Legislative pressures are being brought to bear on South African employers to demonstrate that occupational assessment is scientifically valid and culturefair. The development of valid and reliable performance-based assessment tools will enable employers to meet these requirements. The general aim of this research was to validate a performance-based assessment battery for the placement of sales representatives. A literature survey examined alternative assessment measures and methods of performance measurement, leading to the conclusion that the combination of the work sample as a predictor measure and the managerial rating of performance as a criterion measure offer a practical and cost-effective assessment process to the sales manager. The empirical study involved 54 sales persons working for the Commercial division of an oil marketing company, selling products and services to the commercial and industrial market. By means of the empirical study, a significant correlation was found between performance of sales representatives in terms of the performance-based assessment battery for the entry level of the career ladder and their behaviour in the field as measured by the managerial performance rating instrument. The limitations of the sample, however, prevent the results from being generalised to other organisations.

Legislative pressures are being brought to bear on South African employers to demonstrate that occupational assessment is scientifically valid and culture-fair. The development of valid and reliable performance-based assessment tools will enable employers to meet these requirements. The general aim of this research was to validate a performance-based assessment battery for the placement of sales representatives. A literature survey examined alternative assessment measures and methods of performance measurement, leading to the conclusion that the combination of the work sample as a predictor measure and the managerial rating of performance as a criterion measure offer a practical and cost-effective assessment process to the sales manager. The empirical study involved 54 sales persons working for the Commercial division of an oil marketing company, selling products and services to the commercial and industrial market. By means of the empirical study, a significant correlation was found between performance of sales representatives in terms of the performance-based assessment battery for the entry level of the career ladder and their behaviour in the field as measured by the managerial performance rating instrument. The limitations of the sample, however, prevent the results from being generalised to other organisations. / Industrial & Organisational Psychology / M.A. (Industrial Psychology)

Legislative pressures are being brought to bear on South African employers to demonstrate that occupational assessment is scientifically valid and culture-fair. The development of valid and reliable performance-based assessment tools will enable employers to meet these requirements. The general aim of this research was to validate a performance-based assessment battery for the placement of sales representatives. A literature survey examined alternative assessment measures and methods of performance measurement, leading to the conclusion that the combination of the work sample as a predictor measure and the managerial rating of performance as a criterion measure offer a practical and cost-effective assessment process to the sales manager. The empirical study involved 54 sales persons working for the Commercial division of an oil marketing company, selling products and services to the commercial and industrial market. By means of the empirical study, a significant correlation was found between performance of sales representatives in terms of the performance-based assessment battery for the entry level of the career ladder and their behaviour in the field as measured by the managerial performance rating instrument. The limitations of the sample, however, prevent the results from being generalised to other organisations. / Industrial and Organisational Psychology / M.A. (Industrial Psychology)

Yes / This paper examines whether and how bidders' conservative tone in 10-K filings influences the subsequent mergers and acquisitions (M&A) investment decisions of these US firms from 1996 to 2013. Based on 39,260 firm-year observations, we find, consistent with behavioural consistency theory, that conservative bidders are less likely to engage in M&A deals. Further, those that decide to engage in M&As are likely to acquire public targets and within-industry firms. These bidders are inclined to employ more stock acquisitions than cash acquisitions. Our results also indicate that conservative bidders experience abnormally poor stock returns around the announcements of M&A investments. This provides new insights on the mechanism through which bidders' sentiments influence shareholders' wealth. Overall, these findings highlight the implications of the textual sentiment of corporate disclosure for the forecasting of corporate investment and financing decisions. Our results have practical implications, since they shed light on the value relevance of the information content of major Securities Exchange Commission (SEC)-mandated 10-K filings.

Throughout the animal kingdom, individuals often differ consistently from one another in how they cope with their environment. In particular, consistent behavioural variation, known as animal personality, is a substantial driver of a range of important ecological and evolutionary processes. As most animal species are social for at least part of their lives and group living is common, a crucial link between personality and the social context may be expected. In this thesis I systematically investigate this link, using three-spined stickleback fish (Gasterosteus aculeatus) as my model system. I begin by showing that fish vary consistently in their boldness and sociability, with only boldness being positively linked to food intake for fish at rest. This finding provides support for evolutionary theory that links personality variation to life-history strategies, and lays the basis for work related to the social context. I continue by investigating how the social context may modulate personality variation and show that short contact with a social group may have carry-over effects and obfuscate personality expression when individuals are alone. Next, I observed fish in different pairs over time and found that social experience from both the current as well as previous social contexts are integrated in the risk-taking and leadership decisions of individuals but also depends on their boldness type. This result provides support for the importance of social feedback in the expression of personality differences. I go on to demonstrate that, in a pair, bolder fish have lower social attraction, with positive effects on individual’s leadership but negative effects on social coordination. Finally, by detailed tracking of the collective movements and group foraging of free-swimming shoals, I reveal boldness and sociability have complementary driving effects of on social structure, collective behaviour, and group functioning. Furthermore, I show that in turn the group composition determines the performance of individual personality types, providing a potential adaptive explanation for the maintenance of personality variation. Taken together, these studies provide an integrated account of animal personality and the social context and highlight the presence of a feedback loop between them, with personality variation being a key driver of collective behaviour and group functioning but also strongly affected and potentially maintained by it.