A multi-level perspective on personnel selection research and practice: Implications for selection system design, assessment, and construct validation

Abstract

Personnel selection has a long and successful record for effectiveness in applied psychology. We propose that this record for effectiveness has been narrowly focused on the individual level of analysis, resulting in a lack of suitability for addressing conceptual and applied phenomena at unit (group, organizational) levels of analysis. The chapter integrates the traditional personnel selection focus on individuals with recent thinking on multiple levels of analysis and we show how this alternative has implications for selection system design, assessment procedures, and validation research. Specifically, we first review and critique the individual selection model from a multi-level orientation and then explicate how multi-level selection procedures may be enacted and evaluated. We then compare the development and validation of selection practices in two fictional organizations, one using the traditional focus on individuals and one using our revised multi-level methodology, to-illustrate the benefits of the new approach. We conclude with several recommendations for future research and practice.

Citation

Ployhart, R.E. and Schneider, B. (2002), "A multi-level perspective on personnel selection research and practice: Implications for selection system design, assessment, and construct validation", Yammarino, F.J. and Dansereau, F. (Ed.) The many faces of multi-level issues (Research in Multi-Level Issues, Vol. 1), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 95-140. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1475-9144(02)01030-5