Abstract:

There is an ongoing controversy about whether individual behavior (OB) and human resource management (HRM) practices should be described objectively or evaluated subjectively. Moreover, problematizing reviews have criticized that much research combines both approaches, conflating the actual form and manifestation of behaviors and practices with others’ evaluations or interpretations of their function and meaning. I argue that this has led to two problems: (i) conflating causally distinct components, and (ii) creating a mismatch between conceptualizing and measuring behaviors and practices in a partially interpretive way but psychometrically validating them as if they were objective or perceptual constructs. While perceptual constructs are potentially objective and only biased by measurement error, interpretive constructs are inherently subjective and irreducible to actual behaviors or practices. Consequently, there are two overlooked but critical criteria for validating OB and HRM constructs: (i) separating the potentially objective or perceptual components from the interpretive ones, and (ii) accounting for the specificities of these different types of constructs. I describe why the first type requires theoretical counterfactuals, and the second type requires functional equivalence across people and situations. Moreover, based on a brief review of OB and HRM constructs, I show that often neither of these criteria is met, and I outline why the results of such research are causally indeterminate and may lead to illusory claims. To provide actionable advice for future research, I show how existing construct validation procedures can be extended to overcome the identified limitations and facilitate the production of trustworthy OB and HRM research.

General information:

Attendance to this seminar is possible by invitation only. Please send an e-mail to secbs-abs@uva.nl if your are interested in attending this seminar.