. First, the S-R method does not
allow one to determine the relative importance of a factor because this cannot be
determined simply by the amount of variance it accounts for (e.g., Grote & James, 1991;
Magnusson, 1976; Mischel, 1973). For example, one may strengthen a given
manipulation, thereby increasing the amount of variance attributable to that factor.
Second, the generalizability of the results has been questioned, particularly with respect
to how future predictions can be made (e.g., Golding, 1975; Mischel, 1973). Finally, an
even more fundamental problem occurs when trying to understand the nature of the
person - situation interaction. That is, the S-R method does not allow one to identify the
important mechanisms mediating the situation and behavior, nor does it allow for one to
test these mechanisms. Thus, in many ways merely identifying the amount of variance
attributable to the person, situation, or their interaction provides little insight into how
individuals’ perceive situations or cognitively process their features. Overall, the S-R
method may have value in terms of inventory construction because it empirically assesses
how much variability in a given dispositional construct is reflected in various situations,
but it provides little information about the nature or cause of the person x situation

interaction.

21

 

 

 

‘7
.15' ..1

(1' l
, i
I:

Oil-b

‘fio
C"

.v.‘ ‘

The McCrae Q4 Qg§t311296_) anceptualizatjon. Linking basic traits to specific
behavior by considering other important factors (e.g., situations) provides for an
explanation and understanding of personality not afforded by sole consideration of the
Big 5 framework (Block, 1995). However, as we have seen, treating the interaction
between persons and situations in relatively static terms (such as the S-R method does)
may not be very informative. The most general attempt to consider the dynamic interplay
between traits and other factors to influence a given behavior has been by McCrae and
Costa (1996), who have proposed a meta-theoretical model. As shown in Figure 1, the
Big 5 operate as distal dispositions and are measures of basic behavioral tendencies.
These tendencies influence behavior through various characteristic adaptations (e. g.,
psychological mediators that include personal strivings, goals, attitudes, habits, and
schemas). The characteristic adaptations are mediators between the basic tendencies (i.e.,
Big 5) and behavior (termed objective biography by McCrae & Costa). External and
situational influences affect behavior and the characteristics adaptations but not the Big 5

COIlStI'llCtS.

22

 

 

Basic Tendencies:
The Big 5

l

' Characteristic
Adaptations:
goals, attitudes,
habits

 

 

     
    
  

 

 

 

 

 

   

KL

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Objective Self-concept:
Biography: _ Self-schemas
behavior '\
\\ External
Influences:
situation

 

 

 

Figure 1. Process model of personality proposed by McCrae and Costa (1995).

23

...

n“

-0.-
I ..

,-.5

...“

.
.I.b'

‘m- I
o

tV‘

 

l
.. _'

 

 

 

 

 

Thus, the Big 5 (distal constructs) influence behavior through psychological
mediators (i.e., characteristic adaptations or proximal constructs), as allowed by the
situation. This model suggests that situations do not directly influence the Big 5, but
rather influence how the basic behavioral tendencies that result from the Big 5 are
manifest. Note that this model is consistent with more cognitively mediated personality
research (e. g., Eysenck, 1997; Matthews, 1997). Although this is a step in the right
direction, the McCrae and Costa (1996) model as a whole is difficult to apply in specific
contexts because it provides little in the way of specifying how specific traits will relate
to specific psychological mediating processes (instead, the authors present a heuristic list
of possible cognitive factors). However, there are three important points this
conceptualization makes for personality assessment. First, Big 5 traits explain only part
of the variance in a given behavior—situational information must also be considered. It
might also be noted that the basic traits are not expected to directly influence behavior,
but rather influence behavior indirectly through characteristic adaptations (i.e., cognitive
processing). Second, the behavioral manifestation of traits may change in a given
situation. Third, individual differences in a given trait should result in differences in the
way each person will handle similar situations. Together, these implications suggest that

accurate prediction must consider both situations and basic traits. These implications will

be developed more shortly.
The Misghel and Shggla11225) Cognitive-Affective Pemnalitx System. Despite

the increased acceptance of an interactionist framework, little research has directly
considered hpw traits and situations relate to each other to influence behavior. Research

in the situation-response tradition has assumed that dispositions are manifest under the

24

constraint of situational features (Dworkin & Kihlstrom, 1978; Endler et al., 1962;
Magnusson & Ekehammar, 1973; Magnusson & Heffler, 1969; Murtha et a., 1996). That
is, there are dispositional tendencies to respond in particular ways to different situations.
However, this approach has not attempted to delineate the types of psychological
processes that result in these different behavioral manifestations. Stated differently, there
has been little consideration of the psychological mediators between personality traits and
behavior. This issue was foreshadowed by Mischel (1973), who suggested a cognitive-
social conceptualization of personality theory. This basic framework has been applied in
several studies and summarized in a general model (Mischel & Shoda, 1995). As this
model provides the conceptual basis of the remainder of this study, the model will be
examined in some detail.

Mischel (1973) suggested that the traditional trait approach to personality could
be better conceptualized as a process interrelating social, cognitive, and learning
approaches along with situational features. This approach was not trivially based on
earlier social learning research fi'om Rotter (1954) and Bandura (1971). This early work
was widely cited, yet produced little in terms of more cognitively-oriented
conceptualizations of personality and dynamic relations between traits and situations.
However, it did provide a framework from which Mischel and colleagues (Shoda,
Mischel, & Wright, 1989; 1993; 1994; Wright & Mischel, 1987; 1988) systematically
examined aspects of the model. This early theorizing and research has recently
culminated in a revised theoretical fi'amework, the cognitive-affective personality system
(CAPS) (Mischel & Shoda, 1995; 1998). The basic position of the model suggests that

features in situations influence and stimulate particular psychological responses. This

25

framework suggests “. . .if particular features of situations are present. . .then a particular
response is likely.” Thus, an if—then response sequence occurs. For example, if a
situation includes a supervisor being present, m one will focus on work-related
behaviors (e.g., focus on task completion); but if the supervisor is not present one will be
less likely to demonstrate work-related behaviors (e. g., talk to coworkers about the
weekend). Thus, there are three main aspects of the model: situations, responses, and the
if-then linking rules.

First, situations are conceptualized as exhibiting features that are psychologically
meaningful (Wright & Mischel, 1987); as a result the individual will engage in
psychological processing about the situational features (this then leads to various
behavioral responses). Although one may distinguish between objective (physical or less
perceptually based) and subjective (perceived) features of situations, as noted earlier most
treatments of situations consider the perceived features to be more important for
influencing behavior (e.g., Krahe, 1992; Magnusson, 1981). Similar to the popular lens
model (Brunswick, 1956), the relationship between objective situations and behavior is
mediated by subjective situations; the mediating mechanisms are cognitive and
psychological processes (see Krahe, 1992). The Mischel and Shoda (1995) model is
based on this premise. Thus, certain features of situations are more likely to be identified
and reacted upon, and certain features may be more salient to particular individuals. This
may be considered as a more cognitive representation of the situation-response
framework (Endler et al., 1962): rather than simply assessing the different behavioral
manifestations in different situations, the CAPS model further attempts to describe what

psychological processes mediate the situation-behavior link.

26

One important feature of situations is the degree of competence in a given
psychological trait required to perform effectively in a given situation. Wright and
Mischel (1987) demonstrated that situations can be differentiated in terms of required
traits or skills (e.g., some situations require more social skills to perform better than
others). This is known as the competency-demand hypothesis (see Mischel & Shoda,
1995; Shoda et al., 1993) and suggests that situations that place high demands for
competence (or quantities possessed) in a given trait will exhibit more variability in the
manifestatign of that trait (i.e., greater individual differences in responses but the trait
itself is unchanged). This is similar to Argyle et al. (1981) and their notion of difficult
situations. For example, a situation may place a high demand on social competence in
situations that require a careful balance between appeasing a personally-insulting
customer and making a sale. Wright and Mischel (1987) found that in situations where
the competency demands on a given trait were high, individual differences on the relevant
behavior manifesting that trait were also high.

Second, behavior results from cognitive and affective processing in response to
psychologically meaningful features of situations. However, it is not simply an automatic
response to the situation that occurs, but rather a response based on the organization of
cognitive and affective processes. These processes reflect the linking rule between
situations and behavior. Mischel and Shoda (1995) consider such processing as a
dynamic interplay between self-regulation, competencies, goals, affect, expectancies, and
cncodings (i.e., categorization of situational information). A model illustrating these

relationships is presented in Figure 2.

27

f E— l-- . .

 

Features of Situations

 

 

 

 

a b c d e f h I ' k l. ..
\ \ g J l
Encoding
Processes
Interactions Self-regulation 7%.
among Comp.tencies

 

cognitive ®Expectations

processes
%\

 

 

 

Behaviors I

 

Figure 2. Example of Mischel and Shoda’s (1995) cognitive-affective personality

system.

28

a; "‘
..b .h

 

.
14-4‘

e é' ..
.u'y. I

a
1' -.¢

any“

 

 

a.
‘~t_

.. \A
‘.

 

 

The functional relations between these mediating constructs and processes is expected to
be dynamic over the course of situations, but a similar functional form should occur
within similar situations at different times.

The final element contains the features linking the perceived situation to the
behavioral response (i.e., if. . .then). These if. . .then rules are the probabilities that a given
behavior will be manifest in a given situation. Ultimately, it is the identification of these
rules that is important for determining the generality and stability of behavior. These
rules are conceptually more than simple probabilities, however. As noted above, the rules
reflect processes that at a global level may include, for example, cognitive ability, affect,
social skills, and self-regulation (e.g., Mischel & Shoda, 1995; Wright & Mischel, 1987).
It is the relations between these constructs that ultimately construe the organization of the
CAPS system and result in the actual manifestation of behavior (i.e., the linking rule).
These relations are conceptualized similar to a connectionist model, where relations are
weighted to varying degrees to reflect their importance to behavior. These relations are
not static but may be altered through learning and experience. Thus, the system shows a
very dynamic and fluid organization and reflects interrelationships between a variety of
constructs.

At this point an example may help illustrate these concepts. Imagine a customer
service situation where the customer is trying to buy a new car and is being helped by a
salesperson. The customer enters this situation with particular goals (e.g., buy a earl like
without a hassle) and expectations (e.g., this transaction should be pleasant). These pre-
situation expectations should result in certain situational features being salient (e.g., the

behavior of the salesperson, the type of car, price). As the situation unfolds, the customer

29

 

 

is cognitively processing these situational features and behaving largely in accordance
with this processing (e. g., they have many good cars on the lot so I’ll keep looking here,
the salesperson is pleasant enough to work with). In this example, the situation includes
those features salient to the individual (e.g., number of cars available), the behavior might
include talking with the salesperson, leaving the dealership, or buying a car, and the
linking if. . .then rule is the nature of the psychological processing that occurs. Thus,

“if. . .the salesperson is rude, then. . .I’ll go somewhere else” suggests a linking rule of
dynamic processing within the cognitive and affective system (e.g., not meeting
expectations, negative affect).

One central concept that the Mischel and Shoda (1995) framework does not
formally address is that of trait, particularly with reference to the Big 5. The reason is
that their framework equates trait with the organization of psychological processing (and
possibly the likelihood of particular linking rules). For example, the trait “talkative”
would be represented by a particular organization within the cognitive processes (e.g.,
goals, expectancies) and thus particular types and patterns of behavior (e. g., engaging in
small talk with neighbors, discussing the weather with strangers). The Mischel and
Shoda (1995) fiamework is really a process model of personality, and in a more recent
review (Mischel & Shoda, 1998) they suggest that research should examine the link
between more basic measures of traits (such as the Big 5) and the mediating processes
suggested by the CAPS model. Thus, although Mischel and Shoda (1995) are silent on
conceptualizations of the Big 5, their framework may be integrated into a broader
theoretical statement of the mediating role of psychological processes between basic traits

and behavior. It is noteworthy to point out that the constructs identified in the CAPS

30

 

framework (Mischel & Shoda, 1995) act as mediators between the Big 5 traits and
behavior—thus the processes described in Mischel and Shoda (1995) are similar to the
characteristic adaptations or mediators described in McCrae and Costa (1996).

Overall, the Mischel and Shoda (1995) fi'amework allows one to manifest
relatively stable behaviors yet still be responsive to situational influences. Although the
model is described in terms of a situation influencing a particular behavioral response, the
actual stream of behavior-situation relations is ongoing. That is, behavior occurs in
response to situations yet at the same time results to changes in the situation features
(Snyder & Ickes, 1985). This suggests the relationship between behavior and situations is
non-recursive. Thus, integrating the Mischel and Shoda (1995) framework with the Big 5
allows one to fully consider the relations between situations, traits, mediating processes,
and behavior. This basic framework will provide the theoretical basis for this study’s
application of personality to customer service jobs.

A note on situations as informatign. Given the above conceptualizations, one
might suggest that situations are not simply stimuli that elicit a particular behavioral
response. Rather, situations may be better conceptualized as information that is actively
perceived and cognitively processed in accordance with one’s basic dispositional
tendencies or traits (Magnusson & Torestad, 1992; Matthews, 1997; Mischel & Shoda,
1995). That is, any particular situation is hill of objective cues and features, but among
this full set there are different subsets of cues that are meaningful and salient for different

individuals. The identification and processing of these cues is an active, cognitive

process that occurs in characteristically similar ways and represents an individual’s

31

standing on basic traits. Individual differences in a given trait will result in different
features of situations that will be salient and thus acted upon (Wright & Mischel, 1987).
Together, this suggests that perceiving situations is a dynamic and interactive
process: situations act as information to be processed by the individual (see also
Magnusson & Torestad, 1992), dynamically interacting with his or her traits and personal
characteristics to influence behavior. This interaction takes place in the individual’s
cognitive processing of the situational features, however defined and perceived by the
individual. Although individuals may also choose different situations as well as alter
existing ones (e. g., Snyder & Ickes, 1985), most interactionist models consider the
situation as the stimulus inputs to individual interpretation and processing. Thus, one
could propose that objective situations are perceived and processed according to personal
characteristics (e.g., goals) and cognitive processing (e.g., selective perception), both of
which are likely to differ in accordance with individual differences in basic traits. It is
the sum of these relations that leads to behavior. Such a model calls back to
Woodworth’s (1918) notion of the stimulus-organism-response model, which noted the
importance of the individual’s goals and motives.
Implicatiog gf Basic Pmonality Research for Personality Assessment
At this point it might be helpful to summarize some of the key implications basic
personality research has for personality assessment in general and for this dissertation in
particular. First, current research has tended to endorse the five factor model of traits
because these five factors exhibit meaningful individual differences. Although there are
some legitimate disagreements with this taxonomy (e.g., Block, 1995; Hough, 1998), at

th e very least researchers can use the five factor model as a starting point and get more

32

specific as necessary (such as in personnel selection contexts). Second, the above review
highlights the importance of considering an interactionist perspective to understand and
predict behavior. However, personality measurement has typically ignored situations and
focused solely on assessing dispositions. When situations have been considered, they
have ofien been treated in a very static manner as separate factors (e.g., S-R paradigm)
and were not included directly as part of the trait assessment. Third, research and theory
suggests that behavioral consistency may be greater if one considers behavior within a
given situation (Murtha et al., 1996; Roberts & Donahue, 1994; Sheldon et al., 1997).
Assessing behavior across situations will continue to show the rather low cross-
situational correlations (e. g., Mischel, 1968). Fourth, active cognitive processing of
objective situational information accounts for why people with different levels of a trait
may perceive the same objective situation differently (e.g., Magnusson & Torestad, 1992;
Matthews, 1997 ; Snyder & Ickes, 1985). This fact suggests that the subjective situation
is the most proximal influence on behavior (Krahe, 1992) and is also probably the reason
it has been difficult to find universal dimensions of situations. Fifth, within a given
situation, people with different levels of a trait will differ in what they perceive to be the
correct or most appropriate course of action. Because two people who differ on a trait
may subjectively perceive a given Situation in very different ways, these two people
might report different types of behavior as being appropriate for the same situation.
Sixth, as a result of these differences, behavioral manifestations of a given trait may
change in different situations but be similar in situations perceptually related (Mischel &

Peake, 1982; Mischel & Shoda, 1995; Murtha et al., 1996).

33

Overall, these implications suggest that if one is interested in predicting a given
behavior or set of behaviors in a particular context from some assessment instrument, the
most accurate prediction should occur if the assessment method provides a rich
description of the context for the individual to indicate what he or she would do. Because
the assessment instrument and the target behavior are contextually similar, the correlation
between the test and target behavior should be higher than instruments that ignore
situational information (Murtha et al., 1996; Roberts & Donahue, 1994). Furthermore,
this situational information should be explicitly integrated into the assessment method
and not treated as a moderator because, as the previous review has shown (e.g., Krahe,
1992; Magnusson & Torestad, 1992; McCrae & Costa, 1996; Mischel & Shoda, 1995;
1998; Roberts & Donahue, 1994), there is a dynamic interplay between dispositional and
situational factors. The manifestation of (and inferences about) basic personality traits
are likely to be different in different situations. Looking at situational moderators of
personality-behavior relations will not be likely to help one understand the dynamic
relationships between these factors. Because relations between these factors are not
understood, prediction will similarly be reduced.

The implications raised in this section form the conceptual foundation for the
instrument developed in this dissertation. This development of this instrument will be
described shortly, but first a review of current personality research in
industrial/organizational psychology is provided.

Personality Research in Industrial/Organizational Psychology

Applications of personality theory and research have always been present in

applied psychology to varying degrees, but the development of the Big 5 model has led to

34

a renewed interest in personality for I/O psychology (e.g., Mount & Barrick, 1995). The
last decade has seen an increase in applications of the Big 5 to applied contexts, including
personnel selection (see Barrick & Mount, 1991; Hough, 1992; 1998), training (e. g.,
Martocchio & Judge, 1997), and employee absence (e.g., Judge, Martocchio, & Thoresen,
1997). Although this research is important, I limit this discussion to personality research
in personnel selection because this is the focus of this study.

In the following sections I describe personality research within personnel
selection. First, the past and current use of personality testing in personnel selection is
examined, and a critical analysis of current practice is discussed. Second, research that
has examined situational predictors of job performance is reviewed, and implications for
personality testing for selection is considered. Finally, an conceptual integration of
personality and situational testing is proposed.

The Use of Personalig in Personnel Selection

Much like the basic personality research described above, personality testing in
selection contexts focuses almost exclusively on identification and measurement of traits
and gives little to no consideration about situational factors. However, the fact that recent
research has attempted to examine personality constructs as predictors of job performance
signifies a major break fi'om past research. Specifically, Onion and Gottier (1965) have
been credited with halting research on personality predictors of job performance for
Several decades. Their critique mainly focused on the uncritical application of

personality tests to domains for which personality tests were not relevant, along with the
use of personality tests that were not designed and validated for selection settings.

Adding to these concerns was the lack of a common framework to compare and contrast

35

various personality measures. Unfortunately, it appears the critique had the unintended
outcome of ending personality research in selection (although the review by Mischel,
1968, surely helped).

Within the last decade, the use of personality tests in selection has seen a dramatic
resurgence. For example, several empirical studies have recently been conducted (e.g.,
Barrick & Mount, 1993; Banick, Mount, & Strauss, 1994; Judge et al., 1997; Stewart,
1996; Wright, Kacmar, McMahan, & Deleeuw, 1995). Reviews of selection research
have been similarly supportive (e. g., Adler, 1996, Hough & Schneider, 1996; Mount &
Barrick, 1995). Thus, it appears that the time was right for personality to make a
comeback, based on at least three factors. First, much of this renewed interest has
stemmed from the development of the five factor model (with corresponding
measurement instruments), thereby providing applied researchers with a framework to
consider construct linkages to various criteria (Mount & Barrick, 1995). Second, several
meta-analytic studies used variations of the five factor model to assess the predictive
validity of personality constructs. For example, meta-analyses by Barrick and Mount
(1991) and Tett et al. (1991) demonstrated moderate predictive validities for the Big 5
constructs. A similar examination by Hough et a1. (1990; see also Hough 1992; 1998)
demonstrated that predictive relationships between personality constructs more specific
than the Big 5 and job performance were possible, and the recent work by Ones,
Viswesvaran, and Schmidt (1993) suggests that traits more general than the Big 5 (i.e.,

integrity) Show predictive validity. Thus, the meta-analytic work to date indicates that
personality constructs may predict job performance. Finally, the search for alternatives to

general mental ability as a means of reducing adverse impact (e.g., Hunter & Hunter,

36

I

1984; Sackett & Wilk, 1994), coupled with the expansion of the performance domain
(e. g., Campbell et al., 1993; Murphy, 1996) and the widespread belief that personality
tests have little adverse impact, have led to increased reasons for the use of personality
testing in selection.

Despite the increased acceptance of the use of personality tests in selection, there
are still numerous issues that have yet to be resolved. First, many of the observed
validities are small to moderate, and even most meta-analytic studies find only slightly
higher relations (Adler, 1996; Hough, 1998; Mount & Barrick, 1995; Mischel & Shoda,
1998). It is interesting to note that these validities are ofien lower than the .30 ceiling
Mischel (1968) noted more than two decades ago. For example, Banick and Mount
(1991) found the highest true validity to be only .26 for conscientiousness (observed
validities were considerably smaller), and many true validities hovered around .10 or less
for neuroticism, extraversion, openness, and agreeableness. One exception to this finding
is research by Ones et al. (1993), who found that integrity tests correlated with several
criteria greater than .30. However, these results may at best be optimistic. Several of the
criterion measures used in their meta-analysis were self-reports completed by the test-
tikets, and the validities above .30 often occurred in very specific circumstances or were
based on few observations. Noting exceptions such as these, most research finds that
personality tests demonstrate at best moderate validities. Of course, this is not to say that
personality tests do not yield incremental validity over cognitive ability tests. Several
studies have suggested personality tests can provide a reasonable amount of incremental
validity over ability tests because the correlation between personality tests and ability is

relatively low (e.g., Pulakos & Schmitt, 1996; see Sackett & Ellingson, 1997; Schmitt et

37

al., 1997, for some illustrations). Thus, current personality tests do have value. This
proposal does not question whether personality tests have value but whether the
predictive validity of these tests can be improved.

Second, little research has considered the effects of situational factors on
predictive relationships (e. g., Adler, 1996; Hough & Schneider, 1996; Mount & Barrick,
1995; Weiss & Adler, 1984). As mentioned earlier, basic personality research has for
some time attempted to identify features of situations that may interact with personality-
behavior relationships, yet there have been few considerations in applied settings (Weiss
& Adler, 1984). At a very general level, indications of situational moderators have been
found in the meta-analyses by Banick and Mount (1991) and Hough (1992; see also
Hough & Schneider, 1996), who have shown empirically that validities may differ across
occupations and jobs. However, some recent research has found situational moderators
within jobs. Barrick and Mount (1993) reasoned that the degree of autonomy one has in a
job reflects Mischel’s (1968) notion of situational strength. They suggested that jobs
with greater autonomy would exhibit greater personality-performance relations than jobs
with less autonomy. By assessing the autonomy of managers’ jobs, they found that
predictive relations between conscientiousness and extraversion were greater for jobs that
had more autonomy. In a similar study, Stewart (1996) found that the reward structure
for salespersons interacted with extraversion to influence performance. Finally, Schmit et
al. (1995) found that the addition of “at wor ” tags to items in the NEO-PI resulted in
higher validity than more situationally-generic items, perhaps indicating some
inconsistencies in cross-situation behavior (e. g., work as opposed to at home) (this study

will be discussed in more detail shortly). However, these studies are very much the

38

It“

eibib
I

.5 .a

u.

u- a;
5

b'

 

‘a- .
.2"

in I

 

exception, and most research on personality predictors ignores the possibility of
situational moderators. Thus, while interactionism may be the dominant conceptual
paradigm in basic personality research, it has not translated into applied empirical
research.

Other potential moderators have been identified or suggested in the literature.
Hough and Schneider (1996) suggest that criterion construct, criterion measurement
method, validation strategy, and rater perceptive (e. g., self vs. other) may moderate the
predictive validities of personality inventories. Much recent attention has examined how
linking specific personality constructs to specific criteria can increase validity (Day &
Silverrnan, 1989; Judge et al., 1997; Mount & Barrick, 1995; see Adler, 1996).
Similarly, it has been found that personality constructs best predict contextual
performance and ability constructs best predict task performance (e. g., Borman &
Motowidlo, 1997; Motowidlo & Van Scotter, 1994). Criterion measurement methods
have been found to result in different relations to personality, as objective performance
measures typically have smaller validities than subjective measures, such as supervisor
ratings (e.g., Barrick & Mount, 1991).

Note that although researchers argue for the importance of linking personality to
specific criteria, research typically has not (or has not reported) carefully examined the
nature of the criterion space and then identified the relevant personality constructs or
measurement methods (Guion, 1991). This is important, as predictors derive their
irnportance from criteria (Wallace, 1965). Rather, most research seems to suggest that

multiple criteria were correlated with an off-the-shelf Big 5 measure and then significant

univariate relationships were examined. Clearly questions about both the construct to be

39

h}:

l
o-A-

.A.

no“
it“.

' R.
l “1‘
U h v

 

 

‘4.

A
«..-

 

t
‘.

,4

‘L

 

 

 

 

‘1...’

measured and the method used to measure the construct should be considered based on a
thorough understanding of the criterion domain. To date there appears to be almost no
consideration given to measurement method, and little discussion of criterion issues. The
reason I make such an issue with this fact is that Hough and Schneider (1996) suggest
that compound personality traits (i.e., combinations of basic traits, such as integrity being
a combination of neuroticism, agreeableness, and conscientiousness) are more predictive
than the basic big five traits. The reason is probably because they are most directly tied
to the criterion space. Note that this argument does not contradict their suggestion for the
use of traits narrower than the Big 5, but rather compliments it by suggesting that specific
combinations of narrower traits can be more predictive than the specific traits themselves.
Overall, this suggests that to maximize prediction one should develop personality
measures that are closely linked to both the five factor (or narrower) model and the
criterion domain.

Validation strategies have been shown to have slight influence on validities, as a
meta-analysis by Hough (1998) found that predictive studies have slightly lower
validities than concurrent studies. However, Tett et al. (1991) also suggest that
confirmatory vs. exploratory strategies may demonstrate different validities. There may
be many reasons for this, perhaps including different meanings of the constructs in the
different settings (e. g., Schmit & Ryan, 1993). Finally, the rating source (self, supervisor,
coworker) may result in different relations between personality constructs and criteria
(Mount, Barrick, & Strauss, 1994).

Third, controversy has been raised about the appropriateness of the Big 5 for

personnel selection (e. g., Hogan & Shelton, 1998; Hough, 1992; 1998; Hough &

4O

 

 

 

it“-

 

' I
55-1

“-1..

~ \
inns-t

‘thAI
".='l
t.|
m-.\ -
o
“a. ‘A-
x3..;_
“vs,
It .i‘
u .~
5
3
"JH
.
‘L‘“

v-
fl.'
‘-
—‘
6‘ \
.-U

 

 

 

 

 

Schneider, 1996). These concerns echo points raised in basic personality research (e.g.,
Block, 1995). For example, Hough and Schneider (1996) evaluate the five factor model
in some length, and conclude that although it provides a useful starting point it is by no
means an accepted fi'amework. Rather, they suggest the five factors are too broad and
should be defined more specifically. This is in contrast to Ones et a1. (1993), who argue
that more general constructs are more appropriate (e.g., integrity). Such issues are similar
to the bandwidth-fidelity dilemma and will not be elaborated further (see Hogan &
Roberts, 1996; Ones & Viswesvaran, 1996; Schneider, Hough, & Dunnette, 1996; for
more detailed discussion). Unfortunately, it appears most applied researchers give little
thought to such concerns. For example, many research articles on personality begin by
stating the ‘Xvidespread acceptance” of the Big 5 in basic personality research; the
limitations of the Big 5 are most often saved for short sentences in the “limitations”
section.

Finally, the neglect of situational factors in personality assessment appears quite
widespread (Hattrup & Jackson, 1996; Weiss & Adler, 1984). By far, the most common
approach to the assessment of personality in predicting job performance has been to
correlate the Big 5 with job performance and examine the univariate relationships
irrespective of situations (e. g., Judge et al., 1997). It is somewhat interesting that applied
research has used this method because two insightful and widely cited papers (Adler,
1996; Weiss & Adler, 1984) have given several reasons to be skeptical of such an
approach. They suggest that the simple univariate relations are rather uninforrnative

theoretically because the personality constructs have been removed fi'om their

nomological networks. Clearly the situational context is a part of this nomological

41

 

en

t hr

0"

g ...h

R
n0 31

“1".

Eli ‘

35...».

l
“:

‘-' .I.

pm
4

I- ..

I“; 5“
\

:~;.
me.)

this.

a.,...)

Q.
1‘ ‘0
‘llu‘

u"

53"»

f‘nt.

Q]

 

network (Weiss & Adler, 1984). And, as raised in the previous review of basic
personality research, it is the dynamic interaction between traits and situations that
influences behavior (e.g., Krahe, 1992; Magnusson & Torestad, 1992; Mischel & Shoda,
1995). Neglecting situational information is not likely to provide a complete
understanding of personality-performance relationships. Thus, although correlating the
Big 5 with job performance measures does provide some information about personality
influences on behavior, potentially more information could be provided by considering
the nature of the work context.
The conditional reasgning approach of lmes (1298)

Recently, an alternative system of measuring dispositions has been proposed by
James (1998). Called a conditional reasoning approach to the measurement of
dispositions, this paradigm assumes that individual differences on a particular trait (e. g.,
anxiety) will exhibit reliable differences in cognitive mechanisms used to justify
particular beliefs, behaviors, attributions, and implicit theories. Stated differently,
individuals who maintain a certain level on a given trait (e.g., achievement) will be more
likely to hold certain beliefs and perceptions (e.g., hard work is good, challenging
situations are rewarding) than individuals who are on the opposite pole of the trait (e.g.,
fear of failing). Because individuals have these beliefs and implicit theories, they
establish justification mechanisms that are used to promote the desired opinion. Thus, the
James (1998) framework suggests that people who differ on traits will have different
forms of biased perceptions and processing. In this case, bias refers to differences in such

processes as forming attributions or making judgments.

42

cur;
.
anh

.‘r.
y.»-
.

 

5;;-
. V. v

l-us.

tum

II! a.

Qua"

”5..

1““

i

«4’

 

 

 

 

However, the primary difference between the conditional reasoning approach and
more traditional trait assessment lies in the measurement method. In contrast to the
typical approach of using questionnaires that assess the prevalence of different behaviors
or preferences, the conditional reasoning approach provides questions that require
reasoning and judgment. What is unique about the system is that people who differ on a
given trait will differ in their likelihood of forming different judgments, thereby choosing
different choices in the test. James (1998) describes some preliminary data on two traits
(achievement and aggression), providing initial support for the measurement system.
Interestingly, the measurement system produced low relations to more typical, self-report
measures of achievement.

One can see that on a general level, the conditional reasoning approach of James
(1998) shares similarities with the dynamic personality models of McCrae and Costa
(1996) and Mischel and Shoda (1995). In particular, the notion that individuals who
differ on a particular trait will manifest characteristic differences in cognitive processing
(making justifications in this instance) is consistent with much of the current personality
research (e.g., Matthews, 1997; Magnusson & Torestad, 1992). However, there are also
many differences that weaken the utility of this approach. First, James (1998) has not
described and operationalized the nature and types of cognitive processes that are most
important. Rather, it is assumed that people differ on a variety of these unspecified
processes (e.g., implicit theories), which result in stable differences in behavior. Second,
there is no consideration of situational or contextual information in the assessment
method. Rather, this method is about as context-free as is possible. Third, the

conditional reasoning approach cited in James (1998) provides few conceptual and

43

(
fi"!

rr-sa
J'\

,...

H...“

,
"‘~
--Q..y.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

~ “.
s ,W
.1
‘l
)_ \

theoretical linkages back to basic personality research. For example, on the surface there
are clear similarities between Mischel and Shoda’s (1995) fiamework and the conditional
reasoning approach, yet it is hard to compare and contrast both approaches because James
(1998) devotes more attention to the nature of the measurement system than to the theory
upon which it is based. Fourth, there is very little published empirical data that has been
collected on the measurement system. Finally, the approach is really more of an
alternative method of measurement than a model or theory of how personality relates to
behavior.

In sum, the conditional reasoning approach of James (1998) presents a much more
cognitively and process-oriented approach to the measurement of personality traits than
has been considered in applied psychology. Unfortunately, the approach is limited by a
neglect of theory to guide the measurement process.

Contrasting personality in selection with basic personalig research

Overall, it is clear that there is still much to be learned about relationships
between personality and job performance behaviors, and that a number of issues and
challenges must first be addressed before these relations will be firmly understood. At
this point it may be instructive to compare and contrast this applied research with the
more basic personality research presented earlier.

Recall that the review of basic personality research suggests a relatively more
dynamic and cognitively active set of relationships between situations, traits, information
processing, and behavior (McCrae & Costa, 1996; Mischel & Shoda, 1995). The

implications of this more dynamic conceptualization are that (1) situations are important

to consider, (2) basic traits (such as those in a Big 5 structure) do not directly influence

“an.

i

\
' Q
s

 

behavior but do so indirectly through various cognitive and affective mechanisms (e. g.,
McCrae & Costa, 1996; Mischel & Shoda, 1995), (3) traits influence characteristic ways
of perceiving and processing situational information (Magnusson & Torestad, 1992), (4)
individual differences in traits are manifest in reliable differences in information
processing (e. g., Matthews, 1997), which (5) lead to individual differences in behavior
because similar situations are perceived differently, suggesting that (6) increased
prediction should occur if personality assessment occurs in psychologically similar
situations (Murtha et al., 1996; Roberts & Donahue, 1994; Sheldon et al., 1997).

In contrast, the typical approach in personnel selection has been to identify
applicants’ standings on Big 5 (or narrower) traits and correlate these results with
performance criteria. Thus, the entire focus is on bivariate relationships (Weiss & Adler,
1984). There is little to no consideration of situations, intermediate cognitive or
psychological processing, or their relations with traits and behavior. In fact, most
selection research assumes a main effect of traits on behavior. Consider the following
points.

First, the objective and perceived situation is considered in only a few studies
(e.g., Barrick & Mount, 1993; Stewart, 1996). However, even in these studies there is
little careful consideration of the nature of the situational features, and how these features
might be perceived and processed by the individual. In particular, the moderator
approach used in selection is inconsistent with the notion that personality is manifest
differently in different situations (Sheldon et al., 1997) because situational information is
processed differently (e. g., Magnusson & Torestad, 1992; McCrae & Costa, 1996;

Mischel & Shoda, 1995). Conceptualizing situations as information suggests that

45

situations are not moderators of personality-behavior relationships but are instead
dynamically related. In confiast, the typical selection approach is more similar to the S-R
model (Endler et al., 1963) than more recent conceptualizations of personality (e. g.,
Mischel & Shoda, 1995).

Second, there has been little consideration of the criterion to be predicted, even
though careful consideration of the criterion domain can aid in prediction (Guion, 1991 ;
Hough & Schneider, 1996). Most basic personality researchers are very careful about the
nature of the criterion behavior to be predicted, and then try to develop assessment
methods that may be most relevant. In contrast, most selection research debates
characteristics of the predictor measures (J arnes, 1998) or constructs (e.g., bandwidth-
fidelity, Hogan & Roberts, 1996; Ones & Viswesvaran, 1996; Schneider et al., 1996)
with less consideration for the nature and specificity of the criterion. In fact, it is safe to
conclude that measures of overall performance (or overall task and contextual
performance) comprise the vast majority of criteria for selection-related research. When
criterion issues are considered, they most often focus on the task-contextual behavior
distinction (e. g., Borman & Motowidlo, 1997) or criterion measurement method or source
(e.g., Hough & Schneider, 1996; Mount et al., 1994). Rarely do studies consider the
specific nature of the criterion construct, and when they do they are typically at a very
general level (e.g., training success versus sales performance).

Third, most of the relationships between personality traits (based on the Big 5 or
narrower framework) and criteria are relatively small to modest, particularly when
compared to alternative constructs (e.g., ability). Thus, most selection research that

considers personality constructs tends to relate the Big 5 directly to the focal criterion

46

¢‘-:

.1"

w.
van

“‘l

J \
it..i
' I

a.,"

“LA

w

‘ r
nu.

 

I...“

’ I
ll-
1 lo

.7.

behaviors of interest, but as the previous basic personality research illustrates, such
approaches neglect much of the dynamic relations between personality, situations, and
behavior.

The main conclusion to be drawn from contrasting basic and applied perspectives
on personality research is that little to no consideration is given to an interactionist
perspective in personnel selection. As the review of basic personality research has
shown, contemporary models of personality maintain a set of interrelated relationships for
both traits and situations (McCrae & Costa, 1996; Mischel & Shoda, 1995). Neglecting
an interactionist perspective may actually be suppressing predictive relationships.

Thus, what can one draw from the basic personality literature to improve research
in selection? The primary implication is to explicitly spnsider situational infprmation.
Given that traits are expressed differently in different situations (Roberts & Donahue,
1994; Sheldon et al., 1997), the processing of situational information will differ according
to different traits (Magnusson & Torestad, 1992), and that prediction and behavioral
stability are enhanced when situations are psychologically similar (Mischel & Shoda,
1995; Murtha et al., 1996), the predictive validity of personality measures should be
enhanced by incorporating situational information directly into trait assessment. Indeed,
Murtha et a1. (1996) and Roberts and Donahue (1994) have both made calls for such
research. For example, the predictive validities for Big 5 measures obtained in selection
studies are smaller than the commonly noted “cross-situational consistency ceiling” of
.30 in the more basic personality literature (Mischel, 1968). Now consider that this

“ceiling” has been broken by research that considers behavior within similar situations

 

47

ll...

r
Deg».

 

0~~A
\

‘15,
I

5!».
A

~~~

‘H' \‘

a...”

‘9-s.
«pl

{"1
5., \
‘-
v ' g-
m‘ \
‘u
”or.
V.“ \
.‘

 

 

 

 

1.1,"
A:

(see Mischel & Shoda, 1995). Perhaps predictive validities for personality in selection
contexts could likewise be enhanced by consideration of situational information.

In the following sections a study is presented that attempts to address many of
these issues by developing a personality assessment instrument that considers both
dispositional and situational information simultaneously. Research on basic personality
traits (i.e., the Big 5) will be integrated with research on situations to develop the
instrument. However, research on a relatively new and potentially useful source of
situational information, situational judgment tests, may provide a ready means for
incorporating situational information into traditional personality testing. Thus, it is
instructive to consider this research first as it provides many interesting implications for
personality testing.

Situational Testing in Personnel Selection

As noted above, situations often play little role in the specification of predictor
constructs. Note that I do not suggest situational artifacts between studies have not been
investigated (as evidenced by numerous meta-analyses), but rather that the explicit
consideration of situational factors within a prediction context are often ignored (e.g.,
Hattrup & Jackson, 1996). To date, most research in selection has considered a
broadening of the performance domain (e.g., task and contextual performance) and of the
predictor domain (e.g., dispositional constructs included with cognitive ability).
However, the direct consideration of situations has remained underdeveloped.

There have been varied past attempts in selection to identify how applicants
behave in different (often job-relevant) situations, with the expectation that these

behaviors will be related to performance behaviors. For example, assessment centers,

48

W}

v.-

l.'l‘

E‘J
( II

.~9
...

m.“

t o:
z. ;
"N“

‘».>\.

11,,
I" ‘
1'.“

Q.

s“

n
D"

t F:-

work samples, and job simulations attempt to provide an applicant with the opportunity to
perform work behaviors in a context similar to those required on the job (e. g., Klimoski,
1993). While demonstrating high validity, these methods are very resource intensive
(i.e., time, money) and thus are often not feasible for large scale testing. These methods
also focus more on developing situations that elicit the required KSAs than faithfully
reproducing actual work situations (although this does not have to be the case). To
provide a more practical alternative, attempts have been made to develop instruments that
are easier to administer or score. Situational interviews (e.g., Latham & Saari, 1984;
Latham, et al., 1980; Pulakos & Schmitt, 1995) provide a job-relevant situation to which
the applicant is supposed to report how he or she would handle the situation. This
method is perhaps easier to administer than the assessment center, but provides less
realistic situations and responses (i.e., saying what one would do rather than actually
perceiving the situation and behaving in it).

Recently, a different approach to assessing situations has been presented by
Motowidlo and colleagues (Motowidlo, et al., 1990; Motowidlo & Tippins, 1993). These
individuals adapted research fiom the 1940’s and 1950’s on low fidelity tests of
supervisory potential (e.g., File, 1945) into a method useful for selection purposes. Their
method, here referred to as a situational judgment test (SJT), attempts to identify job
relevant situations along with appropriate responses to those situations. However, unlike
other methods, the SJT is administered in paper and pencil, multiple choice form. Thus, a
brief description of the situation is provided, followed by multiple choice behavioral
responses. Motowidlo et al. (1990) suggest that the SJT is a low fidelity simulation. By

making a distinction between task (i.e., manner in which situations are presented) and

49

IIV‘

n"_

nus

'K.

C“ D
n

Q.

!,g

r1".

#-
IN
a“

1-1

 

 

response (i.e., behavioral response), the SJT may be classified as a low task-low response
instrument. In contrast, assessment centers are high task-high response methods, and
situational interviews are somewhere between assessment centers and SJTs (because SJTs
are paper and pencil tests as opposed to actual interpersonal situations).
The SJT is a relatively new method and validity evidence is sparse. However, the
few studies that have been conducted ofien find at least moderate validities. In a
concurrent validation study, Motowidlo et a1. (1990) found the SJT correlated from .28 to
.37 with supervisory ratings of overall performance. In a predictive validation study,
Motowidlo and Tippins (1993) found validities of .25, although only 36 applicants were
available. However, they also performed a concurrent study and found a validity of .28
with overall performance ratings. Pulakos and Schmitt (1996) conducted a concurrent
validation study and found validities of .20 and .14 with their two criterion ratings. There
have also been studies conducted with video-based SJTs (e.g., Weekley & Jones, 1997)
that demonstrate similar validities. To date, SJT tests have shown moderate validity and
rather small subgroup differences. Thus, SJT instruments appear to have both validities
and subgroup differences similar to the Big 5 personality constructs (and oflen show
validities greater than the Big 5, as many Big 5 measures demonstrate rather low validity,
Barrick & Mount, 1995).
Although SJTs provide a promising method of assessing behavior in situations

and work related contexts, their major limitation is that it is unclear what types of
constructs they measure. The derived nature of developing situations (i.e., asking
incumbents to describe work-relevant situations) and responses (i.e., what are the

appropriate behaviors in each situation) almost ensures that the SJT will be

50

 

‘

‘s ..
'-

HA,

In.

I...‘

Lu;

.1;
‘i

if

multidimensional. Evidence on the convergent and discriminant validity of SJTs is also
sparse, and that which has been conducted is equivocal. Although Motowidlo et al.
(1990) found negligible relations between their SJT and cognitive ability measures,
Weekley and Jones (1997) found moderate relations. Thus, at present it is not known
what constructs SJTs actually measure.

SJTs should be linked to distal dispositions such as the Big 5. In fact, the
dynamic interplay between perceptions of situations and dispositions should influence
performance on the SJT. This implies that those possessing particular traits (e. g., high
conscientiousness) should respond differently to specific situations in the SJT (i.e., those
high on C should be more likely to endorse particular behavioral options). This
relationship is complicated, however, because not all situations may be relevant to a
particular personality construct. Clearly linking dispositions to situations could provide a
means of assessing the relation between these two factors. An assessment instrument
developed in such a manner should provide a more theoretically grounded and valid
measure of performance than either measure independently. Such an integration is the
focus of the following section.

Present Study: Integrating Personality and Situational Judgment Testing

To briefly summarize the points raised above, basic research on personality
suggests there is both a theoretical and empirical need to consider the relation between
situations and personality as an influence on behavior. In particular, the accuracy of
behavioral prediction will be enhanced when one considers situational information

(because cross-situational consistency is stronger when situations are similar). Within

personnel selection, the vast majority of research has attempted to establish links between

51

the Big 5 and performance. Research conducted in this manner finds (at best) moderate
validity for Big 5 constructs. However, these distal relationships might be strengthened if
one also considers the effects of situations. Thus, applications of the Big 5 in selection
contexts emphasize the effects of dispositions on behavior and treat situational factors as
error (Hattrup & Jackson, 1996). Alternatively, situational information is considered in
SJTs. However, these instruments are atlreoretical and, while attempting to identify
individual differences, they do not directly consider the nature of these differences. In
this manner SJTs demonstrate moderate validity yet provide little understanding about the
potential constructs they measure. In practice, both approaches neglect an interactionist
framework.

This dissertation argues that a theoretically-based integration of personality
constructs (to identify relevant behaviors) and SJTs (to identify relevant situations)
provides a more conceptually and practically useful means of predicting job performance
than considering these factors independently. Such an integration could provide many
advantages.

Specifically, incorporating situational features in the assessment of personality
constructs should increase predictive validity. As mentioned in previous sections, the
consistency of behavior across situations may be considerably more stable if relevant
situational information is considered. Thus, the predictive validity of personality tests
should be improved by including situational information from relevant job contexts. For
example, a recent paper by Schmit et a1. (1995) notes how adding “at work” tags to items
in the NEO-FFI may increase the validity of personality tests. Reasoning fiom an

interactionist perspective delineated by Mischel and Shoda (1995), these researchers

52

g.
...:

31.3»
W

a... m

 

I
v...-
v! ‘
Bu.-

1
av I
I
all
.

9...

"sh

- M
Tu—

-.i.

‘9 ..
~-‘¥ ..

 

l“:
my

D.
. "l
l

'x

. g,

.‘V

a»-

suggested that a problem with the use of off-the-shelf personality tests in selection is that
the items tap a diverse number of situations (e. g., home, work, social situations).
However, given that considerable research has shown personality to be somewhat
variable across situations relative to within situations, they argued that personality tests
may be more valid if the situations (items) assessed in a personality inventory all referred
to work situations. They thus changed the nature of the situation in each item (e.g., “I try
to be courteous to everyone I meet” was changed to “I try to be courteous to everyone I
meet at work”). In this manner all respondents had a more similar frame of reference for
the item.

In Schmit et al.’s (1995) first study, the effects of adding “at work” tags and
providing general versus applicant instructions were examined. Results showed that test
scores were more favorable when “at work” tags were used and applicant instructions
were given rather than providing general instructions and the general item wording of the
NEO-FFI. Furthermore, these changes did not negatively affect the psychometric
properties of the scales. In their second study, they examined the criterion related validity
of the conscientiousness scale of the NEO-FFI for predicting college grade point average.
They also provided general versus specific (school admission context) instructions.
Rather than “at wor ” tags, “at school” tags were used. Results found that validities were
highest when “at school” tags were used with specific (school admission) instructions.
However, simply using the “at school” tags resulted in a dramatic increase in validity.

For example, the validity of the conscientiousness scale was .25 in the general instruction
and item condition but .41 in the general instruction - “at school” tag condition. Schmit

et al. (1995) explain their results by stating that providing an appropriate flame of

53

reference in the item reduces the error variance in the predictor measures, thereby
increasing validity.

The implications of this research for the proposed integration of personality
testing and SJTs are clear. As the results of Schmit et al. (1995) suggest providing a job-
relevant frame of reference for personality items should increase validity, one would
expect an integrated personality-SJT instrument to have higher validity than traditional
methods. Note, however, that Schmit et al. (1995) only included a general “at wor ” tag.
One might thus expect (see Murtha et al., 1996) that even more improvements to validity
would be made by embedding a particular behavior within a richer work-related
situational context, as the proposed personality-SJT instrument would attempt to do.
Thus, consistent with recent basic personality research (Mischel & Shoda, 1995; 1998)
and recent applied research (e.g., Chan & Schmitt, 1997; Schmit et al., 1995), identifying
relevant work situations should create a common referent for respondents when
indicating the extent to which they will endorse a particular behavior. This should in turn
increase validity for the instrument yet still result in a conceptual understanding of what
the test measures, for at least two reasons.

First, the integration should provide for greater understanding of predictor-
performance relationships because the assessment instrument is linked to specific traits
and criterion behaviors. For example, Guion (1991) argues that personality measures
should explicitly consider and reflect the nature of the performance domain (see also
Hough & Schneider, 1996, for a similar point). Thus, by jointly considering the trait and
criterion domains, the proposed instrument should enhance understanding of both. Note

that this might also help clarify what SJTs measure. By linking behavioral responses to

54

features of situations and dispositions, one should be able to better understand the
mechanisms by which SJTs relate to performance. (i.e., through relationships with
dispositions).

Second, the assessment method would be based on an interactionist framework
(particularly Mischel & Shoda, 1995; 1998), which is arguably a more realistic
conceptualization of personality than the dispositional “main effect” approach that seems
dominant in the field (e.g., Weiss & Adler, 1984). The assessment method also directly
addresses recent calls for such research (e.g., Murtha et al., 1996; Roberts & Donahue,
1994; Sheldon et al., 1997).

Overall, creating a rich situational work context around a particular dispositional
behavior should result in higher validity and greater theoretical understanding. In the
following sections I describe the proposed development and evaluation of this instrument.
First, however, the nature of the job and job performance for which this instrument is
created will be described. This is critical to the establishment of any dispositional
construct (e.g., Guion, 1991; Murphy, 1996)

Personality in the Prediction and Explanation of Customer Service Behaviors

This proposal considers the development of an integrated personality-SJ T
instrument in the context of predicting customer service behaviors. Defining customer
service is somewhat difficult because unlike durable goods, customer service is an
individual’s perception of quality rather than based on more objective observations (e. g.,
George & Jones, 1991; Peterson & Wilson, 1992, Parasuraman, Zeithaml, & Berry,

1985). However, customer service most ofien refers to the interaction that occurs when

an employee attempts to satisfy the expectations and demands of a customer (e.g., George

55

& Jones, 1991; Parasuraman et al., 1985). Although customer satisfaction ultimately lies
within the perceptions of the customer (i.e., expectations of what the service encounter
should provide), it is the employee’s responsibility to assess these needs and expectations
and to respond (behave) in a manner to meet these expectations (George & Jones, 1991).
Thus, providing acceptable customer service involves an interaction between the
employee and the customer, where the employee identifies the needs and expectations of
the customer and then uses his/her relevant knowledge, skills, and abilities to behave in
ways that will meet these expectations. Some applied researchers (e.g., Hogan, Hogan, &
Bush, 1984) describe individuals predisposed to these behaviors as possessing a service
orientation. For example, Hogan et al. (1984) describe service orientation as “. . .a set of
attitudes and behaviors that affects the quality of the interaction between [employees] and
[customers]. . .” (p. 167). In particular, they describe service orientation as individuals
who are willing to treat customers and coworkers with courtesy, tact, consideration, are
perceptive to customers’ needs, and can communicate effectively with customers. Note
that these behaviors are relatively independent of more technical matters, such as
knowing how to operate a cash register or fill out various forms (e. g., George & Jones,
1991). Based on these distinctions, this dissertation attempts to develop an integrated
personality-SJT test for servise prientatipa that will be predictive of sastgmer smice.
Providing acceptable customer service has become a major area of concern for
organizations. For example, more organizations are engaged in the service sector than
ever before, and this trend is likely to continue at least until the turn of the century, where
over seventy percent of employed individuals are expected to work in service-providing

jobs (e.g., Collier, 1983; Northcraft & Chase, 1985; Statistical Abstracts, 1989).

56

However, unlike the production of durable goods, production in service organizations is
characterized by three features (Schneider & Bowen, 1992). First, services are intangible
and as such the customer is provided with an experience rather than a good. This is not to
say that the customer may not be buying a good such as a car, but that the perception of
the service provided by the car salesperson is intangible. Second, providing a service
often requires the participation of the customer. In fact, some interaction between the
customer and the employee is likely to be required because the employee must try to
satisfy the customer’s expectations. Third, the production and consumption of a service
is simultaneous or nearly so. For example, being treated in a fiiendly manner by a waiter
is something that is produced (waiter engaging in friendly behaviors) and consumed (your
perception of those behaviors) almost simultaneously.

With increasing competition, coupled with the greater expectations by consumers
for quality service, providing high customer service has become a major way to
differentiate an organization from its competitors (e.g., Rudie & Wansley, 1985) and has
been shown to relate to important customer behaviors (e. g., retention of customers, repeat
buying, positive word-of-mouth). Thus, providing high quality service is one way an
organization can achieve a competitive advantage over other companies. However, the
creation of high quality service is difficult because service is characterized as being
intangible, requiring consumer participation, and having simultaneous production and
consumption. Because of these factors, organizations do not have the control over
“service production” that they do with durable goods (George & Jones, 1991; Schneider
& Bowen, 1992), as the actions and behaviors of the employee dealing with customers

may be highly variable (Parasuraman et al., 1985) and are immediately consumed. Thus,

57

there is an increased reliance on the “front line” employee dealing with the customer.
This makes the service experience (i.e., the interaction between the employee and
customer) the key to enhancing customer service but is also the feature that the
organization may have little direct control over. However, through various human
resource tools (e.g., selection, performance appraisal) the organization can try to regulate
the type of service its employees provide (Schneider & Bowen, 1992).

The identification and selection of individuals who possess a service orientation
may be an effective method for improving customer service (e.g., Frei & McDaniel,
1998; George & Jones, 1991; Hogan et al., 1984; Hough & Schneider, 1996; Schneider &
Bowen, 1992). In particular, an integrated personality-SJT instrument should provide an
effective means of identifying those with high service orientation. There are several
reasons for such an expectation.

First, providing high quality customer service appears to be highly dependent on
the personality of the service provider. Conceptually, one might expect that those who
are, for example, more outgoing, social, and empathetic would be better able to deal with
customers and understand their needs. This has been demonstrated empirically. Hogan
et al. (1985) describe the development of a service orientation index, a multidimensional
personality measure assessing aspects of adjustment, likeability, social skill, and
willingness to follow rules. The validity of this instrument across different samples
ranged from .25 to .42. The current Hogan Personality Inventory (HPI; Hogan & Hogan,
1992) manual also lists a variety of validation studies with their service orientation
measure, with most validities hovering around .30 (some are considerably higher, e. g.,

.61 was highest but the sample sizes for these high validities were often very small). In

58

these studies, supervisory ratings of overall job performance or effectiveness are most
often used. Rosse, Miller, and Barnes ( 1991) found that similar validities were obtained
by the HPI’s service orientation scale with ratings of service (I = .19) and with overall
performance ratings (I = .27). Finally, Frei and McDaniel (1998) conducted 3 meta-
analysis of service orientation measures. They found an average observed validity of .24;
after corrections for range restriction and criterion unreliability the mean validity was .50.
Also of interest was the lack of correlation between the service orientation measures and
cognitive ability (I = -.06). However, the service orientation measures were related to
agreeableness (t = .43), neuroticism (t = .3 7), and conscientiousness (t = .42).
Relationships with openness (t = .07) and extraversion (t = .07) were nearly nonexistent.
Similarly, Costa and McCrae (1995) found that the HPI’s service orientation measure
correlated with neuroticism, agreeableness, and conscientiousness. Finally, Mount,
Barrick, and Stewart (1998) conducted a small meta-analysis of Mount and Barrick’s
(1995) Personal Characteristics Inventory (PCI), an instrument based on the five factor
model. They found moderate validities for all of the Big 5 constructs with a criterion
composite assessing the quality of interactions with other, although they noted that
neuroticism (I = .14), agreeableness (t = .22), and conscientiousness (I = .23) were the
most important predictors. Together, these findings suggest that moderate validities can
be obtained with service orientation measures.

However, there are two points worth making about this research. First, the
observed validities in most studies are similar in magnitude to what is typically found in
personality research (i.e., [’3 < .30). Second, the meta-analysis conducted by Frei and

McDaniel (1998) was based on only a few proprietary tests (e.g., HPI service orientation

59

scale, PDI customer service inventory, McLellan & Paajanen, 1994) because there are (to
my knowledge) no non-proprietary instruments available. As a result, the vast majority
of these validation studies are unpublished and so I could not examine the methodology
of these studies in detail. For example, many of the studies may have used too small of a
sample size; examination of the HPI service orientation validation studies provided in the
manual (Hogan & Hogan, 1992) finds many studies contained less than 50 subjects.
Overall, it might be safest to conclude that service orientation measures demonstrate
moderate predictive validity, and that some personality constructs are related to service
behaviors more than others.

A second justification for using an integrated personality-SJT instrument is
because such an instrument strikes to the heart of the service experience. Specifically,
George and Jones (1991) describe a service experience within an interactionist model,
considering the relationship between the customer and service provider. As such, they
consider the service encounter as a gcial sim'on where the employee must identify
relevant situational and social cues to assess the needs and expectations of the customer,
and then to adapt his or her behavior to meet these expectations. Considered in this
manner, one would expect that an instrument that explicitly requires identification of
relevant situational cues to provide an appropriate behavioral response would be highly
predictive of customer service behavior.

To summarize, the prediction of customer service behaviors by identifying
individuals with a service orientation provides an opportunity to develop an instrument
where both situations and personality (i.e., their interaction) are important. By

integrating personality assessment with situational assessment, one brings together two

60

important features of service orientation: (a) the relationship between basic personality
and work behavior (i.e., providing customer service), and (b) the features of personality
(i.e., service orientation) that require identification of situational cues. Thus, the
situational nature of the integrated personality-SJT provides the relevant cues, and the
personality-linked behavioral responses provides the opportunity to allow adaptive
behavior to meet those expectations. Consider each of these components in detail.

First, perceptions of the service situation are influenced by characteristics in the
objective service situation and one’s standing on basic traits (i.e., service orientation).
The review of basic personality research suggests that it is the perceived (rather than the
objective) situation that is often most important for influencing behavior (e.g., Argyle et
al., 1981; Krahe, 1992; Mischel & Shoda, 1995; Wright & Mischel, 1987). Likewise, the
features of the objective situation that are attended to are influenced by one’s standing on
basic traits (e. g., Mischel & Shoda, 1995; 1998). Because providing customer service
occurs within a social situation (e.g., George & Jones, 1991) and requires the service
provider to identify important social and situational cues to meet the customer’s needs
(e. g., Schneider & Bowen, 1992; George & Jones, 1991), an individual’s standing on the
relevant Big 5 constructs (primarily neuroticism, agreeableness, and conscientiousness;
Hogan & Hogan, 1992; Hogan et al., 1984; Frei & McDaniel, 1998) should result in some
people more accurately identifying the important features of a given service situation.
Clearly, however, it is Vital for the proposed assessment method to contain job-relevant
and realistic situations. Only by providing situational information will it be possible for
individual differences in situational perception to be manifest, thereby leading to

individual differences in responses to situations.

61

Second, the enactment of a specific behavior versus some alternative behavior
should be jointly influenced by perceptions of the service situation, distal dispositions
(particularly neuroticism, agreeableness, and conscientiousness), and (to a lesser extent)
the objective service situation. Interactionist approaches to personality (e.g., see Krahe,
1992; McCrae & Costa, 1996; Mischel & Shoda, 1995; 1998) note the importance of
these interacting processes. Within the service context, one’s standing on the relevant
Big 5 traits (neuroticism, agreeableness, and conscientiousness) and perception of the
situation should jointly influence what type of behavior seems warranted or most
appropriate in the situation. Here the relationship between situation perception and traits
is important: one must perceive the service situation (i.e., identify important social and
situational features) and respond in an appropriate manner, but what is perceived as
important in the situation is partially dependent on one’s standing on personality traits.
Thus, the joint relationship between the perception of the service situation and one’s
service orientation are intertwined, and what is perceived (and how one responds) is
likely to be influenced by dispositions.

Note that for the remainder of this proposal, only three of the Big 5 constructs will

be examined: neurpticism, agteeahleness, ar_id coascientiousness. In addition, the

conscientiousness trait will be further broken down into achievement and dependability,
as suggested by Hough (1998). The reason for only examining neuroticism,
agreeableness, and conscientiousness is because previous research (see above) suggested
that a service orientation and the provision of customer service are primarily dependent
on these three constructs (e.g., Frei & McDaniel, 1998; Hogan et al., 1985). Similarly,

the reason that conscientiousness is broken down into achievement and dependability is

62

because research in personnel selection tends to show that traits narrower than the Big 5
are necessary to enhance prediction. Again, this does not contradict the fact that
compound traits (e. g., integrity) usually are more predictive, but rather suggests that if
one is going to use specific traits, one should use traits at a level slightly more narrow
than the Big 5 (Hough, 1998; Schneider & Hough, 1996). Thus, this dissertation takes
the more inclusive approach by considering both conscientiousness and its facets of
achievement and dependability.

Finally, the establishment of predictive validity should be enhanced by integrating
situational information with dispositional assessment because the contexts within which
one is most interested in predicting behavior (i.e., dealing with customers) are explicitly
incorporated into the selection instrument (Murtha et al., 1996). That is, responding to a
test is a sample of behavior (Anastasi & Urbina, 1997) and thus responding to the service
situation on a test should be an indicator (i.e., a sign) of actual customer service behavior.
Given that higher correlations are found for behaviors that occur in similar situations (see
Mischel & Shoda, 1995; Sheldon et al., 1997), predictive validity should be higher as
well.

Overall, the proposed instrument taps the key features of an interactionist
approach to personality assessment: (1) perception of the service situation, because the
individual is presented with various service encounters and must identify the important
features, and (2) customer service behaviors, because the individual must indicate the

type of behavioral response he or she would provide in a given situation.

63

Methods and Results

The following sections outline the development of a construct-oriented and
theoretically-derived measure of personality within customer service situations. Figure 3
shows an overview of the methodology. For the remainder of this paper, the proposed
instrument will be called the Dispositional-Situational Inventory (DSI). Before
describing the specific details of the proposed method, the primary goals of this research
should again be stated.

First, the DSI must provide a reasonable level of predictive validity for the
amount of effort expended in its development. At the very least, the DSI must
demonstrate predictive validities higher than traditional Big 5 tests. Second, the
instrument must still yield evidence of construct validity. The DSI is to be composed of
subscales that reflect specific Big 5 traits (i.e., neuroticism, agreeableness, achievement,
and dependability), and thus is able to be “mapped” back onto the more generic Big 5
taxonomy.

Please note that the DSI is designed to apply to most customer service situations
and to predict customer service behaviors in general. In fact, the instrument is designed
to be useful for all jobs that contain a major customer service component. Despite the
technical differences of various jobs, it is expected that to provide quality customer
service all individuals must demonstrate similar behaviors. This is consistent with
research by Parasuraman et al. (1985; 1988; see also Schneider & Bowen, 1995), who
examine general service quality dimensions, and George and Jones (1991), who suggest

that technical proficiency and service orientation are largely independent.

64

 

Phase 1: Define Criterion Domain
1.1 : Generate Behavioral Statements
2: Define Customer Service Domain
1.3: Retranslation of Customer Service Behaviors to Criterion Dimensions

 

 

 

ll

 

Phase 2: Define Situational Domain
2.1: Create situations that will provide discrimination in work behaviors

 

 

 

fl

 

Phase 3: Linking Customer Service Dimensions and Situations
3.1: Link situations to customer service dimensions
3.2: Link specific situations to specific customer service behaviors

 

 

 

ll

 

Phase 4: Ratings of Situations and Behavioral Response Options
4.1: Expert ratings of situations
4.2: Expert ratings of behavioral response options
4.3: Assess similarity of situational and behavioral ratings

 

 

 

ll

 

Phase 5: Assessing Construct Validity
5.1: Assess nature of performance domain
5.2: Development of DSI
5.3: Assess multitrait-multimethod matrix
5.4: Assess predictive validity

 

 

 

Figure 3. Overview of development methodology used in this study

65

Ca

“V."

hasel'Dfin ri ° Do'

In the development of any predictor construct, it is important to begin with a
detailed job analysis to provide an understanding of the performance domain (Guion,
1998; Schneider & Schmitt, 1986; SIOP Principles, 1987). As noted elsewhere (e.g.,
Campbell, McCloy, Oppler, & Sager, 1993), performance behavior is the behavior of key
interest, and thus it seems appropriate to conclude that predictors derive their importance
from criteria (Wallace, 1965). This may particularly be important in the development of
non-cognitive predictors, as these predictors are more likely to be tied to a particular type
of job than ability constructs (Murphy, 1996). Furthermore, Guion (1991) notes the
importance of carefully defining the performance domain and using that definition to set
the boundaries for predictor development.

Thus, the development of the DSI must begin with a careful specification of the
performance domain. Here, the identification of tasks and behaviors are used to define
the customer service domain and thus create the major dimensions of customer service
performance. Again, the focus is not on a specific job but rather on a set of behaviors
related to customer service in general. However, before collecting empirical data, past
research on customer service performance was reviewed. This research is discussed in
the following section. The remaining sections in Phase 1 ensure that these dimensions do
in fact cover the entire customer service performance domain.

Past Resegch pa Castpmg Servige Perfprmance. A review of the applied
psychology and marketing literatures overwhelming suggested that the customer service

performance domain was best assessed by a basic set of criterion dimensions established

66

with the Service Quality (SERVQUAL) instrument (Parasuraman et al., 1988). I thus
focus primarily on this instrument.

Parasuraman et al. (1985) conducted focus groups and interviews with managers
from four service organizations (i.e., retail banking, credit card, securities brokerage, and
product repair and maintenance), as well as with customers who use those services.
These individuals were asked to report key behaviors and practices that individuals and
organizations could provide to influence perceptions of customer service (i.e.,
organization and job specific behaviors were not excluded fiom their analysis). These
reports were then summarized and collapsed into 10 categories (shown in Table 2). As
can be seen by the table, some of the dimensions appear to be more relevant to customer
service behavior than others. Research conducted since the development of the
SERVQUAL dimensions (e.g., Parasuraman, Zeithaml, & Berry, 1988; 1991) has
reduced the number of dimensions to five: tangibles, reliability, responsiveness,
assurance (combination of communication, credibility, security, competence, and
courtesy items), and empathy (items mainly from understanding customers scale). This

reduction was based on factor analytic results in several samples.

67

 

 

a le t m 'c Behavi t om Parasuraman t al.
985
Dimension Definition Examples
Reliability consistency of performance and o keeping records correctly
dependability o performing the service at the
designated time
Responsiveness willingness or readiness of a mailing a transaction slip
employees to provide service; immediately
timeliness 0f SCI'ViCC o calling a customer back
quickly
0 giving prompt service
Competence possession of required skills and 0 knowledge and skill of contact
knowledge to perform the personnel
SCTViCC 0 knowledge and skill of support
personnel
Access approachability and ease of 0 service is easily accessible
contact 0 waiting time to receive service
is not excessive
Courtesy politeness, respect, 0 consideration of customer’s
consideration, and friendliness of property
contact 0 clean and neat appearance
Communication keeping customers informed in o explaining the service
language they can understand 0 explaining cost of the service
311d listening to them. Adjust o explaining possible trade-offs
language for different customers. of the service
0 assuring the customer the
service will be handled
correctly
Credibility trustworthiness, believability, a degree of hard sell used
honesty. Keeping the customers 0 appearance of expertise
best interests at heart
Security freedom from danger or risk 0 physical safety
0 financial security
0 confidentiality
Understanding making the effort to understand 0 le the customers specific
the customer the customer’s needs requirements
0 providing individual attention
0 recognizing the regular
customer

Tangibles

physical evidence of service

68

appearance of service provider
other customers in the setting
characteristics of the product

Overall, the SERVQUAL instrument (Parasuraman et al., 1988) has been perhaps
the most widely used measure of its kind (Lewis & Mitchell, 1990). Furthermore, the
dimensions identified by Parasuraman et al. (1985) appear to be endorsed by most
individuals who research customer service (e.g., George & Jones, 1991; Lewis &
Mitchell, 1990; Parasuraman et al., 1988; Schneider & Bowen, 1995). However, to
further ensure the dimensions on the SERVQUAL instrument capture the nature of
customer service, criteria identified in other research was also considered. Specifically,
Hogan et al. (1985) note that customer service requires three behaviors: treating
customers with tact, courtesy, and consideration; perceptiveness to customer needs; and
providing accurate and pleasant communication. Similarly, the meta-analysis conducted
by Frei and McDaniel (1998), building from the development of PDI’s Servicefirst
Inventory (Fogli & Whitney, 1991), considered customer service to be composed of four
dimensions: active customer relations, polite customer relations, helpful customer
relations, and personalized customer relations. They further suggest that, across studies,
customer service may be composed of fiiendliness, reliability, responsiveness, and
courteousness. Thus, I have integrated these factors into the original SERVQUAL
dimensions (which is why there is one additional dimension, communication). Table 3
shows the dimensions that remain after integrating the customer service research noted
here with the revised SERVQUAL dimensions identified by Parasuraman et al. (1988;

1991).

69

 

Dimension

Definition

Examples of behavior
taken from items

 

Tangibles

Reliability

Responsiveness

Assurance

Perceptiveness

Communication

Physical facilities, equipment,
and appearance of personnel

Ability to perform the promised
service dependably and
accurately

Willingness to help customers
and provide prompt service

Courtesy of employees and their
ability to inspire trust and
confidence

Caring, individualized attention
to customer’s needs and
expectations

keeping customers informed in
language they can understand
and listening to them. Adjust

language for different customers.

Accurate and pleasant
communication.

up to date equipment
appealing physical facilities
service provider’s appearance
appropriate and neat
appearance of physical
facilities appropriate for the
service provided

keeps promises

dependable

provides service within the
time promised

keeps accurate records

does not tell customers when
service will be performed
receive prompt service from
employee

willing to help customers
respond to customer request
promptly

trustworthy

safe

polite

supportive

using tact and consideration
courteous interaction
sympathetic and reassuring
give personal attention

know customer’s needs
understands customer’s needs
has customer’s best interests at
heart

explaining the service
explaining cost of the service
explaining possible trade-offs
of the service

assuring the customer the
service will be handled
correctly

pleasant communication
providirg accurate information

 

7O

The six dimensions in Table 3 provide a starting point for defining the customer
service performance domain. Although these dimensions are based on considerable
research (Frei & McDaniel, 1998; Hogan etal., 1984; Parasuraman et al., 1985; 1988),
they may not be complete. In an effort to ensure these dimensions were not deficient,
customer service employees were interviewed to generate specific task and behavioral
statements, both with and without reference to the six criterion dimensions shown in
Table 3. The gathering of this information is discussed next.

Step 1.1: Generate behaviogl statements. Participants with customer service
experience were recruited from upper level psychology classes to describe common tasks
and give behavioral examples (both good and bad) of providing customer service.
Requirements for participation were that the individual had worked at least ‘/2 time in a
customer service job for at least six months. A total of 12 participants provided examples
of customer service behaviors (more participants were not used because the behavioral
statements quickly became redundant with those already recorded). This sample was
mainly young (M = 21 years), female (75%), and White (66%). They were also very
experienced with customer service, as the median number of months experience was 81
months (note that many individuals worked two jobs simultaneously yet reported the
months on each job separately, so this figure may be slightly inflated).

After first describing what was meant by the term “customer service behavior,”
individuals were asked to generate behavioral examples of providing customer service
that they engaged in on their many jobs. These sessions lasted between 2-3 hours, and
participants were run either individually or in small groups. The behaviors were elicited

in two ways. First, participants were asked to freely generate the types of behaviors they

71

engaged in on their jobs. After exhausting these behaviors, they were then shown the
customer service dimensions and asked to generate behaviors to reflect these dimensions.
Overall, a total of 348 behavioral statements were elicited, and thus became the content of
the criterion domain.

Step 1.2: Deme customer smice dentain. After identifying the relevant
customer service behaviors, the next step involved classifying these behaviors into
distinct categories. Although the revised SERVQUAL dimensions (i.e., tangibles,
reliability, responsiveness, assurance, perceptiveness, and communication; see Table 3)
were used as an initial guide, examination of the behaviors showed many inadequacies
with these dimensions. For example, there were many behaviors that suggested one
needed to work closely with coworkers to provide quality service. Similarly, there were
many behaviors that involved maintaining a professional image even though one was not
immediately involved with a customer. Finally, many behaviors involved staying current
and maintaining competencies with products and services. Some of these behaviors (e. g.,
remaining current with knowledge about new products) were originally included in the
SERVQUAL instrument (Parasuraman et al., 1985) but were later dropped (Parasuraman
et al., 1988; 1991). It became clear, however, that the dimensions identified in the
SERVQUAL instrument were deficient and more dimensions would be necessary.

Rather than simply create dimensions fi'om behavioral statements, a more
theoretically oriented approach was taken to ensure the criterion dimensions would be
applicable to most (if not all) customer service jobs. Specifically, the performance
taxonomy described by Campbell et al. (1993, 1996) and the contextual performance

dimensions identified by Borman and Motowidlo (1997) were integrated with the

72

 

 

dimensions shown in Table 3 (note that the “competence” dimension from the original
SERVQUAL instrument was also included, as suggested by the behavioral statements).
Definitions of the performance dimensions from each taxonomy are presented in Table 4.
As shown in the table, the revised customer service dimensions appear to reflect aspects
of both the Campbell et a1. (1993; 1996) and contextual performance (e.g., Borman &
Motowidlo, 1997) taxonomies, although the dimensions from these different taxonomies
are not entirely identical. Thus, it seemed reasonable to integrate these taxonomies to
create a complete picture of the customer service performance domain.

Integrating these taxonomies was a rational exercise conducted by the author. A
figure mapping these taxonomies onto each other is shown in Figure 4, and the final
definitions of each dimension are shown in Table 5. Note that in Figure 4, solid boxes
indicate constructs actually measured and dashed boxes indicate constructs in the original
taxonomy but not directly measured. Solid lines indicate conceptual relations between
constructs, and dashed lines indicate instances where the constructs were so similar that
they were combined into a single dimension (to be discussed shortly). As can be seen in
Figure 4 and Table 5, some dimensions (e. g., “reliability” and “demonstrating extra
effort”) are very similar conceptually (and will likely be empirically indistinguishable).
However, before integrating the performance taxonomies it was decided that it would be
better to be overly inclusive than to leave out important dimensions or ignore potentially
important differences between dimensions. Thus, there are some dimensions that are
only slightly different conceptually (e.g., maintaining personal discipline and following
organizational rules) but were nonetheless kept distinct for defining the criterion domain

and developing the DSI.

73

le4. "l rmcD' ioD ”n

1. Wear: degree to which the individual can perform the core
important/technical tasks that are central to his or her job in your organization.

2. Non-jab specific task prefleieney: degree to which the individual can perform the
core substantive /technical tasks that are important all jobs (for example, waiting on

tables, attending to customer needs).

. WW: Proficiency to be able to write/Speak in an

appropriate manner.

U)

4. Demonstrating effort: expending extra effort when asked; continuing to work even
under difficult/adverse conditions; working late; maintaining a high level of intensity;
extending extra effort when demands are high (for example, when store is very busy).

. Maintfl' 'ng pegonal eiseipline: minimization of negative behaviors such as
absenteeism, tardiness, showing up to work drunk/hung over, substance abuse at

work, rule/policy violations, or theft are avoided.

. Eacilitating peer and team per_f'ermance: degree to which the individual supports his
or her peers; helps them with problems, and acts as a trainer for employees. Also

includes how well the individual helps the group/coworkers fimction, keeping the
group/coworkers goal-directed; and reinforcing participation by the other group
members/coworkers.

(II

0‘

7. Supervision/leadgslp'p: extent to which person behaves in ways to influence
employees through face-to-face interactions; tries to set goals for employees; teaching
effective methods to employees; demonstrate appropriate behaviors; reward or punish
behaviors appropriately. This dimension differs from number 6 (the previous
dimension) because it focuses on the supervision of employees, not of
peers/coworkers.

8. MW: extent to which individual is capable of organizing
people/resources; articulating goals; monitoring progress; helping to resolve
problems/crises that that stand in the way of goal accomplishment; controlling
expenses; obtaining additional resources; representing the organization or company.

74

Table 4 (cont’d).
B rm towidlo 199 ontextual Performance axono

l. Persisting with enthusiasm and extra effort as necessary to complete one’s own task
activities (for example, showing perseverance and conscientiousness).

2. Volunteering to carry out task activities that are not formally part of one’s own job
(for example, suggesting organizational improvements; showing initiative and taking
on extra responsibility).

3. Helping and cooperating with other coworkers/managers (for example, assisting or
helping coworkers/customers; exhibiting organizational courtesy and not
complaining; evidencing altruism).

4. Following organizational rules and procedures (for example, following orders and
regulations; showing respect for authority; complying with company values and
policies; meeting deadlines; showing civic virtue).

5. Endorsing, supporting, and defending organizational objectives (exhibiting
organizational loyalty; showing concern for company/workgroup objectives; staying
with the organization during hard times; representing the organization favorably to
outsiders).

Revised SERVQUAL Dimensions

1. Tangibles/Appearance: this dimension reflects both the physical appearance of the
store and of the service provider.

2. Reliabiligt: performing the promised service dependably and accurately; keeping
promises; providing services on time; keeping accurate records.

3. Responsiveness: willingness to help customers and provide prompt service; telling
customers when service will be performed; responding to customers promptly.

4. Assurance: courtesy of employees; inspiration of trust and confidence in customer;
safe and polite behavior; supportive; use of tact and consideration; courteous;
sympathetic and reassuring.

5. Perceptiveness: individualized attention to customer’s needs and expectations;
knowing and identifying customer’s needs; keeping customer’s best interests at heart.

6. Qommunicatien: using language the customer can understand/listen to; adjust
language for different customers/needs; pleasant communication; providing accurate
information; explaining costs/benefits of service; telling customer the service will be
correctly handled.

75

i336°specitic§
: task
proficiency 5
8888888888838888:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

. Non-job E Responsive Assurance Perceptive Competence
Especific task;
iproficiencyi
Comm. ’
Demonstrat. Persisting Reliability
effort """"" with extra
effort
Maintain Tangibles
personal
discipline
Facilitate Helping/
peer/team ''''''' cooperation
Supervision
administion
Volunteer
for non-task
gtifltjes
Follow
organization
massage—s
Support &
defend the
company

 

 

 

Figure 4. Mapping of performance taxonomies. Solid boxes indicate measured

constructs. Solid lines indicate conceptual relations, and dashed lines indicate instances

where the constructs were combined into a single dimension.

76

T 1 Revi ed t ted P o ance Dimen i 11 Definitions

1. T 'bl s/A : this dimension reflects nonverbal behaviors that maintain or
enhance both the physical appearance of the store and the personal appearance of the
service provider (for example, correct dress/hair, smiling, maintaining eye contact).

E"

Reliabilig: performing the promised service dependably and accurately; maintaining
consistent behavior with customer; keeping promises to customers; providing services
on time; keeping accurate records.

5"

Responsiveness: willingness or readiness to help customers and provide prompt
service; telling customers when service will be performed; responding to customers
promptly.

4. Assurance: courtesy of employee; inspiration of trust and confidence in customer;
safe and polite behavior; supportive; use of tact and consideration; courteous; patient;
respectful; sympathetic and reassuring; suggesting alternatives; providing options;
explaining costs/benefits of service; telling customer the service will be correctly
handled; providing accurate information.

kit

. Perceptiveness: individualized attention to customer’s needs and expectations;
knowing and identifying customer’s needs; keeping customer’s best interests at heart;
recognizing the regular customer; learning the customer’s specific requirements.

6. Communication (verbal): using language the customer can understand/listen to;
adjust language for different customers/needs; pleasant communication.

7. Competence: possession of the required knowledge and skills to perform the service;
staying current with new product developments; being knowledgeable about the
features of products; staying current with new developments in the field.

00

. Demonstrating extra effort: expending extra effort when asked; continuing to work
‘even under difficult/adverse conditions; working late; maintaining a high level of
intensity; ; persisting with enthusiasm; extending extra effort when demands are high
(for example, when store is very busy).

9. Maintaining personal diseipline: minimization of negative behaviors such as
absenteeism, tardiness, showing up to work drunk/hung over, substance abuse at
work, theft, are avoided.

10. Facilitating peer and team performance: degree to which the individual supports his
or her peers; helps and assists coworkers’ with their problems/job duties; cooperates
with coworkers (for example, exhibits altruism); acts as a trainer for peers/coworkers.
Also includes how well the individual helps the group/coworkers function, keeping
the group/coworkers goal-directed; and reinforcing participation by the other group
members/coworkers.

77

Table 5 (cont’d).

ll.

12.

l3.

14.

15.

Mariam: extent to which person behaves in ways to influence
employees through face-to-face interactions; tries to set goals for employees; teaching
effective methods to employees; demonstrate appropriate behaviors; reward or punish
behaviors appropriately. This dimension differs from number 10 (the previous
dimension) because it focuses on the supervision of employees, not of
peers/coworkers.

ManagemenUatministratiop: extent to which individual is capable of organizing
people/resources; articulating goals; monitoring progress; helping to resolve
problems/crises that that stand in the way of goal accomplishment; controlling
expenses; obtaining additional resources.

Veluntemp' g: Volunteering to carry out task activities that are not formally part of
one’s own job (for example, suggesting organizational improvements; showing
initiative and taking on extra responsibility).

Fellewing cetnpany pelicies: Following organizational rules and procedures (for
example, following orders and regulations; showing respect for authority; complying
with company values and policies; meeting deadlines; showing civic virtue).

Defending me epmpgty: Endorsing, supporting, and defending organizational
objectives (exhibiting organizational loyalty; showing concern for
company/workgroup objectives; staying with the organization during hard times;
representing the organization favorably to outsiders).

78

Alternatively, some dimensions were dropped or combined because they were
conceptually indistinguishable. First, the “job-specific task proficiency” dimension was
excluded because the purpose of this project was to define a performance domain
applicable to most (if not all) customer service jobs. Second, the “non-job specific task
proficiency dimension was dropped because it was largely reflected in the revised
SERVQUAL dimensions (e.g., assurance). Third, the “written/oral communication
dimension from the Campbell et al. (1993; 1996) taxonomy was combined with the
“communication” dimension from the original SERVQUAL instrument. Fourth, the
“demonstrating effort” dimension from the Campbell et al. taxonomy was combined with
the “persisting with enthusiasm and extra effort” dimension fiom the contextual
performance taxonomy. Finally, the “facilitating peer and team performance” dimension
was combined with the “helping/cooperation” dimension. Please see Campbell et a1.
(1996) for a discussion of the overlap between these dimensions.

Overall, there are 15 performance dimensions that reflect aspects of the
SERVQUAL (Parasuraman et al., 1988), Campbell et al. (1993; 1996), and contextual
performance (Borman & Motowidlo, 1997) taxonomies. As a final check, the fifteen
dimensions were reviewed by two individuals familiar with the performance taxonomies
and both agreed that the dimensions looked reasonable. These dimensions should
provide an exhaustive coverage of the customer service performance domain. The next
step was to assign specific customer service behaviors to each customer service

dimension.

 

Two raters took the original 348 behavioral statements and assigned each to a criterion

79

dimension. Analysis of these classifications found 70% agreement. After discussing
their differences and re-evaluating the statements, agreement reached 96% (remaining
disagreement was resolved by the author). The behavioral statements clustered into the
15 criterion dimensions are shown in Appendix A. Most behavioral statements are
clustered within the original SERVQUAL dimensions. Note, however, the relatively
large number of statements clustered within the “maintaining personal discipline” and
“facilitating peer and team performance” dimensions. Also notice that only one behavior
was classified into the “volunteering” dimension. Although this dimension could
probably be dropped, it is included because of its more general theoretical importance
(e.g., Borman & Motowidlo, 1998).

Overall, the behaviors classified into dimensions in Appendix A comprise the
customer service performance domain. However, as will be further described in Step 3.1
below , when trying to link situations to these behaviors it became apparent that even the
15 criterion dimensions were too broad for concretely linking situations to behaviors. To
facilitate the linking process, 26 sub-dimensions were created across the 15 dimensions,
resulting in a total of 34 dimensions. For example, the “tangibles” dimension is firrther

99 6"

broken down into “professional appearance, Impression management,” and “work area
and product appearance” sub-dimensions. The specific definitions for these dimensions

and sub-dimensions are presented in Table 6.

8O

Table 6. Perfprmance Dimgsien Ed Snpdimension Definitiens

l. Tangibles/Appearance: nonverbal behaviors that maintain or enhance both the
physical appearance of the store and the personal appearance of the service provider
(for example, correct dress/hair, smiling, maintaining eye contact).

a) Professional Appearance: maintain a professional appearance
b) Impression Management: give customer appropriate impressions; give
fiiendly and pleasant appearance; maintaining eye contact with the customer

c) Work Area and Pregiuet Appearance: maintain clean and neat work area,
maintain clean and neat product appearance

2. Reliability: performing the promised service dependably and accurately; maintaining
consistent behavior with customer; keeping promises to customers; providing services
on time; keeping accurate records.

a) Perform Consistently: maintain constant performance/behavior with customer
b) Promises: keep promises made to customer
c) Record Keeping: maintain necessary customer documentation

3. Responsiveness: willingness or readiness to help customers and provide prompt
service; telling customers when service will be performed; responding to customers
promptly.

a) Acknowledgment: let customers know that you are aware of them

b) Promptness: respond to customers quickly; keep them informed that you are
trying to provide prompt service

c) Responding to Rmuests: manner in which employee responds to customers
requests or inquiries

4. Assurance: courtesy of employee; inspiration of trust and confidence in customer;
safe and polite behavior; supportive; use of tact and consideration; courteous; patient;
respectful; sympathetic and reassuring; suggesting alternatives; providing options;
explaining costs/benefits of service; telling customer the service will be correctly
handled; providing accurate information.

a) Suggestions/Altematives: provides customer with different options, alternatives,
and comparisons

b) compensation: if there is a problem or mistake, employee provides the customer
with some form of compensation

c) Demonstrating Value: employee provides customers with information that shows
the value of product features or options

d) Explaining Service: employee explains the service process thoroughly as well as
future service needs

e) W2 providing adequate pressure on customer to make a purchase;
not to little or too excessive; exhibit patience with customer

f) Eolite/Qourtesy/Respect: treating customer in respectful and courteous manner

g) Henesty/Truthfulness: providing customer with accurate and honest information

h) Empathy/ Sympathy: be sympathetic towards his/her needs or situation

81

Table 6 (cont’d).

5. Eerceptiveness: individualized attention to customer’s needs and expectations;

10.

knowing and identifying customer’s needs; keeping customer’s best interests at heart;

recognizing the regular customer; learning the customer’s specific requirements.

a) Anticipation: identification and use of customer cues; handling customer requests
before the customer has to ask

b) Identification of anal Intomation: employee tries to learn and use personal
information about customer

c) mestioning: asks appropriate and helpful questions

d) Customer F fig: handling the customer’s needs in a personalized manner;
keeping relationships with regular customers

Communication lvgbal): using language the customer can understand/listen to;
adjust language for different customers/needs; pleasant communication.
a) Personal ____C____ommunication: speaks with the customer in a personalized manner

b) Appropriate Commnnication: provides the appropriate tone, type, content, and
amount of communication.

Competence possession of the required knowledge and skills to perform the service,
staying current with new product developments; being knowledgeable about the
features of products; staying current with new developments in the field.

Dmonstrating extra effort: expending extra effort when asked; continuing to work
even under difficult/adverse conditions; working late; maintaining a high level of
intensity; ; persisting with enthusiasm; extending extra effort when demands are high
(for example, when store is very busy).

Maintg'ning personal oiscipline: minimization of negative behaviors such as

absenteeism, tardiness, showing up to work drunk/hung over, substance abuse at

work, theft, are avoided.

a) Composure: maintaining personal composure under adverse conditions or
stressful situations

b) Social Consioeration: acting appropriately and professionally when in the
presence of customers

c) Work Focus: behaving in ways that contribute to doing one’s job, avoiding non-
task behaviors

nglitating peer and team performance: degree to which the individual supports his
or her peers; helps and assists coworkers’ with their problems/job duties; cooperates
with coworkers (for example, exhibits altruism); acts as a trainer for peers/coworkers.
Also includes how well the individual helps the group/coworkers fimction, keeping
the group/coworkers goal-directed; and reinforcing participation by the other group
members/coworkers.

82

Table 6 (cont’d).

ll.

12.

l3.

14.

15.

Snpervision/leaolership: extent to which person behaves in ways to influence
employees through face-to-face interactions; tries to set goals for employees; teaching
effective methods to employees; demonstrate appropriate behaviors; reward or punish
behaviors appropriately. This dimension differs fiom number 10 (the previous
dimension) because it focuses on the supervision of employees, not of
peers/coworkers.

Management/administration: extent to which individual is capable of organizing
people/resources; articulating goals; monitoring progress; helping to resolve
problems/crises that that stand in the way of goal accomplishment; controlling
expenses; obtaining additional resources.

Volunteering: Volunteering to carry out task activities that are not formally part of
one’s own job (for example, suggesting organizational improvements; showing
initiative and taking on extra responsibility).

Following company policies: Following organizational rules and procedures (for
example, following orders and regulations; showing respect for authority; complying
with company values and policies; meeting deadlines; showing civic Virtue).

Defending the company: Endorsing, supporting, and defending organizational
objectives (exhibiting organizational loyalty; showing concern for
company/workgroup objectives; staying with the organization during hard times;
representing the organization favorably to outsiders).

83

These more specific dimensions were created rationally by the author, and then
classified within dimension by two raters (the same two who conducted the previous
ratings). The agreement for the classification of behaviors to sub-dimensions was 90%,
with all remaining classifications mutually resolved. Thus, there are 15 customer service
criterion dimensions and 26 sub—dimensions, for a total of 34 criterion dimensions. One
may conceptualize these sub-dimensions as “items” comprising a “scale” for the
particular performance dimension.

Parenthetically, it might be noted that the criterion dimensions developed in this
study are almost identical to those developed by Paajanen, Hansen, and McLellan (1993)
in the development of PDI’s Customer Service Inventory, a measure of customer service.
What is noteworthy about this similarity is that the criterion dimensions developed in the
present study were based on specific customer service behaviors that were mapped onto
three conceptual criterion frameworks. The Paaj anen et al. (1993) customer service
inventory is based on a lengthy development with several studies and research samples,
but without reference to any kind of theoretical performance taxonomy. The similarity
between these two criterion domains lends support that the present study’s criterion
domain is adequately covered because this similarity was not discovered until M the
present study’s criterion domain was specified.

Given that the customer service criterion domain was now defined, the next series
of steps involved identifying actual customer service situations that employees faced in a

number of customer service contexts (e.g., retail, waiter/waitress, bank, receptionist).

84

 

Building fi'om the types of behaviors important for effective customer service, one
may now identify situations that reflect these behaviors. Stated differently, it is important
to provide situations that will allow variability in the types of behavioral responses shown
(e.g., Mischel, 1977; Wright & Mischel, 1987). Strong situations (where everyone must
behave the same way) will clearly not allow for individual differences in a given
personality construct (Mischel, 1977). Thus, this phase seeks to identify relevant work-
related situations where individual differences may be manifest.

Based on the literature cited earlier, it is apparent that the psychological situation
is more closely linked to behavior than the objective situation (Krahe, 1992). Thus, the
types and features of situations may be derived in terms of the situations that individuals
find important and meaningful. Unfortunately, an adequate taxonomy or model of
situations does not exist (F rederiksen, 1972), and most typically researchers derive or
define situations in terms of their relevance to a particular behavioral domain (e. g., Endler
et al., 1962; Murtha et al., 1996; Shoda, Mischel, & Wright, 1993; Wright & Mischel
1987)

Such an approach was used here and is based loosely on research by Shoda et al.
(1993) and Wright and Mischel (1987). In those studies, participants identified behaviors
relevant to a particular construct of interest (and thus behavioral domains). Next,
participants were asked to describe situations where the behaviors relevant to a particular
domain are most likely to be observed. This approach basically links the information
obtained during the criterion development phase to situations, yet these researchers do not

explicitly discuss their method in these terms. However, for all practical purposes they

85

are identical; the primary difference being that different groups of subject matter experts

were used in this study to generate situations and behaviors.

 

Participants with customer service experience were recruited fiom upper level
psychology classes to give examples of customer service situations. Requirements for
participation were that the individual had worked at least ‘/z time in a customer service job
for at least six months. A total of 26 participants provided examples of customer service
situations (more participants were not used because the situations became redundant with
those already recorded). This sample was mainly young (M = 21 years), female (73%),
and White (85%). They were very experienced with customer service, as the median
number of months experience was 111 months (note that many individuals worked two
jobs simultaneously yet reported the months on each job separately, so this figure may be
inflated). Overall, this sample was very experienced with providing customer service.
After first describing what was meant by the terms “customer service” and
“customer service situation,” individuals were asked to generate situations that they faced
on their jobs. In particular, they were asked to think of situations that were (I) frequent
and common, (2) difficult or challenging to handle, and (3) important. The reason for
choosing situations that were difficult or challenging was based on the fact that only
some situations are likely to exhibit variance in particular behaviors. For example,
Mischel’s (1977) notion of strong and weak situations would indicate that weak situations
for a particular behavior would be more likely to lead to individual differences in that
behavior. Situations that are psychologically demanding should be most likely to lead to

individual differences; this is the basis of the competency-demand hypothesis (Shoda et

86

al., 1993) and Argyle et al.’s (1981) notion of situation difficulty. The competency-
demand hypothesis suggests that, when situations are psychologically taxing, those with
fewer requisite competencies should be less likely to adequately meet the demands of the
situation (as opposed to those with greater competencies). One may consider this
hypothesis in terms of classical measurement theory; situations that are demanding allow
discrimination between those high and low on a trait. One would expect that more
psychologically demanding situations would find more variability in the choice of a
particular (correct) behavioral response. In contrast, situations that place few demands on
one’s psychological competencies should result in little discrimination for a particular
trait, and thus people of high and low values for that trait should be equally likely to
choose the correct response. Overall, the goal was to generate actual work situations
where individual differences in a given trait would be manifest by actual differences in
behavior.

The experimental sessions lasted between 2-3 hours, and participants were run
either as individuals or in small groups. The situations were elicited in two ways. First,
participants were asked to freely generate the types of situations they faced on their jobs.
After exhausting these examples, they were then shown the customer service dimensions
and asked to generate difficult or challenging situations to reflect these dimensions.
Overall, a total of 407 situations were elicited, although many of these situations were
very similar. These situations thus became the universe of customer service situations

from which the test situations were sampled.

87

Phge 2: Linking Customer Sm'oe Dimmsions ano Sitnations

With the elements within the customer service behavioral and situational domains
generated, the next task involved linking the two domains together. This step formed the
development of the basic content of the DSI test items (i.e., situation) and responses (i.e.,
behavior).

Step 3.1; Linking situations to customer service dimensions. The first linking
step involved linking situations to the 15 behavioral dimensions (and 26 sub-dimensions).
Specifically, the purpose of this step was to link each situation to a behavior most
required or relevant for that situation. For example, consider a situation such as

“You are talking to a customer on the phone and have many other customers

waiting on different phone lines. Suddenly, a customer in the store approaches

99

you.

The behavior that might be most relevant for this situation is “acknowledge
customers who are waiting,” which is a behavior within the “acknowledgement”
subdimension of “responsiveness.” This situation clearly does not require a behavior
such as “learns features of new products as they become available,” which is a
“competency” behavior. Thus, this situation would be linked to the “acknowledgement”
subdimension in general and the specific behavior of “acknowledge customers who are
waiting.”

To provide these classifications, the author first prepared a preliminary
classification of situations to behaviors. The reason the author conducted this step alone
was because many of the situations were very similar or redundant with other situations,

and since the author was very familiar with each of these situations it was easier for him

88

 

to provide the preliminary classification. This initial and preliminary classification
resulted in 206 situations that were linked to a behavior and category. The other 201
situations were either judged to be redundant, too long or confusing, or potentially
offensive.

After this preliminary classification, two individuals were given the task of
assigning each situation to a specific behavioral dimension or subdimension. The initial
agreement for these two individuals was 76%, with follow-up discussion for the
remaining classifications resulting in a final agreement of 89%. The main cause for
disagreement resulted when multiple behaviors could be relevant to a particular situation.
In instances where the raters could not agree, the author made all final classifications.
However, in all instances the author reviewed the ratings made by the raters to check
whether the ratings made sense rationally. This initial linking of situations and customer

service dimensions is shown in Appendix B.

 

After the raters had classified the 206 situations to a particular dimension or sub-
dimension, the author then linked each situation in a dimension to a specific behavior
within each dimension or sub-dimension. Since the behaviors within a dimension were
very similar, and the situations linked to a dimension were also similar, this step was
relatively easy to perform. However, some small editing or changes to either the
behavior or situation were sometimes necessary to make these two parts make sense.
Once this step was complete, the author constructed the behavioral response options.
Specifically, the behavioral response options were created rationally and written

to reflect a range of the specific customer service behavior within a given situation

89

(Appendix C shows the responses written for each situation). For example, the situation
“It is a very hot day and you would like to wear shorts to work. Although wearing shorts
is not against the company dress code, your manager prefers that employees wear pants.
What might you do on days when it is hot?” (situation 1 in Appendix C) was linked to
behavior “wear appropriate type of clothing” in the “tangibles” dimension. The response
options were then written to reflect a range of this type of behavior in this specific
situation:

A) Wear pants all of the time and never wear shorts

B) Wear pants most of the time and rarely wear shorts

C) Wear pants and shorts about the same amount of time

D) Wear shorts most of the time and rarely wear pants

E) Wear Shorts all of the time and never wear pants

Each of the behaviors in the other situations were written in a similar manner.
The complete list of these situations and response options is shown in Appendix C. In
some instances the behaviors and situations were slightly reworded to make the situation
and corresponding behaviors more similar, but the original content and meaning of both
the situation and behavior were unchanged. Once this step was completed, the initial
content of the DSI was complete. The following steps focus on refining the instrument
for administration.
Phge 4: Rating of Situations and Behavioral Response thions
In this phase, the primary concern is to have experts rate the situations and
behavioral response options for their relevance to the personality constructs most

important for providing customer service: neuroticism, agreeableness, dependability, and

achievement (e.g., Frei & McDaniel, 1998; Hogan et al., 1984).

90

 

4.1: Ra ' of i ti . The situational ratings were conducted with the
ultimate goal of assigning to each situation one specific personality trait most “taxed” or
required for handling the situation. The situational ratings were made by three graduate
students familiar with personality research and the five factor model. Each individual
read each situation and made two judgments. First, each situation was judged for its
relevance to customer service contexts. Second, each situation was judged for its
relevance to a particular personality construct (i.e., neuroticism, agreeableness,
dependability, or achievement). That is, each individual rated each situation in terms of
which personality trait would be most required to effectively handle that situation. Stated
differently, the raters’ task was to assess which personality trait was most “taxed” by each
situation. The following rating scale was used:

1 = Completely irrelevant: the trait is completely unnecessary for handling the situation
2 = Barely relevant: the situation weakly requires the trait, but other traits are more
important

3 = Moderately relevant: the situation requires the trait, but other traits are equally
important

4 = Very relevant: the situation requires the trait, and other traits are less important

5 = Extremely relevant: the situation could not be handled without the trait

The raters were then given a description of each trait, with high and low

manifestations of the trait, as a guide. These definitions are shown in Appendix D and
were drawn from several recent definitions (e.g., Hough, 1998; Hogan & Shelton, 1998;
McCrae & Costa, 1992). These raters were also given several practice situations to rate
to ensure they were all providing ratings in a similar fashion. Note that these individuals
focused solely on the situations and did not consider the behavioral response options.

The data that resulted from these ratings was thus continuous for each personality

trai t. For each situation, the ratings from the three raters were averaged for each

91

personality trait. This resulted in a total of 824 ratings (i.e., 4 personality ratings for each
of the 206 situations). Because the ratings were continuous for each trait, the estimation
of categorical indices of agreement (e.g., kappa) was not appropriate. On the other hand,
having only three raters precluded the use of variance component models (e.g.,
generalizability theory) or estimates of within-group agreement (e.g., ng requires at least
10 subjects). Thus, a rational approach to assessing agreement was required. This
rational approach first required ratings for each trait for each situation to be averaged
across the three raters, and the standard deviation was computed (it might be noted that
the standard deviation has been recommended as an alternative to ng estimates). Given
this basic data, the following criteria were used to decide whether sufficient agreement
existed between ratings to warrant the assignment of one specific personality trait to a

given situation:

1. The construct with the highest mean (and relatively low standard deviation)
was kept

There were no constructs with mean ratings closer than .5

There were no ties

we

These criteria were chosen because they provided the best compromise between
keeping items in the pool and keeping items where the raters could agree on a particular
construct. If a situation met these three criteria, it remained in the item pool and was
assigned to a particular personality construct. For example, consider the following

situation and ratings:

92

“You work as a waiter/waitress. As you are delivering food to a customer, you
notice your shirt is no longer tucked into your pants (which is required by
company policy). Your manager is looking directly at you. What do you do?

Neuroticism: Mean = 4.33, SD = 1.15
Agreeableness Mean = 2.00, SD = 1.73
Dependability Mean = 4.33, SD = 1.15
Achievement Mean = 4.33, SD = 1.15

As the ratings of this situation did not meet the previously stated criteria, this
situation was dropped because it could not be meaningfully classified to one specific trait.

Alternatively, consider this situation that met all of the criteria:

“A customer is telling you a personal story that is completely unbelievable and
that you think is factually incorrect. What do you do?

Neuroticism: Mean = 2.00, SD = 1.73
Agreeableness Mean = 5.00, SD = 0.00
Dependability Mean = 1.67, SD = .58

Achievement Mean = 3.33, SD = 2.08

Overall, a total of 65 items were eliminated because they failed to meet the above
criteria. Although this approach was primarily rational, it did seem to eliminate many
ambiguous situations (i.e., those that could not be assigned to a personality construct). In
the following section, discussion centers on the ratings of behaviors.

Step 4.2: fining of oehavioral response options. The behavioral response option
ratings were conducted in a manner similar to the situational ratings, and again with the
ultimate goal of assigning a specific trait to the behavioral options. The situational
ratings were made by two graduate students familiar with personality research and the
F FM. The rating task proceeded as follows.

First, each individual read the situation and then the behavioral options. Recall

that the options were written such that they represented a range of a specific behavior.

93

Thus, each option was essentially the same behavior as the other options, but differed in
the extremity of the behavior. This means the options were on a continuum from high to
low examples of the behavior in the specific situation. The raters’ first task was to judge
the relevance of the situation and behavioral response options to a customer service
context. Those situations or behaviors that were considered to be irrelevant were to be
crossed out.

Second, the individuals reviewed the behavioral response options and, overall,
judged whether the options (as a set) were a manifestation of a particular personality trait.
Similar to the situation ratings, the following scale was used:

1 = Completely irrelevant: the trait is completely unrelated to the response options
2 = Barely relevant: the trait is weakly related to the response options

3 = Moderately relevant: the trait is moderately related to the response options

4 = Very relevant: the trait is highly related to the response options

5 = Extremely relevant: the trait is extremely related to the response options.

As with the situation ratings, the definition and examples of the personality traits
(as shown in Appendix D) were provided. Thus, the trait definitions were to be treated as
the latent constructs, and the rating task involved judging whether each set of behavioral
response options were a manifestation (in a customer service context) of the latent trait.
Ratings were made for each of the four personality constructs for each set of behavioral
Options; thus with 206 items there were 824 ratings made.

Third, the raters were asked to consider the appropriateness of the behavioral
response options for the situation. Those response options considered to be inappropriate
for the situation were either dropped or edited to provide greater fidelity.

Finally, the raters examined the continuum upon which the response options were

placed. This was done to ensure that the response options were in fact on a behavioral

94

continuum. In a few instances, the options were edited slightly or re-ordered. Overall,
however, very few response options needed any editing or changes.

The data that resulted fiom these ratings was continuous for each personality trait.
For each set of options, the ratings from the two raters were averaged for each personality
trait. Similar to assessing agreement in the situational ratings, a rational approach to
assessing agreement was required. This rational approach first required ratings for each
trait for each set of behavioral options to be averaged across the two raters, and the
standard deviation was computed. Given this basic data, the following criteria were used
to decide whether sufficient agreement existed between ratings to warrant the assignment

of one specific personality trait to a given set of options:

1. The construct with the highest mean (and relatively low standard deviation)
was kept

There were no constructs with mean ratings closer than 1.00

3. There were no ties

I"

These criteria were chosen because they provided the best compromise between
keeping items in the pool and keeping items where the raters could agree on a particular
construct. If the response options met these three criteria, it remained in the item pool
and was assigned to a particular personality construct. For example, consider the

following situation and response options:

95

“You are helping a customer by bringing different clothes to the fitting room.
However, this person has been shopping for over an hour and you are starting to
think s/he is not going to buy anything. What do you do?

a) Do not rush the customer but let him or her shop at his/her own pace

b) Slightly try to hmry the customer

c) Moderately try to hurry the customer

(1) Hurry the customer in any way you can

Neuroticism: Mean = 1.5, SD = .71
Agreeableness Mean = 3.50, SD = .71
Dependability Mean = 3.00, SD = 0.00
Achievement Mean = 3.50, SD = 2.12

In this instance, option A is likely to represent agreeableness or dependability, and
response options B-D likely represent achievement. As the ratings of these response
options did not meet the previously stated criteria, this item was dropped because it could
not be meaningfully classified to one specific trait. Alternatively, consider this situation

and options that met all of the criteria:

“A customer walks into your store who is not well dressed. You store is one that
sells very expensive clothes, something the customer does not appear to be able to
afford. There are better dressed customers who are farther away in the store but
have not been waited on. What do you do?”

a) Immediately help the customer who is poorly dressed

b) Watch the poorly dressed customer to see if s/he is a “real” customer, then

offer help
c) Watch the better dressed customers to see if they might need help first
(1) Immediately help the customers who are better dressed

Neuroticism: Mean = 1.00, SD = 0.00
Agreeableness Mean = 2.00, SD = 1.41
Dependability Mean = 5.00, SD = 0.00
Achievement Mean = 1.50, SD = 0.71

Overall, a total of 50 items were eliminated because they failed to meet the above

criteria. As with the situational ratings, the approach used here was conservative in that if

96

an item was close to meeting the criteria, it was kept for further analysis. Now that the
behavioral response options had been rated, it was possible to compare rating of
situations to ratings of behaviors.

. The final rating step

 

involved comparing the situational ratings to the behavioral ratings for all items that
remained in the item pool. Of the total 206 original items, 105 items remained. The
reason is that 101 items were eliminated in the previous steps: 65 items from the
situational analysis, 50 fiom the behavioral analysis, and between these two analyses only
14 items were shared.

Thus, the behavioral and situational ratings were compared for the remaining 105
items. These results found that 73 of the 105 ratings were in agreement (i.e., both sets of
ratings concluded the same personality construct was relevant). Appendix B shows the
105 items and their situational and behavioral ratings, clustered by criterion dimensions.
Of the 105 items, five were judged to be neuroticism items, 12 were agreeableness items,
23 were dependability items, and 33 were achievement items. The main sources of
disagreement between the two sets of ratings were for the neuroticism dimension (where
situational ratings indicated 16 situations tapped neuroticism whereas behavioral ratings
indicated 6—one of these did not overlap with the situational ratings) and the
dependability dimension (24 situations judged to tap dependability compared to 35
behavioral response options). Although one might argue that the items that were not in

agreement should be eliminated fi'om the final scale, it was decided that they would

remain in the item pool for all subsequent analyses. The reason is that it was considered

97

more cautious to consider the empirical characteristics of these items before completely
eliminating them from the pool.

Also note that no items remained that were drawn from the criterion assurance
sub—dimension “explaining the service,” the communication subdimension “appropriate
communication,” and the criterion dimension “supervision/leadership.” For these
criterion dimensions, there were no items in agreement (between situational and
behavioral ratings) about which personality trait was most representative. Thus, there are
no test items linked to these dimensions and subsequent behaviors.

Summgy. The test shown in Appendix E represents the final form of the DSI
before the empirical portion of the study began. It should be remembered that the items
in Appendix E are unique in that they represent several domains simultaneously: (a) they
are linked to a specific criterion domain, (b) they are linked to a specific behavior, and (c)
they are linked to a specific personality trait (or traits for the 32 items for which
situational and behavioral ratings disagreed). Thus, this instrument represents a test
assessing personality within a customer service context. The situations should have high
fidelity to most customer service contexts, and the behaviors represent actual customer
service behaviors within these work contexts. At the same time, these items should
represent measures of personality (i.e., neuroticism, agreeableness, dependability, and
achievement) in work contexts.

At this point, it may be helpful to briefly contrast the method used here to more
traditional SJT development methods. First, the traditional way of developing SJTS is to
ask SMEs to describe various work related situations. Second, a different group of SMEs

determine the relevance of these situations and provide what they think the best way of

98

handling the situation would be. Third, experts (e.g., managers) decide what is the best
response and/or worst response to each situation. Thus, throughout the development
process there is no consideration of the meaning of the situations, the behavioral
responses, or the relations between the two. This is probably the reason that it is often
unclear what construct(s) SJTS measure (e. g. Weekley & Jones, 1997).

In contrast, the method used here builds from the criterion development phase by
identifying important work behaviors and dimensions. Situations are then generated that
should result in the maximal amount of variability in the relevant behavior. These
criterion behaviors are also linked to specific personality traits. Behavioral response
options are then written to reflect variability within a given trait in a given situation.
Thus, the work situations are linked to specific work behaviors which reflect a range in a
specific trait. This foundation will hopefully provide some meaning into the nature of the
situations elicited (e.g., Murtha et al., 1996). Overall, the method used here should result
in a more theoretical and construct-oriented situation generation method than is used than
is common in SJT development.

At this point, the DSI had been read and deemed content valid by over 10
individuals familiar with personality and customer service. Progress next moved towards
the empirical evaluation of the DSI instrument.

Phase 5: Assessing Construct Validity

The assessment of construct validity composes the most critical test for the DSI.

In Figure 5, a simplified model of the inferences that support the construct validity of the

DSI are presented.

99

Figure 5. Simplified validity model examined in this study. Note that measures more
proximal are more conceptually similar, with constructs on the same horizontal axis
representing variations of the same construct and those on the vertical axis representing
different constructs. Boxes indicate manifest measures, circles indicate latent constructs,
solid arrows indicate theoretical relationships, and dashed arrows indicated relationships
that were examined but not theoretically expected. For clarity, only the DSI measure is

shown to be related to the criterion dimensions.

100

    

206585
ocean—Stun

28:3 m—

 

    

 

 

822885
85:5
oomtom
58330

 

$25800
5D
«:08..—

 

 

 

 

5Q

 

 

 

 

50

 

 

 

      

35%

325800 303.5280
Omz Omz
Evan..— ~531—

       

assoc

     

m— 3

 

e

 

 

 

Ar '7 05:00
mmmromz

 

 

 

 

 

III
I
I
I
II
I

             

 

 

.53

 

 

101

Note that Figure 5 draws heavily from an elaborated validation model described by
Binning and Barrett (1989), but still incorporates the basic elements of validity (e. g.,
SIOP Principles, 1987; Schmitt & Landy, 1993): criterion (relationships between
manifest DSI and manifest criterion dimensions), and content (relationship between
manifest DSI and latent performance domain). Together, the sum of the relationships
shown in Figure 5 comprise construct validity for the D81 (e.g., Anastasi, 1986; Guion,
1998).

Note that some evidence of construct validity had already been demonstrated.
Specifically, the application of theoretical and rational considerations in the development
of the DSI, along with the use of experts who rated the relevance and job-relatedness of
the DSI items in the previous phases, provided some support for the content validity of
the DSI (Guion, 1998). However, in this phase empirical approaches to assessing
construct validity were considered. These are described in several steps.

First (Section 5.1), the criterion domain was assessed to ensure the nature of
customer service was adequately described. This provides information about inference 2
in Figure 5. After this step, the remaining steps focus on the final development and
validity of the DSI.

Second (Section 5.2), the characteristics of the DSI were examined by assessing
various item and test statistics. This provided information for inference 4 in Figure 5.
The effort summarized in this step leads to the development of the DSI.

Third (Section 5.3), the construct validity of the D81 constructs were examined in

a multitrait-multimethod (MTMM) matrix. Here the DSI was compared to other similar

102

measures of personality and customer service. This provides information about
inferences 6-10

Finally (Section 5.4), an examination of the predictive validity of the DSI
constructs (inferences 1 and thus 5) was examined with customer service job incumbents.
In this section, both univariate and multivariate examinations of validity are conducted.
There was also a comparison of the predictive validities of the various measures shown in
Figure 5.

Together, it is the sum of this information comprises construct validity. Brief
summaries are provided at the end of each section, but it is the all of the information
about the inferences in Figure 5 that will ultimately provide initial evidence about the
DSI. Please note that the same study participants were used for the DSI development,
MTMM analyses, and assessment of predictive validity. Although some might argue it
would be preferable to have separate samples for each analysis (e.g., to reduce the
likelihood of sample-specific factors), it was considered appropriate in this instance
because all of this information is a form of construct validity (e. g., Guion, 1998; Schmitt
& Landy, 1993). Thus, the MTMM and predictive validity analyses were not viewed as
separate questions but different ways of answering the same question.

For both the MTMM and predictive validity analyses, a variety of alternative
measures were used. This was done to establish the construct validity of the DSI, and to
compare the predictive validity of the DSI to alternative measures of the same or similar
constructs. In the following sections, the sample, procedure, and measures are described.

First, a brief description of the sample is provided. Next, traditional measures that were

103

already ex

rid}; inc

Share or

corpora

“I‘m ii
Ain't
HlSp;

Asia

already existing are described in the Measures section. Finally, measures created for this

study, including the criterion measures and DSI, are described in 5.1 below.

Pm'cipants and Data Collection Proeeotnes

Participants were recruited from several diverse sources but had the common

feature of being currently employed in a job that had a substantial customer service

component. The total sample size contained 209 individuals (please see Table 7).

jijable 7. Demographic Breakdown of Study Bgicipanos

 

 

Demographic Overall Residence Other Service Subject Pool
Hall
Sample Size 209 123 10 76
Race
White 81.8% 81.3% 100% 80.3%
African-American 11.5% 12.2% 0 1 1.8%
Hispanic 1.4% .8% 0 2.6%
Asian 5.3% 5.7% 0 5.3%
Sex
Male 16.3% 9.8% 70% 19.7%
Female 83.7% 90.2% 30% 80.3%
Age 20.96 (4.87) 20.28 (1.49) 43 (11.4) 19.71 (1.83)
Job Experience
(months)
Mean (SD) 17.32 (20.65) 15.22 (12.84) 54.7 (63.17) 15.59 (14.71)
Median l 1 1 1 28.5 9
Range 1-178 1-72 1-178 1-60

 

104

Resioenoe Hall. Participants included 123 individuals who were employed as
residence hall desk receptionists at one of seven Michigan State University residence
halls. As Table 7 shows, this sample was predominately White (81.3%), male (90.2%),
and young (M = 20.28, SD_= 1.49). This group of individuals had worked on this type of
job for an average of 15 months. Job duties for desk receptionists included helping hall
residents with questions or problems, handling money, checking out equipment, keeping
records, and basically helping individuals with any and all questions they may have. In
addition, they were specifically instructed to present a favorable image of the hall and
university. Thus, for this sample, customers were primarily composed of ball residents.
Although all desk receptionists were students employed part time, it should be
emphasized that these were actual employees and this was a real job. These individuals
had gone through a selection process (i.e., interviews) and were hired on the basis of their
customer service potential. Furthermore, the receptionist personnel were promoted,
received raises, and/or were reprimanded based primarily on their customer service
performance.

At each residence hall there were several student supervisors who were promoted
to this rank under each hall’s existing promotional system. These student supervisors
reported directly to the assistant director for each residence hall. The supervisors were
typically junior or senior students and had worked at the hall for many years. The
supervisors were in charge of most administrative duties relating to the desk receptionists
(e. g., making merit-based pay decisions) as well as continuing to work as a receptionist.
In each hall, two supervisors were instructed to rate each employee under the following

conditions: (a) they were very familiar with the employee’s performance and (b) had

105

numerous opportunities to observe the employee at work. Each supervisor was given
approximately half an hour of training on how to perform the ratings and rrrinirnize rater
biases. The residence hall supervisors also completed the battery of test instruments, but
typically did not have performance ratings made for them by the assistant director.

Data were collected from the residence halls in one of four ways. First and most
common, data were collected from small to moderate sized groups at the start of the
monthly residence hall meeting. After describing the project, participants were
administered the Wonderlic Personnel Test (WPT). Because this test was a timed test,
participants were required to complete the test in the presence of the experimenter. After
the WPT was completed, participants were given a booklet containing the remaining tests
that were to be completed on the participants’ own time but returned within 1-2 weeks
(they were usually paid for two hours by the residence hall). Participants were told that
they were to complete the tests honestly because they might be used in the future hiring
of residence hall receptionists. However, they were also told by the experimenter and
director that their employment was not dependent on their test performance, and to ensure
their confidentiality the booklet would be returned directly to the experimenter in a sealed
envelope. The same was true of the performance ratings for each individual. In this way,
no supervisor could see an employee’s test scores, and no employee could see a
supervisor’s performance ratings.

In the second manner of administration, participants were given all test materials
in the same meeting and returned them directly to the experimenter. In the third

administration mode, the experimenter met with participants individually to administer

the WPT, and then left the test booklet to be completed on the individual’s own time and

106

returned directly to the experimenter. In the final administration mode (n = 24),
participants were simply given all of the test materials and were told to complete the
materials on their own time. This was done in instances where somebody missed a
meeting but still wanted to participate, but could not schedule a time with the
experimenter. Note that these individuals were also instructed to allow themselves only
12 minutes on the Wonderlic Personnel Test. Unfortunately, there was no objective way
to determine if these individuals actually followed these instructions, so their Wonderlic
Personnel Test scores were simply set to missing. As there was no timed component with
the remaining tests, only the Wonderlic scores could not be used.

chg Service. Participants in this job category were individuals (n = 3) employed
as cashiers in a small bank and as customer service representatives in a small construction
company (n = 7). Both jobs were actually very similar in that the principal duties
involved greeting customers and helping them with their orders, handling customers’
money, pointing out services offered, and attempting to solve service problems. Both
companies were located in the Midwest. Participation was voluntary, and performance
ratings were made by the immediate supervisor. The data from both companies was
combined given the small sample sizes and similar job duties in each. In this job
category, participants were relatively homogeneous: all where White, most were male
(70%), were older CM_= 43, SD = 11.4), and were very experienced in their jobs (M =
54.7 months, SD = 63.17).

Data collection involved having each participant complete the test materials on his

or her own time (although they were paid for their time). Only the WPT was completed

with the supervisor being present, although after this test was completed it was sealed in

107

an envelope and returned directly to the experimenter. The test booklet and performance
ratings were also returned directly to the experimenter. Descriptions of the project and
confidentiality were conducted by the immediate supervisor in a manner similar to the
residence hall sample.

Snbjeetfimj. Participants (n = 76) were also recruited from the general
psychology subject pool at Michigan State University. However, participation was
contingent on the fact that individuals had to be currently employed in customer service
jobs (examples were given that included waiter/waitress jobs, retail, cashier, sales, or
customer service positions). This sample was primarily White (80.3%), female (80.3%),
and young (M = 19.71, SD = 1.83). These individuals reported working in a variety of

jobs, including retail, food service, customer service, and cashier. Many of these
individuals reported working part time at these jobs for several months (M = 15.59
months, SD = 14.71), although it should be noted that most of these jobs were part time
and held in the individual’s home town (many of these participants only worked there
during Summer and breaks). Despite the requirement that participants be employed in
customer service jobs, a few individuals had no experience but were still allowed to
Participate in order to collect data on the predictors.

In the subject pool sample, data collection involved introducing participants to the
study and describing all aspects of the project, including confidentiality. In this sample,
Pal‘tiCipants also used a code number to ensure anonymity. They were also asked to take
a criterion rating form to their supervisor after the experiment for him or her to complete
(their code number was written on the criterion form). They were given a stamped and

addressed envelope for the supervisor to return the form directly to the experimenter. It

108

was made very clear that participants were compensated for their experimental time by
course credits and that they would receive no more credit if their supervisor returned the
form or not. However, as an incentive to get participants to return the form, the

experimenter paid $10.00 for each criterion form that was completed and returned. After

the“ instructions, participants completed the battery of tests.

VOW

I should caution the reader here that, after collection of the criterion data fi'om this
sample, the validity of the criterion ratings in the subject pool sample must be viewed
cautiously. More will be said about this shortly, but it is worthwhile to mention a few
points here. First, the wide variety of jobs these individuals were employed in may make
the criterion ratings incomparable. For example, the instructions on the ratings asked the
supervisor to rate the employee relative to other employees. Two employees may exhibit

identical behaviors, but are likely to be rated differently if one works in a fast food
business and one works at a fine dining establishment. Second, providing a monetary
incentive for returning the performance appraisal forms probably led to many people
simp 1y completing the forms themselves. Although there is no way to be certain, the lack
of variance in the ratings (and the speed at which many were returned) makes one

questi on whether the ratings were completed by supervisors. For example, the overall
distribution of the ratings in the subject pool sample was rectangular. Although these
ratings are included in the following sections, for the reasons just mentioned analyses will

be Conducted both with the total group of respondents and with this group separate from

the others.
Thus, this study will consider two samples: those in the Employed Smple (i.e.,

residence halls and other service jobs; n = 133), and those in the Combined Sample (i.e.,

109

participants in the employed sample one the subject pool sample; n = 209). Note, that the
primary problem with the subject pool sample relates to the criterion ratings, not the
predictor measures. Thus, for assessment of the construct validity of the DSI (i.e.,
Sections 5.1 to 5.3), only the combined sample will be considered. Later, when
predictive validity is assessed (Section 5.4), the analyses will be conducted for both the
combined sample and the employed sample. This means the sample size will be 209 for
the DSI scale development phases, and the sample size will be approximately 166
(combined) and 119 (employed) for the predictive validity analyses (these are smaller due
to some missing data in the criterion forms).
Measures
In this section, existing measures of demonstrated validity are described.
Together, these measures provide the nomological network around which the proposed
DSI instrument exists. All descriptive statistics, and reliability estimates for each

measure, are shown for the combined sample in Table 8.

110

Table 8. Note: Correlations below the diagonal are uncorrected; correlations above the
diagonal are corrected for attenuation. Reliabilities appear on the diagonal in
parentheses. The “W” following some NEO scales indicates at-work tags are used. N’s
range fiom 208 to 209 for all measures except for the WPT, where n = 184. Values
greater than .13 are significant at p < .05. Underlined type indicates relations that
demonstrate convergent validity. Boxed correlations indicate monotrait-heteromethod

matrices.

111

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

8e 8. 2.- 2.- :.- S.- 2. 8.- 8. :.- 8.- 2.- 8.- 8. 8.- 2.8 8.8 $3.2
:. 5e ale 2. .21. m2 2..- 8. 8. 8.- 8. 8. 8. 8. 8.- 8.22 2.8 80.:
2.- a. $3 8. 8. S. 2. 8- 8. 8.- 8... 8. 8. 2. 2.- 8. 8.8 8588288 an .2
8.- H. 82 Se 8. :V. .2. a. 8.- 2.- 2”. Mar. 2. S. 2.- 8. 8.8 8588-5 89 .2
2.- MN. 8.2 8.2 see 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. a. m..- 2. 2.- 8. 8.8 28852058.:
8.- 2.- 2. 8. 8. 93 R. 2. as 8.- 2. 2. 2. m- 3: 8. 8.8 85888582
2.. ad :.. 8. 2. 8. a3 8. 8. 8n 8.- 8. 8.- 8. NM- 8. .88 5208502898
8.- 8. an 8. 8. a. 8. £8 8. 8.- 8. 8. 2. 8. 8.- 8.8 8.8 3-22388 82.»
8. 2.. 8. 8.- 8. 8|. 8. 2. 5e 8.- 8. 8. 8. K. 2.- 2% 8.8 3.8838? 82“
2.- 8.- 2.. 8.- 8. 8.- 8..- 2..- 2,.- si 8.- 8.- 2.- 8.- 8. an 8.2 BéesesozACmZe
8.- 3. m. 8. 2.. a. 8.- 8. 8. 8.- $3 5. K. 8. 8.- 8.“ 8.8 “assoeaeacooomaza
2.- 2.. 2.. an 2.. 8. 8. 2.. 8. 2..- 8. £3 8. 8. 8.- 8.4 8.8 2288.3 8.2.4
2.- 8. 3. 8. 8.. 8.. 2.- 8. R. 2.- 8. 8. Se 8. 8.- NS. 8.8 288522828
8. S. 2. 2.. 2. W 8. 3.. 8. 8.- 2.. 8. 8. SS 2.- 3% 8.8 ”message’s omza
8.- 3..- 2.- G.- 8: 2.- «It. 2..- 2...- 8. 2..- 8.- 8.- z..- 83 8.8 2.2 522882822
2 2 2 2 : o. a w a e m a m N _ am so: 8828

 

 

 

112

Wonoerlic Personnel lest (WEE). The WPT is a basic cognitive ability test

commonly used in industry (W onderlic User’s Manual, 1992). The test contains 50 items
and has a 12 minute time limit. The predictive validity (usually.25 to .40) and reliability
(internal consistency .88; test retest .82 to .94) of this test are relatively high. Although
this instrument should not be related to service orientation or customer service (see Frei
& McDaniel, 1998), it is included for two reasons. The first is to compare the validity of
the proposed instrument to that of a cognitive ability test. Ability tests have been shown
to be among the best predictors for most jobs (e.g., Hunter & Hunter, 1984) and thus one
would like to assess the relations between ability and customer service behaviors in the
present study to examine if the D81 is a better predictor. The second reason is that it
would be informative to explore the relations between the DSI and g for construct
validation issues. According to the User’s Manual (1992), the scores on the WPT in this
sample (M = 27.29, SD = 5.73) are about one standard deviation higher than those found
in the general adult working population (M = 21.75, SD = 7.6) and about a third of a
standard deviation lower than those found with college graduates (M = 29.61, SD = 6.3).
NEC-FFI, Ceneric (NEC-FFI-C). This instrument is the shortened version of the
longer NEO-PI-R and is designed to assess the Big 5 factors of neuroticism, extraversion,
Openness to experience, agreeableness, and conscientiousness (Costa and McCrae’s,
1992)- This measure has been used widely in past research and is based on considerable
empirical development and validation data (see Costa & McCrae, 1992). It has also been
Widely used in applied contexts (e.g., Psychological Assessment Resources, 1994).
Unlike the longer 240 item NEO-PI-R instrument that assess the facet scales of the Big 5,

the NEO-FFI measures each of the Big 5 constructs directly by using the best items (i.e.,

113

 

those with the strongest factor loadings) from the longer version. There are 60 items for
the NEO-FFI (12 items per construct) answered on a five-point scale anchored by
strongly disagree-strongly agree. These items are then recoded to fit on a zero to four
scale. For all constructs, higher numbers indicate greater quantities of the attribute (this
is why neuroticism has negative relationships with other constructs). The reliability of
the Big 5 scales is acceptable and similar to the longer NEO form: neuroticism (.90),
extraversion (.78), openness (.76), agreeableness (.86), conscientiousness (.90).

As shown in Table 8, the alphas in this study are on average .10 lower than those
reported in the manual: neuroticism (.80), agreeableness (.76), conscientiousness (.82).
This may be due to the fact that this is a restricted sample of individuals who have been
selected to work in (and who have been hired in) customer service jobs. There is some
evidence that possibly small amounts of (indirect) range restriction are present (more will

be said about this later). The user’s manual suggests the unrestricted sample descriptives
neuroticism (M = 19.07, SD = 7.68), agreeableness (M = 32.84, SD = 4.97),

are:

conscientiousness (M = 34.57, SD = 5.88); college-aged samples show similar
Characteristics. As Table 8 shows, the means in this sample were slightly higher and the
Standard deviations were .10 to 1 smaller. Thus, the means in this sample are slightly
more favorable but the standard deviations are slightly smaller than the normative

sample. Finally, the pattern of intercorrelations in this sample is almost identical to that

Provided by the normative information.

EEC-EFL Work-relateo lNEC-FFi-W ). This instrument is identical to the NEO-

FFI‘G noted above, except that “at work” tags have been added to the items. For

exanlple, the item “I am not a worrier” is changed to “I am not a worrier at work.” Thus,

114

 

the primary revision to the original NEO-FFI is the inclusion of a work context, as was
done in the Schmit et al. (1995) study. There is no normative data for these measures.
However, one can compare the findings in this study to the generic NEO scales described
above and the findings in Schmit et al. (1995). First, as shown in Table 8, the at-work
scales exhibit more favorable means and smaller standard deviations than the generic
NEO scales in this study (this of course also means that the at-work scales exhibit more
favorable means and smaller standard deviations than the normative data on the generic
NEO scales). For example, the work-referent conscientiousness measure has a mean of
37.74 (SD = 5.49), in the normative data with the generic scale the mean is 34.57 (SD =
5.88) and in this study the generic measure is 36.30 (SD = 5.73). Second, the means and
standard deviations of the contextualized scales are similar to those found by Schmit et al.
(1995): neuroticism (M = 16.72, SQ = 7.19), agreeableness M = 37.35, SD = 5.88), and
conscientiousness M = 39.16, SQ = 5.46). Thus, the at-work scales in this study appear

to demonstrate similar characteristics to those found by Schmit et al. (1995), who also

used a college sample.

Achievement Striving and Self-Discipline. In this study the construct

conscientiousness was broken into two more specific sub-factors, dependability and

achi evement. This was done because some research (e.g., Hogan & Shelton, 1998;
Hough, 1992; 1998) suggests the conscientiousness factor is too broad for predictive
Purposes in a selection context. Thus, to establish forms of convergent validity for the
dependability and achievement factors, more specific measures of conscientiousness
Would be necessary. This study used two conscientious facet measures from the NED-PI-

R (Costa & McCrae, 1992). Specifically, achievement striving reflects an individual’s

115

work ethic and professional aspirations and is related to the achievement construct
examined in this study. Self-discipline reflects an individual’s reliability, dutifulness and
self-motivation and should be similar to the dependability construct examined in this
study. The reliability for achievement striving is .67 and the reliability for self-discipline
is .75 (Costa & McCrae, 1994). Both scales were measured with 8 items each, and are
scored on a 04 scale (higher numbers indicate more achievement and dependability).
Compared to the NBC User’s Manual (Costa & McCrae, 1992), the scales used here have
higher alphas (about .05 - .07 higher), slightly higher means, similar standard deviations,
and similar intercorrelations with other NEO measures.

PDI Customer Sfl'oe Inventory (CS1). The PDI Customer Service Inventory
(Paajanen, Hansen, & McLellan, 1993) is among the most popular customer service
assessment instruments available (e.g., Frei & McDaniel, 1998). The Customer Service
Inventory (hereafter referred to as the CSI) is an instrument that is designed to predict the

provi sion of satisfactory customer service by an employee who deals directly with
customers. To accomplish this goal, the CSI measures the types of characteristics (i.e.,
dispositions) that are required for effectively dealing with customers. The CSI contains
three major sections. The first section contains 44 true and false questions that assess the
indivi dual’s attitudes and opinions toward certain events (e.g., “You are a perfectionist”).
The second section contains 10 self-descriptions, where the individual chooses the one
Word out of three words that best describes him or her (e.g., steady, energetic, or

500i able). The final section contains nine customer service situations that require the

individual to choose the response that he or she would most likely do. This final section

is almost identical to the DSI format.

116

Given these different formats within the instrument, the CSI is inherently
multidimensional. Although this fact prohibits assessment of internal consistency, test-
retest reliability appears to be quite high (reliability = .86; Paajanen et al., 1993).
Predictive validity for the CSI is consistent with research on personality, with observed
predictive validities for overall performance ranging between .11 to .33. The scoring of
the CSI is proprietary, but ranges from 5 to 85 (higher numbers indicate greater service
orientation). There is very little normative data on the CS1, and the data that is provided
appears to the relatively sample-dependent (e. g., flight attendants score 20 points higher
than fast food employees). However, given a range of jobs, the mean in this sample
(please see Table 8) is similar to an average mean computed from the User’s Manual
(Paaj anen et al., 1993), although the standard deviation is somewhat lower.

One noteworthy feature of the CSI is that it was based on basic personality
dimensions (not the Big 5) that were relevant for the customer service context. Thus, the
CSI is in some ways similar to the instrument developed here. However, the final CSI
instrument is one that is multidimensional and does not have sub-scores for different
constructs within the test, despite the fact that five factors are purported to exist (fiiendly,
competent, practical and realistic, courteous and tactful, and open-minded). In this
manner the CSI is really a measure of the broad conceptualization of customer service
rather than of a specific personality trait or traits. As such, it may provide limited
understanding about what aspects of basic personality relate to performance (e. g.,
Anastasi & Urbina, 1997; Hough, 1998; Mount & Barrick, 1995; Nunnally & Bernstein,

1994; see also Guion, 1963; Schmidt & Kaplan, 1971, for similar ideas). Given the

similarities between the CS1 and the D81, the CSI should prove to be a useful instrument

117

to provide evidence for forms of construct validity (i.e., combining the sub-scales of the
DSI is similar to the compound trait of customer service orientation). However, the CSI
also illustrates an application of compound (heterogeneous) traits for maximal prediction,
and so should provide a good comparison for the predictive validity of the DSI.

Step 5.1: Assessment of perfomrance oomph. Given that this study integrated
various performance taxonomies to define the customer service performance domain, the
first analyses were conducted to assess the structure of this domain. Thus, this section is
primarily concerned with Inference 2 in Figure 5 (i.e., the construct validity of the
performance measures). To examine this question, the descriptive statistics for the
criterion dimensions were examined. Recall that two samples are being used for the
criterion ratings: an employed sample (122 residence hall employees and 9 customer
service representatives had performance ratings, for a total of 131), and a combined
sample (those in the employed sample, plus 47 subject pool participants who had ratings,
for a total of 178). Of these, only the residence hall participants (and one participant in
the subject pool) were rated by two supervisors each. Because two samples are used for
all analyses involving the criterion, descriptive statistics will be provided for (a) the
combined sample (n = 178) and (b) the employed sample (n = 131). Each of these
samples will be described below.

First, for the employed sample, assessment must be made to as to whether the two
supervisors’ ratings can be meaningfully combined into a single average rating for each
dimension. Table 9 presents the means, standard deviations, intercorrelations, and (when

possible) internal consistency estimates for each criterion dimension for each rater. Note

that a five-point scale was used for all ratings.

118

Table 9. Note: All ratings are based on a five-point scale. Internal consistency estimates
appear on the diagonal for multi-item scales (except for communication with uses a two-
item scale; here the diagonal value represents the intercorrelation between the two items).
A “1” or “2” following a criterion dimension indicates whether the rating is respectively
for the first or second supervisor. M’s for intercorrelations among first supervisor’s
ratings range between 170-173; for intercorrelations among second supervisor’s ratings n
= 117; n’s for intercorrelations between first and second supervisors’ ratings range

between 110-112.

119

 

 

8. 2. 2. 2. 8. 2. 2. 8. 8. 2. 8. 2. 8. 2. 8. 8. 8. 8.8 385828 .52. .2
- 8. 8. 8. S. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8.8 15388528 .2

- 3.. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 2.. 8. 8. 8. 8. 2. 8.8 188828.:

- 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 2. 8. 8. 8. R. 8. 2.. 8. :8 3:82.532, .2

- 2. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 2.. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8.8 288852 .2

.. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 2. 2.. 8. 8. 8. 8. 28 222888:

.. 8. 8. 2.. 8. 8. 2. .8. 8. 8. 8. 8.8 _e§=§e.2

8. 2.. 8. 2. 8. 2. 2. 2. 2.. 8. 8.8 3583.5 888.8

- 8. 2. 2.. 2. 2. 2. 8. 8. 8.... 285.»

- 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. a. 2.8 38828882

8. 2.. 8. 2. 8. 8. 2. 2.8 2282:8888

a. 2. 2. 2. 8. 8. 8.8 388882088

8. 5. a. E. 8. 8.8 288824

8. 2. 2. 2. 2.8 28588828

8. 2. 8. 2.8 22883;

2. 8. :8 30325.2

2 2 2 2 2 : 2 a w a 8 m a m N _ am 2 888858880

 

 

120

 

 

mm. Cm. Cm. ~V. Cm. CV. NV. CV. Cm. _m. mm. Nn. G. Nm. Nm. 3. VV.C 36 N conga—SEC .88. .Nm
_V. _N. _V. wN. VV. Cm. Nm. mm. mm. wN. hm. Vm. NM. NV. Vm. hm. CWC _m.m N b".2550 mvcuCoQ Am
Nm. 2. wV. C_. mN. CN. CN. CN. Tm. wN. mm. CN. CN. CN. CN. CN. CEC 86 N Com—om m30=0m .Cm
mm. CN. mN. NV. mm. Cm. NN. CN. wV. Vm. NV. Vm. MN. Cm. mN. wN. CWC _V.m N w=§~§_o> .CN
CV. mm. Cm. mm. _V. CV. Nm. Cm. NV. mm. Vm. Cm. NV. _V. Cm. CV. CCC wV.m N Eon—Swag: .wN
Nm. VN. CV. CV. Cm. mm. CV. Vm. mm. _V. CV. Cm. CV. wV. CV. NV. ENC mN.m N :ommmtoasm KN
VN. wC. 5N. mm. 2. NN. V_. N_. mm. Cm. CN. CN. m _. w _. MN. m _. wed C06. N VtOBEuoH .CN
mV. CN. CV. Cm. mm. mm. Vm. hm. mV. _V. hm. _V. V. CV. mV. Cm. th wV.m N 4&0me Econ—om .mN
S. Cm. CV. Cm. Cm. NV. mm. mm. mm. mV. CV. VV. VV. Cm. wV. CV. ENC COM N tobm .VN
mm. mN. mV. wV. 3. VV. mV. NV. mm. 5V. 3. Cm. mV. Cm. mV. NV. CEC cod N 8:809:00 .MN
mV. hN. wV. bN. mm. mm. CN. CV. CV. _V. mV. NV. CV. CV. mm. mm. me Vcd N aouafigfifioo .NN
mm. Vm. Nm. CV. wV. mV. mm. _V. mm. CV. mm. 3. CV. CV. 3. VV. CV.C CV8” N mmocozaoouom ._N
Cm. C~. Cm. Cm. Cm. Cm. hm. mV. mV. mV. mV. NV. wV. CV. mV. VV. NV.C 5V6 N oo§8< .CN
Nm. C_. SH. 3. CN. NN. 3. RN. CN. Tm. Nm. Cm. CN. Cm. mm. mm. QC Cm.m N mmocozmcoamom .C_
mV. 3. CV. Cm. CV. CV. CV. Cm. wV. wV. Cm. mm. _V. CV. mm. Cm. CmC 36 N bmznflfim .m—
mm. Nm. NV. mm. mV. 5V. Cm. CV. CV. NV. Cm. mV. CV. nV. VV. um. 36 50m N 37:98“. .2
2 m— V— m. N_ I C_ C m h C m V m N _ Om E 2.22555 sew—Btu

 

.528; 832

121

 

 

a. 8. 8. 8. 8. 2. 8. 8. 2. 2. 2. 8. a. 8. 8. 2. Noofiéombfisflam
- 8. 8. 8. 8. 2. 8. 8. 8. 2. 8. 8. 8. 8. 2. «25,288 8889.2

- 8 8. 8 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. «8:8 86:8 .8

- 8. 8 8 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. :V. 8. 8. ~w=c8§_o> .2

- 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8525882 .2

- 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 22825882

- 8. 8 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 3335822

2. 8. 8. 2. 2. 2. 8. 8. 8. 228588.588

- 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 885.2

- 8. 8. 8. 8. 2. 8. 8088582

2. 2. 2. 8. 8. 8. 28805888 .2

8. 2. 2. 8. 8. 885828082

8. 2. 2. 8. 28558... .2

8. 8. 8. N 8828888 .8

8. 8. 28:88.88

2. N 8385.2 .2

2 2 8 2 2 2 2 8 2 2 2 2 2 8 8 t 88555 5:25

 

888C 8 038

122

An examination of Table 9 can be used to assess the adequacy of averaging both
supervisors’ ratings together for each dimension. First, for both raters the dimensions
show very high means (perhaps indicative of leniency and halo biases), although the
second set of raters tends to provide slightly lower ratings with less variability. Second,
the internal consistency estimates (which treat differences in item content as error) for the
multi-item dimensions are similar for both raters and all are above acceptable limits, with
some estimates (e. g., overall performance) being nearly perfect. These estimates are
equal to or better than estimates provided by meta-analytic studies (e. g., Viswesvaran,
Ones, & Schmidt, 1996). Third, the correlations between both raters for each scale give
estimates of interrater reliability (which treats differences in ratings as error). These
estimates range (see Table 9) from low to moderate (.14 to .58), but are consistent with
previous meta-analytic findings (V iswesvaran et al., 1996). Specifically, Viswesvaran et
al. (1996) meta-analyzed several thousand interrater estimates and found that the lower
and upper bounds for interrater reliability estimates approximately fell between .40 to .70
for most criterion dimensions. With the exception of the teamwork and defending the
company dimensions, all of the estimates in the present study are consistent with the
Viswesvaran et al. (1996) meta-analytic results.

Given that this study has both internal consistency (for relevant dimensions) and
interrater estimates of reliability, one can estimate the variance attributable to different
forms of error (Anastasi & Urbina, 1997; Viswesvaran et al., 1996). Specifically, for
each multi-item dimension one can subtract observed interrater reliability values from

overall internal consistency values (using data from both raters averaged together) to

assess variance due to rater idiosyncrasies. These results showed the following estimates

123

of error for each multi-item construct attributable to rater perspective: Tangibles 29%,
Reliability 49%, Responsiveness 58%, Assurance 44%, Perceptiveness 40%,
Communication 36%, Personal Discipline 48%, Overall Performance 40%. Thus, these
findings suggest that there is a considerable amount of variance attributable to the
differing and possibly idiosyncratic perspectives of both raters.

Overall, these findings demonstrate reliability estimates consistent with past
research. Thus, it was decided that the average of both supervisors’ ratings for each
criterion dimension would be used (both for estimating validity and for correcting for
attenuation). This should minimize idiosyncratic perceptions from potentially providing
misleading validity estimates. Similarly, the average of the raters’ ratings may in fact be
more stable, as idiosyncratic rating styles (whether true or not) are averaged to yield
possibly more conservative validity estimates. Finally, this is the method endorsed by
recent research to provide a more appropriate correction for attenuation (e.g.,
Viswesvaran et al., 1996). Egr me remainder of this dissertation, only averaged criterion
dimensions will be used. Table 10 (above the diagonal) shows the means, standard

deviations, and intercorrelations for these averaged ratings.

124

8:08:25: 883:3: :8 750886

:0 :328 98 29:8 3:388 Eat 885:8 5:088:00 BEBE A _ 2 n 8 .35 2:88. 3.35:8 :8 08 18:03:: 05 o>onm

8:28—0th .8: n

5 03:88 3:588 :8 08 3:036 05 323 8:03—0:50 .288 55:63“ a :0 3mm: 08 3:3: =< 652

 

 

83 2. 2. 2. 2. 2. 2. 8. 8. 2. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8.8 85.885
88.2.2

2. - 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8.8 259:8
8885.2
2. 8. - 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 2. 8...“ 82383238.:
2. 8. 8. - 8. 8. 2. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 2. 8.8 8835.3?2
8. 2. 8. 8. - 2. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8.8 80:58:82.8
8. 8. 8. 8. 8. - 8. 8. 2. 8. 8. 2. 2. 8. 2. 8. 8. 8.8 88588.:
2. 8 8. 2. 8. 2. - 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 2. 2.8 838822

8. 8. 2. 8. 8. 8. 8. A88 2. 8. 2. 2. 8. 2. 2. 2. 8. 8.8 8:285
8:83 8
8. 8. 8. 8. 2. 2. 2. 2. - 2. 8. 2. 2. 8. 2. 8. 8. 8.8 :28 .8
8. 8. 8. 2. 8. 2. 8. 2. 2. - 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 2. 2.8 88.358 2
88. 2. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 2. 2. 2. A88 2. 2. 2. 2. 8. 8. 2.8 8885588 8
8. 2. 8. 2. 2. 2. 8. 2. 8. 2. 8. :3 8. 2. 2. 8. 8. 8.8 3826803 8
8 2. 2. 8. 2. 2. 2. 8. 8. 2. 8. 8. 83 8. 8. 2. 8. 8.8 8:882 .8
8 2. 8. 8. 8. 2. 8. 8. 8. 2. 8. 8. 8. 88.8 2. 2. 8. 2.8 30838888 .8
8. 2. 2. 8. 2. 2. 2. 2. 2. 2. 2. 2. 8. 8. 23 2. 8. 2.8 .8823: .N
8. 8. 8. 8. 2. 8. 8. 2. 8. 8. 8. 8. 2. 8. 2. 88.8 8. 8.8 88852 ._
8. 8. 2. 2. 8. 2. 2. 8. 8. 2. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 58
8.8 8.8 2.8 8.8 8.8 8.8 8.8 8.8 8.8 8.8 8.8 8.... 8.8 8.8 8.8 8.8 :82
22:22:288288888.582 87.855

 

 

125

Second, for the combined sample, Table 10 (below the diagonal) also shows the
means, standard deviations, and intercorrelations between the performance dimensions.
Examination of the table suggests that the means of the dimensions are typically higher in
this sample than in the employed sample, although the standard deviations tend to be
slightly larger. Also notice that the pattern of intercorrelations appears to be similar
across the two sets of ratings. Although not presented in the tables, it might be noted that
the subject pool sample criterion distributions were typically flatter and actually appeared
rectangular. Furthermore, the means for each of the dimensions were high (e. g., means
near or greater than 4 on the five-point scale).

Finally, examination of the construct validity of the ratings can be assessed by
examination of Table 10. First, the highly favorable means for a given scale may be
indicative of either leniency bias, halo bias, or both. Together, these forms of bias are
likely to decrease the amount of variance in criterion ratings, as is shown by looking at
the standard deviations for the different performance dimensions. Second, most of the
criterion dimensions are highly interrelated. Although one might conclude that only a
general performance factor is present, the high intercorrelations might simply be due to
the fact that all of these dimensions were chosen to reflect aspects of customer service
performance. This fact, coupled with potential halo bias and common method bias, is
likely the reason for the degree of intercorrelation among the measures. Because there is
the possibility for only one overall performance factor, overall performance (i.e., average
of criterion dimensions) will be examined in addition to each criterion dimension for the

predictive relationships.

126

Now that the performance domain has been considered, attention turns towards
the assessment of the construct validity of the DSI.

Step §.2: Development of the 251. This section develops the DSI instrument,
and so is primarily concerned with demonstrating evidence required to justify Inferences
4 and 6-10 in Figure 5. Of the total sample, 209 participants could be used to assess the
construct validity of the DSI. In this section there are two major types of analyses. The
first focuses on the DSI items and uses classical item and test theory to assess the
characteristics and dimensions of the DSI. The second examines the nature of the
construct relations in a multitrait-multimethod matrix.

Before discussing the specific findings, it should be emphasized that the approach
taken in this dissertation uses empirical findings to inform rational considerations.
Ultimately, it will be rational considerations that form the basis of the DSI development,
but these rational considerations will be based on empirical data. One approach that is
not taken in this study is to conduct an exploratory factor analysis on the items and then
call the factors “scales.” This approach is not taken for two reasons. First and most
important, the D81 was developed rationally and the statistical assessment methodology
should be consistent with this approach (see Nunnally & Bernstein, 1994, for a lucid
discussion on this point). Second, even if an exploratory, factor-analytic study was
desired, the sample size employed in this study is not sufficient (e. g., even with a liberal
five subject-to-item rule, this study would need 525 participants). Thus, the overall
approach adopted here is to perform statistical analyses that most directly address the

substantive questions in the simplest (yet no less rigorous) manner possible.

127

Item Qharacteristics of DSI (eyjdengg fgr Inference 4). The goal of the analyses

in this section are to eliminate items that do not exhibit acceptable distributional
properties. Table 11 provides the means, standard deviations, skewness, and kurtosis
estimates for each of the DSI items. Specifically, items with moderate to high skewness
(greater than :2) and/or kurtosis (greater than i7) were eliminated. These values were
chosen because they represent moderate violations of a normal distribution (e. g., Curran,
West, & Finch, 1998). Items that are perfectly normally distributed will have values
equal to zero. However, slight violations (i.e., deviations from zero) will be tolerated
because this sample is mainly composed of individuals who currently work in customer
service jobs, thus one would expect most people to be more likely to endorse the

favorable responses to test items.

128

liable 11. Dessriptive Ststistics to; 251 1th

 

 

Item Drop Item? Mean SD Skewness Kurtosis Minimum Maximum
1 1.71 0.62 0.77 1.97 1 4
2 1.51 0.71 1.44 2.04 1 4
3 2.00 1.17 0.52 -1.38 1 4
4 2.19 0.88 0.33 -0.59 1 4
5 2.54 0.86 0.69 -.75 1 4
6 2.31 0.64 0.81 0.77 1 4
7 1.92 0.76 0.66 0.34 1 4
8 1.83 0.74 0.57 -0.05 1 4
9 Drop 1.28 0.58 2.43 6.61 1 4
10 1.74 1.05 1.04 -0.40 1 4
1 1 1.83 0.66 0.30 -0.33 1 4
12 2.23 0.94 -0.49 -1.71 1 3
13 1.35 0.54 1.26 0.62 1 3
14 2.45 0.55 0.63 -0.74 2 4
15 1.30 0.58 1.82 2.24 1 3
16 1.46 0.88 1.85 2.28 1 4
17 2.65 0.75 -1.72 1.01 1 3
18 1.67 0.94 1.23 0.38 1 4
19 2.63 0.67 0.31 -0.45 1 4
20 Drop 1.04 0.20 4.53 18.74 1 2
21 1.77 0.92 1.31 1.05 1 4
22 1.71 0.92 0.98 -0.26 1 4
23 2.34 0.80 -0.68 -1.10 1 3
24 1.36 0.56 1.82 4.87 1 4
25 Drop 1.24 0.67 3.21 10.14 1 4
26 1.81 0.64 0.42 0.30 1 4
27 1.87 1.04 1.12 0.06 1 4
28 2.01 0.87 0.03 -1.57 1 4
29 Drop 1.04 0.22 6.21 42.39 1 3
30 1.91 0.91 0.26 -1.56 1 4
31 2.60 0.76 -0.85 0.11 1 4
32 1.60 0.80 1.32 1.23 1 4
33 Maybe 1.98 0.32 -0.53 7.07 1 3
34 1.48 0.78 1.95 3.71 1 4
35 Drop 1.27 0.65 2.48 5.43 l 4
36 1.77 0.65 0.27 -0.70 1 3
37 Drop 1.55 0.60 0.61 -0.55 1 3
38 Maybe 1.33 0.59 2.07 5.13 1 4

 

129

Table 11 (cont’d).

 

 

Item Drop Item? Mean SD Skewness Kurtosis Minimum Maximum
39 Drop 1.81 0.55 0.63 4.90 1 5
40 2.27 1.00 -0.38 -1.61 1 4
41 1.80 0.86 0.89 0.09 1 4
42 2.67 0.65 -0.37 0.17 1 4
43 2.19 0.81 -0.02 -0.86 1 4
44 1.72 0.89 0.66 -1.19 1 4
45 2.15 0.75 0.10 -0.51 1 4
46 1.91 0.87 0.44 -0.92 1 4
47 1.33 0.57 1.70 2.70 1 4
48 3.25 1.07 -1.26 0.21 1 4
49 1.92 0.92 0.46 -1.03 1 4
50 2.45 0.69 0.51 -0.07 1 4
51 2.08 1.33 0.62 -1.46 1 4
52 2.15 1.34 0.52 -1.57 1 4
53 2.10 0.61 0.74 1.84 1 4
54 1.69 0.84 0.82 -0.56 1 4
55 2.04 0.73 0.01 -0.94 1 4
56 1.64 0.54 -0.02 -0.90 1 3
57 1.93 0.69 0.54 0.67 1 4
58 1.89 0.56 0.46 2.25 1 4
59 1.86 0.53 0.05 1.31 1 4
60 Maybe 1.28 0.55 2.06 4.14 1 4
61 1.51 0.66 1.04 0.38 1 4
62 1.64 0.62 0.56 0.04 1 4
63 2.04 0.56 0.69 2.50 1 4
64 1.95 0.72 0.54 0.38 1 4
65 1.95 0.99 0.14 -1.91 1 4
66 2.11 0.85 -0.01 -1.22 1 4
67 1.75 0.89 1.26 1.00 1 4
68 Drop 1.13 0.49 4.32 19.54 1 4
69 1.50 1.05 1.76 1.31 1 4
70 1.72 0.72 0.55 -0.62 1 4
71 Drop 1.11 0.46 5.11 27.91 1 4
72 1.68 0.63 1.07 2.95 1 4
73 1.73 0.62 0.87 2.55 1 4
74 1.51 0.88 1.72 1.94 1 4
75 2.48 0.81 0.16 -0.46 1 4
76 Drop 2.77 0.56 -2.19 3.98 1 4

 

130

Table 11 (cont’d).

 

 

Item Drop Item? Mean SD Skewness Kurtosis Minimum Maximum
77 2.33 0.60 -0.16 -0.48 1 4
78 2.61 0.76 -0.29 ~0.19 1 4
79 1.30 0.53 1.57 1.59 1 3
80 2.31 1.06 0.31 -1.11 1 4
81 1.60 0.55 0.14 -0.96 1 3
82 1.74 0.81 1.00 0.60 1 4
83 1.82 0.85 0.55 -0.89 1 4
84 2.13 1.27 0.60 -l.36 1 4
85 2.05 0.65 0.17 -0.01 1 4
86 2.84 0.97 -0.56 -0.61 1 4
87 1.94 0.81 0.45 -0.49 1 4
88 1.94 0.60 0.96 3.31 1 4
89 1.44 0.68 1.46 1.49 1 4
90 1.37 0.57 1.76 4.41 1 4
91 2.03 0.65 0.51 1.01 1 4
92 1.87 1.33 0.95 -1.05 1 4
93 1.73 1.01 1.15 0.02 1 4
94 1.60 0.73 0.87 -0.36 1 4
95 Drop 1.31 0.73 2.47 5.27 1 4
96 2.08 0.80 0.64 0.23 1 4
97 2.39 0.75 -0.14 -0.42 1 4
98 1.98 1.08 0.90 -0.47 1 4
99 Drop 1.26 0.65 2.92 8.68 1 4
100 2.50 1.12 0.26 -1.37 1 4
101 2.30 1.00 0.51 -0.77 1 4
102 2.22 0.89 0.38 -0.54 1 4
103 2.14 1.01 0.42 -0.95 1 4
104 2.25 1.01 0.66 -0.66 1 4
105 2.48 1.07 0.31 -1.22 1 4

 

Note: _1\_1’s=208 to 209. Items 37 and 39 are on a three-point scale, all remaining items
are on a four-point scale.

131

Before describing these analyses, it must be noted that not all items were written
with the same number of response options and are thus on different scales. Specifically,
items 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 8, and 56 use a five-point scale, items 37 and 39 use a three-point
scale, and the remaining items use a four-point scale. All test items were originally to be
written on four-point scales. However, the reason that some items were on different
scales was because it was either possible to write five options that made sense, or because
it was impossible to create more than three options that made sense. To make the
following analyses more interpretable, the two items (i.e., items 37 and 39) with three
Options were eliminated from all further analyses. Similarly, the items based on a five-
point scale (i.e., 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 8, and 56) were converted to a four-point scale. This is
justified because (a) only for item 2 did two people endorse the least favorable option, (b)
only for items 1, 5, and 6 did one person endorse the least favorable option, (c) nobody
endorsed the least favorable option for items 4, 8, and 46, and (d) converting to a four-
point scales improves the distributions for the relevant items (see Table 13). Thus, for
these items, the fifth and fourth options are combined into one option so that these items
exhibit a four-point scale.

Table 11 shows the means, standard deviations, skewness, kurtosis, and ranges of
all items. Note that in general, lower means indicate less favorable responses. These
items will be recoded later such that higher numbers mean greater quantities of the
attribute (e. g., higher nmnbers mean less neuroticism, greater agreeableness and
conscientiousness) but the raw item characteristics are presented first. As shown in Table
1 1, ten items are eliminated due to extreme skewness or kurtosis: 9, 20, 25, 29, 35, 68,

7 1 , 76, 95, and 99. Items 33, 38, and 60 are on the borderline for being eliminated, but at

132

this point will be retained. Thus, there are a total of 93 items remaining. As can be seen
from the table, most of these items have means that are skewed towards the favorable end
of the scale. Also, most items have variances that are approximately between .5 to 1.00
standard deviations. Overall, these items demonstrate a range of means and variances
that is important for early test development (e.g., Nunnally & Bernstein, 1994).

1251 Item-Qogsgyct Relstjonslgps (sxidsnsg fgr Lgfsrgnses 4. Ed 8). The
primary purpose of this section is to assess the relationships between individual DSI
items and the generic neuroticism, agreeableness, achievement, dependability, and
conscientiousness constructs. These are similar (but not identical) to item-total
correlations because the DSI items were written to represent one of these specific traits.
Note that for all analyses in this section, the personality measures are corrected for
unreliability. Note that only relationships with the original (generic) NEO scales are
considered in this section because the goal of this step is to assign the DSI items to a
specific basic trait construct.

Typically, one uses a cut-off of .30 for item-total correlations, but as Nunnally and
Bernstein (1994) suggest, item-total correlations typically range fi'om .0 to .40 (p. 304).
One might not expect extremely high correlations between the DSI items and the
personality constructs because these relations are item-total correlations in only a loose
sense. For example, Murtha et a1. (1996) found that manifestations of a given trait in
different situations ofien showed small relations to the general measure of the trait. Thus,
the following decision criteria were used to establish which DSI item relates to which

CODSU'UCt I

133

1. An item was assigned to the trait it had the highest correlation with. This was done to
establish which construct the item was most related to. However, this assignment was
conditional on the following decision rules.

2. Each item must have a correlation with the trait greater than :1: .10. This was done to
ensure that the item (at the very least) has a moderate relation to the construct. Items
that did not meet this criterion were eliminated.

3. Items must not correlate with a different trait greater than approximately 1 standard
error (in this case, :1: .05 to .07). This was done to ensure that the item relates to only
one trait to help enhance construct purity. Items that did not meet this criterion were
eliminated. Note, however, a possible exception to this point:

a) Achievement and dependability constructs are both facet measures of
conscientiousness (e. g., Hough, 1992; 1998; Costa & McCrae, 1992). To the
extent that these two constructs are highly related, it will be difficult to
empirically find different relations between them. Thus, if an item correlates
highly with both dependability and achievement, it will not be eliminated but
rather assigned to an overall conscientiousness trait. However, if an item
relates highly to overall conscientiousness sad either achievement or

dependability, the item will be assigned to the specific facet measure.

Table 12 shows the item-construct relationships for each set of analyses

(including both corrected and uncorrected correlations), along with how each trait was

assigned in each analysis. There are several noteworthy features of this table.

134

Tab112. O-QITCltiOS'CtWCCnD I't . d 'auuah . - one.

firm

 

 

Item Nc Ac Cac Cdc Cc Assignment Hypothesized
1 -.02 -.06 .06 .15 .13 Cd Cd
2 -.06 .16 .23 .15 .27 Ca Ca/Cd
3 -.18 -.06 -.09 -.05 -.09 N N/Cd
4 -.08 .09 .23 .25 .23 C Cd
5 .01 .05 .1 1 .1 1 .01 C A
6 -. 10 .17 .08 .08 .09 A A
7 -.20 .17 .28 .27 .31 C Cd
8 -.1 1 .24 .06 .07 .04 A Cd/Ca
9 X X X X X X Ca

10 -.16 .17 .14 .14 .15 Ca
1 l .03 .10 .05 .08 .08 Cd
12 -.16 .17 .08 .14 .14 Ca
13 -.13 .00 .03 .04 -.01 N Cd
14 .02 .03 -.05 .05 .04 Ca/Cd
15 -.06 .16 .15 .10 .15 Cd
16 -.16 .28 .16 .16 .16 A Ca/Cd
17 .1 1 -.03 .08 .00 .09 N/Ca
18 -.06 .19 .18 .09 .09 N/Ca
19 -. 13 .06 -.02 .05 -.01 N A/Cd
20 X X X X X X Cd
21 -.02 .06 .07 .10 .14 C Cd
22 -.02 .11 .13 .12 .14 Ca
23 -.01 -.01 .09 .11 .19 C Ca
24 -. 16 .02 .06 . 10 .02 N Ca
25 X X X X X X Ca
26 -.09 .08 -.01 .04 -.02 Ca
27 -.13 .16 .07 .10 .11 Ca
28 -.01 .09 .07 .00 .07 A
29 X X X X X X N/A
30 .03 .13 .05 -.03 -.02 A N/A
31 . 16 .06 -. 10 -.07 -.03 N N/A
32 .02 .02 -.01 .04 .01 N/A
33 .11 .13 -.06 -.11 .00 A
34 -.03 .08 -.01 -.03 —.02 Ca
35 X X X X X X Ca
36 -.02 .1 l . 14 .09 .02 Ca
37 X X X X X X Ca

135

>"

Table 12 (cont’d).

 

 

Item Nc Ac Cac Cdc Cc Assignment Hypothesized
38 -. 16 .00 .06 .09 .02 N A
39 X X X X X X Cd
40 .18 .1 1 .02 .08 .08 N Cd
41 -.08 -.02 -.01 -.04 -.05 A/Cd
42 -.13 .01 -.08 -.07 —.01 N Ca/A
43 .08 .01 .06 -.03 .02 A
44 -.08 -.01 .02 .01 -.04 N/A
45 -.15 .07 .19 .14 .13 Ca N/A
46 .01 -.11 -.07 -.04 -.15 A/Cd
47 .01 .00 .09 .01 .05 Ca/A
48 -.03 .01 .05 .04 .03 Ca/A
49 -.02 .02 -.03 -.10 -.07 Ca
50 -.10 -.02 -.09 -.05 -.12 C A
51 -.02 .07 .11 .11 .13 C Ca
52 -.02 .06 .09 . 12 .1 1 C Ca
53 -.03 .00 .10 .07 .07 C Ca
54 .00 .02 .02 -.01 .04 A
55 -.06 .05 .15 .1 1 .04 Ca A
56 .01 .07 .02 .00 .1 1 N/A
57 -.09 .01 .11 .11 .09 Ca
58 -.08 .00 .22 .18 .15 Ca Ca
59 -.15 .05 .15 .14 .13 Ca
60 «.13 .05 .13 .18 .13 Cd Ca
61 -.15 .19 .27 .29 .25 C Ca
62 -.19 .03 .18 .22 .18 Ca
63 -.06 -.03 .10 .18 .08 Cd Ca
64 .06 -.02 .00 .00 -.01 Ca
65 .08 .07 -.06 -.09 -.01 N
66 -.16 .16 -.01 .01 -.02 N
67 -.03 .13 -.02 .02 .00 A N
68 X X X X X X N
69 -.06 .1 1 -.07 .05 .10 N
70 .10 .06 -.08 .00 -.07 N
71 X X X X X X W
72 .07 .01 -.08 -.05 -.03 A
73 .01 .07 .05 .05 .04 A
74 -.15 .24 .03 .20 .22 A A/Cd
75 -.04 -.1 1 .02 -.08 -.05 A/Ca

136

Table 12 (cont’d).

 

Item N, A, Ca, Cd, Cc Assignment Hypothesized

 

76 X X X X X X Ca
77 .18 -.O3 -.05 -.10 -.07 N A/Ca
78 -.09 .16 .15 .20 .19 Ca
79 -.13 .03 .13 .24 .21 Cd Ca
80 -.06 .19 .18 .07 .12 Ca
81 .1 1 .13 -.02 .07 .08 Ca
82 .07 .03 -.07 -.05 -.05 A/Ca
83 .01 .15 .10 .03 .09 A Ca
84 -.10 .07 .14 .18 .15 Cd N/Ca
85 -.13 .08 .07 .15 .10 Ca
86 .00 -. 14 -.Ol .04 -.01 A Ca
87 -. 12 .23 .11 .10 .08 A N/Ca
88 -.09 .14 -.01 .07 -.04 A A/Ca
89 -.09 .05 .01 .01 .00 Cd
90 -.07 .18 .14 .18 .23 C Cd
91 .02 -.06 -.01 .08 .03 Cd
92 -.08 .01 .02 .02 .04 N/ Cd
93 -.11 .06 .08 .12 .11 Cd
94 -.06 -.01 .03 .07 .02 Cd
95 X X X X X X Cd
96 -.04 -.05 .01 .09 .10 Cd Ca/Cd
97 -.02 .02 .13 .03 .05 Ca Ca/Cd
98 -.20 .09 .19 .23 .16 Cd
99 X X X X X X Cd
100 -.12 .09 .08 .11 .11 Cd
101 -.19 .08 .09 .15 .15 Cd
102 -.06 .19 .15 .16 .08 Ca/Cd
103 -.15 .18 .15 .10 .12 Cd
104 -.13 .14 .11 .10 .13 Cd
105 -.06 .07 .19 .19 .24 C Cd

 

Note: N = neuroticism, A = agreeableness, Ca = achievement, Cd = dependability, C =

conscientiousness. All correlations corrected for unreliability and include a “C”
subscript. “Assignment” indicates how the DSI item were assigned empirically.
“Hypothesized” indicates rated DSI —construct assignments. X’s indicate items deleted in
previous steps.

137

First, it can be seen that 42 items met the above criteria and were assigned to a
specific personality trait. Specifically, there were 9 neuroticism items, 10 agreeableness
items, 5 achievement items, 6 dependability items, and 12 conscientiousness items.
Twenty items were eliminated because of Decision Rule 2 (i.e., had item-construct
relations smaller than i .10), and 30 items were eliminated because of Decision Rule 3
(i.e., could not unambiguously be assigned to a single trait).

Second, agreement between the empirical and hypothesized (i.e., raters from
previous steps) item-construct relations was found about 50% of the time. The most
common area of disagreement was for the conscientious facet scales of dependability and
achievement. Specifically, the DSI items generally correlated similarly on both of these
scales, thereby prohibiting making any kind of distinction between the two. This is not
surprising given the degree of intercorrelation between the two facet scales (uncorrected r
= .66, corrected r = .83). However, despite the high degree of intercorrelation, some
items did relate more strongly to one scale than the other: items 2, 45, 55, 58, and 97
were most related to achievement, and items 1, 60, 63, 79, 84, and 96 were most related
to dependability. For other items (i.e., 4, 5, 7, 21, 23, 50, 51, 52, 53, 61, 90, and 105) no
distinction between achievement and dependability could be made, so these items were
assigned to an overall conscientiousness scale (along with the items related specifically to
achievement and dependability). Overall, these results suggest that about a third of the
items related in modest ways to the basic personality traits.

A third interesting feature in Table 12 is that many of the item-construct
relationships were small to moderate. Even with correcting for unreliability in the

personality measures, the average item-construct relationship was .18. Although these

138

relationships appear modest, there may be several reasons that the relationships are not
stronger. First, these relations may be slightly suppressed by statistical artifacts such as
range restriction. Second, the relations may be low because the expression of personality
is different in different situations. This is a fundamental position in the basic personality
rcsearch discussed earlier (e.g., Magnusson & Torestad, 1992; Mischel & Shoda, 1995),
and so one might not expect high relations between the same behaviors in different
situations. Indeed, the relations found here are consistent with the typical cross-situation
relations found in the general personality literature (Mischel, 1968; Mischel & Shoda,
1995; Murtha et al., 1996). Finally, the endorsement of a particular behavioral option in a
work context is probably dependent on multiple traits. Such an explanation has some
support in these data because the most common reason for eliminating items was a
violation of decision rule 3. Clearly the enactment of work behaviors is multiply
determined, and so it is perhaps likely that multiple traits are evoked when enacting a
particular behavior. For example, consider item 10 (which has subsequently been reverse
scored):

A coworker was helping a very picky customer buy a suit. S/he had requested to try

on a number of different jackets, pants, and shirts. Although the customer has gone,

the coworker left a big pile of clothes lying around. What do you do?

A) Return all of the clothes to the correct place even though it is not your job

B) Return most of the clothes to the correct place even though it is not your job

C) Return some of the clothes to the correct place but leave the rest for the coworker

D) Leave the clothes where they are because it is not your job to return them

This item was hypothesized to be an achievement item because individuals with more

drive to achieve should be more likely to return the clothes. However, this item was

empirically related to all of the trait measures. It might have been related to neuroticism

139

because an emotionally stable person would be less likely to get upset and leave the
clothes. It could be related to agreeableness because an agreeable person might be more
likely to put the clothes away in an attempt to be helpful. A conscientious person might
put the clothes away because of a sense of duty or work ethic.

Overall, each of these factors may be present and influencing the observed
relationships. However, the fact that empirical relationships do exist for the D81 items .
does provide some evidence of construct validity at the item level. The next section will
discuss how these items combine to influence the scale characteristics.

DSI Scale Construction (evidmcs for Inferenge 4). The previous step identified
the DSI items were used to construct each scale (i.e., neuroticism, agreeableness,
achievement, dependability, and conscientiousness). This section focuses on examining
the reliability of these scales. Table 13 shows the scale reliabilities, item-total

correlations, and internal consistency estimates for each scale and item.

140

 

 

e 3. t o i t t or
Item Corrected Item-Total Alpha if Item Deleted
Neurgticism
6 .10 (.19) .20 (.26)
13 .10 (.15) .20 (.29)
19 .00 (.07) .25 (.32)
24 .18 (.22) .17 (.26)
31 .20 (.07) .14 (.32)
38 .09 (.13) .20 (.16)
40' '.01(-) .29(-)
42 .12 (.20) .19 (.26)
77 b .04 (.05) .23 (.33)
Initial Estimate .23
Final Estimate .32
Agreeableness
6 .09 .49
8 .32 .42
16 .25 .44
60 .1 1 .49
67 .33 .41
74 .00 .52
83 .23 .45
86 .17 .47
87 .33 .42
88 .21 .46
Initial Estimate .48
Final Estimate .48
Achievement
2 .02 .33
45 .13 .23
55 .15 .21
58 .21 .1 8
97 .16 .20
Initial Estimate .27
Final Estimate .27

 

 

 

 

141

Table 13 (cont’d).

 

 

 

 

Item Corrected Item-Total Alpha if Item Deleted
Espendabilig
1 .33 .39
60 .24 .43
63 .34 .40
79 .20 .45
84 .22 .51
96 .26 .42
Initial Estimate .48
Final Estimate .48
Conscientiousness
1 .27 .67
2 .13 .68
4 .40 .65
5 .20 .67
7 .31 .66
21 .01 .69
23 .18 .67
45 .27 .67
50 .07 .68
51 .29 .66
52 .35 .65
53 .02 .68
55 .13 .68
58 .29 .67
60 .24 .67
61 .37 .66
63 .40 .66
79 .27 .67
84 .30 .66
90 .31 .66
96 .20 .67
97 .29 .66
105 .34 .66
Initial Estimate .68
Final Estimate .68

 

" Item dropped fiom final scale. b Item reverse scored. Values in parenthesis indicate

final estimates afier item changes.

142

As can be seen in the table, most of the reliabilities are lower than the commonly
advocated cutoff of .70 to .80. In fact, only for overall conscientiousness does the
internal consistency estimate come close to accepted standards. By examining what the
internal consistencies will be if an item is deleted, it can also be seen that removing items
is not going to improve reliability in any practically mearringfirl way. In fact, only one
item was removed in an attempt to refine the scales: item 40 from the neuroticism scale.
The reasons this item was eliminated are (1) it had a very low item-total correlation, and
(2) no matter which way the item was scored, it resulted in other items having negative
item-total correlations. Further attempts at refining the scales (e. g., dropping items with
very low item-total correlations) were not attempted in order to minimize the influence of
sample-specific variance. Thus, the reliabilities for the scales are: neuroticism (.32),
agreeableness (.48), achievement (.27), dependability (.47), and conscientiousness (.68).
Clearly these estimates are lower than conventional standards. However, there are three
points worth making about these estimates that may illustrate why these estimates might
not be high.

First, these scales most likely exhibit low internal consistency because there is
considerable item-specific variance. However, this item-specific variance may not
entirely be error (as it is treated in alpha). It is possible that some of the item-specific
variance is due to the fact that different situations are being used to assess the same
behaviors (i.e., response options). For example, in many traditional personality
instruments (e. g., NEO-FFI-G), items ask a number of self-statements for which the
respondent is asked to indicate some degree of agreement/disagreement. In contrast, the

DSI uses a number of situations as items and uses specific behaviors as options. Thus,

143

one may consider the items in a given scale as indications of behaviors mss different
situations (albeit customer service situations). Given the typical estimates of cross-
situational stability (e. g., almost always less than .30; Mischel, 1968), one rrright not
expect high estimates of internal consistency because the items reflect behaviors in
different situations. Stated differently, the item intercorrelations may be low because the
items are actually different situations and so the correlations are similar to estimates of
cross-situational consistency.

Support for this explanation is the fact that behaviors associated with each item
(i.e., situation) were written to reflect a trait within a given customer service situation,
and these situations were to some extent different from each other. Again, this is likely to
lead to item-specific variance because each behavior is somewhat specific to a given
situation, despite the fact that across situations a set of behaviors should be
manifestations of a basic trait (e.g., Murtha et al., 1996; Sheldon et al., 1997; Winters et
al., 1998). For example, consider the following items:

7. Your manager wants employees to always look busy. This means you
must do simple tasks over and over again, even when they don’t need to be
done. You are really tired of doing these tasks, the store is empty, and the
manager is not around. What do you do?

A) Do the tasks even if they don’t need to be done or nobody is present

B) Do the tasks only when the manager or customers are present

C) Do the tasks only when necessary, regardless of who is present

D) Don’t do the tasks because they don’t need to be done and it is a waste of
time

90. In your store there are many small tasks (for example, putting away
inventory) that are not part of anyone’s specific job but are something that
everybody is expected to do. Many of your coworkers do not do these
tasks, but if they are to get done somebody will have to do them. What do
you do? (121)

144

A) Perform all of the tasks even though they are not part of your job
B) Regularly perform most of the tasks

C) Occasionally perform some of the tasks

D) Don’t perform the tasks since they are not part of your job

105. A coworker gives his family special deals. You know the manager
would not approve of such practices. You doubt anyone else is aware that
the coworker is breaking the company policy. What do you do?

A) Turn this person in to your supervisor

B) Threaten to report this individual to the supervisor if you catch it
happening again

C) Threaten to report this individual to the supervisor, but actually do nothing

D) Forget the incident ever happened

All three items were rationally judged to be manifestations of dependability, and
were empirically shown to relate to conscientiousness (g’s= .36, .23, .18; respectively).
However, the intercorrelations of these items are not great: items 7 and 90 (j: = .19),
items 7 and 105 (r = .15), and items 90 and 105 (r = .29). These relatively low inter-item
correlations are especially interesting given the fact that for items 7 and 90, both sets of
behavioral options are very similar. What can account for the fact that items 7 and 90 are
moderately related to conscientiousness but relatively unrelated to each other? The most
obvious possibility would be the differences in the situations. Perhaps the first situation
(item 7) is different fi'om the second situation (item 90) because the first situation is more
of a task behavior (i.e., directly required by supervisor) and the second situation is more
of an organizational citizenship behavior (i.e., more optional and discretionary), even
though both require performing tasks that are basically undesirable. And, both of these
situations are relatively different from the third situation (item 105) because the last

situation primarily involves choosing between the organizationally-appropriate behavior

versus maintaining relations with coworkers. Thus, some item-specific variance is likely

145

even though all three items appear to reflect conscientiousness. Indeed, this is consistent
with Murtha et al. (1996), who actually found negative correlations between the same
manifestations of traits in different situations.

Of course, the counter argument to these arguments is that reliability estimates
should be higher in psychologically similar situations (e.g., Mischel & Shoda, 1995;
Murtha et al., 1996). In psychometric terms, items that measure similar psychological
situations should exhibit higher intercorrelations. Thus, the goal would be to generate
items that have high intercorrelations with each other and with basic personality traits.
Although this seems reasonable, the current data do not allow one to examine this
possibility because all items that were related to a particular trait were included in the
scale (remember, the goal was to reproduce the general nature of the work environment).
However, in situations that are very similar (e.g., DSI items 50 and 51), the inter-item
correlations are quite high.

A second explanation for the low reliabilities could simply be due to range
restriction in the sample studied. Nearly all individuals in this study were at least to some
extent selected for their customer service ability. Item responses on the DSI showed
mostly favorable responses, perhaps indicating an restriction of variance. As inter-item
variance is a necessity for internal consistency estimates (e.g., Guion, 1998; Nunnally &
Bernstein, 1994), range restriction could work to reduce this variance.

A final point worth making about the reliability estimates is that they are not all
that different from those found in the literature for similar instruments. For example,
despite the years of cumulative research that has gone into the development of the NEO-

PI-R, the eight-item facet scale alphas only range from .50 to .70 (Costa & McCrae,

146

1992). Similarly, many of the homogeneous item composites from the Hogan Personality
Inventory (Hogan & Hogan, 1992) show internal consistency estimates ranging from .29
to .80 (the .29 value is not an outlier, there are several estimates in the .30’s and .40’s).
Similar to the NBC PI-R, these estimates are for scales that are considered to be specific
and homogeneous. Thus even these well-developed and often-used personality
instruments, reliability estimates are often not impressive (and typically do not become
greater than .80 until they use upwards of 20 to 30 items for the very broad Big 5 traits.
Of course, it must be remembered that alpha assumes unidimensionality, it does not test
for it). Finally, it might also be noted that situational judgment tests yield extremely low
internal consistency estimates. In studies by Motowidlo et al. (1990), Pulakos and
Schmitt (1996), and Weekly and Jones (1997), internal consistency estimates ranged from
a low of .07 in Weekly and Jones (1997) to a high of .74 in Pulakos and Schnritt (1996).
Note that each of these estimates may be somewhat inflated because alpha increases with
the number of items in a scale (e. g., the Pulakos and Schmitt measure contained 33
items). Parenthetically, it might be noted that the reliability of the 41 remaining DSI
items (irrespective of scale content) was .73.

Overall, these points are not raised to justify the low reliabilities found in this
study. Clearly it would be desirable to increase the internal consistency of these items.
Rather, they are provided to illustrate that such values are not unusual and should not be
interpreted as horrifically lower than those found in the extant literature. Furthermore,
there are some very valid reasons for why one would expect low internal consistency
estimates yet still show meaningful construct relations. To the extent that such points are

legitimate, internal consistency may not be the best estimate of reliability (because of the

147

way it treats true and error variance). However, future research should be devoted more
specifically to this issue, as well as an examination of other forms of reliability (e.g., test-
retest) and conceptualizations of error. The Discussion section will suggest some of these
possibilities.

In the following sections, the validity of the DSI scales will be examined.

. Asse s M lti ' -Mu t' eth a ' . This section is primarily
concerned with providing construct validity evidence to justify Inferences 6-10 in Figure
5. That is, the nomological network surrounding the DSI constructs will be examined.
Thus, this section explores the multitrait correlation matrix shown in Table 8 (elements
on the diagonal are reliability estimates, correlations above the diagonal are corrected for
attenuation). To provide evidence of construct validity, each construct must demonstrate
the following relationships (these requirements are based on Anastasi & Urbina, 1997;
Campbell & Fiske, 1959).

Convsggent validity. Evidence of convergent validity is shown by the validity
diagonals (i.e., correlations between same traits measured by NEO-FFI-G, NEO-FFI-W,
and DSI) being greater than zero and relatively large. In this instance, we are most
concerned with correlations between the DSI and NEO constructs, both the generic and
at-work versions. As shown by the boldface correlations in Table 8, each DSI scale is
meaningfully related with its respective NEO scale. For example, the DSI neuroticism
scale is most highly correlated with the NBC neuroticism scales, both assessed with
generic items and with at-work tags (r’s = -.45 and -.56, respectively). The same is true
for the other DSI scales; each demonstrate evidence of convergent validity. These

correlations are similar to those found in past research with different contextual measures

148

(e.g., James, 1998; Roberts & Donahue, 1994; Sheldon et al., 1997) A second point
worth noting is that the relations between DSI scales, and the generic and at-work NEO
scales, are similar in magnitude. Based on the sum of this evidence, it is concluded that
convergent validity evidence for the DSI scales is generally provided.

Qiscg'minant vflidig. Evidence for discriminant validity is demonstrated by three
criteria. First, off—diagonal values (i.e., not underlined) in the boxes (see Table 8)
represent heterotrait-heteromethod correlations and must be smaller than the validity
diagonal. These correlations are typically smaller than the values on the validity diagonal
for all relations except those involving intercorrelations between the conscientiousness
scale and the facet measures of achievement and dependability (although even these
relationships are largely inflated only for the DS1 conscientiousness and NEO
achievement (corrected r = .44) and dependability (corrected 1 = .48) relationships). This
is not surprising, since the achievement and dependability measures are more specific
facets of the general conscientiousness construct. Further note that even better evidence
for discriminant validity between these constructs is found in the box containing
intercorrelations with the NEO-FFI-W scales. Second, correlations between different
traits measured by the same method should be smaller than the validity diagonal. As
shown in the table, the corrected DSI correlations are all highly related, and the corrected
conscientiousness measure and facet scales are perfectly corrected. This suggests that
there is a lack of discriminant validity for these measures. Third, these mono-method
intercorrelations should show the same pattern of correlations across methods. The table
shows that the DSI constructs are more highly intercorrelated than the NEO-FFI-G and

NEO-FFI-W constructs, but the general pattern of correlations is similar. Furthermore,

149

the NEO-F F I-G intercorrelations are consistent with the normative data provided in the
user’s manual (Costa & McCrae, 1992). Also consistent with the normative data is the
finding that the strongest relationships occur between the facet measures of
conscientiousness. Overall, these analyses suggest that discriminant validity evidence
may be lacking.

Finally, notice the relationships between these scales and the CSI and WPT. The
CSI is weakly related to the DSI scales, indicating that these measures are tapping
different aspects of personality within customer service contexts. Alternatively, the WPT
shows negative relations to the DSI achievement and dependability measures. The CSI is
also related to the NBC scales (both generic and at-work), although these relations are
greater for the NEO-F F I-G scales than the NBC items with work contexts. This might be
expected since the CSI items were adapted from a general personality framework. In
contrast to the CSI, the WPT shows almost no relation to any of the NBC or DSI
measures, as is typical in the literature (e.g., Frei & McDaniel, 1998).

Overall, several conclusions can be reached about the construct validity of the
DSI constructs. First, there is evidence for the convergent validity of the DSI scales.
Correlations were greater for each DSI scale and its respective basic personality measure
than were the correlations between the construct and alternative measures. Only when
one examines the facet scales does convergent validity evidence become less clear, but
this is to be expected given the overlapping nature of these traits. Second, evidence for
discriminant validity is lacking because the DSI constructs are more highly related to
each other than to their respective Big 5 scales. Finally, correlations with the CSI

illustrate that the DSI scales share some properties with overall customer service, as one

150

would expect given that the DSI is expected to be a measure of personality within
customer service contexts.

Inferences 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 have now been examined. The final examination
considers the support for the predictive validity of the DSI scales relative to these other
constructs and measures.

Stgp 5.4: Assessment of predisg'vs vslidity1sgpport fgr Infergse 1). In this
section, the primary goal is to assess the predictive validity of the D81, and to compare
this validity to alternative predictor measures. Because of missing data, the combined
sample is reduced to 166 subjects and the employed sample is reduced to 119 subjects.
Again, the reason for examining the employed sample by itself was because this sample
(3) contains two raters for almost every employee, (b) there was only one type of job, (c)
all participants were rated, and (d) it was certain that a supervisor actually completed the
rating forms. In a sense, the predictive validities obtained in this sample are probably the
most accurate, and so the reliable form of predictive validity evidence will probably be
based on the employed sample.

Before conducting these analyses, some points should be made about range
restriction, power, effect size, and significance testing. Clearly there is a relationship
between effect size (i.e., magnitude of validity or correlation), power, alpha, and sample
size (e. g., Murphy & Myors, 1998). Range restriction and criterion unreliability factor
into the mix by attenuating the effect size (i.e., observed validity or correlation). Thus,
given an attenuated correlation due to range restriction and criterion unreliability, a study

must have a sample size large enough to accurately conclude (i.e., sufficient power) that

151

the attenuated validity coefficient is sufficiently large (alpha). Each of these issues is
interrelated but will be discussed separately.

The predictive relationships in this study are almost sure to be attenuated to some
extent by indirect range restriction (Guion, 1998; Sackett & Wade, 1983; Thorndike,
1949) because participants were hired, promoted, or fired based (to some extent) on their
ability to deal with the public. Sackett and Wade (1983) note that range restriction will
become worse as the correlations between the unmeasured selection instrument and
measured predictors and criteria increase. There is no way to estimate this relationship in
this study, although one could speculate the relationship is at least slightly strong because
most of the proprietary measures used in this study (e.g., NEO, WPT) demonstrated
smaller standard deviations than the normative data (see Measures section).
Unfortunately, attempts to use a multivariate formula for range restriction (e.g., Ree,
Carretta, Earles, & Albert, 1994) were not possible because the relevant information was
not provided in the user’s manual (e.g., no NEO-F F I correlations are presented, no
unrestricted data for the CSI). Thus, it is not possible to correct for range restriction in
this study. However, this means that the observed validities may be considered the lower
limit, and that slightly stronger relationships would be more likely in an unrestricted
sample (Schmidt, Hunter, & Urry, 1976). Furthermore, corrections for attenuation (e.g.,
error due to differences in raters; Viswesvaran et al., 1996) may be done to provide at
least some indication of the corrected relationships.

Because it is not possible to estimate the exact amount of range restriction in this

study (thereby reducing the size of the validities), coupled with the fact that a huge

sample size is not available. WWW when

152

determining whether or not a relationship exists (e. g., Murphy & Myors, 1998; see also
Sackett & Wade, 1983; Schmidt et al., 1976). Although relationships that are significant
at p < .05 and .10 will be identified, this is done mainly to follow convention—but keep
in mind that these tests are not to be over-interpreted. For example, a validity significant
at .08 is still likely to be as useful as a validity that is significant at .05. Rather, primary
focus will be directed towards the size of the effects (i.e., the magnitude of validities
across criterion dimensions and predictor constructs). Remember, two of this study’s
goals were to assess the validity of the DSI, and to determine if this validity would be
higher than that found for the alternative constructs (e. g., NEO, CSI). Thus, the criteria
used to assess whether a meaningful relationship exists between a predictor and a
criterion will be based respectively on effect size, and differences in effect size.
Following popular recommendations (e.g., Cohen, 1988; Murphy & Myors, 1998), this
study adopts the following conventions: small effect I = .10, moderate effect 1 = .30,
large effect r = .50. Similarly, for the characteristics of this study, differences in
correlations of approximately .10 are small effects and .20 are moderate effects (see
Cohen, 1988). Clearly the meta-analytic research (e. g., Banick & Mount, 1991; Hough,
1998) suggests that most validities for the measures used here should be small to
moderate (for conscientiousness), and the DSI scales are expected to be moderate. The
expected differences in validity between the DSI and the alternative predictors should
thus be small to moderate. By focusing on effect size, one can discuss the extent to
which the predictors meet these expectations and are likely to be related to the various
performance dimensions (i.e., validity) in meaningful ways, without perhaps mistakenly

ignoring an important relationship (see Murphy & Myors, 1998). In sum, it is the pattern

153

of these validities across criterion dimensions and samples that will form the final
assessment of the DSI constructs.

Although effect size is the primary consideration, power is still a very critical
issue. Traditional approaches to power analysis (e. g., Cohen, 1988; Murphy & Myors,
1998) do not fully consider the effects of range restriction and criterion unreliability, and
to the extent that these are present, assessment of power may be misleading. However,
one can examine the tables presented by Sackett and Wade (1983) to understand how
large a sample size might be needed under various conditions of indirect range restriction
and criterion unreliability to maintain a level of power at .90. Overall, for most levels of

criterion reliability, realistic levels of range restriction (i.e., selection ratio no less than

 

.50), and predictor intercorrelations, the sample size in this study should demonstrate
adequate power (.70 to .90) to detect a true but attenuated effect (i.e., meaningful validity
coefficient).

In the following sections, the correlations (i.e., validities) between the predictors
and performance dimensions will be examined. Note that the purpose of these sections is
to primarily discuss the univariate predictive relationships. Regressions analyses will be
presented shortly.

Validities for Comping Sampls (Table 14). The DSI dimensions show small to
modest uncorrected relationships with the various performance dimensions. Neuroticism,
conscientiousness, and the facet measures show modest relationships with most of the
dimensions, but agreeableness shows a small effect size. After correcting for interrater
unreliability (corrected validities are shown in italics), the validities for all measures

become closer to moderately strong. Only agreeableness maintains a small effect.

154

 

8. 8.- co. 8. 8. 8.- 8. o _. v _. 8. 8.- 8. 8. 8. 8. N _.
8. 8.- 8. 8. 8. 8.- fl 3. 2. 8. 8.- 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. .880 OmZ
8. 8. 8. S. 8. 2.- 8. 2. S. 8. 8.- 8. 8. 8.- 8. 8.
8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8.- 2. 3. 8. 8. 8.- 8. 8. 8.- 8. 8. tax—Savanna OmZ
2. C. 8. 2. fl. 8. 8. 3. mm. 2. 8. 8. 2. 2. 3. on.
2. 8. 8. 8. 3. 8. N m _ _. 3. S. 8. 8. _ _. 8. 8. 2. EoEo>oEo< OmZ
8.- 8.- 8.- 8.- 8. co. 8. N7 8. 3.- co. 8.- 8.- 8. 8. 8.-
8.- 3.- 2.- 8.- 8. 8. 8. 8.- 8. 8.- oo. 8.- 8.- 8. 8. 8.- mmoeofieoouw< Omz
8.- 8.- 8.- 8.- 8.- 8.- 8.- 8.- 8.- E .- 8.- 8.- 8. 8. 8.- 8.
8.- 8.- 8.- 8.- 8 .. 8.- 8.- 8.- 8.- 8— .- 8.- 8.- 8. 8. 8.- 8. 8&038502 OmZ
8. 8. S. 8. 8. 8. 8. mm. mm. 8. Z. 2. 2. I. 8. on.
H- 3. 2. fl- Mfl N1 8.. 8. Nfl win.- 8. :. 2. 8. 3- fl- .880 an
S. on. 3. S. 8. 2. 8. 8. 3. cm. 3. 3. E. 8.- mm. 3.
2. m- 2. Z. q 2. fl. mfl 2. q S. o_. S. 8.- 3. E. bzfimceonofl 8G
3. 8. 8. 8. cu. NN. cc. 88. cm. 8. 8. Z. 2. 8. mg. 2.
3. N4- 8. dw- mIW. U4 .fll. q q q 8. 8. m _. 8. 8. S. EoEo>oEo< 80
Z. 3. oo. 2. 8. 3. cm. 2. 2. 3. 2. 2. Q. 8. 3. 8.
8. 8. 8. 8. 8. Z. S. 8. Z. S. 2. 8. 8. 8. 8. co. amuse—€38.48. 8G
9. mm. 8. 8. 8. 3. ow. 2. a. E. S. S. 2. 8. 8. 2.
9|. 3. 8. q E. E. 2. 2. 3. Z. Z. 2. 2. Q. fl... 8. EmmosoSoZ 8Q
:38. 9809 5:0; 53> ~32 69m Ewe-r Q ...om tobm 9:00 :80 Book— 53¢. 98% Ex mew-w 8.5800

 

 

 

 

 

“295% 359808 £83585 0056.858 55 83> 2:86on .3 03mm.-

 

155

.208 :03 00.3 macaw—0:00 0203.800: .600: bofivoEEm 8505 0.3 ABE—.8005 bans—0.8:

com—0E0 .8.“ 0802000 00050—00000 .3. v a “a E00888 3. :05 02008 macaw—oboe .8. v a E 280586 000032.80 00510003

.03 .I- 0. 32000330.. .550 :0 £3 n .83 00-“ m .88 03003-3 53, 0050008 8300 20085 :3: a ,3 330:8 90.5300 ”202

 

 

 

 

8.- 8... 8.- 8. 3: S.- 0~.- 3.- 8.- 8. 8. 8.- 8.- 8.- 8.- 3.-

8.- 8.- N. .- 8. 8.- 3.- 3.- 8.- 8.- 8. 8. 8.- 8.- 8.- 8.- 2.- .53
0 3 .- cm: 3 .- m _ .- 8. 3.- m 3 .- 8.- N _ .- 8.- 3 .- 3 .- 8.. 8.- h _ .- 3.-

3.- 8.- 2.- 3 .- 8. 3 .- 8.- 8.- 8.- 8.- 3 .- 2.- .0131... 3.- 3 .- 3.- 80
8. 8. 8.- 3. 3. 8. 3. C. 8. 8.- 8.- 8. 8. 8. 3. 8.

8. 8. 8.- 8. 3. 8. 8. 3. 8. 8.- 8.- 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 3-00.000 OmZ
8.- h _ .- a _ .- 8.- 8.- 8... 8.- 8.- 8.- m 3 .- 8. 3 .- 8.- 8. 8. 8.-

8.- 8.- 3.- 8.- 8.- 8.- 8.- 8.- 8.- 3.- 8. 8.- 8.- 8. 8. 8.- B-mofinaofiw< OmZ
8.- 8. 8.- 8.- 8.- _ ~.- 8.- 8. 8.- 8.- 8.- 8.- 8. 8.- 8.- 8.

8.- 8. 8.- 8.- 8.- 8.- 8.- 8. 8.- 8.- 8.- 8.- 8. 8.- 8.- 8. 3-8068502 OmZ
:33. 080D 5:033 =20> a2 0098 800,—. Q gum tobm 0800 E00 00005 594 083 Ed wen-w 00.5800

 

.3853 3 030,3.

156

The generic NEO scales rarely showed anything stronger than a small effect,
although it might be noted that the size of these relationships is certainly within the
typical range of observed personality validities (e.g., Barrick & Mount, 1991).
Furthermore, adding at-work tags to the NEO items did not result in any noticeable
improvement in validity; again, all effects hover around zero. Interestingly, only a small
effect size was found for the CSI, which is smaller than those reported in the user’s
manual (e.g., Paajanen et al., 1993) and a recent meta-analysis (F rei & McDaniel, 1998).
Finally, as expected the WPT showed almost no relationship with the various
performance dimensions (F rei & McDaniel, 1998). It should be pointed out that although
both the CSI and WPT show negative relationships with the various dimensions, these
relationships are almost always not significant.

Relative to the effect sizes of alternative predictor measures, the DSI scales appear
to show slightly higher levels of validity for most performance dimensions. Of course,
one cannot directly interpret the differences in correlations because they are all based on
the same sample (Cohen & Cohen, 1983), so the predictors are themselves intercorrelated
to some extent. However, differences between the correlations were examined by
considering the relationship between the two predictors (i.e., test for the difference
between dependent correlations; Cohen & Cohen, 1983). Note that in general,
differences in correlations of approximately .10 are small effects and .20 are moderate
effects (Cohen, 1988). Using these values as a general guide, results found that several of
the uncorrected correlations were significantly different at approximately 2 < .10 and
demonstrated small to modest effect sizes. Examination of the corrected validities found

many more significant differences in favor of the DSI at an effect size that is more

157

moderate. Please keep in mind, however, that significance values were used only to help
determine the size of differences between correlations, and that the power to detect the
differences is rather low (.50 to .70) for correlations exhibiting small differences (e. g.,
Cohen, 1988). These results are not presented in detail because they will be fully
addressed in the multivariate prediction section (i.e., multivariate regression). However,
these analyses did suggest that the DS1 scales typically exhibited slightly higher
uncorrected and corrected validities than the alternative NEO scales (whether measured
with generic or at-work tags) and the CS1.

In sum, it appears that (a) the D81 constructs show modest uncorrected
relationships with the performance dimensions, and (b) these relationships are slightly
greater than those found for alternative measures. When one examines the corrected
validities, the results are even more impressive. However, one might argue that using
interrater reliability is likely to overocorrect the validity estimates because these forms of
reliability are typically low, even though this is an approach advocated by some (e.g.,
Viswesvaran et a., 1996). Further, the lower the interrater reliability, the more this over-
correction is likely to be. For present purposes, the point of providing the corrected
validities is to see what the observed validities might be under what one might consider
ideal circumstances, although range restriction may still be present. Thus, one must
cautiously interpret these corrected relationships. Even without consideration of the
corrected correlations, however, the findings in Table 14 would suggest that use of the
DS1 constructs will provide for more accurate prediction of customer service in work-

related contexts.

158

Validities fgr Employed Sample (liable 15). Although the previous results

suggest that the DSI scales exhibit small to moderate validities, one might question the
appropriateness of the performance ratings for the subject pool sample. This section
considers this question by examining only those individuals who were in the employed
sample (and thus are certain to have actual supervisory ratings).

As shown in Table 15, the validities for all DSI measures show effect sizes that
are moderately strong. In fact, most of the W validities are moderately strong
and range in the mid .20’s. The validity for conscientiousness with overall performance
is .28, which is near best estimates for any basic personality instrument (e.g., Barrick &
Mount, 1991; Mount & Barrick, 1995). In this sample, agreeableness also shows stronger
effects on the various performance dimensions, resulting in a validity of .20 with overall
performance. When these validities are corrected for unreliability, moderate to large
effects are found for all DSI scales. Noting appropriate cautions about the meaning of
these corrected correlations, one can see that the conscientiousness scale shows several
validities above .30. Also note that many of these relationships are consistent with what
one might expect solely on content grounds. For example, dependability is moderately
related to the tangibles (; = .24) dimension but unrelated to the volunteering (I = .l l)
dimension, whereas achievement shows the opposite relationships (r’s = .12 and .20,
respectively). One might expect individuals who are more dependable to be more likely
to follow rules but not necessarily be the ones who will volunteer for extra assignments.
In contrast, those more achievement oriented may not necessarily be the ones to follow
company rules but may be more likely to volunteer for extra assignments. Thus, the DSI

constructs relate to the various customer service dimensions in meaningful ways.

159

 

 

 

8. 8.- 8.- 8. 8. 8. 8.. 8. 8. 8. 8.- 8. 8. 8.- 8. m 3.

8. 8... 8.- 8. 8. 8. 3. 8. 8. 8. 8.- 8. 8. 8.- 8. 3. .8000 OmZ
8.- 3 .- 8.- 8. 8. 8.- 8. 8.- 8. 8. 3.- 8. 8.- 8.- 8. 8.-

8.- 8.- 8.- 8. 8. 8.- 8. 8.- 8. 8. 8.- 8. 8.- 8.- 8. 8.- 333350303305309 083

8. 8. 8. 33. a3. 3. v3. 8. 3. N3. 8. 8. m3. 8. 8. m3.

8. 8. 8. 8. m 3. N3. 8. 8. 3 3. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 3 3. 33.050.63.33V OM73
8.- 8. ON: 8. 8. 8. 3. 8.- 8. 8. 8. 8. 8.- 8. 8.- 8.-

8.- 8. 33.- 8. 8. 8. 8. 8.- 8 8. 8. 8. 8.- 8. 8.- 8.- 00033030000w< 0073
8.- 8. 8. 8.- .- 3 .- 3 3.- 8. 3 .- 8.- 8.- 3 .- 8. 8.- 8.- 8.

8.- 8. 8. 8.- 8.- 8.- 8.- 8. 8.- 3 - 8.- 33.- 8. 8.- 8.- 8. 80303003073 083

8. 8. 8. 8m. 8. mm. 8. 8. mm. 8. mm. mm. 83.. 8. 3.. on.

ww- v-N. MN. 8% «N mm. 0% «.N- mM. Na. olmu. mm. aw. d. «a. NN.. .8000 3mm

8. 3.. 8. 3- 3. 8. 8. 3m. 0m. 8. 8m 8. 8. 8. 8. NV. 8.

MN. 3&- Na :. a. fl. own. .NIN. N3- 3- fi. m4. 8 N 3. 3.. .mM. 03353880 80

mm. 8. 3. on. 8. 8. 8. mm. 8. 8. 3N. 3. 3. 8. cm. w 3. 3.

3.. q 8. QM. a. MN. 3. a N4. GM. 3. N3. ad. 33. 33. N3. E080>0Eo< 3mm

8. 3w. 8. 3m. w 3. 8. 8. mm. 8. 8.. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. w 3.

3... GM. NM. 3.3. 333. 3. 3.3. m4 N34 .m-Nl. WW M34 3:. 3. .3IW m3. ma0003000cw< 383

on. 3.. m3. 8. 8. 3m. 3.. 8. 8. cm. 8. mm. 8. mm. 8. m 3.

mn- 3-m. 8. flu. M3. 8 03. fl. aw fl... .m-Nu. w-Nl Q. fl.- 8 :. 8.32.232 300
380-3. 300.323 303393 S330> E32 009% 800.3. O ..30n3 roam 9:00 800 33308.3 Smm< @033 30% 80.3. 32:30:00

 

 

160

.033.“ some 8.3 303332.38 3.28.3385 .535: >38m33yoEE3 356% 2a 3538.883 333533835 53,383.30 8.3 35302.38 82332.80

.3. v a 3n 358336 3.3. 55 .8338 303832.38 .8. v a 3 “583.3383 83.333838 388.3233 .83 u m 8233 .9533 05 832963

3233 3.3 2335. 3333283332 33“ 8.3 3 3 N Z .88 3.53.? 533 38.532: 8358 833353 :3: a .3 35303393 $037,380 ”3073

 

 

 

 

8.- 8.- 8.- 3. w 3.- 8.- 3 3.- 8.- 8. N3. N3. 8. 8.- 8.- 8. 8.-

8.- 8.- w 3 .- N3. N3 .- 8.- 8.- 8.- 8. 8. 8. 8. 8.- 8.- 8. 8.- .3.;
m 3.- v3 .- 3.- 3.- 8. 8.- m 3.- 3 3.- 3.- 8.- 8.- 3.- w 3 .- 3.- 8.- 3.3.-

3 3.- 8.- m 3 .- 3.- 8. 8.- 8.- 8.- 3 .- 8.- 8.- m 3 .- m 3 .- 3 .- v3 .- m 3 .- 80

8. 8. 8.- 3. 3. 8. m 3. 3. 3. 8. 8. 3. 8. 8. 8. N3.

8. 8. 8.- 8. 3. 8. 8. 8. N 3. 8. 8. o 3. 8. 8. 8. 8. 3.6800 033
8.- 8.- w 3 .- 8.- 8.- 8.- 8.- 8.- 8. 8.- 8. 8. 8.- 8.- 8.- 8.-

8.- 8. m 3.- 8.- 8.- 8.- 8.- 8.- 8. 8. 8. 8. 8.- 8.- 8.- 8.- B-moc3nwoo._w< 033
m 3 .- 8.- 8.- 8.- 3 3.- m 3 .- cm: 8.- om: 3 .- 3.- 8.- 8.- 3 .- 3.- 3.-

3.- 8.- 8.- 8.- 8.- 3 3.- 8.- 8.- 3.- 3 3.- 3 3.- 3.1.. 8.- 8.- 3.- 8.- B-EflozoSoZ 033
3893. 35.309 303393 §3o> E323 hoqsm 83.3- G .83 team 33:80 :50 333.33 Emm< 338% 333 98.3. 686380

 

.5263 a 22¢

161

Relationships between the NEO-FFI-G and NEO—FFI-W constructs with the
performance dimensions are considerably smaller than the DSI constructs. The generic
NEO scales show small or insignificant efl'ects for almost all dimensions, and correcting
these estimates for attenuation provides little improvement. The use of at-work tags
show only slight increases in validity over the generic scales. The CSI demonstrates
small to modest validities, although these are again in a negative direction. Why these
relationships continue to be negative is unclear. The most likely explanation is that most
of these relationships are so close to zero that it is simply due to chance or sample-
specific factors. It is also possible that the restriction of range in this sample could be the
reason why the direction of the relationship is reversed (e. g., Ree et al., 1994). Both
factors are likely to be causing the negative relationship. Finally, the WPT shows some
modest relations with specific dimensions, but overall is not consistently related to
customer service performance.

As before, one can assess the magnitude of the differences between these
dependent correlations to see if the DSI scales exhibit stronger validities than the
alternative predictor constructs. Analysis of Table 15 found that many uncorrected
relationships were significantly different at the p < .05 level, and most relationships were
different at the .10 level. These translate into small to moderate differences in effect size
(e. g., Cohen, 1988). Correcting for unreliability results in even stronger differences.
Thus, the differences in validity for this sample were typically moderate in size.

Overall, these analyses suggest: (a) all of the DSI constructs are approximately
moderately related to most of the customer service dimensions, and (b) these

relationships are stronger than those found for the alternative predictor measures. There

162

are two points that should be made about the DSI validities in this sample. First, these
ungorrgted relationships are higher than most of the observed relationships found in the
meta-analytic literature (e. g., Barrick & Mount, 1991; Hough, 1998) and are higher than
(or at least as good as) many of the “true” validities reported in those studies. Only the
CSI shows lower observed validities (i.e., uncorrected) than those found in the Frei and
McDaniel (1998) meta-analysis with customer service inventories. Of course, these
findings might be partially due to sampling error, but the findings for the alternative
predictor constructs are for the most part consistent with past research. Second, the
general DSI measure of conscientiousness is more highly related to most dimensions than
are the DSI facet measures of achievement or dependability. Of course, this is to be
expected since the general DSI conscientiousness construct contains items from both
facet scales. However, even if one creates a scale composed only of the unique items in
the DSI conscientiousness scale (i.e., those not shared with the facet measures) and
partials the variance in the unique items from the observed DSI achievement and DSI
dependability validities, the validities decrease only slightly (on average, about .04).
Thus, it appears that there can be some unique and interesting predictions made on the
basis of the DSI facet scales of conscientiousness, although best prediction occurs for the
general DSI conscientiousness measure.

Conclusions. Overall, the previous analyses present an general picture of the
predictive validity of the DSI and the relative validities of the various predictor
constructs. It is the patterns of these validities that comprise the support for or against the

DSI, and so these patterns are summarized in this section.

163

First, the uncorrected validities of the DSI constructs are sometimes small and
more typically moderate, and these validities can vary across the type of customer service
dimension. It appears that the neuroticism, dependability, and conscientious measures
exhibit the most consistent validities across dimensions and samples, although the
agreeableness and achievement dimensions can show meaningful relationships with some
dimensions. Indeed, the validities for the DSI agreeableness measure are well within the
range of values found in the meta-analytic literature (e.g., Barrick & Mount, 1991) even
though they are lower than the other DSI scales. Thus, all of the DSI constructs generally
maintain predictive validity across the various customer service dimensions.

Second, most of the observed validities of the DSI are greater than uncorrected
validities found in past research, and are actually more similar to the best “true” estimates
found in meta-analytic studies. For example, the meta-analysis of the Big 5 and job
performance conducted by Banick and Mount (1991) is one of the most cited articles of
this decade (Barrick & Mount, 1998) supporting the use of personality to predict job
performance. However, W are the validities larger than .20, and
these are the corrected or “true” validities. Similar conclusions are made when
comparing these findings to Hough’s (1998) review. If one could assmne that the
corrected validities were in fact more appropriate (e. g., Viswesvaran et al., 1996), then
the validities demonstrated by the DSI are quite exceptional and are clearly larger than
the .30 validity ceiling. Even the uncorrected validities are close to breaking the .30
barrier in the employed sample, which is likely to suffer fi'om at least small amounts of
indirect range restriction. On the other hand, one cannot rule out the potential influence

of sampling error, and that these validities might not be as great in different samples.

164

Third, the magnitudes of the DSI validities are typically higher than those found
with the alternative predictor constructs, including the NEO-FFI-W and CSI measures.
The magnitude of these differences is at times quite large. For example, in the employed
sample, the uncorrected validities for the DSI conscientiousness measure hover around
.20-.25 with the various dimensions while the original NEO scales show almost no
relationship. It should not be assumed that the validities for the N130 measures are
arbitrarily low in this study, because on average they are consistent with the observed
validities found in the meta-analytic literature (e.g., Barrick & Mount, 1991; Hough,
1998). Only when one uses the conscientiousness scale with at—work tags and corrects
for attenuation do the validities become much larger. Even the CSI scale, which
demonstrates some useful levels of validity, is only about half the effect size of the DSI
scales. Thus, the DSI scales appear to be more predictive than any of the alternative
measures.

Fourth, these results are found without corrections for range restriction. That is,
almost all participants in this study were employed in customer service jobs.
Furthermore, one can be reasonably sure that indirect range restriction has likely occurred
for both the predictors and criteria in the employed samples because all employees were
hired based on their customer service potential, and providing excellent customer service
was part of their informal performance evaluations. Sackett and Wade (1983) and
Schmidt et al. (1976) show how relatively small amounts of range restriction can have a
dramatic impact on the observed validity coefficient. However, unless the correlations
between the unmeasured third variable and the measured predictor are high, the effects of

indirect range restriction are not likely to dramatically alter these findings.

165

Fifth, why the CSI showed negative predictive validities is not entirely clear,
although one might avoid over-interpreting these results because almost all of the
uncorrected relationships were not significant by conventional standards and showed only
a small effect size.

Sixth, it is interesting to find that the NBC items with at—work tags produced no
better validity than the generic NEO items. This in contrast to Schmit et al. (1995), who
found considerable improvements in validity for items using at-work tags. There may be
several reasons for this. First, it is simply possible that the results of Schmit et al. didn’t
generalize. Theirs’ was the only study that has been published on this topic, so perhaps
their findings were simply due to chance. Second, differences in the nature of the
criterion may be the cause for the discrepancy, as this study used supervisors providing
ratings of customer service, whereas their study used college GPA as a criterion. Indeed,
Hough (1998) shows that a criterion measure of educational success shows higher
validities with personality measures than job proficiency criteria. Perhaps educational
success (e. g., GPA) is simply more highly related to personality than work-related criteria
(and thus more influenced by using an at-work context). Finally, the results may be
different partly because Schmit et al. only examined changes to conscientiousness on
validity, compared to here where neuroticism and agreeableness were also examined. For
whatever the reasons, though, this study would caution the assumption that adding at-
work tags to generic personality items will improve validity in appreciable ways (at least
to the extent the results from this study generalize) for all criterion measures.

Seventh, one may wonder about how the findings might be different if analyses

were broken down in the following manner: sample (i.e., combined, employed, subject

166

pool) x rater (average, first rater, second rater) x criterion dimension. One might also
wonder if the results would change as a result of standardizing the performance
dimensions measures within-rater. These analyses are not presented but were conducted.
Overall, none of these analyses would change the substantive conclusions presented here.
Validities did sometimes change across these different conditions, and in the subject pool
sample the validities for the alternative measures (i.e., not DSI constructs) did increase
slightly relative to the increases in the DSI measures, but the overall conclusion that the
DSI predicts customer service and does it as good as or better than alternative measures
does not change. Thus, these analyses are not discussed or presented.

Finally, for the DSI scales it appears there is no meaningfirl advantage to using the
conscientiousness facet measures of achievement and dependability. The reason is that,
the more general conscientiousness measure predicts more consistently than either facet
measure because it is composed of the same sets of items as the facet measures (plus a
few extra items not able to be assigned to either facet). However, these extra

conscientiousness items do not appear to attenuate or suppress relationships relative to

the specific facet scale items. Thus, g1 remaining analysgs with the D51 will be

performed using only the overall sonscimtigusness ssale. However, the NEO

achievement and dependability scales will still be examined in addition to
conscientiousness.

Now that the univariate relationships have been examined, attention turns to
examination of the regression analyses.

Assessment of multivaristg prfl'cflve validig (support for Infermce 1). In this

section, multiple regression analyses are conducted to assess the effectiveness of the DSI

167

to account for criterion variance, relative to that provided by (a) the NEO-FFI—G
constructs, (b) the NEO-FFI-W constructs, (c) the CSI, and (d) the WPT. A few points
need to be made before describing these analyses.

The first point is that, similar to the bivariate analyses, regression analyses will be
conducted for only two samples (i.e., the combined sample and employed sample).
However, here only overall gustgmer smice psrfgrmancs is sggsidgged because of the
large number of regressions that would be run if one examined each performance
dimension separately. Again, overall performance is the average of all performance
dimensions.

The second point is that only the conscientiousness measure of the DSI will be
examined in these analyses, not the DSI facet measures of achievement and
dependability. The reasons are because the corrected correlations showed no evidence for
discriminant validity for these measures, and the previous analyses showed the facet
measures’ validities did not substantially differ from the general conscientiousness
validities measure for most performance dimensions. Although not presented here,
regression analyses also support this decision. Specifically, two multiple regressions
were conducted to predict overall performance fiom the DSI measures; one used
conscientiousness and the other used achievement and dependability. The amount of
variance explained by each analysis was identical, but with one degree of freedom saved
for the model using conscientiousness. Thus, only the DSI conscientiousness will be
considered, not the DSI achievement and DSI dependability scales. However, this
applies only for the DSI scales; for the NEO scales, conscientiousness will be examined

in addition to achievement and dependability.

168

The third point is that the regression approach used here employed a model
comparison approach (e.g., Cohen & Cohen, 1983; Neter, Wasserman, & Kutner, 1990),
where a series of nested models are tested to identify the best fitting model. In this study,
the goal is to identify if the DSI scales add incrementally above the alternative predictor
constructs in explaining performance variance. This means that hierarchical regressions
will be run that compare a baseline model of an alternative measure(s) to a full model that
contains the baseline measures plus the DSI scales. Table 16 shows the five different
models examined for each sub-sample in this study. First, Model A tests the DSI
constructs against a “maximal prediction model” because the CSI should be the strongest
predictor of customer service performance. The WPT is included because it traditionally
has been argued to be the best predictor of performance for most kinds of jobs (e.g.,
Hunter & Hunter, 1984), although this is less conclusive for customer service contexts
(Frei & McDaniel, 1998). Second, Model B assesses if the DSI constructs predict better
than just the CSI. Third, Model C compares the original NEO scales (neuroticism,
agreeableness, and conscientiousness) to the DSI constructs. Alternatively Model D
provides the same test but uses the NBC achievement and dependability measures instead
of the NBC conscientiousness measure (as suggested by Hough, 1998). Finally, Model B
tests the contextualized NEO scales (i.e., at—work tags for neuroticism, agreeableness, and
conscientiousness) against the DSI. In each analysis there are three m pieces of
information: (1) the size of the incremental effect (i.e., A R2) of the hill model with the
DSI constructs (i.e., Model 1) over the reduced model (i.e., Model 0), (2) the relative
strength of the parameter estimates (B) for each measure in the full model and reduced

models (i.e., regression coefficients), (3) and the effect size for the full model (WM).

169

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

5055505550 59 + mw0c03~00._m< in + 5205502 in + 5035505550550 + x53585358w< + x53-Em_0550Z Am
#53585552550 + x53585552w< + x53-E£0550Z 5m

505535550 50 + mm0=05000E< 59 + :555502 in + b=55=0a0fl + ~55>030< + 5055529‘ + 5555502 ”5
bzfimvcaua + “550523. + mm05_na00._w< + 5&05502 50

505535.550 $9 + 505300Bw< 5Q + 820.5502 59 + 5055:5550 + 5055000cm< + 5205.502 :0

5055505550 + 5053505< + ~55550Z 50

5055050550 in + 505380um< in + 5205502 5Q + 50 :m

50 ”cm

5055505550 in + 5055000090.. 50 + 2555502 in + 50 + .53 ;<

50 + Fm? 5<

 

 

552

 

 

 

170

The fourth point is that significance tests will not be strictly used to assess the
overall fit of a model or the relative strength of a predictor. Instead, the adequacy of a
model will be based primarily on effect size (i.e., amount of variance explained in the
criterion measures or 32). The reason is because past research (e.g., Banick & Mount,
1991; Hough, 1998) would suggest that small to moderate effects will be found, and with
the given sample sizes and likely range restriction the power to detect significant effects
at conventional levels (.05 or .10) may be below .70. Following convention (e.g., Cohen,
1988; Murphy & Myors, 1998) the following values will be used: small effect 112 = .01,
moderate effect 13} = .10, and large effect 32 = .25. Admugtg models will L); 21198 that
demonstrate a moderate effect (i.e., 32 = .10). However, it might be noted that for many
of the analyses in the combined sample, the gbsgrm power was around .50 because
many of the effects were small. In the employed sample, the observed power was .80 or
greater for most analyses that exhibited an approximately moderate effect (R2 = .07 to
.13). Thus, the significance tests are probably more appropriate for the employed sample,
but again the key focus will be on effect size.

Finally, the relative strength of predictors will be based primarily on the
stgdardized [1 weight and unique variance each predictor adds to the set of predictors
(e. g., Pedhazur & Schmelkin, 1991; Tabachnick & Fidell, 1996). Standardized regression
coefficients may be interpreted as the amount of change in the criterion resulting fiom a 1
standard deviation (1 unit) change in the predictor (Pedhazur & Schmelkin, 1991). As
such, they are similar to partial correlations (with the remaining predictors partialled out).
In terms of required sample size for these analyses, this study meets the general rule of

thumb of having at least 10 predictors per independent variable, meaning that in the

171

employed sample 11 predictors could be used (of course, 11 were not used at once but it
illustrates the point). However, the 911m power to detect a small or moderate effect
(i.e., small or moderate regression coefficient) ranges from around .50 (in the combined
sample) to .70 or more (in the employed sample). Thus, as before, the significance tests
should be observed with caution and are primarily used to help provide an indication of
the strength of a relationship.

Note that both sequential (order of entry matters) and unique (order of entry is
irrelevant) significance tests will be provided on the regression coefficients. The
sequential tests are provided to assess how much incremental variance the DSI constructs
may help explain, and the unique tests are provided to assess how much unique variance
each construct may explain relative to all other constructs in the model. Also note that
both standardized (B) and unstandardized (b) regression coefficients will be provided.
Unstandardized coefficients are used because they are more appropriate for making
comparisons across studies with the same variable (e.g., Fox, 1997) and thus may be of
some use when comparing these findings to past research. However, the standardized
coefficients will provide the basis of interpretation in this study. Thus, the strength of a
predictor will be based on (1) the size of its B, (2) the amount of unique variance it adds
to the model (relative to the other predictors in the model), and (3) the sequential and
unique significance tests.

Consider first the results fiom the combined sample, shown in the leftmost
columns of Table 17. An examination of the regression models shows modest relations

between the predictors and the overall customer service performance dimension.

172

 

 

38. SN. r _. 33. :. 3. 3058:8388 .5
23. m _. .3. so. 3. 8. 308585, 5a
38. m _. .3. 38. o _. 3. 53232 .5
So. Lu.- 2: :3. 3.. S.- 50
83. S. 8. so. 8.- 8.- E
:3. 2. :2 a. N3 3. NS 8. 340%
So. 3.- 3.- _ S. :.- 3.- 50
8o. 8. 5. so. 3.- 8.- EB
- - 3. 8. - - a. S 345%
«.8. .3. ...:. :3. E. 3. ”858385825
33. 8. +3. 83. S.- S.- message’s 50
38. m _. .8. NS. 2. .3. 56852 5d
- - a? :. - - .55 3. g
H“: M< m M m 3 NM? was m M. m m 382

 

0_ 5 005950

 

173

 

 

 

33. .5. .2. 23. z. 3. 20583858059
:3. z. .3. So. 3. S. 3083823 5d
35. E. ...8. so. 2. .3. 532525
38. LN.- :.- :3. E.- woc 50
1.5 2. to: E. .33 8. mam 3. all-alas”,— 2
23. :.- 3.- :3. N7 8.- 50
- - of S. - - SN 5. lldflcmsma
mum-q m2 .0. M. w. 0 HM? as? m M m u 382
_ ea 8 2 Em gnaw-dung

.5380 E 032-

174

 

 

 

o8. LN. .8. o8. 8. 8. 305855825
moo. oo. to. ooo. 8. oo. aoszaooaa. 5
88. m s. ..8. 8o. 8. to. 58852 5a
ooo. no: 5.. So. vo. No. 5055355550
8o. oo.- 8.- 8o. 8.- 8.- 3053823
So. 8. 8. ooo. 8. 8. 53882
.8... :. .83 :. 8; 8. :.o 3. j 5 2
8o. 8. 8. 3o. 8. 3. 5888:5388
So. 8.- 8.- 8o. oo.- 8.- 3083823 ,
So. 8.- 8.- ooo. 8.- 8.. 828832
- - 8. oo. - - 8. 8. j #5 2
mum-o m2 m M o. o Hm< m2 m M w. o .082
0— 5mm 2 am 2 5mm 8:380

.9053 S 033.

175

 

 

 

 

o8. LN. .: _. ooo. 2. 8. ”8.3.5880 59
8o. 8. .8. ooo. oo. oo. @8382»... 5
o8. 2. ...8. :o. m o ..8. 888502 5
8o. :.- 8.- 8o. 8.- 3.- 853889
moo. oo. 8. o5. 3. oo. 55823
8o. 8.- 8.- 8o. 8.- 8.- “885803
ooo. oo. oo. ooo. oo. oo. 58.5.02
...-.3. :. .38 2. +88 3. w: 8. 34.5%
8o. s T 8.- 8o. 8.- 8.- 853880
o8. 2. 8. :o. 3. 8.- “85:22
So. 8.- 8.- 8o. 8.- 8.- ”messages...
8o. 8.- 3.- 8o. 8.- 8.- 588502
- - 3. 8. - - 8. 8. 83%
H4: Mo m M w o ”52 Mo m M- m o 382
_ . on .5 gala-saga

8.0500 2 05d.

176

do n m 08:3 .5; w8>8>8 085 80008 88808 :8 8.0 m: u m .0888» 808880 E .9: n a 000:?

9&5 m8>8>8 085 8008 80.8808 :8 5.2 cm: H m .0888 8:388 5 808:5 8 585 0:08: 95: ...-5:20.800 885.805

008:5 08 820805 05005 8.0 8028, “M .50-8:5 .8 085 0:35 95: 0088050 08 0500 00288835 88 «08.850 880.8888

0.8 358508 ..a: .80-8:5 .8 v.85 8808005 95: 0085.80: 0.8 500 00805288 88 000888885 08 58085000 .h:

.005: 52 8: 0103-8 8 08088 :3: 8 .3 830:8 50.58802 @0388 980550 08.8: 50.505 N 9 0080800 830805 =< ”082

oova+ vao.

 

8o. 0. 8. r 2. ooo. 2. 8. sessooéaso 5:
8o. oo. +8. ooo. 8. 8. $085823. 58
2o. .2. .8. :o. :. .28. 52085.2 5:
ooo. 8. 2o. ooo. 8. 2o. 3. 3058:8880
8o. 2 .- 8.- 8o. 8.- 8.- 3 . 3.55.89.
3o. 8.- 3.- ooo. oo. 8. 3.5882
.88 oo. .88 :. 8.2 8. 8.2 3. 84308
8o. 8. 8. 8o. 8. 8. 3.. 383882380
8o. 2.- 8.- 8o. 8.- 8.- al.-853.88..
o8. :.- 8.- 8o. 8.- 8.- 3:588:02
- - 8 8. - - 8. S. 84:89:
HM. < M. < M Mr N m ...-Hm 4 M < M M. m. m 852

 

IdllmIII: :8 88:80

.5280 2 .38

177

In general, the DSI constructs help explain an additional 3% to 5% of the variance
in overall performance than the alternative predictor measures. Also notice that it is only
when the DSI constructs are added to a set of alternative constructs that E} values become
greater than .01 (indicating a small effect).

By examining the squared semi-partial correlations for the specific predictors (i.e.,
the unique variance attributable to each specific measure), one can see that the DSI
neuroticism and DSI conscientiousness scales appear to be the more consistent predictors
of performance; the DSI agreeableness measure shows only weak relationships with the
criterion. Also notice that the CSI is typically related to the criterion slightly stronger
than the DSI constructs, although the magnitude of the CSI-criterion relations is similar
to that of the D81 conscientious-criterion relations. The differences between the relative
effectiveness of the CSI and DSI conscientiousness measures are probably negligible in
practical and statistical terms. In general then, the results of the combined sample suggest
that most predictor sets explain small amounts of criterion variance, and that this variance
may be slightly increased by including the DSI constructs.

In the rightmost columns of Table 17 are shown the results of the regression
analyses for the employed sample. Here one finds stronger 3’ values and relations
between the individual DSI predictors and the customer service criterion. Most of the
effect sizes that include the DSI constructs are moderate. Indeed, all of the incremental 13
tests show moderate improvements by including the DSI constructs. Similarly, one can
see that the DSI constructs typically provide a moderately strong, unique contribution to
the predictor set. For example, Model Bl shows that DSI conscientiousness accounts for

3.4% of the explainable variance in performance, and the DSI neuroticism and DSI

178

agreeableness scales each contribute 1.4%. In general, the DSI conscientiousness
predictor seems to be the most important of the three DSI constructs, and seems to
explain similar amounts of variance as the CSI instrument. Examination of Model C also
shows how much improvement might result from using the DSI constructs rather than
generic personality measures. For example, using the DSI measures explained 11% more
variance than the NBC measures, which by themselves did not account for even a small
amount of variance. This is noteworthy because it suggests that even though the D81
constructs can be “mapped” back onto a Big 5 framework, the instrument predicts better
than generic personality instruments. And this advantage is not lessened when one
considers adapting generic personality items to reflect work contexts (i.e., Model B).
Here, the DSI constructs help explain 9% more criterion variance. Thus, there appears to
be advantages to explicitly considering contextual information.

Before ending this section two last issues must be considered. First, the cross-
validity of the regression-weighted DSI predictor composite needs to be considered.
Specifically, it is important to assess the extent to which the multiple B’s found by the
predictor composition in this study might generalize to different populations (only the
DSI predictors will be examined for cross-validation). Formula-based cross validity
estimates are preferred to empirical cross-validation because the full sample can be
employed in the regression analysis, thereby providing more stable regression
coefficients (Schmitt, Coyle, & Rauschenberger, 1977; Ragu, Bilgic, Edwards, & Fleer,
1997). Although numerous formula estimate exist, this study uses the formula derived by
Browne (1975) and described by Cattin (1980), which is perhaps the most appropriate

across many diverse situations (e.g., Schmitt et al., 1977; Schmitt & Ployhart, 1999;

179

Schneider & Schmitt, 1986). By using the estimates provided in the “DSI Predictors”
section of Table 17, one finds that the estimated population cross-validity is .12 in the
combined sample and .27 in the employed sample (B’s = .014 and .07, respectively). '
This suggests that the regression-weighed DSI predictor composition should exhibit
meaningful and practically usefiil information in different samples.

Second, demographic differences were examined on the DSI and alternative
scales. However, there were only a small number of minority participants, and most
participants were female, so these analyses might not entirely generalize. Still, the only
demographic difference found for all predictors and criteria was a one standard deviation
difference on the WPT, such that minority participants scored lower. This finding has
long been known and is consistent with past research (e.g., Sackett & Wilk, 1994).

Discussion

The purpose of this dissertation was to create an instrument that was based on a
conceptualization of personality as being a dynamic interaction between traits, situations,
and behavior, and thus explicitly considered situational information when assessing
personality constructs in work contexts. As such, it was developed to be a measure of
personality within work situations. To date, the field has either ignored situational
information (e. g., Hattrup & Jackson, 1996) or treated situations as moderators of basic
trait — behavior relations (e. g., Barrick et al., 1995). However, a survey of the basic
personality literature suggests that neither approach is conceptually correct because
situations, traits, and behaviors are dynamically intertwined (e.g., Magnusson &
Torestad, 1992; Mischel & Shoda, 1995; 1998). This literature suggests that if one is

most interested in predicting a particular behavior in a particular setting, that setting must

180

be explicitly considered (e.g., Argyle et al., 1981; Krahe, 1992; Mischel & Shoda, 1995;
Murtha et al., 1996; Roberts & Donahue, 1994; Sheldon et al., 1997) because behavior is
likely to be more stable within psychologically similar situations.

Although attempting to develop an instrument that directly measures basic
personality traits within specific work related situations seems intuitive (and indeed has
been called for by several researchers, e.g., Murtha et al., 1996; Roberts & Donahue,
1994; Schmit et al., 1995), to my knowledge it has not been attempted in either the basic
or applied literatures. There were two main goals of this research. The first was to
develop a personality instrument that was more predictive than the best alternative
methods (e. g., direct measures of the five factor model). The second was to ensure that
this instrument could be mapped onto basic personality constructs (as based on the five
factor model), thereby contributing to theoretical understanding. The prediction of
customer service provided the context for this study.

Overall, the results of this study find that these goals were generally achieved.
First, the DSI constructs were related to most of the customer service dimensions in
meaningful ways, and these relations were at least as strong or stronger than alternative
measures (e. g., NEO-FFI-G, NEO-FFI-W, CSI, WPT). Second, the DSI constructs
related back to the basic personality measures in theoretically consistent ways, although
evidence for discriminant validity was somewhat weak. Beyond these two primary goals,
however, this study provides information on a number of important but unexamined basic
and applied questions. For example, in the basic personality literature there has been
little research that has examined how the Big 5 could vary across situational features

(e. g., Sheldon et al., 1997). Similarly, the applied research on situational judgment

181

testing has not been able‘ to identify the types of constructs those instruments measure.
This study suggests that the problem may be with the item development process rather
than with the test as a whole, so trying to find construct relations for an overall SJT (as is
the typical approach, e.g., Weekly & Jones, 1997) may be inappropriate.

These basic and applied implications will be discussed in the following sections.
First, the major findings in this study will be summarized in terms of the construct
relations in Figure 5. Second, the findings in this study are compared to basic personality
research, and similarities and differences are discussed. Third, the findings in this study
will be compared and contrasted to the methods currently used in applied psychology,
including the use and measurement of traits and situations for selection purposes. Fourth,
these findings will be compared to research on situational judgment tests. Fifih, the
implications of this research for the prediction and understanding of customer service
performance will be explored. Sixth, directions for future research will be provided.
Seventh, potential contributions of this study for practice will be provided. Finally,
limitations of this study will be discussed.

Construct Validity of the Dispositional-Situational Inventog

This study provides a preliminary examination of the construct validity of the DSI

 

instrument. Recall that the purpose of this instrument was to achieve the dual goals of
prediction and understanding. Discussion of these goals may be facilitated by
consideration of Figure 5.

Consider first the evidence accumulated for the construct relations with the DSI.
First, the DSI items used in the final scales each exhibited an empirical relationship with

one personality construct (e.g., agreeableness, neuroticism, achievement, dependability,

182

or conscientiousness). Thus, at the item level there is support for Inferences 4 and 8.
This support was also shown at the scale level (i.e., convergent validity), as each DSI
construct related most highly with its respective trait (Inference 8). In addition, the D81
constructs related to the contextualized personality measures (Inference 7). Similarly, the
DSI constructs maintained modest relations with the CSI (Inference 6), which is an
overall measure of customer service. Because the DSI constructs are measures of
personality within customer service situations, modest relations would be expected, again
providing support for convergent validity. On the other hand, divergent validity evidence
was not found. The primary reason was that the DSI constructs were more highly related
to themselves than they were to their respective Big 5 measure. This suggests that the
DSI might be tapping a context (i.e., customer service situations) more than specific traits
(e. g., neuroticism, agreeableness, conscientiousness). Overall, it appears convergent but
not divergent validity evidence was found for the DSI constructs. Because complete
support for construct validity was not found, one must interpret the meaning of the DSI
subscales cautiously.

Now 'consider evidence found for the predictive validity of the DSI constructs.
First, support was present for Inference 3 because the constructs the DSI attempts to
measure (i.e., neuroticism, agreeableness, and conscientiousness) have been shown in
past research to be most relevant for predicting customer service (e.g., Frei & McDaniel,
1998; Hogan & Hogan, 1992; Hogan et al., 1984; Paajanen et al., 1993). Furthermore,
the nature and content of the DSI items (i.e., situations and behavioral responses) were
derived from the customer service performance domain, and survived several reviews by

individuals who were very familiar with customer service and personality. Second, there

183

was considerable support for Inference 1. Empirical predictive validities for the DSI
constructs showed small to moderate effect sizes with most criteria. In fact, many of the
uncorrected validities in the employed sample were greater than .20, and many of the
corrected validities were .30 or greater.

These effects are equal to or larger than those typically found in the literature
(e.g., Hough, 1998; Mount & Barrick, 1995). For example, a meta-analysis by Barrick
and Mount (1991) report observed validities for neuroticism, agreeableness, and
conscientiousness less than .15 across several studies. Even in a more optimistic follow-
up meta~analysis, the observed validities of conscientiousness across several criteria was
around .20 (although did reach around .30 for an “effort” criterion). Thus, the DSI
constructs maintain a level of validity greater than those typically found for neuroticism,
agreeableness, achievement, and dependability. In fact, the DSI scales show levels of
validity that are among the best estimates that have been found to date (e.g., Mount &
Barrick, 1995). In contrast to the NEO scales, the DSI measures maintain a clear level of
incremental explanatory value. The regression analyses suggested that the DSI measures
may explain sizeable amounts of criterion variance even after controlling for the basic
trait measures. This suggests that even though the DSI scales tap essentially the same
trait as the basic measure (i.e., NEO scales), the DSI explain greater amounts of criterion
variance. This finding occurred for both the generic NEO scales and the NEO scales that
used at-work tags. Thus, the basic question of whether integrating contextual information
with trait-based behaviors will result in greater prediction over more generically-

measured traits, the answer is a clear yes. Moving trait assessment more proximal to the

184

criterion (e. g., Guion, 1991) and including situational information appears to account for
this increased predictiveness.

Note that the DSI exhibited validities similar to or stronger than the CSI, an
instrument based on personality traits but empirically developed and scored to predict
customer service (Paajanen et al., 1993). This is encouraging because the CSI is perhaps
one of the most predictive customer service inventories currently available (e. g., Frei &
McDaniel, 1998). However, why the CSI demonstrated negative validities is not clear.
One explanation is because there was range restriction in the sample, but it would take
rather severe instances of range restriction to make the sign of the observed validities
change (e.g., Ree et al., 1994). It is not likely that such range restriction is present is this
sample.

The relations between the DSI and the WPT were low, as might be expected
because personality and customer service inventories exhibit little relations to cognitive
ability (e.g., Frei & McDaniel, 1998; Hough etal., 1998; Sackett & Wilk, 1994).
Consistent with past research (F rei & McDaniel, 1998), the relations between cognitive
ability and the DSI constructs were negative, although these relations were very small and
barely significant. The DSI constructs provided incremental prediction over cognitive
ability, suggesting that at least for customer service types of jobs, g may not be the
strongest predictor.

Overall, the DSI constructs demonstrated small to moderate sized validities with
the various criteria, and typically added incremental prediction above the more basic
personality measures. The first goal of this study, to provide more effective prediction by

explicitly considering situational information and integrating this information with trait

18S

assessment, was supported. The second goal of this study, to show that the scales
developed from this instrument were related to basic personality traits in a Big 5
framework in conceptually meaningful ways, was only partially achieved. Thus, this
study found that integrating work-related situational information with dispositional
information resulted in greater prediction than the application of basic (and generically
measured) traits, but what the scales measure is not entirely clear. However, the findings
of this study suggest that there may be real practical benefits to considering situational
information directly into the assessment of basic traits. Treating cross-situational
variability as error, as is typically done in personality tests, appears to remove criterion
related variance. The implications of these findings for basic and applied personality
research will be described fully in the following sections.

One important point that must be addressed first, however, is to what extent the
low internal consistencies for the DSI scales limit its construct validity. Typically, it is
thought that understanding can only occur when one measures homogenous constructs
(e. g., Hough, 1997). The reason is that with multidimensional measures, one can never
be sure what is leading to observed relationships (Nunnally & Bernstein, 1994).
However, one might not expect high validities for the type of test created here, even
though the items are expected to be manifestations of basic personality traits. This issue
was describe in detail in Section 5.2, but will be briefly examined again here.

The important questions are to what extent the DSI scales M exhibit high
internal consistency estimates, and (since they do not) to what extent low internal
consistency estimates reduce understanding. As noted in section 5.2, there are probably

two reasons for why the reliability estimates are lower than desired: range restriction (a

186

lack of variance will reduce internal consistency estimates) and item-specific variance.
The range restriction explanation is obvious and not likely to be so strong, so attention
will be directed towards understanding the second point.

To understand this second point, one must first understand coefficient alpha
Basically, alpha treats shared variance between items as true variance, and variance
unique to items as error (Anastasi & Urbina, 1997). Note that alpha assumes
unidimensionality, and so to the extent a set of items measure a common latent construct,
the item covariances will be high and alpha will be large. The fact that the DSI scales
exhibit low alphas suggests there is considerable unique variance in the set of items for
each scale. In Section 5.2 it was suggested that there are theoretical reasons to expect the
DSI item covariances to be low because the items were written to reflect different
customer service situations. Specifically, the abundance of research on cross-situational
stability (e.g., Epstein, 1979; Kenrick & Funder, 1988; Mischel, 1968; Murtha et al.,
1996) suggests behaviors in different situations will covary approximately zero (Mischel
& Shoda, 1995), or at least very low. However, Mischel and Shoda (1995) demonstrate
that it is the behavior that occurs in psychologically similar situations that will remain
stable across time (i.e., intra-situational stability of behavior); behavior across
psychologically dissimilar situations will show no consistency. For example, an
individual may act very meek every time he or she deals with an irate customer, but get
very hostile when a coworker asks him or her to cover an extra shift on a weekend.
Across these two situations the behavior is inconsistent, but within each situation the
behavior is consistent for the individual. And most importantly, in mm the

behavior reflects instances of aggression.

187

There are two important points about this research. First, internal consistency
estimates may not be the best estimate of reliability because the items should not all
covary highly—the reason is that they tap diverse customer service situations (e. g.,
Murtha et al., 1996). Rather, test-retest reliability should be high because the same
person presented with the same situational stimuli should respond in approximately the
same manner. This is the intra-situational consistency over time finding discussed by
Mischel and Shoda (1995). Thus, test-retest reliability is probably more appropriate and
is certainly more consistent with the Mischel and Shoda (1995) conceptualization (in fact,
they argue against internal consistency estimates of cross-situational behavior because it
treats situational variance as error, even though this approach has been advocated by
some; e.g., Epstein, 1979, 1980). Second, just because internal consistency (i.e., cross-
situational consistency) is low does not have to mean that the items tapped by the DSI are
not behavior manifestations of a specific personality construct. This means that in this
instance, low alphas does not has: to signify construct heterogeneity. Indeed, all of the
DSI items were expected to relate to a specific trait, and the final set of items all showed
empirical relationships with these basic traits. The DSI items for a given construct are
thus behavioral manifestations of that trait in a general customer service context, even
though each item taps a different type of customer service situation. Thus, the items may
not all covary to great amounts because they are actually different situations, but within
each situation (item) the behavioral options are manifestations of a basic trait. This is of
course the point behind a conditional conceptualization of traits (e.g., Mischel & Shoda,
1995), and several researchers (e.g., Murtha et al., 1996; Sheldon et al., 1997) show that

the direction of a trait-response linkage may change dramatically depending on the

188

situation (see also McCrae & Costa, 1995; and Motowidlo etal., 1997, for some similar
support for this point). The more psychologically similar the situations are, the greater
should be the correlation between items. Evidence for this does exist, for example, DSI
items 50 and 51 are almost perfectly related. Thus, as Murtha et a1. (1996) found, the
more psychologically similar the situation, the greater the internal consistency.

Overall, future efforts will need to be devoted to developing more homogenous
measures. Most likely research will need to develop classes of situations that are fully
crossed with classes of behaviors. In such a fully crossed design, the class of behaviors
within each class of situations should exhibit higher internal consistency estimates
relative to cross-situational or cross-behavioral covariances.

Contributions to Basic Personality Research

Although this study has primarily tried to apply the theory and research from the
more basic personality literature to selection contexts, the findings in this study can
provide contributions to this more basic research.

First, the study provides some support for the Mischel and Shoda (1995)
conceptualization of personality (i.e., CAPS). Although there is a sizeable amount of
research that has been amassed in support of the theory (e.g., Shoda 1990; Shoda et al.,
1989; 19934; Wright & Mischel, 1983; 1987), most of the research has been gathered in
the same context (i.e., a summer camp setting) with the same general population (i.e.,
young children) and for a limited set of behaviors. To my knowledge, no study has
attempted to use the CAPS fi'amework to either design an assessment instrument or to

apply much of the fiamework to work contexts.

189

Thus, this study provides new support for the CAPS conceptualization by
illustrating the conditional nature of traits in work settings. For example, the fact that the
relatively context-free traits (e.g., neuroticism) did not relate to the criteria as strongly as
the DSI scales is entirely consistent with the notion that behavior will be more stable
when it occurs within similar situations. Although there are clearly differences between
taking a test and providing customer service, a good test will be a sample of behavior
(Anastasi & Urbina, 1997)—in this case, a sample of behavior that occurs in very specific
situations. This may be one reason for the stronger DSI validities. What is also a
contribution of this study is how the basic method for assessing situations and behaviors
that was used to develop the CAPS model could be integrated with current methods in
applied psychology to provide a reasonable method for developing instruments like the
DSI. Specifically, this study tried to link situations and traits such that the situations
exhibit variability in the trait. More will be said about this later.

Second, the results of this study are consistent with the meta-theoretical
framework discussed by McCrae and Costa (1996), which is shown in Figure 1. For
example, they state that measures of personality should assess what they call
“characteristic adaptations,” which are basically intermediate psychological processes
(e. g., goals, intentions). However, they also note that these adaptations may be
situationally dependent, as is behavior (i.e., “objective biography”). Thus, and consistent
with their model, if one wants to predict a specific behavior in a specific situation, one
must faithfully assess the influences of that behavior—that is, situations and adaptations.
Notice that they do not suggest basic traits (e.g., the Big 5) directly influence behavior,

instead they argue they do so indirectly through characteristic adaptations (e. g., goals).

190

So, the DSI fits within this fi'arnework by integrating the situational information with trait
directly into trait assessment. Although the characteristic adaptations were not directly
studied, they are assumed to be present. That is, an individual chooses a behavioral
response on the DSI by processing the situational information in a manner consistent or
characteristic with his or her basic traits. The contribution of this study is thus the
empirical examination for part of this general framework (i.e., NEO constructs less
predictive than the DSI).

Third, this research contributes to the large literature on interactionist approaches
to personality. By showing that highly contextualized items (i.e., the DSI items) were
more strongly related to customer service performance than generic personality items
(NEO-FFI-G) or work-related personality items (NEO-FFI-W), evidence is provided for
the effects of situations on behavior (and thus prediction). Such a finding extends some
earlier approaches. For example, Murtha et al. (1996) speculate about the possibility of
incorporating situational information directly in to the measurement of basic traits, and
how such an integration should prove to be more predictive than measures that ignore
situational information. Thus, this study extends the Murtha et al. (1996) study by
showing such an approach has merit. This study is also consistent with Sheldon et al.
(1997) and Roberts and Donahue (1994), who call for research examining situational
influences on the Big 5 constructs. Similarly, this study extends research conducted in a
stimulus-response tradition (e.g., Dworkin & Khilstrom, 1978; Endler et al., 1963) by
showing how combining situations with dispositions can be used for practical purposes

(i.e., prediction) as well as understanding.

191

However, it should be noted that the actual personality by situation interaction
could not be directly studied in this research. For example, no situational fiamework was
used to develop situations. Similarly, situations were for the most part constant (i.e., all
were customer service situations) and probably have to be given the relatively stable
nature of the job in personnel selection. To more directly study the interaction one would
need to cross all behaviors with all situations, but this might not be possible given the
current focus of developing a selection instrument that incorporates situational features.
Future selection research might be devoted to exploring the interaction directly.

In sum, the findings in this study are consistent and support a number of
theoretical statements that have been made in recent years (e.g., McCrae & Costa, 1996;
Mischel & Shoda, 1996; Sheldon et al., 1997) but have not been widely studied.
Furthermore, it extends some recent research (Murtha et al., 1996) calling for
consideration of situations for predictive purposes. As such, this study contributes to the
more basic personality literature by showing that the more basic theories and frameworks
can be meaningfully applied to real-world contexts.

This study suggests several future directions for research. For example, it would
be interesting to more explicitly consider the concept of goals within this research.
Several researchers (see Argyle et al., 1981; Pervin, 1989) have already made this point,
but what seems necessary is to consider hm traits, goals, behavior, and situations
interact. It is possible that certain situations make certain goals salient, but actual choice
and enactment of these goals is dependent on basic traits. Similarly, a better and more
explicit consideration of the important psychological mediating mechanisms should be

conducted. All major theories discussed in this section describe these constructs m

192

general, but then usually end by saying the nature of these constructs depends on the
specific situation and behavior one is trying to predict. Only limited research has
examined how traits relate to cognitive functioning (e. g., Matthews, 1997), but it seems
that this is an idea whose time has come. For example, extraverts have been shown to
characteristically process information differently than introverts, but this research has not
really been linked to any kind of practical outcomes (Matthews, 1997). It would be
interesting to determine what mm account for individuals with different levels of
trait perceiving and reacting to identical situational stimuli, and what the consequences of
these differences might be. Here research on basic cognitive psychology, social
cognition, and expertise seems relevant.

Contributions to the Application of Persona_lig for Personnel Selection Research and
2mm.

It is common practice in personnel selection to base predictions about job
performance on basic traits, particularly the Big 5 or some minor variation thereof (e.g.,
Hough, 1992; 1998; Barrick & Mount, 1998; Mount & Barrick, 1995). This is in contrast
to research in the basic personality literature, where both situations and traits are
important to consider because behavior will only be consistent to the extent that it occurs
in psychologically similar situations (Magnusson & Torestad, 1992; McCrae & Costa,
1995; Mischel & Shoda, 1995; Murtha et al., 1996). Furthermore, this research suggests
that the expression of basic traits can change across situations (Murtha et al., 1996;
Sheldon et al., 1997). These results suggest that if one wants to maximally predict a
specific behavior, one must understand the context within which that behavior is to occur.

This of course means than any predictive assessment instrument should include the

193

contextual information for which the behavior to be predicted is embedded in (Murtha et
al., 1996; Roberts & Donahue, 1994), something that is not typically considered in
selection contexts.

Only recent research in personnel selection reflects these points. Mount, Barrick,
and Strauss (1994) found that, when making trait ratings, different flames of reference
(e.g., self, peer, supervisor) resulted in difi‘erent validities. Schmit et al. (1995) found that
adding at-work referents to a set of generic personality items increased the predictive
validity of the instrument. Consistent with Murtha et a1. (1996), Schmit et al. argued that
future research should (a) replicate their study with a field sample and different criteria,
and (b) consider even more explicit contextual information. Murtha et al. (1996) argued
that behavior might be better predicted by including specific contextual information
during the assessment phase. The present study was conducted to consider these issues
raised within the basic personality literature within the context of personnel selection for
customer service jobs. Thus, the present study builds on the more basic research and
extends the more applied research. Several novel contributions have been made.

First, this study found that the contextualized measures of personality (i.e., the
DSI) consistently predicted customer service performance better than either generic or
contextual NEO scales, and better than broad or general measures of conscientiousness.
Furthermore, the higher validities for the DSI were often not trivial and would have
resulted in practically meaningful improvements in predictive validity. This suggests that
consideration of contextual information can improve the prediction of job performance by
appreciable amounts, as was hypothesized by Murtha et al. (1996) but not empirically

shown.

194

Second, consideration of specific situational information improved prediction
beyond that provided by simply adding an at-work referent to each item. Theoretically
this should occur because (a) people perceive and process situational information in
characteristically different ways, and (b) at least some of the explanation for these
different processing characteristics is due to basic traits (McCrae & Costa, 1996; Mischel
& Shoda, 1995). Thus, situations are not moderators, but rather an important and
necessary part of trait assessment. The reason, then, that the DSI was more predictive
than simply using at-work referents to items was because it provided the type of rich
situational information that allows one to more accurately say what he or she would
actually do in a work context. Although using at-work tags surely reduces the number of
situations one may consider when responding to the item (Schmit et al., 1995), it does not
faithfully produce the different situational stimuli that might be present within a general
work situation. As such, this study is the first to show that specific situational
information should be included in trait assessment to increase predictive validity.
Previous research has only shown how personality may differ across very broad types of
nominal situations (e. g., Murtha et al., 1995; Schmit et al., 1995).

It should be noted that contextualizing personality items affects the tests fidelity
to work contexts and is independent of the test’s bandwidth (i.e., broad or narrow trait
measures). Contextualizing personality items moves the trait measure closer to the
criterion domain, thereby influencing fidelity. However, this can be done for both broad
(Big 5) or narrow (facet) measures of traits. Thus, contextualizing personality items may
make the test more context-specific, but does not necessarily mean the test is a narrower

measure of personality. One way to formally test this assertion is to examine the factors

195

that are produced from analyzing the contextualized items. If more specific factors
emerge that are “traits within situations,” one has developed an instrument that is more
specific but not in the typical bandwidth-fidelity sense.

Third, this study shows how an instrument such as the D81 could be as predictive
as an empirically keyed measure of compound personality traits. Hough and Schneider
(1996) suggest that combining the basic traits (e.g., Big 5) into specific ways for the
prediction of specific work criteria may enhance prediction. Indeed, this is the strategy
adopted by many popular integrity tests and customer service inventories. Of course,
these tests are inherently multidimensional because items are only retained if they have
meaningfirl relations with their respective criteria (e. g., lack of theft, courteous to
customers). Instruments developed in this manner typically demonstrate higher validities
than basic personality traits (e. g., Frei & McDaniel, 1998; Hogan et al., 1984). However,
this study shows that integrating situational and dispositional information into a single
test format can be as predictive as these “compound” measures (at least for service
orientation), yet still provide understanding about individual differences on basic traits.
For example, the DSI constructs were about as predictive as the CSI, but could be linked
back to specific personality traits to help understand which traits were most important for
providing excellent service. Specifically, it appears that conscientiousness and to a lesser
extent neuroticism are the primary predictors of customer service performance, and that
agreeableness may be important for some criteria more than others. This information
could not be identified using an instrument such as the CSI.

Fourth, this study replicates Schmit et al. (1995) by including both generic and at-

work items for the NEO-FFI. In contrast to their study, however, no meaningfiil

196

improvement in predictive validity was found. The Schmit et al. (1995) study was a
simulated selection procedure using volunteers as participants and GPA as the criterion.
Furthermore, only conscientiousness was examined. Here, real incumbents were used (at
least for certain in the employed sample), actual supervisory ratings were collected, and
neuroticism and agreeableness were also considered in addition to conscientiousness.
The results of this study parallel those in Schmit et a1 (1995) by finding higher means in
the contextualized scales, but unlike their study found little to no improvement in
validity. Although there may be several reasons for this (e.g., range restriction, criterion
problems; see Study Limitations section below), the fact remains that future research
must examine this issue more closely. Concluding that adding at-work referents alone
with improve prediction may not be warranted, or at least may not be warranted unless
certain conditions are present.

Fifth, this study is one of the first that attempts to develop a personality
instrument by explicitly considering the nature of the criterion. That is, the options in the
DSI reflect actual customer service behaviors, rather than generic or general types of
behavioral statements. Guion (1991) notes the importance of the criterion when
developing personality tests, but with the exception of criterion-referenced tests (e.g.,

C SI, Paaj anen et a., 1993) few attempts of trait assessment in selection have considered
this approach (however, see Raymark, Schmit, & Guion, 1997, for an application to job
analysis). This is interesting because researchers (e.g., Anastasi & Urbina, 1997; Rynes,
1993) have argued that making tests job-related (i.e., sampling from the criterion domain
to develop the test items) should provide many desirable qualities (e. g., increased

prediction, more favorable reactions). This study would suggest that making test items

197

job related may also improve validity, but to what extent is unclear because all of the DSI
items were written to reflect specific customer service behaviors and situations (as
opposed to just customer service behaviors).

Overall, this research contributes to the existing selection literature by empirically
demonstrating that the continued use of selection instruments based on broad and generic
personality measures may not provide maximal prediction. Rather, and more consistent
with theory and interactionist personality research, this study suggests that contextual
information should be included as part of trait assessment. Neglecting such information
is likely to provide less accurate prediction for specific work behaviors, as others have
noted (Murtha et al., 1996; Roberts & Donahue, 1994) but no one has empirically shown.
Of course, these conclusions are based on several conditions that will be described in the
Study Limitations section below.

Contributions to the Develo ment and se of ituational ud ent Tests

Although the primary purpose of this research was to develop an instrument of
personality within work contexts, the manner in which the DSI was developed may have
some implications for the development of situational judgment tests, or of any instrument
that attempts to link situations to behavior.

First consider the differences in scale development. The traditional manner in
which SJTs are developed is to use job analysis information to develop common work
situations. The job analysis information may or may not be used to rationally create
general dimensions (e.g., Motowidlo et al., 1990; Weekly & Jones, 1997). Next, a
different group of incumbents is required to generate responses to each situation. Finally,

a third group of experts is given the task of choosing the best response for each situation

198

(Weekly & Jones, 1997), and sometimes the best and worst responses for each situation
(e.g., Motowidlo et al., 1990; Pulakos & Schmitt, 1997). These items are then correlated
with performance for an overall estimate of validity.

To date, nobody has persuasively shown what constructs SJTS measure because
they are inherently multidimensional. Consideration of basic personality research
suggests why this is so. The fact that situations are drawn fiom work contexts is not
problematic because the behaviors to be predicted are embedded in these situations
(Murtha et al., 1996). However, identical objective situations are perceived differently as
a firnction of different dispositions (Mischel & Shoda, 1995). Assuming that there are
individual differences on basic personality traits in the sample that generates the
responses (and the sample that judges the correct responses), different m may be
related to different traits. Of course, these relations are not likely to be found empirically
because the entire process goes through several revisions (at a minimum two, those who
generate responses and those that rate them). Furthermore, behavior is multiply
determined, so one should not be surprised that there are multiple construct relations to
items, both within and across options. Thus, throughout the development process there
are multiple constructs being assessed, there is no conceptual basis for including or
rejecting particular situations, or to judge what might be better situations than others, and
there is no theoretical basis for choosing among alternative behavioral options—in short,
there is no theory that is being assessed. This is not to say that these tests are not
designed to tap specific criterion dimensions or behaviors (e. g., interpersonal skills;
Motowidlo et al., 199), but ultimately the test is developed in a very multidimensional

and atheoretical manner.

199

Now contrast this approach with the method used here. First, a heuristic
conceptualization of how basic traits should be manifest in work situations (primarily that
of Mischel & Shoda, 1995) was used to guide the development process. Specific traits
that have shown relations to the customer service criteria in previous research (F rei &
McDaniel, 1998; Hogan et al., 1984; Paajanen et al., 1993) were to be measured by
considering contextual information. This is typically not done when creating SJTS.
Second, a job analysis was conducted to determine both relevant work behaviors and
situations that should exhibit the most variability in those behaviors. Specifically,
respondents were asked to describe situations that were difficult, challenging, and
ambiguous. Next, the situations and behaviors were written to reflect a range of on;
behavior in a given situation, and this behavior was expected to be a manifestation of a
basic trait in the situation. Traditional SJTs use multiple behavioral options that are
scored as more or less correct; the method used here provided only one type of behavior
(e.g., help a customer) that was written to reflect a range of that behavior (e.g., “help the
customer at all costs’ to “help the customer only as much as necessary”). Endorsement of
a particular degree of this behavior was considered to be determined by a person’s
standing on a basic trait and be analogous to choosing between “strongly agree” to
“strongly disagree” on a traditional personality scale. Third, items that exhibited a
relationship to only one personality trait were considered. This step is not done when
developing SJTs. Fourth, in this study the items are summed to form scales, but there are
no correct or incorrect answers for the items. Instead, the instrument is scored like a
personality test by unit weighting items to form an overall score. In contrast, SJTs use

right or wrong answers.

200

Thus, by comparing these two methods one can see that SJTs suffer fiom a
multidimensional approach that is built in throughout the stages of their development.
However, depending on the purpose and goals for developing these instruments, they may
be able to be improved based on the findings of this study. First, it may be better to
reflect a range of one type of behavior than to consider multiple behaviors for each
situation. Each behavior generated by multiple individuals to a specific situation may be
multiply detemrined by several dispositional and contextual factors. However, using a
range of only one behavior (e. g., high to low on demonstrating effort) should make these

items more unidimensional. Second, researchers developing SJTs may need to adopt

 

formal criteria for developing or retaining situations; criteria that will result in the

 

maximal variability in the behavior rather than simply using most work-related situations
identified. Anecdotal evidence fi'om this project would suggest that, when given clear
definitions and examples of what is meant by difficult situations, participants can identify
situations that are relatively difficult to handle. Third, should one desire to measure a
specific construct using a SJT format, a method similar to the one used in this study could
be adopted. This should improve the SJT by: (a) requiring a clear conceptualization of
the construct to be measured, (b) explicating how situations should relate to the
manifestation (i.e., behavioral response options) of this construct, (c) developing options
that reflect a range of a behavior rather than multiple behaviors (that are probably
multidimensional anyway), and (e) assessing the relations of these items to an alternative
measure of the construct.

It is also instructive to compare the findings in this study to past research on SJTS.

In contrast to research on SJTs (e.g., Motowidlo et al., 1990, Pulakos & Schmitt, 1996;

201

Weekly & Jones, 1997) this study found theoretically consistent and reliable relationships
with specific traits, providing evidence for construct validity. To date, no published
study on SJTS has been able to demonstrate such findings (although Motowidlo et al.,
1990, did show modest correlations between their SJT and some dimensions tapped by
interviews and assessment centers, their SJT did not measure a specific construct).

F urthermore, this understanding did not come at a price of reduced predictiveness
because the validities for the DSI constructs were generally similar to those found in past
research. When one compares the values for the corrected validities, or for the validities
in the employed sample, one finds that the DSI constructs predicted performance with the
range of the best estimates for SJ Ts in the literature. Finally, this occurs without
requiring greater resources from the organization: after the criterion behaviors and
situations are elicited, firrther development can proceed without the help of job
incumbents. SJ Ts would further require incumbents to (a) generate behavioral options
and (b) rate these options. Thus, the DSI method maintains levels of validity as good as
SJ Ts but with less labor requirements—yet provides greater understanding.

Finally, one might contrast the traditional SJT approach with the empirical
scoring key used here for the DSI. These approaches are similar in that there is little
explicit consideration given to understanding a construct or constructs in the measure.
Instead, the interest is in maximal prediction. Thus, the similarity between these
approaches is in their goals and the fact that both tests are empirically scored, but their
differences lie mainly in the way the situations and response options are generated (as the
above section that compared and contrasted these methods has noted). The results fi'om

this analysis suggest that the validities of the empirical DSI (1’s = .39 to .41) were similar

202

to the best estimates published to date (; = .37; Motowidlo et al., 1990). Thus, there may
be some very practical improvements in validity for SJTS simply by adopting the
situation and response development method used here.

Contributions t the d ' f m ervice P c

This study was primarily concerned with developing an instrument of personality
within work contexts. However, this study also provides a novel contribution to research
on customer service and the prediction of customer service performance. First, this study
integrated three performance taxonomies to define the customer service performance
domain: the SERVQUAL dimensions (Parasuraman et al., 1991), Campbell’s
performance taxonomy (Campbell et al., 1993; 1996), and contextual performance
(Borman & Motowidlo, 1993; 1998). Integrating these taxonomies provided a more
complete description of the customer performance domain than did each fiamework
independently.

What is most important to note for present purposes is that the SERVQUAL
dimensions (Parasuraman et al., 1991) were deficient. The data collected during the job
analysis indicated that a variety of behaviors were important for providing customer
service; these were largely related to contextual performance dimensions (e. g.,
willingness to help coworkers). Although the SERVQUAL dimensions describe the
customer service performance domain in terms of the behaviors needed to deal with
customers, they are deficient in terms of the behaviors required to function effectively in
a service organization (particularly a retail or foodservice environment). This is
important to note because most applied psychological research that attempts to study

customer service uses the SERVQUAL dimensions (e.g., Schneider & Bowen, 1995).

203

This study suggests it is premature to settle on these dimensions without more research
(of course, it might be noted that these dimensions were all highly correlated. This issue
is discussed in the Study Limitations section below).

In addition, this study is among only a few that has attempted to predict customer
service performance. Most of the research that has been done has been conducted to help
validate a proprietary instrument (e.g., Hogan et al., 1984; Paajanen et al., 1993). Ahnost
no published research has explicitly considered the application of basic traits to predict
customer service, and no published research has examined the use of contextualized
predictor measures. Thus, this study provides a contribution both to the understanding
and prediction of the customer service domain as well.

Future Directions: Towards an Integration pf Bgip and Applied Pegspectivgs

The direction of this study was based on a considerable amount of research in the
basic personality literature. However, the goals of this study were to use this research to
provide a more predictive instrument than current measures, yet still provide for
understanding. As a result of these efforts, future research directions are considered.

First, an immediate question that must be addressed is to examine the test-retest
correlations of the DSI constructs. Should these correlations be high, it supports the
notion that the DSI is similar to Mischel and Shoda’s (1995) conceptualization of
personality: behavior is inconsistent across situations, but is consistent within similar
situations. Thus, the very next step should be to assess the DSI constructs at two
different times. However, the more basic NEO and NEO with at-work tags measures
should also be examined because it would be interesting to compare the relative stabilities

across time.

204

Second, it is important to replicate the current results in a different sample of
customer service employees. Also needed is more information about possible sub-group
differences. Similarly, it would be interesting to adopt the approach used to develop the
DSI to create predictors for other types of jobs. For example, managerial performance
may be influenced by a number of traits (e. g., Hough & Schneider, 1996) that are more or
less required in certain situations (e. g., dealing with employee conflict, developing trust).
If such information is confirming, it helps to further validate the rationale for the DSI.

Third, it would be interesting to more directly apply the CAPs conceptualization
(Mischel & Shoda, 1995) to the measurement and understanding of customer service
jobs. For example, customer service jobs are relatively fast-paced and dynamic, and
require a number of skills simultaneously (e. g., self-regulation, impression management).
These constructs are similar to those identified in the CAPS system, and so an interesting
study would be to assess these constructs along with measures of basic traits (i.e., Big 5)
and the DSI to predict performance. One would expect the DSI to be related to the more
proximal mediating mechanisms, and these more proximal constructs should completely
mediate any Big 5 - performance relations.

Fourth, a policy capturing study that examines if individuals who differ on a
particular trait identify different salient features of the DSI situations would help provide
more evidence that situational information should be considered as part of trait
assessment. This is consistent with theoretical fiameworks (e.g., McCrae & Costa, 1996;
Mischel & Shoda, 1995) but has hardly been explored (e.g., Matthews, 1997). Such
information could then be used to scale situations in terms of their effects on behavior,

leading to the development of a situational taxonomy.

205

Fifih, the more basic understanding of within and between situation stability,
within and between individual stability over time, and traits needs to be more fully
considered. Ahnost no research has considered the issue of temporal stability in
conjunction with situational stability. However, these two issues are clearly interrelated,
and there are considerable opportunities to consider how these factors may be related in
samples of job incumbents or college students.

W

This study suggests that the practice of using general trait measures of the Five
Factor Model may not be the most effective method for using personality to select
individuals. Rather, a careful consideration of the situational context within which a trait
will be manifest should be likely to improve prediction, resulting in greater utility. It
should be noted that the method proposed here does not require any more organizational
resources than costs required for developing a SJT (indeed, the required time and people
resources are probably less). However, it does require more resources than using an off-
the-shelf personality instrument such as the NEO-FFI or the Hogan Personality
Inventory. On the other hand, the predictive validity of the DSI appears to be greater than
these generic instruments. F urtherrnore, after the DSI is developed and construct validity
evidence is gathered, use of the DSI is no more costly than these proprietary methods.
Given the increased validity afforded by the DSI method, it may prove to be a useful
alternative to many personality instruments. And, given its low relations to cognitive

ability, may be an attractive complement to predictors measuring g.

206

Study Limitatipps

The conclusions and recommendations provided in the previous sections should
be considered in light of the following study limitations. First, more construct validity
evidence needs to be collected. Although this study finds interesting and meaningful
relations between the DSI, other predictor constructs, and customer service performance,
it would be desirable to have another sample to conduct empirical cross-validation.

Second, one may question the appropriateness of the sample used in this study.
However, the residence hall sample was composed of individuals who held actual
customer service jobs, and these individuals were rated by two supervisors, so this sample
should generally be representative of other organizational contexts. Less certainty can be
placed with the subject pool sample because there was no way to know (a) if these
individuals were employed in customer service jobs, (b) if their supervisors actually
completed the forms, and (c) if the jobs were comparable. To help minimize these
concerns, analyses were run for both the overall sample and the employed sample. These
results were generally consistent, although were slightly more favorable for the DSI in the
employed sample.

Third, one may question whether the criterion dimensions were truly distinct.
Clearly they were all interrelated, but they all also reflect specific aspects of customer
service. However, across dimensions the results were mainly consistent, so whether one
considers these dimensions as distinct or in combination will not make much of a
substantive difference. One explanation for the degree of intercorrelations among these
dimensions is halo bias, where the same person is rated similarly on multiple dimensions.

Although rater training was provided, this bias still appears to be present. Leniency also

207

 

appeared to be present because most of the ratings were above average. However, if
anything these forms of bias should attenuate the observed validities by reducing variance
across all dimensions. Stronger validity evidence might have been found had the rating
scales exhibited greater variability.

Fourth, the power for detecting true relationships in this study is on the minimum
side of accepted levels (.70) for many analyses. However, the primary focus in this study
was on effect size, as this provides more information than do significance tests (e. g.,
Murphy & Myors, 1998). Of course, indirect range restriction may have slightly
attenuated these effects (Schmidt et al., 1976), but if one considers reasonable amounts of
indirect range restriction this study still provides adequate power for most analyses
(Sackett & Wade, 1983). Still, there is no substitute for larger sample sizes and empirical
cross-validation.

Finally, one might question the construct validity evidence given that method bias
may be present. Although method bias is probably present, the degree of NEO
intercorrelations shown in the table is consistent with that found in past research (e.g.,
Costa & McCrae, 1992). Thus, method bias does not appear to be the sole factor
accounting for the intercorrelations among the measures.

mm

This study shows that consideration of specific situational information when
assessing traits can lead to both greater prediction and understanding. Thus, this study is
more consistent with basic personality research and theory. However, it also contributes
to this basic literature. For example, Murtha et al. (1996) argued that many important

criteria are embedded within situations, and that to accurately predict this criteria one

208

 

must incorporate the relevant situational stimuli with the predictor. This study is the first
to provide evidence that this approach seems warranted with a Big 5 framework.
Similarly, this study contributes to the applied literature by illustrating how such
information can be incorporated and used to develop trait-based predictors of job
performance. As such, this study argues that future trait-based selection research should
consider the nature of contextual work information to provide a more accurate assessment
and prediction of work behavior. By maximizing prediction with a construct-oriented
approach, one can better develop instruments that provide for greater prediction and

understanding.

209

References

Adler, S. (1996). Personality and work behavior: Exploring the linkages.
Applied Psycholegy: An Intematienel Review, 45, 207-224.

Allport, G. W., & Odbert, H. S. (1936). Trait-names: A psycho-lexical study.
Psychelogical Monogpaphs, 47.

Anastasi, A., & Urbina, S. (1997). Esyeholegieal Testing. New Jersey:
Prentice-Hall.

Argyle, M., Fumharn, A., & Graham, J. A. (1981). mm.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Bandura, A. (1971). Social Learmng fIfheog. New York: General Learning
Press.

Barrick, M. R., & Mount, M. K. (1991). The big five personality dimensions and
job performance: A meta analysis. Personnel Psychelegy, 44, 1-26.

Barrick, M. R., & Mount, M. K. (1993). Autonomy as a moderator of the
relationship between the Big Five personality dimensions and job performance. Journal

ef Applied Psychology, 78, 111-118.

Banick, M. R., Mount, M. K., & Strauss, J. P. (1993). Conscientiousness and
performance of sales representatives: A test of the mediating effects of goal setting.

Journal of Applied Psychelogy, 78, 715-722.

Binning, J. F., & Barrett, G. V. (1989). Validity of personnel decisions: A
conceptual analysis of the inferential and evidential bases. W
Psychology, 74, 478-494.

Block, J. (1995). A contrarian view of the five-factor approach to personality
description. Psychological Bulletip, 117, 187-215.

Borrnan, W. C., & Motowidlo, S. J. (1997). Task performance and contextual
performance: The meaning for personnel selection research. Human Performance 10
99-109.

 

Borman, W. C., White, L. A., Pulakos, E. D., & Oppler, S. H. (1991). Models of
supervisory job performance ratings. Jeurnal ef Applied Psychology, 76, 863-872.

Browne, M. W. (1975). Predictive validity of a linear regression equation.
British Journal of Mathematical and Stetistieal Psychology, 28, 79-87.

210

Brunswick, E. (1956). ' res 'v ei s c l ical
experiments (2"‘1 edition). Berkeley: University of California Press.

Campbell, J. P., McCloy, R. A., Oppler, S. H., & Sager, C. E. (1993). A theory
of performance. In N. Schmitt and W. C. Borrnan (Eds), limped Selectien rp'
gganizations (pp. 35-70). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Cattell, R. B. (1943). The description of personality: Basic traits resolved into
clusters. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 38, 476-506.

Cattell, R. B. (1956). Second-order personality factors. Wing
Psychology, 20, 411-418.

Cattin, P. (1980). Estimation of a regression model. 1 f A li
Psychology, 65, 407-414.

Chan, D., & Schmitt, N. (1997). Video-based versus paper-and-pencil method of
assessment in situational judgment tests: Subgroup differences in test performance and

face validity perceptions. Jopmal ef Applied Peyehelegy, S2, 143-159.
Cohen, J. (1988). Stetieticel pewer Qflysie for the behevieral sciences (2"d

edition). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrance Erlbaum Associates.

Cohen, J ., & Cohen, P. (1983). A li m l i r ion/correlation anal si
for the behevioral sciences (2“I edition). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrance Erlbaum Associates.

Collier, D. (1983). The service sector revolution: The automation of services.
Long Range leing, 16, 10-20.

Costa, P. T., Jr., & McCrae, R. R. (1978). Objective personality assessments. In

M. Storandt, I. C. Siegler, & M. F. Elias (Eds), The glinieel Esyeholegy ef Aging (pp.
119-143). New York: Plenum Press.

Costa, P. T.,Jr., &McCrae, R. R. (1992). NE -P -R fes i n 1M u .
Odessa, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources, Inc.

Cronbach, L. J ., & Meehl, P. E. (1955). Construct validity in psychological tests.
Psyehelogical Bulletin, 52, 281-302.

Day, D. V., & Silverrnan, (1989). Personality and job performance: Evidence of
incremental validity. Per_Ԥonnel Peychelegy, 42, 25-36.

Di grnan, J. M. (1990). Personality structure: Emergence of the five-factor
model. Annual Review of Psychology, 41, 417-440.

211

Digman, J. M. (1996). The curious history of the five-factor model. In J. S.
Wiggins (Ed), e Five- t r M P nali : r ti 'v (pp. 1-
20). New York: The Guilford Press.

Digman, J. M. (1997). Higher-order factors of the big five. 12M
Personality and Socig Esyehelegy, :23, 1246-1256.

Dworkin, R. H., & Kihlstrom, J. F. (1978). An S-R inventory of dominance for
research on the nature of person-situation interactions. W 43-56.

Emmons, R. A. (1989). Exploring the relations between motives and traits: The

case of narcissism. In D. Buss & N. Cantor (Eds), WW
trends and emerging directieps (pp. 32-44). New York: Springer-Verlag.

Endler, N. S. (1983). Interactionism: A personality model, but not yet a theory.

In M. M. Page (Ed), Personality: Qurrent theory and researeh (pp. 155-200). University
of Nebraska Press.

Endler, N. 8., Hunt, J. M. (1968). S-R inventories of hostility and comparisons
of the proportions of variance from persons, responses, and situations for hostility and

anxiousness. Journal of Peregnality and SgigJ Eeyehelegy, 2, 309-315.

Endler, N. 8., Hunt, J. M., & Rosenstein, A. J. (1962). An S—R inventory of
anxiousness. h l ical 7 , 76.

Epstein, S. (1979). The stability of behavior: On predicting most of the people
much of the time. Jeumel ef Persenelity ape Secial Psyehelogy, 32, 1097-1126.

Epstein, S. (1980). The stability of behavior II: Implications for psychological
research. Ameriean Psychelegiet, 35, 790-806.

Ericsson, K. A., & Lehmann, A. C. (1996). Expert and exceptional performance:

Evidence of maximal adaptation to task constraints. arena] Review of Psyehelegy, 47,
27 3-305.

Eysenck, H. J. (1947). Qirpensiens of Persenalig. London: Routledge & Kegan
Paul.

Eysenck, H. J. (1997). Personality and experimental psychology: The
unification of psychology and the possibility of a paradigm. Jemal ef Bersenelity and
Social Psycholegy, 73, 1224-1237.

Fechner, G. (1860). Elements of psychophyeies. English ed. Of Vol. 1. H. E.

Adler (Trans), D. H. Howes, & E. G. Boring (Eds). New York: Holt, Rinehart, &
Winston, 1966.

212

File, Q. W. (1945). The measurement of supervisory quality in industry. Jewel
of Applied Psyeholegy, 22, 323-337.

Fiske, D. W. (1949). Consistency of the factorial structure of personalrty ratings
from difference sources MW 329-344

Fogli, L., & Whitney, K. (1991). Sfl'cefisst: A test te select serviee ep'grteel
perseppel. Symposium presented at the annual meeting of the American Psychological
Association, San Francisco.

ForgaSJ. P. (1979). W New
York: Academic Press.

F redericksen, N. (1972). Toward a taxonomy of situations. m
Psychologist, 27, 114-123.

Funder, D. C. & Colvin, C. R. (1991). Explorations in behavioral consistency:

Properties of persons, situations, and behaviors. LEW
Psychology, 60, 779-794.

Frei, R. L., & McDaniel, M. A. (1998). Validity of customer service measures in
personnel selection: A review of criterion and construct evidence. Hyman Eeflorrnepee,
1_l_, 1-27.

George, J. M., & Jones, G. R. (1991). Towards an understanding of customer
service quality. Journal of Managerial Issues, 111, 220-238.

Goldberg, L. R. (1993). The structure of phenotypic personality traits. m
Psychologist, 48, 26-34.

Goldberg, L. R., & Saucier, G. (1995). So what do you propose we use instead—
A reply to Block. Psychological Bulletir_r, 177, 221-225.

Golding, S. L. (1975). Flies 1n the ointment: Methodological problems in the
analysis of the percentage of variance due to persons and situations. Bsyehelegjeel
Bulletin 82, 272-288.

 

Grote, G. F., & James, L. R. (1991). Testing behavioral consistency and
coherence with the situation-response measure of achievement motivation. Meltivgi ate

Behavioral Research, 26, 655-691.

Guion, R. M. (1961). Criterion measurement and personnel judgments.
Personnel Psychology, 14, 141-149.

213

Guion, R. M. (1991). Personnel assessment, selection, and placement. In M. D.

Dunnette & L. M. Hough (Eds), Begging; ef inepsgial md erganizatienal psyehelogy
(2" edition, Vol. 2, pp. 327-397). Palo Alta, CA. Consulting Psychologists Press.

Guion.R. M- (1998). W
Dgisions. Mahwah, NJ: LEA.

Guion, R. M., & Gottier, R. F. (1965). Validity of personality measures in
personnel selection. MW 135-164.

Hattrup, K., & Jackson, S. E. (1996). Learning about individual differences by

taking situations seriously In K R Murphy (Ed) WW2:
rnQIganizations (pp. 507- 545). San Francisco, CA. Jossey—Bass.

Hogan, R. (1986). flegan Eersonflity Jpventeg Mmpel. Minneapolis, MN:

National Computer systems.

Hogan, R. (1991). Personality and personality measurement. In M. D. Dunnette

& L. M. Hough (Eds), Handbook ef Industrial and ghganizational Psyehelogy (Vol. 2,
pp. 55-89, 2"" ed). Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press.

Hogan, R. (1996). A socioanalytic interpretation of the five factor model. In J.

S. Wiggins (Ed), The Five-Factes Medel ef Remnelity; Theoretical Perspectives (pp.
163-179). New York: The Guilford Press.

Hogan, R., & Hogan, J. (1992). Manual fer Eh: Hogan Pemnelig Inveptegy.

Tulsa, OK: Hogan Assessment Systems.

Hogan, J ., Hogan, R., & Bush, C. M. (1984). How to measure service
orientation. Journal of Applifi Psychelogy, 62, 167-173.

Hogan, J ., & Roberts, B. W. (1996). Issues and non-issues in the fidelity-
bandwidth trade-off. Jeurnal ef ghgehizationel Behevier, 17, 627-637.

Hogan, R., & Shelton, D. (1998). A socioanalytic perspective on job
performance. Human Perferrnanee, 11, 129-144.

Hough, L. M. (1992). The “Big Five” personality variables-construct confusion:

Description versus prediction. W 139-155.
Hough, L. M. (1998). Personality at work: Issues and evidence. lnM. D. Hakel
(Ed),B ond Multi 1e h ic : v ' t tive T ii nal stin f

Selection (pp.l3l-l66). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

214

Hough, L. M., Eaton, N. K, Dunnette, M. D., Kamp, J. D., & McCloy, R. A.
(1990). Criterion-related validities of personality constructs and the effect of response

distortion on those validities. Jeu_rpal ei Applied Esyehelegy, 76, 581-595.

Hough, L. M, & Schneider, R. J. (1996). Personality traits, taxonomies, and

applications In organizations In K R Murphy (Ed ). WM
Behsviei ir_1 Qrgepiza ti.ei1_s (pp. 3-30), San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Hunter, J. E., & Hunter, R. (1984). Validity and utility of alternative predictors.
Psychological Bgleim,‘ 96, 72-98.

James, L. R. (1998). Measurement of personality via conditional reasoning.
Qiganizational Researeh Meiheghs, 1, 131-163.

Judge, T. A., Martocchio, J. J ., & Thoresen, C. J. (1997). Five-factor model of
personality and employee absence. J0me] ef Applied Psychoiegy, 82, 745-755.

Kanfer, R. (1990). Motivation theory and industrial/organizational psychology.

In M. D. Dunnette & L. M. Hough (Eds), Handhook of Indusm'al and Qiganizatienal
Psychology (pp. 75-170). Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press.

Kenrick, D. T., & Funder, D. C. (1988). Profiting fi‘om controversy: Lessons
from the person-situation debate. WM, 23-34.

Klimoski, R. J. (1993). Predictor constructs and their measurement. In N.
Schmitt and W- C- Bonnan (Eds), WW (1313- 99434)-

San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Krahe, B. (1992). ers na' (1 oci Ps chol
London: Sage Publications.

Lanning, K. (1988). Individual differences in scalability: An alternative
conception of consistency for personality theory and measurement. M

Personaliiy and Sociei Psychoiegy, 66, 142-148.

Latham, G. P., & Saari, L. M. (1984). Do people do what they say? More
studies of the situational interview. J6me] 6f Applied Esyehelogy, 62, 569-573.

Latham, G. P., Saari, L. M., Pursell, M. A., & Campion, M. A. (1980). The
situational interview. Jemal 6f Appligi Psyeheiegy, 66, 422-427.

Lewin, K. (1936). Mama. New York: McGraw-
Hill.

Lewis, B. R., & Mitchell, V. W. (1990). Defining and measuring the quality of
customer service. Marketing Intelligenee 6;, Plgim'ng, 8, 11-17.

215

 

Magnusson, D. (1976). The person and the situation in an interactional model of
behavior. Scandinavifl Jeurnal of Psycholegy, i7, 253-271.

Magnusson, D. (1981). Toward a psychology of situations: An interactional

perspective. In D. Magnusson (Ed), Teward a psyeholegy oi sim'ens: M
interactional pgspective. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Magnusson, D., & Ekehammar, B. (1973). An analysis of situational
dimensions: A replication. Multivariate Behavioral Research, 331-339.

Magnusson, D., & Endler, N. S. (1977). Interactional psychology: Present status
and future prospects. In D. Magnusson & N. S. Endler (Eds), minim

Crossroads: Current Issues ip Integetienfl Esyehology (pp.3-35). Hillsdale, NJ:

Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Magnusson, D., & Heffler, B. (1969). The generalizability of behavioral data 111:
Generalization potential as a function of the number of observation instances.
Multivariate Behavioral Research 4, 29-42.

 

Magnusson, D., & Torestad, B. (1992). The individual as an interactive agent in
the environment. In W. B. Walsh, K. H. Craik, & R. H. Price (Eds), Person-environment
psychology (pp. 89-126). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Martocchio, J. J ., & Judge, T. A. (1997). Relationship between
conscientiousness and learning in employee training: Mediating influences of self-

deception and self-efficacy. .106in oi Appligi Pacholegy, 82, 764-773.

Matthews, G. (1997). Extraversion, emotion, and performance: A cognitive-
adaptive model. In G. Matthews (Ed), 'ive cience 've n e n li
emetion (pp. 399-442.

McLellan, R. A., & Paajanen, G. (1994). PDI Cpstomer Sem'ce Inventoiy

Manual. Minneapolis, MN: Personnel Decisions, Inc.

McCrae, R. R., & Costa, P. T, Jr. (1996). Toward a new generation of
personality theories: Theoretical contexts for the five-factor model. In J. S. Wiggins
(Ed), The Five-thor Mgel of Emenelig: jijheeietical Empatives (pp. 51-87). New
York: The Guilford Press.

McCrae, R. R., & John, O. P. (1992). An introduction to the five factor model
and its applications. Journal of Pemngiiiy, 69, 175-215.

Mischel, W. (1968). Pezsenality angi Assessment. New York: Wiley.

216

Mischel, W. (1973). Toward a cognitive social learning reconceptualization of
personality WM 252-283

Mischel, W. (1977). The interaction of person and situation. In D. Magnusson &
N. S. Endler (Eds) on 11 en I
m (pp. 333- -352). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Mischel, W., & Peake, P. K. (1982). Beyond déja vu in the search for cross-
situational consistency. MW 730-755.

Mischel, W., & Shoda, Y. (1995). A cognitive-affective system theory of
personality: Reconceptualizing situations, dispositions, dynamics, and invariance in

personality structure. Rsyehelegieal Review, 192, 246-268.

Mischel, W., & Shoda, Y. (1998). Reconciling processing dynamics and
personality dispositions. Apppal Review ef Rsychelegy, 42, 229-258.

Motowidlo, S. J ., Borman, W. C., & Schmit, M. J. (1997). A theory of individual
differences in task and contextual performance. W, 71-83.

Motowidlo, S. J ., Dunnette, M. D., & Carter, G. W. (1990). An alternative

selection procedure: The low-fidelity simulation. Jeip'pei ef Applied Rsychelegy, 76,
640-647.

Motowidlo, S. J., & Tippins, N. (1993). Further studies of the low-fidelity

simulation 1n the form of a situational inventory. W
mganizational Rsychelogy, 66, 337- 344.

Motowidlo, S. J ., & Van Scotter, J. R. (1994). Evidence that task performance

should be distinguished from contextual performance. a1 i P ch 1
3, 475-480.

Mount, M. K., & Barrick, M. R. (1995). The big five personality dimensions.
Implications for research and practice in human resources management. Reseppehip

Personnel and Hman Reseurce Managemm (Vol. 13; pp. 153- 200).

Mount, M. K., Barrick, M. R., & Stewart, G. L. (1998). Five-factor model of
personality and performance in jobs involving interpersonal interactions. Rm

Performance, 11, 145-165.

Mount, M. K., Barrick, M. R., & Strauss, J. P. (1994). Validity of observer
ratings of the Big 5 personality factors. f 1i 010 7 272-280.

Murphy, K. R. (1996). Individual differences and behavior in organizations:
Much more than g. In K. R. Murphy (Ed), mpiflgipg Differenees and Behevier ip
Ciganizations. (pp. 3-30). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

217

 

Murphy, K. R., & Myors, B. (1998). MW. Hillsdale, NJ:
Lawrance Erlbaum Associates.

Murtha, T. C., Kanfer, R., & Ackerrnan, P. L. (1996). Toward an interactionist
taxonomy of personality and situations: An integrative situational-dispositional

representation of personality traits. Jeurn p ei Reisepgi 1g gid Smi ei Psyehelegyfll
193- 207.

Neter, J ., Wasserman, W., & Kutner, M. H. (1990). lied 1' tis 'c 1
medels (3" edition). Burr Ridge, MA: Irwin.

Norman, W. T. (1963). Toward an adequate taxonomy of personality attributes:
Replicated factor structure in peer nomination personality ratings. Mew

and Social Psyehology, 66, 574-583.

Northcrafi, G., & Chase, G. (1985). Managing service demand at the point of
delivery. Academy of Mgagement Review, 19, 67-75.

Nunnally, J ., C., & Bernstein, I. H. (1994). Psycheipetric jifheeiy (3" edition).
New York: McGraw-Hill.

Ones, D. S., Viswesvaran, C. (1996). Bandwidth-fidelity dilemma in personality
measurement for personnel selection. Jena] of ng’gtiopel Rehavior, 17, 609-626.

Ones, D. S., Viswesvaran, C., & Schmidt, F. L. (1993). Comprehensive meta-
analysis of integrity test validities: Findings and implications for personnel selection and

theories of job performance. [Monograph]. Journal ef Applied Rsychelegy, 23, 679-703.

Paajanen, G. E., Hansen, T. L., McLellan, R. A. (1993). PDI emplommt
inventopi and PDI eustomer service he ventopg manpei. Minneapolis, MN: Personnel

Decisions Incorporated.

Parasuraman, A., Zeithaml, V. A., & Berry, L. L. (1985). A conceptual model of
service quality and its implications for future research. Joumel of Mgketing, 42, 41-50.

Parasuraman, A., Berry, L. L., & Zeithaml, V. A. (1991). Refinement and
reassessment of the SERVQUAL scale. Jomal of Retailing, 62, 140-147.

Parasuraman, A., Zeithaml, V. A., & Berry, L. L. (1988). SERVQUAL: A
multiple-item scale for measuring consumer perceptions of service quality. Jopmal of

W. 12-40-

Pedhazur, E. J ., & Schmelkin, L. P. (1991). Measurement, desigp, and ppaiysis:
An integieted eppreach. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrance Erlbaum Associates.

218

Pervin, L. A. (1989). WWW
Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrance Erlbaum Associates.

Peterson, R. A., & Wilson, W. R. (1992). Measuring customer satisfaction: Fact
and artifact. Journal ef mg Aeeeepiy ei Markeipi' g Seiepee, 29, 61-71.

Phares, E. J. (1991). ippmpetiepiepersepeiipi. Harper Collins, NY: Harper
Collins Publishers.

Psychological Assessment Resources. (1994). MW
NEO Personali Invento |’-PI- . . NEO 0.1” o M 0-

Odessa, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources, Inc.

Pulakos, E. D., & Schmitt, N. (1995). Experience-based and situational interview
questions: Studies of validity. RersemieLRsyehelegLAS, 289-308.

Pulakos, E. D., & Schmitt, N. (1996). An evaluation of two strategies for
reducing adverse impact and their effects on criterion-related validity. Hpipep

Performance, 2, 241-258.

Ragu, N. S., Bilgic, R., Edwards, J. E., & Fleer, P. F. (1997). Methodology
review: Estimate of population validity and cross-validity, and the use of equal weights

in prediction. Applied Psycholegieal Measpimept, 21, 291-306.

Raymark, P. H., Schmit, M. J., & Guion, R. M. (1997). Identifying potentially
useful personality constructs for employee selection. Beuemeifisyehpieggpfl, 723-736.

Ree, M. J ., Carretta, T. R., Earles, J. A., & Albert, W. (1994). Sign changes
when correcting for range restriction: A note on Pearson’s and Lawley’s selection

formulas. Jomal of Applied Psycholegy, 72, 298-301.

Roberts, B. W. & Donahue, E. M. (1994). One personality, multiple selves.
Integrating personality and social roles. W, 199- 218.

Ross, L., &Nisbett, R. E. (1991). eP ° ati n: tiv s f
Social Psychology. New York: McGraw Hill.

Rosse, J. G., Miller, H. E., & Barnes, L. K. (1991). Combining personality and
cognitive ability predictors for hiring service-oriented employees. Jepmal ei Resiness

angi Psyehology, 6, 431-445.

Rotter. J. B. (1954). W- Englowood
Cliffs, N. J. Prentice-Hall.

219

Rudie, M. J., & Wansley, H. B. (1985). The Merrill Lynch quality program. In

T Bloch. G Uriah, &V A Ziethaml (EdS) WW
Environm nmt.en Chicago, IL. American Marketing Association.

Rynes, S. L. (1993). Who's selecting Whom? InN. Schmitt& W. C. Borman
(Eds ). W (pp 240-274) San Francisco CA: Jossey-

Bass.

Sackett, P. R., & Ellingson, J. E. (1997). The effects of forming multi-predictor

composites on group differences and adverse impact. PgserpneiRmhelegLiQ, 707-
721.

Sackett, P. R., & Roth, L. (1996). Multi-stage selection strategies: A monte
carlo investigation of effects on performance and minority hiring. Wm
52, 1-18.

Sackett, P. R., & Wade, B. E. (1983). On the feasibility of criterion-related
validity: The effects of range restriction assumptions on needed sample size. Jepr_nal ef

Applied Psychelogy, 68, 374-381.

Sackett, P. R., & Wilk, S. L. (1994). Within-group norrning and other forms of
score adjustment in preemployment testing. Arpericap Rsychelogisi, 42, 929-954.

Saucier, G., & Goldberg, L. R. (1996). The language of personality: Lexical
perspectives on the five-factor model. In J. S. Wiggins (Ed), fifhe Five-Faetor Medel of
Personaliiy: ThQretieel Perspeetives (pp. 21-50). New York: The Guilford Press.

Schmidt, F. L., Hunter, J. E., & Urry, V. W. (1976). Statistical power in
criterion-related validity. Rersonnel Psychelegy, 61, 473-485.

Schmidt, F. L., & Kaplan, L. B. (1971). Composite vs. multiple criteria: A
review and resolution of the controversy. Remnnel Psychelogy, 24, 419-434.

Schmit, M. J ., & Ryan, A. M. (1993). The Big Five in personnel selection:
Factor structure in applicant and nonapplicant populations. Jemal of Applifi

Psycholegy, 78, 966-974.

Schmit, M. J ., Ryan, A. M., Stierwalt, S. L., & Powell, A. B. (1995). Frarne-of-
reference effects on personality scale scores and criterion-related validity. Jeippal of

Applied Psychology, SO, 607-620.

Schmitt, N., Clause, C. S., & Pulakos, E. D. (1996). Subgroup differences
associated with different measures of some common job-relevant constructs. In C. L.

Cooper & I. T. Robertson (Eds), International Jepmal ef Ingiestriel epd mgm'eetional
Psychelogy, Velurne 11. New York: John Wiley & Sons.

220

Schmitt, N., Coyle, B. W., & Rauschenberger, J. (1977). A monte carlo
evaluation of three formula estimates of cross-validated multiple correlation.

Psychological Bulletin, S4, 751-758.

Schmit, N., & Ployhart, R E. (1999). Estimates of cross-validity for stepwise
regression and with predictor selection. WM 50-57.

Schneider, 3., & Bowen, D. E. (1992). Personnel/Human resources management
in the service sector. In G. R. Penis & K. M. Rowland (Eds), WM
Hpmg Resources Manegemeni, 19, 1-30.

Schneider, 3., & Bowen, D. E. (1995). MW. Boston,
MA: Harvard Business School.

Schneider, B., & Schmitt, N. (1986). W- Illinois: Waveland
Press, Inc.

Schneider, R. J ., & Hough, L. M. (1995). Personality and
industrial/organizational psychology. In C. L. Cooper & I. T. Robertson (Eds),

International Review ef Industrial ape annizatienal Rsychelegy (pp. 75-129).
Chichester, England: Wiley.

Schneider, R. J ., Hough, L. M., & Dunnette, M. D. (1996). Broadsided by broad
traits: How to sink science in five dimensions or less. Jemal ef annizap’epfl
Behavior 17, 639-655.

 

Sheldon, K. M. ,Ryan, R. M., Rawsthome, L. J., & Ilardi, B. (1997). Trait self
and true self. Cross-role variation in the Big 5 personality traits and its relations with

psychological authenticity and subjective well-being. WW
Psychology, 73, 1380-1393.

Shoda, Y., Mischel, W., & Wright, J. C. (1989). Intuitive interactionism in
person perception: Effects of situation-behavior relations on dispositional judgments.
Journal of Personalipi Q6 Secial Psychology, 56, 41-53.

Shoda, Y., Mischel, W., & Wright, J. C. (1993). The role of situational demands
and cognitive competencies in behavior organization and personality coherence. Jeumal

of Personalipi and Soeial Psyehelogy, 66, 1023-1035.

Shoda, Y., Mischel, W., & Wright, J. C. (1994). Intraindividual stability in the
organization and patterning of behavior incorporating psychological situations into the

idiographic analysis of personality. Jemfl of Bersenalipg Ed Seeial Rsyeholegy, 67,
674-687.

221

Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Inc. (1987). Rripeipiesioi

[he Validaiien epd Use ei Pmennel Seigiiep Emeeipes (Third Edition) College Park,
MD: Author.

Smith, G. M. (1967). Usefulness of peer ratings of personality in educational
research. (1 ati nal h l ' 7 967-984.

Snyder, M., & Ickes, W. (1985). Personality and social behavior. In G. Lindzey
& E. Aronson (Eds), WW (vol. 2, pp.883-947). New York:

Random House.

Stewart, G. L. (1996). Reward structure as a moderator of the relationship

between extraversion and sales performance. Joprpei of Applied Psyehelegy, Si, 619-
627.

Statistical Abstracts of the United States. (1989). US. Department of Commerce,
Department of Census, Washington, DC.

Tabachnick, B. G., & Fidell, L. S. (1996). W. New
York, NY: Harper Collins.

Tett, R. P., Jackson, D. N., & Rothstein, M. (1991). Personality measures as

predictors of job performance: A meta-analytic review. W, 703-
742.

Thorndike, R. L. (1949). Rersoimel Selectiop. New York, Wiley.

Tupes, E. C., & Christal, R. E. (1958). bili nali 't ratin tors
obtained under diverse conditions (USAF WADC Technical Note No. 58-61). Lackland
Air Force Base, TX: US. Air Force.

Tupes, E. C., & Christal, R. E. (1961). urrent nali fa t as on
trait ratings (USAF ASD Technical Note No. 61-79). Lackland Air Force Base, TX:
US. Air Force.

Viswesvaran, C., Ones, D., & Schmidt, F. L. (1996). Comparative analysis of the
reliability of job performance ratings. Jeprpei ef Applifi Psycholegy, Si, 557-574.

Wallace, S. R. (1965). Criteria for what? Amean Rsychelegist, 26, 411-417.

Weekley, J. A., & Jones, C. (1997). Video-based situational testing. Empeei
Ps cholo 50, 25-49.

Weiss, H. M., & Adler, S. (1984). Personality and organizational behavior. In B.

M. Staw & L. L. Cummings (Eds), Research in Qiganizational Behaviei, (V 01. 6, pp. 1-
50). Greenwhich, CT: JAI Press.

222

Winter, D. G., John, O. P., Stewart, A. J., Klohnen, E. C., & Duncan, L. E.
(1998). Traits and motives: Toward an integration of two traditions in personality

research. Psycholegicfl Review, 195, 230-250.

Wiggins, N., Blackburn, M., & Hackrnan, J. R. (1969). The prediction of first
year success in Psychology Poor ratings MW 81 -85

Woneerlic Persennel Test User’s Mappgi. (1992). Libertyville, IL: Wonderlic

Personnel Test, Inc.

Woodworth, R. S. (1918). Wheiegy New York: Columbia
University Press.

Wright, J. C., & Mischel, W. (1987). A conditional approach to dispositional
constructs: The local predictability of social behavior. Jeumel ef Bersenaliiy ane Soeial

Psyehology, 62, 1159-1177.

Wright, J. C., & Mischel, W. (1988). Conditional hedges and the intuitive
psychology of traits. Journal ef Personality and Sociei Rsyeholegy, 66, 454-469.

Wright, P. M., Kacmar, K. M., McMahan, G. C., & Deleeuw, K. (1995).
P=f(MxA): Cognitive ability as a moderator of the relationship between personality and

job performance. Jomel ef Managemeni, 21, 1129-1139.

223

APPENDIX A

Behavioral Statements Clustered into Criterion Dimensions

224

WWHF‘VPPNT‘

10.
. always look busy
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.

Examples of Each Dimension
flaw
smile when greeting a customer
act in a professional manner at all times one is visible
always smile
always provide eye contact
keep work area clean and neat
maintain respectable/appropriate personal appearance
don’t chew gum/eat/drink when working with customers
don’t smoke outside of store when working
maintain a professional appearance until officially of the work premise (e.g., don’t squeal
tires out of the parking lot)
if you can be identified with the company, maintain a professional appearance

look/act interested in what your doing

maintain a professional personal appearance

always maintain eye contact

don’t overdo it so you come across as fake

if busy, give customer the appearance that you’re giving them special treatment
Maintain clean personal appearance

keep work area neat and clean

keep product appearance neat and clean

minimize clutter as much as possible

don’t fix hair in public (do it in private)

guys should wear long hair in an appropriate manner

women should not wear obnoxious makeup—be conservative

don’t adjust clothes (e.g., shirt, underwear) when in public

keep folding clothes/clean up appearance of products during fi'ee moments
present a pleasant appearance when performing uncomfortable tasks
continuously clean work area

clean/dust areas not directly visible

always look busy

put products away where they belong when you’re done showing them to a customer
look customer in the eye when talking to them

look eager to help the customer

if customers are present, always look busy

if store is busy, walk fast to give impression that you’re trying

always give the customer an appearance of control

if on phone with another customer, maintain eye contact with the present customer
thank customers/tell them to have a good day when they leave

act professional and appropriate

try to have your nonverbal and verbal actions consistent

act strong when appearing sympathetic

maintain eye contact/listen carefully to customer

225

42.
43.

45.
46.
47.
48.
49.
50.
51.
52.

°9°>'9‘.‘"PP°!"1"

I—oI—Io—Iu—It—Iu—It—lt—Ot—I
WN©M&WN~O'

PWSP‘PPP’N!‘

10.
ll.
12.

ensure product is accurately displayed/advertised

maintain a pleasant tone, upbeat, eye contact, stay focused on customer
laugh if customer laughs

smile and nod as customer talks

maintain eye contact with customers

Be fiiendly

smile at customers when they first enter the store

speed up your personal behaviors (eg, walking) if the store is busy
say goodbye to a customer when they leave the store

exhibit self-confidence when dealing with customers

don’t eat/drink/attend to personal concerns when helping a customer

2. Reliahiliiy

be very careful with customers money

double check the customers money to give them the correct amount
treat all customers in an identical fashion

stay with customer until the transaction is completed

perform in a constant pace/flow

don’t make another promise with the customer you can’t keep
overestimate the length of time to get back to a customer

perform a consistent system when providing service

write down all relevant information the customer mentions

. if on phone, write down all relevant information the customer mentions

. write all relevant customer information down

. keep records as necessary (e.g., customer orders, who you should call back)

. maintain contact with the customer

. don’t leave the customer until the customer leaves the store

. remain with customer until their question is answered, don’t pass the buck

. never leave a customer/walk away, call manager or coworker to you

. walk with customer to show them where a product/service is located (don’t just point)
. keep customer orders separate

2. Respensivmess

Greet a new customer

put the customer before your own needs/considerations

move promptly with the customer

always ask the customer if there is anything you can do

always ask if need help

if customer is waiting, periodically inform their on the status of their order
be prompt with customers

greet customers when they first enter the store

acknowledge the customer (ie, you know they’re present) even if your busy (eg, "I’ll be
right with you")

never leave a question unanswered

treat everyone in store like a potential customer

always physically check if a product is in stock

226

 

l3.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.

99°59‘999Pt‘

call other stores to see if product is in stock when you don’t have it

call customer back if there are problems with the order/questions

be especially prompt with customer if you fail to keep a promise

if you are running late with a customer, tell customer you why you are running late
provide the customer with specific times about when you will get back to them

give customers your name and where you’ll be if you’re too busy to help them

greet customer quickly upon their entering the store

tell the customer you will get to them shortly if you cannot help customer right away
keep customers glasses filled; keep refilling (RESTAURANT SETTING)
periodically check up on customer/call to ensure their purchase has been satisfactory
if on phone, acknowledge that you see the present customer with a nod or smile

go to a present customer as soon as you get off the phone

keep updating the customer on the status of their service/order

don’t ask customers questions that are obvious—just do it

if you are not the customers server, let them know somebody is coming to help them
do all that is possible to improve the customers situation

give customers exactly what they ask for

tell customer when a service will be provided if it can’t be provided immediately
Greet customer right away when they enter the store

introduce yourself to customers when they enter the store

4. Assuranee
tell the customer what is typical service for the product

be patient with the customer if they were rude

never argue with the customer

provide extras for the customers (provide little gifts, favors)

be courteous with the customer

if customer is angry, suggest alternatives or options

if customer is angry, show sympathy in a personalized manner

ask the customer how there shopping experience has been

let the customer state their opinions about the shopping experience before leaving the store
admit to the customer when you don’t know the answer, and find someone who can help

. show patience with customers
. direct customers to the correct department/direction
. off suggestions/comprise with the customer if you don’t offer the product/service they

desire
offer your opinions/advice to the customer

. be truthful/honest with customer

if customer is making a bad decision, suggest your opinion tactfully
empathize with the customer

. always give the customer a way out of the purchase (eg, mention returns, exchanges)

if break promise, apologize and take care of it right away
if you fail, offer some form of compensation for the inconvenience

. be respectful to the customer at all times
. don’t be too pushy when checking up on customers
. treat all customers with respect regardless of their appearance

227

24.
25.
26.

27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.

33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.
. be polite to the customer
45.
46.
47.
48.
49.
50.
51.
52.
53.
54.
55.
56.
57.
58.
59.
60.
61.
62.
63.
64.
65.
66.
67.

if you can’t help the customer fast enough, offer suggestions/

don’t rush the customer

if you must perform a job that appears unimportant, mention to the customer why it is
important

refer customer to customer service cards/feedback cards

provide the customer with options or alternative services

provide product comparisons for the customer

allow the customer the opportunity to return the product/point out they can return it
provide service/product options to the customer

if somehow the customer is embarrassed, try to joke/show you understand/it happens to
everyone

exaggerate how sorry you are for a customer

be tactful (eg, I always do the same thing)

make light of embarrassing situations, try to get customer to laugh

give the customer suggestions

be honest/up front with customers

make alternative suggestions for customer if you’ve made a mistake

don’t oversell the product or service

always remind the customer that they can go back on a sale

don’t pressure the customer into making a sale

offer suggestions to the customer

provide personal experiences/opinions to the customer

give the customer time to ponder purchase/product characteristics

offer to help if customer is carrying many bags

point out different areas of the store

offer suggestions if you can’t meet their expectations

use catalogs/other information to illustrate options and show alternatives
recommend closest substitute to a service if you can’t provide the service they want
be patient with customers

suggest various payment plans ,

explain non-obvious details of a product or service; pros and cons

if customer is unhappy, provide cheap alternatives to enhance their experience
offer the customer suggestions/deals/sales information

check back with customers to ensure service was provided/product was satisfactory
offer general suggestions to customer and watch for their reaction to each suggestion
if you fail, be up front about it and say you’re sorry

describe to customer how they get their dollars worth

explain entire service process thoroughly

show customer step by step, each aspect of product and how much options cost
understand and explain the difference between products/options

explain features of the product so customer knows they made the right purchase
give customer information about the care of their product

identify with customers problems/concerns

make customer feel important if you don’t offer the product/service they desire

if you can’t keep a promise, ask customer if there is anything you could do instead

228

 

68.
69.

PWSQ‘SAPPNT‘

try to provide incentives to the customer for them to make a purchase
mention past customers and their service

6. Perceptivepess
don’t judge customers based solely on appearance

invite questions fi'orn the customer

ask customer leading questions

don’t judge customers based on their clothes/appearance

don’t allow the customer’s appearance to bias your treatment of the customer
start with very basic questions (eg, what are you looking for)

Ask open ended questions

Keep attention focused on the attention on the customer

always put the customer needs before you own

if busy, leave customers your name

. focus on customer appearance to understand their needs

. focus on customer dress to understand their needs

. observe customer response to your greeting to see if they want your help
. give each customer individual treatment

. bend the organizational policy to satisfy the customer’s needs

give the customer individualized attention

. use the customers name

. try to learn the customers name

. get to know information about repeat customers (names, kids names)

. use regular customers names

. talk to regular customers about their personal lives

. give small favors to regular customers

. anticipate future services for the customer

. don’t bother the customer with too many questions

. give the customer personal attention as soon as they enter the store

. don’t give the customer too much of your own personal information

. show customers the key product you think will best meet their needs

. watch customers behavior to assess what type of service they want (servant, be left alone)
. use a test question to determine if customer wants to be left alone

. ask customer for questions

. ask the customer personal questions

. gauge customer’s attention/ interest to determine when to leave customer alone

. show customer that you are taking their order seriously (ie, focus on them, give special

treatment, describe the actions you’re taking)

. do what customer says—each instance
. try to remember as much personal information about the customer as possible

listen to customers the first time they say something (ie, don’t ask what did you say)

. anticipate the customers actions

. ask the customer questions about what they want

. observe customer behavior to determine if they need/want help

. give the customer what they want

. focus your attention on determining the customers needs/expectations

229

42.
43.
. repeat customers questions/statements back to him
45.
46.

47.
48.

49.
50.
51.
52.
53.
54.
55.
56.
57.

58.
59.
60.
61.
62.
63.
. listen carefully to the customer
65.
66.
67.
68.
69.

>090fl995>PNr

give the customer personalized attention
ask customer specific questions

try to learn about customers personal information (eg, kids, comment on appearance)»-
try to determine why customer is making a purchase (eg, ask questions—is it a gift, how
much do you want to spend)

identify the observe the customers body language to determine what they want

spend more time with regular customers than you would with other customers—but not so
much that anyone is neglected

bring regular customers their regular orders without asking

keep relationships with regular customers

always ask regular customers about the quality of the product or your service

give regular customers personalized small gifts

ask customers leading questions

don’t give customers the ‘run around’

don’t ignore customers requests/questions

ask questions or follow up questions based on the customers answers

watch which sections customer to into; observe which products they look at first, then
greet

pay attention to those the customer (is it the kid or the parent)

pay particular attention to regular customers

give regular customers special attention

give customers the impression that the produce is personalized

read customer facial expressions to gauge correct content/speed/tone of speech

repeat to the customer what he or she says

always focus on customer, not personal concerns

acknowledge the customer is present (eg, nod of head) even if you’re busy
don’t assume the customer is at the same level you are

do not provide the customer with too much personal information

put off personal needs until you’ve completed helping a customer

6. Commm'cetiep

switch the manner/type of questions asked to suit the customers needs/expectations
get the customer to talk about themselves, not about you

always provide friendly conversation

always say hello

speak to the customer in a language they can comprehend (no jargon)

speak intellectually with customers

use appropriate language with customers

use specific words/strong words to say how something will be done

speak confidently to the customer

. don’t ramble on when talking with customers

. don’t use slang with customers

. if waiting for a computer/credit check, talk to customer (or at least don’t talk to coworkers)
. start conversations with the customer at a very basic level and move to more complex

230

14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.

9.5939!"

PPN!‘

PPNP‘Y'PPN?‘

10.
ll.

12.

if need to ask customer for personal information, explain to them why
provide the appropriate type and amount of information

adjust speed of communication/talking to each customers needs (eg., foreign)
use pictures/displays to convey information

be descriptive and specific (eg, what’s on sale)

first sell the product and then say how much it cost

use different ways of speaking for different customers

talk at customers level of language

talk to customer within their own language—but never inappropriately
maintain a level of respect in your tone when dealing with other customers
maintain an appropriate tone for the store/service provided

speak loudly and clearly with customers, don’t mumble

speak slowly with customers

don’t use jargon the customer can’t understand

explain key concepts without the use of j argon

give written information along with your explanation

pause regularly during long explanations

be concise

open up yourself, be willing to communicate with customers

7. Competence

learn features of new products as they arrive

keep yourself familiarized with the store layout

stay familiar with layout of store

keep up on product information

be familiar with products to quickly direct customers to relevant products

S. Demonstrating Ext_re Effert

exceed customer’s needs or expectations

always remain with a customer even if you are scheduled for a break
don’t rush customers (even if it’s cutting into your break/time to leave)
if coworker is unreliable, don’t ask them for help

2. Maintaining Personal Digipline

if customer is rude, maintain a professional demeanor

discuss problems with boss/company aware from customers’ presence
don’t talk about inappropriate topics/language around customers (e. g., drinking, sex)
if customers can hear, don’t talk about inappropriate topics with coworkers
don’t gossip about boss/company/miscellaneous around coworkers

if customer is present, don’t carry on inside conversations with coworkers
don’t take customer insults personal (ie, don’t get into argument)

show emotional stability

don’ t have fiiends visit you while working

don’ t let friends hang out at your workplace

keep personal visits/calls to a minimum and keep them professional

don’t joke around with coworkers on the job

231

l3.
14.
15.
l6.
l7.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.

26.
27.

PWNP‘MPP’NI‘

r—tr—au—au—ou—au—s
UI-wa—Ip

pi
e

HQSAPPPE"

if play music at work, keep it relatively quiet and ensure its not offensive/vulgar
don’t sing vulgar songs to yourself at work/in public

don’t talk to coworkers about issues irrelevant to the customer if customer is present
if customer is rude, let them vent and don’t argue

if customer is rude, don’t speak until they are done speaking

don’t screw around with coworkers when in public (e.g., sticking out tongue at fiiend)
don’t talk to coworkers about non—task matters when helping a customer

don’t stop what you do to have a conversation, work while you talk

maintain a calm demeanor

don’t let personal concerns influence your appearance at work

don’t make fun of customers

don’t act condescendingly around customers

don’t talk to fiiends who may be present at work when you are waiting on another
customer

walk away fiom rude and personally insulting customers

keep conversations with coworkers to a minimum

10. Fecilitaiing Pee; ane Tm Pgi'ermepce

cover/help out other employees when they are busy

do other employees tasks if they appear to busy to do them

drop your more mundane duties to help other employees’ with their tasks if they’re busy
do not pawn off your tasks to other employees

help coworkers with their tasks if you are not busy

help other employees if their task is a higher priority for customer service than your task
maintain awareness of coworkers progress on providing customer service

work as a team with coworkers

help your coworkers when they are busy

if coworker isn’t helping a customer fast enough, jump in to help them speed things up

. maintain good relations with coworkers

. help out coworkers if they are getting too busy

. communicate with other employees to provide seamless service

. help other employees when they’re busy

. drop your less important tasks to help other employees who are busy

ll. Supervisien/Leadgship
try to inspire the employee to trust you
monitor unreliable employees

12. Management/Amim'sisgtiep

when busy, prioritize your customers

if don’t lmow answer to a customers question find out who does

if customer is rude, send the customer to the manager

prioritize your tasks

never say I don’t know—find someone who does

if you fail to keep a promise/can’t keep a promise, direct the customer to the manager
don’t overextend your tasks so that you can’t devote enough time to each one

232

 

10.
11.
12.

NQPPP‘N!‘

p—s
0

call for help if you’re falling behind

be prepared for service encounter (ie, check to ensure you have pens, paper, etc.)
refer the customer to the manager if you can’t help them

if you’re having trouble, bring in the manager for help

get more knowledgeable coworker to ensure a promise is kept (e.g., manager)

Mg

be fiiendly/professional with regular customers if you see them out of work context

11mm

Provide the organizational policy when necessary

remain consistent/true to organizational policy

if customer is rude, explain company policy but uphold it
comply with organizational dress code

follow uniform code exactly

follow the company’s guidelines on language (eg, swearing, etc)
Wear the company uniform

15. Defending the Cempany

always be selling for the most expensive products
put the company before your own needs/considerations
maintain vigilance/watch for shoplifters

233

 

A s.

APPENDD( B

Initial Linking of Situations to Criterion Dimensions

234

 

ETINl: '1 '

1.

It is a very hot day and you would like to wear shorts to work. Although wearing
shorts is not against the company dress code, your manager prefers that employees
wear pants. What might you do on days when it is hot? (218)

Your store hires a number of temporary employees for the summer. These temporary
employees dress very differently fiom the regular employees, but management does
not seem to care. You’d like to wear those style clothes as well, but believe
customers may not take you as seriously. What do you do? (217)

You work as a waiter/waitress. As you are delivering food to a customer, you notice
your shoelace is untied. What do you do?

You work as a waiter/waitress. As you are delivering food to a customer, you notice
your shirt is no longer tucked into your pants (which is required by company policy).
Your manager is looking directly at you. What do you do?

SECTION 1B: Tangihles (Impression Mgegemeni)

5.

10.

11.

It has been a very busy day in the store and you are very tired. You finally get a few
minutes to relax because there are only a few customers in the store. However, you
are not scheduled for a break and so you can’t leave the customer area.. What do you
do?

A customer is telling you a story that is not particularly interesting to you. It is a
long story, and you have several other customers that need help. What do you do?

You are helping a customer who keeps talking and talking. You have more
customers to help. What do you do? (137)

A customer tells a joke that you don’t find the least bit fimny. What do you do?

It is a very busy day in your store. Although when in-between customers you have
the chance to take a break for a few seconds, you cannot officially leave the customer
area. What do you do?

A customer is telling you a personal story that is completely unbelievable and that
you think is factually incorrect. What do you do?

Your manager wants employees to always look busy. This means you must do
simple tasks over and over again, even when they don’t need to be done. You are
really tired of doing these tasks, the store is empty, and the manager is not around.
What do you do? (320)

235

 

 

12.

You are helping a rude customer who is making small talk about things you find very
stupid and boring. What do you do? (397)

SECTIQN 1C: Tangihles (V_Vork a_rea/predpci eppeemee)

l3.

14.

You notice that many coworkers are not returning merchandise to its proper place
after showing it to customers. This makes the entire store look very disorganized
because an employee must look all over the store for a given product. However,
nobody seems to care. What might you do in this situation? (220)

A coworker was helping a very picky customer buy a suit. S/he had requested to try
on a number of different jackets, pants, and shirts. Although the customer has gone,
the coworker left a big pile of clothes lying around. What do you do?

SECTIQN 2A: Reliabiliiy (Rerform Censisienily)

15.

16.

17.

18.

You are helping a customer and go to check on a product for him/her in the store
room. When you return the customer is nowhere to be seen. However, there are
several other customers waiting to be helped. What do you do? (255)

You need to call a customer but his/her phone is always busy. You try repeatedly but
can never get through, and the customer does not have an answering machine. What
do you do? (257)

It is getting near your lunch break and you are not yet finished helping a customer.
You only get a set amount of time for your break, so if you miss it you won’t get
another. You see a coworker around who does not appear to be busy. What do you
do?

A customer is upset about a shirt that shrunk after s/he washed it. However, it is
about five minutes before the end of your shift, and you have made plans with your

fiiends. Many of your coworkers are not very busy and could help this customer.
What do you do? (92)

SECTIQN 2B: Reliabiliiy (P_pemises)

19.

20.

You are talking to a customer and promise to call the customer the next day.
However, after the customer leaves you realize you have the next three days off.
What do you do? (248)

A customer calls and asks how long it will take to get their order together. You know
you can do it in 30 minutes. How long do you tell this customer it will take? (252)

236

21. It is Saturday and you promise a customer you will call them on Sunday to inform
them about the status of their order. Sometime after the call, your supervisor tells you
that you will be working on Monday instead of Sunday. What do you do? (246)

22. You work as a waiter/waitress in a restaurant. A customer asks when his/her food
will be ready and you think it will take about five minutes. What do you say? (284)

E T N2 : Reliabili '

23. You are working at a cash register. The register makes a mistake and overcharges a
customer. The customer does not seem to notice, and there is a long line waiting for
you. It would take some time to figure out the correct amount to charge the customer.
What do you do? (155)

24. A customer calls you about a very detailed order. You have handled this order a
number of times and don’t feel it is any big deal. What do you do? (236)

SECTION 3A: Responsiveness (Ackeowlfigpiept)

25. You are one the phone with an important customer when another customer walks over
to you. You are really busy with the individual on the phone. How do you handle the
customer who is physically right in front of you? (40)

26. You are talking to a customer on the phone and have many other customers waiting
on different phone lines. Suddenly, a customer in the store approaches you. What do
you do? (66)

27. You’re working the cash register on a very busy shift. There is a long line waiting to
check out, and you can see several individuals are getting impatient. What might you
.do?(264)

28. You are helping a customer buy a pair of shoes. You notice another customer walks
into your store and nobody waits on them. They are looking around for help. What
do you do? (263)
E TI N3B: Res on iv r
29. You are talking to an important customer on the phone when a customer interrupts,
saying s/he is unhappy with your store and wants attention right now. S/he is

speaking in a loud voice that other customers can hear. What do you do? (176)

30. You had helped a customer order a product from your supplier. The supplier has
called and said the product will be a few days late. What do you do?

237

 

“b

 

31. You deal with a supplier who has not delivered a product as promised. You call the
supplier, but they tell you there is nothing they can do. They also say they are not
going to call the customer because they don’t deal with customers directly. What do
you do? (261)

32. A customer wants a refimd on a product that has obviously been nrisused. Although
you could normally refer such problems to the manager, s/he will be gone for the next
several hours. What do you do? (41)

 

‘ I.

33. You are answering the phones at your store. There are many customers who have
called your restaurant and are on hold. You answer the phone and ask the customer to
please be put on hold. The customer starts yelling that they have been on hold for
fifteen minutes. What do you do? (73)

SECTIQN 3C: Rgpepsivmess (Remnm g te Rmuests)

34. A customer requests a product that you do not have in stock. Although you could call
other stores to see if they have it, you are almost certain it will be a waste of your
time. What do you do? (43)

 

35. A customer wants a product that you don’t have in your store. You begin to call other
stores to see if they carry the product. However, each store takes a long time to check
and the customer is getting very impatient. You know that one of the stores is likely
to have the product but it will take some time to find out. What would you do? (243)

36. A customer calls and inquires about a particular product. There should be plenty of
the products one the shelves. What do you do?

SECTIQN 4A: Assuranee (Suggestiens/Altematives)

37. You are helping a customer buy a computer. The customer is not sure what kind to
buy. What might you do?

38. A customer asks you about a competitor’s product. You are familiar with this
product. What do you tell them? (319)

39. A customer is unsure about choosing between a more expensive item and a less
expensive item. S/he asks you what you think. You know that both products are very
similar but have some different features. What do you do?

40. A customer is looking at a watch similar to the one you are wearing. The customer

asks you if you think it is worth the money. Although you like the watch, it does
have some features you don’t like. What do you say?

238

 

41.

42.

You work in an appliance store. You ask the customer if you can help and the
customer tells you s/he wants a specific stereo. You think you know about a stereo
that would work better. What do you do? (358)

You work as a waiter/waitress and a customer orders a dish that is not on the menu.
You mention this politely but the customer gets very upset. What do you do? (93)

SECTIQN 4B: Assurance (Compensap'op)

43.

45.

46.

47.

48.

49.

You are working right before Christmas and the store is very busy. A customer
inquires about a product you have on sale. You check and realize the product has
been sold out. The customer wanted the product before Christmas. What nright you
do in this situation? (95)

. A regular customer calls to complain that s/he did not receive a product s/he ordered.

You check and realize that your supplier is behind schedule. The customer is a
regular customer who usually spends a lot of money in the store. Your manager is not
present. What might you do? (136)

A customer is dining in your restaurant with six children. The children all want a
particular dish that you do not have. The children all start to yell and scream. What
do you do? (179)

A customer calls to inquire about a stereo advertised in the newspaper. You describe
the stereo and the customer says s/he will be right in to pick it up. However, after the
customer arrives you discover that there are no more of those stereos in stock, and it
might be several weeks before your store will get more. What might you do? (249)

You work in a restaurant. A customer orders the special but you have just rim out.
The customer is very upset and mentions that was the only reason s/he came to the
restaurant. What do you do? (305)

It is the day before Christmas and a mother wants to get a doll for her daughter.
Unfortunately, you have just sold out. The mother becomes very upset and starts to
cry. What do you do? (325)

You work as a waiter/waitress in a restaurant. One of the cooks is joking around and
throws some food at a coworker. However, s/he misses and hits one of your
customers. The customer is furious. What do you do? (77)

50. Your restaurant is very busy, and a large party is unhappy with the food and service.

The people in this party are each complaining to you, and this is taking up so much
time that your orders with other customers are falling behind. What do you do? (71)

239

51. You work in a restaurant. A customer eats most of his/her meal, then suggests it was
awfirl and wants a different meal. What do you do? (81)

52. A customer calls to see if you have a particular pair of shoes in stock. You check and
your store does. Later, when the customer comes into the store to pick of the shoes
you see that they have been sold. The customer is very upset. What do you do? (133)

ECTION4: urance em ' V

53. You are helping a customer purchase an entertainment center. The customer appears
nervous and hesitant about buying the product. What might you do? (302)

54. A customer is looking at buying an expensive VCR with many options, but does not
seem sure about the purchase. What might you do?

SECTION 4D: Assurance (Explaining Service)

55. Although a customer has just purchased an expensive leather jacket, s/he appears to
be unsure that it was a good purchase. What might you do?

56. A customer had purchased a television set from you a week ago. The customer
seemed rather nervous about the purchase. What might you do?

57. A customer has just bought a rather expensive television fiom you. What might you
do now that the purchase is complete? (384)

SECTION 4E: Assurgee (Selling Pressm)

58. It is typical in your store for employees to really push certain products. However,
customers often don’t appreciate such tactics being used on them. What do you do?
(324)

59. You are helping a customer around quitting time. You are very tired and have had a
long day. It is pretty obvious that the customer has no idea about what s/he wants and
you can tell this is going to take a long time. What do you do? (327)

60. You have nearly finished selling a customer an expensive product. However, the
customer seems unsure about making the purchase because it costs so much money.
What might you do?

240

61. Your store pays its employees by the hour, but still expects each employee to meet
minimum dollar amount of sales each day. If this minimum is not met, it goes on
your performance evaluation and could affect the possibility for future pay raises.
Although you try to meet this quota, it is very difficult and often requires you to give
a “hard sell” to the customer. You do not feel comfortable doing this, and your
customers often do not appear to appreciate this tactic. What do you do? (12)

62. You are helping a customer by bringing different clothes to the fitting room.
However, this person has been shopping for over an hour and you are starting to think
s/he is not going to buy anything. What do you do? (42)

63. You are selling a customer a rather expensive product. The customer appears to be
nervous and hesitant about making the purchase because s/he has taken a very long
time. What might you do?

64. You work in a store that pays its employees a commission of their total sales. You
are waiting on a customer that is very demanding but only buying a relatively
inexpensive product. You know you are missing helping customers who are buying
more expensive products. What do you do? (5 8)

SECTION 4F: Assuranee (Relitepess)

65. A customer walks into your store and looks very grumpy. Further, he does not look
like a “serious” customer. You are busy checking inventory and are falling behind
schedule, something you manager will not appreciate. You notice no other coworkers
are currently in the section. What do you do? (266)

66. You work in a store that pays its employees a commission of their total sales. You
notice that most coworkers will not wait on customers who do not have the
appearance of being “big spenders.” One of these individuals walks into the store and
nobody waits on them. What do you do? (59)

E TION 4 : Assur ce ones

67. You are a new employee and realize you’ve made a mistake with a customer’s order.
Specifically, you did not charge the customer enough money. You could call the
customer and tell him/her to pay the difference, or simply not do anything. What do
you do?

68. You make a mistake and undercharge a customer. Your boss says you will either

have to make up the difference out of your paycheck or call the customer and get
him/her to pay the difference. What do you do? (184)

241

 

‘11

 

 

69.

70.

71.

72.

You’re waiting on a customer who asks for a special request. You think you can meet
the request adequately but are not sure. Unfortunately, your manager will be gone for
a half an hour. What do you do? (211)

A customer asks you questions you don’t know how to answer. You think you might
be able to figure out the answer, though, if you give it some thought. What might you
do?(237)

You work for a delivery service. A customer calls to ask why their order took so long
to be delivered. It was a big order and you want to keep this customer happy. You
are pretty sure the order was late because the delivery driver went to the wrong
address. What do you do? (251)

A customer is flying on a pair of sunglasses that quite fi'ankly make them look funny.
They ask you for your opinion. What do you say? (290)

SECTION 4H: Assurance (Empathy)

73.

74.

75.

76.

It’s Christmas time and your store has a product advertised that has been very
popular. A younger girl wants to purchase the product but you realize it is sold out
and will not be possible to get more until after Christmas. The young girl starts to
cry, saying “Thanks for nothing—you’ve ruined my Christmas.” What might you do
in this situation? (60)

A customer who consistently writes bad checks needs to be told s/he cannot write a
check for his/her purchase. There are many other customers around who could hear
you. What do you do? (170)

A customer orders a dress. The customer comes to the store on the day the order was
to arrive, but the warehouse has not been able to deliver the dress. The customer gets
very upset with you. What do you do? (19)

You are working at a cash register right before Christmas. The line is very long and
customers are generally impatient. As you cash out one customer, you realize that
his/her credit card is denied. What do you do? (94)

SECTION 5A: Perceptiveness (Antieipatiep)

77.

You work as a waiter/waitress in a restaurant. One of your tables is involved in a
very private conversation. You want to ask them if you can get them anything else,
but every time you approach they give you a very nasty look—as if to say “leave us
alone.” What might you do? (78)

242

 

78. You greet a customer walking into your store by smiling and saying “hello.” This
customer does not smile back but only nods. What might you do next? (267)

79. One customer you are helping is very factual and straight to the point. As you help
this person, what might you do? (299)

80. There is a regular customer in your restaurant that all employees know because he
always orders the same meal. Although you are a new employee and have never
waited on this gentleman, you do know what he looks like. One day he sits in your
section. What might you do? (328)

81. A customer walks into your store and you ask if s/he wants help. S/he politely
declines, and then walks around the store in a very confused manner. What would
you be most likely to do? (329)

82. A customer enters the store and you say hello. Although the customer says hello, s/he
just keeps walking past you. What do you do? (361)

83. A customer enters the store and you say hello. The customer does not respond and
just keeps walking. What do you do? (362)

84. A customer enters the store and you say hello. The customer does not respond but
stops and looks around the store. What do you do? (363)

85. A customer walks into your store who is not very well dressed. Your store is one that
sells very expensive clothes, something the customer does not appear to be able to
afford. There are better dressed customers who are farther away in the store but have
not been waited on. What do you do? (389)

86. You greet a customer who does not immediately respond. What do you do? (391)

87. You work in a department store and see a female customer enter the automotive
section. How might you greet this customer?

88. You are helping a customer purchase a new telephone. What might you do next?

ETINB:Perc tive 5 en' nal rmti

89. You see a customer that you have waited on before. How might you greet this
customer?

90. You are helping a couple who has three small children with them. What might you
do?

243

 

91. A customer is telling you a story about himself/herself and is providing you with very
personal information. S/he asks if you have had a similar experience. Imagine you
have had a similar experience. What do you tell this customer?

92. You work in a clothing store. You are helping a man buy a gift for his wife. What do
you do? (395)

93. You work in a clothing store. You are helping a woman buy a gift for her husband.
What do you do? (396)

SECTION 5C: Perceptiveness(O1_1esp'eip'pg)

94. A customer keeps asking you questions that are very annoying. In fact, s/he has
already asked you about 30 questions and does not seem to be nmning out. What do
you do? (269)

95. You see a customer standing around the store. What might you do?
96. You observe a customer looking at your store’s sale brochure. What might you do?

97. A customer is looking at buying a computer and has asked you a rather complicated
question. What might you do next?

98. A customer tells you s/he wants to buy a television. What might you do next?

99. A customer wants to buy a VCR but is not sure about what kind or how much s/he
wants to spend. How might you inquire about this information? (337)

100. A customer comes into the store and tells you exactly what s/he wants. What do
you do? (346)

101. You observe a customer looking toward the kitchen supply area of your
department store. You work in the clothing department. What do you do? (348)

SECTION 5D: Perceptiveness (Custemg Focus)

102. As a salesperson, you are asked to influence customers to purchase the most
expensive products even when a cheaper product may satisfy their needs. You are
sure that many of your customers are on limited incomes. What do you do? (213)

103. A customer is trying on a jacket. Although the jacket fits fine, you know of a
cheaper jacket that would look just as good. However, if you sell the expensive
jacket and both you and the store would make a nice commission. What might you

do?(291)

244

 

A‘

 

104. A customer expects you to do something that is not part of your job—look up the
address of a competitor. What do you do? (318)

105. You recognize a regular customer who spends a lot of money in your store.
However, all coworkers are very busy, as are you. None of the other coworkers
seems to notice this customer, and you are currently helping a customer purchase a
small item that is not very expensive. What do you do? (332)

106. Many customers request a particular name brand VCR. You know a lesser known
brand has the identical VCR. Further, you know that both VCRs are made by the
same company. Do you tell customers about the cheaper VCR? (338)

107. Your store pays its employees a commission of their total dollar sales. You are
helping a customer that believes everything you recommend. You know you could
sell this person a lot of things they probably don’t need. What might you do? (339)

108. A customer walks into the store and you greet him/her as usual. However, it turns
out this is a regular customer and s/he gets upset for you not recognizing him/her.
What do you do? (164)

SECTION 6A: Ceprprgicetion (Peisengizgi)

109. You are waiting on two customers who don’t speak English. They are obviously
tourists. Your store is very busy and you are falling behind. What might you do?
(3 75)

1 10. An older woman walks into your store. How might you talk to her? (374)

l 1 1. You are going to explain to a customer how to perform a very complicated repair.
The customer acts as though he already understands all of this information, but you
suspect he might not. What might you do? (379)

112. An older customer and a younger customer both ask you identical questions.
How would you respond to these questions? (381)

113. You manager asks employees to treat all customers in the same fiiendly manner.
What might you do when dealing with customers? (385)

114. An couple of customers are placing an order in your restaurant. The restaurant is

very busy and you are not getting to your other customers as fast as you should.
What do you do? (388)

245

 

1 hm

 

115. You deal with customers over the phone. Many customers do not speak English
very well, and often neither one of you can understand each other. It is often very
fi'ustrating. How might you handle these situations? (401)

ETINB: 'a' '

116. You work in a computer store. Many of your customers know very little about
computers. How might you convey your knowledge of computers? (376)

1 17. You work in a rather hip clothing store and are helping a customer who is using
very foul language. This language is typical for many of your customers, but you
think other customers don’t appreciate the foul language and become offended. What
might you do? (377)

118. A customer comes into the store who is about your same age. S/he speaks to you
in a very casual manner. How might you respond?

119. You are describing how to use a rather complicated product for a customer. It is a
long explanation with a lot of information. What might you do?

120. You work in a very noisy store. You often cannot hear customers very well, and
sometimes they get upset because they think you are not paying attention. How might
you handle these situations? (403)

SECTION 7: Competence

121. You receive some information about products you know a competitor carries.
What might you do?

122. Your store receives new products every week. However, many of these products
are only sold for a few weeks before your store stops selling them. What might you
do?

123. You work in a store that sells electronics. When new products arrive, your store
receives a brief, non-technical product description and a complicated, in-depth

product description. What would you be most likely to do?

124. You work in a restaurant where some dishes on the menu change weekly. What
might you do?

246

 

 

ETIN: '

125. You work as a delivery driver. It is Friday night, almost quitting time, and you
have plans for the evening. A customer calls at the last minute and asks if you can
deliver a product that will take you several hours. All of the other drivers have left
for the night. Your boss says it is up to you. What do you do? (208)

126. There are some minor duties and tasks that all employees are expected to do.
Your coworkers do not help with these tasks because you all get paid the same
amount. Although you are fairly busy, you could also do their jobs as well. What do
you do? (188)

127. You are doing your regular job duties. A coworker approaches you and tells you
to stop working so hard because you are making everyone else look bad. What do
you do? (189)

128. You are doing your regular job duties. A coworker approaches you and tells you
to stop working so hard because the manager is gone for the day. What do you do?
(190)

129. You work in a store that has a few peak times during a day but is otherwise pretty
slow. During the slow times, coworkers joke around, use the company phone for
personal calls, and generally look bored. However, there are many maintenance tasks
that could be done during this time, such as cleaning the shelves. What do you do?
(50)

130. Your manager is very easy going. Many of your coworkers take advantage of this
and give themselves very easy work schedules. Unless you take advantage of this

manager’s flexibility, you will have to work very undesirable hours. What do you
do?(107)

131. Some of your coworkers don’t care about their job or the store. These individuals
often do not do their job duties, which means somebody else has to do them.
However, you all get paid the same amount. Now you see one of these individuals
leaving for the night and his/her work area is a mess. What do you do? (74)

132. You work the day shift. The people in the night shift do not perform their basic
cleanup tasks. If you do their tasks in addition to your own, you waste your time and
so your customers may have to suffer. What do you do? (126)

133. You work the morning shift in a restaurant. The night shift has gotten into the
habit of not keeping the work area clean. Now, in addition to your regular duties, you
also have to clean the work area. This makes your job much more difficult. You’ve
brought the matter up with your supervisor, who says s/he is looking into it. Now,
you come into work and notice the work area is even dirtier than usual, and there are
several customers already coming into the store. What might you do? (87)

247

 

b

 

SECTION 2A: Mm’ tain Rersonal Diseiplip' e (Cempesppe)

134. A customer is very upset with your company’s return policy. You have no say or
control over the return policy, but this customer is basically “venting” his/her
fi'ustration to you. How do you handle this situation? (36)

135. A customer is upset and getting personally insulting with you. Further, the
customer is starting to threaten you with physical harm. What do you do? (72)

136. You have had a very bad day by the time you show up for work. Now, the first
customer you wait on is also in a bad mood and starts yelling at you right away. This
customer is getting very personal. How do you handle this customer? (99)

137. A customer starts yelling at you because you sold him/her a TV that was broken.
This customer is upset because s/he had to drive 50 miles to get to the store.
Although it is not your fault, this customer is very rude and offensive. How would
you handle this situation? (15)

138. A customer orders a specially made desk. When the desk arrives, the customer
does not like the look of it and refuses to purchase it. You are now going to lose the
commission on the order, and even worse, are going to have to tell your supervisor
that the desk must be returned to the warehouse at the company’s expense. What do
you tell this customer? (20)

139. You work in a pizza shop. A customer orders a pizza (for delivery) that you make
yourself. A half hour later this customer calls you to complain about the pizza——it
was a small instead of a medium. You can’t remember which size pizza you made,
but you suspect the customer ordered the wrong size pizza. What might you do? (69)

140. When waiting on a customer you realize that s/he is trying to get a cheaper price
that is listed for the product. Basically, this customer changed the price tag on the
item. When you mention the price looks to be too low and that you are going to
check its price in the computer, the customer starts to complain and questions your
competence. What do you do? (100)

141. You promise a customer to call them on a specific day. However, every time you
call the person is not home, and you can’t leave a message because they don’t have an
answering machine. Sometime later the customer calls you and is very upset because
you never called them back. What might you do? (247)

 

142. A couple of your coworkers are complaining about their pay and about working
for the company. They ask you what you think. You can see there are a few
customers in the store but you doubt they can hear anything. What do you do? (76)

248

 

143. You are helping a customer when a coworker comes up to you and asks if you
would like to join some of your colleagues for a few drinks after work. Assume you
want to join them for drinks. What do you do?

144. You and a coworker are working at the cash register. Although there are many
customers in line, it is a rather boring job. The coworker starts talking to you about
what s/he is going to do for the weekend. What do you do? (353)

145. You and a coworker are working at the cash register. There are many customers
in line. The coworker starts talking about how much s/he hates working at the store.
You know customers can hear this. What do you do? (354)

146. A coworker is talking to you and using rather foul language. A customer
approaches you both for help and your coworker continues to talk in the offensive
manner. What do you do? (404)

147. A coworker who is also your friend appears to be personally interested in a
customer. The coworker starts to talk to you about the customer in a provocative
manner. You fear other customers might soon overhear. What do you do? (406)

148. A customer makes a demand that requires you to ask your manager. Your
manager says to deny the request. You do, and the customer gets very upset and asks
to see the manager. However, the manager accepts the customer’s demand, making
you look very bad. The customer complains about you to the manager and the
manager seems to agree. What do you do? (1 8)

149. As a waiter/waitress, you often must take the blame when customers are unhappy
with their food (for example, it took to long to get it, it is cold, it doesn’t taste good).
Even though it is usually not your fault, customers usually get very upset with you
personally. Some even complain to your supervisor. How might you handle these
types of customers? (14)

150. A customer is upset at you and is very rude because the entertainment center she
ordered was not the one that was delivered. You check her order and see that one of
your coworkers wrote down the wrong number for the delivery staff, so in fact it was
your coworker’s fault the order was incorrect. This customer is very upset and is
taking it out on you. What do you do? (16)

151. You’re working in a very busy restaurant. Your section is very busy and a
coworker helps you out. Unfortunately, the coworker incorrectly places a customer’s
food order. The customer is upset and does not leave you a tip. Even worse, this
customer complains to your supervisor, who is begins to reprimand you. What do
you do? (22)

249

 

 

 

152. You work in a store that pays its employees a commission of their total sales.
You are helping a very demanding customer that has taken up much of your time, but
it will be worth it because s/he is purchasing a very expensive stereo. You are just
about to finish the sale when your manager asks you to take a phone call. When you
return, you see your manager is just about to close the sale—and take your
commission. The manager acts as though nothing has happened. What do you do?
(5 7)

153. You work for commission. You are helping a customer when you have to leave
momentarily. When you return, you find that your coworker is helping the customer
and ringing up their sale—meaning the coworker will get your commission. What do
you do? (131)

SECTION 9C: Maintain Pegenal Diseipiine ( Werk Eggps)

154. A few of your fiiends or family stop in to see how you’re doing. Your store is not
particularly busy. What do you do?

155. Some coworkers ask you to help play a joke on a newer coworker. You think the
joke is rather inappropriate but no customers are likely to see it. What do you do?

156. A good fiiend calls your store and wants to make plans for when you’re done with
work. The store is moderately busy. What do you do?

157. Your store is very empty and you are performing the rather simple task of dusting
and cleaning. A coworker stops by to talk. What do you do?

E TION 10: Facil'tatin Peer and Te P anc

158. A coworker is very busy and could use some help. You have only a few
customers in your section, but you’re not sure if you should leave them to help your
coworker. What do you do?

159. You work in a restaurant. You are helping cover a coworker’s table, where two
customers were getting upset because they had to wait so long. As you help this
coworker’s customers, you notice customers from your own section getting impatient.
You realize you are not likely to get a tip from your coworker’s customers, but you
will probably get tips from your own customers. What do you do? (194)

160. A coworker in another section is very busy helping customers and could
obviously use some help. In fact, some customers are starting to leave. Your section
is relatively quiet at the moment but could get busy very quickly. What do you do?
(2125)

250

 

”...

 

161. Many of your coworkers are lazy and only do the minimum amount of work they
have to. Your supervisor either doesn’t notice this or doesn’t seem to care. Because
of these individuals, you have to do twice as much work as you should—including
some of their duties. What do you do? (23)

162. In your company, there is a very strong peer pressure not to work harder than your
coworkers. You are relatively new and are trying to do a good job. Although your
manager notices and says to keep up the good work, your coworkers are getting upset
because you are making them look bad. One of them even told you to quit working
so hard. What are you going to do? (27)

163. A coworker has a long line at his/her checkout station. Many of the customers
appear very impatient and are getting upset. Although you are not helping a customer
at the moment, you have also not had a break all day—and you have plenty of tasks to
do in your own section that you have not had time to finish. What might you do? (62)

164. Your department store is understaffed. You are responsible for one department
and are an assistant for three other departments. You are called into one of the
secondary departments. Unfortunately, you don’t know much about this department,
and you are not very familiar with the products or where they are located. A customer
asks you for help. What do you do? (89)

165. You are leaving your section to take a scheduled break. Your store policy is such
that you have to take a scheduled break, and that you are not paid for the time you are
on break. On your way to the break room, you notice a coworker who is swamped
with customers. What do you do? (349)

166. Some long term employees are making part time employees do their routine tasks.
This frees up the long term employees’ time so that they can help more customers.
The supervisor does not seem to care, and you could certainly use some more time to
help customers. What do you do in this situation? (106)

167. You work in a restaurant. You and a coworker misunderstand each other and do
not wait on a table. Later, you both recognize the mistake and can see that the
customers at the table are very upset. You doubt who ever helps them will get a tip.
Your coworker asks if you want the table. What do you do? (195)

ETI N11: e'i

168. You notice a new coworker has made a big mistake with a customer’s order. The
customer is upset and starts yelling at the coworker. What might you do? (68)

169. A new coworker makes a mistake with an order and asks for your help. You

already have a long line of customers. However, the new coworker also has many
customers. What do you do? (165)

251

 

170. A new coworker is helping customers but is very far behind, causing customers to
wait longer than they should have to. You offer to help the coworker but s/he says,
“No, I’ve got it under control.” You don’t think s/he can handle the number of
customers. What do you do? (355)

171. You see a new coworker provide very poor service (for example, is rude, does not
explain the product to the customer). You don’t think the customer is going to
purchase anything in the store because of the coworker’s poor service. What might
you do? (182)

SECTION 12; Managemepi

172. A customer completes an order to have delivered to his/her house. The manager
promises this person that the product will be delivered on time. Several days later,
the product is not delivered and the customer calls to complain. Although you did not
make the mistake, the customer is blaming you. You know you can handle the
incident with out involving the manager. What might you do? (244)

173. You are helping a customer who has an unusual request. Although you could

probably help this customer, you know a coworker is more experienced in this area.
What might you do?

174. You are performing a maintenance task that your supervisor instructed you to get
completed right away. As you work on this task, you notice a customer in your
section. What do you do?

175. A customer orders spicy barbecue sauce for his ribs. After he eats the entire meal,
he complains that the barbecue sauce was too spicy. You remind him that he ordered
the spicy barbecue sauce but he disagrees, saying he ordered the regular sauce. He
now refuses to pay for the order. What do you do? (4)

176. Your store is short staffed so you go to another coworkers section to help at the
cash register (so that s/he can focus on his/her customers’ questions). There is now a
long line at the checkout counter when you notice new customers are coming into
your own section. There is no one who can help them. What might you do? (63)

177. You work in a restaurant. A customer orders a meal and eats it all. During the
meal you had not asked if everything was OK. Later, when you give the customer the
bill, the customer says the meal was awful and refirses to pay for it. What do you do?
(103)

252

SECTION 12: Velunteepp' g

178. One night at a social gathering (that is not work-related) you see a coworker. The
coworker admits to you that s/he has secretly been stealing from the company for
several months. What do you do? (172)

179. One night at a social gathering (that is not work-related) you see a coworker who
appears to be on drugs. In fact, the coworker admits to you that s/he is high much of
the time, even sometimes at work. What do you do? (173)

180. You are delivering some products with a coworker in the company van. The
coworker is driving recklessly, cutting off other drivers, honking, and swearing at
them through the window. When you return your manager says somebody called and
complained about the people driving the van. The coworker denies the incident.
What do you do? (203)

181. You have a much deserved day off from work and have made a fun day of plans.
Your boss calls the night before and asks if you can work because one of your
coworkers can’t make it. You suspect the coworker is really going to a concert
because s/he mentioned doing it in the past. What do you do? (113)

182. In your store there are many small tasks (for example, putting away inventory)
that are not part of anyone’s specific job but are something that everybody is expected
to do. Many of your coworkers do not do these tasks, but if they are to get done
somebody will have to do them. What do you do? (121)

183. On one of your days off your manager calls to ask you to come to work because
the store is short staffed. You had planned to spend this day with your fiiend or
family for over a week. What do you do? (129)

184. Each employee in your store is given a very detailed description of his/her job
duties. Unfortunately, most employees only do their specific duties and do not help
out coworkers when necessary. In fact, many employees will sit and do nothing
instead of helping other coworkers because “it is not their job.” You are particularly
busy and are getting very fi'ustrated because you can’t help all of the customers in
your area. Your coworkers just sit and watch. Later, when you have more time, you
notice your coworkers could use some help. What might you do? (49)

185. A coworker calls you to ask if you can cover his/her Saturday morning shift
because s/he is not feeling well. Although you don’t mind doing covering the shift
once in awhile, this coworker has asked you for this favor on several past occasions.
You suspect the coworker is going out the night before and is simply too tired to
work. What do you do? (112)

253

 

 

E TI N14: lws

186. Your store policy says that when a customer returns an item you must write down
their phone number and copy their drivers license. Many customers don’t like to give
you their drivers license. Now, a customer asks you why you have to take this
information and refuses to give it to you. What do you do?

187. Your company has a dress code that all employees are supposed to follow.
However, you notice that several of your coworkers are wearing clothes that some
might consider inappropriate. The supervisors do not seem to concerned. You
personally would prefer to dress like the coworkers. What do you do? (214)

188. Your company has a very specific dress code but nobody follows it. The
managers do not seem to care. You don’t particularly like following the dress code
and would like to wear some different clothes. What do you do? (231)

189. You work as a waiter/waitress in a restaurant. One trick many of your coworkers
do is to give customers free soda or minimally-priced appetizers in order to get a
better tip. The company policy explicitly forbids this practice. You could certainly
use the extra money fiom tips, and the supervisor has not noticed or said anything
about this practice. What do you do? (108)

190. Your store policy is absolutely no returns on clothes over $100.00. A customer
returns an outfit costing $110.00. You can tell that the outfit has not been worn, but
the store policy says you cannot return it. You feel very bad and don’t agree with the
policy in this instance. However, you could classify the outfit as defective and
nobody would ever know—although this is also against company policy. What do
you do? (148)

191. You work at a cash register in a grocery store. There is a huge lottery prize, and
so the store is swamped with customers buying lottery tickets. However, you are to
stop selling lottery tickets promptly at midnight. It is 12:01 and a customer wants to
place an order. You refuse and they get very upset, as do the remaining customers
who have been waiting over half an hour. What do you do? (33)

192. A customer is trying to buy beer but has forgotten his/her identification in the car.
This customer looks to be around 30 years old and is dressed very well. You have
seen the customer in the store on a regular basis but have not waited on him/her
yourself. What do you do? (102)

193. Your store policy says that when a customer returns an item you must write down
their phone number and copy their drivers license. Many customers don’t like to give
you their drivers license. You personally do not approve of this policy and don’t
think the store actually uses this information. Now, a very good customer says s/he
doesn’t want to give you this information. What do you do? (139)

254

 

194. You are working at a cash register in a grocery store when a customer tries to buy
alcohol. When you ask for his/her identification, s/he gets upset and says s/he doesn’t
have it, but s/he does show you his/her five credit cards and truck drivers medical
card. S/he looks to be about twenty five years old. What do you do? (150)

ETI N15: 6 '

195. You catch an individual shoplifting. Although your store has security for these
purposes, they are nowhere to be seen. You also know the manager is on a lunch
break. The shoplifter is starting to walk out of the store. What do you do?

196. You feel personally uncomfortable trying to sell high dollar merchandise to
people who do not appear to be able to afford it. However, your managers really push
employees to always direct customers to the large dollar items. What do you do? (13)

197. A coworker complains about the working conditions so that customers can hear
him/her. You generally agree with what the coworker is saying. After the coworker
leaves, a customer you are helping asks if it is true. What might you do in this
situation? (159)

198. Your store hires a number of part-time employees for the summer. You catch
several of these individuals playing around with some of the company equipment.
When you mention their behavior is against company regulations, they just laugh and
say they are quitting in a few weeks anyway and don’t really care. What do you do?
(28)

199. Your store has a number of summer-time only employees. It is near the end of
summer when you notice one of these employees stealing ten dollars fiom the
register. As you confront the employee, s/he informs you that s/he was shorted ten
dollars on their last paycheck and so was only “making things balance.” S/he says it
will not happen again if you don’t say anything. How do you handle this situation?
(29)

200. You work in a pizza store. One day you catch a well-respected employee giving
free sodas and appetizers to his/her fiiends. Although this is not worth much money,
it is against company policy. What would you do? (30)

201. You catch one of your fellow coworkers (who is also a good friend) making deals
with customers in order to increase her sales. Because part of your salary is based on
commission, this is an easy way for her to make more money even though the
company will suffer reduced profits. You remind this person that the company does
not tolerate these actions, but your friend does not seem to care. Do you report this
person to your supervisor? (31)

255

 

 

202. A coworker is walking past a customer and asks to you loudly, “Don’t you just
hate this job.” The customer looks surprised and stares at you. What do you do? (79)

203. You are very good fiiends with some of your coworkers. You learn that a few of
your fiiends are stealing from the company. What do you do? (161)

204. You work for a home delivery company. You catch one of the delivery drivers
smoking marijuana on the job. However, your supervisor does not suspect a thing.
What do you do? (202)

205. A coworker has a tendency to give customers s/he likes special deals that would
not be approved by the company. You are probably the only one who knows about
this. What do you do? (205)

206. A coworker gives his family special deals. You know the manager would not

approve of such practices. You doubt anyone else is aware that the coworker is
breaking the company policy. What do you do? (206)

256

 

' t

APPENDIX C

Customer Service Situations and Behavioral Response Options

257

 

‘3

 

SECTION 1A: Tangibles (&efessienel Appgsapee)

1. It is a very hot day and you would like to wear shorts to work. Although wearing
shorts is not against the company dress code, your manager prefers that employees
wear pants. What might you do on days when it is hot? (218)

A) Wear pants all of the time and never wear shorts

B) Wear pants most of the time and rarely wear shorts
C) Wear pants and shorts about the same amount of time
D) Wear shorts most of the time and rarely wear pants
E) Wear shorts all of the time and never wear pants

2. Your store hires a number of temporary employees for the summer. These temporary
employees dress very differently from the regular employees, but management does
not seem to care. You’d like to wear those style clothes as well, but believe
customers may not take you as seriously. What do you do? (217)

A) Wear your usual style of clothes all of the time

B) Wear your usual style of clothes most of the time

C) Wear your usual style of clothes and those like the temporary employees about
equally

D) Wear clothes like the temporary employees most of the time

B) Wear clothes like the temporary employees all of the time

3. You work as a waiter/waitress. As you are delivering food to a customer, you notice
your shoelace is untied. What do you do?

A) Wait to tie the shoelace until no customers can see you

B) Wait to tie the shoelace until your specific customers can’t see you
C) Tie the shoelace after you give the customer the food

D) Set the food down immediately and tie the shoelace right away

4. You work as a waiter/waitress. As you are delivering food to a customer, you notice
your shirt is no longer tucked into your pants (which is required by company policy).
Your manager is looking directly at you. What do you do?

A) Wait until you are out of customers’ sight and then tuck in the shirt

B) Wait until you are out of your specific customers’ sight and then tuck in the shirt
C) Tuck in the shirt immediately after you give the customer the food

D) Set the food down and tuck in the shirt

258

' I.

 

 

E TI NIB: T 'b 'o

5. It has been a very busy day in the store and you are very tired. You finally get a few
minutes to relax because there are only a few customers in the store. However, you
are not scheduled for a break and so you can’t leave the customer area.. What do you
do?

A) Continue working hard until your next scheduled break

B) Continue working but don’t push yourself very hard

C) Continue working but every so often sit down and relax for a few seconds
D) Stop working to relax for a few minutes

E) Stop working to relax until you are rested

6. A customer is telling you a story that is not particularly interesting to you. It is a
long story, and you have several other customers that need help. What do you do?

A) Look completely interested with everything the customer says

B) Look somewhat interested with some of the things the customer says

C) Look neither interested nor disinterested, but instead just listen to the customer
D) Look somewhat disinterested with some of the things the customer says

E) Look completely disinterested in everything the customer says

7. You are helping a customer who keeps talking and talking. You have more
customers to help. What do you do? (137)

A) Look very interested so the customer keeps talking until finished

B) Look somewhat interested so that the customer will finish talking faster than usual
C) Maintain a neutral impression, looking neither interested or disinterested

D) Look somewhat bored so that the customer will finish talking almost immediately
E) Look like you’re bored so the customer will quit talking immediately

8. A customer tells a joke that you don’t find the least bit funny. What do you do?

A) Laugh and smile like it is the funniest joke you have ever heard
B) Laugh and smile a little to make it look like it is a good joke
C) Laugh and smile halflreartedly

D) Smile but don’t bother laughing

E) Don’t bother laughing or smiling at the joke

9. It is a very busy day in your store. Although when in-between customers you have
the chance to take a break for a few seconds, you cannot officially leave the customer
area. What do you do?

A) Continue looking busy even though you’re not helping a customer

B) Take one quick break to rest
C) Take a couple of breaks until you are rested

259

 

‘ 1.

 

D) Sit down and relax until you are completely rested

10. A customer is telling you a personal story that is completely unbelievable and that
you think is factually incorrect. What do you do?

A) Smile and nod in agreement with the customer, and say you agree with the story
B) Smile and nod in agreement with the customer, but say nothing

C) Nod in agreement with the customer, but say nothing

D) Nod in agreement with the customer, then correct the customer’s story

E) Correct the customer immediately and tell him or her why the story is wrong

11. Your manager wants employees to always look busy. This means you must do
simple tasks over and over again, even when they don’t need to be done. You are
really tired of doing these tasks, the store is empty, and the manager is not around.
What do you do? (320)

A) Do the tasks even if they don’t need to be done or nobody is present

B) Do the tasks only when the manager or customers are present

C) Do the tasks only when necessary, regardless of who is present

D) Don’t do the tasks because they don’t need to be done and it is a waste of time

12. You are helping a rude customer who is making small talk about things you find very
stupid and boring. What do you do? (397)

A) Completely maintain eye contact with the customer to show you’re interested

B) Mostly maintain eye contact with the customer, but sometimes look around the store

C) Look at the customer directly and around the store about equally

D) Rarely maintain eye contact with the customer, but often look around the store

E) Don’t look the customer in the eye but instead look around the store to show you’re
bored

SECTION 1C: Tangibles (Werk area/proeuci eppegepee)

13. You notice that many coworkers are not returning merchandise to its proper place
after showing it to customers. This makes the entire store look very disorganized
because an employee must look all over the store for a given product. However,
nobody seems to care. What might you do in this situation? (220)

A) Return all of the merchandise to their correct places

B) Return some of the merchandise to the correct places

C) Pile the merchandise up and set it aside, but don’t return it
D) Leave the merchandise where it is

260

 

14. A coworker was helping a very picky customer buy a suit. S/he had requested to try
on a number of different jackets, pants, and shirts. Although the customer has gone,
the coworker left a big pile of clothes lying around. What do you do?

A) Return all of the clothes to the correct place even though it is not your job

B) Return most of the clothes to the correct place even though it is not your job

C) Return some of the clothes to the correct place but leave the rest for the coworker
D) Leave the clothes where they are because it is not your job to return them

E N2A: e' ii 't

15. You are helping a customer and go to check on a product for him/her in the store
room. When you return the customer is nowhere to be seen. However, there are
several other customers waiting to be helped. What do you do? (25 5)

A) Physically look for the customer you were helping until you find him/her
B) Physically look for the customer you were helping for just a few moments
C) Quickly glance around the store, then help the other customers

D) Help the other customers immediately

16. You need to call a customer but his/her phone is always busy. You try repeatedly but
can never get through, and the customer does not have an answering machine. What
do you do? (257)

A) Keep calling no matter how long it takes

B) Try calling a few more times over the next couple of days
C) Try calling a few more times today

D) Quit calling, you’ve done all you can do

17. It is getting near your lunch break and you are not yet finished helping a customer.
You only get a set amount of time for your break, so if you miss it you won’t get
another. You see a coworker around who does not appear to be busy. What do you
do?

A) Remain with the customer as long as it takes, even if you don’t get a break

B) Try to hurry the customer to make a purchase so you can have part of your break
C) Ask the coworker to help your customer so you can take your break

D) Tell your customer it is time for you to take your break, and then leave

261

 

18. A customer is upset about a shirt that shrunk after s/he washed it. However, it is
about five minutes before the end of your shift, and you have made plans with your

fiiends. Many of your coworkers are not very busy and could help this customer.
What do you do? (92)

A) Personally help the customer until the transaction is completed, even if your shift is
over

B) Help the customer but try to get him/her to hurry so you can leave _

C) Help the customer until the end of your shift, then ask the coworkers to help the
customer

D) Ask the coworkers to help the customer since your shift is almost over

SECTION 2B: Reliability (flemises)

19. You are talking to a customer and promise to call the customer the next day.
However, after the customer leaves you realize you have the next three days off.
What do you do? (248)

A) Call the customer immediately and tell them you won’t be able to contact them for
three days

B) Call the customer later and tell them you won’t be able to contact them for three days

C) Call the customer after you return fi'om your three days off

D) Wait until the customer calls you back

20. A customer calls and asks how long it will take to get their order together. You know
you can do it in 30 minutes. How long do you tell this customer it will take? (252)

A) “20 minutes”
B) “30 minutes”
C) “40 minutes”
D) “It’s hard to say”

21. It is Saturday and you promise a customer you will call them on Sunday to inform
them about the status of their order. Sometime after the call, your supervisor tells you
that you will be working on Monday instead of Sunday. What do you do? (246)

A) Call the customer immediately and tell them you won’t be able to contact them until
Monday

B) Call the customer later and tell them you won’t be able to contact them until Monday

C) Call the customer after you return to work on Monday

D) Wait until the customer calls you back, since it is only one day

262

 

 

22. You work as a waiter/waitress in a restaurant. A customer asks when his/her food
will be ready and you think it will take about five minutes. What do you say? (284)

A) “Right away”
B) “3 minutes”
C) “5 minutes”
D) “8 minutes”

ETI N2: iai' '

23. You are working at a cash register. The register makes a mistake and overcharges a
customer. The customer does not seem to notice, and there is a long line waiting for
you. It would take some time to figure out the correct amount to charge the customer.
What do you do? (155)

A) Take the time to determine the correct change to give the customer

B) Try to find the error, and if it takes too long help the other customers first

C) Tell the customer there was an error but ask him/her to wait until you help the other
customers

D) Wait on the next customer, since there is a long line and nobody noticed the error

24. A customer calls you about a very detailed order. You have handled this order a
number of times and don’t feel it is any big deal. What do you do? (236)

A) Write down every detail the customer says

B) Write down a summary of the details

C) Write down only a few key details

D) Don’t bother writing down the information since you’ve done this many times

E TI N 3A: es nsiveness A owled en

25. You are one the phone with an important customer when another customer walks over
to you. You are really busy with the individual on the phone. How do you handle the
customer who is physically right in front of you? (40)

A) Smile and look at the customer as you continue talking on the phone

B) Look at the customer as you continue talking on the phone

C) Momentarily interrupt the person on the phone to say, “I will be with you in a
moment”

D) Avoid noticing the customer so that s/he will look for help fiom a coworker

263

 

26. You are talking to a customer on the phone and have many other customers waiting
on different phone lines. Suddenly, a customer in the store approaches you. What do
you do? (66)

A) Ask the customer to look around and you’ll help him/her as soon as possible
B) Ask the customer to wait while you finish with the people on the phone

C) Look at the customer while you help the people on the phone

D) Tell the customers on the phone you will call them right back

27. You’re working the cash register on a very busy shift. There is a long line waiting to
check out, and you can see several individuals are getting impatient. What might you
do?(264)

A) Tell them you appreciate their patience

B) Regularly look at those waiting so that they know you are aware of them

C) Once in a while look at those waiting so that they know you are aware of them
D) Focus on your job as a cashier and don’t look at those waiting

28. You are helping a customer buy a pair of shoes. You notice another customer walks
into your store and nobody waits on them. They are looking around for help. What
do you do? (263)

A) Tell the new customer you’ll be with them in a moment

B) Look at the new customer but don’t say anything

C) Leave your current customer to greet the new customer, then go back to your original
customer

D) Leave your current customer to help the customer who came into the store

SECTION 3B: Respensiveness (&emppiess)

29. You are talking to an important customer on the phone when a customer interrupts,
saying s/he is unhappy with your store and wants attention right now. Slim is
speaking in a loud voice that other customers can hear. What do you do? (176)

A) Help this customer immediately and hang up the phone

B) Ask this individual if s/he can wait until you are done on the phone

C) Ask the customer on the phone if you can call him/her back

D) Wait to help this customer until you finished with the individual on the phone

264

 

 

 

30. You had helped a customer order a product fi'om your supplier. The supplier has
called and said the product will be a few days late. What do you do?

A) Call the customer immediately to inform him or her of the delay

B) Call the customer in a few days, after the order is officially late

C) Call the customer only if the delay changes

D) Don’t call the customer since there is nothing anyone can do about the delay

31. You deal with a supplier who has not delivered a product as promised. You call the
supplier, but they tell you there is nothing they can do. They also say they are not

going to call the customer because they don’t deal with customers directly. What do
you do? (261)

A) Immediately call the customer yourself to describe the delay

B) Call the customer but downplay how long the delay will last

C) Call the customer but mention there might be a delay with the order
D) Don’t call the customer since it is not your store’s fault

32. A customer wants a refund on a product that has obviously been misused. Although
you could normally refer such problems to the manager, s/he will be gone for the next
several hours. What do you do? (41)

A) Inform the customer s/he will have to wait a few hours until the manager is present
B) Inform the customer s/he will have to wait until the manager is present

C) Inform the customer s/he will have to wait

D) Inform the customer your store cannot give a refimd

33. You are answering the phones at your store. There are many customers who have
called your restaurant and are on hold. You answer the phone and ask the customer to
please be put on hold. The customer starts yelling that they have been on hold for
fifteen minutes. What do you do? (73)

A) Immediately help this customer since they have waited so long

B) Help the other customers who have waited longer than 15 minutes, then help this
customer

C) Tell the customer s/he will have to wait for his or her turn.

D) Tell the customer you will call him or her back

265

 

b

 

34. A customer requests a product that you do not have in stock. Although you could call
other stores to see if they have it, you are almost certain it will be a waste of your
time. What do you do? (43)

A) Call all of the possible stores to see if they have the product

B) Call most of the stores to see if they have the product

C) Call just a few stores that would be most likely to have the product
D) Don’t bother calling the stores since you know they won’t have it

35. A customer wants a product that you don’t have in your store. You begin to call other
stores to see if they carry the product. However, each store takes a long time to check
and the customer is getting very impatient. You know that one of the stores is likely
to have the product but it will take some time to find out. What would you do? (243)

A) Call all of the possible stores regardless of how long it takes

B) Call as many stores as possible, until it starts to take too long

C) Call just a few stores that would be most likely to have the product in order to save
time

D) Don’t bother calling the stores since it will take too long

36. A customer calls and inquires about a particular product. There should be plenty of
the products one the shelves. What do you do?

A) Check for yourself that the product is in stock
B) Ask a coworker to check to see if the product is in stock
C) Tell the customer the product is_in stock, since you’re pretty sure it will be

ECTI N4A: A sur ce sti tern 've

37. You are helping a customer buy a computer. The customer is not sure what kind to
buy. What rrright you do?

A) Compare and contrast for the customer the different options and features of all
relevant computers

B) Show the customer a couple of computers and describe options and features

C) Show the customer a couple of computers but don’t describe options and features

D) Show the customer the one best computer your store has

266

 

38. A customer asks you about a competitor’s product. You are familiar with this
product. What do you tell them? (319)

A) Describe and compare the good and bad features of your store’s and the competitor’s
products

B) Describe the good features of your store’s product and the bad features of the
competitor’s product

C) Only mention the negative information about the competitor’s product

D) Don’t mention the competitor’s product and show the customer your store’s product

39. A customer is unsure about choosing between a more expensive item and a less
expensive item. S/he asks you what you think. You know that both products are very
similar but have some different features. What do you do?

A) Show the customer el_l of the similarities and differences between each item
B) Show the customer the key similarities and differences between each item
C) Show the customer the main differences between each item

D) Tell the customer the features of only the most expensive item

40. A customer is looking at a watch similar to the one you are wearing. The customer
asks you if you think it is worth the money. Although you like the watch, it does
have some features you don’t like. What do you say?

A) Tell the customer what you like and don’t like about the watch
B) Tell the customer only what you like about the watch

C) Tell the customer only what you don’t like about the watch

D) Don’t tell the customer anything about the watch

41. You work in an appliance store. You ask the customer if you can help and the
customer tells you s/he wants a specific stereo. You think you know about a stereo
that would work better. What do you do? (358)

A) Compare and contrast the main features of both stereos for the customer

B) Suggest to the customer that s/he tries another stereo you think might work better
C) Point out some of the disadvantages of the stereo the customer originally wanted
D) Sell the customer the stereo s/he wanted

42. You work as a waiter/waitress and a customer orders a dish that is not on the menu.
You mention this politely but the customer gets very upset. What do you do? (93)

A) Suggest alternative main dishes and side orders that might be of interest

B) Suggest alternative dishes that might be of interest to the customer

C) Suggest only those alternative dishes that are very similar to the dish the customer
wanted

D) Tell the customer there is nothing you can do

267

 

ETI 4‘ '

43. You are working right before Christmas and the store is very busy. A customer
inquires about a product you have on sale. You check and realize the product has
been sold out. The customer wanted the product before Christmas. What might you
do in this situation? (95)

A) Try to offer the customer some form of a substitution with a slight discount
B) Try to offer the customer some form of a substitution

C) Try to offer the customer a chance to order the product

D) Tell the customer there is simply nothing you can do

44. A regular customer calls to complain that s/he did not receive a product s/he ordered.
You check and realize that your supplier is behind schedule. The customer is a
regular customer who usually spends a lot of money in the store. Your manager is not
present. What might you do? (136)

A) Apologize and provide some small gift or discount on the purchase to show you
appreciate the customer’s patience

B) Apologize to the customer and give them a small discount on a future purchase

C) Apologize, and say you’ll do what you can to speed up the delivery

D) Apologize, but say there is nothing you can do

45. A customer is dining in your restaurant with six children. The children all want a
particular dish that you do not have. The children all start to yell and scream. What
do you do? (179)

A) Try to provide some form of a substitution they might like better
B) Try to offer the children free soda pop

C) Try to offer the customer a slight discount

D) Ignore the children since there is nothing you can do

46. A customer calls to inquire about a stereo advertised in the newspaper. You describe
the stereo and the customer says s/he will be right in to pick it up. However, after the
customer arrives you discover that there are no more of those stereos in stock, and it
might be several weeks before your store will get more. What nright you do? (249)

A) Offer the customer a better stereo for the same price as the customer originally
wanted

B) Offer the customer a discount on a different stereo you have in stock

C) Offer the customer a discount on the stereo when it finally gets delivered

D) Offer the customer a discount on a future purchase

268

 

47. You work in a restaurant. A customer orders the special but you have just run out.
The customer is very upset and mentions that was the only reason s/he came to the
restaurant. What do you do? (305)

A) Offer the customer a better meal for the same price as the one you don’t have
B) Offer the customer a slight discount on his or her meal

C) Encourage the customer to try a different meal

D) Tell the customer there is nothing you can do

48. It is the day before Christmas and a mother wants to get a doll for her daughter.
Unfortunately, you have just sold out. The mother becomes very upset and starts to
cry. What do you do? (325)

A) Offer to sell the woman two similar dolls for the price of the sold-out doll
B) Offer the woman a slight discount on a future purchase

C) Suggest to the woman she purchase a different doll

D) Tell the woman there is nothing you can do

49. You work as a waiter/waitress in a restaurant. One of the cooks is joking around and
throws some food at a coworker. However, s/he misses and hits one of your
customers. The customer is furious. What do you do? (77)

A) Offer the customer a free meal

B) Offer the customer a discount on their meal

C) Offer the customer a coupon for a future purchase

D) Tell the customer you are sorry and that it won’t happen again

50. Your restaurant is very busy, and a large party is unhappy with the food and service.
The people in this party are each complaining to you, and this is taking up so much
time that your orders with other customers are falling behind. What do you do? (71)

A) Offer the party a discount on their meal

B) Offer the party a fiee round of drinks or desserts
C) Offer the party a discount on future meals

D) Tell the party there is nothing you can do

51. You work in a restaurant. A customer eats most of his/her meal, then suggests it was
awful and wants a different meal. What do you do? (81)

A) Offer the customer a free meal in the future

B) Tell the customer you can only offer him or her a he dessert

C) Tell the customer you can only offer him or her a slight price reduction for the meal
D) Tell the customer there is nothing you can do since s/he already ate the meal

269

 

52. A customer calls to see if you have a particular pair of shoes in stock. You check and
your store does. Later, when the customer comes into the store to pick of the shoes
you see that they have been sold. The customer is very upset. What do you do? (133)

A) Offer the customer some fi'ee shoe care products for the inconvenience, if a purchase
is made

B) Offer to hold the customer a pair of the shoes when they are delivered

C) Tell the customer you are sorry but there is nothing you can do

D) Tell the customer there is nothing you can do

ECTI N4: ' V

53. You are helping a customer purchase an entertainment center. The customer appears
nervous and hesitant about buying the product. What might you do? (302)

A) Describe to the customer the cost of each feature on the product to show it is worth
the money

B) Tell the customer the product is worth the money because of its many features

C) Tell the customer you get what you pay for

D) Say nothing and let the product speak for itself

54. A customer is looking at buying an expensive VCR with many options, but does not
seem sure about the purchase. What might you do?

A) Explain the value and benefits of each product option

B) Tell the customer the cost is high because there are so many options
C) Tell the customer there are many options on the VCR

D) Don’t tell the customer anything, let the product sell itself

ET N4D: cEl" 'ce

55. Although a customer has just purchased an expensive leather jacket, s/lre appears to
be unsure that it was a good purchase. What might you do?

A) Tell the customer how to care for the jacket to ensure it lasts a long time

B) lnforrn the customer where to find information on how to care for the jacket so that it
lasts a long time

C) Tell the customer that with the right care, the jacket will last a long time

D) Tell the customer the jacket will last a long time

270

 

"I

56. A customer had purchased a television set from you a week ago. The customer
seemed rather nervous about the purchase. What rrright you do?

A) Call the customer to make sure everything is working correctly
B) If you ever help the customer again, ask how the television is working
C) Do nothing, the customer will call if there is a problem

57. A customer has just bought a rather expensive television fiom you. What might you
do now that the purchase 1s complete? (384)

A) Call the customer to make sure everything is working correctly
B) If you ever help the customer again, ask how the television is working
C) Do nothing, the customer will call if there is a problem

ECTI N 4E: Assurance llin s

58. It is typical in your store for employees to really push certain products. However,
customers often don’t appreciate such tactics being used on them. What do you do?
(3 24)

A) Apply no pressure on the customer to buy those particular products

B) Apply slight pressure on the customer to buy those particular products
C) Apply moderate pressure on the customer to buy the particular products
D) Apply heavy pressure on the customer to buy the particular products

59. You are helping a customer around quitting time. You are very tired and have had a
long day. It is pretty obvious that the customer has no idea about what s/he wants and
you can tell this is going to take a long time. What do you do? (327)

A) Do not rush the customer but let him or her shop at his/her own pace

B) Slightly try to hurry the customer by asking questions to learn the customer’s needs

C) Moderately try to hurry the customer by providing suggestions (but not asking
questions)

D) Hurry the customer by telling him or her it is almost quitting time

60. You have nearly finished selling a customer an expensive product. However, the
customer seems unsure about making the purchase because it costs so much money.
What might you do?

A) Remind the customer s/he can always return the product

B) Tell the customer s/he is making a good purchase
C) Don’t say anything to the customer so that s/he can decide for him or herself

271

 

 

61. Your store pays its employees by the hour, but still expects each employee to meet
minimum dollar amount of sales each day. If this minimum is not met, it goes on
your performance evaluation and could affect the possibility for future pay raises.
Although you try to meet this quota, it is very difficult and often requires you to give
a “hard sell” to the customer. You do not feel comfortable doing this, and your
customers often do not appear to appreciate this tactic. What do you do? (12)

A) Do not push sales even if it means you might not meet your minimum

B) Push sales so that you get close to meeting your minimum, but do not push beyond
that point

C) Push sales so that you usually meet your minimum, but do not push beyond that point

D) Push sales so that you will always meet your minimum

62. You are helping a customer by bringing different clothes to the fitting room.
However, this person has been shopping for over an hour and you are starting to think
s/he is not going to buy anything. What do you do? (42)

A) Do not rush the customer but let him or her shop at his/her own pace
B) Slightly try to hurry the customer

C) Moderately try to hurry the customer

D) Hurry the customer in any way you can

63. You are selling a customer a rather expensive product. The customer appears to be
nervous and hesitant about making the purchase because s/he has taken a very long
time. What might you do?

A) Give the customer as much time to think about the purchase as s/he needs
B) Give the customer a moderate amount of time to make the purchase

C) Give the customer just a little more time to make the purchase

D) Try to get the customer to make the purchase immediately

64. You work in a store that pays its employees a commission of their total sales. You
are waiting on a customer that is very demanding but only buying a relatively
inexpensive product. You know you are missing helping customers who are buying
more expensive products. What do you do? (58)

A) Give the customer as much time to think about the purchase as s/he needs

B) Give the customer a moderate amount of time to make the purchase, then try to hurry
the customer

C) Give the customer just a little more time to make the purchase, then try to hurry the
customer

D) Try to get the customer to make the purchase immediately

272

 

E TI N4F: l't

65. A customer walks into your store and looks very grumpy. Further, he does not look
like a “serious” customer. You are busy checking inventory and are falling behind
schedule, something you manager will not appreciate. You notice no other coworkers
are currently in the section. What do you do? (266)

A) Approach the customer and ask if you can help

B) Say hello to the customer but do not offer to help

C) Nod to the customer but do not offer to help

D) Ignore the customer and continue checking inventory

66. You work in a store that pays its employees a commission of their total sales. You
notice that most coworkers will not wait on customers who do not have the
appearance of being “big spenders.” One of these individuals walks into the store and
nobody waits on them. What do you do? (59)

A) Approach the customer and ask if you can help

B) Say hello to the customer but do not offer to help

C) Nod to the customer but do not offer to help

D) Ignore the customer and wait for a better customer to help

ECTI N 4 : Assuran ones

67. You are a new employee and realize you’ve made a mistake with a customer’s order.
Specifically, you did not charge the customer enough money. You could call the
customer and tell him/her to pay the difference, or simply not do anything. What do
you do?

A) Call the customer and tell him or her you made a mistake
B) Tell your supervisor but do not call the customer
C) Do nothing

68. You make a mistake and undercharge a customer. Your boss says you will either
have to make up the difference out of your paycheck or call the customer and get
him/her to pay the difference. What do you do? (184)

A) Don’t call the customer, but simply pay for the difference yourself

B) Don't call the customer but instead send a bill for the customer to pay the difference

C) Call the customer to explain the mistake, then send a bill for the customer to pay the
difference

D) Call the customer to explain the mistake and insist he or she pays the difference

273

 

b

 

69. You’re waiting on a customer who asks for a special request. You think you can meet
the request adequately but are not sure. Unfortunately, your manager will be gone for
a half an hour. What do you do? (211)

A) Admit you’re uncertain whether you can meet the request, and then try to meet it

B) Admit you’re uncertain whether you can meet the request, and then wait for the
manager

C) Don’t admit you’re uncertain whether you can meet the request, and then wait for the
manager

D) Don't’ adnrit you’re uncertain whether you can meet the request, just try to meet it

70. A customer asks you questions you don’t know how to answer. You think you might
be able to figure out the answer, though, if you give it some thought. What might you
do?(237)

A) Admit you’re uncertain whether you know the answer, and then try to find an answer

B) Admit you’re uncertain whether you know the answer, and don’t even try to help

C) Don’t admit you are uncertain whether you know the answer, and don’t try to help

D) Don't’ admit you are uncertain whether you brow the answer, just try to find an
answer

71. You work for a delivery service. A customer calls to ask why their order took so long
to be delivered. It was a big order and you want to keep this customer happy. You
are pretty sure the order was late because the delivery driver went to the wrong
address. What do you do? (251)

A) Say that you think the delivery driver went to the wrong address

B) Say that you think the delivery driver had made a mistake

C) Say that you think the delivery driver was late because there was a lot of traffic
D) Say that you don’t brow why the order took so long

72. A customer is trying on a pair of sunglasses that quite frankly make them look funny.
They ask you for your opinion. What do you say? (290)

A) “Those glasses look funny on you”

B) “Those glasses kind of look funny on you”
C) “Those glasses look OK on you”

D) “Those glasses look really good on you”

274

‘s

 

 

 

E 1N4:

73. It’s Christmas time and your store has a product advertised that has been very
popular. A younger girl wants to purchase the product but you realize it is sold out
and will not be possible to get more until after Christmas. The young girl starts to
cry, saying “Thanks for nothing—you’ve ruined my Christmas.” What might you do
in this situation? (60)

A) Sit the girl down and say how sorry you are

B) Say how sorry you are

C) Tell the girl you wish you had more of the product

D) Tell the girl that the store is sold out and there is nothing you can do

74. A customer who consistently writes bad checks needs to be told s/he cannot write a
check for his/her purchase. There are many other customers around who could hear
you. What do you do? (170)

A) Tell the customer you are sorry and that this has even happened to you, but you can’t
accept the check

B) Tell the customer you are sorry and that these things sometimes happen, but you can’t
accept the check

C) Tell the customer you are sorry but that you cannot accept the check

D) Tell the customer you cannot accept the check

75. A customer orders a dress. The customer comes to the store on the day the order was
to arrive, but the warehouse has not been able to deliver the dress. The customer gets
very upset with you. What do you do? (19)

A) Say to the customer you are sorry and would be mad too if you couldn’t get the dress,
but these things sometimes happen

B) Say to the customer you are sorry and would be mad too if you couldn’t get the dress

C) Say to the customer you are sorry

D) Tell the customer there is nothing you can do about the dress

76. You are working at a cash register right before Christmas. The line is very long and
customers are generally impatient. As you cash out one customer, you realize that
his/her credit card is denied. What do you do? (94)

A) Talk to the customer using his/her first name, say you are sorry, and that these things
happen

B) Tell the customer you are sorry and that these things happen

C) Tell the customer you are sorry

D) Tell the customer there is nothing you can do

275

“-1

 

 

E TI NSA: tiv

77. You work as a waiter/waitress in a restaurant. One of your tables is involved in a
very private conversation. You want to ask them if you can get them anything else,
but every time you approach they give you a very nasty look—as if to say “leave us
alone.” What might you do? (78)

A) Watch the table to guess when someone might want something (for example, water)

B) Watch the table and wait for a customer to call on you (for example, waving their
hand)

C) Approach the table less fi'equently than you would have normally

D) Approach the table as you normally would

78. You greet a customer walking into your store by smiling and saying “hello.” This
customer does not smile back but only nods. What might you do next? (267)

A) Move on to a different customer who wants or needs your help
B) Wait for this customer to approach you for help

C) Watch this customer to see if s/he wants your help

D) Immediately ask the customer if s/he wants your help

79. One customer you are helping is very factual and straight to the point. As you help
this person, what might you do? (299)

A) Treat the customer like s/he brows exactly what s/he wants
B) Treat the customer like s/he probably brows what s/he wants
C) Treat the customer like s/he might brow what s/he wants

D) Treat the customer like s/he has no idea what s/he wants

80. There is a regular customer in your restaurant that all employees brow because he
always orders the same meal. Although you are a new employee and have never
waited on this gentleman, you do know what he looks like. One day he sits in your
section. What might you do? (328)

A) Order this customer his regular meal without asking

B) Ask the customer if he wants to order his regular meal

C) Ask the customer what he would like to order, but indicate you brow he is a regular
customer

D) Ask the customer what he would like to order like any other customer

276

 

‘b

 

81. A customer walks into your store and you ask if s/he wants help. S/he politely
declines, and then walks around the store in a very confused manner. What would
you be most likely to do? (329)

A) Move on to a different customer who wants or needs your help

B) Wait for this customer to approach you for help

C) Watch this customer to see which section s/he enters if he or she might want your
help

D) Watch this customer to see what section s/he enters

82. A customer enters the store and you say hello. Although the customer says hello, s/he
just keeps walking past you. What do you do? (361)

A) Move on to a different customer who wants or needs your help
B) Wait for this customer to approach you for help

C) Watch this customer to see if s/he wants your help

D) Immediately ask the customer if s/he wants your help

83. A customer enters the store and you say hello. The customer does not respond and
just keeps walking. What do you do? (362)

A) Move on to a different customer who wants or needs your help
B) Wait for this customer to approach you for help

C) Watch this customer to see if s/he wants your help

D) Immediately ask the customer if s/he wants your help

84. A customer enters the store and you say hello. The customer does not respond but
stops and looks around the store. What do you do? (363)

A) Move on to a different customer who wants or needs your help
B) Wait for this customer to approach you for help

C) Watch this customer to see if s/he wants your help

D) Immediately ask the customer if s/he wants your help

85. A customer walks into your store who is not very well dressed. Your store is one that
sells very expensive clothes, something the customer does not appear to be able to
afford. There are better dressed customers who are farther away in the store but have
not been waited on. What do you do? (389)

A) Immediately help the customer who is poorly dressed

B) Watch the poorly dressed customer to see if s/he is a “real” customer, then offer help
C) Watch the better dressed customers to see if they might need help first

D) Immediately help the customers who are better dressed

277

 

’5

 

86. You greet a customer who does not immediately respond. What do you do? (391)

A) Move on to a different customer who wants or needs your help
B) Wait for this customer to approach you for help

C) Watch this customer to see if s/he wants your help

D) Immediately ask the customer if s/he wants your help

87. You work in a department store and see a female customer enter the automotive
section. How might you greet this customer?

A) “What can I help you find for your vehicle?”
B) “Working on your vehicle today?”

C) “What can I help you find?”

D) “Can I help you?”

88. You are helping a customer purchase a new telephone. What might you do next?

A) Recommend other products the customer may want to use with the telephone or office
B) Recommend other products the customer may want to use with the telephone

C) Ask the customer if s/he wants any other products

D) Let the customer tell you if s/he wants any other products

ECTI N5B:Pr tiv es ti P l o

89. You see a customer that you have waited on before. How might you greet this
customer?

A) Use whatever relevant personal information you can remember about this customer in
your greeting

B) Use just the customer’s name in your greeting

C) Be more fiiendly to this customer than usual but don’t use personal information

D) Greet this customer just like all customers

90. You are helping a couple who has three small children with them. What might you
do?

A) Talk to the children and try to learn their names and interests
B) Talk to the children and try to learn their names
C) Talk to the children

D) Help these customers without trying to learn personal information about them

278

 

91. A customer is telling you a story about himself/herself and is providing you with very
personal information. S/he asks if you have had a similar experience. Imagine you
have had a similar experience. What do you tell this customer?

A) Tell the customer your experience without leaving anything out

B) Tell the customer you have experienced something similar but provide a little detail
C) Tell the customer you have experienced something similar but provide no detail

D) Tell the customer you have not experienced anything similar

92. You work in a clothing store. You are helping a man buy a gift for his wife. What do
you do? (395)

A) Ask questions about the wife to identify her interests and preferences
B) Ask what the wife likes to do

C) Ask what the husband and wife like to do together

D) Ask what the husband wants to buy for his wife

93. You work in a clothing store. You are helping a woman buy a gift for her husband.
What do you do? (396)

A) Ask questions about the husband to identify his interests and preferences
B) Ask what the husband likes to do

C) Ask what the husband and wife like to do together

D) Ask what the wife wants to buy for her husband

SECTION 5C: Pereeptiveness (Opesiiepm' g)

94. A customer keeps asking you questions that are very annoying. In fact, s/he has
already asked you about 30 questions and does not seem to be running out. What do
you do? (269)

A) Answer all questions regardless of how many there are

B) Answer most of the questions, then ask what s/he really wants
C) Answer a few more questions, then ask what s/he really wants
D) Stop answering the questions and ask what s/he really wants

95. You see a customer standing around the store. What might you do?
A) Approach the customer and say “What product can I help you find today”
B) Approach the customer and say “What can I help you fin ”

C) Approach the customer and say “Are you looking for something”
D) Approach the customer and say “Can I help you”

279

 

L‘

 

96. You observe a customer looking at your store’s sale brochure. What might you do?

A) Ask the customer what in the brochure s/he is looking for

B) Ask the customer if s/he needs help finding something in the brochure
C) Ask the customer if s/he is finding everything s/he needs

D) Ask the customer if you can help them

97. A customer is looking at buying a computer and has asked you a rather complicated
question. What might you do next?

A) Restate the question back to the customer, then answer the question
B) Ask the customer what s/he really means, then answer the question
C) Immediately attempt to answer the question

98. A customer tells you s/he wants to buy a television. What might you do next?

A) Ask follow-up questions to determine why the customer wants this television
B) Ask the customer what kind of television s/he would like

C) Ask the customer how much s/he wants to spend

D) Show the customer a television you think s/he would like

99. A customer wants to buy a VCR but is not sure about what kind or how much s/he
wants to spend. How might you inquire about this information? (337)

A) Ask the customer what features s/he might actually need and use
B) Ask the customer what features s/he wants

C) Ask the customer what brand of VCR s/he wants

D) Ask the customer how much s/he wants to spend

100. A customer comes into the store and tells you exactly what s/he wants. What do
you do? (346)

A) Restate the question to make sure you understand what the customer wants
B) Ask the customer why s/he wants that specific product

C) Ask the customer if s/he is sure that product is what s/he wants

D) Get the customer exactly what s/he wanted without further questions

101. You observe a customer looking toward the kitchen supply area of your
department store. You work in the clothing department. What do you do? (348)

A) Ask the customer if s/he wants to look at something fi'om the kitchen department
B) Ask the customer if you can help him or her find some clothes

C) Ask the customer if you can help him or her find something

D) Ask the customer if you can help

280

 

E TI N5D: 'ven

102. As a salesperson, you are asked to influence customers to purchase the most
expensive products even when a cheaper product may satisfy their needs. You are
sure that many of your customers are on limited incomes. What do you do? (213)

A) Sell customers the least expensive products that satisfy their needs

B) Sell customers the less expensive products that almost satisfy their needs
C) Sell customers the more expensive products that almost satisfy their needs
D) Sell customers the most expensive products that satisfy their needs

103. A customer is trying on a jacket. Although the jacket fits fine, you know of a
cheaper jacket that would look just as good. However, if you sell the expensive

jacket and both you and the store would make a nice commission. What might you
do?(29l)

A) Try to sell the cheaper jacket

B) Recommend both jackets, but then try to sell the cheaper jacket
C) Recommend both jackets, but then try to sell the expensive jacket
D) Try to sell the expensive jacket

104. A customer expects you to do something that is not part of your job—look up the
address of a competitor. What do you do? (318)

A) Look up the specific address as the customer requests

B) Just give general directions to the customer

C) Show the customer where a phone book is so s/he can look it up himself or herself
D) Tell the customer it is not your job to sell the competitor’s products

105. You recognize a regular customer who spends a lot of money in your store.
However, all coworkers are very busy, as are you. None of the other coworkers
seems to notice this customer, and you are currently helping a customer purchase a
small item that is not very expensive. What do you do? (332)

A) Stay with your customer until s/he is done, then help the regular customer

B) Ask your customer to wait for a few moments, then go help the regular customer
C) Try to hurry your customer so you can help the regular customer sooner

D) Tell your customer you have to go, and then help the regular customer

281

 

106. Many customers request a particular name brand VCR. You know a lesser known
brand has the identical VCR. Further, you know that both VCRs are made by the
same company. Do you tell customers about the cheaper VCR? (338)

A) Try to sell the cheaper VCR

B) Recommend both VCRs, but then try to sell the cheaper VCR
C) Recommend both VCRs, but then try to sell the expensive VCR
D) Try to sell the expensive VCR

107. Your store pays its employees a commission of their total dollar sales. You are
helping a customer that believes everything you recommend. You know you could
sell this person a lot of things they probably don’t need. What might you do? (339)

A) Sell the customer only the products that s/he actually needs

B) Sell the customer a few products that s/he may not need

C) Sell the customer several products that s/he may not need

D) Sell the customer as many products as you can, regardless of whether s/he needs them

108. A customer walks into the store and you greet him/her as usual. However, it turns
out this is a regular customer and s/he gets upset for you not recognizing him/her.
What do you do? (164)

A) Spend a large amount of extra time with this customer to make up for the mistake

B) Spend a moderate amount of extra time with this customer to make up for the mistake
C) Spend a small amount of extra time with this customer to make up for the nristake

D) Don’t spend any extra time with this customer than you would for anybody else

SECTION 6A: Cepppppieetion (Reisoneiizfl)

109. You are waiting on two customers who don’t speak English. They are obviously
tourists. Your store is very busy and you are falling behind. What might you do?
(375)

A) Speak quite a bit slower than normal

B) Speak slightly slower than normal

C) Speak normally

D) Speak slightly faster than normal since the store is so busy
E) Speak quite a bit faster than normal since the store is so busy

110. An older woman walks into your store. How might you talk to her? (374)
A) Completely alter your way of speaking to fit this woman’s interest
B) Moderately alter your way of speaking to fit this woman’s interest

C) Slightly alter your way of speaking to fit this woman’s interest
D) Talk to her the same way you talk to all of your customers

282

 

111. You are going to explain to a customer how to perform a very complicated repair.

The customer acts as though he already understands all of this information, but you
suspect he might not. What might you do? (379)

A) Start at the most basic level, and then get more complicated

B) Start at an easy level, then get more complicated

C) State at a moderate level, then get more complicated

D) Start at a complicated level since the customer already brows this

112. An older customer and a younger customer both ask you identical questions.
How would you respond to these questions? (381)

A) Tailor each response to a manner appropriate for each customer’s age

B) Moderately tailor each response to a manner appropriate for each customer’s age
C) Slightly tailor each response to a manner appropriate for each customer’s age

D) Make each response in an identical manner

113. You manager asks employees to treat all customers in the same friendly manner.
What might you do when dealing with customers? (385)

A) Completely alter the way you are friendly for each customer
B) Moderately alter the way you are friendly for each customer
C) Slightly alter the way you are fiiendly for each customer

D) Treat all customers in an identical friendly manner

114. An couple of customers are placing an order in your restaurant. The restaurant is
very busy and you are not getting to your other customers as fast as you should.
What do you do? (388)

A) Speak quite a bit slower than normal

B) Speak slightly slower than normal

C) Speak normally

D) Speak slightly faster than normal since the store is so busy
E) Speak quite a bit faster than normal since the store is so busy

115. You deal with customers over the phone. Many customers do not speak English
very well, and ofien neither one of you can understand each other. It is often very
fi'ustrating. How might you handle these situations? (401)

A) Speak quite a bit slower than normal

B) Speak slightly slower than normal

C) Speak normally

D) Speak slightly faster than normal since the store is so busy
E) Speak quite a bit faster than normal since the store is so busy

283

 

.
lti

 

ETINB:o " '

116. You work in a computer store. Many of your customers brow very little about
computers. How might you convey your knowledge of computers? (376)

A) Provide very simple descriptions without the use of technical terms

B) Provide relatively simple descriptions with little use of technical terms

C) Provide moderately in-depth descriptions with moderate use of technical terms
D) Provide in-depth descriptions with the appropriate technical terms

117. You work in a rather hip clothing store and are helping a customer who is using
very foul language. This language is typical for many of your customers, but you
think other customers don’t appreciate the foul language and become offended. What
might you do? (377)

A) Do not swear with customers under any circumstances

B) Swear with customers only if no other customers are present

C) Swear with customers occasionally, even if other customers are present
D) Swear with the customer as often as the customer swears with you

118. A customer comes into the store who is about your same age. S/he speaks to you
in a very casual manner. How might you respond?

A) Speak in a identical casual manner

B) Speak in a moderately casual manner

C) Speak in a mildly casual manner

D) Speak in a professional manner the same as you do with all customers

119. You are describing how to use a rather complicated product for a customer. It is a
long explanation with a lot of information. What nright you do?

A) Provide all of the very specific information about the product
B) Provide most of the specific information about the product
C) Provide some of the specific information about the product
D) Provide only general summary information about the product

120. You work in a very noisy store. You often cannot hear customers very well, and
sometimes they get upset because they think you are not paying attention. How might
you handle these situations? (403)

A) Speak slower and periodically ask customers if they understand

B) Speak slower if customers appear to have trouble hearing you

C) Speak normally but tell customers you are having trouble hearing them

D) Speak normally and tell customers you are paying attention if they get upset

284

 

:s
I

 

SW

121. You receive some information about products you know a competitor carries.
What might you do?

A) Read the information closely and become very familiar with it
B) Skim over the information to get most of the points or features
C) Skim over the information to get only the main points or features
D) Don’t bother reading the information

122. Your store receives new products every week. However, many of these products
are only sold for a few weeks before your store stops selling them. What might you
do?

A) Try to remain current and familiar with all new products as they arrive

B) Try to remain familiar with most new products as they arrive

C) Try to remain fanriliar with a few key products as they arrive

D) Try to remain familiar only with the products that do not change fiom week to week

123. You work in a store that sells electronics. When new products arrive, your store
receives a brief, non-technical product description and a complicated, in-depth
product description. What would you be most likely to do?

A) Read both types of information comprehensively and in careful detail

B) Read both types of information to gain a general understanding of the key points
C) Read only the non-technical information to understand all key points

D) Read only the non-technical information to understand the few major points

124. You work in a restaurant where some dishes on the menu change weekly. What
might you do?

A) Memorize all details of each new dish as it becomes available

B) Be familiar with most details of each new dish as it becomes available

C) Be familiar with the major details of each new dish at it becomes available
D) Remain familiar with the regular dishes since they don’t change

285

 

 

It,

 

ETINzDo ' x

125. You work as a delivery driver. It is Friday night, almost quitting time, and you
have plans for the evening. A customer calls at the last nrinute and asks if you can
deliver a product that will take you several hours. All of the other drivers have left
for the night. Your boss says it is up to you. What do you do? (208)

A) You take the delivery immediately

B) Tell your boss you’ll take the delivery first thing the next morning

C) Tell your boss you’ll take the delivery the next day

D) Tell your boss you don’t want to take the order because you have plans

126. There are some minor duties and tasks that all employees are expected to do.
Your coworkers do not help with these tasks because you all get paid the same
amount. Although you are fairly busy, you could also do their jobs as well. What do
you do? (188)

A) Perform all of the minor tasks in addition to your regular duties

B) Perform the minor tasks only when you are not performing your regular duties
C) Perform the minor tasks only when they absolutely have to be done

D) Don’t perform the minor tasks since nobody else is doing them

127. You are doing your regular job duties. A coworker approaches you and tells you
to stop working so hard because you are making everyone else look bad. What do
you do? (189)

A) Continue working as hard as you had been
B) Work moderately harder than everyone else
C) Work a little bit harder than everyone else
D) Work only as hard as everyone else

128. You are doing your regular job duties. A coworker approaches you and tells you
to stop working so hard because the manager is gone for the day. What do you do?
(190)

A) Continue working as hard as you had been

B) Work a little bit less hard

C) Stop working so hard when the manager is not around
D) Stop working so hard at all times

286

 

 

129. You work in a store that has a few peak times during a day but is otherwise pretty
slow. During the slow times, coworkers joke around, use the company phone for
personal calls, and generally look bored. However, there are many maintenance tasks
that could be done during this time, such as cleaning the shelves. What do you do?
(50)

A) Perform the maintenance tasks whenever you are not helping customers
B) Perform the maintenance tasks only when the store is extremely slow
C) Perform the maintenance tasks only when told to do so

D) Don’t perform the maintenance tasks since nobody else does them

130. Your manager is very easy going. Many of your coworkers take advantage of this
and give themselves very easy work schedules. Unless you take advantage of this
manager’s flexibility, you will have to work very undesirable hours. What do you
do? (107)

A) Never take advantage of the manager’s flexibility and thus always work the
undesirable hours

B) Occasionally take advantage of the manager’s flexibility to get better working hours

C) Regularly take advantage of the manager’s flexibility to get better working hours

D) Always take advantage of the manager’s flexibility to get better working hours

131. Some of your coworkers don’t care about their job or the store. These individuals
often do not do their job duties, which means somebody else has to do them.
However, you all get paid the same amount. Now you see one of these individuals
leaving for the night and his/her work area is a mess. What do you do? (74)

A) Clean up the entire coworker’s work area yourself

B) Clean up the coworker’s work area so that it is fairly clean
C) Clean up the coworker’s work area just a little

D) Leave the coworker’s work area for him or her to clean

132. You work the day shift. The people in the night shift do not perform their basic
cleanup tasks. If you do their tasks in addition to your own, you waste your time and
so your customers may have to suffer. What do you do? (126)

A) Clean up after the night shift in addition to performing your regular tasks

B) Clean up after the night shift only when you aren’t performing your regular tasks
C) Tidy up a little but leave most of the mess as you found it

D) Leave the mess since the night shift made it

287

 

' r

 

133. You work the monring shift in a restaurant. The night shift has gotten into the
habit of not keeping the work area clean. Now, in addition to your regular duties, you
also have to clean the work area. This makes your job much more difficult. You’ve
brought the matter up with your supervisor, who says s/he is looking into it. Now,
you come into work and notice the work area is even dirtier than usual, and there are
several customers already coming into the store. What might you do? (87)

A) Clean up after the night shift in addition to helping your customers

B) Clean up after the night shift only when you aren’t helping customers

C) Tidy up a little but leave most of the mess as you found it—focus on your customers
D) Leave the mess since the night shift made it—focus on your customers

SECTION 9A: Maintain Pmonal Discipline (Composure)

134. A customer is very upset with your company’s return policy. You have no say or
control over the return policy, but this customer is basically “venting” his/her
frustration to you. How do you handle this situation? (36)

A) Remain calm and let the customer voice his or her concerns

B) Remain calm, but tell the customer to settle down

C) Remain calm, but tell the customer you have no control over the policy

D) Get a little aggressive and tell the customer you have no control over the policy

135. A customer is upset and getting personally insulting with you. Further, the
customer is starting to threaten you with physical harm. What do you do? (72)

A) Remain calm and don’t take it personally

B) Remain calm and tell the customer to settle down
C) Stand firm and tell the customer to settle down

D) Get aggressive so that the customer will back down

136. You have had a very bad day by the time you show up for work. Now, the first
customer you wait on is also in a bad mood and starts yelling at you right away. This
customer is getting very personal. How do you handle this customer? (99)

A) Ignore the customer’s comments and try to help

B) Try to remain calm but tell the customer to settle down

C) Tell the customer to settle down

D) Tell the customer you are not going to help anyone who makes personal attacks on
you

288

 

 

137. A customer starts yelling at you because you sold him/her a TV that was broken.
This customer is upset because s/he had to drive 50 miles to get to the store.
Although it is not your fault, this customer is very rude and offensive. How would
you handle this situation? (15)

A) Stand firm and try to find a replacement TV

B) Stand firm and tell the customer it is not your fault

C) Stand fmn and tell the customer to quit yelling because it is not your fault
D) Stand firm and tell the customer to either calm down or leave

138. A customer orders a specially made desk. When the desk anives, the customer
does not like the look of it and refirses to purchase it. You are now going to lose the
commission on the order, and even worse, are going to have to tell your supervisor
that the desk must be returned to the warehouse at the company’s expense. What do
you tell this customer? (20)

A) Tell the customer you appreciate his/her business and ask if there is anything else you
can do

B) Tell the customer that you will lose your commission unless s/he buys the desk

C) Tell the customer that unless s/he buys the desk the company will have to pay for it

D) Tell the customer that s/he should buy the desk since s/he ordered it

139. You work in a pizza shop. A customer orders a pizza (for delivery) that you make
yourself. A half hour later this customer calls you to complain about the pizza—it
was a small instead of a medium. You can’t remember which size pizza you made,
but you suspect the customer ordered the wrong size pizza. What might you do? (69)

A) You take the entire blame for the pizza

B) Try to imply that you are at fault but don’t explicitly say so

C) Try to imply that the customer is at fault but don’t explicitly say so
D) Tell the customer it is his or her fault

140. When waiting on a customer you realize that s/he is trying to get a cheaper price
that is listed for the product. Basically, this customer changed the price tag on the
item. When you mention the price looks to be too low and that you are going to
check its price in the computer, the customer starts to complain and questions your
competence. What do you do? (100)

A) Remain calm and professional, and continue to check the price

B) Remain calm and professional, but say s/he had better settle down

C) Tell the customer you know s/he has changed the price, so s/he had better settle down

D) Tell the customer you brow s/he has changed the price and are going to call the
manager

289

141. You promise a customer to call them on a specific day. However, every time you
call the person is not home, and you can’t leave a message because they don’t have an
answering machine. Sometime later the customer calls you and is very upset because
you never called them back. What might you do? (247)

A) Tell the customer you are sorry and try to help him or her as much as possible
B) Tell the customer you are sorry but that it was not your fault

C) Tell the customer you tried calling

D) Tell the customer s/he should have been around because you have tried to call

 

142. A couple of your coworkers are complaining about their pay and about working
for the company. They ask you what you think. You can see there are a few
customers in the store but you doubt they can hear anything. What do you do? (76)

A) Don’t say anything to the coworkers at this time

B) Tell the coworkers what you think but leave out any negative opinions
C) Tell the coworkers what you think but make sure nobody can hear you
D) Tell the coworkers exactly what you think

143. You are helping a customer when a coworker comes up to you and asks if you
would like to join some of your colleagues for a few drinks after work. Assume you
want to join them for drinks. What do you do?

A) Tell the coworker you’ll get back to him or her later
B) Tell the coworker you’re really not interested

C) Tell the coworker you probably will join them

D) Tell the coworker you’d be happy to join them

144. You and a coworker are working at the cash register. Although there are many
customers in line, it is a rather boring job. The coworker starts talking to you about
what s/he is going to do for the weekend. What do you do? (353)

A) Tell the coworker you’re too busy to talk

B) Talk briefly, but try to end the conversation as soon as possible
C) Try to change the subject to something more work-related

D) Talk to the coworker about the weekend

290

 

145. You and a coworker are working at the cash register. There are many customers
in line. The coworker starts talking about how much s/he hates working at the store.
You brow customers can hear this. What do you do? (354)

A) Tell the coworker you can’t talk right now

B) Try to end the conversation as soon as possible

C) Try to change the subject to something not related to work
D) Carry on a conversation with the coworker

146. A coworker is talking to you and using rather foul language. A customer
approaches you both for help and your coworker continues to talk in the offensive
manner. What do you do? (404)

A) Move the customer away from the coworker as soon as possible

B) Try to change the topic of the coworker’s conversation

C) Try to get the customer to join the conversation

D) Help the customer in the presence of the coworker, pretending nothing happened

147. A coworker who is also your fiiend appears to be personally interested in a
customer. The coworker starts to talk to you about the customer in a provocative
manner. You fear other customers might soon overhear. What do you do? (406)

A) Leave the coworker so that s/he quits talking

B) Cany on the conversation but try to end it as soon as possible

C) Carry on the conversation but try to change it to something else as soon as possible
D) Carry on the conversation since the coworker is also your fiiend

148. A customer makes a demand that requires you to ask your manager. Your
manager says to deny the request. You do, and the customer gets very upset and asks
to see the manager. However, the manager accepts the customer’s demand, making
you look very bad. The customer complains about you to the manager and the
manager seems to agree. What do you do? (18)

A) Say and do nothing, and continue to act in a polite manner

B) Say nothing but make it very obvious that you are upset

C) Tell the customer that the manager had just told you the demand could not be met
D) Ask the manager why s/he changed his or her mind

291

 

149. As a waiter/waitress, you often must take the blame when customers are unhappy
with their food (for example, it took to long to get it, it is cold, it doesn’t taste good).
Even though it is usually not your fault, customers usually get very upset with you
personally. Some even complain to your supervisor. How might you handle these
types of customers? (14)

A) Tell them you are sorry and take all of the blame

B) Tell them you are sorry but then explain why it is not your fault

C) Explain to the customer why it is not your fault

D) Explain to the customer why it is not your fault, and tell them the manager
understands this

150. A customer is upset at you and is very rude because the entertainment center she
ordered was not the one that was delivered. You check her order and see that one of
your coworkers wrote down the wrong number for the delivery staff, so in fact it was
your coworker’s fault the order was incorrect. This customer is very upset and is
taking it out on you. What do you do? (16)

A) Take the customer’s blame and try to solve the problem yourself

B) Tell the customer it is not your fault, but you will try to solve the problem yourself
C) Tell the customer it was a coworkers rrristake and that s/he should settle down

D) Tell the customer it was a coworker’s mistake and that s/he should talk to him

151. You’re working in a very busy restaurant. Your section is very busy and a
coworker helps you out. Unfortunately, the coworker incorrectly places a customer’s
food order. The customer is upset and does not leave you a tip. Even worse, this
customer complains to your supervisor, who is begins to reprimand you. What do
you do? (22)

A) Tell your supervisor you are sorry and that it won’t happen again

B) Tell your supervisor you are not sure how the mistake happened

C) Tell your supervisor that you and your coworker had mixed up the order
D) Tell your supervisor that your coworker made the rrristake

152. You work in a store that pays its employees a commission of their total sales.
You are helping a very demanding customer that has taken up much of your time, but
it will be worth it because s/he is purchasing a very expensive stereo. You are just
about to finish the sale when your manager asks you to take a phone call. When you
return, you see your manager is just about to close the sale—and take your
commission. The manager acts as though nothing has happened. What do you do?

A) Do nothing and move on to the next customer

B) Wait until the manager is done, and then tell him or her you want your commission

C) Tell the manager you appreciate him or her helping your customer, and try to close
the sale

D) Tell the manager that s/he was your customer and that you should close the sale

292

 

153. You work for commission. You are helping a customer when you have to leave
momentarily. When you return, you find that your coworker is helping the customer
and ringing up their sale—mearring the coworker will get your commission. What do
you do? (1 3 1)

A) Do nothing and move on to the next customer

B) Wait until the coworker is done, and then tell him or her you want your commission

C) Tell the coworker you appreciate him or her helping your customer, and try to close
the sale

D) Tell the coworker that s/he was your customer and that you should close the sale

ECTION9 : M ' tai 1 i i line r

154. A few of your fiiends or family stop in to see how you’re doing. Your store is not
particularly busy. What do you do?

A) Tell them you don’t have time to hang out with them at work

B) Hang out with them a few minutes, then tell them they have to leave
C) Hang out with them until the store gets busy

D) Hang out with them until they leave

155. Some coworkers ask you to help play a joke on a newer coworker. You think the
joke is rather inappropriate but no customers are likely to see it. What do you do?

A) Do not participate in the joke

B) Tell your coworkers you will participate only if it occurs after work
C) Tell your coworkers you will help, but then don’t

D) Help play the joke on the coworker

156. A good fiiend calls your store and wants to make plans for when you’re done with
work. The store is moderately busy. What do you do?

A) Tell your fiiend you’ll call him or her back when you’re on break

B) Tell your fiiend you’ll call him or her back when the store is slower
C) Tell your fiiend to call you back in a little while

D) Make plans with your fiiend so you won’t have to call him or her back

157. Your store is very empty and you are performing the rather simple task of dusting
and cleaning. A coworker stops by to talk. What do you do?

A) Continue cleaning while you talk to the coworker

B) Alternate between talking and cleaning

C) Stop to talk to the coworker for a few minutes, then get back to work
D) Stop to talk to the coworker until s/he leaves

293

 

SECTION 10: Eeeilitating Ree; app 1% 291(32me

158. A coworker is very busy and could use some help. You have only a few
customers in your section, but you’re not sure if you should leave them to help your
coworker. What do you do?

A) Leave your section to help your coworker until s/he completely catches up

B) Go help your coworker until s/he is almost caught up, then hurry back to your own
section

C) Stay in your own section a little longer, then hurry to help your coworker

D) Stay in your section and help your own customers

159. You work in a restaurant. You are helping cover a coworker’s table, where two
customers were getting upset because they had to wait so long. As you help this
coworker’s customers, you notice customers fi'om your own section getting impatient.
You realize you are not likely to get a tip from your coworker’s customers, but you
will probably get tips fi'om your own customers. What do you do? (194)

A) Help your coworker until s/he completely catches up

B) Primarily help your coworker’s customers but also help your own customers when
possible

C) Primarily help your own customers and help your coworker only if it is convenient

D) Go help your own customers

160. A coworker in another section is very busy helping customers and could
obviously use some help. In fact, some customers are starting to leave. Your section
is relatively quiet at the moment but could get busy very quickly. What do you do?
(a25)

A) Leave your section to help your coworker until s/he completely catches up
B) Primarily help your coworker, but return to your own section once in a while
C) Primarily stay in your own section, but help the coworker once in a while

D) Stay in your section just in case you suddenly get more customers

161. Many of your coworkers are lazy and only do the rrrinimum amount of work they
have to. Your supervisor either doesn’t notice this or doesn’t seem to care. Because
of these individuals, you have to do twice as much work as you should—including
some of their duties. What do you do? (23)

A) Perform all of the duties regardless of whether it is your job or not

B) Primarily perform your own duties, but try to perform the other duties as much as
possible

C) Primarily perform your own duties, then perform the other duties at your convenience

D) Perform only your duties

294

 

 

-—--_--—.—_-_. no

162. In your company, there is a very strong peer pressure not to work harder than your
coworkers. You are relatively new and are flying to do a good job. Although your
manager notices and says to keep up the good work, your coworkers are getting upset
because you are making them look bad. One of them even told you to quit working
so hard. What are you going to do? (27)

A) Continue working hard

B) Don’t work as hard as you were, but don’t work as slow as the coworkers
C) Stop working so hard when around your coworkers

D) Do as the coworkers say and stop working so hard

163. A coworker has a long line at his/her checkout station. Many of the customers
appear very impatient and are getting upset. Although you are not helping a customer
at the moment, you have also not had a break all day—and you have plenty of tasks to
do in your own section that you have not had time to finish. What might you do? (62)

A) Help your coworker until s/lre completely catches up

B) Primarily help your coworker, but work on your own tasks once in a while
C) Primarily work on your own tasks, but help the coworker once in a while
D) Attend to your own affairs—take the break and complete your own tasks

164. Your department store is understaffed. You are responsible for one deparflnent
and are an assistant for three other deparflnents. You are called into one of the
secondary deparflnents. Unfortunately, you don’t brow much about this deparflnent,
and you are not very familiar with the products or where they are located. A customer
asks you for help. What do you do? (89)

A) Tell the customer this is not your deparflnent, but you will fly to help

B) Tell the customer this is not your deparflnent but you will find someone to help
him/her

C) Tell the customer this is not your department and that they should ask someone else

D) Tell the customer this is not your deparflnent and get back to your own section

165. You are leaving your section to take a scheduled break. Your store policy is such
that you have to take a scheduled break, and that you are not paid for the time you are
on break. On your way to the break room, you notice a coworker who is swamped
with customers. What do you do? (349)

A) Go help the coworker even if it means you won’t get a break

B) Go help the coworker for as long as possible, but be sure to take at least some of your
break

C) Go help the coworker for just a few moments, then take most of your break

D) Take your break and help the coworker as soon as you are done

295

 

”s

166. Some long term employees are making part time employees do their routine tasks.
This frees up the long term employees’ time so that they can help more customers.
The supervisor does not seem to care, and you could certainly use some more time to
help customers. What do you do in this situation? (106)

A) Continue doing your own routine tasks and do not delegate them to the part time
employees

B) Give the part time employees some of your routine tasks

C) Give the part time employees most of your routine tasks

D) Give the part time employees all of your routine tasks

167. You work in a restaurant. You and a coworker misunderstand each other and do
not wait on a table. Later, you both recognize the mistake and can see that the
customers at the table are very upset. You doubt who ever helps them will get a tip.
Your coworker asks if you want the table. What do you do? (195)

A) Agree to take the table yourself

B) Split the table between you and the coworker

C) Give the table to the coworker, but help out if necessary
D) Say you don’t want the table

SECTION 11: Smervision

168. You notice a new coworker has made a big mistake with a customer’s order. The
customer is upset and starts yelling at the coworker. What might you do? (68)

A) Jump in and help the customer yourself

B) Observe the coworker, and if s/he starts having trouble jump in and help the customer
yourself

C) Observe the coworker, and if s/he starts having flouble offer to help

D) Let the coworker deal with the customer himself or herself

169. A new coworker makes a mistake with an order and asks for your help. You
already have a long line of customers. However, the new coworker also has many
customers. What do you do? (165)

A) Help the coworker right away

B) Help the coworker after you have finished helping a couple more customers
C) Help the coworker after you have finished helping most of your customers

D) Help the coworker after you have completely finished helping your customers

170. A new coworker is helping customers but is very far behind, causing customers to
wait longer than they should have to. You offer to help the coworker but s/he says,
“No, I’ve got it under control.” You don’t think s/he can handle the number of
customers. What do you do? (355)

296

 

A) Jump in and help the coworker until s/he is entirely caught up

B) Help the coworker for just a few moments, until s/he is starting to get caught up
C) Help the coworker if it appears that customers are starting to get upset

D) Don’t help until the coworker explicitly asks for help

171. You see a new coworker provide very poor service (for example, is rude, does not
explain the product to the customer). You don’t think the customer is going to
purchase anything in the store because of the coworker’s poor service. What might
you do? (182)

A) Jump in help the customer yourself, then explain to the coworker what s/he was doing
wrong

B) Wait until the customer leaves, then tell the coworker what s/he did wrong

C) Help only if the coworker asks you for help

D) Do nothing; let the coworker to learn on his or her own

SECTION 12: Managemeni

172. A customer completes an order to have delivered to his/her house. The manager
promises this person that the product will be delivered on time. Several days later,
the product is not delivered and the customer calls to complain. Although you did not
make the mistake, the customer is blaming you. You know you can handle the
incident with out involving the manager. What might you do? (244)

A) Handle the complaint yourself and take the blame

B) Handle the complaint yourself, but remind the customer it was the manager’s mistake

C) Help the customer but then forward him or her to the manager, since it was the
manager’s mistake

D) Get the manager to handle the complaint, since s/he was the one who made the
mistake

173. You are helping a customer who has an unusual request. Although you could
probably help this customer, you know a coworker is more experienced in this area.
What might you do?

A) Handle the request yourself

B) Get the coworker to observe you handling the request

C) Get the coworker and watch him or her handle the request

D) Get the coworker to handle this request so you can do something else

297

17 4. You are performing a maintenance task that your supervisor insflucted you to get
completed right away. As you work on this task, you notice a customer in your
section. What do you do?

A) Help the customer until s/he is finished shopping

B) Help the customer for just a few moments, then return to your maintenance task

C) Greet the customer but continue working on your maintenance task

D) Complete your maintenance task until it is completely finished, then help the
customer

175. A customer orders spicy barbecue sauce for his ribs. After he eats the entire meal,
he complains that the barbecue sauce was too spicy. You remind him that he ordered
the spicy barbecue sauce but he disagrees, saying he ordered the regular sauce. He
now refuses to pay for the order. What do you do? (4)

A) Handle this problem yourself, do not involve the manager

B) Try to handle this problem yourself, but involve the manager if necessary
C) Try to handle this problem yourself, but involve the manager right away
D) Immediately get the manager to handle this problem

176. Your store is short staffed so you go to another coworkers section to help at the
cash register (so that s/he can focus on his/her customers’ questions). There is now a
long line at the checkout counter when you notice new customers are coming into
your own section. There is no one who can help them. What might you do? (63)

A) Continue working at the cash register until there are no more customers

B) Continue working at the cash register until there are very few customers, then go to
your own section

C) Help a couple more customers, then go to your own section

D) Leave the cash register immediately to go to your own section

177. You work in a restaurant. A customer orders a meal and eats it all. During the
meal you had not asked if everything was OK. Later, when you give the customer the
bill, the customer says the meal was awful and refuses to pay for it. What do you do?
(103)

A) Handle this problem yourself, do not involve the manager

B) Try to handle this problem yourself, but involve the manager if necessary
C) Try to handle this problem yourself, but involve the manager right away
D) Immediately get the manager to handle this problem

298

SECTION IS: Velmimipg

178. One night at a social gathering (that is not work-related) you see a coworker. The
coworker admits to you that s/he has secretly been stealing fi'om the company for
several months. What do you do? (172)

A) Turn this coworker in to your supervisor when you return to work

B) Irnply to your supervisor that someone has been stealing fi'om the company
C) Ask your coworker to turn himself or herself in to the supervisor

D) Do nothing and pretend you never heard this information

179. One night at a social gathering (that is not work-related) you see a coworker who
appears to be on drugs. In fact, the coworker admits to you that s/he is high much of
the time, even sometimes at work. What do you do? (173)

A) Turn this coworker in to your supervisor when you return to work
B) Irnply to your supervisor that someone has been using drugs at work
C) Ask your coworker to stop using drugs at work

D) Do nothing and pretend you never heard this information

180. You are delivering some products with a coworker in the company van. The
coworker is driving recklessly, cutting off other drivers, honking, and swearing at
them through the window. When you return your manager says somebody called and
complained about the people driving the van. The coworker denies the incident.
What do you do? (203)

A) Tell the manager exactly what happened

B) Wait until the coworker is gone, then tell the manager exactly what happened

C) Wait until the coworker is gone, then imply to the manager that the coworker drives
poorly

D) Tell the manager that nothing happened and you don’t brow that the complaint is
about

181. You have a much deserved day off fi'om work and have made a fun day of plans.
Your boss calls the night before and asks if you can work because one of your
coworkers can’t make it. You suspect the coworker is really going to a concert
because s/he mentioned doing it in the past. What do you do? (113)

A) Go in to work

B) Tell the supervisor that you suspect the coworker nright be lying, but that you’ll work
C) Tell the supervisor the coworker is lying, but that you’ll work

D) Tell the supervisor the coworker is lying and that you can’t work

299

 

182. In your store there are many small tasks (for example, putting away inventory)
that are not part of anyone’s specific job but are something that everybody is expected
to do. Many of your coworkers do not do these tasks, but if they are to get done
somebody will have to do them. What do you do? (121)

A) Perform all of the tasks even though they are not part of your job
B) Regularly perform most of the tasks

C) Occasionally perform some of the tasks

D) Don’t perform the tasks since they are not part of your job

183. On one of your days off your manager calls to ask you to come to work because
the store is short staffed. You had planned to spend this day with your fiiend or
family for over a week. What do you do? (129)

A) Tell your manager you’ll come in to work right away

B) Tell your manager you’ll work until s/he can find somebody else

C) Tell your manager you will work only if s/he can’t find anybody else
D) Tell your manager you can’t work today

184. Each employee in your store is given a very detailed description of his/her job
duties. Unfortunately, most employees only do their specific duties and do not help
out coworkers when necessary. In fact, many employees will sit and do nothing
instead of helping other coworkers because “it is not their job.” You are particularly
busy and are getting very fi'ustrated because you can’t help all of the customers in
your area. Your coworkers just sit and watch. Later, when you have more time, you
notice your coworkers could use some help. What might you do? (49)

A) Give your coworkers as much help as they need

B) Help the coworkers, but do not go too far out of your way
C) Provide help only if absolutely necessary

D) Do not provide any help since none of them helped you

185. A coworker calls you to ask if you can cover his/her Saturday monring shift
because s/he is not feeling well. Although you don’t mind doing covering the shift
once in awhile, this coworker has asked you for this favor on several past occasions.
You suspect the coworker is going out the night before and is simply too tired to
work. What do you do? (112)

A) Help the coworker with no questions asked

B) Offer to work the monring shift only if s/he covers one of your monring shifts

C) Offer to work the mommg shift only if s/he will cover several of your morning shifts
D) Don’t help the coworker

300

E N 4: ws

186. Your store policy says that when a customer returns an item you must write down
their phone nmnber and copy their drivers license. Many customers don’t like to give
you their drivers license. Now, a customer asks you why you have to take this
information and refuses to give it to you. What do you do?

A) Do not return the item unless you get all of the information

B) Do not return the item unless you get the phone number and at least see the drivers
license

C) Return the item if you at least get the phone number

D) Return the item even though you do not any information

187. Your company has a dress code that all employees are supposed to follow.
However, you notice that several of your coworkers are wearing clothes that some
might consider inapprOpriate. The supervisors do not seem to concerned. You
personally would prefer to dress like the coworkers. What do you do? (214)

A) Always follow the company dress code
B) Mostly follow the company dress code
C) Mostly wear the clothes you want
D) Always wear the clothes you want

188. Your company has a very specific dress code but nobody follows it. The
managers do not seem to care. You don’t particularly like following the dress code
and would like to wear some different clothes. What do you do? (231)

A) Always follow the company dress code
B) Mostly follow the company dress code
C) Mostly wear the clothes you want
D) Always wear the clothes you want

189. You work as a waiter/waitress in a restaurant. One flick many of your coworkers
do is to give customers fi’ee soda or minimally-priced appetizers in order to get a
better tip. The company policy explicitly forbids this practice. You could certainly
use the extra money fiom tips, and the supervisor has not noticed or said anything
about this practice. What do you do? (108)

A) Never engage in these activities

B) Occasionally engage in these activities

C) Regularly engage in these activities

D) Engage in these activities whenever you can

301

 

190. Your store policy is absolutely no returns on clothes over $100.00. A customer
returns an outfit costing $110.00. You can tell that the outfit has not been worn, but
the store policy says you cannot retunr it. You feel very bad and don’t agree with the
policy in this instance. However, you could classify the outfit as defective and
nobody would ever brow—although this is also against company policy. What do
you do? (148)

A) Do not allow the outfit to be returned

B) Do not allow the outfit to be returned, but have the customer speak with the manager

C) Classify the product as defective but only allow an exchange—do not return the
money

D) Classify the product as defective and return the money

191. You work at a cash register in a grocery store. There is a huge lottery prize, and
so the store is swamped with customers buying lottery tickets. However, you are to
stop selling lottery tickets promptly at midnight. It is 12:01 and a customer wants to
place an order. You refuse and they get very upset, as do the remaining customers
who have been waiting over half an hour. What do you do? (33)

A) Do not sell any tickets because it is past midnight
B) Sell tickets to just the customer who is upset

C) Sell tickets to just the next few customers

D) Sell tickets to the remaining customers in line

192. A customer is trying to buy beer but has forgotten his/her identification in the car.
This customer looks to be around 30 years old and is dressed very well. You have
seen the customer in the store on a regular basis but have not waited on him/her
yourself. What do you do? (102)

A) Do not sell the customer the beer unless you first see his or her drivers license

B) Do not sell the customer the beer unless a coworker will say the customer is old
enough

C) Sell the customer the beer but ask that s/he bring you his/her drivers license

D) Sell the beer since this customer obviously looks old enough

193. Your store policy says that when a customer returns an item you must write down
their phone number and copy their drivers license. Many customers don’t like to give
you their drivers license. You personally do not approve of this policy and don’t
think the store actually uses this information. Now, a very good customer says s/he
doesn’t want to give you this information. What do you do? (139)

A) Do not retunr the item unless you get all of the information

B) Do not return the item unless you get the phone number and at least see the drivers
license

C) Return the item if you at least get the phone number

D) Return the item even though you do not any information

302

 

194. You are working at a cash register in a grocery store when a customer flies to buy
alcohol. When you ask for his/her identification, s/he gets upset and says s/he doesn’t
have it, but s/lre does show you his/her five credit cards and fl'uck drivers medical
card. S/he looks to be about twenty five years old. What do you do? (150)

A) Do not sell the customer the beer unless you first see his or her drivers license

B) Do not sell the customer the beer unless a coworker says the customer is old enough
C) Sell the customer the beer but ask that s/he bring you his/her drivers license

D) Sell the beer since this customer looks old enough and has other identification

SECTION 15: Defending ihe Copipm

195. You catch an individual shoplifting. Although your store has security for these
purposes, they are nowhere to be seen. You also brow the manager is on a lunch
break. The shoplifter is starting to walk out of the store. What do you do?

A) Call the police first, and then stop the shoplifter and tell him/her to wait for the police
B) Call the police and in the meantime follow the shoplifter yourself

C) Call the police

D) Do nothing, it is not worth you potentially getting hurt

196. You feel personally uncomfortable flying to sell high dollar merchandise to
people who do not appear to be able to afford it. However, your managers really push
employees to always direct customers to the large dollar items. What do you do? (13)

A) Sell the high dollar merchandise because that is your job

B) Regularly (but not always) sell the high dollar merchandise

C) Once in a while sell the high dollar merchandise

D) Do not sell the high dollar merchandise because you don’t agree with that policy

197. A coworker complains about the working conditions so that customers can hear
him/her. You generally agree with what the coworker is saying. After the coworker
leaves, a customer you are helping asks if it is true. What might you do in this
situation? (159)

A) Say that it is not me and that the working conditions are good
B) Say that it is not flue, but say nothing more

C) Say that it is true, but say nothing more

D) Say that it is fl'ue and that the working conditions are poor

303

 

198. Your store hires a number of part-time employees for the summer. You catch
several of these individuals playing around with some of the company equipment.
When you mention their behavior is against company regulations, they just laugh and
say they are quitting in a few weeks anyway and don’t really care. What do you do?
(2 8)

A) Turn these individuals in to your supervisor

B) Threaten to report these individuals to the supervisor if you catch it happening again
C) Threaten to report these individuals to the supervisor, but actually do notlning

D) Ignore the incident since they will soon be quitting anyway

199. Your store has a number of summer-time only employees. It is near the end of
summer when you notice one of these employees stealing ten dollars from the
register. As you confiont the employee, s/he informs you that s/he was shorted ten
dollars on their last paycheck and so was only “making things balance.” S/he says it
will not happen again if you don’t say anything. How do you handle this situation?
(29)

 

A) Turn this person in to your supervisor

B) Threaten to report this individual to the supervisor if you catch it happening again
C) Threaten to report this individual to the supervisor, but actually do nothing

D) Forget the incident ever happened

200. You work in a pizza store. One day you catch a well-respected employee giving
fiee sodas and appetizers to his/her fiiends. Although this is not worth much money,
it is against company policy. What would you do? (30)

A) Turn this person in to your supervisor

B) Threaten to report this individual to the supervisor if you catch it happening again
C) Threaten to report this individual to the supervisor, but actually do nothing

D) Forget the incident ever happened

201. You catch one of your fellow coworkers (who is also a good friend) making deals
with customers in order to increase her sales. Because part of your salary is based on
commission, this is an easy way for her to make more money even though the
company will suffer reduced profits. You remind this person that the company does
not tolerate these actions, but your fiiend does not seem to care. Do you report this
person to your supervisor? (31)

A) Turn your fiiend in to your supervisor

B) Threaten to report your fi'iend to the supervisor if you catch it happening again
C) Threaten to report your friend to the supervisor, but actually do nothing

D) Forget the incident ever happened

304

202. A coworker is walking past a customer and asks to you loudly, “Don’t you just
hate this job.” The customer looks surprised and stares at you. What do you do? (79)

A) Tell the customer you like your job

B) Say nothing and ask the customer if you can help him or her
C) Laugh but say nothing

D) Pretend you did not hear the coworker’s comment

203. You are very good fiiends with some of your coworkers. You learn that a few of
your fiiends are stealing fi'om the company. What do you do? (161)

A) Turn them in to your supervisor

B) Offer them the opportunity to turn themselves in, or else you will do it
C) Tell them that if it ever happens again you will report them

D) Do nothing and forget the incident ever happened

204. You work for a home delivery company. You catch one of the delivery drivers
smoking marijuana on the job. However, your supervisor does not suspect a thing.
What do you do? (202)

A) Turn the delivery driver in to your supervisor

B) Offer the delivery driver the opportunity to turn himself or herself in, or else you will
do it

C) Tell the delivery driver that you will report him or her if it happens again

D) Do nothing and forget the incident ever happened

205. A coworker has a tendency to give customers s/he likes special deals that would
not be approved by the company. You are probably the only one who knows about
this. What do you do? (205)

A) Turn this person in to your supervisor

B) Threaten to report this individual to the supervisor if you catch it happening again
C) Threaten to report this individual to the supervisor, but actually do nothing

D) Forget the incident ever happened

206. A coworker gives his family special deals. You brow the manager would not
approve of such practices. You doubt anyone else is aware that the coworker is
breaking the company policy. What do you do? (206)

A) Turn this person in to your supervisor

B) Threaten to report this individual to the supervisor if you catch it happening again
C) Threaten to report this individual to the supervisor, but actually do nothing

D) Forget the incident ever happened

305

 

APPENDD( D

Definitions of Personality Traits Used in Rating Tasks

306

 

Personality Trait Definitions

1. Neuroticism: amount of emotional stability and stress tolerance. Key words include
anxiety, angy hostility, depression, self-consciousness, impulsiveness, and
vulnerability.

High: nervous, moody, easily initated, tends to worry a lot, goes to pieces in
times of stress

Low: calm, even mood, not disflaught by stressful situations, maintains
composure and rationality during stress

2. Ageeableness: degee of pleasanflness exhibited in interpersonal relations, degee of
altruism. Key words include flust, straightforwardness, alfl'uism, compliance,
modesty, tender-mindedness.

High: alfl'uistic, sympathetic to others and eager to help, believes others will be
equally helpful. Likable and pleasant, tolerant, tactful, helpful, not
defensive, easy to get along with

Low: critical, fault finding, touchy, defensive, alienated, generally conflary

3. Dependability: degee of conscientiousness
High: disciplined, well-organized, planful, respectful of laws and regulations,
honest, fl'ustworthy, wholesome, accepting of authority
Low: unreliable, acts on the spur of the moment, rebellious and contemptuous of
laws and authority

4. Achievement: tendency to strive for competence at work

High: works hard, sets high standards, flies to do a good job, endorses the work
ethic, concentrates and persists on tasks at hand, confident, feels success
from past undertakings, expects to succeed in future

Low: little ego involvement in work, feels incapable and self-doubting, does not
expend undue effort, does not feel hard work is desirable

307

 

APPENDIX E
Final DSI Items Sorted by Situational Ratings, Behavioral Ratings, and Criterion

Dimensions

308

SITUATIONAL RATING; BEHAVIORAL RESPONSE RATING
RITERION DIMEN I N : T 'bl of ssi nal e

DEPENDABILITY

1 It is a very hot day and you would like to wear shorts to work. Although wearing
shorts is not against the company dress code, your manager prefers that employees
wear pants. What might you do on days when it is hot? (218)

A) Wear pants all of the time and never wear shorts

B) Wear pants most of the time and rarely wear shorts
C) Wear pants and shorts about the same amount of time
D) Wear shorts most of the time and rarely wear pants
E) Wear shorts all of the time and never wear pants

ACHIEVEMENT; DEPENDABILITY

2 Your store hires a number of temporary employees for the summer. These temporary
employees dress very differently from the regular employees, but management does
not seem to care. You’d like to wear those style clothes as well, but believe
customers may not take you as seriously. What do you do? (217)

A) Wear your usual style of clothes all of the time

B) Wear your usual style of clothes most of the time

C) Wear your usual style of clothes and those like the temporary employees about
equally

D) Wear clothes like the temporary employees most of the time

E) Wear clothes like the temporary employees all of the time

NEUROTICISM; DEPENDABILITY
3 You work as a waiter/waifl'ess. As you are delivering food to a customer, you notice
your shoelace is untied. What do you do?

A) Wait to tie the shoelace until no customers can see you

B) Wait to tie the shoelace until your specific customers can’t see you
C) Tie the shoelace after you give the customer the food

D) Set the food down immediately and tie the shoelace right away

309

 

RITERI NDIMENINI ' '1 r i

DEPENDABILITY
4 It has been a very busy day in the store and you are very tired. You finally get a few
minutes to relax because there are only a few customers in the store. However, you

are not scheduled for a break and so you can’t leave the customer area. What do you
do?

A) Continue working hard until your next scheduled break

B) Continue working but don’t push yourself very hard

C) Continue working but every so often sit down and relax for a few seconds
D) Stop working to relax for a few minutes

E) St0p working to relax until you are rested

AGREEABLENESS
5 A customer tells a joke that you don’t find the least bit funny. What do you do?

A) Laugh and smile like it is the funniest joke you have ever heard
B) Laugh and smile a little to make it look like it is a good joke
C) Laugh and smile halflreartedly

D) Smile but don’t bother laughing

E) Don’t bother laughing or smiling at the joke

AGREEABLENESS
6 A customer is telling you a personal story that is completely unbelievable and that
you think is factually incorrect. What do you do?

A) Smile and nod in ageement with the customer, and say you agee with the story
B) Smile and nod in ageement with the customer, but say nothing

C) Nod in ageement with the customer, but say nothing

D) Nod in ageement with the customer, then correct the customer’s story

E) Correct the customer immediately and tell him or her why the story is wrong

DEPENDABILITY
7 Your manager wants employees to always look busy. This means you must do
simple tasks over and over again, even when they don’t need to be done. You are

really tired of doing these tasks, the store is empty, and the manager is not around.
What do you do? (320)

E) Do the tasks even if they don’t need to be done or nobody is present

F) Do the tasks only when the manager or customers are present

G) Do the tasks only when necessary, regardless of who is present

H) Don’t do the tasks because they don’t need to be done and it is a waste of time

310

DEPENDABILITY; ACHIEVEMENT
8 You are helping a rude customer who is making small talk about things you find very
stupid and boring. What do you do? (397)

A) Completely maintain eye contact with the customer to show you’re interested

B) Mostly maintain eye contact with the customer, but sometimes look around the store
C) Look at the customer directly and around the store about equally

D) Rarely maintain eye contact with the customer, but often look around the store

E) Don’t look the customer in the eye but instead look around the store to show you’re
bored

RITERI NDIIVIENI N1 'T '15

ACHIEVEMENT

9 You notice that many coworkers are not retunring merchandise to its proper place
after showing it to customers. This makes the entire store look very disorganized
because an employee must look all over the store for a given product. However,
nobody seems to care. What might you do in this situation? (220)

A) Return all of the merchandise to their correct places

B) Return some of the merchandise to the correct places

C) Pile the merchandise up and set it aside, but don’t return it
D) Leave the merchandise where it is

ACHIEVEMENT

10 A coworker was helping a very picky customer buy a suit. S/he had requested to fly
on a number of different jackets, pants, and shirts. Although the customer has gone,
the coworker left a big pile of clothes lying around. What do you do?

E) Return all of the clothes to the correct place even though it is not your job

F) Return most of the clothes to the correct place even though it is not your job

G) Return some of the clothes to the correct place but leave the rest for the coworker
H) Leave the clothes where they are because it is not your job to return them

CRITERION DIMENSION 2A; Reli'ehi'liiy (Repfepp Cemisiepiiy)
DEPENDABILITY

11 You need to call a customer but his/her phone is always busy. You W repeatedly but
can never get through, and the customer does not have an answering machine. What
- do you do? (257)

A) Keep calling no matter how long it takes

B) Try calling a few more times over the next couple of days
C) Try calling a few more times today

D) Quit calling, you’ve done all you can do

311

 

ACHIEVEMENT
12 It is getting near your lunch break and you are not yet finished helping a customer.
You only get a set amount of time for your break, so if you miss it you won’t get

another. You see a coworker around who does not appear to be busy. What do you
do?

A) Remain with the customer as long as it takes, even if you don’t get a break

B) Try to hurry the customer to make a purchase so you can have part of your break
C) Ask the coworker to help your customer so you can take your break

D) Tell your customer it is time for you to take your break, and then leave

CRITERION DIMENSION 2B: Reliahilig (hppp'ses)

DEPENDABILITY
13 You are talking to a customer and promise to call the customer the next day.

However, after the customer leaves you realize you have the next three days off.
What do you do? (248)

A) Call the customer immediately and tell them you won’t be able to contact them for
three days

B) Call the customer later and tell them you won’t be able to contact them for three days

C) Call the customer after you return from your three days off

D) Wait until the customer calls you back

ACHIEVEMENT; DEPENDABILITY
14 A customer calls and asks how long it will take to get their order together. You know
you can do it in 30 minutes. How long do you tell this customer it will take? (252)

A) “20 minutes”
B) “30 minutes”
C) “40 minutes”
D) “It’s hard to say”

DEPENDABILITY

15 It is Saturday and you promise a customer you will call them on Sunday to inform
them about the status of their order. Sometime after the call, your supervisor tells you
that you will be working on Monday instead of Sunday. What do you do? (246)

A) Call the customer immediately and tell them you won’t be able to contact them until
Monday

B) Call the customer later and tell them you won’t be able to contact them until Monday

C) Call the customer after you retunr to work on Monday

D) Wait until the customer calls you back, since it is only one day

312

 

RITERI NDIME : ' i' '

ACHIEVEMENT; DEPENDABILITY
16 You are working at a cash register. The register makes a mistake and overcharges a
customer. The customer does not seem to notice, and there is a long line waiting for

you. It would take some time to figure out the correct amount to charge the customer.
What do you do? (155)

A) Take the time to determine the correct change to give the customer

B) Try to find the error, and if it takes too long help the other customers first

C) Tell the customer there was an error but ask him/her to wait until you help the other
customers

D) Wait on the next customer, since there is a long line and nobody noticed the error

CRITERION DIMENSION SA: Respensiveness (Aebrowiflgmmt)

NEUROTICISM; ACHIEVEMENT

17 You are one the phone with an important customer when another customer walks over
to you. You are really busy with the individual on the phone. How do you handle the
customer who is physically right in front of you? (40)

A) Smile and look at the customer as you continue talking on the phone

B) Look at the customer as you continue talking on the phone

C) Momentarily interrupt the person on the phone to say, “I will be with you in a
moment”

D) Avoid noticing the customer so that s/he will look for help from a coworker

NEUROTICISM; ACHIEVEMENT
18 You’re working the cash register on a very busy shift. There is a long line waiting to

check out, and you can see several individuals are getting impatient. What might you
do?(264)

A) Tell them you appreciate their patience

B) Regularly look at those waiting so that they brow you are aware of them

C) Once in a while look at those waiting so that they brow you are aware of them
D) Focus on your job as a cashier and don’t look at those waiting

313

 

RITERI IMEN I N ° 'v

AGREEABLENESS; DEPENDABILITY

19 You are talking to an important customer on the phone when a customer interrupts,
saying s/he is unhappy with your store and wants attention right now. S/he is
speaking in a loud voice that other customers can hear. What do you do? (176)

E) Help this customer immediately and hang up the phone

A) Ask this individual if s/he can wait until you are done on the phone

B) Ask the customer on the phone if you can call him/her back

C) Wait to help this customer until you finished with the individual on the phone

DEPENDABILITY
20 You had helped a customer order a product from your supplier. The supplier has
called and said the product will be a few days late. What do you do?

A) Call the customer immediately to inform him or her of the delay

B) Call the customer in a few days, after the order is officially late

C) Call the customer only if the delay changes

D) Don’t call the customer since there is nothing anyone can do about the delay

DEPENDABILITY

21 A customer wants a refund on a product that has obviously been misused. Although
you could normally refer such problems to the manager, s/he will be gone for the next
several hours. What do you do? (41)

A) Inform the customer s/he will have to wait a few hours until the manager is present
B) Inform the customer s/he will have to wait until the manager is present

C) Inform the customer s/he will have to wait

D) Inform the customer your store cannot give a refund

CRITERION DIME N : R 'v e on i

ACHIEVEMENT
22 A customer requests a product that you do not have in stock. Although you could call

other stores to see if they have it, you are almost certain it will be a waste of your
time. What do you do? (43)

A) Call all of the possible stores to see if they have the product

B) Call most of the stores to see if they have the product

C) Call just a few stores to see if they have the product

D) Don’t bother calling the stores since you brow they won’t have it

314

ACHIEVEMENT

23 A customer wants a product that you don’t have in your store. You begin to call other
stores to see if they carry the product. However, each store takes a long time to check
and the customer is getting very impatient. You brow that one of the stores is likely
to have the product but it will take some time to find out. What would you do? (243)

E) Call all of the possible stores regardless of how long it takes

A) Call as many stores as possible, until it starts to take too long

B) Call just a few stores that would be most likely to have the product in order to save
time

C) Don’t bother calling the stores since it will take too long

CRITERION DIMENSION 4A: Assppepee (SpggesiiepgAiiemeiives)
ACHIEVEMENT

24 You are helping a customer buy a computer. The customer is not sure what kind to
buy. What might you do?

A) Compare and contrast for the customer the different options and features of all
relevant computers

B) Show the customer a couple of computers and describe options and features

C) Show the customer a couple of computers but don’t describe options and features

D) Show the customer the one best computer your store has

ACHIEVEMENT
25 A customer asks you about a competitor’s product. You are familiar with this
product. What do you tell them? (319)

A) Describe and compare the good and bad features of your store’s and the competitor’s
products

B) Describe the good features of your store’s product and the bad features of the
competitor’s product

C) Only mention the negative information about the competitor’s product

D) Don’t mention the competitor’s product and show the customer your store’s product

ACHIEVEMENT

26 A customer is unsure about choosing between a more expensive item and a less
expensive item. S/he asks you what you think. You brow that both products are very
similar but have some different features. What do you do?

E) Show the customer ail of the similarities and differences between each item
A) Show the customer the key similarities and differences between each item
B) Show the customer the main differences between each item

C) Tell the customer the features of only the most expensive item

315

 

ACHIEVEMENT
27 You work in an appliance store. You ask the customer if you can help and the

customer tells you s/he wants a specific stereo. You think you brow about a stereo
that would work better. What do you do? (358)

A) Compare and contrast the main features of both stereos for the customer

B) Suggest to the customer that s/he flies another stereo you think might work better
C) Point out some of the disadvantages of the stereo the customer originally wanted
D) Sell the customer the stereo s/he wanted

AGREEABLENESS
28 You work as a waiter/waifless and a customer orders a dish that is not on the menu.
You mention this politely but the customer gets very upset. What do you do? (93)

A) Suggest alternative main dishes and side orders that might be of interest

B) Suggest alternative dishes that might be of interest to the customer

C) Suggest only those alternative dishes that are very similar to the dish the customer
wanted

D) Tell the customer there is nothing you can do

RITERI NDIMENI N4 :As e o 'o

NEUROTICISM; AGREEABLENESS

29 A customer is dining in your restaurant with six children. The children all want a
particular dish that you do not have. The children all start to yell and scream. What
do you do? (179)

A) Try to provide some form of a substitution they might like better
B) Try to offer the children free soda pop

C) Try to offer the customer a slight discount

D) Ignore the children since there is nothing you can do

NEUROTICISM; AGREEABLENESS

30 You work in a restaurant. A customer orders the special but you have just run out.
The customer is very upset and mentions that was the only reason s/he came to the
restaurant. What do you do? (305)

A) Offer the customer a better meal for the same price as the one you don’t have
B) Offer the customer a slight discount on his or her meal

C) Encourage the customer to fly a different meal

D) Tell the customer there is nothing you can do

316

NEUROTICISM; AGREEABLENESS

31 It is the day before Chrisflnas and a mother wants to get a doll for her daughter.
Unfortunately, you have just sold out. The mother becomes very upset and starts to
cry. What do you do? (325)

E) Offer to sell the woman two similar dolls for the price of the sold-out doll
A) Offer the woman a slight discount on a future purchase

B) Suggest to the woman she purchase a different doll

C) Tell the woman there is nothing you can do

NEUROTICISM; AGREEABLENESS

32 Your restaurant is very busy, and a large party is unhappy with the food and service.
The people in this party are each complaining to you, and this is taking up so much
time that your orders with other customers are falling behind. What do you do? (71)

A) Offer the party a discount on their meal

B) Offer the party a flee round of drinks or desserts
C) Offer the party a discount on future meals

D) Tell the party there is nothing you can do

AGREEABLENESS

33 A customer calls to see if you have a particular pair of shoes in stock. You check and
your store does. Later, when the customer comes into the store to pick the shoes you
see that they have been sold. The customer is very upset. What do you do? (133)

E) Offer the customer some flee shoe care products for the inconvenience, if a purchase
is made

A) Offer to hold the customer a pair of the shoes when they are delivered

B) Tell the customer you are sony but there is nothing you can do

C) Tell the customer there is nothing you can do

CRITERI NDIMEN I N4 : surance i V e

ACHIEVEMENT
34 You are helping a customer purchase an entertainment center. The customer appears
nervous and hesitant about buying the product. What might you do? (302)

E) Describe to the customer the cost of each feature on the product to show it is worth
the money

A) Tell the customer the product is worth the money because of its many features

B) Tell the customer you get what you pay for

C) Say nothing and let the product speak for itself

317

ACHIEVEMENT
35 A customer is looking at buying an expensive VCR with many options, but does not
seem sure about the purchase. What might you do?

E) Explain the value and benefits of each product option

A) Tell the customer the cost is high because there are so many options
B) Tell the customer there are many options on the VCR

C) Don’t tell the customer anything, let the product sell itself

RITERI NDIMENI N4D: ur l" 'e
RITERI N DIMEN I N 4E: As lin
ACHIEVEMENT

36 It is typical in your store for employees to really push certain products. However,
customers often don’t appreciate such tactics being used on them. What do you do?
(324)

E) Apply no pressure on the customer to buy those particular products

A) Apply slight pressure on the customer to buy those particular products
B) Apply moderate pressure on the customer to buy the particular products
C) Apply heavy pressure on the customer to buy the particular products

ACHIEVEMENT

37 You have nearly finished selling a customer an expensive product. However, the
customer seems unsure about making the purchase because it costs so much money.
What might you do?

D) Remind the customer s/he can always return the product
A) Tell the customer s/he is making a good purchase
B) Don’t say anything to the customer so that s/he can decide for him or herself

CRITERION DIMENSION 4F: Assurance (Relitmess)

AGREEABLENESS

38 A customer walks into your store and looks very gumpy. Further, he does not look
like a “serious” customer. You are busy checking inventory and are falling behind
schedule, something you manager will not appreciate. You notice no other coworkers
are currently in the section. What do you do? (266)

A) Approach the customer and ask if you can help

B) Say hello to the customer but do not offer to help

C) Nod to the customer but do not offer to help

D) Ignore the customer and continue checking inventory

318

RITERI N D N '

DEPENDABILITY

39 You are a new employee and realize you’ve made a mistake with a customer’s order.
Specifically, you did not charge the customer enough money. You could call the
customer and tell him/her to pay the difference, or simply not do anything. What do
you do?

A) Call the customer and tell him or her you made a mistake

B) Tell your supervisor but do not call the customer
C) Do nothing

DEPENDABILITY
40 You make a mistake and undercharge a customer. Your boss says you will either

have to make up the difference out of your paycheck or call the customer and get
him/her to pay the difference. What do you do? (184)

E) Don’t call the customer, but simply pay for the difference yourself

A) Don't call the customer but instead send a bill for the customer to pay the difference

B) Call the customer to explain the mistake, then send a bill for the customer to pay the
difference

C) Call the customer to explain the mistake and insist he or she pays the difference

AGREEABLENESS; DEPENDABILITY
41 You work for a delivery service. A customer calls to ask why their order took so long
to be delivered. It was a big order and you want to keep this customer happy. You

are pretty sure the order was late because the delivery driver went to the wrong
address. What do you do? (251)

E) Say that you think the delivery driver went to the wrong address

A) Say that you think the delivery driver had made a mistake

B) Say that you think the delivery driver was late because there was a lot of traffic
C) Say that you don’t know why the order took so long

ACHIEVEMENT; AGREEABLENESS
42 A customer is flying on a pair of sunglasses that quite flankly make them look frmny.
They ask you for your opinion. What do you say? (290)

E) “Those glasses look funny on you”

A) “Those glasses kind of look funny on you”
B) “Those glasses look OK on you”

C) “Those glasses look really good on you”

319

 

 

CRITERION DIMENSION 4H: Assistance (Empaihy)

AGREEABLENESS

43 It’s Chrisflnas time and your store has a product advertised that has been very
p0pular. A younger girl wants to purchase the product but you realize it is sold out
and will not be possible to get more until after Chrisflnas. The young girl starts to
cry, saying "Thanks for nothing—you’ve ruined my Chrisflnas.” What might you do
in this situation? (60)

E) Sit the girl down and say how sorry you are

A) Say how sorry you are

B) Tell the girl you wish you had more of the product

C) Tell the girl that the store is sold out and there is nothing you can do

NEUROTICISM; AGREEABLENESS

44 A customer orders a dress. The customer comes to the store on the day the order was
to arrive, but the warehouse has not been able to deliver the dress. The customer gets
very upset with you. What do you do? (19)

E) Say to the customer you are sorry and would be mad too if you couldn’t get the dress,
but these things sometimes happen

A) Say to the customer you are sorry and would be mad too if you couldn’t get the dress

B) Say to the customer you are sorry

C) Tell the customer there is nothing you can do about the dress

NEUROTICISM; AGREEABLENESS
45 You are working at a cash register right before Chrisflnas. The line is very long and

customers are generally impatient. As you cash out one customer, you realize that
his/her credit card is denied. What do you do? (94)

E) Talk to the customer using his/her first name, say you are sorry, and that these things
happen

A) Tell the customer you are sorry and that these things happen

B) Tell the customer you are sorry

C) Tell the customer there is nothing you can do

320

 

AGREEABLENESS; DEPENDABILITY
46 You work as a waiter/waifl'ess in a restaurant. One of your tables is involved in a
very private conversation. You want to ask them if you can get them anything else,

but every time you approach they give you a very nasty look—as if to say “leave us
alone.” What might you do? (78)

A) Watch the table to guess when someone might want something (for example, water)

B) Watch the table and wait for a customer to call on you (for example, waving their
band)

C) Approach the table less flequently than you would have normally

D) Approach the table as you normally would

ACHIEVEMENT; AGREEABLENESS
47 One customer you are helping is very factual and sflaight to the point. As you help
this person, what might you do? (299) -

E) Treat the customer like s/he knows exactly what s/he wants
A) Treat the customer like s/he probably brows what s/he wants
B) Treat the customer like s/he might brow what s/he wants

C) Treat the customer like s/he has no idea what s/he wants

ACHIEVEMENT; AGREEABLENESS
48 You work in a deparflnent store and see a female customer enter the automotive
section. How might you geet this customer?

A) “What can I help you find for your vehicle?”
B) “Working on your vehicle today?”

C) “What can I help you find?”

D) “Can I help you?”

CRITERION DIMENSION 6B: Percmtiveness (ieentifl Personal Infematiep)

ACHIEVEMENT
49 You see a customer that you have waited on before. How might you geet this
customer?

A) Use whatever relevant personal information you can remember about this customer in
your geeting

B) Use just the customer’s name in your geeting

C) Be more fiiendly to this customer than usual but don’t use personal information

D) Greet this customer just like all customers

321

AGREEABLENESS

50 A customer is telling you a story about himself/herself and is providing you with very
personal information. S/he asks if you have had a similar experience. Imagine you
have had a similar experience. What do you tell this customer?

A) Tell the customer your experience without leaving anything out

B) Tell the customer you have experienced something similar but provide little detail
A) Tell the customer you have experienced something similar but provide no detail
B) Tell the customer you have not experienced anything similar

ACHIEVEMENT
51 You work in a clothing store. You are helping a man buy a gift for his wife. What do
you do? (395)

A) Ask questions about the wife to identify her interests and preferences
B) Ask what the wife likes to do

C) Ask what the husband and wife like to do together

D) Ask what the husband wants to buy for his wife

ACHIEVEMENT
52 You work in a clothing store. You are helping a woman buy a gift for her husband.
What do you do? (396)

A) Ask questions about the husband to identify his interests and preferences
B) Ask what the husband likes to do

C) Ask what the husband and wife like to do together

D) Ask what the wife wants to buy for her husband

RITERI NDIIVIENI N5 : erc tiv '0'

ACHIEVEMENT
53 A customer tells you s/he wants to buy a television. What might you do next?

A) Ask follow-up questions to determine why the customer wants this television
B) Ask the customer what kind of television s/he would like

C) Ask the customer how much s/he wants to spend

D) Show the customer a television you think s/he would like

322

 

RITERI N IMEN D' 'v

AGREEABLENESS
S4 A customer expects you to do something that is not part of your job—look up the
address of a competitor. What do you do? (318)

A) Look up the specific address as the customer requests

B) Just give general directions to the customer

C) Show the customer where a phone book is so s/he can look it up himself or herself
D) Tell the customer it is not your job to sell the competitor’s products

RITERI NDIMEN N : ' ' '

AGREEABLENESS

55 You are going to explain to a customer how to perform a very complicated repair.
The customer acts as though he already understands all of this information, but you
suspect he might not. What might you do? (379)

A) Start at the most basic level, and then get more complicated

B) Start at an easy level, then get more complicated

C) State at a moderate level, then get more complicated

D) Start at a complicated level since the customer already brows this

NEUROTICISM; AGREEABLENESS

56 You deal with customers over the phone. Many customers do not speak English very
well, and often neither one of you can understand each other. It is often very
flustrating. How might you handle these situations? (401)

A) Speak quite a bit slower than normal

B) Speak slightly slower than normal

C) Speak normally

D) Speak slightly faster than normal since the store is so busy
E) Speak quite a bit faster than normal since the store is so busy

323

 

 

CRITERION DIMENSION 6B ', Ceippippieeiim (Appzepp'eie)

CRITERION DIMENSION 7: Cemeigiee

ACHIEVEMENT

57 You work in a store that sells elecflonics. When new products arrive, your store
receives a brief, non-technical product description and a complicated, in-depth
product description. What would you be most likely to do?

A) Read both types of information comprehensively and in careful detail

B) Read both types of information to gain a general understanding of the key points
C) Read only the non-technical information to understand all key points

D) Read only the non-technical information to understand the few major points

CRITERION DIMENSION 8: Demonsfl'ating Exfl'a Effert

ACHIEVEMENT

58 You work as a delivery driver. It is Friday night, almost quitting time, and you have
plans for the evening. A customer calls at the last minute and asks if you can deliver
a product that will take you several hours. All of the other drivers have left for the
night. Your boss says it is up to you. What do you do? (208)

A) You take the delivery immediately

B) Tell your boss you’ll take the delivery first thing the next morning

C) Tell your boss you’ll take the delivery the next day

D) Tell your boss you don’t want to take the order because you have plans

ACHIEVEMENT

59 There are some minor duties and tasks that all employees are expected to do. Your
coworkers do not help with these tasks because you all get paid the same amount.
Although you are fairly busy, you could also do their jobs as well. What do you do?
(188)

A) Perform all of the minor tasks in addition to your regular duties

B) Perform the minor tasks only when you are not performing your regular duties
C) Perform the minor tasks only when they absolutely have to be done

D) Don’t perform the minor tasks since nobody else is doing them

324

 

ACHIEVEMENT
60 You are doing your regular job duties. A coworker approaches you and tells you to

stop working so hard because you are making everyone else look bad. What do you
do?(l89)

A) Continue working as hard as you had been
B) Work moderately harder than everyone else
C) Work a little bit harder than everyone else
D) Work only as hard as everyone else

ACHIEVEMENT
61 You are doing your regular job duties. A coworker approaches you and tells you to

st0p working so hard because the manager is gone for the day. What do you do?
(1 90)

A) Continue working as hard as you had been

B) Work a little bit less hard

C) Stop working so hard when the manager is not around
D) Stop working so hard at all times

ACHIEVEMENT

62 You work in a store that has a few peak times during a day but is otherwise pretty
slow. During the slow times, coworkers joke around, use the company phone for
personal calls, and generally look bored. However, there are many maintenance tasks

that could be done during this time, such as clearning the shelves. What do you do?
(50)

A) Perform the maintenance tasks whenever you are not helping customers
B) Perform the maintenance tasks only when the store is extremely slow
C) Perform the maintenance tasks only when told to do so

D) Don’t perform the maintenance tasks since nobody else does them

ACHIEVEMENT

63 You work the day shift. The people in the night shift do not perform their basic
cleanup tasks. If you do their tasks in addition to your own, you waste your time and
so your customers may have to suffer. What do you do? (126)

A) Clean up after the night shift in addition to performing your regular tasks

B) Clean up after the night shift only when you aren’t performing your regular tasks
C) Tidy up a little but leave most of the mess as you found it

D) Leave the mess since the night shift made it

325

 

 

ACHIEVEMENT

64 You work the morning shift in a restaurant. The night shift has gotten into the habit
of not keeping the work area clean. Now, in addition to your regular duties, you also
have to clean the work area. This makes your job much more difficult. You’ve
brought the matter up with your supervisor, who says s/lre is looking into it. Now,
you come into work and notice the work area is even dirtier than usual, and there are
several customers already coming into the store. What might you do? (87)

A) Clean up after the night shift in addition to helping your customers

B) Clean up after the night shift only when you aren’t helping customers

C) Tidy up a little but leave most of the mess as you found it—focus on your customers
D) Leave the mess since the night shift made it—focus on your customers

RITERINDIMENIN 'M" 'ilin

NEUROTICISM

65 A customer is very upset with your company’s return policy. You have no say or
conflol over the return policy, but this customer is basically “venting” his/her
flustration to you. How do you handle this situation? (36)

A) Remain calm and let the customer voice his or her concerns

B) Remain calm, but tell the customer to settle down

C) Remain calm, but tell the customer you have no conflol over the policy

D) Get a little aggessive and tell the customer you have no control over the policy

NEUROTICISM
66 A customer is upset and getting personally insulting with you. Further, the customer
is starting to threaten you with physical harm. What do you do? (72)

A) Remain calm and don’t take it personally

B) Remain calm and tell the customer to settle down
C) Stand firm and tell the customer to settle down

D) Get aggessive so that the customer will back down

NEUROTICISM

67 You have had a very bad day by the time you show up for work. Now, the first
customer you wait on is also in a bad mood and starts yelling at you right away. This
customer is getting very personal. How do you handle this customer? (99)

A) Ignore the customer’s comments and fly to help

B) Try to remain calm but tell the customer to settle down

C) Tell the customer to settle down

D) Tell the customer you are not going to help anyone who makes personal attacks on
you

326

 

NEUROTICISM

68 A customer starts yelling at you because you sold him/her a TV that was broken.
This customer is upset because s/he had to drive 50 miles to get to the store.
Although it is not your fault, this customer is very rude and offensive. How would
you handle this situation? (15)

A) Stand firm and fly to find a replacement TV

B) Stand firm and tell the customer it is not your fault

C) Stand firm and tell the customer to quit yelling because it is not your fault
D) Stand firm and tell the customer to either calm down or leave

NEUROTICISM

69 A customer orders a specially made desk. When the desk arrives, the customer does
not like the look of it and refuses to purchase it. You are now going to lose the
commission on the order, and even worse, are going to have to tell your supervisor
that the desk must be returned to the warehouse at the company’s expense. What do
you tell this customer? (20)

A) Tell the customer you appreciate his/her business and ask if there is anything else you
can do

B) Tell the customer that you will lose your commission unless s/he buys the desk

C) Tell the customer that unless s/he buys the desk the company will have to pay for it

D) Tell the customer that s/he should buy the desk since s/lre ordered it

AGREEABLENESS

70 You work in a pizza shop. A customer orders a pizza (for delivery) that you make
yourself. A half hour later this customer calls you to complain about the pizza—it
was a small instead of a medium. You can’t remember which size pizza you made,
but you suspect the customer ordered the wrong size pizza What might you do? (69)

A) You take the entire blame for the pizza

B) Try to imply that you are at fault but don’t explicitly say so

C) Try to imply that the customer is at fault but don’t explicitly say so
D) Tell the customer it is his or her fault

327

 

 

 

AGREEABLENESS; NEUROTICISM

71 When waiting on a customer you realize that s/he is flying to get a cheaper price than
is listed for the product. Basically, this customer changed the price tag on the item.
When you mention the price looks to be too low and that you are going to check its
price in the computer, the customer starts to complain and questions your
competence. What do you do? (100)

A) Remain calm and professional, and continue to check the price

B) Remain calm and professional, but say she had better settle down

C) Tell the customer you know s/he has changed the price, so s/he had better settle down

D) Tell the customer you brow s/he has changed the price and are going to call the
manager

RITERIONDMEN N B' -n.-. Lil-01.2.- U 01-‘_ .0 ia o sinnera'

AGREEABLENESS

72 As a waiter/waitress, you often must take the blame when customers are unhappy
with their food (for example, it took to long to get it, it is cold, it doesn’t taste good).
Even though it is usually not your fault, customers usually get very upset with you
personally. Some even complain to your supervisor. How might you handle these
types of customers? (14)

A) Tell them you are sorry and take all of the blame

B) Tell them you are sorry but then explain why it is not your fault

C) Explain to the customer why it is not your fault

D) Explain to the customer why it is not your fault, and tell them the manager
understands this

AGREEABLENESS

73 A customer is upset at you and is very rude because the entertainment center she
ordered was not the one that was delivered. You check her order and see that one of
your coworkers wrote down the wrong number for the delivery staff, so in fact it was
your coworker’s fault the order was incorrect. This customer is very upset and is
taking it out on you. What do you do? (16)

A) Take the customer’s blame and try to solve the problem yourself

B) Tell the customer it is not your fault, but you will try to solve the problem yourself
C) Tell the customer it was a coworkers mistake and that s/he should settle down

D) Tell the customer it was a coworker’s mistake and that s/he should talk to him

328

RITERIONDINIEN INO' :M-' -1Par~rn= " 'iluine 0..

AGREEABLENESS; DEPENDABILITY
74 Some coworkers ask you to help play a joke on a newer coworker. You think the joke
is rather inappropriate but no customers are likely to see it. What do you do?

A) Do not participate in the joke

B) Tell your coworkers you will participate only if it occurs after work
C) Tell your coworkers you will help, but then don’t

D) Help play the joke on the coworker

RITERI NDIMEN I N1 : '1' ' erf

AGREEABLENESS; ACHIEVEMENT
75 A coworker is very busy and could use some help. You have only a few customers in

your section, but you’re not sure if you should leave them to help your coworker.
What do you do?

A) Leave your section to help your coworker until s/he completely catches up

B) Go help your coworker until s/he is almost caught up, then hurry back to your own
section

C) Stay in your own section a little longer, then huny to help your coworker

D) Stay in your section and help your own customers

ACHIEVEMENT

76 You work in a restaurant. You are helping cover a coworker’s table, where two
customers were getting upset because they had to wait so long. As you help this
coworker’s customers, you notice customers flom your own section getting impatient.
You realize you are not likely to get a tip flom your coworker’s customers, but you
will probably get tips flom your own customers. What do you do? (194)

A) Help your coworker until s/he completely catches up

B) Primarily help your coworker’s customers but also help your own customers when
possible

C) Primarily help your own customers and help your coworker only if it is convenient

D) Go help your own customers

329

AGREEABLENESS; ACHIEVEMENT

77 A coworker in another section is very busy helping customers and could obviously
use some help. In fact, some customers are starting to leave. Your section is
relatively quiet at the moment but could get busy very quickly. What do you do?
(a25)

A) Leave your section to help your coworker until s/he completely catches up
B) Primarily help your coworker, but return to your own section once in a while
C) Primarily stay in your own section, but help the coworker once in a while

D) Stay in your section just in case you suddenly get more customers

ACHIEVEMENT

78 Many of your coworkers are lazy and only do the minimum amount of work they
have to. Your supervisor either doesn’t notice this or doesn’t seem to care. Because
of these individuals, you have to do twice as much work as you should—including
some of their duties. What do you do? (23)

A) Perform all of the duties regardless of whether it is your job or not

B) Primarily perform your own duties, but try to perform the other duties as much as
possible

C) Primarily perform your own duties, then perform the other duties at your convenience

D) Perform only your duties

ACHIEVEMENT

79 In your company, there is a very strong peer pressure not to work harder than your
coworkers. You are relatively new and are flying to do a good job. Although your
manager notices and says to keep up the good work, your coworkers are getting upset
because you are making them look bad. One of them even told you to quit working
so hard. What are you going to do? (27)

A) Continue working hard

B) Don’t work as hard as you were, but don’t work as slow as the coworkers
C) Stop working so hard when around your coworkers

D) Do as the coworkers say and stop working so hard

ACHIEVEMENT

80 You are leaving your section to take a scheduled break. Your store policy is such that
you have to take a scheduled break, and that you are not paid for the time you are on
break. On your way to the break room, you notice a coworker who is swamped with
customers. What do you do? (349)

A) Go help the coworker even if it means you won’t get a break

B) Go help the coworker for as long as possible, but be sure to take at least some of your
break

C) Go help the coworker for just a few moments, then take most of your break

D) Take your break and help the coworker as soon as you are done

330

 

 

ACHIEVEMENT

81 Some long term employees are making part time employees do their routine tasks.
This flees up the long term employees’ time so that they can help more customers.
The supervisor does not seem to care, and you could certainly use some more time to
help customers. What do you do in this situation? (106)

A) Continue doing your own routine tasks and do not delegate them to the part time
cmployees

B) Give the part time employees some of your routine tasks

C) Give the part time employees most of your routine tasks

D) Give the part time employees all of your routine tasks

AGREEABLENESS; ACHIEVEMENT

82 You work in a restaurant. You and a coworker misunderstand each other and do not
wait on a table. Later, you both recognize the nristake and can see that the customers
at the table are very upset. You doubt who ever helps them will get a tip. Your
coworker asks if you want the table. What do you do? (195)

A) Agee to take the table yourself

B) Split the table between you and the coworker

C) Give the table to the coworker, but help out if necessary
D) Say you don’t want the table

CRITERION DIMEN I N11: ' i

CRITERION DIMENSION 12: Mepagemeni

ACHIEVEMENT

83 You are performing a maintenance task that your supervisor instructed you to get
completed right away. As you work on this task, you notice a customer in your
section. What do you do?

A) Help the customer until s/he is finished shopping

B) Help the customer for just a few moments, then return to your maintenance task

C) Greet the customer but continue working on your maintenance task

D) Complete your maintenance task until it is completely finished, then help the
customer

331

CRITERION DIMENSION 12; Veimim' g

NEUROTICISM; ACHIEVEMENT

84 You have a much deserved day off flom work and have made a frm day of plans.
Your boss calls the night before and asks if you can work because one of your
coworkers can’t make it. You suspect the coworker is really going to a concert
because s/he mentioned doing it in the past. What do you do? (113)

A) Go in to work

B) Tell the supervisor that you suspect the coworker might be lying, but that you’ll work
C) Tell the supervisor the coworker is lying, but that you’ll work

D) Tell the supervisor the coworker is lying and that you can’t work

ACHIEVEMENT

85 In your store there are many small tasks (for example, putting away inventory) that
are not part of anyone’s specific job but are something that everybody is expected to
do. Many of your coworkers do not do these tasks, but if they are to get done
somebody will have to do them. What do you do? (121)

E) Perform all of the tasks even though they are not part of your job
F) Regularly perform most of the tasks

G) Occasionally perform some of the tasks

H) Don’t perform the tasks since they are not part of your job

ACHIEVEMENT

86 On one of your days off your manager calls to ask you to come to work because the
store is short staffed. You had planned to spend this day with your fiiend or family
for over a week. What do you do? (129)

A) Tell your manager you’ll come in to work right away

B) Tell your manager you’ll work until s/he can find somebody else

C) Tell your manager you will work only if s/he can’t find anybody else
D) Tell your manager you can’t work today

332

NEUROTICISM; ACHIEVEMENT

87 Each employee in your store is given a very detailed description of his/her job duties.
Unfortunately, most employees only do their specific duties and do not help out
coworkers when necessary. In fact, many employees will sit and do nothing instead
of helping other coworkers because “it is not their job.” You are particularly busy
and are getting very flusflated because you can’t help all of the customers in your
area. Your coworkers just sit and watch. Later, when you have more time, you notice
your coworkers could use some help. What might you do? (49)

A) Give your coworkers as much help as they need

B) Help the coworkers, but do not go too far out of your way
C) Provide help only if absolutely necessary

D) Do not provide any help since none of them helped you

AGREEABLENESS; ACHIEVEMENT

88 A coworker calls you to ask if you can cover his/her Saturday morning shift because
s/he is not feeling well. Although you don’t mind doing covering the shift once in
awhile, this coworker has asked you for this favor on several past occasions. You

suspect the coworker is going out the night before and is simply too tired to work.
What do you do? (112)

A) Help the coworker with no questions asked

B) Offer to work the monring shift only if s/he covers one of your morning shifts

C) Offer to work the monring shift only if s/he will cover several of your morning shifts
D) Don’t help the coworker

RITERION DIMEN I N 4: w P 1'

DEPENDABILITY

89 Your store policy says that when a customer returns an item you must write down
their phone number and copy their drivers license. Many customers don’t like to give
you their drivers license. Now, a customer asks you why you have to take this
information and refuses to give it to you. What do you do?

A) Do not return the item unless you get all of the information

B) Do not return the item unless you get the phone number and at least see the drivers
license

C) Return the item if you at least get the phone number

D) Return the item even though you do not any information

333

DEPENDABILITY

90 You work as a waiter/waifless in a restaurant. One flick many of your coworkers do
is to give customers flee soda or minimally-priced appetizers in order to get a better
tip. The company policy explicitly forbids this practice. You could certainly use the
extra money flom tips, and the supervisor has not noticed or said anything about this
practice. What do you do? (108)

A) Never engage in these activities

B) Occasionally engage in these activities

C) Regularly engage in these activities

D) Engage in these activities whenever you can

DEPENDABILITY

91 Your store policy is absolutely no returns on clothes over $100.00. A customer
returns an outfit costing $110.00. You can tell that the outfit has not been worn, but
the store policy says you cannot return it. You feel very bad and don’t agee with the
policy in this instance. However, you could classify the outfit as defective and
nobody would ever know—although this is also against company policy. What do
you do? (148)

A) Do not allow the outfit to be returned

B) Do not allow the outfit to be returned, but have the customer speak with the manager

C) Classify the product as defective but only allow an exchange—do not return the
money

D) Classify the product as defective and return the money

NEUROTICISM; DEPENDABILITY

92 You work at a cash register in a gocery store. There is a huge lottery prize, and so
the store is swamped with customers buying lottery tickets. However, you are to stop
selling lottery tickets promptly at midnight. It is 12:01 and a customer wants to place
an order. You refirse and they get very upset, as do the remaining customers who
have been waiting over half an hour. What do you do? (33)

A) Do not sell any tickets because it is past midnight
B) Sell tickets to just the customer who is upset

C) Sell tickets to just the next few customers

D) Sell tickets to the remaining customers in line

334

DEPENDABILITY

93 A customer is flying to buy beer but has forgotten his/her identification in the car.
This customer looks to be around 30 years old and is dressed very well. You have
seen the customer in the store on a regular basis but have not waited on him/her
yourself. What do you do? (102)

A) Do not sell the customer the beer unless you first see his or her drivers license

B) Do not sell the customer the beer unless a coworker will say the customer is old
enough

C) Sell the customer the beer but ask that s/he bring you his/her drivers license

D) Sell the beer since this customer obviously looks old enough

DEPENDABILITY

94 Your store policy says that when a customer retrrrns an item you must write down
their phone number and copy their drivers license. Many customers don’t like to give
you their drivers license. You personally do not approve of this policy and don’t
think the store actually uses this information. Now, a very good customer says s/he
doesn’t want to give you this information. What do you do? (139)

A) Do not return the item unless you get all of the information

B) Do not return the item unless you get the phone number and at least see the drivers
license

C) Return the item if you at least get the phone number

D) Return the item even though you do not any information

DEPENDABILITY

95 You are working at a cash register in a gocery store when a customer flies to buy
alcohol. When you ask for his/her identification, s/he gets upset and says s/he doesn’t
have it, but s/he does show you his/her five credit cards and fluck drivers medical
card. S/he looks to be about twenty five years old. What do you do? (150)

A) Do not sell the customer the beer unless you first see his or her drivers license

B) Do not sell the customer the beer unless a coworker says the customer is old enough
C) Sell the customer the beer but ask that s/he bring you his/her drivers license

D) Sell the beer since this customer looks old enough and has other identification

335

RITERI NDIMENIN :D '

ACHIEVEMENT; DEPENDABILITY

96 You feel personally uncomfortable flying to sell high dollar merchandise to people
who do not appear to be able to afford it. However, your managers really push
employees to always direct customers to the large dollar items. What do you do? (13)

A) Sell the high dollar merchandise because that is your job

B) Regularly (but not always) sell the high dollar merchandise

C) Once in a while sell the high dollar merchandise

D) Do not sell the high dollar merchandise because you don’t agee with that policy

ACHIEVEMENT; DEPENDABILITY

97 A coworker complains about the working conditions so that customers can hear
him/her. You generally agee with what the coworker is saying. After the coworker
leaves, a customer you are helping asks if it is flue. What might you do in this
situation? (159)

A) Say that it is not flue and that the working conditions are good
B) Say that it is not flue, but say nothing more

C) Say that it is flue, but say nothing more

D) Say that it is flue and that the working conditions are poor

DEPENDABILITY

98 Your store hires a number of part-time employees for the summer. You catch several
of these individuals playing around with some of the company equipment. When you
mention their behavior is against company regulations, they just laugh and say they
are quitting in a few weeks anyway and don’t really care. What do you do? (28)

A) Turn these individuals in to your supervisor

B) Threaten to report these individuals to the supervisor if you catch it happening again
C) Threaten to report these individuals to the supervisor, but actually do nothing

D) Ignore the incident since they will soon be quitting anyway

DEPENDABILITY

99 Your store has a number of summer-time only employees. It is near the end of
summer when you notice one of these employees stealing ten dollars flom the
register. As you conflont the employee, s/he informs you that s/he was shorted ten
dollars on their last paycheck and so was only “making things balance.” S/he says it
will not happen again if you don’t say anything. How do you handle this situation?
(29)

A) Turn this person in to your supervisor

B) Threaten to report this individual to the supervisor if you catch it happening again
C) Threaten to report this individual to the supervisor, but actually do nothing

D) Forget the incident ever happened

336

DEPENDABILITY

100You work in a pizza store. One day you catch a well-respected employee giving flee
sodas and appetizers to his/her fiiends. Although this is not worth much money, it is
against company policy. What would you do? (30)

A) Tum this person in to your supervisor

B) Threaten to report this individual to the supervisor if you catch it happening again
C) Threaten to report this individual to the supervisor, but actually do nothing

1)) Forget the incident ever happened

DEPENDABILITY

101 You catch one of your fellow coworkers (who is also a good fiiend) making deals
with customers in order to increase her sales. Because part of your salary is based on
commission, this is an easy way for her to make more money even though the
company will suffer reduced profits. You remind this person that the company does
not tolerate these actions, but your friend does not seem to care. Do you report this
person to your supervisor? (31)

A) Turn your friend in to your supervisor

B) Threaten to report your fiiend to the supervisor if you catch it happening again
C) Threaten to report your fliend to the supervisor, but actually do nothing

D) Forget the incident ever happened

ACHIEVEMENT; DEPENDABILITY
102You are very good fliends with some of your coworkers. You learn that a few of your
fiiends are stealing flom the company. What do you do? (161)

A) Tum them in to your supervisor

B) Offer them the opportunity to tum themselves irn, or else you will do it
C) Tell them that if it ever happens again you will report them

D) Do nothing and forget the incident ever happened

DEPENDABILITY
103You work for a home delivery company. You catch one of the delivery drivers

smoking marijuana on the job. However, your supervisor does not suspect a thing.
What do you do? (202)

A) Turn the delivery driver in to your supervisor

B) Offer the delivery driver the opportunity to tum himself or herself in, or else you will
do it

C) Tell the delivery driver that you will report him or her if it happens again

D) Do nothing and forget the incident ever happened

337

DEPENDABILITY
104A coworker has a tendency to give customers s/he likes special deals that would not

be approved by the company. You are probably the only one who brows about this.
What do you do? (205)

A) Turn this person in to your supervisor

B) Threaten to report this individual to the supervisor if you catch it happening again
C) Threaten to report this individual to the supervisor, but actually do nothing

D) Forget the incident ever happened

DEPENDABILITY

105A coworker gives his family special deals. You know the manager would not
approve of such practices. You doubt anyone else is aware that the coworker is
breaking the company policy. What do you do? (206)

A) Tum this person in to your supervisor

B) Threaten to report this individual to the supervisor if you catch it happening again
C) Threaten to report this individual to the supervisor, but actually do nothing

D) Forget the incident ever happened

338