Psychology Ph.D. Dissertations

Title

Development and Validation of a Situational Judgment Test that Assesses Managerial Effectiveness in Providing Family-Friendly Supervision

Date of Award

2018

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)

Department

Psychology/Industrial-Organizational

First Advisor

Michael Zickar (Advisor)

Second Advisor

Yiwei Chen (Committee Member)

Third Advisor

Scott Highhouse (Committee Member)

Fourth Advisor

Laura Sanchez (Other)

Abstract

The goal of this dissertation was to develop and validate a single-response situational judgment test (SJT) that assesses managerial effectiveness in helping employees manage their work and family lives. To accomplish this goal, a two-part study was conducted using multi-source data. In Phase 1, a family-supportive supervision SJT and scoring key were developed from critical incidents and ratings provided by industry managers and trained subject matter experts. In Phase 2, criterion-related validity evidence and job relevance of the manager SJT scores were evaluated based on dyadic data from city government supervisors and subordinates. The test’s psychometric viability was also examined by way of internal consistency and test-retest reliability. Results showed that manager SJT scores were significantly related to, and predicted, employee perceptions of family-supportive supervisor behaviors, experienced work-family conflict, and family-supportive organization perceptions but not employee ratings of manager work effort and managerial effectiveness. Interestingly, manager ability to identify effective and ineffective behaviors within this context was differentially related to employee outcomes and may be separate constructs. Evidence was also found that the pattern of relationships between manager SJT scores and employee outcomes varied depending on the gender composition of the supervisor-subordinate dyad among other variables. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

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