M.Com. (Industrial Psychology) / The quality of its managers is of great importance to any organisation and therefore it is essential that only suitable persons are appointed in managerial positions. Various techniques have been developed for the identification of managers of which some are very expensive. If managers are characterized by certain biographical traits, this information, which can be obtained cheaply, can be used to identify persons with managerial potential at an early stage. The hypotheses that have been formulated are that persons with managerial potential and persons without managerial potential differ significantly with regard to a number of biographical variables, and that managerial potential can be significantly predicted by means of certain biographical variables. In order to test these hypotheses information was obtained by means of two instruments. Managerial potential scores were obtained by means of an assessment centre whereafter it was transformed and summed. The upper and lower 27% were used as cut-off points in order to identify the managerial potential group and the non-managerial potential group, respectively. Biographical information was obtained by administering a biographical inventory consisting of 40 questions to persons attending the assessment center...

M.Com. / Please refer to full text to view abstract