Effective Technical & Human Implementation of Computer-based Systems (ETHICS)

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Ethics, devised by Enid Mumford of the Manchester Business School is a methodology based on a participative approach to information systems development. In addition, it encompasses the socio-technical view that for a system to be effective the technology must fit closely with social and organisational factors. In particular, this means that an improved quality of working life and enhanced job satisfaction of the users must be a major objective of the systems design process. This is not simply to guard the interests of the users in the introduction of computing and technology, although this is obviously of major importance, but it is an essential prerequisite to achieve effective systems from an organisational and managerial viewpoint. To support her case, Mumford points to the failure of many traditionally performed system implementations, where technical and economic objectives were the only considerations.

The philosophy of ETHICS is different from most information system development methodologies (the fact that the philosophy is explicitly stated is a noticeable difference in its own right!). The philosophy is one which has evolved from organisational behaviour and perceives the development of computer systems not as a technical issue but as an organisational issue fundamentally concerned with the process of change. It is based on a socio-technical approach, where socio-technical is defined as being-

one which recognises the interaction of technology and people and produces work systems which are both technically efficient and have social characteristics which lead to high job satisfaction.

Mumford has also defined job satisfaction as-

the attainment of a good fit between what the employee is seeking from his work - his job needs, expectations and aspirations - and what he is required to do in his job - the organisational job requirements which mould his experience.

In order to ascertain how good the fit is, a theory for measuring job satisfaction has been developed on the various views of what is important in job satisfaction. Five areas have been identified-

. The knowledge fit a good fit exists when the employees believe their skills are being adequately used and that their knowledge is being developed to make them increasingly competent. It is recognised that different people have widely different expectations in this area, some want their skills developed while others are content with an easy life.

. The psychological fit a job must fit the employees status, advancement and work interest. These needs are recognised to vary according to age, background, education and class.

. The efficiency fit this is composed of three areas. First, the effort-reward bargain, which is the amount the employer is prepared to pay as opposed to the view of the employee about how much he is worth. While this is probably an area of prime importance to management, it is not necessarily a prime motivator for an employee. Second, work controls, which may be tight or loose but need to fit the employees expectations. Third, supervisory controls, such as necessary back-up facilities e.g. information, materials, specialist knowledge etc.

. The task-structure fit this measures the degree to which the employees tasks are regarded as being demanding and fulfilling. Particularly important are the number of skills required, the number and nature of targets, plus the feedback mechanism, the identity, distinctiveness and importance of tasks and the degree of autonomy and control over the tasks that the employee has. This measure is seen to be strongly related to technology and its method of employment. Technology can affect the task-structure fit substantially and can reduce the fit by simplification and repetitiveness. However, it is also seen as a variable which can be improved dramatically by designing the technical system to meet the requirements of the task-structure fit.

. The ethical fit this is also described as the social value fit and measures whether the values of the employee match those of the employer organisation. In some organisations, performance is everything, whilst others value other factors, e.g. service. Companies can be paternal or welfare oriented while others aim to achieve the characteristics of success, etc. The better the match of an organisations values with those of the employee, the higher the level of job satisfaction.

A second philosophical strand of the ETHICS methodology is participation. This is the involvement of those affected by a system being part of the decision-making process concerning the design and operation of that system. Users are involved in the decisions concerning the work process and how the use of technology might improve their job satisfaction.

In ETHICS the development of computer-based systems is seen as a change process and therefore it is likely to involve conflicts of interest between all the participants or actors in that process. These conflicts are not simply between management and worker, but often between worker and worker and manager and manager. The successful implementation of new systems is therefore a process of negotiation between the affected and interested parties. Obviously major affected and interested parties include the users themselves and if these people are left out of the decision-making process, the process of change is unlikely to be a success. This is not just because of resulting disaffection amongst the user group but, more positively, because they have so much to contribute in making the implementation a success. They are probably the most knowledgeable about the current workplace situation and the future requirements.

Mumford describes this situation as-

All change involves some conflicts of interest. To be resolved, these conflicts need to be recognised, brought out into the open, negotiated and a solution arrived at which largely meets the interests of all the parties in the situation...successful change strategies require institutional mechanisms which enable all these interests to be represented, and participation provides these.

It is recognised in practice that participation means different things to different people and that parties involved may have quite different reasons for wanting participation and quite different expectations concerning the benefits. Management may see it as a way of achieving changes that would otherwise be rejected.

Mumford distinguishes between three levels of participation-

Consultative participation is the lowest level of participation and leaves the main design tasks to the systems analysts, but tries to ensure that all staff in the user department are consulted about the change. The systems analysts are encouraged to provide opportunity for increasing job satisfaction when redesigning the system. It may be possible to organise users into groups to discuss aspects of the new system and make suggestions to the analysts. Most advocates of the traditional approach to system development would probably accept that there is a need for this level of participation in the design process.

Representative participation requires a higher level of involvement of the user department staff. Here, the design group consists of users representatives and systems analysts. No longer is it expected that the technologist dictates to the users the design of their work system. Users have an equal say in any decision.

Consensus participation attempts to involve all user department staff throughout the design process, indeed this process is user driven. It may be more difficult to make quick decisions, but it has the merit of making the design decisions those of the staff as a whole. Sometimes the sets of tasks in a system can be distinguished and those people involved in each task set make their own design decisions.

The content of participation concerns the issues and the boundaries of activities that are within the remit of participation. Generally, prior to any participation, management will want to keep certain things as their own prerogative.

Participation usually involves setting up a Steering committee and a Design Group or groups. The Steering committee sets the guidelines for the Design Groups and consists of senior managers from the affected areas of the organisation, senior managers from management services and personnel and senior trade union officials (if the organisation is unionised). The Design group designs the new system including

Choice of hardware and software

Human-computer interaction

Workplace re-organisation

Allocation of responsibilities

All major interests should be represented, including each section and function, grade, age-group etc. The Design Group includes systems analysts, although their role is not the normal one of analyst and designer, but one of educator and advisor.

The Stages of the Methodology

1. Why change?

The first meeting of the design group considers this rather fundamental question and addresses the current problems and opportunities. The result should be a convincing statement of the need for change. Presumably, if no convincing statement of change is derived, the process stops there, although the methodology does not make this point clear.

. System Boundaries

The design group identifies the boundaries of the system it is designing and where it interfaces with other systems. Four areas are considered business activities affected (e.g. sales, finance and personnel); existing technology affected; parts of the organisation affected (e.g. departments and sections); and parts of the organisation affected (e.g. suppliers and customers).

. Description of the existing system

This is to educate the design group as to how the existing system works. In practice, it is found that people will know the detail of their own jobs and those that they interact with directly, but will probably have little knowledge of the whole system. This step requires the Design Group to make two kinds of description. A horizontal input/output analysis and a vertical analysis showing different levels of work complexity and importance. The latter is based on the cybernetic model of a viable system developed by Prof. Stafford Beer.

E.g.

The vertical description of the department requires an analysis of activities at five different levels.

The first and lowest level consists of operating activities. These are the day-to-day or regular tasks that enable the principal functions of the department to be carried out. These should have been described in the input/output analysis.

The second and more complex level consists of activities directed at preventing work problems occurring and correcting these when they do occur. These are called problem prevention/solution activities.

The third level consists of activities and tasks that have to be co-ordinated within the department and between the department and other departments and sections. These are co-ordination activities.

The fourth level is the important, but often neglected aspect of development. What products, services etc. handled by the department need to be developed and improved. These are development activities.

Lastly, comes the fifth and most complex level of control. How is the total department controlled so that it works efficiently, meets its targets and achieves its objectives. These are control activities.

. Definition of Key Objectives

The Design Group considers the fundamental aspects of areas lying within the system boundary. This exercise is performed by considering three basic questions.

The first question considered is Why do these exist? What is their primary role and purpose?

The second question is Given this role and purpose what should be their responsibilities and functions?

The third question is How far do their present activities match what they should be doing?

Answers to the first and second questions provide the information to list key objectives. These are the important objectives which the areas under consideration should strive to achieve. The design task from this point on is to create a new system which will achieve these key objectives.

While these key objectives are often easy to identify occasionally attention must be paid to the reasons why the unit was set up, how its mission was defined at that time and how relevant that definition is to its future mission.

E.g.

Step 4 - Examples of key objectives of the Purchase Invoice Dept.

Key objectives are to ensure that the Company obtains goods and services from suppliers which are of the right quality and price and arrive on the date promised. Also to provide a satisfying, stimulating work environment for Purchase Invoice and Treasurers Dept. staff.Relationships with suppliers are often very poor due to inaccurate or delayed payment of suppliers accounts. This is affecting the quality of the suppliers service.

5. Definition of Key Tasks

Once key objectives have been specified then it is not difficult to ask and answer the following question. What are the key tasks which must be carried out to achieve these objectives?

Some of these key tasks will already be carried out effectively; some may be badly done, and some not done at all.

E.g.

Step 5 - Examples of key tasks of the Purchase Invoice Dept.

The fast, correct payment of suppliers accountsThe fast, correct answering of suppliers queriesThe fast, accurate notification to suppliers of rejected goods and requests for financial compensationThe monitoring and improvement of the suppliers service

. Key Information Needs

As a principal contribution of a new computer-based work system will be more accurate and timely information, the key information requirements associated with the key tasks should now be specified. The five level model used to describe work in Step can be used again here.

E.g.

Step 6 - Example of key information needs

Operating Information Information on suppliers and the state of their accounts Information on payments madeProblem prevention/solution information Accurate goods received information Which suppliers have not been paid and whyCo-ordination information Which receipts have been transferred from Purchase Invoice to Treasurers Dept. for paymentDevelopment Information Which suppliers are antagonistic to the Company and whyControl information The extent to which goods and services provided by suppliers are meeting company quality standards

. Diagnosis of Efficiency Needs

Efficiency needs can be identified by looking for variances. A variance is a tendency for a system or part of a system to deviate from some expected or desired standard or norm. In other words it is a part of the system where problems tend to occur. Variances can be of two kinds. Key or systemic variances and operating variances.

Key variances are potential problems areas which cannot be eliminated although they may be effectively controlled. They are built into the system and arise from key objectives and tasks. They frequently arise at the interface between the system and other systems. For example, a production department will always have potential problems in its relationship with the Sales department.

Operating variances are not so deeply embedded in the system and are weak links arising from earlier system design activities. When a new system is designed many of these variances can be eliminated altogether.

E.g.

. Diagnosis of job satisfaction needs.

The ETHICS method gives efficiency and job satisfaction equal weight. The argument being that the two reinforce each other. An efficient, well-run department reduces frustration and increases job satisfaction. Diagnosis of job satisfaction is achieved by use of a standard questionnaire provided by the methodology. The Design Group may adjust the questionnaire to fit local conditions. The results are discussed democratically and the underlying reasons established for any areas where there are poor job satisfaction fits. In addition, formulations for improving the situation in the new design are made and everyone is encouraged to play a major part in this design work. Where there have been knowledge or task-structure problems of fit, these are susceptible to improvement by a redesign of a system. Other areas of poor fit, such as effort-reward or ethical, may be improved somewhat in this way, but will probably require changes in personnel policies, or more radically, organisational ethos.

. Future Analysis

Most new work systems today have limited lives because of major changes in their environment. These changes can be the result of many factors - changes in legislation, in markets, in labour availability and in technology.

A new system must therefore be able to adopt to change and must be designed to do so. This means that it must have enough built-in flexibility to cope with future change.

A broad assessment of the required amount and focus of system flexibility is derived from an identification and analysis of future changes likely to affect the system within the next five years.

A Design Group may need to talk with internal and external experts in order to assess the nature and impact of such change.

Changes likely to affect a company are

Changes in available technology

Changes in Legal requirements

Changes in economic factors (e.g. product and labour markets).

Changes in employee or customer attitudes, expectations or fashions.

Changes in company organisation (e.g. the merging of plants, departments or sections).

10. Specifying and weighting efficiency and job satisfaction needs and objectives.

Mumford identifies this as the key step in the whole methodology. Objectives are set according to the diagnosis activities of the three previous steps. The achievement of an agreed and ranked set of objectives can be a very difficult task and must involve everyone, not just the Design Group itself. Often objectives conflict and the priorities of the various constituencies may be very different. These differences may not all be resolved, but one of the stated benefits of ETHICS is that at least these differences are aired. Ultimately, a list of priority and secondary objectives is produced. The criterion for the systems design is that all priority objectives must be met along with as many of the secondary ones as possible. At this stage a certain amount of iteration is recommended, to review the key objectives and tasks from steps 4 and 5.

. The Organisational design of the new system

If possible, this should be performed in parallel with the technical design of step 1, because they invariably intertwine. The organisational changes which are needed to meet the efficiency and job satisfaction objectives are specified. There are likely to be a variety of ways of achieving the objectives, and between three and six organisational options should be elaborated. The Design Group specifies in more detail the key tasks of step 5 and addresses the following questions, the answers forming the basic data for the organisational design process

· What are the operating activities that are required?

· What are the problem prevention/solution activities that are required?

· What are the co-ordination activities that are required?

· What are the development activities that are required?

· What are the control activities that are required?

· What special skills are required, if any, of the staff?

· Are there any key roles or relationships that exist that must be addressed in the new design?

Each organisational option is rated for its ability to meet the primary and secondary objectives of step 10, and should identify the sections, work-groups and individuals, their responsibilities and tasks.

In order to meet job satisfaction objectives, it is almost inevitable that the design group will have to consider the socio-technical principles of organisational design. The socio-technical approach is the antithesis of Taylorism, which is to break each job down into its elemental parts and rearrange it into an efficient combination. The traditional car assembly line which requires its operators to perform small, routine, repetitive jobs, is regarded as the ultimate example of Taylorism in action. The requirements of the machine are given priority over the requirements of the human being. This has, it is argued, inevitably led to a bored, disaffected and ultimately inefficient workforce.

Although ETHICS uses aspects of socio-technical design, the socio-technical school assumes a given technology, whereas in ETHICS, the technology is part of the design. Further they assume shop-floor situations, rather than the office situations which concern ETHICS.

Mumford recommends the consideration of three types of work organisation patterns-

· the first is task variety and involves giving an individual more variety in work by providing more than one task to be performed or by rotating people around a number of different tasks. This is the more traditional approach, but is limited especially where the expectations of job satisfaction are more sophisticated.

· in this case, the principles of job-enrichment might be more appropriate. This is where work is organised in such a way that a number of different skills, including judgmental ones are introduced. In particular, it involves the handling of problems and the organisation of work by the individual without supervision.. This may require an increased skill level on behalf of the individual, but leads to enhanced job satisfaction. A further stage in job enrichment is the incorporation of development aspects into a job. This means that an individual has the freedom to change the way the job is performed. This leads to constant review and the implementation of new ideas and methods. Obviously this cannot be introduced into every job, but there are probably more opportunities than at first imagined.

· as important as individual jobs is the concept of what Mumford calls self-managing groups. Here, groups are formed that have responsibility for a relatively wide spectrum of the tasks to be performed. These groups are preferably multi-skilled, so that each member is competent to carry out all the tasks required of the group. Again, self-managing groups are not always possible and require a good deal of management goodwill at first, but nevertheless can prove very effective.

1. Technical Options

The various technical options that might be appropriate, including hardware, software and the design of the human-computer interface, are specified. Each option is evaluated in the same way as the organisational options, that is, against efficiency, job satisfaction and future change objectives. As mentioned in Step 11, the organisational and technical options should be considered simultaneously, as often one option implies certain necessary factors in the other. It is advised that one option should exist which specifies no change in technology, so as to be able to see how much could be achieved simply with organisational changes.

The organisational and technical options are now merged to ensure compatibility, and are evaluated against the primary objectives and the one that best meets the objectives is selected. This selection is performed by the Design Group with input from the Steering Committee and other interested constituencies.

. The preparation of a detailed work design

The selected system is now designed in detail. The data flows, tasks, groups, individuals, responsibilities and relationships are defined. There is also a review to ensure that the detail of the design still meets the specified objectives. Obviously, the design detail includes the organisational aspects as well as the technical.

. Implementation

The Design Group now applies itself to ensuring the successful implementation of the design. This involves planning the implementation process in detail. This will include the strategy, the education and training, the co-ordination of parts and everything needed to ensure a smooth changeover.

15. Evaluation

The implemented system is checked to ensure that it is meeting its objectives, particularly in relation to efficiency and job satisfaction, using the techniques of variance analysis and measures of job satisfaction. If it is not meeting the objectives, then corrective action is taken. Indeed, as time progresses, changes will become necessary and design becomes a cyclical process.

Conclusions

Quite a common reaction to ETHICS is for people to say that it is impractical. First it is argued, that unskilled users cannot do the design properly, and second, that management would never accept it.

In answer to the first problem Mumford argues that users can and do, design properly. They need training and help, but this can be provided relatively easily. More importantly, they have the skills of knowing about their own work and system, and have a stake in the design.

To answer the second point, managers have often welcomed participation and can be convinced of its benefits. The methodology has been successfully used in a wide number of implementations and Mumford has published a number of accounts of successful application. One example shows how a group of secretaries at Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) designed new work systems for themselves in the wake of the introduction of word-processing equipment. The second example shows how a group of purchase clerks helped design a major on-line computer system. One of the most interesting aspects that emerged from this study was the fact that the clerks designed three ways of working with the computer system to do essentially the same thing. The one selected depends on the clerk. Few professional system developers would develop a number of ways of achieving the same task.

ETHICS has more recently been used by a number of large companies to assist the building of very large systems. The first major use of ETHICS in the development of a large system was DECs XSEL, an expert system for their sales offices which helped to configure DEC hardware systems for particular customers.

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VOEST - Vereinigte Österreichische Stahlwerke AG (United Austrian Iron and Steel Works)

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VÖEST Vereinigte Österreichische Eisen- und Stahlwerke AG

(United Austrian Iron and Steel Works)

The letters „VÖEST" mean Vereinigte Österreichische Eisen- und Stahlwerke AG. If you translate these words literally it is United Austrian Iron and Steel Works Inc.

The listed voestalpine AG based in Linz (Upper Austria) is the Group holding. The voestalpine Group is one of the largest industrial undertakings in Austria and employs a work force of around 17,000. Sales in the past financial year was about EUR 4.4 billions. The Group is developing into a processing enterprise on the basis of its core competence in steel.

The voestalpine Group is divided in four divisions, namely

· voestalpine Stahl Division

· voestalpine Railway Systems Division

· voestalpine Profilform Division

· voestalpine motion division

The VÖEST supplies a lot of branches, for example 6% of its sales derive from automotive industry. Other branches which are supplied by the VÖEST are the white products industry, the construction sub-supply industry, steel and mechanical engineering. Also railway companies and the oil and gas industry obtain products from the United Austrian Iron and Steel Works. The products of the VOEST are delivered to numerous European states (Austria, Germany, Belgium, UK, Italy, France, Sweden, Czech Republic) and the USA.

History

Already in 1881 the Alpinemontan cooperation was established. At the turn of the last century Donawitz was the site of the largest iron works in the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

After the second world war in 145 the VÖEST was founded. In the following year the Austrian Government decided to nationalise the VÖEST.

In the following decades there were a lot of mergers for example the FALPINE MONTAN AG and VÖEST AG merge to become VÖEST-ALPINE AG in 17. However also some subsidiaries were spun off and become independent legal entities for example the VOEST-ALPINE STAHL DONAWITZ Ges.m.b.H. was spun-off from VOEST-ALPINE AG.

Because of the initial public offering of the VOEST-ALPINE STAHL AG all partitions, who do not belong to the core business were sold in 15.

The OIAG

The four letters stand for "Österreichische Industrieholding AG". It is the holding and privatization agency of the Republic Austria. This agency works closely with the industry and does not belong to any political party of Austria.

Its business objective is to achieve an appreciation in value of the companies the OIAG has a holding in. But the OIAG has also the job to privatize a company in the best interests of the company concerned, the Austrian economy and the Austrian taxpayer if there is an instruction of the Republic of Austria.

Privatization of VOEST

On th of May 00 the government of Austria has placed an order with the OIAG to fully privatize the VOEST. The conditions were that the bigger part of the shares remains in possession of Austria institutional investors and that VOEST persists as an unity. Further conditions were to continue doing researching and developing in Austria and that decisions are made in Austrian headquarters.

On 11th of September the OIAG published detailed information about the disposition of VOEST. The sale comprises a secondary equity offering and an offering of bonds exchangeable into voestalpine AG shares.

The equity offering includes a public offering in Austria and an international offering to institutional investors.

The shares underlying the exchangeable offering have a value of 15% of the total capital of VOEST and are exclusively sold to Austrian investors. The sale of theses shares will take place in 006.

On 1th of September the holdings of the OIAG in the VOEST were sold on the stock market. There were sold about 7.7 Mio shares, but the demand was considerably higher. Reportedly the issue was oversubscribed by more than 00%. This is a contradiction of repeated recent reports that demand for voestalpine stock had been low.

The price per share was € .50, this amount is six times higher than the price that was predicted in March this year. The proceeds of the sale of shares were about € 47 millions, further the OIAG takes about € 45 millions through the sale of convertible bonds.

The pattern of distribution of shares is as follows. Over 60% of the shares were sold to Austrian investors. The bigger part was sold to institutional shares, but also small shareholders have got shares of the company now. It is enjoyable, that the employee participation increased to 10.4%. There is no other Austrian company which has such a high employee participation.

Because the bigger part of shares are in Austrian hands, the unity of the company can be preserved in the long term. Much that it is also granted that the research, development and the decision making can be arranged in Austria. Thus, the conditions of the Republic Austria that were demanded on the OIAG in reference to the privatization are fulfilled.

Through the completed privatization there is no more uncertainty about disposition and the political debates are over now. The successful company can focus there energy on the production of steel. Because of the great success the VOEST do not have to focus on quantity any longer the company can operate their production towards "what to make from steel". The success of the company is clearly to see, if you look up the figures in the balance sheet of the year 00/00. In this balance sheet year the voestalpine could make the second best operating result in its history. The sales were about € 4.4 billions and the profit was € millions. Naturally the amount per share increased, in fact € 1. per share. A part of the profit was distributed, the dividend amounts € 1. per share.

Please note that this sample paper on VOEST - Vereinigte Österreichische Stahlwerke AG (United Austrian Iron and Steel Works) is for your review only. In order to eliminate any of the plagiarism issues, it is highly recommended that you do not use it for you own writing purposes. In case you experience difficulties with writing a well structured and accurately composed paper on VOEST - Vereinigte Österreichische Stahlwerke AG (United Austrian Iron and Steel Works), we are here to assist you. Your cheap custom college paper on VOEST - Vereinigte Österreichische Stahlwerke AG (United Austrian Iron and Steel Works) will be written from scratch, so you do not have to worry about its originality.

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A Surfers Dream

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A Surfers Dream

Can you imagine yourself, walking along the beautiful black sand beaches of Hawaii? Around you, topless women tanning in the warm sun with a cool swift breeze blowing through your hair. In your right hand is your six foot four inch Local Motion surfboard and in your left is your trusty leash. You look out into the giant sea and see the heart pounding sight of colossal double over head waves exploding onto the near by reef. You strap on that leash and you make a run for the sparkling blue water. With out hesitation you leap into the water with you board directly under you.

Wow! That's what I tend to dream about all of the time. I want to be one of the great surfers of the world. I want to go speeds of twenty to thirty miles per hour down the face of a barreling wave. Through hard work and dedication I plan to have the skills to be able to accomplish my goal. I have three ideas that I think will help me be successful in reaching this goal being athletic, obtaining professional sponsors, and competing in worldwide competitions.

One of the most important things about being an athlete is actually being athletic. I played sports all my life. How does that help me become a better surfer you may ask? Surfing takes a lot of energy and simply paddling out will exhaust most people. To prevent myself from becoming tired quickly and to keep my stamina up, I will make up a detailed work out guide in order to help keep track of my progression and stay focused. In my work out guide will run around a track and swim laps to help with stamina, and lift weights to add more muscle.

Cheap Custom Essays on A Surfers Dream

Quicksilver is one of the many different name brands in the surfing world today including Hurley, Volcom, and O`neil. Everywhere you look you are bound to see these names. Whether it is the back of a person's shirt, the brand of surf board a person is riding, or even if it is a sticker on the back of someone's car, these names are everywhere. Quicksilver and other companies sponsor many of today's top surfers, such as Kelly Slater, Randy Bonds, and Hans Hagun. They pay for all the essentials a surfer may or may not need for his or her competitions. For instance, if Kelly Slater broke his board in half, while trying to land a 60 degree Indy grab, his sponsors would have a board waiting for him when he reaches the shore. Or if Randy Bonds is posing for a magazine, his sponsor will have all that is needed for the camera shoot. If they enter a competition a sponsor will pay for the entry fee pending on if that is what the contract states.

A surfer cannot get sponsored if they are not good enough. Placing high in a competition is naturally what the competitor try's to do. To place high you cannot just pick any wave and go, you have to try to select them wisely. When the rider finds that wave and is up and riding the judges look for skill, technique, and difficulty. After skill, technique and difficulty are added up and the score is above the rest, you will be granted with a handsome reward. Whether that reward, be a nice some of money or prizes.

Competition against the best in the world would be an extraordinary experience to any surfer. Just surfing side by side a professional surfer would be an experience to remember. Through hard work and dedication I hope to become more athletic, enabling my self to be discovered by sponsors and allowing myself to compete with the worlds best. It is easy to see why I love surfing and why I urge others to experience the joy I have obtained through surfing.

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Impact of technology on evaluation of employment

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THE IMPACT OF VIDEOCONFERENCE TECHNOLOGY, INTERVIEW STRUCTURE, AND INTERVIEWER GENDER ON INTERVIEWER EVALUATIONS IN THE EMPLOYMENT INTERVIEW A FIELD EXPERIMENT

Despite the growing use of communication technologies, such as videoconferencing, in recruiting and selection, there is little research examining whether these technologies influence interviewers perceptions of candidates. The present field experiment analysed evaluations of real job applicants who were randomly assigned either to be interviewed face-to-face (FTF) (N = 48) or using a desktop videoconference system (N = 44). The results show a bias in favour of the videoconference applicants relative to FTF applicants, F(1,1) = 7.5, p = .01. A significant interaction of interview structure and interviewer gender was also found, F(1,1) = .70, p.05, with female interviewers using an unstructured interview rating applicants significantly higher than males or females using a structured interview. Interview structure did not significantly moderate the influence of interview medium on interviewers evaluations of applicants. These findings highlight the need to be aware of potential biases resulting from the use of communication technologies in the hiring process.

Videoconference technologies include a variety of telecommunication systems that transmit voice, picture, and often data over telephone lines and/or Internet connections. Typical systems vary considerably in cost and complexity ranging from inexpensive desktop systems to fully integrated classrooms. The use of videoconference technology for business and education is growing rapidly in developed countries. For example, a survey of 100 telecommunications professionals in Canada, Mexico, and the United States found that 8% of companies were currently using either videoconference technology, undergoing trials, or planning to use it in the future (Coady et al., 16). A marketing report by Frost and Sullivan (000) stated that the adoption of videoconference technology in European business practices is projected to grow rapidly from revenues of US$451 million in 1 to US$ billion by 006. This report suggests that increased standardization in videoconference technologies and reduced prices for videoconference systems are largely responsible for the strong growth in the use of this technology. Furthermore, large telecommunications companies in North America and Europe, such as British Telecom, rent videoconference equipment and facilities to organizations that do not have their own systems.

In addition to the strong overall growth in the use of videoconference technology in businesses, there is a number of factors driving the increasing popularity of videoconference technology in recruiting and selection specifically. An increase in the globalization of organizations and tighter labour markets require organizations to evaluate an increasing number of applicants in diverse geographical regions. Videoconference technology has provided a means to dramatically reduce the costs associated with interviewing distant applicants while simultaneously expanding applicant pools and satisfying the employers desire to see the candidates they are interviewing (Chapman, 1).

Although there has been limited investigation of the impact of using videoconference technology on small group processes (Zornoza, Prieto, Marti, & Peiro, 15), medical procedures (e.g., Troster, Paolo, Glatt, & Hubble, 15), and education situations (J. Webster & Hackley, 17), there is little published research investigating its effect on interviewers evaluations in employment interviews. Those studies that have examined the use of videoconference technology for employment interviews have concentrated on interviewer and applicant attitudes toward the technology (Kroeck & Magnusen, 17; Skinkle & MacLeod, 15; J. Webster, 17), rather than on whether the medium affects interviewers judgments. Given the nearly universal application of the employment interview in employee selection and the likelihood that the use of videoconference technology for interviews will increase dramatically, an empirical examination of the impact of this technology on the employment interview is warranted. The primary aim of this study, then, is to determine whether using videoconference technology alters the impressions that interviewers have of applicants relative to applicants whom they interview face-to-face (FTF). We also examine whether factors such as interviewer gender or interview structure affect interviewer ratings and whether these factors moderate the influences of videoconference media. We first review the relevant literature covering communication media, interview structure, and interviewer gender, and use this to generate our initial hypotheses. We then describe a field experiment we conducted, and detail the results obtained.

Effects of interview medium

A variety of studies has examined the effects that different communication technologies have on the structure of social interaction. For example, several researchers have investigated the impact of communication technologies on the surface structure of conversations (Cohen, 18; OConaill, Whittaker, & Wilbur, 1; Sellen, 15). These studies have largely concluded that removing, or deteriorating (in the case of videoconferencing) visual cues results in fewer interruptions, longer turns, and fewer turns taken by participants in a videoconference-based conversation compared with an FTF conversation (OConnaill et al., 1; Sellen, 15). What remains unknown is whether these changes in the surface structure of conversations can influence interpersonal perceptions.

The use of videoconference technology in the employment interview also restricts the interviewers ability to observe nonverbal behaviour (Skinkle & McLeod, 15). For example, applicants are typically displayed from the mid-chest up, which eliminates the possibility of observing some nonverbal behaviours such as posture or trembling hands. Although above-the-waist nonverbals are less affected by this medium, an important factor in interview research, eye contact, is difficult to determine due both to insufficient image resolution and to camera angle. A large number of laboratory studies has found nonverbal behaviours to be important determinants of interviewer impressions (e.g., Imada & Hakel, 177; Rasmussen, 184). However, we know little about how reducing the clarity of nonverbal communication will affect impression formation.

A review of the research literature revealed conflicting evidence for the likely effect of using videoconference technology on interviewer evaluations. It has been suggested that raters using videoconference media provide more negative evaluations of others (Storck & Sproull, 15). However, Storck and Sproulls (15) findings were based on judgments of group performance rather than individual performance, and involved an educational setting rather than an employment setting. Furthermore, their methodology did not address the potential confound of in-group bias. For example, the FTF ratings were provided by groups located at the same physical site, while the videoconference ratings were for groups from other locations (Storck & Sproull, 15). Their findings may be interpreted as being influenced by the positive feelings raters had for groups located at the same site (an in-group) relative to other locations (Messick & Mackie, 18; Newcomb, 161, 181), rather than the influence of the medium.

In contrast, research by Short, Williams, and Christie (176), suggested that interpersonal judgments can be inflated in a positive direction when these judgments are made after the parties meet in a degraded telecommunication medium. Short et al. (176) indicated that conversants engaged in a confrontational situation describe each other as being more friendly when using an intervening communication technology (in this case, closed-circuit television). Communication technologies may provide a social barrier that mitigates the anxiety generated by some social interactions (Short et al., 176). We believe that the intense and evaluative nature of the selection interview has the potential to generate anxiety between the conversants and, consequently, an intervening medium may help reduce this anxiety. This could lead interviewers to evaluate candidates more favourably in the videoconference-based interview due to either more positive affect toward the applicant in general (Dipboye, 1), or due to actual improved performance of the applicant if he or she feels more relaxed (Webster, 17).

Another potential mechanism by which interviewer judgments could be affected by the interview medium involves attribution theory (Kelley, 17). Although observers in many circumstances are more likely to attribute perceived deficiencies to dispositional rather than situational influences (for a review of the fundamental attribution error research, see Jones & Nisbett, 17), it is possible that the interviewers will find the medium sufficiently salient to generate situational attributions for poorer applicant performance in the videoconference interviews (Taylor & Fiske, 175). Moreover, given the fact that interviewers are motivated (and paid) to make accurate social judgments, the probability that they will make erroneous dispositional attributions is decreased (D. M. Webster, 1). This may increase the likelihood of making situational attributions for weaker performance in videoconference interviews. Having an accuracy goal in social judgments has also been found to lead to more complex thinking about the information available for the judgment target (Tetlock & Kim, 187), such as including information about the context in which the interaction occurs. However, despite this more complex approach to social judgment, individuals who are motivated to be accurate in social judgments (e.g. interviewers) may still be susceptible to biases and heuristics in their perception processes (Kunda, 10; Tetlock & Boettger, 18). In fact, Kunda (1) suggested that accuracy goals, when combined with the need for quick decisions (such as time pressures on interviewers), can exacerbate perception biases (e.g., Freund, Kruglanski, & Shpitzajzen, 185; Kruglanski & Freund, 18).

A second rationale for why interviewers judgments may be affected by the use of videoconference technology draws upon the concept of Native Theories of bias correction. Judges, such as interviewers, are capable of adjusting their assessments of individuals according to their naive theories of how the context affects [their] judgements of the target (Wegener & Petty, 15, p. 8). Wegener and Petty (15) investigated the impact of naive theories on rater judgments. Over a series of studies, Wegener and Petty (15) revealed that individuals may form naive theories about how the impact of a situation or context affects their evaluations of others. Furthermore, they found that judges may correct their evaluation of the target based on these naive theories whether an actual bias exists or not. This can result in less accurate evaluations in cases where judges overcompensate for their perceived bias. In the present study, it is possible that interviewers will form naive theories about the relative disadvantage of videoconference applicants compared to FTF applicants. For example, J. Webster (17) suggested that some applicants may feel disadvantaged by videoconference interviews. Interviewers may be sympathetic to these feelings or feel that they themselves would be disadvantaged if they were to be interviewed by videoconference. According to Wegener and Petty (15), a perception of a contextual factor disadvantaging one choice over another, in this case videoconference or a FTF context, may result in overcompensation in the form of inflated evaluations of videoconference candidates. This explanation is further supported by Neubergs (18) findings, which demonstrated that the goal of having accurate impressions influences judges to evaluate candidates more favourably when they have negative expectancies.

Given the lack of studies that directly measure the influences of this medium on interviewer evaluations, and the conflicting evidence in the literature regarding the effects of communication media on social judgments in general, our prediction is necessarily somewhat exploratory. However, we find the existing evidence for a positive effect on interviewer evaluations (i.e. external attributions for poor performance, naive theories, and anxiety reduction) is more persuasive. Accordingly, we submit

Hypothesis 1 Interviewers will rate videoconference applicants higher than FTF applicants.

Structure differences in interviews

Structured interviews employ systematic procedures to generate questions, rate the suitability of answers, and provide consistency in the content, delivery and order of questions in the interview. Several meta-analytic studies pointing to the increased validity of structured versus unstructured employment interviews (e.g., McDaniel, Whetzel, Schmidt, & Maurer, 14; Wiesner & Cronshaw, 188) have generated a significant amount of research interest (see Campion, Palmer, & Campion, 17; Dipboye, 1).

Structured interviews are not only more reliable, but it is also possible that a more highly structured interview affords less opportunity for the interviewer to be influenced by applicant impression management tactics (Campion et al., 17; Dipboye & Gaugler, 1). For example, in the structured interview, applicants are less able to control the content of the discussion (Dipboye & Gaugler, 1) which is an important tool for impression management. One form of structured interview, the behavioural descriptive interview (Janz, 18), requires the applicant to recall recent past behaviours that support the applicants claims. In order to limit impression management with this type of structured interview, practitioners are advised to incorporate a threat of reference check, whereby applicants are told that the information that they provide in the interview will be verified by reference check. This procedure has the potential to limit impression management by discouraging the applicant from embellishing his or her credentials. Given the fact that impression management techniques are practiced by candidates in order to improve their attractiveness to employers, interview structure practices designed to minimize the applicants opportunity to engage in these practices is expected to result in less favourable evaluations of the applicant. Furthermore, the systematic rating formats of structured interviews have also been prescribed by researchers to avoid halo errors that can result in inflated ratings of applicants (Campion et al., 17; Dipboye, 1). These factors combined suggest that, although it is still possible for interviewers to rate applicants favourably in a structured interview, the opportunity for applicants who are less capable, but skilled impression managers, to be rated favourably is diminished. Thus

Hypothesis Interviewers conducting interviews with higher levels of interview structure will result in lower evaluations of applicants than those with lower levels of interview structure.

Interviews conducted with higher levels of interview structure are also believed to reduce the influence of extraneous information such as appearance or nonverbal behaviour, thereby improving the validity of judgments with regard to later job performance (Campion et al., 17). While it may also be argued that the use of videoconference technology could also reduce the interviewers reliance on extraneous nonverbal cues and appearance in making judgments, the interview medium itself has the potential to become extraneous information (Webster, 17). Furthermore, we believe that the cognitive processes mentioned earlier (i.e. attributions and naive theories) will still influence the interviewers judgments, regardless of the media effects on nonverbal assessment. We predict that highly structured interviews could reduce or eliminate the cognitive bias corrections and external attributions generated by the use of the videoconference technology. Accordingly, it is predicted that the evaluations of interviewers who conduct more highly structured interviews will not be affected by the interview medium to the same extent as those of interviewers who conduct less structured interviews, where this information is likely to play a larger role in evaluations.

Hypothesis Interview structure will moderate the influences of interview medium on interviewer evaluations of candidates such that applicant evaluations provided by interviewers who conduct less structured interviews will be affected by the interview medium more than the evaluations provided by interviewers who conduct more structured interviews.

Interviewer gender differences in interviews

There is some evidence to suggest that male and female interviewers behave differently and evaluate applicants differently in employment interviews. For instance, female interviewers have been found to assess their applicants higher on their interview performance than males do (Elliott, 181; London & Poplawski, 176; Parsons & Liden, 184; Raza & Carpenter, 187). Gender differences in conversational styles have also been demonstrated in that females are less likely to interrupt or structure a conversation than males are (e.g., Eakins & Eakins, 178; Spencer & Drass, 18; Zimmerman & West, 175) although the results are mixed (see Kacmar & Hochwarter, 15). One important difference in these studies is that Kacmar and Hochwarter (15) trained their interviewers to use high levels of structure in their interviews. It is possible that the gender differences did not materialize in their study due to the higher level of structure used. This is consistent with the rationale for structuring interviews, which is to reduce the influence of individual biases and thereby increase inter-rater reliability in ratings given to applicants (Campion et al., 17). It has also been argued that structured interviews may be less prone to biases (including interviewer gender) that could have an impact on gender- or race-based employment equity initiatives (Campion et al., 17). Thus,

Hypothesis 4a The evaluations by male interviewers will be lower than evaluations by female interviewers.

Hypothesis 4b The main effect predicted in H4a will be mediated by the level of interview structure whereby interviewer gender will have less influence on ratings for interviewers who conduct highly structured interviews.

Method

Data were collected from real interviews conducted for 4-month, full-time paid positions as part of a cooperative education programme, where university students alternate their studies with formal job experience related to their degree programmes. Interviewers come to campus from across North America and around the world to hire these applicants. Interviewers are actual representatives of the organizations involved and view these positions as an opportunity to recruit future full-time employees for their organizations. These interviewers typically interview 8-10 applicants for each position vacancy.

Interviewer evaluations from employment interviews were included in the present study. Whenever possible, interviewers provided evaluations of four of their applicants two based on applicants randomly assigned to videoconference interviews and two based on applicants randomly assigned to FTF interviews. Of the 5 interviewers who participated in the study, six interviewers conducted fewer than four interviews due to scheduling conflicts or technical problems.

The design is a x x mixed model with Interview Medium (FTF vs. videoconference) tested as a within-subjects factor, whereas Interviewer Gender, and amount of Interview Structure (high structure vs. semi-structure vs. low structure) comprised the between-subjects factors. This design provides a field experiment test of the primary variable of interest (Interview Medium), while permitting a quasi-experimental test of the other variables of interest (Interview Structure and Interviewer Gender).

Participants

A sample of 5 interviewers, conducting employment interviews at a large Canadian university for cooperative education work terms, volunteered to participate in the study in exchange for a synopsis of the research findings. The 1 male and 6 female interviewers ranged in age from 6 to 58 years, with a mean age of 6.6 years. In total, organizations from a wide variety of industries were represented, including financial institutions, computer software companies, manufacturers, government organizations, multinationals, hospitals and educational facilities. Company size varied from 10 to 100 000 employees, with 800 employees representing the median company size. Of the 5 participants, 16 conducted single-interviewer interviews (14 males and females) and conducted interviews with two interviewers present (5 males and 4 females). For interviews conducted with two interviewers, data were collected prior to interviewers discussing each applicant and from only one of the two interviewers.

The applicants were undergraduate students enrolled in cooperative education programmes who volunteered to participate in the study in exchange for entering their names into a draw for two prizes of $400 each. Of the applicants, 55.4% were male (N= 51) and 44.6% were female (N= 41). A chi test demonstrated that applicant gender was evenly distributed across interview media, chi(1,) = .46, n.s. Applicants had a mean age of 1.1 (SD = 1.65) years. Applicant interview experience ranged from 1 to 55 previous employment interviews completed with a median of 10 previous interviews reported. Approximately half (55%) of the applicants reported having some form of training relating to how to conduct themselves in an employment interview.

Apparatus

The 44 videoconference interviews were conducted using an Intel videoconference demonstration system. The video display was presented on 15-inch SVGA colour monitors with Intel video cameras mounted on top of each monitor. The systems were located in two offices located in separate buildings on campus and were connected through the university Local Area Network (LAN). Connection speed varied slightly depending on competing demands on the servers being used, resulting in a full-screen frame rate ranging from 1 to 14 frames per second. Applicants were shown from the mid-chest up, while interviewers were either shown mid-chest up (for single interviewers) or from the waist up and further away for two interviewers. Camera angles were adjusted slightly to accommodate the height of the applicant or interviewer.

Procedure

Recruiting interviewers. The 5 interviewers who participated were recruited through telephone calls to random employers from the 1500 who planned to conduct interviews at the university over a -week period. Although exact statistics are not available, approximately 70% of the organizations contacted by telephone agreed to participate in exchange for a synopsis of the research results. The main limiting factor for obtaining more interviews was the availability of the videoconferencing systems. Scheduling was limited to four or five videoconference interviews per day over the 15-day period when interviewers were on campus. Interviewer recruiting stopped once the videoconference schedule was filled.

Recruiting applicants. After participating companies had identified the applicants they wished to interview (usually -4 days prior to the interview being conducted), electronic mail messages were sent to each of their applicants requesting their participation in the study and an attempt to reach them by telephone was made concurrently. This method resulted in an 80% participation rate for applicants. Applicants who had interviews scheduled with two or more of the interviewers in the study were excluded after their first interview. To prevent distortion in the results due to differences between volunteers for the videoconference condition and applicants in the control condition, all applicants were informed prior to volunteering to participate that they had a 50% chance of having their interview conducted using videoconference technology. For each of the 5 interviewers in the study, four of their applicants who agreed to participate were randomly selected for the study. Two of these four participants were then randomly assigned to the FTF condition and two to the videoconference condition.

Measures

Constructs were assessed by a pre-interview questionnaire, a post-interview questionnaire, a post-study questionnaire and a post-study structured interview with the participants.

Pre-interview measures. Immediately preceding each of the interviewers four interviews, the interviewer was asked to complete a 4-item questionnaire. The interviewer was asked to rate the applicant on a 7-point scale (where 1 = poor and 7 = excellent) on the following dimensions (1) overall impression of the applicant based on written information; () appropriateness of the applicants educational background for the position; () evaluation of the applicants previous work experience; and (4) educational achievement. Items 1, and were retained to create a Pre-interview Impression Scale with item 4 removed to improve internal reliability (Cronbachs alpha = .77).(n1)

Post-interview measures. Sixteen items measuring dimensions considered important for applicant success were selected based on previous research (e.g. Einhorn, 181). Immediately following each interview, and prior to discussing the candidate with anyone or filling out a company-based rating form, the interviewer was asked to complete a questionnaire rating the applicant on 16 dimensions (see Appendix for a list of the items). All ratings were provided on a 7-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 = poor to 7 = excellent. A principal components factor analysis with varimax rotation suggested a single factor solution with this factor explaining 67.46% of the variance in the items. Accordingly, a Post-interview Rating Scale was calculated from the average of the 16 post-interview items. Cronbachs alpha was calculated to be .6 for the Post-interview Rating.

Immediately following their final interview, interviewers were asked to fill out a post-study questionnaire gathering demographic information and measuring other constructs such as level of interview structure and satisfaction with the use of videoconference technology. Interview structure was measured with an item developed by M. Williams and P. M. Rowe (personal communication, 16). The item asked the interviewer to choose among five descriptions of the consistency of questions asked across all of their interviews (see Appendix for anchors for this item). Structure was analysed as a three-level variable by combining levels 1- and 4-5 as the high and low structure levels, respectively, and level as semi-structured. This coding was chosen due to the absence of female interviewers in levels 1 and 5 of the original scale, and to balance the number of interviewers in each level of structure as much as possible. Although this procedure resulted in some information loss, this was judged to be appropriate to maintain a balance of interviewer gender in each level of structure as there were no female interviewers in the tails of the distribution. Furthermore, this procedure is consistent with much of the interview literature which treats interviews as either structured or unstructured while adding a semi-structured level (Kohn & Dipboye, 18) to increase the predictive power of the construct.(n) Interviews conducted in a FTF or videoconference medium were coded 1 and respectively. Male and female interviewers were also coded 1 and respectively.

All 5 interviewers were given a semi-structured interview immediately after completing the study by either the first author or a research assistant. Interviewers were asked to describe their feelings about using videoconferencing technology in the interview and to describe how their interviews may have been changed by using the technology.

Results

Analyses

The design for this experiment was a x x mixed model with Interview Medium (videoconference vs. FTF) tested as a within-subject factor whereas Interviewer Gender (male vs. female) and Interview Structure (unstructured vs. semi-structured vs. structured) represented the between-subjects factors. A common issue in interview research, particularly when conducted in the field, is the problem of having independent variables nested within interviewer (see Cable & Judge, 17). Data for the interviewer are necessarily duplicated for each candidate evaluated by that interviewer, which risks generating problems associated with correlated errors for regression analyses (Greene, 1). Accordingly, we chose a General Linear Model (GLM) approach and included the interviewer as a nested variable in the analyses. The GLM procedure permits the researcher to specify nested and mixed models to apply the appropriate error term for each test in the analysis (Howell, 1). For example, within-subject analyses and interactions included variance from Medium x Interviewer (Gender x Structure) in the error term (where parentheses specify nesting). The between-subjects analyses were tested with the variance from Interviewer (Gender x Structure) in the error term. Each analysis was conducted with pre-interview impression used as a covariate. This covariate satisfies the assumptions required to do a proper MANCOVA procedure, as the evaluation of written information preceded the treatment and therefore could not be affected by the treatment. Means, standard deviations and correlations among the variables are provided in Table 1. Note that the zero-order correlations in Table 1 may be subject to the non-independence of some of the data and should be interpreted cautiously. Non-significant correlations between pre-interview impression and each of the independent variables (see Table 1) provide evidence that the covariate was not influenced by treatment or anticipated treatment effects for videoconference interviews.

To ensure that the number of interviewers conducting the interview did not influence the ratings, an ANOVA was conducted which suggested that it was appropriate to collapse our sample across number of interviewers F(1,1)= .18, n.s. To verify that our random assignment of applicants was indeed random, we also tested whether there were significant pre-interview differences in the attractiveness of applicants assigned to the two groups. No pre-interview differences were observed t(0) = .7, n.s.

Results of the GLM analysis, testing medium, structure, and interviewer gender effects, are detailed in Table . Estimated marginal means, generated by the GLM procedure, for interview medium, structure, and interviewer gender are provided in Table .

Interview medium

The results in Table support hypothesis 1, demonstrating that the interview medium played a role in determining how interviewers evaluated their applicants. A main effect of interview medium was found F(1,1)= 7.5, MSE = .40, p = .01, eta = .15. Interviewers rated applicants higher in the videoconference medium (M = 5.57, SE = .10) than in the FTF medium (M = 5.18, SE = .0).

Interview structure

The results presented in Table provide evidence to support hypothesis . The data reveal that interviewers using high levels of structure in the interview evaluated applicants less favourably than those who used semi-structured or unstructured interviews (M = 5.16, SE = .10, M 5.68, SE = .15, and M = 5.48, SE = .1, respectively). Interestingly, the applicants evaluated by a semi-structured interview were rated slightly higher than those evaluated by an unstructured interview. The reason for this unexpected result is not clear. The main effect of interview structure is best explained within the context of the interaction between interview structure and interviewer gender to follow. Table reveals that no support was found for hypothesis in determining the moderating effect of interview structure on the media influences for the dependent variables.

Interviewer gender

In support of hypothesis 4a, the present study found evidence to suggest that there are significant differences in the way that male and female interviewers evaluate their applicants. The results detailed in Table show more favourable ratings of applicants by female interviewers relative to their male counterparts. A significant interaction between interviewer gender and interview structure was also found in support of hypothesis 4b, which qualifies this main effect. Specifically, the interaction shows that male interviewers ratings were unaffected by interview structure while female interviewers ratings were substantially higher in unstructured and semi-structured interviews than in highly structured interviews.

A post hoc MANCOVA analysis was also conducted to determine whether a gender-based similar-to-me effect (e.g. Maurer, Howe, & Lee, 1) influenced post-interview evaluations of the candidate. Pre-interview evaluation of the candidates written credentials was entered into the model as a covariate and an interaction between applicant gender and interviewer gender was tested. The results indicate that an applicant gender x interviewer gender interaction did not occur, F(1,1) = .0, n.s.

Qualitative data

A summary of qualitative feedback from interviews is provided to contribute to the understanding of the processes that possibly underlie the empirical results.

Factors that helped interviewers rate videoconference applicants relative to face-to-face applicants. The majority of interviewers (68%) stated that there was nothing about the videoconference technology that would assist them in assessing the applicants relative to a face-to-face interview. Several interviewers (16%) found that the decreased social presence enabled them to unobtrusively take more notes, check their watches, or refer to resumes without disrupting the flow of the interview. A decrease in Social Presence (see Fulk, 1; Rice, 1) appeared to permit some interviewers to be more objective in that they did not feel as compelled to be positive with the applicant. Several interviewers noted that the videoconference medium forced them to concentrate more on what the applicant was saying and that this assisted in rating some dimensions.

Factors that hindered interviewer ratings of videoconference applicants relative to face-to-face applicants. Interviewers reported a number of properties inherent in the videoconference medium that they believed hindered their assessment of the applicants. The most frequent problem noted was the difficulty in reading nonverbal behaviours such as facial expression, eye contact and fidgeting (40%), followed by audio problems (8%), video lag (4%), image clarity (8%), and lack of responsiveness (4%). However, 8% of interviewers reported that there were no factors that they felt hindered their assessment of applicants.

Attribution of errors was also reported as being difficult to interpret by some of the interviewers. For example, one interviewer stated, It was hard to tell whether a pause was due to the technology, or the applicant being stumped.

Dimensions that interviewers reported mere easier to assess in the videoconference medium. The majority of interviewers (60%) reported that none of the 16 applicant dimensions were easier to assess in the videoconference medium than in the face-to-face medium while % reported at least one dimension was easier to assess and 8% failed to respond to this question. The three dimensions that were mentioned by interviewers as being easier to assess in the videoconference medium were Communication Skills (0%); Friendliness (1%); and Support for Arguments (4%). Three reasons emerged across all three of these dimensions which interviewers reported as being the reasons why they felt ratings were improved. The first addresses the interviewers belief that the restriction of visual cues forced them to concentrate more on the applicants words. A second trend included a perception that if the applicant could create a good impression in this medium, then the applicant must have been even friendlier, a better communicator, etc. face-to-face. Finally, a few interviewers mentioned that the novelty and awkwardness of the videoconference medium reduced the traditional power imbalance between interviewer and applicant. One interviewer noted that the use of a cutting edge technology in the interview enabled better evaluation of a candidates comfort level with new technology relative to face-to-face candidates.

Applicant dimensions more difficult to assess in a videoconference versus face-to-face medium. Although 16% of the interviewers reported that there were no dimensions which were more difficult to assess in the videoconference medium relative to the face-to-face medium, most reported at least one dimension as being more difficult to assess. Many interviewers believed that applicant Appearance was difficult to assess (56%). Applicant Confidence (6%) and Assertiveness (16%) were also frequently mentioned due to two trends (1) several interviewers complained that these dimensions were difficult to assess due to difficulty with viewing nonverbal behaviour, and () difficulty with establishing the origin of an applicants unease, Hard to tell if [the applicant] is nervous in general or uncomfortable with the technology.

Medium preferred for conducting employment interviews. A large majority of interviewers (76%) stated that they preferred conducting their interviews FTF rather than using a videoconference medium. Only 4% preferred the videoconference medium and 0% stated that they had no preference. Many lamented losing the personal touch of meeting the candidate FTF. However, despite the fact that 76% of interviewers indicated a preference for conducting their interviews FTF, 88% reported that they would be willing to use videoconference technology to conduct employment interviews in the future because of the convenience associated with it.

Discussion

The primary purpose of the present experiment was to determine whether interviewer ratings of applicants changed as a result of using videoconference technology rather than a traditional FTF interview to conduct the interview. The results of this study show that interviewers ratings of applicants were affected by the interview medium, accounting for 15% of the variance. Interviewer evaluations were also influenced by an interaction of interview structure and the interviewers gender.

Interviewers were found to rate applicants in videoconference-based interviews higher than applicants interviewed in a traditional FTF interview. Given the somewhat exploratory nature of this study, we feel justified in speculating a little on the origins of the observed effects. For example, we proposed three potential mechanisms by which the interviewer could inflate their ratings of applicants interviewed in the videoconference medium. Unfortunately, the fact that we used actual interviewers in this study prevented us from capturing the exact mechanism which may have generated our results. The observed media differences in ratings may relate to the work of Short et al. (176), which suggested that the communication medium may have reduced the anxiety between the interviewer and applicant. This could have influenced interviewer ratings directly by having an impact on the global impression of the candidate, or indirectly if this reduction in anxiety translated into actual improvement in applicant performance. We believe the latter explanation is less likely, based on applicant self-reports of performance following the interview (Skinkle & MacLeod, 15; J. Webster, 17); however, future research should empirically examine this possibility. Other explanations which deserve empirical testing include the possibility that either external attributions and/or naive theories of bias correction may have played a role in inflating interviewer evaluations of videoconference applicants. For example, interviewers might feel that the applicant deserves the benefit of the doubt based on their assumption that the applicant was inexperienced with videoconference interviews. This effect could be more pronounced in interviewers who have little experience with videoconference media themselves and consequently sympathize with the applicant.

While it is possible that some of the effects created by the videoconference system may be reduced or eliminated with technical solutions to issues such as evaluating nonverbal behaviour and video lag, the fact that the frame rates and transmission speed achieved in the current study resulted in very little lag in communications suggests that the bias observed may be resistant to advances in technology and is instead more closely linked to the weaker social presence afforded by the videoconference technology. It is also not clear whether this bias will disappear with increasing interviewer experience with this medium.

Some support was found for interviewer gender differences, which replicates previous findings. Female interviewers rated their applicants more favourably than their male counterparts. As predicted, however, higher levels of interview structure eliminated the disparity between male and female interviewers ratings. This change was only found in highly structured interviews, as semi-structured interviews yielded results similar to unstructured interviews. Further research is required to replicate the gender-based biases, observed in the six female interviewers in this study, in a large sample. Further investigation is also needed to confirm whether interview structure can reduce gender-based rating biases. The preliminary results from the present study demonstrate the potential for interview structure to reduce or eliminate some biases in selection interviews. However, the failure of interview structure to significantly affect media biases suggests that it may not be capable of eliminating all potential biases in a selection setting. More experimental work is needed with random assignment to levels of interview structure to identify those biases which are controlled by interview structure and those which are not. Furthermore, we need to determine why interview structure may be effective for some biases and not for others.

Several strengths and limitations of the methodology employed in this study are evident. There has been considerable criticism of the selection interview literature for its overuse of simulated interviews and students posing as interviewers and applicants (see Buckley & Weitzel, 18, for a detailed discussion). In this study, we employed a field-experiment approach for our main hypothesis, which is nearly unprecedented in interview research, to address these criticisms. In addition, the participation of organizations from a wide variety of industries bodes well for the generalizability of the results to other settings. Data were collected immediately prior to the interviews and immediately after the interviews to determine the impact that the interview information had on evaluations relative to the pre-interview information. Finally, all of the participants were interviewed to provide qualitative feedback in support of the empirical findings and to provide a richer understanding of the phenomenon being studied.

Despite the advantages of this study, some limitations remain. Problems associated with most field research were encountered in the present study. For example, in order to maximize statistical power with a smaller sample of interviewers, we employed a mixed design with interviewers conducting interviews in both videoconference and FTF media. This resulted in some of the independent variables being nested within interviewer (structure and interviewer gender). Additionally, all items and scales had to be created in order to be completed quickly so as to minimize the disruption in the interview process and maximize the willingness of busy interviewers to participate. Some detail had to be sacrificed to achieve this goal. For example, interview structure has been conceptualized as containing up to 15 facets (Campion et al., 17); however, we concentrated only on the consistency of questioning and the limitation of probing questions. The exact nature of what constitutes interview structure is unclear (Hakel, 18) although consistency always represents the major component. Researchers have advised practitioners employing structured interviews to ask questions consistently (Janz, 18; Latham, Saari, Pursell, & Campion, 180). Future research should examine the construct of interview structure more closely and a comprehensive measure of interview structure should be developed.

Another limitation to the current research stems from the necessity to employ quasi-experimental methods with interviewer gender and interview structure, as we were obviously unable to manipulate these in a field setting. Future research should attempt to replicate these preliminary findings in a controlled laboratory setting. In addition, future research should investigate whether specific job types interact with the interview medium. Furthermore, although our gender-based leniency effect was consistent with earlier research, the small number of female interviewers examined in this sample should lead the reader to interpret the gender-related findings cautiously. Despite these areas for improvement, we believe the strengths associated with using real applicants and interviewers for this study outweigh the disadvantages.

The findings in this study have both theoretical and practical implications. The theoretical advancement is that it is evident that the medium of communication and the amount of structure used in the interview are important variables to consider when studying interviewer decision processes (e.g., Dipboye, 1; Eder, 18; Webster, 18). The practical conclusions we can make regarding the utility of using structured interviews to reduce interviewer biases is less clear. It appears that highly structured interviews (based on consistency) may help to decrease potential gender-based leniency effects. Semi-structured interviews, however, did not reduce the observed gender biases in interviewer evaluations. Perhaps more importantly, even the highest level of interview structure did not moderate the influences of interview medium. The structured interview, therefore, may potentially reduce biases based on some variables or contexts but not others. Further research on interview structure is required in order to determine the processes underlying the reduction of bias in some situations and to explain why these processes can be less effective for some variables. More attention should also be paid to the potential for other facets of interview structure to reduce rating biases (e.g. job-related questions, rating answers against ideal responses, using situational and behavioural questions). As a cautionary note, we do not have any information in this study to conclude that the predictive validity of the lower ratings provided by males or by interviewers conducting structured interviews is higher than the lenient ratings.

On a practical level, it is evident that mixing interview media within a given employment competition could result in inflated results for the applicants who are interviewed via a videoconference system relative to those applicants interviewed FTF. Also on a practical level, the need for structured interviews is highlighted by the potential to reduce differences between interviewers evaluations of candidates.

In summary, this study demonstrated that, in a field setting, interviewer evaluations of candidates can be affected by the communication medium used to conduct the interview, the amount of structure employed in the interview, and potentially the gender of the interviewer. Furthermore, although a high level of interview structure was found to reduce disparities between the ratings provided by male and female interviewers, media influences were not significantly reduced by interview structure.

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by a grant provided by Procter & Gamble Worldwide Recruiting, Training and Development and by a loan of equipment from ViewNet Inc. The authors wish to thank John Callender at Procter & Gamble for his support and insight. We are also indebted to Bruce Lumsden and staff of the Cooperative Education Department at the University of Waterloo for facilitating access to the sample. The organizations and applicants are also thanked for their generous participation. We also thank Jane Webster, Ramona Bobocel, Jo Sylvester, and three anonymous reviewers for their comments on earlier versions of this paper; and Judith Carscadden, Alice Rushing, and David Zweig for their assistance with data collection. An earlier version of this paper was presented as part of a symposium at the Canadian Psychological Association, 58th annual convention in Toronto, Canada, June 17. This paper is based in part on Derek Chapmans Masters thesis at the University of Waterloo.

(n1) Interviewers typically have access to information about the applicant prior to the interview. This information may include details about the applicants previous work experience, transcripts of grades, academic background, interests, and test results. Pre-interview information has been found to be a significant predictor of the ultimate impression of the applicant subsequent to the interview (Dipboye, Stramler, & Fontenelle, 184; Dougherty, Turban, & Callender, 14; Macan & Dipboye, 10; Rowe, 18; Tucker & Rowe, 177). Accordingly, pre-interview impressions served as a covariate in our analyses to isolate the variance in interviewer ratings due to the interview alone. The results in Tables 1 and support previous findings (e.g. Dipboye et al., 184; Rowe, 18) in demonstrating the importance of pre-interview impressions (based on written credentials) on interviewer evaluations of the applicant.

(n) A recent review by Campion et al. (17), suggests that interview structure ought to be measured as a multidimensional and continuous variable; however, there is no multidimensional and continuous measure of structure in existence. Given this restriction, the limitations of our field sample, and in the interest of providing more interpretable results, we chose to use Kohn and Dipboyes (18) three-level description of interview structure.

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Coen Noir

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Coen Noir

An important question in film is, what makes a classic movie? There are many things that make a classic movie and only a small percent of films become "classics". The Man Who Wasn't There directed and written by Joel and Ethan Coen, photography by Roger Deakins, music by Cartrer Burwell and starring Billy Bob Thorton, Frances McDormoan, James Gandolfini and John Pollito, is a classic movie in progress. It hasn't been around long enough to actually be a classic, but with it's relevancy and truth; the immense and personal emotional response and cinematic form such as its revisibility and unity, beauty and treatment it will be considered so in the future.

This film has relevance that fits not only the present and the future but the past as well. The film focuses a lot on greed and money. It is greed and money that the drives the businessman in town. It is greed and money that drives Ed Crane (Billy Bob Thorton) to blackmailing Big Dave because of the affair he was having with his wife. Big Dave married his pursed lips wife for the money in her family so he can manage a department store. It is money that can get Ed a good lawyer like Freddy Redenshneider to help Doris get pleaded innocent. Greed and adultery are and have been a part of human society since civilization began. This film focuses a lot on wrongfully accusing people of murder. At the end a life is taken for the wrong reason. The reason Ed went so nicely to the electric chair is because he did kill Big Dave so he did deserve it. It is morals and experimenting with how far they will go that makes people in general at any era relate. It is because of these concepts and how they are treated that will make it relevant to people in the future.

Having the film shot on location instead of on a stage makes the movie more realistic and realistic to many generations. One of the most relevant concepts of all is the aspect of family. It puts the not just the pain of knowing your spouse is having an affair but the awkwardness as well. A scene in the movie that has a lot to do with family is during the wedding of Doris's cousin. Her Aunt asks her when she's going to bear children because they had not had children yet. It also gives the idea of homosexuality and that was and still is not accepted by all people. It is a theory that Ed Crane is a closet homosexual and that is why he doesn't satisfy his wife so she has an affair. Or why he resisted Birdie in the car that would lure him if he were straight. It is family that Doris's brother says, sticks together in time of need referring to Doris being accused of murdering Big Dave.

It deals a lot with murder and society. Murders are committed and any time, present, past and future because of jealousy, rage and self-defense. It is something people will be dealing with time and again. Always with murder there is wrongfully accused. Ed Crane's wife was wrongfully accused for the killing of Big Dave that Ed had done. Ed Crane was accused of murder that Big Dave had done, and got the death penalty. The Coen brothers have always been politically alert in their movies. This movie was made around the same time as the O.J. Simpson trials and Fredenshnier, the lawyer, was influenced by Johnny Cochren and even rhymed like him in the movie. "Litigate to Compensate."

The emotional response of this makes the viewers not only care for the characters, but feel what the characters are feeling. Getting a sense of awkwardness when Big Dave called Ed down to his store to tell him he knew he bribed him for having an affair with his wife. The viewer cares for Ed when Big Dave is succeeding in almost killing him. The viewer cares 15 seconds later for Big Dave gargling on his stomach on the floor and then dying. The focus on Ed's hands here makes the viewer surprised and curious. The musical score allowed the viewer to feel the escape and freedom he heard from Birdie's playing. The soothing voice over of Billy Bob Thorton adds to the viewer caring for Ed. The Cinematic form during the musical scores were another aspect that made viewers feel more for the characters. The Coen brothers did a good job making Ed and Doris's brother (chair one at the barber shop) Frank as opposite as can be. Frank talks a lot and Ed is quiet. Frank does everything opposite of Ed. This makes the viewer understand and care for Ed more.

I think the cinematic form also helped the revisibility and unity into the film. The film maintains the viewer's enjoyment over numerous viewings because of its black and white with use of shadows make viewings enjoyable. The secrets the characters hide from each other and the reactions of the characters to surprises, made it compelling and complex. When Ed Crane was called out of the barbershop by the detectives expecting to get arrested was instead told his wife was "pinched" for the murder of Big Dave. The viewer is as surprised as Ed Crane yet he manages not to show any emotion at all about it. There is definitely no element wasted. Billy Bob Thorton's harsh faces and emotionless everything fit well to his character. Everything was balanced and neatly tied up, and at the same time pushing the boundaries. The scene in the car with Birdie and Ed Crane was so surprising and complex at the same time makes viewers want to see it again to see if they can find something more in it.

The beauty and treatment were done with great style. The Coen brothers are known for there stylizing aspects. The fact that this movie was made in black and white adds a lot of nostalgia The shadows frequently made faces look distorted or have a dark side. With Billy Bob Thorton's lack of emotion it was the perfect role for black and white film. The beauty of smooth movement of the camera and long takes made the movie flow elegantly. Black and white, the use of the music in this film and the slow music play into the idea of a noir film. The Coen brothers are notorious for their exquisite camera treatment. Camera angles were used intensly throughout the entire movie. In the scene where Ed is walking home from killing Big Dave there is numerous different interesting wide shot angles of him walking in the dark street. One purely great thing the Coen brothers did in this movie, is that they made the viewer see Ed's point of view as he is walking towards the electric chair for his electrocution.

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