Interaction of social skill and general mental ability on job performance and salary.

Job and organizational changes have promoted the importance of social skill at work, yet research in this area has been limited. The authors investigated the interaction between social skill and general mental ability (GMA) in the explanation of job performance and salary, controlling for personality and demographic characteristics. The results indicated that the relationships between social skill and job performance were stronger among workers high than low in GMA. In a similar manner. the relationships between GMA and job performance were stronger among workers high than low in social skill. The interaction on salary indicated that increases in social skill (or GMA) for high-GMA (or social skill) individuals were associated with higher salary levels. It is interesting, however, that increases in social skill (or GMA) for those low in GMA (or social skill) contributed to lower salaries. Implications of these results and directions for future research are discussed.

The age context of performance-evaluation decisions.

Organizational demography contends that demographic characteristics of individuals, examined at individual, dyadic, group, and organizational levels of analysis, exert significant effects on organizational processes. The purpose of this article was to test the contextual effects created by the interaction of work-group age composition and supervisor age on supervisor evaluations of subordinate performance. Two competing models of age demography were tested. The similarity model predicts that supervisors similar in age to the work group they supervise will issue generally higher performance ratings. The dissimilarity model, developed in this article, predicts the opposite. Support was indicated for the dissimilarity model. Implications of the results are discussed.

Quality circles in the United States: a conceptual reevaluation.

Faced with industrial decline, American managers have begun searching for strategies for increasing productivity. Recent attention has focused on Japanese management practices, particularly on quality circles (QCs). Drawing upon social science research, this article evaluates the assumptions behind QCs implemented in the United States. The authors present a conceptual analysis that indicates possible reasons for the differing rates of success for QCs in Japan and the U.S. The article also makes suggestions for the effective implementation of American QCs.

Causal attributions, affect, and expectations for a day's work performance.

Two studies were conducted to explore the relationships between perceived job performance, causal attributions, employee affect, and expectations for a day's work. In both studies, causal categories derived from previous attribution research were found to correspond with employee job explanations. However, results somewhat inconsistent with previous laboratory studies were obtained.