This essay is based on the work of arranging and making an inventory for an archive consisting of records from the Board of Education (Utbildningsnämnden) within the administration of the County Council in Uppsala, Sweden. This archive is kept at the County Councils Archives in Uppsala where I have done the work. I have documented the process and discussed the complex of problems relating to it. In this particular case the issue of limitation of the office of origin and the respect of the fonds, or the principle of provenance, have been of interest. This is due to the fact that the records had been rearranged and mixed with records with other origin related to the Board of Education. Records from the early existence of the board have previously been arranged and an inventory had been made. This earlier work covered the period of 1971-1978, when the board of education had a secretariat. The aim of the work was to arrange the records of the board during the period of 1979-1997. After this period the board ended being an independent body. With support from theories of respect of fonds my conclusion is that the Board of Education is a coherent office of origin for the fonds during its entire period of existence dur - ing the years 1971-1997. I decided to make the first inventory a part of the new one in order to keep a logical continuity of the records and the inventory. Creating a subordinate archive with its own inventory would make the whole seem badly arranged and complicate the finding of records. Based on the respect of fonds I used the previous inventory to a large extent. The knowledge and understanding I gained thanks to the fact that I was able see the complete fonds made me do some changes. The archive consist of files based on journals to a large ex - tent, which makes a large part of the records easy to find. The work in combination with the essay constitutes my one year master’s thesis in archival science.

Because of the outcomes associated with employee turnover, few areas have been researched as extensively in the field of Industrial/Organizational Psychology (Cotton&Tuttle, 1986). Correlates and consequences of employee turnover have been widely examined, though less expansive research has been dedicated to identifying (and potentially screening) turnover prone candidates. To address this concern, the comparative utility of three personality measures for predicting voluntary turnover in law enforcement was assessed. Self-report predictor measures consisted of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2, the most widely used instrument in this industry, and the Personality Research Form-E. The implicit personality measure for this investigation was the Conditional Reasoning Test for Aggression (James, 1998). In line with previous research (e.g., Hough, 1998), self-report job applicant scores indicated a defensive or self-presentation bias, whereas the CRT-A did not. Normative and comparative data for all predictor measures are presented to further knowledge for the researcher and practitioner. The importance of context, in this case the influence of the economy on attrition rates, is also discussed.

The effect of Socially Desirable Responding (SDR) and response distortion on personality and selection measures has been debated for decades (Edwards, 1957b; Messick&Jackson, 1961; Morgeson et al., 2007, Ones, Viswesvaran,&Reiss, 1996). One area of this broad topic that has received less attention over the years has been the effectiveness of the scales used to measure SDR when evidence of potential response distortion is present. Using a MANOVA, this study found significant differences between job candidate and incumbent responses on the scales of the 16PF (Cattell&Cattell, 1995), which can be indicative of SDR (Rosse et al., 1998). However, no difference between the groups was found on the Impression Management scale used to measure SDR. Differences based on the job function of the respondents were also explored.

Although interest inventories have a long history in the field of career counseling, vocational interests have received limited attention in Industrial-Organizational (I-O) psychology. To assess the potential utility of interest inventories in the field of I-O psychology, 82 I-O psychologists with expertise in employee selection and equal employment opportunity law completed a survey assessing their expert opinion on the utility of interest inventories for employee selection decisions. Opinion on potential legal liability and discriminatory impact of the use of interest inventories was also assessed. Hypothesis 1, which stated a majority of respondents would indicate they have little to moderate knowledge of vocational interests, was supported. Hypothesis 2, which stated a majority of respondents would indicate agreement that interest inventories can be used for employee selection, was not supported. Hypothesis 3, which stated a majority of respondents would indicate agreement that more research into interest inventories is warranted, was supported. Hypothesis 4, which stated majority of respondents would indicate that the use of interest inventories would likely lead to legal liability for the employer, was not supported. Additional analyses were run to investigate other relationships of interest. Results of additional analyses indicated that participants indicated that interest inventories could be utilized in positive selection contexts as interest inventories likely may have incremental validity over traditional selection instruments. However, experts did not expect utility for interest inventories in negative selection contexts. Consequently, the results of this study indicate interest inventories likely have an array of useful applications in I-O psychology. Further research is warranted to determine which of these applications will provide utility and whether or not selection contexts will prove to be among those applications. Additional implications and limitations of findings are discussed, and directions for future research are considered.

The Neuropsychological Symptom Inventory (NSI; Rattan, Dean, & Rattan, 1989), a self report measure of psychiatric and neurological symptoms, was revised to be presented in an electronic format. This revised instrument, the Neuropsychological Symptom Scale (Dean, 2010), was administered to 1,141 adult volunteers from a medium-sized Midwestern university. The collected data was subjected to exploratory factor analysis which suggested three primary factors related to emotional, cognitive, and somatosensory functioning. The items on the NSS were then organized into three subscales reflecting these areas of functioning. A fourth experimental subscale was also created to facilitate the collection of data on items that did not load on any of the three primary subscales. Item Response Theory (IRT) analysis and Classical Test Theory (CTT) approaches were then applied and compared as means of developing standard scores on the three primary subscales of the NSS. The results of these analyses are provided along with recommendations related to the further development of the NSS as an assessment tool. / Department of Educational Psychology

The main focus of this thesis is the employment decisions of firms. The thesis consists of three self-contained but closely related essays, all enlightening employment dynamics in different ways. The thesis is mainly empirical but there are also some theoretical developments when existing theory is insufficient to explain the empirical findings. The impact on employment of product market conditions and labor market conditions facing firms are investigated. The results suggest that product demand has a robust impact on firms’ employment dynamics, but also the market price, the wage costs, and the matching between vacancies and unemployed workers seem to matter. The empirical evidence of the relevance of imperfect competition in the product market is important, particularly since most research on labor market dynamics has assumed perfect competition. The results with respect to matching of vacancies and unemployed workers contradict the standard search and matching model as well as simple efficiency-wage or bargaining models with wage rigidity and excess supply but no frictions in the labor market. A richer model of the labor market is needed to explain the results, including on-the-job search and perhaps more heterogeneity between employed and unemployed workers. Essay I, “What are the Determinants of Hiring? - The Role of Demand and Supply Factors”, studies the importance of demand and supply factors for hiring in local labor markets. Essay II, “Vacancy Matching and Labor Market Conditions”, studies the probability of filling a vacancy, how it varies with the number of unemployed and the number of vacancies in the local labor market, and what impact it has on firms’ employment dynamics. Essay III, “The Dynamics of Firms’ Factor Demand”, studies firm-level adjustments of employment, the capital stock, and inventories in response to exogenous shocks theoretically and empirically. These three decisions have typically been studied one at the time, but here they are studied together in a way which allows for interactions and a better understanding of firm behavior.

Diss. (sammanfattning) Umeå : Sveriges lantbruksuniv., 2007. / Härtill 6 uppsatser.

Diss. (sammanfattning). Umeå : Sveriges lantbruksuniv., 2003. / Härtill 5 uppsatser.

Diss. (sammanfattning) Uppsala : Sveriges lantbruksuniv. / Härtill 7 uppsatser.

Diss. (sammanfattning) Umeå : Sveriges lantbruksuniv., 2006. / Härtill 5 uppsatser.