Chapter Review 1

Human Resources (HR)

● people who work for a company that is in-charge of wage and salary exchanges.

Human Resource Management (HRM)

● department of business organization that looks after the hiring, management, and firing of staff.
● basic goals to pursue: facilitating organizational competitiveness, enhancing productivity and quality,
complying with legal and social obligations, and promoting individual growth and development.

Outsourcing
● a company that hires third-party contractors to perform services and handle basic HRM functions.

Personnel Department
● specialized organizational units for hiring and administration of current employees, which are headed
by a personnel manager.

Personnel Management
● new type of management function, developed from the recognition that human resources needed to be
managed.

Contemporary HRM
● aligning with larger businesses that deal with different complex and strategic issues.

Scientific Management
● earliest approach of improving that maximizes workforce efficiency.

Human relations era

● dominant approach to management that replaced scientific management during the 1930s.
● resulted by the Hawthorne studies.

Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Human Needs

● developed during the human relations era.
● model for understanding the motivations for human behavior.

Douglas McGregor’s Theory X and Theory Y

● framework developed from the human relations movement.

Knowledge Workers
● employees whose jobs are primarily concerned with the acquisition and application of knowledge.

Productivity
● economic measure of efficiency that summarizes and reflects the value of the outputs created by an
individual, organization, industry, or economic system relative to the value of the inputs used to create
them.
Quality
● total set of features and characteristics of a product or service that bears on its ability to satisfy stated
or implied needs.
Psychological contract
● overall set of expectations held by the employee with regard to what he or she will contribute to the
organization and that are held by the organization with regard to what it will provide to the individual in
return.

Setting for human resource management:

1. Line (or operating) managers and staff managers (or specialized HR managers) typically share the
responsibility for effective HRM.
2. Both sets of managers must work to deal with the conflict that often occurs.
3. The owner or general manager still often handles HRM in smaller firms, but as organizations grow, they
usually establish separate HR departments.
4. Managers should also adopt a systems perspective on the HR function.

Line managers
● directly responsible for creating goods and services.

Staff managers
● responsible for an indirect or support function that would have costs but whose bottom-line
contributions are less direct.

Human Resource Management System (HRMS)

● set of software applications that assists HR professionals in managing HR functions efficiently.

Utility analysis
● attempt to measure, in more objective terms, the impact and effectiveness of HRM practices in terms of
such metrics as a firm’s financial performance.

Describe the job of human resource managers from the perspectives of professionalism and careers:
● Today’s HR managers are becoming increasingly professional in both their training and orientation
toward their work. A variety of career paths are also available for people who want to work in the HR
function.

Key Legislation

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964

● Prohibits discrimination on the basis of an individual’s race, color, religious beliefs, sex, or national
origin.

California Proposition 8
● California state law that banned same-sex marriage. A lower court overturned this law, and the
Supreme Court upheld that decision in 2013, essentially allowing California to recognize same-sex
marriages, which it did.

Federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA)

● Federal law restricting spousal rights to persons involved in traditional (male–female) marriages. The
Supreme Court overturned this act in 2013, granting federal rights to same-sex spouses who were
married in states recognizing such marriages.

Key Points for Future Managers

● The effective management of a firm’s human resources is probably the most important source of
sustained competitive advantage for a modern organization.
● The changing legal environment has made it critical that an organization be aware of the legal
requirements involved in all HRM practices. Failure to do so can be quite costly.
● Effective HRM practices support corporate strategic goals.
 ● Everyone who deals with people has a need to understand some basic notions of HRM.

Chapter Review 2

Describe the legal context of human resource management:

● The first step in this process is the actual creation of new regulation.
● The second step is the enforcement of those regulations.
● The third step is the actual practice and implementation of those regulations in organizations.

Key laws that prohibit discrimination in the workplace, and discuss equal employment opportunity:
● The basic goal of all equal employment opportunity regulation is to protect people from unfair or
inappropriate discrimination in the workplace.
● Illegal discrimination results from behaviors or actions by an organization or managers within an
organization that cause members of a protected class to be unfairly differentiated from others.

Basic kinds of discrimination:

1. disparate treatment
2. disparate impact
3. pattern or practice discrimination
4. retaliation

The major laws and related regulations that affect equal employment opportunity:
● Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964
● Executive Order 11246
● Executive Order 11478
● Equal Pay Act of 1963
● Age Discrimination and Employment Act (ADEA)
● Vocational Rehabilitation Act of 1973
● Vietnam Era Veterans’ Readjustment Act of 1974
● Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1979
● Civil Rights Act of 1991
● Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA)
● Americans with Disabilities Amendments Act (2008)
● Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993
● Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993.

Enforcement of equal opportunity legislation generally is handled by the Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission (EEOC) and the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Procedures (OFCCP).

Disparate treatment
● discrimination exists when individuals in similar situations are treated differently based on the
individual’s race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, or disability status.

Bona Fide Occupational Qualification (BFOQ)

● condition such as race, sex, or other personal characteristic legitimately affects a person’s ability to
perform the job and therefore can be used as a legal requirement for selection.

Business Necessity
● practice that is important for the safe and efficient operation of the business.

Disparate impact
● discrimination occurs when an apparently neutral employment practice disproportionately excludes a
protected group from employment opportunities.
Four-fifths rule
● disparate impact exists if a selection criterion (e.g., a test score) results in a selection rate for a
protected class that is less than four-fifths (80 percent) of that for the majority group.

Geographical comparisons
● involve comparing the characteristics of the potential pool of qualified applicants for a job (focusing on
characteristics such as race, ethnicity, and gender) with those same characteristics of the present
employees in the job.

McDonnell-Douglas test
● used as the basis for establishing a prima facie case of disparate impact discrimination.

Pattern or practice discrimination

● similar to disparate treatment but occurs on a classwide basis.

Protected class
● consists of all individuals who share one or more common characteristics as indicated by that law.

Affirmative action
● represents a set of steps taken by an organization to actively seek qualified applicants from groups
underrepresented in the workforce.

Utilization Analysis
● comparison of the racial, sex, and ethnic composition of the employer’s workforce compared to that of
the available labor supply.

Quid pro quo harassment

● sexual harassment in which the harasser offers to exchange something of value for sexual favors.

Hostile Work Environment

● one that produces sexual harassment because of a climate or culture that is punitive toward people of
a different gender.

Discuss legal issues in compensation, labor relations, and other areas in human resource
management:
● The most far-reaching law dealing with total compensation is the Fair Labor Standards Act, which was
passed in 1938. This law established a minimum hourly wage for jobs. Another important piece of
legislation that affects compensation is the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA).
The National Labor Relations Act, or Wagner Act, was passed in 1935 in an effort to control and
legislate collective bargaining between organizations and labor unions. Congress subsequently passed
the Taft Hartley Act in 1947 and the Landrum-Griffin Act in 1959 to regulate union actions and their
internal affairs.

Importance to an organization of evaluating its legal compliance:

● Several related areas of HRM are affected by laws and associated legal issues. These related areas
include employee safety and health (especially as related to the Occupational Safety and Health Act, or
OSHA), various emerging areas of discrimination law (especially sexual harassment), and ethics. In
addition, several recent Supreme Court decisions have addressed some controversial issues as
same-sex marriage rights and retaliation, and the Affordable Care Act will have a major impact on how
company’s administer their health care benefits. Finally, recent debates over rights of privacy versus
the government’s need to protect the citizens from terrorism will likely become more heated.
Key Legislation

ADA Amendments Act (ADAAA) of 2008

● broadens the protection offered to persons with disabilities at work by defining certain disabilities as
“presumptive,” thus negating several court cases that had ruled certain persons having disabilities as
not qualifying for coverage under the ADA.

Age Discrimination and Employment Act (ADEA)

● prohibits discrimination against employees age 40 and older.

Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA)

● prohibits discrimination based on disability and all aspects of the employment relationship such as job
application procedures, hiring, firing, promotion, compensation, and training, as well as other
employment activities such as advertising, recruiting, tenure, layoffs, leave, and fringe benefits.

Civil Rights Act of 1964

● most significant single piece of legislation specifically affecting the legal context for HRM to date has
been Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Civil Rights Act of 1991

● makes it easier for individuals who feel they have been discriminated against to take legal action
against organizations and provides for the payment of compensatory and punitive damages in cases of
discrimination under Title VII.

Drug-Free Workplace Act of 1988

● passed to reduce the use of illegal drugs in the workplace.

Executive Order 11478

● requires the federal government to base all of its own employment policies on merit and fitness and
specifies that race, color, sex, religion, and national origin should not be considered.

Executive Order 11246

● prohibits discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin for organizations that are
federal contractors and subcontractors.

Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA)

● make it easier for unions to be recognized as sole bargaining agents, eliminating the need for secret
ballot elections.
Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA)
● guarantees a basic minimum benefit that employees could expect to be paid at retirement.

Equal Pay Act of 1963

● requires that organizations provide men and women who are doing equal work the same pay.

Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938

● established a minimum hourly wage for jobs.

Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993

● requires employers having more than 50 employees to provide as many as 12 weeks unpaid leave for
employees after the birth or adoption of a child; to care for a seriously ill child, spouse, or parent; or if
the employee is seriously ill.
Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA) of 2009
● prohibits employers from obtaining genetic information about employees.

Labor Management Relations Act (or Taft-Hartley Act)

● curtailed and limited union powers when enacted and currently regulates union actions and their
internal affairs in a way that puts them on equal footing with management and organizations.

Landrum-Griffin Act
● focused on eliminating various unethical, illegal, and undemocratic practices within unions themselves.

Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009

● clearly outlaws differential pay for male and female employees doing essentially the same job.

National Labor Relations Act (or Wagner Act)

● passed in an effort to control and legislate collective bargaining between organizations and labor
unions, to grant power to labor unions, and to put unions on a more equal footing with managers in
terms of the rights of employees.

Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 (OSHA)

● grants the federal government the power to establish and enforce occupational safety and health
standards for all places of employment directly affecting interstate commerce.

Patriot Act
● expanded the rights of the government or law enforcement agencies to collect information about and
pursue potential terrorists.

Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1979

● protects pregnant women from discrimination in the workplace.

Privacy Act of 1974

● allows federal employees to review their personnel files periodically to ensure that the information
contained in them is accurate.

Reconstruction Civil Rights Acts of 1866 and 1871

● further extended protection offered to people under the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments.

Vocational Rehabilitation Act of 1973

● requires that executive agencies and subcontractors and contractors of the federal government
receiving more than $2,500 a year from the government engage in affirmative action for disabled
individuals.

Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act of 1988

● stipulates that an organization employing at least 100 employees must provide notice at least 60 days
in advance of plans to close a facility or lay off 50 or more employees.

Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993

● government must present a compelling state interest before it could take any action restricting religious
practices. This law was used as the basis for several Supreme Court cases involving a business
owner’s decision to exclude certain health benefits (such as coverage for contraceptive devices) from
employees or to refuse service to LBGTQ individuals.
Key Points for Future Managers
● The law represents a major constraint on corporate HR practices.
● The Civil Rights Act is probably the single most important piece of legislation that addresses which HR
practices are allowed under the law.
● Under the Civil Rights Act, policies that are applied equally to all employees but have a different (and
adverse) effect on employees based on race, gender, religion, color, or national origin are potentially
illegal.
● Sexual harassment is outlawed under the Civil Rights Act, and the scope of activities covered here is
quite broad.
● Laws also outlaw discrimination on the basis of disability and age.
● Still other laws regulate how people are paid, how organizations deal with unions (or attempts to
unionize), and worker safety and privacy.
● No HR decision should be made without consulting someone knowledgeable about the legal
implications of the action. These consultations should include a professional HR manager as well as a
lawyer.

Chapter Review 3

Describe the growth of international business:

● Organizations can adopt a wide variety of strategies for competing in the international environment.
One strategy is exporting, which is the process of making a product in the firm’s domestic marketplace
and then selling it in another country. In licensing, a company grants its permission to another company
in a foreign country to manufacture or market its products in the foreign country’s local market. Direct
investment occurs when a firm headquartered in one country builds or purchases operating facilities or
subsidiaries in a foreign country. In a joint venture or strategic alliance, two or more firms cooperate in
the ownership or management of an operation, often on an equity basis.

Identify and discuss the global issues in international human resource management:
● One issue is the development of an international HRM strategy.
● Another is developing an understanding of the cultural environment of HRM.
● A third is developing an understanding of the political and legal environment of international
business.

Ethnocentric staffing model

● primarily uses parent country nationals to staff higher-level foreign positions.

Polycentric staffing model

● calls for the dominant use of host-country nationals throughout the organization.

Geocentric staffing model

● puts parent-country, host country, and third-country nationals all in the same category, with the firm
attempting to always hire the best person available for a position.

Culture
● refers to the set of values that helps an organization’s members understand what it stands for, how it
does things, and what it considers important.

Discuss the human resource management function in international business:

● The international HRM function must deal with several fundamental management challenges in
international business.
 1. The first major set of challenges relates to differences that may exist in culture, levels of
economic development, and legal systems that typify the countries where the firm operates.
2. A second fundamental HRM challenge in international business is the determination of the
most appropriate source of employees: the host country, the home country, or a third country.
3. Third, international businesses must also deal with different complex training and development
challenges. Yet another important international HRM question relates to working conditions,
compensation, and the cost of living.

Exporting
● process of making a product in the firm’s domestic marketplace and then selling it in another country.
Exporting can involve both goods and services.

Licensing
● involves one company granting its permission to another company in a foreign country to manufacture
or market its products in its local market.

Direct foreign investment

● occurs when a firm headquartered in one country builds or purchases operating facilities or subsidiaries
in a foreign country.

Joint venture (or strategic alliance)

● two or more firms cooperate in the ownership or management of an operation on an equity basis.

Identify and discuss the domestic issues in international human resource management:
1. local recruiting and selection
2. local training
3. local compensation.

Describe the issues involved in managing international transfers and assignments:

● International HRM must also pay close attention to the various issues involved in the effective
management of expatriate employees. Key areas of importance include selecting, training, and
compensating expatriates.

Expatriates
● employees who are sent by a firm to work in another country; they may be either parent-country or
third-country nationals.

Hardship premium (or foreign service premium)

● additional financial incentive offered to individuals to entice them to accept a “less than attractive”
international assignment.

Summarize the issues in international labor relations:

● Labor relations are the processes of dealing with employees who are organized into labor unions. In
the United States, membership in labor unions has steadily declined in recent years, and labor relations
are heavily regulated by laws. Different situations exist, however, in other countries.

Key Legislation

North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)

● reduced trade barriers among Canada, the United States, and Mexico. NAFTA also includes separate
labor agreements among the three countries.
Key Points for Future Managers:
● It is critical that a firm develop an international HRM strategy for dealing with overseas business.
● An important part of this strategy is to determine the appropriate mix of host-country nationals (HCNs),
expatriates, and third-country nationals who will staff operations in a given country.
● It is critical for an organization to understand the cultural, political, and legal environments in a country
where it is considering doing business.
● It is critical that a firm develop an international business strategy that includes consideration of the
relative importance of exporting, licensing, direct investment, and joint ventures for doing business in a
given country or region.
● Policies for recruiting, selecting, training, and compensating expatriate managers must consider the
impact these practices have on HCNs because they must help the expatriate adjust to his or her new
environment, and they may be less likely to do so if they feel resentment toward the expatriate
manager.
● A strategic approach to expatriation must include a strategy for repatriation.

Chapter Review 4

Describe the competitive environment of human resource management:

● All firms operate in a competitive environment and formulate a strategy to determine how they will
compete. The strategic context of human resource management (HRM) plays an important role in
determining the effectiveness of not only the human resource (HR) function but the entire organization
as well. Understanding the organization’s purpose and its mission guides HR managers as they
formulate their strategy. They must also recognize the role of the top management team.

Purpose
● organization’s purpose is its basic reason for existence.

Mission
● organization’s mission is a statement of how it intends to fulfill its purpose.

Top management team

● refers to the group of senior executives responsible for the overall strategic operation of the firm.

Identify three types of strategies and relate each to human resource management:
1. Corporate strategy
2. Business strategy
3. Firm’s HR strategy

Corporate strategy
● deals with determining what businesses the corporation will operate.

Business strategy
● deals with how the firm will compete in each market where it conducts business.

Functional strategy
● deals with how the firm will manage each of its major functions such as marketing, finance, and human
resources.

Growth strategy
● focuses on growing and expanding the business. It can be pursued internally by opening additional
locations or externally through mergers, joint ventures, or the acquisition of other businesses.
Retrenchment (or turnaround strategy)
● occurs when an organization finds that its current operations are not effective, and major changes are
usually needed to rectify the problem. In most cases, this strategy involves rightsizing the organization
by closing operations, shutting down factories, and terminating employees in order to get back on the
right track.

Stability strategy
● essentially calls for maintaining the status quo. A company that adopts a stability strategy plans to stay
in its current businesses and intends to manage them as they are already being managed. The
organization’s goal is to protect itself from environmental threats. Used after a period of retrenchment
or after a period of rapid growth.

Diversification strategy
● used by companies that are adding new products, product lines, or businesses to their existing core
products, product lines, or businesses.

Related diversification
● used when a corporation believes it can achieve synergy among the various businesses that it owns.

Unrelated diversification
● used when a firm attempts to operate several unique businesses in different, unrelated markets. The
basic logic behind unrelated diversification is that a company can shield itself from the adverse effects
of business cycles, unexpected competition, and other economic fluctuations.

Adaptation model
● popular approach to business strategy where a business seeks ways to adapt to its environment.

Differentiation strategy
● attempts to develop an image or reputation for its product or service that sets the company apart from
its competitors.

Cost leadership strategy

● focuses on minimizing the costs as much as possible.

Focus strategy
● undertaken when an organization tries to target a specific segment of the marketplace for its products
or services.

Discuss human resource strategy formulation and relevant organizational factors:

● The actual process of formulating HR strategy results in separate but consistent strategies for staffing,
employee development, and compensation. To enact HR strategy effectively, it must be closely
coordinated with the particular form of organization design the firm uses, the culture it creates, and the
impact of unionization and collective bargaining.

Organization design
● refers to the framework of jobs, positions, clusters of positions, and reporting relationships among
positions that are used to construct an organization.

Organization’s culture
● refers to the set of values that helps its members understand what the organization stands for, how it
accomplishes what it wants to accomplish, and what it considers important.
Discuss the processes through which human resource strategy is implemented:
● The implementation of HR strategy requires an understanding of fundamental individual and
interpersonal behavioral processes. Individual processes include psychological contracts, individual
personality traits, employee attitudes, motivation, and stress. Interpersonal processes include group
behavior, leadership, and communication.

Psychological contract
● overall set of expectations held by an individual with respect to what he or she will contribute to the
organization and what the organization will provide the individual in return.

Personality
● relatively stable set of psychological attributes or traits that distinguish one person from another. Some
organizations believe that one or more particular personality traits may relate to how well an employee
can perform a certain job or type of job.

Motivation
● set of forces that causes people to behave in certain ways. Individual motivation is also a major
determinant of individual performance, but motivation is at the heart of what causes an employee to
choose to expend the effort that will support any organizational activity.

Stress
● person’s adaptive response to a stimulus that places excessive psychological or physical demands on
that person. It is important for HR managers to understand the causes of stress, the processes by
which stress affects individuals, and how organizations and individuals can cope better with stress in
organizational settings.

Discuss how the human resource function in organizations can be evaluated:

● Managers should attempt to evaluate the effectiveness of the HR function and its role in helping the
organization attain its strategic goals. This evaluation usually focuses on specific HR practices.
However, recent evidence suggests that bundles of so-called best practices may be a viable alternative
approach.

Key Points for Future Managers:

● Corporate and business strategies define how an organization will operate and compete in the market.
● Common strategies at the corporate level include a growth strategy, a retrenchment (or turnaround)
strategy, and a stability strategy.
● A diversification strategy is one in which an organization decides to operate different related or
unrelated businesses.
● The adaptation strategy model suggests that organizations should match their strategy to the
environment. The model includes defender, prospector, analyzer, and reactor strategies.
● Major competitive strategies include differentiation, cost leadership, and focus strategies (i.e., targeting
a specific segment of the market).
● HRM strategy is determined by organizational-level strategy as well as by organizational design,
culture, technology, and the workforce.
● Certain specific HR practices may be capable of providing a competitive advantage to organizations.
Chapter Review 5

Describe human resource planning as a source of information for decision making:

● Human resource (HR) executives rely on many sources of information to make decisions and to
manage human capital. HR planning, for example, draws from forecasts of the supply of human
resources, labor force trends and issues, and forecasts of the demand for human resources.

Human resource planning

● process of forecasting the supply and demand for human resources within an organization and
developing action plans for aligning the two.

Human resource information system

● an integrated and increasingly automated system for maintaining a database regarding the employees
in an organization.

Executive succession
● involves systematically planning for future promotions into top management positions.

Discuss strategy as a source of information for making human resource decisions:

● The organization’s strategy is also a critical information source. Growth, stability, and reduction
strategies, for example, each carry substantially different implications for HR managers.

Discuss economic conditions as a source of information for making human resource decisions:
● Another important source of information comes from various economic conditions. Unemployment
rates, market wage rates, and human capital investments each provide useful information to HR
executives.

Rate of unemployment
● calculated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics as the percentage of individuals looking for and available
for work who are not currently employed.

Market wage rate

● prevailing wage rate for a given job in a given labor market.

Human capital investments

● investments people make in themselves to increase their value in the workplace. These investments
might take the form of additional education or training.

Describe job analysis as a source of information for making human resource decisions:
● Job analysis is one of the building blocks of the HR planning process and a fundamental source of
information for that same planning process. Job analysis involves the gathering and organizing of
detailed information about various jobs within the organization so that managers can better understand
the processes through which jobs are most effectively performed. Job analysis provides input to the HR
planning process by helping planners better understand exactly what kinds of work must be performed.

Job analysis
● process of gathering and organizing detailed information about various jobs within an organization so
that managers can better understand the processes through which they are performed most effectively.

Knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSA)

● fundamental requirements necessary to perform a job.
Discuss the job-analysis process, and identify and summarize common job analysis methods:
● Job analysis itself generally follows a three-step process: determining information needs, determining
methods for obtaining information, and determining who will collect information. The responsibility of
analysis is jointly shared by line managers, the HR group or department, and job analysts. Commonly
used methods of job analysis include the narrative approach, Fleishman job-analysis system,
task-analysis inventory, functional job analysis, Position Analysis Questionnaire (PAQ), Management
Position Description Questionnaire (MPDQ), and critical incidents approach. The Occupational
Information Network (O*NET), while not technically a job analysis procedure, provides advanced
job-analysis information. Job analysis results in a job description and a job specification. The changing
nature of work and of jobs must also be understood and appreciated by managers. Finally, there are
also important legal implications related to job analysis.

Job analysts
● individuals who perform job analysis in an organization.

Subject matter expert (SME)

● an individual presumed to be highly knowledgeable about a particular job and who provides data for job
analysis. An SME may be an existing job incumbent, a supervisor, or another knowledgeable
employee.

Occupational Information Network (O*NET)

● technically not a job-analysis procedure but a database that provides both basic and advanced
job-analysis information; as such, it can be viewed as an alternative to conducting job analysis.

Fleishman job-analysis system

● job analysis procedure that defines abilities as the enduring attributes of individuals that account for
differences in performance; it relies on the taxonomy of abilities that presumably represents all the
dimensions relevant to work.

Task-analysis inventory
● family of job-analysis methods, each with unique characteristics; each focuses on analyzing all the
tasks performed in the focal job.

Position Analysis Questionnaire (PAQ)

● standardized job-analysis instrument consisting of 194 items that reflect work behavior, working
conditions, and job characteristics that are assumed to be generalizable across a wide variety of jobs.

Management Position Description Questionnaire (MPDQ)

● standardized job analysis instrument, similar in approach to the PAQ, that also contains 197 items. The
MPDQ’s focus, however, is on managerial jobs, and the analysis is done in terms of 13 essential
components of all managerial jobs.

Critical incidents approach

● focuses on critical behaviors that distinguish effective from ineffective performers.

Job description
● lists the tasks, duties, and responsibilities for a particular job. It specifies the major job elements,
provides examples of job tasks, and provides some indication of their relative importance in the
effective conduct of the job.
Job specification
● focuses on the individual who will perform the job and indicates the knowledge, abilities, skills, and
other characteristics that an individual must have to be able to perform the job.

Key Legislation

Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)

● prohibits discrimination based on disability and all aspects of the employment relationship such as job
application procedures, hiring, firing, promotion, compensation, and training, as well as other
employment activities such as advertising, recruiting, tenure, layoffs, leave, and fringe benefits.

Key Points for Future Managers:

● Planning is as important for human resource management (HRM) as for any other function in an
organization.
● HRM should be an integral part of the organization’s strategy.
● Job analysis is and should be the basic cornerstone for all other HRM functions.
● It is essential to understand the strengths and weaknesses of different job analysis approaches
because one is not better than the others.
● Competency modeling is concerned with identifying broader sets of requirements that may cut across
individual jobs within an organization.