Measuring Managerial Potential and Intervening to Improve the Racial Equity of Upward Mobility Decisions.
Abstract
The present study brings together theory-method traditions that normally do not intersect: psychometric measurement and intergroup intervention. Scholarship about the measurement of management potential emphasizes statistical models and techniques, draws on a long historical tradition of inductive empirical generalizations, and remains comparatively free of theoretical explanations as to why the patterns of empirical findings emerge as they do. The paper proceeds according to three major sections with subdivisions within each. The first recasts the empirical literatures on managerial performance assessment and on upward mobility decisions in terms of intergroup theory. To do this, wer review key concepts about steady states in intergroup theory and then use these propositions to increase the explanatory power that can be brought to the empirical literature. The second part describes the elements of a major organizational intervention program to improve the racial equity of upward mobility decisions. Key concepts are reviewed about changing ract relations in organiations and show how the intervention program was designed directly from these ideas. The third section presents an empirical analysis of the data developed from the intervention program. This section examines the statistical properties of the measures of managerial potential developed for the intervention and traces the selection process through three phases of deliberations.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Apr 01, 1985
- Accession Number
- ADA158892
Entities
People
- C. P. Alderfer
- R. C. Tucker
Organizations
- Yale University