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The purpose of this paper is to identify and share the specific factors that cause senior human resource (HR) leaders to lose their jobs. The paper will also provide readers with key lessons to help them improve their senior HR leadership talents and acumen while at the same time providing them with a checklist of specific questions that address the causes of termination.

In this paper, the authors will describe a leadership development process that they use to help senior HR leaders identify the causes of senior HR leadership failure. A focus group methodology is used so that senior leaders are able to share their experience and input in response to the question, “Based on your experience, what are the primary factors that will cause a senior HR leader to be terminated from their position?” In this paper, the authors will share what they have learned from these HR leaders having gone to this process with hundreds of senior HR leaders. The authors will also provide the readers with lessons based on their input.

Senior HR leader focus groups revealed a set of “failure factors” that included a lack of understanding of the core business model, inability to fashion an effective value-added HR strategy, poor working relationships with members of the senior leadership team, a marked lack of emotional intelligence, political factors and an inability to create best HR practices and leverage technology, among others. Participant leaders provided rich dialogue and discussion points that provide the readers with a better understanding of why senior HR leaders fail, and equally important, how to avoid HR leadership failure.

The basis for the findings stated in this paper is based on the content analysis of a convenience sample which may limit the generalizability of these findings. Having said that, the findings will provide the readers with a rich context for better understanding of the nature of senior HR leaders’ terminations.

The practical implications of this project provide the readers with any number of important lessons requiring application. From a senior HR leader’s perspective, the key lessons from this research provide them with a checklist of factors that need attention and forging and implementing an effective HR strategy and set of best practices. At the organizational level, these findings can serve as a needs assessment that can be used in senior HR leader selection, orientation and development.

Any time a paper provides guidelines that can help prevent senior leadership failure, there is a positive social effect for both organizations and individuals operating in these environments. The authors believe that the findings will provide the readers with effective guidelines to improve the overall effectiveness of senior HR leaders when properly implemented. Previous research makes it clear that when organizations have great HR practices, the quality of work life for organizational members moves in the right direction.

As a general rule, there is limited research on the subject matter of why leaders fail while antidotal information and literature abound. It is the authors purpose to provide the readers of Strategic HR Review, the relevant information based on the input of their fellow members of the C-suite so as to improve their performance and provide their organizations with the template for organizational HR success.

In this exploratory study, the relationships between the emotional intelligence (EI) of self‐directed teams and two dimensions of team interpersonal process team task orientation and team maintenance function were investigated using the five dimensional model of emotional intelligence measured by the BarOn Emotional Quotient Inventory (EQ‐i®) in a sample of thirty‐three work teams. Average team emotional intelligence scores were calculated by aggregating the individual emotional intelligence scores of each team member and dividing the sum by the number of team members. Regression analyses of team averaged emotional intelligence across all five sub‐dimensions of the EQ‐i® reveal significant predictive relationships between team averaged interpersonal EI and Team Task Orientation (r =.37) and team averaged interpersonal EI and Team Maintenance Functions (r =.31). Team averaged interpersonal EI predicted 10 percent of the variance in Team Maintenance Function while team averaged interpersonal EI and team averaged general mood EI combined to predict 16 percent of the variance in Team Task Orientation. Directions for future research are presented.

The purpose of this two-part paper is to explore the current practices being employed in the formal performance appraisal process in a cross-section of US service and manufacturing organizations. In this paper, the authors identify the current trends that emerged from this research study and the improvement opportunities that exist for organizations that currently engage in the practice of formally appraising their personnel.

The formal performance appraisal process, procedure, and rating form from 183 US organizations were reviewed by a three-person review panel and were content analyzed to identify current trends and opportunities for improvement.

This qualitative analysis revealed that the average rating procedure had been in place for 5.5 years, to serve a wide variety of purposes, identified critical gaps in training, made it clear that organizations employ a wide variety of performance criteria in assessing their people.

The biggest limitation of this research is the fact that a convenience sample of 183 organizations was employed as the basis for this study.

Data on the actual formal performance appraisal process of organizations are rather limited and this research provides critical insight into current practice limiting potential generalizability.

The social implications of this research suggests that organizations can do a much better job of equipping their leaders/employees to more effectively reap the organizational benefits of this key practice.

Research in this area is not prevalent so this is a descriptive research study that both researchers and organizations can use to further their knowledge in formal performance appraisals.

The purpose of this two-part paper is to explore the current practices being employed in the formal performance appraisal process in a cross-section of US service and manufacturing organizations. In this paper, the authors identify the current trends that emerged from this research study and the improvement opportunities that exist for organizations that currently engage in the practice of formally appraising their personnel.

The formal performance appraisal process, procedure, and rating form from 183 US organizations were reviewed by a three-person review panel and were content analyzed to identify current trends and opportunities for improvement.

This qualitative analysis revealed that the average rating procedure had been in place for 5.5 years, to serve a wide variety of purposes, identified critical gaps in training, made it clear that organizations employ a wide variety of performance criteria in assessing their people.

The biggest limitation of this research is the fact that a convenience sample of 183 organizations was employed as the basis for this study.

Data on the actual formal performance appraisal process of organizations is rather limited and this research provides critical insight into current practice limiting potential generalizability.

The social implications of this research suggests that organizations can do a much better job of equipping their leaders/employees to more effectively reap the organizational benefits of this key practice.

Research in this area is not prevalent so this is a descriptive research study that both researchers and organizations can use to further their knowledge in formal performance appraisals.

The increase in ownership and use of mobile-based devices among college students creates unique opportunities for faculty to develop highly engaging learning environments. With many educational institutions offering campus-wide Wi-Fi, students have the ability to use their mobile devices, including cell phones, tablets, and laptops for engaging with curriculum, specifically with leadership concepts. One method of engaging students is through the use of mobile-based polling, as an audience response system (ARS). Although most studies on the use of ARS in educational settings include traditional response system methods (e.g., clickers), emerging technologies have fueled interest in mobile-based polling. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects that mobile-based polling has among students of leadership when used as an audience response system. A survey regarding perceptions of mobile-based polling was administered to students enrolled in undergraduate leadership courses with the purpose of understanding its importance on various aspects of student engagement. Results regarding their polling experiences indicated that students became highly engaged on three levels— behaviorally, emotionally, and cognitively. Additionally, survey responses suggested that students viewed mobile-based polling as viable for purposes outside of the classroom. Suggestions for using mobile-based polling for learning leadership concepts are also presented. The authors of this study not only present mobile-based polling as an emerging technology with advantages over traditional clickers, but as a pedagogical approach for increasing student engagement and as a tool for enhancing leadership skills.

The aim of this paper is to examine the motivations and benefits for pursuing or not pursuing the PHR and SPHR.

Using a sample of 1,862 participants, the study used multinomial logistic and hierarchical linear regression to test six hypotheses.

Participants pursuing SPHR were more likely to report intrinsic motivations pursuing certification, while PHR respondents were more likely to report extrinsic reasons. Other‐driven reasons were not significant predictors. Respondents not pursuing certification saw a lack of perceived benefits. Non‐pursuers of SPHR were concerned about time constraints. The pursuing and non‐pursuing groups did exhibit differences in their demographic and commitment profiles.

The sample is limited to only those professionals active in their local SHRM chapters. The data were cross‐sectional. Future research needs to address the validity of Human Resource Certification Institute (HRCI) certification and the lack of empirical research on the connection between certification and objective measures of job performance.

Results regarding perceived certification benefits suggest that organizations could run into retention problems if HR professionals continue to view marketability as the top benefit and view pay and promotion as unaffected by certification. The profiles of pursuers and non‐pursuers suggest that HRCI should target younger, less educated professionals when promoting the PHR and highlight increased marketability as the key benefit. Furthermore, HRCI should target those with high levels of affective commitment when promoting the SPHR.

The paper provides some of the first empirical evidence for why professionals pursue or do not pursue PHR and SPHR certification.

The purpose of this paper is to learn how managers make downsizing decisions.

Participants read a created organizational scenario and 25 hypothetical employee profiles and then chose five employees to lay off.

Older and minority applicants were chosen most often. No significance was found for performance. Rater group membership in race, gender, and age were significant predictors of layoff decisions.

Because the participants were in a controlled environment they may have disregarded other information often available to decision makers. The majority of the sample was students who may be unrepresentative of managers who make layoff decisions. The inclusion of managers who have made downsizing decisions was designed to help address this limitation.

An employer's use of personal characteristics in making downsizing decisions may ultimately affect the aftermath of downsizing.

This is one of the first studies to study the decision‐making process of layoffs.

Purpose – The purpose of this chapter is to provide a comprehensive overview of the substance use disparities among American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) youth, the contributing factors to these disparities, proven and promising approaches through strengths-based methods, barriers to implementation of prevention and treatment efforts, and future recommendations for effective programs and research.

Approach – We have conducted a thorough literature review of relevant research studies, as well as a review of government, tribal, and community-based curricula and resources. This review of programs is not exhaustive but provides several examples of best practices in the field and suggestions for future directions.

Social implications – We strongly advocate that to accurately explore the true etiology of substance abuse and to respond to the concerns that AI/AN have prioritized, it is necessary to utilize a strengths-based approach and draw upon traditional AI/AN perspectives and values, and active community participation in the process. More specifically, prevention and treatment programs should use methods that incorporate elders or intergenerational approaches; foster individual and family skills-building; promote traditional healing methods to recognize and treat historical, cultural, and intergenerational and personal trauma; focus on early intervention; and tailor efforts to each Native nation or community.

Value – Ultimately, to reduce substance abuse disparities in AI/AN youth, we must find better ways to merge traditional Native practices with western behavioral health to ensure cultural competency, as well as to develop mechanisms to effect system- and policy-level changes that reduce barriers to care and promote the well-being of AI/AN youth, families, and communities.

I present and evaluate various explanations for why new workers who were sponsored by oldtimers tend to have better job outcomes (better performance, more satisfaction, and less turnover) than do new workers who were not sponsored.

My evaluations involve searching for evidence that fits (or does not fit) each of the explanations.

The two most popular explanations argue that the job benefits of sponsorship arise because (a) sponsored newcomers have more realistic job expectations than do unsponsored newcomers, or (b) the quality of sponsored newcomers is greater than that of unsponsored newcomers. Unfortunately, these explanations have weak empirical support. A third explanation, largely untested as yet, attributes the performance benefits of sponsorship to social pressures that can arise when someone is sponsored for a job. These pressures include efforts by newcomers to repay the people who sponsored them, efforts by sponsors to assist the newcomers they sponsored after those persons have been hired, and stereotypes among coworkers about the kinds of people who get jobs through sponsors. Although limited as yet, the evidence regarding this new explanation seems promising.

More research on this third explanation for sponsorship effects should be done. Suggestions for how to do such research are reviewed and a relevant experiment is presented.

The ideas and evidence presented here could help employers who want to improve the job outcomes of their new workers. Poor outcomes among such persons are a major problem in many settings.

Although some of my ideas have been mentioned by others, they were not been described in much detail, nor were they tested. My hope is that this chapter will promote new theory and research on the performance benefits of sponsorship, a topic that has been largely ignored in recent years.

Reading comprehension is a critical area of instruction for all students, but particularly for students with learning disabilities (LD) that impede their ability to understand what they read. This synthesis includes 30 intervention studies on reading comprehension for students with LD conducted in several countries and all regions of the United States. Specifically, the current review focuses on the efficacy of these strategies across grade levels, with various types of reading materials, and in conjunction with other instructional components that have potential to enhance instructional benefits to students. Results suggest that reading comprehension instruction is effective for improving the skills of this population.