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Competency based application forms (CBAFs) have been used in employee selection for nearly forty years, yet relatively little research attention has been paid to them (Ash, Johnson, Levine & McDaniel, 1989; Brown & Campion, 1994; Levine & Flory, 1975; Robertson & Smith, 2001). This thesis explored a number of issues relating to the . function of CBAFs within the selection process, predominantly in regard to their role as a predictive selection method. The principle of behavioural consistency (Wernimont & Campbell, 1968) was invoked to provide a theoretical rationale for their potential ability to predict job performance, and the small body of supportive empirical evidence was reviewed (Lamsdale, Wood &MUlrooney, 1999; Patterson, Ferguson, Norfolk & Lane, 2005; Patterson, Norfolk, F~rguson & Lane, 2003). However, variations in organisational practice may make these findings difficult to generalise to all contexts where CBAFs are used. A theoretical case was built to suggest that both organisational and applicant processes surrounding the use of CBAFs could moderate their predictive validity. Accordingly, three fixed-design ~tuqies were conducted to empirically identify the existence of such artifacts. . First, a cross-sectional questionnaire survey showed that whilst 38% of UK organisations (N=675) were collecting information on competencies or skills required for the job, less than half of them used a job analysis to inform the construction of such forms, one quarter of recruiters were given no scoring gUidelines and there was little evidence of predictive validation studies. Second, a non-experimental comparative field study (N=194) suggested that CBAF answers were subject to impression management, with graduate job applicants scoring significantly higher impression management scale scores than job incumbents. Third, a quasi-experimental pre-test post-test design demonstrated that the type of rating scale used by assessors (N=30) influenced the amount of interrater convergence in CBAF judgements; the use of evaluative rating scales resulted in no ~cceptable convergence, whilst the use of descriptive rating scales did increase convergence for total CBAF score, although not for each of the individual questions. Combining the previous research findings (Patterson ef a/., 2005; Patterson ef al., 2003) with the results presented in t~is thesis, it is reasonable to conclude that CBAFs can function as' a predictive selection method if artifacts in the processes surrounding their use are limited, and suggestions for recruiters are given here. Coupled with recognition that CBAFs may also be a useful tool for legal defensibility, positive applicant reactions and pre-entry socialisation, CBAFs could play a more powerful role in the selection process than currently utilised by many recruiters. As such, CBAFs present many more avenues for research, to build upon the beginnings of the literature base presented here.

The transformation to a capitalist market society and the unification of East and West Germany in 1990 created immense economic and social changes in East Germany (the former German Democratic Republic). Economic restructuring led to massive unemployment which in turn caused social dislocations including changes in the gender division of labour. Previously East German women had identified with their dual roles as both workers and mothers but market reforms combined with the extension of the Federal Republic of Germany's (West Germany's) legal and welfare regimes to East Germany profoundly affected women's work and employment opportunities. This study documents the main changes to gender relations that took place as a result of economic and institutional changes in East Germany and goes on to investigate in detail one set of responses, by looking at a small sample of women in Leipzig who chose selfemployment (or entrepreneurship) as a vehicle for reconstructing their identities in a way that both maintains what they value about their former real-socialist identities, and also firmly embraces what they value about the new market society - autonomy, control and choice. Most of the women took up self-employment out of necessity, against the backdrop of local employment conditions at the time. The research also examines some of the challenges that these women faced in starting their own businesses, and the role of family and other networks. East German women have been characterised as losers from unification; the move to self-employment was a means of limiting such loss and of preserving their identities as 'qualified workers' while adapting to the new market society.