Hannah Clark HR Extra Credit Article Summary Implementing Realistic Job Previews and Expectation-Lowering Procedures: A Field Experiment

by Buckley et al: Article 3 This study was done using a field experiment intended to assess the effects of preemployment interventions on telemarketers that had just been hired. There were several procedures used: a realistic job preview, an expectation-lowering procedure, a combination of the two, and a control condition. Previous literature has determined that realistic job interviews and expectation-lowering procedures tend to enhance the integration of newcomers to an organization, but it is not clear exactly what ratio of the two is the most beneficial. Companies tend to err on the side of being overly positive about the organizational attributes of their jobs to prospective employees; generally they do this to increase more job applicants. This is important, however, especially given the current economic recession and accompanying higher rates of unemployment. Overemphasizing positive attributes gives people a false idea about what a job might be like, which subsequently creates dysfunctional organizational outcomes including absenteeism, turnover, and dissatisfaction due to unmet goals and expectations. These inflated expectations by employees can also contribute in a big way to creating an environment that is not conducive to optimal employee socialization. Realistic job previews contain a blend of positive and negative information about an employment situation. The first accounts of them were forty years ago; since then, studies of realistic job previews have consistently proven that overall, they decrease

turnover by a significant amount. Realistic job previews are most effective when they are given to job applicants during the application process. Job-specific previews can also represent an indirect method to achieving lowered expectations. These may more directly combat inflated expectations via an expectationlowering procedure. This procedure was based on the premise that there may be many benefits similar to those of a traditional realistic job preview in directly lowering employee expectations without providing job specific details. The expectation-lowering procedure works to target unrealistically high expectations, and could thus be useful in many job situations as providing an alternate, non-job-specific procedure to facilitate positive organizational outcomes. The procedure ideally would access the same synergistic effects of a realistic job interview without disclosing job-specific details or being reliant on job analysis. This is especially crucial given the dynamic nature of jobs, which are constantly becoming less well defined. The generalized coping provided by an expectation-lowering procedure offers adjustment, adaptation, and networking. The authors found that they did not have conclusive evidence that expectation-lowering procedures are a more effective method of intervention than realistic job previews. They did, however, suggest that its plausible that an expectation-lowering procedure is beneficial in a larger number of job situations than realistic job previews are. They concluded that more research needed to be done to determine which of the two was more effective. They suggested that future research should include larger amounts of job-specific details in the socialization process than they do currently.