The SIOP Exchange

Competency Modeling

By Tom Stone, SIOP Blogger

Hello, I’m Tom Stone, Professor of Management at Oklahoma State University.

Competency modeling (CM) has fascinated me for several years although my initial reactions were skeptical.  Indeed, when I first learned about CM, I thought it might be the latest example of Marv Dunnette’s classic article, “Fads, fashions and folderol in psychology”, American Psychologist, 1966. However, CM appears to be well beyond a fad and may be challenging traditional job analysis (TJA) as the most preferred method of work analysis.

If CM is still a fuzzy concept for you, as it was for me for some time, I’d recommend two articles and one chapter.

Hiring Employees Focused on the Bottom Line: Is This the Right Strategy?

By Josh Denton, SIOP Blogger

Recently, I gave ideas to a journalist writing how applicants can demonstrate they are concerned with the bottom line. Granted, people will be concerned about customer service, teamwork, and doing an overall good job. However, the journalist’s angle was informing job seekers how to be seen as bottom-line applicants. Examples he provided were an employee whose role is computer work, but helping other departments by using a forklift, and a CEO modeling good behavior by using public transportation. However, I think this mindset misses a few crucial points.

The HRM Value Blog

By Mahesh Subramony, SIOP Blogger

In December 1912, a group of managers with different backgrounds, but with a common interest in systemizing the discipline dealing with the ‘handling of employees’ formed the Employment Managers’ Association in Boston. Their aims included “to discuss problems of employes (sic); their training and their efficiency”, and “to compare experiences which shall throw light on the failures and successes in conducting the employment department (Bloomfield, 1916; p.77).  Within the next decade, similar associations had formed in most large cities in the US, and the profession of employment management – a precursor of modern day HRM – was born.

Are We Ready To Innovate?

By Manisha Bajaj, SIOP Blogger

What’s going on?

What contributes to the success of smartphones such as iPhones and Droid? Is it their product design or is it the applications (Apps) that you can buy on them? Or is it both? Putting this another way…

• Would you still buy an iPhone or Droid if the weight loss or online music Apps were not available on these devices?
• Also, would any of these Apps be available if there were no devices like the iPhone or Droid?

The House that Management Consulting Built

By Paul Thoresen, SIOP Blogger

On the premiere episode, of House of Lies (a Showtime Original Series) “management consultants” are painted as soulless opportunists.  With the tagline Survival of the Slickest, this should not be very surprising to most. The show’s first episode portrays the main protagonist (played by Don Cheadle) attempting to win over clients with flattery, meaningless jargon, and several other less than productive tactics. Is this the general impression that the public holds for those who consult to management?