Unit IV IOP

annihilate one perspective in favor of another. When practiced in this spirit, postmodernist thought can be refreshing, challenging, and en- ergizing. In addition, it can potentially stimulate significant breakthroughs in theory develop- ment in academia and in problem solving in practice.

Job Feedback: Giving, Seeking, and Us- ing Feedback for Performance Improve- ment (2nd ed.), by Manuel London. Mah- wah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2003.

Reviewed by James A. Breaugh, University of Mis- souri, St. Louis, Missouri.

In a variety of research domains (e.g., em- ployee socialization, career development), the importance of job-related feedback is generally accepted. For example, specific and timely feed- back from a coworker may help a new employee to master unfamiliar duties. Conversely, feed- back that is negative in tone and lacking in detail may cause a new employee to become demoralized. Although feedback’s importance is widely accepted, this does not mean that indi- viduals are particularly good at giving or receiv- ing feedback. For example, research has shown that the feedback provided by managers is often lacking in specificity, harsh in tone, and/or de- livered in an untimely manner. Potentially worse, sometimes feedback is simply not pro- vided.

In the second edition of Job Feedback, Manuel London has provided a detailed treatment of the topic of job feedback. Although London de- scribes his primary audience as students in courses dealing with human resource manage- ment, career development, and other related topics, he believes Job Feedback will be a valu- able resource for practitioners who are responsi- ble for career development systems or related pro- grams and for managers and employees who are interested in improving how they give and receive feedback. Writing a book for such a varied audi- ence is quite a challenge. However, having pe- rused Job Feedback, I believe it has potential value for each of the audiences targeted.

Before providing an overview of the contents of Job Feedback, it is important to mention its

author’s credentials. Professor London has expe- rience as a researcher studying the topic, as a manager dealing with feedback in his role at AT&T, and as a consultant working with organi- zations to establish formal feedback systems. His varied experiences allow him to provide a multitude of perspectives on feedback-related issues (e.g., processing multisource feedback), which enrich his treatment of them.

Job Feedback is divided into four sections. The first section, which consists of four chapters, fo- cuses on fundamental issues related to person perception. Among the topics addressed in these chapters are (1) the benefits of feedback (e.g., it has the potential to direct and motivate behav- ior), (2) the differences between constructive and destructive feedback (e.g., focusing on the recip- ient’s behavior versus assigning blame), (3) is- sues related to employee self-evaluation (e.g., self-assessment accuracy), (4) factors affecting feedback seeking (e.g., managing one’s impres- sion versus improving one’s performance), and (5) factors that affect how we process informa- tion about others (e.g., evaluator motivation). In addressing these and other topics, London does a good job of summarizing relevant literature and of offering useful advice for a practitioner.

The second section of the book is entitled “Per- formance Evaluation Methods.” The four chap- ters composing this section address (1) perfor- mance appraisals (e.g., focusing on task versus contextual performance, approaches to rater train- ing), (2) multisource feedback methods (e.g., 360- degree feedback, employee attitude surveys used for evaluation purposes), (3) the value of multi- source feedback (e.g., its linkage to objective mea- sures of performance), and (4) the use of assess- ment centers and business simulations (e.g., Looking Glass) as standardized assessment tools for providing feedback to participants.

The third section is entitled “Supporting the Use of Feedback.” The three chapters in this section focus on the critical role a manager plays in making feedback effective. Among the topics addressed are: (1) understanding an em- ployee’s readiness for change (e.g., has an em- ployee had time to digest the feedback he or she has received?), (2) how to conduct feedback re- views (e.g., the value of self-appraisals), (3) man- agerial biases (e.g., the Golem effect), (4) key elements of coaching (e.g., empathy), and (5) the need to hold managers and recipients account- able (e.g., by measuring performance improve- ment).

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“Future Directions” is the final section of Job Feedback. The two chapters in this section ad- dress how changes in the workplace have influ- enced the importance and the use of feedback. Three topics are given particular emphasis. First, the author considers feedback in teams. Among the issues addressed are group dynam- ics, shared mental models, team feedback, and group goal setting. Next, London discusses feed- back in the context of cross-cultural organiza- tions. Among the topics reviewed are the value of multisource feedback for expatriate manag- ers and how cultural differences may influence reactions to feedback. In the concluding chapter of the book, the author covers such issues as how technology (e.g., electronic monitoring) can change the nature of feedback.

Overall, there is much to like about Job Feed- back (e.g., research from disciplines not tradi- tionally drawn on is discussed, new directions for research are noted, the guidelines offered for practitioners are likely to improve implementa- tion efforts). Having said that, no book is perfect. As I read Job Feedback, there were occasions where I would like to have seen London probe more deeply into an issue, provide a different perspective, and so forth. Before noting a few of my reservations about this book, I should em- phasize that none of them are major in nature.

Given the complexity of some of the issues addressed in Job Feedback, I believe it would have been beneficial for London to introduce an organizing model early in the book and then utilize it in integrating material presented in different chapters. Such a model might have made the conceptual contributions of this book more apparent. Alternatively, in some of the chapters, London could have introduced distinct organizing models (e.g., one dealing with feed- back-seeking behavior). Earlier in the book, it would have been helpful if the author had more clearly described what he means by feedback. For example, London states that “feedback is the information people receive about their perfor- mance” (p. 11). To me, this suggests that the author conceptualizes feedback as a “received” message rather than as a “sent” message. I think this distinction merits more attention than London gives it. Similarly, consider the follow- ing passage:

Feedback is constructive when it offers concrete information that can be used. The intent is to help (i.e., maintain, correct, or improve behavior). It is

provided in such a way that it is used by the recipient. It is clear and easily understood. More- over, it is interpreted similarly by the source and the recipient (pp. 15–16).

At one place in this quote, London refers to feed- back that “can be used”; in another place, he suggests it “is used by the recipient.” This word- ing is ambiguous (e.g., if feedback can be used but isn’t, is it constructive?”). To me the state- ment that the “intent is to help” is also ambig- uous. If feedback concerns a “received” mes- sage, does “intent” refer to the recipient’s perception, regardless of whether the sender truly intended to help?

In addition, to the potential value of offering one or more organizing models and more clearly defining some fundamental concepts, I would have liked to see a few topics addressed in more detail. Among these are information seeking (it is addressed, but given the amount of recent research, I believe information seeking merits more consideration), the difference between per- formance ratings and performance judgments (as noted by Murphy and Cleveland [1995], the ratings provided do not always reflect underly- ing perceptions), the concept of a “true score” concerning performance (in discussing self- ratings, London refers to leniency; this concept suggests a true score), the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (given the frequent usage of this mea- sure, it might have merited coverage in Chapter 9), and stereotyping (it seems as though Banaji’s work on automatic stereotyping would have en- riched the author’s discussion of this topic). A final comment applies to the author’s discussion of empirical research on various topics. At least in a few places, it would have been helpful if London had conveyed a sense of effect size (e.g., minimal, moderate). Although statistically reli- able, some of the findings discussed are very modest in magnitude.

Despite the reservations just noted, I liked Job Feedback. Although a reader who is well versed in human resource management topics is likely to have previously come across many of the is- sues raised in Job Feedback in books and arti- cles on career management, employee social- ization, performance appraisal, and worker training, London has organized this information in a somewhat original way (i.e., the sole focus is on the feedback process per se). By combining a review of empirical research with recommen- dations for practitioners, I believe the author

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has provided a valuable resource for many readers.

REFERENCES

Banaji, M. R., Lemm, K. M., & Carpenter, S. J. 2001. Automatic and implicit processes in social cognition. In A. Tesser & N. Schwartz (Eds.), Blackwell handbook of social psy- chology: Intraindividual processes: 134 –158. Oxford: Blackwell.

Murphy, K. R., & Cleveland, J. N. 1995. Understanding perfor- mance appraisal. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Multiple Commitments in the Work- place: An Integrative Approach, by Aaron Cohen. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2003.

Reviewed by Daniel C. Feldman, University of Geor- gia, Athens, Georgia.

As the most recent volume in Erlbaum’s Series in Applied Psychology, Aaron Cohen’s Multiple Commitments at Work: An Integrative Approach tackles the subject of workplace commitment from the perspective of industrial/organiza- tional (I/O) psychology. The book’s major focus— and its major strength—is its attention to issues of construct validity and measurement.

Cohen begins the book with a thorough de- scription of the different types of commitment in organizational life, including commitment to the job, the workgroup (and/or the union), the or- ganization, and the profession. A major thesis of the book is that individuals hold multiple com- mitments in the workplace and that these vari- ous foci of commitment have different conse- quences for workplace behaviors. Accordingly, Cohen provides an exhaustive literature review of these different kinds of commitment, both at the conceptual level and measurement level.

Doctoral students and faculty looking for the current state of knowledge about commitment will be impressed by the multipage tables within the text that summarize the types of com- mitment used in various studies of commitment, the methodologies used, and populations stud- ied. Other multipage tables summarize the typologies of commitment forms, overall fit indices for various commitment models, and cor- relations of other variables with commitment.

Another feature that will undoubtedly prove valuable to readers is the appendix, which pro- vides the commitment scales actually used in most research studies today, complete with their response sets, sources of items, and scoring in- structions.

The greatest strength of the book by far, then, is its attention to issues of conceptualization and operationalization. The author provides rig- orous definitions of various terms in the commit- ment literature, he explains the interrelation- ships among different kinds of commitment, he differentiates commitment from other related constructs in the field (such as job involvement), and he does a scrupulous job of explaining mea- surement issues and challenges in conducting empirical research. Both for beginning scholars looking for a current state-of-the-art summary of commitment research and for more experienced scholars looking for nuanced discussions of subtle conceptual distinctions and measure- ment options, Multiple Commitments in the Workplace: An Integrative Approach will prove to be an invaluable resource.

The book is not quite as strong in its explora- tion of the context in which commitment to jobs, groups, occupations, and organizations devel- ops (or withers). While this volume certainly en- compasses all the relevant research from I/O psychology on commitment, at times Cohen does not draw as heavily or as effectively from other social science perspectives as he might have.

For example, after thoroughly discussing the construct validity and measurement issues, Co- hen turns his attention to work outcomes im- pacted by commitment (Chapter 6). Given the book’s I/O psychology focus, the outcomes dis- cussed here in the most depth are intentions to leave and turnover. What might have added some richness to this chapter, however, is more coverage of other relevant work outcomes, such as organizational citizenship behaviors (Organ, 1988). What types of commitment lead most strongly to altruism, conscientiousness, civic virtue, sportsmanship, and courtesy—and why? Conversely, how might lack of commitment lead to either acts of deviant behavior (Greenberg & Scott, 1995) or whistle-blowing activities (Miceli & Near, 1992)? If commitment is as important in organizational life as the author argues (and I agree), then the book would have been stronger

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