Aamodt - glossary .b

• 360-degree feedback - A performance appraisal system in which feedback is obtained from multiple sources such as supervisors, subordinates, and peers.
• Ability - A basic capacity for performing a wide range of different tasks, acquiring knowledge, or developing a skill.
• Absolute amount - The actual salary paid for a particular job.
• Acceptance stage - The fourth and final stage of emotional reaction to downsizing, in which employees accept that layoffs will occur and are ready to take steps to secure their future.
• Accommodating style - The conflict style of a person who tends to respond to conflict by giving in to the other person
• Achievement-oriented style - In path–goal theory, a leadership style in which the leader sets challenging goals and rewards achievement.
• Adaptation - The fourth stage of change, in which employees try to adapt to new policies and procedures.
• Additive tasks - Tasks for which the group’s performance is equal to the sum of the performances of each individual group member.
• Adverse impact - An employment practice that results in members of a protected class being negatively affected at a higher rate than members of the majority class. Adverse impact is usually determined by the four-fifths rule.
• AET - An ergonomic job analysis method developed in Germany (Arbeitswissenschaftliches Erhebungsverfahren zur Tätigkeitsanalyse).
• Affect - Feelings or emotion.
• Affective commitment - The extent to which an employee wants to remain with an organization and cares about the organization.
• Affective identity motivation - The motivation to lead as a result of a desire to be in charge and lead others.
• Affiliation style - A leadership style in which the individual leads by caring about others and that is most effective in a climate of anxiety.
• Affirmative action - The process of ensuring proportional representation of employees based on variables such as race and sex.

  • Affirmative-action strategies - include intentional recruitment of minority applicants, identification and removal of employment practices working against minority applicants and employees, and preferential hiring and promotion of mino
• Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA)- A federal law that, with its amendments, forbids discrimination against an individual who is over the age of 40.
• Alternate-forms reliability - The extent to which two forms of the same test are similar.
• Ammerman technique - A job analysis method in which a group of job experts identifies the objectives and standards to be met by the ideal worker.
• Anger stage - The second stage of emotional reaction to downsizing, in which employees become angry at the organization.
• Anxiety - An organizational climate in which worry predominates.
• Application of training - Measurement of the effectiveness of training by determining the extent to which employees apply the material taught in a training program.
• Apply-in-person ads - Recruitment ads that instruct applicants to apply in person rather than to call or send résumés
• Apprentice training - A training program, usually found in the craft and building trades, in which employees combine formal coursework with formal on-the-job training.
• Arbitration - A method of resolving conflicts in which a neutral third party is asked to choose which side is correct.
• Archival research - Research that involves the use of previously collected data
• Army Alpha - An intelligence test developed during World War I and used by the army for soldiers who can read.
• Army Beta - An intelligence test developed during World War I and used by the army for soldiers who cannot read.
• Artifacts - The things people surround themselves with (clothes, jewelry, office decorations, cars, etc.) that communicate information about the person.
• Assessment center - A method of selecting employees in which applicants participate in several job-related activities, at least one of which must be a simulation, and are rated by several trained evaluators.
• Assimilated - A description of a message in which the information has been modified to fit the existing beliefs and knowledge of the person sending the message before it is passed on to another person
• Assimilation - A type of rating error in which raters base their rating of an employee during one rating period on the ratings the rater gave during a previous period.
• Asynchronous technologies - Distance learning programs in which employees can complete the training at their own pace and at a time of their choosing.
• Attitude survey - A form of upward communication in which a survey is conducted to determine employee attitudes about an organization.
• Attitudinal Listening Profile - A test developed by Geier and Downey that measures individual listening styles.
• Attractiveness - The extent to which a leader is appealing to look at.
• Audience effects - The effect on behavior when one or more people passively watch the behavior of another person.
• Authentic leadership - A leadership theory stating that leaders should be honest and open and lead out of a desire to serve others rather than a desire for self-gain.
• Autocratic I - strategy Leaders use available information to make a decision without consulting their subordinates.
• Autocratic II - strategy Leaders obtain necessary information from their subordinates and then make their own decision.
• Averaging versus adding model - A model proposed by Anderson that postulates that our impressions are based more on the average value of each impression than on the sum of the values for each impression.