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This paper addresses the problem of using accuracy index values based on the squared difference between participant scores and true scores, the D² index, at the practical level. It clarifies ambiguity existing in the literature regarding the use of these index values to evaluate the scoring accuracy of human raters (evaluators). The paper critically investigates the effect of frame‐of‐reference (FOR) training on improving the accuracy of third‐party evaluators’ scores for organisations, such as those going through the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA) self‐assessment exercise. It discusses a case study where 90 individual participants took part. The scores of these participants were recorded before training was given to them (no training) and after receiving FOR training. The study showed that providing FOR training has an effect on improving the elevation accuracy index (p < 0.05) in five of the seven categories used in this exercise. An observed leniency effect was also reduced. However, no improvement in the DA was observed. Thus, the evaluators’ ability to assign an accurate overall score was improved, while the ability to discriminate between relative strengths and weaknesses did not show improvement. This implies evaluator training, particularly for heterogeneous pools of volunteers like those of corporate and state and local quality awards, should include more content on the performance dimensions.

Global performance management (GPM) systems are a central element of measuring the efficacy of an increasingly complex array of global mobility activities – an element that has developed rapidly in the last ten years or so. This conceptual review of GPM consists of four major sections. First, three approaches to international human resource management are presented. Second, the paper discusses three models of performance management, one some 24 years old and grounded in a long tradition of formalized, explicit universalistic US-based performance management theory and two more recent conceptual reviews particular to global issues of performance management. Third, the paper presents a four-stage process model of GPM. Each of the four stages will be discussed in turn, and the various perspectives of recent empirical and conceptual publications on GPM will be mapped onto the four stage model. The purpose of this paper is to conclude with a discussion of recommendations for how this process model can speed the development of research in this new topic domain. The paper also suggests that practitioners may use a modified version of this four step process model to initiate a more systematic global audit of the nature and effectiveness of their array of global assignments.

This conceptual review paper consists of a proposed framework for understanding how issues of global standardization and local customization may be understood while examples of issues applied to the framework are presented from a review of articles from 2002 until 2013. The concentrated review going back some ten years was an effort to find a sample large and relevant enough to capture a rapidly developing field, while being small enough to allow a meaningful analysis of results.

Whereas there are a number of articles in the recent literature reviewing local applications of extant GPM systems, there is very little empirical research on how these systems are designed or how they are evaluated and the results applied on a micro (individual expatriate or local employee) level or on a macro (firm) level.

The paper concludes with a series of observations on the results of the analysis and suggestions for future research, so that the academic and professional communities may move forward in this topic domain in a more efficient, complete and coordinated fashion.

Mezirow's theory of transformative learning aims to evoke change on a deeper level of learning. This qualitative study with 38 pre-service teachers enrolled in a Master's degree programme for teacher education in Austria used semi-structured interviews to explore how diversity skills can transform after diversity training applying Mezirow's theory of transformative learning. In these trainings, a disorienting dilemma was placed at the centre of the diversity training from which transformative learning took its start.

In an increasingly diversified school system, diversity skills have become a pedagogical necessity for teachers in their future workplace. However, many teachers state not feeling adequately prepared for diversity within higher education and their attitudes towards diversity oftentimes remain unchanged despite diversity training.

The findings were deduced from structured content analysis. They show that the diversity trainings led to new cultural frames of reference for the study participants on a cognitive and social level, but to a smaller extent on an emotional level.

The study follows a different approach than “typical” diversity trainings through Mezirow's theory on transformative learning contributing to making a real change to preparing students for their workplaces in diversified Austrian schools.

This paper aims to investigate whether values enactment could be increased through frame-of-reference (FOR) training configured around values prototyping and behavioural domain training for managers within an Australian public sector organisation.

Employees from an Australian public sector organisation were studied to ascertain the effect of values training and development via a three-way longitudinal design with a control group.

The findings indicate that FOR training can increase employee values enactment clarity and, thereby, have a positive impact upon organisational values enactment.

The application of FOR training constitutes a new approach to supporting the development of employee values clarity, which, in turn, can support the achievement of organisational values enactment. Through FOR training, employees can learn to apply organisational values in their decision-making and other behaviours irrespective of whether they are highly congruent with their personal values.

Empirical research into values management is limited and there is a lack of consensus to what is needed to create a values-driven organisation. The article shows that FOR training can be a beneficial component of a broader human resource strategy aimed at increasing organisational values enactment. With reference to the resource-based view of the firm, it is argued that values enactment constitutes a distinctive capability that may confer sustained organisational advantage.

The paper aims to address a topic that has not been systematically studied in the organisational citizenship behaviour (OCB), performance appraisal and rewards literature. Specifically, this paper seeks to examine the potential effects of rewarding OCBs by explicitly incorporating them into performance appraisal and reward systems.

A review of relevant theory and literature is provided and propositions concerning the possible effects of assessing and rewarding OCBs are offered.

The findings show that there are potential advantages and disadvantages of formally incorporating OCBs into performance appraisal systems and that it seems likely that more organisations will move toward formally measuring and rewarding OCBs.

While most research indicates that OCBs are associated with positive outcomes, this paper also addresses potential negative consequences of formally evaluating and rewarding OCB.

In the context of intense intercultural experience, the individual’s identity is often transformed by the forces of acculturation. Unexpectedly powerful demands, influences, and resistances buffet the values, beliefs, and behaviors of the sojourner, leading to confusion, and eventually resolution of profound identity issues. The resulting sense of being between two cultures or more, living at the edges of each, but rarely at the center, can be called cultural marginality. When these issues remain unresolved, the person is often confounded by the demands, and feels alienated in a state called encapsulated marginality. The constructive marginal resolves these questions by integrating choices from each culture of which the person is a part, choosing the appropriate frame of reference, and taking action appropriate for the context.

Global leaders need to recognize the characteristics of the marginal identity and leverage the skills the marginal brings to the organization. The mindset of hybrid professionals fosters increased creativity, culturally appropriate problem solving, and collaboration with other culture partners. Educators, trainers, and coaches can design developmental opportunities for sojourners to acculturate to new environments in a way that potentiates their intercultural competence and comfort with their bicultural mindset. By viewing a complex cultural identity as an asset to the organization, global leaders can avoid the common pitfall of overlooking cultural marginals and instead maximize their contribution to globalization.

The current chapter focuses on environmental and organizational factors that affect the performance appraisal context, performance evaluations, and rating accuracy. Drawing on the extant literature and focusing on current organizational practices, we propose a dynamic multi-level model of performance rating that takes these distal factors into consideration. In doing so, we also provide propositions explicating causal linkages between these distal factors, more proximal performance appraisal factors, and ultimately the accuracy of performance ratings. Furthermore, we identify current and emerging directions in performance appraisal research and practice. The implications of the current and emerging trends are then discussed in the context of our proposed model.

Exercises are key components of assessment centers (ACs). However, little is known about the nature and determinants of AC exercise performance. The traditional exercise paradigm primarily emphasizes the need to simulate task, social, and organizational demands in AC exercises. This chapter draws on trait activation theory in proposing a new AC exercise paradigm. First, we develop a theoretical framework that addresses the complexity of situational characteristics of AC exercises as determinants of AC performance. Second, we argue for planting multiple stimuli within exercises as a structured means of eliciting candidate behavior. Third, we show how the new paradigm also has key insights for the rating part of ACs, namely, in selecting dimensions, designing behavioral checklists, screening assessors, and training assessors. Finally, the impact of this new AC exercise paradigm is anticipated on important AC outcomes such as reliability, internal/external construct-related validity, criterion-related validity, assessee perceptions, and feedback effectiveness.