PERSONNEL PSYCHOLOGY Vol. 59, No.

2Summer, 2006 457500

JOHN W. FLEENOR
Book Review Editor Center for Creative Leadership Greensboro, North Carolina

COPYRIGHT

2006 BLACKWELL PUBLISHING, INC.

457

458

PERSONNEL PSYCHOLOGY

BOOK REVIEW ADVISORY PANEL

David G. Altman, Center for Creative Leadership Gary B. Brumback, Palm Coast, FL Victoria Buenger, Texas A&M University Robert G. Jones, Missouri State University Claude Levy-Leboyer, Institut de Recherches et DApplications en Psychologie du Travail Jeffrey Pfeffer, Stanford University Malcolm James Ree, Our Lady of the Lake University Paul Spector, University of South Florida Lynn Summers, North Carolina Ofce of State Personnel Paul W. Thayer, North Carolina State University

BOOK REVIEWS
CONTENTS
Joseph E. McGrath and Franziska Tschan. Temporal Matters in Social Psychology: Examining the Role of Time in the Lives of Groups and Individuals. Reviewed by Seymour Adler . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ralf Schulze and Richard D. Roberts. Emotional Intelligence: An International Handbook. Reviewed by Neal M. Ashkanasy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Richard Boyatzis and Annie McKee. Resonant Leadership. Reviewed by Wilfred Drath . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Robert Geffner, Mark Braverman, Joseph Galasso, and Janessa Marsh (Editors). Aggression in Organizations: Violence, Abuse, and Harassment at Work and in Schools. Reviewed by Theresa Domagalski . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . William J. Rothwell. Effective Succession Planning: Ensuring Leadership Continuity and Building Talent Within (3rd edition). Reviewed by Janet L. Kottke and Kathie L. Pelletier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dave Ulrich and Wayne Brockbank. The HR Value Proposition. Reviewed by Ira J. Morrow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Gunter K. Stahl and Mark E. Mendenhall. Mergers and Acquisitions: Managing Culture and Human Resources. Reviewed by Caroline Pike . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dennis W. Organ, Philip M. Podsakoff, and Scott B. MacKenzie. Organizational Citizenship Behavior: Its Nature, Antecedents, and Consequences. Reviewed by Jon M. Werner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Howard Wainer. Graphic Discovery: A Trout in the Milk and Other Visual Adventures. Reviewed by Malcolm James Ree . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . John Perkins. Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. Reviewed by Gary B. Brumback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Russell L. Ackoff and Sheldon Rovin. Beating the System: Using Creativity to Outsmart Bureaucracies. Reviewed by Lynn Summers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Karen S. Cook and John Hagan (Editors). Annual Review of Sociology, Volume 31. Reviewed by James A. Wilson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Books and Materials Received . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

459

461

464 467

471

475 478

480

484

487 489

493 496 500

BOOK REVIEWS

461

Joseph E. McGrath and Franziska Tschan. Temporal Matters in Social Psychology: Examining the Role of Time in the Lives of Groups and Individuals. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 2004, 256 pages, $49.95 hardcover. Reviewed by Seymour Adler, Senior Vice President, Aon Consulting, New York, NY. Time matters. We know that over time, employees change strategies for performing key tasks at work, and the communication patterns within work groups change. The relationship between particular skill and personality predictors on the one hand and job performance on the other can alter with tenure; selection tests that signicantly predict the performance of new employees after 6 months on the job may not predict their performance 2 years later. How employees feel about their job varies by the time of year that their attitudes are measured and even by the time of day. There has been ample evidence for decades that time affects phenomena of interest to organizational psychologists. Yet, with a few notable exceptions, our theories, our research designs, and our practice ignore the temporal dimension in all its facets. McGrath, who contributed an insightful but inadequately heeded chapter on time and organizational behavior over 20 years ago, has now cowritten a broader, more theoretically rooted book. McGraths coauthor is Tschan, a prominent Swiss social psychologist, whose involvement likely explains the inclusion of valuable perspectives and ndings of European researchers whose work is not usually considered in American-authored monographs. The book is a rich blend of theory and ndings. The rst two chapters are very conceptual, at times philosophical, and may not be to the liking of those looking for a crisp and clear summary of the key demonstrated effects of time on social psychological phenomena. Not to worrythe next ve chapters provide plenty of clear summaries of selected, often fascinating, areas of research in which signicant temporal effects have been identied. The topics selected for these substantive summaries are intended to provide a broad sampling of research areas in which temporal effects have been studied in depth and which, by their own admission, reect the particular long-standing interests of the authors. The rst of these substantive chapters may well be the section of this book of most interest to the industrial psychologists. The chapter focuses on individual differences in how we perceive the passage of time, how we structure and spend our time, how we pace our lives, and whether we are past, present, or future oriented. It turns out, for example, that people from Western cultures are more future oriented, as are women. Age and personality also affect time orientation; for example, self-esteem

462

PERSONNEL PSYCHOLOGY

and conscientiousness are associated with individual differences in future orientation. The other substantive chapters shift the focus from the individual to the more social level. The authors look at the role of time in processes of goal setting and action (or self-regulatory) control for both individual and collective actors. Here, they draw extensively on European researchers (e.g., Heckhausen, Kuhl, Frese, & Gollwitzer). To analyze the effect of time on collective action, for example, McGrath and Tschan describe three inherent time-related problems with which groups and their members must inevitably deal:

r The scarcity of time resources r Uncertainty about future actions and events r Potential time-related conicts among group members.
The authors develop a model, which they call complex action system theory, for structuring their insightful analysis of how groups address these problems. Other chapters in this section look at temporal effects on decision making, emotional state, group development, and stress. Time affects decision making across a number of facets, including the time allowed for making a decision and the time span affected by a decision. Time relates to common emotional states like waiting, boredom, impatience, and, of course, stress. In describing how we cope with stress, the authors show how time impacts on how we interpret and react to events and on the conditions that can produce stress. Here, the authors draw extensively on McGraths own model of stress potential events and conditions (SPEC). A very important distinction is made between dynamic and reactive coping processes and their outcomes; dynamic coping are coping behaviors that occur during stress-inducing events, whereas reactive coping are coping behaviors attempted right after the event has ended. Later, in describing group responses to stress, the temporal dimension of this model is expanded to include preventive actions taken long before the stressful event, anticipatory actions taken just before the event, and residual responses taken long after the event is over. The nal two chapters revert to a more conceptual tone and specically look at methodological issues when considering time in the study of social psychological phenomena. Time of course is an essential element in our general understanding of causality; logical positivism presumes that causes precede effects. However, even within this framework, we have little guidance in our theories about how long it takes for the cause to produce the effect. The authors also ask how comparable are measures when they are repeatedly administered to the same sample. They also question the internal and external validity of laboratory studies of group performance

BOOK REVIEWS

463

in which the participants are strangers, have 10 minutes to get acquainted, and another 20 minutes to perform a team-based task. Having raised serious questions about our inadequate sensitivity to these and many other time issues in our research and practice, the authors call for us to

r Incorporate temporal matters into our theoretical formulations. Here,

they cite as a noteworthy model Mitchell and James recent work on the Moderation by Causal Cycle curve. r Develop and apply better methods for collecting, analyzing, and interpreting evidence that answers temporal questions. Among the methods currently available but underutilized in our work, the authors mention Markov models, ARIMA, and logit models. Most critically, the authors argue that our eld must develop strong norms favoring multiple waves of measurement purposely spaced at theoretically guided time intervals. r Deliberately focus our research on specic time-related questions concerning phenomena of interest. Here, the authors provide a brief but rich list of ideas that could foster a decade of dissertations across many substantive areas of I-O psychology, including motivation, stress, decision making, and group formation and development.

These last two chapters are, in my view, must reads for all graduate studentsindeed all researchersin our eld. The book includes three appendices that deal with theoretical approaches to the conceptualization of time. These appendices will appeal mostly to those with a strong theoretical orientation. In many ways this book is a landmark, pulling together both theory and content on time. There will be sections of the book that practitioners will nd rough going. I would encourage these practitioners to stick with the more conceptual sections. The time issues raised are of the utmost practical importance in enhancing the relevance of our science to the real world, where, unquestionably, time matters a great deal. The authors have written whimsical little poems to end each chapter. I will end this review with the poem that closes this ne book:
The point, dear friends, of all this rhyme Is just that nows the time for time: The time to take time seriously, Not treat it so imperiously! The time to make times mysteries yield In laboratory and eld. The time to make time ll our theories Ere times sharp arrow ends (h)our queries!

464

PERSONNEL PSYCHOLOGY

Ralf Schulze and Richard D. Roberts. Emotional Intelligence: An International Handbook. Cambridge, MA: Hogrefe & Huber, 2005, 365 pages, $49.95 hardcover. Reviewed by Neal M. Ashkanasy, Professor of Management, The UQ Business School, and Director of Research, Faculty of Business, Economics and Law, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia. There are two things we know for sure about the concept of emotional intelligence: (a) it is controversial, and (b) it continues to excite the interest of both practitioners and academic researchers. This book suggests a further consideration: that interest in emotional intelligence is not limited to just the U. S. and allied English-speaking cultures. The key word in the title is International. Authors of its chapters hail from nine different countries spanning four continents. As such, one would expect that chapters would at least address international dimensions of emotional intelligence. Surprisingly, this is not so. Although there are occasional calls to address cross-cultural issues, and some of the chapters refer to cross-cultural aspects of emotional expression, this is not what this book is about. So, what is the purpose of this book? It purports to be a Handbook, but readers will not nd chapters by the leading proponents of emotional intelligence similar to the Handbook edited by Bar-on and Parker (2000), except for a foreword by Salovey, coauthor of the leading measure of emotional intelligence (the MSCEIT; Mayer, Salovey, Caruso, & Sitarenios, 2003), and a back-cover endorsement by intelligence guru Sternberg. Instead, chapters comprise commentaries and expositions on emotional intelligence by authors from different parts of the world, most of whose names will be unfamiliar to readers of Personnel Psychology. Indeed, this seems to be just what the editors sought to do: This book brings together experts from around the world to present their perspectives on the scientic status of EI. As such, this volume represents a fairly eclectic group of mostly nonmainstream authors who present a mixed variety of views on emotional intelligence and its applications. The book is presented in three parts. Part I is titled Introduction and comprises six chapters intended to provide a broad overview of emotional intelligence, including its foundations in intelligence and emotions research. Parts II and III (Measures and Applications of emotional intelligence) consist of four chapters each. Finally, Part IV provides a summative conclusion. Chapter 1, by editors Schulze and Roberts, together with colleagues Zeidner and Matthews, provides the background for the book, addressing

BOOK REVIEWS

465

intelligence models, emotion theory, personality, and measurement. In Chapter 2, Neubauer and Freudenthaler overview the main models of emotional intelligence, including Mayer and Saloveys (1997) four branch abilities model, and Bar-ons (1997) ve-dimensional mixed model. This is followed in Chapter 3 by an exposition on basic emotion processes by Schultz, Izard, and Abe. These authors begin with the assertion that emotions themselves are intelligent in that emotions and emotion-recognition facilities have evolved to enable organisms to cope with their environment. Ciarrochi and Godsell, the authors of Chapter 4, propose a rather different view of the role of emotional intelligence. They see emotional intelligence as a key to understanding and managing emotions in everyday life, comparing emotions to quicksand, where by not struggling . . . we are less likely to sink. The remaining two chapters in Part I shift the focus to discussion of the broader picture of intelligence. In Chapter 5, Kang, Jay, and Maera discuss emotional intelligence as a special case of social intelligence. They conclude that social and emotional intelligence are multidimensional, interdependent, and overlapping. Austin and Saklofske take this line of argument a step further in Chapter 6, where they argue that it may be premature to characterize emotional, social, and practical intelligences as true intelligence and that much more work is needed to understand the concepts, both singly and comparatively. Part II opens with a discussion of measurement issues by Wilhelm, who distinguishes between typical and maximal behavior, noting that typical behavior is assessed using self-report measures, whereas maximal behavior is measured by ability assessment. Wilhelm identies the MSCEIT as the most appropriate approach to the broad assessment of emotion related capabilities. A controversial aspect of the MSCEIT, however, is the means employed to validate correct answers. Mayer and his colleagues (1997) used one of two methods: (a) consensus, based on a large sample of the general population; and (b) expert rating, based on the responses of a panel of emotions researchers. The issue of consensus-based measurement is the subject of Chapter 8, by Legree, Psotka, Tremble, and Bourne, who argue for consensus-based measurement when objective criteria are unavailable. Trait emotional intelligence (i.e., measured using self-report) is the subject of Chapter 9, by P rez, Petrides, and Furnham. Indeed, I found e this to be one of the more useful chapters in the book, including a comprehensive compendium of measures and a table comparing the dimensionality of the various measures. The nal chapter in Part II, by Weis and S addresses measurement of social intelligence, concluding that a u multitraitmultimethod approach is needed.

466

PERSONNEL PSYCHOLOGY

The four chapters in Part III address applications of emotional intelligence, opening with discussion of applications to learning and achievement by Goetz, Frenzel, Pekrun, and Hall, who present a conceptual model of emotional intelligence learning in the classroom. It is the following chapter (Chapter 12) by Abraham, however, that is likely to be of most interest to Personnel Psychology readers. Abraham presents a reasonably comprehensive coverage of emotional intelligence applications in workplace settings, including personnel selection, leadership, group cohesion, performance and performance feedback, commitment, citizenship behaviors, job control, and self-esteem. The remaining two chapters in Part III are by Parker (clinical psychology) and Engelberg and Sj berg (interpersonal skills). Parker deals o primarily with alexithymia, a clinical condition characterized by an inability to process emotional cues or to express emotion. Parker also comments that the condition is really a total absence of emotional intelligence and that aficted individuals are unable to communicate and are not able to live normal lives. Engelberg and Sj berg address the role of emotional o intelligence as a facilitator of interpersonal communication and social adaptation. This is an interesting chapter insofar as it links with Chapter 3 on basic emotion processes and suggests that the ability to recognize, to understand, and to manage emotions in social situations may be the key to understanding emotional intelligence more generally. Part IV consists only of Chapter 15, by the same authors as Chapter 1, and represents an attempt to integrate the books chapters and to answer the questions, What have we learned? What have we missed? Although I applaud the authors for their efforts in this direction, I did not nd this chapter altogether convincing. The authors seem to be trying to hedge their bets by being critical of emotional intelligence and its measurement, yet at the same time optimistic about applications for the construct. In summary, I have mixed feelings about this book. On the one hand, the volume presents international perspectives on emotional intelligence that are, in many instances, different from what has been published previously and, in some instances, even quite provocative. At the same time, I was disappointed that the book failed to address cross-cultural issues and also that some of the chapters continue to muddy the waters by addressing other intelligences, including social intelligence and practical intelligence. I believe these distract from the essential focus of emotional intelligence on emotion, that Schultz and the authors of Chapter 3 refer to as the functioning of emotion systems. This lack of focus also makes emotional intelligence an easy target for critics like Landy (2002), who points out that the original Thorndike (1920) denition of social intelligence was published in Harpers Magazinehardly a peer-reviewed journal.

BOOK REVIEWS

467

In conclusion, I believe that readers of Personal Psychology with an interest in emotional intelligence should think seriously about adding this book to their library. Although it sometimes loses focus, and it lacks contributions from many of the higher-prole authors in the eld, the chapters provide a range of different and sometimes provocative perspectives from international sources that contributes to our understanding of an intriguing and expanding area of research.
REFERENCES
Bar-on R. (1997). Bar-on emotional quotient inventory (EQ-i): Technical manual. Toronto, Canada: Multi-Health Systems. Bar-on R, Parker JDA. (Eds.). (2000). The handbook of emotional intelligence: Theory, development, assessment, and application at home, school and in the workplace. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Landy FJ. (2002). Some historical and scientic issues related to research on emotional intelligence. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 26, 411424. Mayer JD, Salovey P. (1997). What is emotional intelligence? In Salovey P, Sluyter DJ (Eds.), Emotional development and emotional intelligence: Educational implications (pp. 331). New York: Basic Books. Mayer JD, Salovey P, Caruso DR, Sitarenios G. (2003). Measuring emotional intelligence with the MSCEIT V2.0. Toronto, Canada: Multi-Health Systems. Thorndike EL. (1920). Intelligence and its uses. Harpers Magazine, 140, 227235.

Richard Boyatzis and Annie McKee. Resonant Leadership. Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2005, 286 pages, $25.95. Reviewed by Wilfred Drath, Senior Fellow, Center for Creative Leadership, Greensboro, NC. This volume is a follow-on to the highly successful Primal Leadership (Goleman, Boyatzis & McKee, 2002). Writing without Goleman, Boyatzis and McKee follow in the footsteps laid down by the earlier book, using again many of the same concepts, including emotional intelligence, mindfulness, CEO disease, and, of course, resonance. They also introduce some new terms and ideas: power stress, the Sacrice Syndrome, and the Cycle of Sacrice and Renewal (always thus capitalized in the book). And to the concept of mindfulness, they add compassion and hope. In a nutshell, here is the books message: Great leaders move followers, and followers depend on leaders to inspire them to reach toward an exciting future. But because leadership is the exercise of power and inuence, the act of leadership often leads to power distance (poor relationships with others) and power stress (burnout.) This causes a gradual slide into dissonance and begins the Sacrice Syndrome, characterized by the leaders internal disquiet, unrest, and distress. The Sacrice Syndrome can only be overcome through renewal, by which the leader

468

PERSONNEL PSYCHOLOGY

becomes self-aware, pursues intentional change, and cultivates resonance. Here, as in Primal Leadership, resonance means being in tune with the thoughts and emotions of ones self and others. Leaders who are able to create resonance know that emotions are contagious, and that their own emotions are powerful drivers of their peoples moods, and, ultimately, performance. Resonant leadership is amply illustrated through numerous case studies of actual executives, using real names. The opposite of resonance (dissonance, which is not really the opposite of resonance, but no matter) is also illustrated, but using composite case studies with pseudonyms. The differences between the real-world case studies of resonance and the composite case studies of dissonance are sharply drawn. The positive stories about real people brim with the sensitivity, emotional intelligence, and strategic brilliance of their subjects, whereas the negative stories make one cringe at the woeful lack of self-awareness and blundering cluelessness of the hapless dissonant leader (one understands why pseudonyms are used). The complex ambiguity of the real world is thus held at arms length. There is very little nuance in these case studies; they are composed to illustrate just what they illustrate. Although there is no doubt that the authors have extensive experience coaching executives, the case studies seem to have been selected and written with the primary goal of throwing resonance (or dissonance) into high relief, without doubt or ambiguity. Before too long, these just-so stories, which make up a big part of the book, become all too predictable. Early in the book the authors promise that, whereas Primal Leadership showed that great leaders use emotional intelligence to create resonant relationships, in this book, We now apply our latest research and that from many elds to show how leaders can create resonance in their relationships, their teams, and their organizations. Not surprisingly, the book falls short of delivering on this promise. Too often the authors invoke neurophysiological explanations: Renewal begins as certain experiences arouse a different part of our limbic brain than that involved in stress responses. This in turn stimulates neural circuits that increase electrical activity in our left prefrontal cortex . . . and so forth. Not being neurophysiologists themselves, they properly make no effort to explain this science, but this leaves the reader to take their interpretations on faith. For the reader wishing to nd out just how to become a resonant leader, these neurophysiological explanations are not likely to be helpful. Even when they are not depending on brain science for an explanation, the authors fail to deliver on their promise to show how leaders can become resonant. For example, they say that the rst step is to become aware that you are not aware. How do they suggest handling this tricky feat? By hearing wake-up calls. They give examples of the wake-up calls one

BOOK REVIEWS

469

executive got and how as a result he became aware that he was not aware. But they do not address what to do if you are unaware that you are unaware and do not get any wake-up calls, or in your unawareness, fail to recognize the wake-up calls you do get. Other pathways to renewal and eventual resonance are mindfulness, compassion, and hope. One gets a whiff of circularity here. Mindfulness, compassion, and hope are characteristics of the resonant leader and also the pathways toward resonance. The advice seems to be to become resonant, cultivate the characteristics of resonance. But the authors are never clear about how a person can accomplish this bootstrapping. For example, how might one become mindful when one is unaware of being unaware? To explain this, the authors draw on their case study of Niall FitzGerald, chairman of Reuters, who had earlier been successful but who ran into trouble and became dissonant. [P]art of the reason for his success was that he has the capacity for mindfulness. (Emphasis in the original.) In other words, it helps in becoming mindful if one already has that capacity. Again, circularity threatens. The problem was [h]e had lost the habit of attending to the nuances of his internal state. The issue for this executive was How can I re-engage my capacity for mindfulness? The authors sum up the answer to this complex question in one short paragraph outlining how FitzGerald started with a lot of reection, took up running, which helped him think more clearly, asked people for advice, and made himself vulnerable with his closest friends. This level of how-to, which is typical of the advice in the book, is not likely to help much if one is not even so much as aware of being unaware and has no experience with attending to the nuances of ones internal state. In truth, as the authors acknowledge, renewal and the achievement of resonance is a complex process of personal growth and development. So, it is hardly surprising that this book fails to reduce it to a straightforward how-to formula. All the authors can do is illustrate what some of the executives they have worked with have done to support their own growth and development. Ultimately, all they can advise the reader is to pursue self-development. So, if this is not a how-to book, what is it? One way to read it is as a theory about leadership, an extension of the ideas introduced in Primal Leadership, especially the concept of resonance. This interesting metaphor deserves some thinking through. Although the book is titled Resonant Leadership, it is really about the resonant leader. The line of reasoning in the book is that followers depend on leaders to move them, to inspire them. To do this, the leader must rst achieve inner resonance, which comes from and creates mindfulness, compassion, and hope within the leader. Because human emotions are contagious, the inner resonance of the leader spreads to followers and

470

PERSONNEL PSYCHOLOGY

others, and is capable of transforming the culture of an entire organization. From the resonant leader comes resonant leadership. The underlying and unexamined assumption in this line of reasoning is that the effectiveness of leadership is virtually indistinguishable from the effectiveness of the leader and that the effectiveness of the leader depends on the state of the leaders psyche. Everything ows from the resonance of the leader. Yet, this cannot be if we take the metaphor of resonance seriously. In many ways this useful and potentially generative metaphor points away from the leaders psyche toward the whole social system in which the leader is embedded. According to the Harvard Dictionary of Music (Randel, 2003), Resonance refers to the large oscillatory response of a system to a weak driving force whose frequency matches precisely one of the natural frequencies of the driven system. So, if we were to take the metaphor of resonance more seriously (or at least more literally) than Boyatzis and McKee do, we would think of the leader as a weak driving force, whose effectiveness depends on precisely matching frequencies with the driven system (such as followers). Because resonance is the response of the system, something outside of the leader, the leader cannot possess resonance: it is a property of the social (organizational) system. This picture shifts the focus from the leaders own internal frequencies (such as the leaders emotions or personal vision) and puts it on the natural frequencies of the system the leader is attempting to drive. This is a picture of leadership as mutual action in a system of relations, a system of which the leader is only one part (and perhaps a relatively weak part), whereas followers and other constituents are the larger and perhaps stronger part. This changes the way we think about the leader and leadership. We are less likely to think of the leader as the mover on which followers depend for inspiration and less likely to think of leadership as the exercise of power and inuence by the leader. We would be more likely to think of leadership as a systemic and mutual interaction, a shared creation of power, and a process in which followers show up as being at least as important as leaders, if these terms would even still be useful. This is, of course, not the picture Boyatzis and McKee set out to present at all. They are committed to resonance as a property of the leader, the gift the leader gives to followers and the organization. Yet, the picture of resonance (and leadership) as a mutually creative process, the property not of the leader but of a system of relations, is visible just beneath the surface. Perhaps Resonant Leadership and its predecessor Primal Leadership are examples of how the overall conception of leadership is changing. Boyatzis and McKee may be writing from a point of view that spans two paradigms: The traditional paradigm of leader as prime mover, the cause

BOOK REVIEWS

471

and source of leadership; and an emerging paradigm of leadership as the mutually interdependent achievement of leaders and followers. The useful and generative metaphor of resonance seems to point to the future.
REFERENCES
Goleman D, Boyatzis R, McKee A. (2002). Primal leadership: Realizing the power of emotional intelligence. Boston: Harvard Business School Press. Randel DM. (Ed.). (2003). Harvard dictionary of music (4th ed.). Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press.

Robert Geffner, Mark Braverman, Joseph Galasso, and Janessa Marsh (Editors). Aggression in Organizations: Violence, Abuse, and Harassment at Work and in Schools. Binghamton, NY: Haworth Press, 2004, 246 pages, $39.95 softcover. Reviewed by Theresa Domagalski, Associate Professor of Management, Florida Institute of Technology, Melbourne, FL. As a management researcher who studies workplace anger, I was pleased to have an opportunity to review this book on organizational aggression because anger frequently accompanies aggressive and abusive behavior in work environments. This volume, however, is broader in scope in that it addresses aggression in school settings as well as work settings, and it provides guidelines for violence prevention and mitigation alongside efforts to understand the precursors and correlates of violence. The chapters that comprise this edited collection were copublished simultaneously as issue number 3 or 4 of Volume 4 of the Journal of Emotional Abuse (2004), and are the third in a series of special issues for the journal on the overall theme of violence. The book is divided into three sections for a total of 13 chapters. The stated intent of the editors, as described in the preface, is multifaceted and includes a desire to provide an integrated framework of abuse and aggression in work and academic environments, to introduce insights into how these phenomena may be prevented, and to identify a set of guidelines for treating those who have been affected. The rst section, which is two chapters in length, provides an overview and foundation of the topic. In the opening chapter by Braverman, the reader receives an expanded overview of the objectives that are set out in the preface. Braverman argues in favor of a systems approach for understanding organizational violence, asserting that neither individual nor situational variables are able to fully explain the causes, correlates, and outcomes of violence, which, in turn, has implications for development of effective policy, prevention, and intervention techniques. In the next chapter by Madero and Schanowitz, there

472

PERSONNEL PSYCHOLOGY

is further emphasis on the prevention of school and workplace violence. Although both of the opening chapters agree that it is important to develop an understanding of the reasons that violence occurs, Madero and Schanowitz enhance Bravermans call for systems thinking by highlighting specic individual and organizational causes as well as systemic ones. These causes include the ripple effects of emotional abuse, alienation resulting from a loss of job security, autocratic leadership practices, and a media fascination with sensational and atypical events such as U.S. postal service homicides and the Columbine school massacre. In addition, they emphasize the necessity of evaluating existing violence prevention programs and call for additional research on the topic of violence to identify other effective methods of violence prevention. Section II of the book, which addresses workplace aggression, abuse, and harassment, has six chapters. It opens with an informative longitudinal case study on the effects of a workplace hostage event resulting in a homicide. Panos, Panos, and Dulle report their ndings following a rigorous, 10-year investigation involving the collection of qualitative and quantitative data that examined the emotional effects of a hostage situation in a maternity hospital and assessed the efcacy of various intervention techniques. Among the methods adopted by the affected hospital were debrieng sessions, individual counseling, and peer and family support groups. There are two other empirical studies reported in this section. One is concerned with factors associated with perceptions of sexual harassment among female employees (Amick & Sorenson), and the other is a eld study of organizational and individual-level variables hypothesized to lead to feelings of frustration that result in aggressive workplace behavior (Heacox & Sorenson). Two other chapters offer conceptual insights into emotional abuse and aggressive dispositional characteristics. Koonin and Greene explore bullying and mobbing as forms of workplace emotional abuse, whereas Bergman, McIntyre, and James examine the underlying thought processes of individuals with aggressive personalities. The latter chapter introduces a mechanism referred to as the Conditional Reasoning Test of Aggression that is intended to overcome the shortcomings of self-report measures in identifying individuals who are prone to engage in aggressive behavior. The authors suggest that such measures may be instrumental in screening out prospective aggression-prone employees during new hire selection processes. The nal chapter in Section II by Gault describes the characteristics of an intervention initiative designed to promote nonviolent work environments and features its application in three different organizational settings in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area. The interventions described are comprehensive in scope and typically begin with an assessment of the root problem, which

BOOK REVIEWS

473

might include poor communication skills or a history of verbal abuse by coworkers, supervisors, or clients. Remedies described by Gault include training sessions, stress-reducing modications to the physical environment, theatrical performances, and cease re agreements designed to promote more respectful workplace interactions. The third and nal section of this volume focuses on abuse and harassment in school settings, against and between students, as well as against teachers. Three chapters address the subject of emotional abuse directed toward different targets and by different perpetrators. One is an account of emotional abuse by teachers in Zimbabwean schools, which seeks to understand the underlying motives of teachers who expose students to practices such as humiliation and name calling (Shumba). Blas and Blas , by e e contrast, turn the victim lens on teachers in their examination of the longterm psychological and physical effects of emotional abuse perpetrated by school principals. Peer-based bullying behavior at the elementary school level is addressed in this section also, with specic recommendations given for how to prevent its occurrence (Rock, Hammond & Rasmussen). The recommendations offered for thwarting bullying among children included training of school personnel as well as students, educating students on specic behaviors that constitute bullying, and providing them with specic scripts to address bullying behavior and opportunities to rehearse these scripts. At the high-school level, the prevalence and forms of sexual harassment to which male and female students are exposed is examined with the use of retrospective accounts that were provided by undergraduates from the University of British Columbia (Winters, Clift & Maloney). The remaining of ve chapters in Section III report on the emotional and cognitive reactions of students and parents in the aftermath of the massacre at Columbine High School. It targets not only those who were directly exposed to the event but others as well who did not have rst-hand involvement, and includes an evaluation of the impact of media saturation in the community on the immediate and longer-term coping responses of those who were interviewed. The editors of this collection embark on an ambitious agenda in their effort to introduce an integrative framework to the massive body of literature on organizational aggression while, concurrently, featuring preventive and interventional guidelines. To be sure, they offer a solid justication for the timeliness and necessity of addressing this theme, pointing to the ubiquity of violence and aggression at the societal level. They, and several of their authors, speak to the current events that have saturated the collective consciousness with the indelible presence of violence in our midst, events such as the 9/11 terrorist attacks that resulted in massive deaths and the rash of school shootings in recent years that have claimed

474

PERSONNEL PSYCHOLOGY

the lives of both students and employees. Undoubtedly, these events have profoundly affected the social psyche with the recognition what were once considered safe havensour workplaces and our schoolsare no longer safe. Among the features of this book that add to its appeal are the broad range of issues that are included under the umbrella of aggression, such as mass violence, homicide, emotional abuse, bullying, and sexual harassment. This wide coverage of related topics sensitizes the reader to avoid applying an overly restrictive interpretation to a denition of organizational violence or aggression. In addition, it emphasizes the need to embrace a more encompassing view of context by examining these issues in both work and school environments. Furthermore, several essays move the reader beyond mere reection of the myriad systemic, organizational, and individual antecedents of these behaviors to introduce practical considerations for assisting those who have been victimized as well as techniques for mitigating aggression when it is in evidence or before it occurs. It is this last feature that is perhaps the greatest strength of the book. As such, the book is likely to nd a warm reception among practitioners and organizational policymakers who are (or should be) seeking methods for violence prevention. One notable limitation of the book is that it does not deliver on its aim of providing an integrated framework of violence and aggression. Yet, such an undertaking does not even appear feasible at this stage. A coherent denition of the subject remains elusive in view of the broad array of conceptually similar constructs such as antisocial behavior, bullying, counterproductive behavior, deviance, emotional abuse, incivility, revenge, retaliation, violence, and so forth. Moreover, research on the precursors and outcomes of violence and aggression is ongoing, with much that remains unknown; thus, integration may be somewhat premature. In any event, this volume, with its attention to preventive and interventional techniques, taken together with other sources that seek to inform our understanding of the underlying phenomenon (e.g., Giacalone & Greenberg, 1997; Green & Donnerstein, 1998; Kelloway, Barling, & Hurrell, in press), move us forward in addressing and combating aggression and violence in our schools and workplaces.
REFERENCES
Giacalone R, Greenberg J. (1997). Antisocial behavior in organizations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Green R, Donnerstein E. (1998). Human aggression: Theory, research and implications for policy. NY: Academic Press. Kelloway K, Barling J, Hurrell J. (in press). Handbook of workplace violence. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

BOOK REVIEWS

475

William J. Rothwell. Effective Succession Planning: Ensuring Leadership Continuity and Building Talent Within (3rd edition). New York: AMACOM, 2005, 400 pages, $65.00, hardcover with CD-ROM. Reviewed by Janet L. Kottke, Professor, MS Industrial and Organizational Psychology Graduate Program, California State University, San Bernardino, CA, and Kathie L. Pelletier, Program Manager, County of San Bernardino, San Bernardino, CA. The phrase brain drain is increasingly uttered in organizations, with good reason. Although many CEOs and managers are xated on increasing prots, streamlining functions, and remaining competitive in a global environment, they tend to lose focus on the necessity of grooming underlings for resuming leadership of the organization in the future. Consequently, Rothwells book serves an important purpose in stressing the importance of implementing succession planning and management (SP&M). The book is organized into four parts and two appendices and includes a CD containing exhibits from the book and PowerPoint slide sets. In the preface and throughout the rst three chapters of Part I, Rothwell introduces SP&M and makes a business case as to why organizations should include SP&M in their business strategy. The examples he uses are very relevant in todays business arena (e.g., organizational corruption, an aging workforce, globalization). Readers are quickly convinced of the importance of implementing SP&M after they read vignettes depicting horror stories ranging from executives perishing in an airplane crash or 9/11-styled terrorist attack, to a top performerwho is the only person who knows how to perform critical job functionscalling in sick. In this section, the author introduces the reader to the 2004 survey he sent to members of the International Society for Performance Improvement. Of 500 surveys distributed, only 22 appear to have been returned, making generalizability of these data questionable. Nevertheless, the results of this survey are cited throughout the book. Rothwell also cites contemporary trends inuencing the utility of SP&M programs. Organizations must ensure competent personnel to keep up with technological advances and changing markets through the development of knowledge capital. He also discusses the changing nature of the employment contractfrom delayed to immediate gratication. These changes pose considerable challenges for grooming top performers for eventual promotion. In Part I, Rothwell is successful in educating newcomers about SP&M. He thoroughly denes SP&M and related concepts (e.g., values clarication, competency modeling) and backs his assertions by citing case studies and survey results. His denition of SP&M, having the right people in the right place at the right time seems simplistic on the surface, but the

476

PERSONNEL PSYCHOLOGY

reader soon realizes the strategy of SP&M involves extensive planning and commitment and is anything but simple. Part II, composed of three chapters, lays the foundation for SP&M. In Chapter 5, Rothwell extends the business case for SP&M by linking succession planning with other management activities and with typical human resources planning. He provides a logical step-by-step process for dening the need and securing buy in of top management. Chapters 6 and 7 provide strategies and plans for coordinating the SP&M program that should result from those strategic planning sessions. What tugs at the reader in Part II is the lack of discussion surrounding the potential constraints to implementing SP&M strategies. The author briey touches on contractual constraints (i.e., civil service, union contracts) such as people working out of their job classication but does not present useful recommendations for working within those constraints. He also skims over the consequences of a poorly communicated SP&M program. Turnover, job complacency, and low morale are serious considerations in any SP&M program, and open communication that considers each individuals potential for promotion is a necessity. Given that the authors experiences profusely lace the book, we would have liked him to have described successful communication strategies he has used and discuss why those strategies were effective. Possibly the most practical suggestions in this part are the methods for handling resistance to change. Rothwell presents several methods for gaining support for succession management programs. He also provides sample surveys and interview guides as tools for conducting need assessments. The primary drawback to this section is that the recommendations apply almost exclusively to nonunionized organizations in the private sector. Part III, Assessing the Present and the Future, consists of two chapters. Chapter 8 provides a broad brush of some traditional IO topics: job analysis, competencies, multirater (360 ) assessment, and performance appraisal. The goal is to assess the current talent pool of an organization. In Chapter 9, the focus is on the future. What are the expected needs of the organization and how do we identify them? As with other chapters, the author provides helpful worksheets for scanning the environment and analyzing the organization to identify what will be needed competencies for the future. The difference between future expectations and the current talent pool lays the groundwork for Part IV, Closing the Developmental Gap. In Part IV, the rst chapter (10) is aimed at helping the organization to develop its own talent, largely through individual development plans. Chapter 11 addresses the possibilities that some key positions may not

BOOK REVIEWS

477

need to be replacedperhaps the functions are no longer needed or they could be distributed to other in-house positions or outsourced (including retirees). Using and evaluating available SP&M software is explored in Chapter 12. In Chapter 13, the author covers evaluation of SP&M programs and does a good job of discussing system evaluation techniques. We were heartened to see that his evaluation tools included a worksheet to address performance outcomes of those who are promoted as part of the SP&M program. The book is rounded out with a chapter (14) on the future as the author sees it for SP&M. Specically, he makes the 15 predictions about the future of SP&M and invites the reader to analyze each with reference to its potential impact on the readers organization. These predictions are based on global trends (i.e., age distributions in industrialized countries) as well as logical extensions of the authors arguments (e.g., Prediction 11: SP&M will become more fully integrated with selection decisions). The rst appendix consists of frequently asked questions (FAQs). The FAQs also appear on the CD and could easily be modied for presentations to executives. The second appendix consists of cases previously published elsewhere. The case studies include a range of organizational situations, from a family business to a large governmental agency. The book is rst and foremost a how-to book. Academics will nd no research or theory to enjoin them. To be fair, the intended audience for this book is the HR professional, not the academician. Practitioners with little experience with SP&M will benet most, as will those professionals familiar with the concepts who are looking for a workbook with materials to quickstep the necessary presentations to top management. The book is lled with exhibitsmost contained on the enclosed CDthat contain questions to be asked of key decision makers in the organization, agenda for meetings, and checklists. Our biggest complaint is the unevenness of the coverage of topics. Rothwell is quite good at providing basic denitions for critical elements in SP&M (e.g., mentoring) and elaborating on those concepts, but he glosses over large topics (e.g., SP&M for organizations with unions) in which more explanation would have been especially insightful for many readers. We believe the strength of the book is in the rst part where the author makes the case for the need for SP&M. The remainder of the book is spent eshing out the processes he recommends. At times, the elaboration is unnecessary. And at times, the reader gets the uneasy sensation that he or she is being sold on a pyramid scheme. Bottom line: For practitioners without experience or training in SP&M, the book is worth the cost; we think everyone else among the Personnel Psychology readership will be disappointed.

478

PERSONNEL PSYCHOLOGY

Dave Ulrich and Wayne Brockbank. The HR Value Proposition. Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2005, 304 pages, $35.00 hardcover. Reviewed by Ira J. Morrow, Associate Professor, Department of Management, The Lubin School of Business, Pace University, New York, NY. In this work, Ulrich and Brockbank provide a comprehensive overview of the entire HR function in light of the complex and varied internal and environmental forces that business organizations currently encounter and are likely to face in the future. Their central thesis, namely, that todays HR function must create value for an organizations stakeholders if it is going to be taken seriously and have an important role in organizations, is one that they argue for with consistency and passion and explains the books title. Given the books broad focus on all aspects of HR, it should appeal, as the authors state, to a wide audience of HR professionals and potentially to line managers who are concerned with people issues. In addition, it should be of interest to faculty teaching undergraduate and graduate HR courses, and to students preparing for careers in HR. Early in the book, the authors present a blueprint for the future of HR that starts with the central premise and vision that HR succeeds when it creates value. This is their HR value proposition. To attain this vision, the authors delineate ve central goals or elements: (a) HR professionals must be familiar and conversant with external business realities, (b) HR must serve internal and external stakeholders, (c) all HR practices must be crafted in such a way as to create value, (d) the HR function must create strategies and resources to create value, and (e) HR professionals deliver value through the roles they play and the competencies they demonstrate. These elements in turn serve as the foundation for 14 actions or criteria for an effective HR function. Examples of these include the following: recognizes external business realities and adapts its practices and allocates resources accordingly under the rst element, and has staff who play clear and appropriate roles and builds staff ability to demonstrate HR competencies under the fth element. These 14 actions or criteria are also presented in the form of an instrument that an organization could use to assess the current state of its HR function and that readers can use to focus their attention on the most essential chapters of the book. The authors argue that HR professionals must not only be knowledgeable and conversant with their own specialty but must be uent as well with broad and important environmental trends that inuence business organizations both today and in the future. The external business realities examined by the authors include several major trends in technological advancement, including increasing microprocessor speed, increasing efciency and decreasing unit costs for chip production and

BOOK REVIEWS

479

computer construction, increasing connectivity between stakeholders, and improved customization of products and services to better address customers needs. These technological trends in turn add to the intensity and acceleration of globalization and to the rapid formation of so-called smart mobs, or new blocks of customers, suppliers, employees, and owners who can form overnight to impose substantial pressures on their target organizations. The authors also review relevant economic and regulatory factors, as well as several important trends in workforce demographics, including declining workforce growth, increasing age of the workforce in the United States and elsewhere, changing gender balance of the workforce in favor of women, increasing ethnic diversity of the workforce, and increased globalization of labor both via the migration of people and the migration of work across traditional national borders. The authors cover these important trends in a concise, crisp, and interesting manner, and they provide a list of resources to help readers stay abreast of these trends. After examining the broad environmental context for todays business organizations, the authors turn their attention to a discussion of the important external stakeholders that HR must consider if it wants to add value. They rst focus on a companys investors and its customers, and the inclusion of these external stakeholders in an HR book is a welcome surprise. The fact that Ulrich and Brockbank stress the need for HR to provide value by building meaningful ties with and serving the needs of a companys investors and customers attest to their unusually broad, expansive, and dynamic view of the HR function, and the central and critical role it can play in contributing to organizational success. Their basic philosophy is forcefully stated: The success of an HR initiative should be measured not by how well its design and implementation go but by what the initiative does for the organizations key stakeholders. HR actions create value only when they create a sustainable competitive advantage. They therefore urge HR professionals to become both investor literate and customer literate, to think and act like an investor or a customer, and to align HR practices with investor and customer needs. To help HR professionals to assess their investor and customer literacy, the authors provide tests consisting of such questions as Why do investors own your stock, and what are their investing criteria? Who are your rms ve major customers? Why do your target customers buy from you? What are their buying criteria? How do you ensure that your target customers have a positive customer experience? The HR professionals should be able to answer these and other questions. Moreover, HR professionals must play a central role in helping their organizations better align with both investor and customer requirements. To accomplish this, the authors offer such suggestions as using investor and customer criteria and participation in

480

PERSONNEL PSYCHOLOGY

the stafng, training, and development process, putting a larger portion of total compensation into stock-based incentives, and getting customers involved in appraising and rewarding employees, with examples of how to implement these ideas. In order to be taken seriously, HR professionals must obviously build ties with, and address the needs of, internal stakeholders as well, and the authors address this issue carefully by examining how HR can gain the trust of and create value for line managers and employees. A subsequent section of the book provides an in-depth examination of specic HR practices that add value, and this in turn is followed by a discussion of how all of the authors ideas can be tied together to develop an effective HR strategy. The authors make frequent reference to the steps that were taken by HR at Motorola, stating, Its experience illustrates the logic and process for developing a powerful HR strategy based on the concepts and best practices we describe. They offer a six-step HR Strategy Development Process and provide useful examples of various worksheets and assessment forms that can be used to facilitate this process. The authors next tackle the issue of how the HR function itself can be structured to best address the needs of different types of organizational structures found in business today, followed by a discussion of the ve major roles that HR professionals should play in their organizations, including employee advocate, human capital developer, functional expert, strategic partner, and HR leader. Specic examples for each of these roles as performed by HR professionals in companies, including Dell Computer, Boston Scientic, and Eli Lilly, are provided. The authors also consider the issue of how best to train and develop HR professionals. This book is well written, organized, carefully edited, informative, and very interesting. It is replete with fresh ideas, assessment instruments and worksheets, specic action steps, and constructive examples. The authors deserve credit for tackling a broad and complex topic, and for adding a much needed jolt of energy to the HR eld. It is highly recommended for HR professionals who are looking for ways to rethink and re-energize their roles and to add more value to their organizations. Gunter K. Stahl and Mark E. Mendenhall. Mergers and Acquisitions: Managing Culture and Human Resources. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2005, 434 pages, $75.00 hardcover. Reviewed by Caroline Pike, Manager, Anheuser-Busch Companies, St. Louis, MO. An interesting news brief, from an article in The New York Times (2005, September 27), recently came across my desk. The article described

BOOK REVIEWS

481

components of the integration tactics of two major brewing companies that merged when the Brazilian AmBev was acquired by the Belgian-based Interbrew, forming InBev. An excerpt follows: The old Interbrew prided itself on its marketing savvy and its focus on local markets. It called itself the worlds local brewer. AmBev, on the other hand, is known in the beer industry for being obsessive about efciency. The sales force there all drive gray cars because it is the cheapest color, said Concepcion Moreno, an analyst at the Belgian stockbroker Petercam who visited AmBevs headquarters in Brazil last week. The chief executive and the chief nancial ofcer share the same deskpaper and phone calls are rationed. Cost cutting is a way of life, not an on-off activity . . . its being dubbed the AmBevization of Interbrew. Sorting through the complex issues and challenges of managing different cultures in mergers and acquisitions (M&A) could drive one to drinkor, it could drive one to pick up a copy of the new book, Mergers and Acquisitions: Managing Culture and Human Resources, edited by Stahl and Mendenhall. The purpose of the book is to delineate the dynamics of the sociocultural processes inherent in M&A and to discuss their implications for management, with a particular focus on managing postcombination integration. The objectives, as described by the editors, are threefold: 1. To provide a catalyst for scholars who work in the eld of M&A by providing them with a wider scope of theoretical understanding regarding the complexity of the variables that inuence long-term productivity and synergies in M&A 2. To aid executives involved in strategic planning of M&A in constructing due diligence processes that go beyond nancial analyses 3. To help scholars and executives to more clearly comprehend the complexity of the dynamics inherent in the M&A process. To meet these objectives, a number of scholars from different academic disciplines and research domains have contributed chapters outlining current research and theory in their eld of expertise. Each chapter provides a relatively complete review the literature, framework, or research on the topic that it addresses. An executive commentary follows each chapter, where M&Aexperienced executives were asked to briey share the insights that they have gained from their experience. Although each chapter (and its associated commentary) can stand alone as an excellent resource on the topic it addresses, the chapters are grouped into ve parts. Part I, the Introduction, provides the overall context for the rest of the chapters in the book by integrating the strategy, nance, and HR literatures on M&A. The critical role integration of the two entities in creating value for the new organization is also discussed, including

482

PERSONNEL PSYCHOLOGY

standard integration approaches and linking them to the strategic objectives for the merger or acquisition. In Part II, the process of sociocultural integration is addressed; the common thread for chapters included in this section is the process by which synergistic benets are created in M&A. A survey of the chapters in this section follows:

r Organizational Learning in Cross Border Mergers and Acquisitions

discusses how learning throughout the M&A process is hampered by failures in information and knowledge ow and its impact on achieving business objectives. Trust in Mergers and Acquisitions outlines the ways in which trust impacts integration and success in the newly formed organization, and delineates the antecedents to mutual trust in M&A relationships. The Role of Corporate Cultural Diversity in Integrating Mergers and Acquisitions considers ways to deal with the issue of different corporate cultures and discusses the degree to which cultural consistency is needed for successful outcomes in the newly formed organization. The Construction of Social Identities in Mergers and Acquisitions proposes that successful integration may be depend on preservation of premerger individual and corporate identities that coalesce in the process of creating a unied cultural whole. A Learning Perspective on Sociocultural Integration in CrossNational Mergers provides a summary of lessons across merger situations and the factors that inuence the way in which sociocultural issues are addressed.

r r

Part III addresses the management of sociocultural integration. The unifying premise of the chapters in this section is that managerial actions are critical to achieving synergy and creating value. An overview of chapter topics follows:

r Synergy Realization in Mergers and Acquisitions: A Co-competence

Motivational Approach provides a framework for realizing synergies in M&A developed using a comparative case study approach, which identies specic factors that distinguish between successful and unsuccessful postmerger integrations. r The Neglected Importance of Leadership in Mergers and Acquisitions describes a six-dimensional leadership model and its relevance for success in M&A to address a perceived gap in the literature on the importance of leader behaviors and styles. r Psychological Communication Interventions in Mergers and Acquisitions identies specic types of communication strategies to

BOOK REVIEWS

483

address the psychological states that exist in corporate mergers and suggest that these communications are essential to the development of the new identity in the postmerger organization. r Developing a Framework for Cultural Due Diligence in Mergers and Acquisitions considers the contribution of culture t to the management and nancial performance of M&A and proposes a type of gap analysis to identify areas of cultural differences that are likely to impact the integration process. In Part IV, case analyses of sociocultural process in mergers and acquisitions are provided. The cases present valuable, real-world lessons from a variety of national and industry contexts. Some of the cases provide a hindsight analyses to the issues of integration, and some describe proactive integration strategies. All of these cases provide a sense of the reality of the multidimensional issues that must be addressed in situations of postmerger integration. Part V, Lessons for Research and Practice, consists of two chapters. The rst provides a good integrative summary of research on sociocultural integration in M&A in terms of truths (consistent ndings) and paradoxes remaining to be resolved. The second chapter summarizes the messages that the book leaves for the practicing manager and the academic. For the most part, the authors do a good job in meeting the expressed objectives. Each chapter provides a rich and detailed description of theory, possible application, and current research. Several contributors specify detailed frameworks for understanding sociocultural issues in M&A, which will aid scholars in conducting relevant research that furthers existing knowledge. The book also provides a good sense of the complexity of dynamics inherent in the M&A process for both the scholar and the academic. So much so, in fact, that the reader who is unaccustomed to academic writing may be overwhelmed by the complexity of the issues and have a hard time integrating all of the information to form conclusions. Executives reading the book will get much information regarding sociocultural issues, and this information may drive the consideration of nonnancial issues in constructing due diligence process. However, efcient processes for using the information to approach this task are not readily extractable from the readingsthe case studies and executive commentaries probably contribute the most to this objective. Stahl and Mendenhall have compiled an excellent handbook that delineates the dynamics of the sociocultural processes. The book, or individual chapters in the book, would be excellent course reading and resource material for graduate students in business or behavioral science,

484

PERSONNEL PSYCHOLOGY

or academics conducting research on this topic. It will also provide business executives involved in M&A a sense of the numerous nonnancial issues likely to impact the postcombination success of mergers and acquisitions. Dennis W. Organ, Philip M. Podsakoff, and Scott B. MacKenzie. Organizational Citizenship Behavior: Its Nature, Antecedents, and Consequences. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2006, 350 pages, $89.95 hardcover. Reviewed by Jon M. Werner, Professor of Management, University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, Whitewater, WI. How I wish this book had been available when I was in grad school! (Full disclosure: I was a doctoral student in 1988though not at the Indiana Universitywhen Organs original version of this book appeared. The 1988 book heavily inuenced my dissertation and subsequent career.) In the 1980s, Organ wrote a book about a edgling eld of study within the organizational behavior literature. At 119 pages of text and 121 references, it was a major stimulus to many others besides myself, as witnessed by the over 500 citations to the 1988 book in the Social Science Citation Index. Given the passage of roughly 16 years, this latest version cannot really be considered a second edition. At 316 pages of text and 413 references, it is rather a fresh attempt to dene the organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) construct, place it more completely within the management and organizational theory literature, and demonstrate what has been learned over the past 2 decades of study of this topic. The book has two very clear goals: to delineate the current status of OCB research and practice, and to set forth a research agenda concerning where and how to move forward. To tip my hand, I think the authors have succeeded at both counts. The 2006 book has eight chapters, plus a lengthy appendix concerning OCB measures (a weakness in this literature). Chapter 1 is entitled The Good Sam (as in Samaritan). It recaptures Organs experience as a teenager getting called in to work a late-night shift strapping paper in a paper mill, and how an experienced worker averted many disasters by providing assistance above and beyond the call of his own job description. OCB is herein dened as individual behavior that is discretionary, not directly or explicitly recognized by the formal reward system, and in the aggregate promotes the efcient and effective functioning of the organization. Organ and colleagues argue that OCB can and should be distinguished from altruism, and that OCB is not dened by ones motivation in performing it.

BOOK REVIEWS

485

Chapter 2 looks at the roots, structure, and frameworks for OCB. The genesis of this research, with Organ and several of his early doctoral students, is covered. A number of major OCB dimensions are presented, beyond the original two from Smith, Organ, and Near (1983), or the ve from Organ (1988). Some interesting discussion of cultural variations in OCB is included, as well as mention of three related conceptual frameworks (contextual performance, prosocial organizational behavior, and extra-role behavior). Chapter 3 endeavors to uncover OCB in the writings of Barnard, Roehlisberger and Dickson, Katz and Kahn, and Blau. The 2006 book includes coverage of leadermember exchange, transaction cost economics, and idiosyncratic deals (Rousseau, 2001). In Chapter 4, the relationships of attitudes and dispositional variables with OCB are presented. Variables such as job satisfaction, fairness, and affective commitment are presented as aspects of a generalized morale factor that research suggests relates strongly to OCB. Furthermore, the generally disappointing results concerning linkages between personality variables and OCB are acknowledgedother than the moderate link between the Big Five dimension of Conscientiousness and the OCB construct of generalized compliance (formerly and confusingly also previously labeled as conscientiousness). In Chapter 5, the impact of leadership and various aspects of the work environment are presented. Topics covered include transformational leadership, task characteristics (e.g., Hackman & Oldham, 1975), group potency, and perceived organizational support. Chapter 6 covers the impact of OCB on performance evaluations and other managerial judgments. After reviewing a now-sizeable literature in this area, the authors conclude that these impacts are strong and positive, that OCB has at least as great an impact on managerial evaluations as does in-role behavior, that common method variance is a serious limitation of much of this research, and that many signicant interactions between OCB and in-role behaviors have now been uncovered. In Chapter 7, the emphasis on consequences of OCB is extended to organizational-level effects. The number of such studies remains small, with Podsakoff and MacKenzie conducting almost half of them. Nevertheless, it is hard to quarrel with the authors conclusion that OCBs are, indeed, positively related to a variety of important organizational outcomes. Chapter 8 covers implications of the book for HR practitioners and OCB researchers. Implications for stafng, training, compensation, and performance appraisal are addressed, before various critical conceptual and methodological issues concerning OCB research are discussed. Finally, in a 66-page appendix, all major OCB scales that have been used in the literature are presented and reviewed. Organ and colleagues close by

486

PERSONNEL PSYCHOLOGY

suggesting that seven major dimensions emerge from their review: helping, sportsmanship, organizational loyalty, organizational compliance, individual initiative, civic virtue, and self-development. For anyone interested in OCB, this book is a must read. One of the best features of the book is the implications for research section at the end of almost every chapter. These sections have some outstanding insights and recommended future research directions. OCB research would advance considerably if these recommendations were acted on in a systematic and thoughtful manner. A second strength of the book is that the authors have successfully used their meta-analytical skills to synthesize (and in several cases, re-analyze) extant data on the impacts on OCB, as well as the impact of OCB on important organizational variables. Although much more still needs to be learned, the eld has now advanced enough to demonstrate credibility. A third strength of the book is that it addresses criticisms raised of the OCB construct, yet does so in a fairly restrained manner (i.e., the ail our enemies attack style too often prevalent in the OB literature is thankfully absent from this volume). Finally, I am personally gratied that greater attention is now being paid to the practical implications of OCB. So much early OCB research seemed to view this as an OB curionice to look at, study, and discuss, without much consideration of the implications of this topic for organizations, managers, and employees. In terms of limitations, I am not sure how many managers, HR professionals, or undergraduates will nd this a compelling read. It is rst and foremost a research manifesto, and as suggested above, I think it does this very well. However, more work will be needed to translate this research into practice (e.g., what would a stafng, training, appraisal, and/or compensation system look like that adequately accounted for both in-role and citizenship behaviors?) What types of alignment, t, or systems thinking are needed to develop an HR (or organizational) architecture that incorporated both forms of employee behavior? How does this t within current perspectives on strategic management and strategic HRM? The measurement of OCB remains a mess! This book should help to clarify where we are at present, and I personally hope that all future OCB research will look seriously at the seven dimensions proposed in the appendix (as a nit-picky criticism, Table A.1 omits the civic virtue dimension, mixing in this research with the individual initiative dimension; this is an unfortunate editorial oversight). It is still not clear exactly the extent of overlap or redundancy between OCB and the contextual performance construct. All in all, though, I commend this volume to you most enthusiastically. I hope this book does for OCB research what Organ (1988) did for a previous generation of doctoral students and earlier researchers. My bet is that it will. Have at it!

BOOK REVIEWS

487

REFERENCES
Hackman JR, Oldham G. (1975). Development of the job diagnostic survey. Journal of Applied Psychology, 60, 159170. Organ DW. (1988). Organizational citizenship behavior: The good soldier syndrome. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books. Rousseau DM. (2001). The idiosyncratic deal: Flexibility versus fairness? Organizational Dynamics, 29, 260273. Smith CA, Organ DW, Near JP. (1983). Organizational citizenship behavior: Its nature and antecedents. Journal of Applied Psychology, 68, 653663.

Howard Wainer. Graphic Discovery: A Trout in the Milk and Other Visual Adventures. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005, 232 pages, $29.95, hardcover. Reviewed by Malcolm James Ree, Professor, Our Lady of the Lake University, San Antonio, TX. This book starts off with a bang and is immediately quotable: Let me begin with a few kind words about the bubonic plague. Wow, what could it be? You cannot nd out from me. Read the book. This is the second book on graphic presentation of data by Wainer, Distinguished Research Scientist at the National Board of Medical Examiners. I reviewed the rst book, Visual Revelations, and found it to be beautifully presented, useful, and very readable (Ree, 1998). The book has 22 chapters each of which is organized around a specic graphical idea or technique. The chapters are grouped into three sections. Section I contains the rst eight chapters, three of which coauthored by Spence are devoted to the redoubtable Playfair (17591823). Playfair is credited with the pie chart, bar chart, and line chart. Of the canny Scott, it may be said: He invented a universal language useful to science and commerce alike. . . . However, it took almost a century before his invention was fully accepted. These three chapters and others borrow heavily from Dr. Wainers regular column, Visual Revelations, in Chance. Section II has 10 chapters with the theme of using graphics to understand the data of the modern world. The topics range from a trout in the milk to clear thinking made visible. Section III is titled Graphic Displays in the Twenty-First Century. Three chapters are based on conversations with Tukey and an epilogue. Tukey had a large and lasting impact on statistical methods, statistical language, and on graphic presentations, as He also invented an unending number of novel kinds of displays. The one you probably are most familiar with is the stem-and-leaf display. The proposed graphic data analytic tools for this century and the future are called spinning, slicing, nearness,

488

PERSONNEL PSYCHOLOGY

and smoothing. These require high speed modern computers that allow visual and mathematical inspection.1 Almost all current desktop computers should be able to exercise these graphic analytic tools. I renew my call for a Wainer graphics package, especially with 21st century data analytic and visualization tools (see Ree, 1998). Another interesting feature of the book is the relaxed writing that manages to draw in the reader with the familiar: As middle age and its associated onrushing senescence swoop down on me and then joins it to intellectual expansion: I have come to appreciate the Talmudic midrash attributed to Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai. Or consider, when I moved from Princeton to Philadelphia, I raised the average income in both places. Those unfamiliar with statistical artifact may have to ponder momentarily how such an event might come to pass. Or My mailbox, like those of most American adults is often lled to overowing with ads and solicitations of various sorts. This introduction leads into a discussion of transformation of data or plotting data on a transformed axis (i.e., log) for maximum interpretability in graphic presentation. Dramatis Personae is an unusual section that consists of a list of characters in a play, or in this case, in the various chapters of this book. Incidentally, it is also the title of an episode of Star Trek, and more importantla collection of poems by Robert Browning, including these lines on art from Abt Vogler that equally apply to graphic presentation of data:
Ye know why the forms are fair, ye hear how the tale is told; It is all triumphant art, but art in obedience to laws, Painter and poet are proud in the artist-list enrolled.

Because this is a book on graphic presentation, it is important to comment on the quality of the printing and especially the graphic reproduction. The dust jacket is a pleasing blue and green with a rainbow trout shown extending to the back cover. It is simple in keeping with Wainers rules for graphic display put forth in Visual Revelations (Wainer, 1998). The printed text is clear on paper that is unpolished and slightly off white. Contrast is good for easy eye-strainless reading. The example graphs, charts, and tables are frequently the originals and many of them are somewhat less than crisp but something that cannot be avoided if the reader is to be treated to the ability to inspect the originals. Huygenss graph of mortality is a perfect example of this. Huygenss lines are uneven and occasionally not smooth, but this 340-year-old chart imparts the information with a minimum of
1 Not really, but manual methods such as ip-books and solid models would take very long to complete and are limited to three dimensions. This is especially troublesome to those who like to explore hyperspace.

BOOK REVIEWS

489

complexity (it also makes me glad to be living in the 21st century rather than the 17thsee the power of graphics!). Other modern graphs such as average SAT scores are highly detailed (see, for example, pages 33 or 67). This book may be seen as a chronology of graphic data presentation beginning with Playfair to the present and pointing toward the future. In case you were wondering about the trout, it comes from an observation by Thoreau. It was during a 19th century dairymans strike and there was a suspicion that milk was being watered down that Thoreau wrote, Sometimes circumstantial evidence can be quite convincing; like when you nd a trout in the milk. A nal comment remains. The list price of this book is $29.95, and it can be purchased for less at some locations. It is a remarkable value that every practitioner of statistics can afford.
REFERENCES
Ree MJ. (1998). [Review of the book Visual Revelations]. PERSONNEL PSYCHOLOGY, 51, 226229. Wainer H. (1998). Visual revelations: Graphical tales of fate and deception from Napoleon Bonaparte to Ross Perot. New York: Springer-Verlag.

John Perkins. Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 2004, 250 pages, $24.95 hardcover. Reviewed by Gary B. Brumback, Palm Coast, FL Position description of an economic hit man: EHMs are highly paid professionals who cheat countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars. They funnel money from the World Bank, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and other foreign aid organizations into the coffers of huge corporations and the pockets of a few wealthy families who control the planets natural resources. Their tools include fraudulent nancial reports, rigged elections, payoffs, extortion, sex, and murder. Critical incident of an EHM failure: The other type of hit men, the CIA-sanctioned jackals who were always right behind the EHMs and stepped in when the latter failed (as was suspected in the case of the unusual deaths of two men Perkins knew personally, President Jaime Roldos of Ecuador and President Omar Torrijos of Panama). Applicant interviews for EHM position: Applicant is wired to a polygraph while being interviewed. Scoring is upside down. An answer that would be disqualifying is valued because it shows the applicant is seducible. Position descriptions, critical incidents, and applicant interviews were my stock and trade years ago, but not once did I ever encounter the likes

490

PERSONNEL PSYCHOLOGY

of the specic examples I just passed on to you from the books author. I would dare say few if any others in my eld ever encountered them either (come to think of it, though, a tight-lipped graduate school classmate was allegedly on leave from the National Security Agency to do a classied dissertation). Perkins interview with the supersecretive NSA was over 30 years ago, but I suppose its approach remains generally unchanged. He was surprised by the line of questioning and the fact that answers that he thought would reject him led instead to his being offered a job to learn how to spy. His declared opposition to the Vietnam War (he was looking for a draft deferment), his rebellion from his parents, an obsession with women, his materialistic ambition, and his having lied to the police about a loyal friend in trouble were, he said, exactly the types of attributes they sought. He declined the offer and accepted a Peace Corps assignment, which got him deferred. Although on assignment in Ecuador he was approached by the vice president of MAIN, a secretive international consulting company of some 2,000 people that dealt with heads of state and other chief executives. The VP sometimes acted as an NSA liaison, but the companys largest client was the World Bank. Perkins suspected that the man was sent by NSA to assess him in the eld. Perkins joined MAIN after his Peace Corps tour ended. He stayed with MAIN for 10 years, eventually becoming its chief economist and heading major projects around the world but all the while operating as an undercover EHM, the unofcial title that had been given to him by his on-the-job trainer. His primary tool in persuading poor countries on his hit list to go heavily into debt to pay for engineering and construction projects was his inated estimates of the economic growth and increased standard of living the borrowing countries would realize from the projects, although the hidden aim was to indenture the countries and to ensure their loyalty. Moreover, except for the few elites along with corrupt government ofcials, the poor countries became even poorer and their environments were severely damaged. The poor country of Ecuador, Perkins says, is a typical case. Out of every $100 worth of oil torn from the Amazon, less than $3 goes to the people who need it the most, those whose lives have been so severely impacted by the dams, the drilling, and the pipelines, and who are dying from lack of edible food and potable water. Only recently, I clipped a news items about how Chevrons lawyers are in Ecuador defending the company against charges it contributed to one of the worst environmental disasters on the planet (Herbert, 2005). Perkins never once mentions having to use the tool of murder, but presumably he knew some EHMs who did (unless he was really referring

BOOK REVIEWS

491

to the other type of hit men). In one intriguing account he does mention having to rely on another tool, that of sex, to pimp for a Saudi prince to secure his approval of a massive undertaking surreptitiously called the Saudi Arabia money-laundering affair. Here is a wealthy, not a poor, country, so burdening it with debt would be out of the question. The objective instead was to provide a cash cow for U.S. contractors and to ensure the loyalty of the Saudi rulers. They were persuaded to purchase U.S. securities with their petrodollars and use the interest to fund projects carried out by U.S. contractors to modernize and even build entire cities throughout the Arabian Peninsula. Perkins interweaves his insider story with insightful economic, political, and social commentary about the countries on his hit list and the role of the EHMs employers and clientele who make up the corporatocracy, his term for banks, corporations, and governments that use their nancial and political muscle to advance the global empire. The corporatocracy, he contends, is not driven by a conspiracy but by the fallacious belief that all economic growth benets humankind and that the greater the growth, the more widespread the benets. I would argue that the belief is just a great rationalization to justify building an American empire on the backs of third-world countries. I think Perkins would agree with me. Partly as a way of showing beyond a public confession his selfredemption, Perkins summarizes his career after leaving MAIN 25 years ago. Before retiring at the age of 45, he founded a very successful energy company committed to producing environmentally friendly electricity and later sold it in a lucrative deal. Since then he has become a champion for indigenous rights and environmental movements, founded and served on the board of several leading nonprot organizations, and wrote numerous books. He waited until a few years ago to write this book because he had been both threatened and bribed not to write it earlier. This book has become a sensation, having appeared on more than 20 bestseller lists, and Perkins is in wide demand as a speaker. In addition, the publisher tells me that a production company has acquired the movie rights to the book and plans on having Harrison Ford star in it. This is good news because what Perkins has to say needs greater public awareness. However, movie goers should be told that the gist of the movie is not make believe. The publisher, noting that some readers were so shocked and troubled that they questioned whether his accounts are true, took the unprecedented step of writing and disseminating a lengthy veracity memorandum to readers (Piersanti, 2005). In it abundant evidence is cited, such as numerous books (e.g., Henry, 2003), some of which I had already read that corroborate Perkins principal allegations, including his contention that there are far more EHMs today with euphemistic titles who operate in similar roles.

492

PERSONNEL PSYCHOLOGY

On that latter point, for example, Perkins argues that the military intervention in Iraq was due to a failure of EHMs to achieve the same ends. As he puts it, when the jackals fail, young Americans are sent in to kill and to die. The current administration surely would disagree with him, but to the best of the publishers knowledge, no government agency or corporation has taken a public stand on the book, and I have not been able to nd any indication of it in my research preparing for the review. Of course, Perkins allegations may be harder to ignore once the movie hits the theaters. I have a few criticisms of the book. First, I must take issue with his view, also held by some other writers (e.g., Estes, 1996), that the corporatocracy is not a conspiracy. I believe it is exactly that and that Perkins contradicts himself by saying that the members do endorse common values and goals, by alluding to a colluding government, and by describing the extensive revolving door of corporate executives and top government policymakers exchanging positions. Moreover, foreign and military policy is more than a sufcient basis for unifying the parties values, goals, and activities, especially when huge prots can be made while expanding the American empire. Under such circumstances, agreements among parties hardly need to be explicitly made for there to be a conspiracy. Second, Perkins cops out at the end by not suggesting any substantial remedies. His explanation is that the book is a confession not a prescription. But he could have expanded his brief discussion of the role of the World Bank into a blistering critique of it and either suggested how it and other international nancial institutions could be abolished or at least be radically changed. He could have made suggestions as how to slow the revolving door or slam it shut. In addition, he could have explored the controversial idea of returning the dollar to the gold standard, which would end the money sluice from international banks. But he did not, I wonder if he had decided that being prescriptive would have lessened the books entertainment value. Third, Perkins does not adequately address the question of whether the American empire will eventually fall. He does acknowledge the obvious that no empire lasts forever and that if another currency should come along to replace the dollar the U.S. would suddenly nd itself in a most precarious situation, but he does not expand on that point nor does he explore the related possibility that sometime this century the United States could be on the hit list of the new giants on the world scene, China and India, or the possibility that a growing social movement within the Uniterd States could rise up to turn back the current corporate regime (e.g., Derber, 2004). For some journals, a review of this book would be far beyond the fringe. For this journal, I realize that the book is far a eld, but I believe our eld

BOOK REVIEWS

493

is too narrowly dened. Moreover, because we I-O psychologists tout the importance of context as a factor inuencing performance, I think we need to become more knowledgeable about the corporatocracy as a contextual factor. I thus recommend the book for your reading. I found it hard to put down once I started reading it.
REFERENCES
Derber C. (2004). Regime change begins at home: Freeing America from corporate rule. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler. Estes R. (1996). Tyranny of the bottom line: Why corporations make good people do bad things. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler. Henry JS. (2003). The blood bankers: Tales from the global underground economy. New York: Four Walls Eight Windows. Herbert B. (2005, October 22). A rain forest Jekyll and Hyde by environmental champions? The Daytona Beach-News Journal, 4A. Piersanti S. (2005, March 7). Is John Perkins for real? Retrieved April 14, 2006 from http:// www.economichitman.com/pages/veracity.html.

Russell L. Ackoff and Sheldon Rovin. Beating the System: Using Creativity to Outsmart Bureaucracies. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 2005, 144 pages, $14.95 softcover. Reviewed by Lynn Summers, North Carolina Ofce of State Personnel, Raleigh, NC. Your credit card company overcharges you and you write a letter asking for the error to be corrected. Next months computerized bill arrives and the error remains intact. This cycle repeats over the next couple of months. The company neither acknowledges your letters nor corrects the billing error. Exasperated, you put about two dozen staples in the portion of the bill you return (the one that is processed by the companys computer) and write boldly on the bill, See my previous letters. You soon receive an apologetic phone call from the company and the billing problem is corrected. The moral of the story: Human intervention when a customer complains should be a staple of service. Beating the System is a collection of stories cut from the same cloth as this. They are all aboutyou guessed itbeating the system. Putting one over on the bureaucracy. Getting your needs met when the system does not even acknowledge your individual existence. Meting out justice when you are David and your adversary is Goliath (a metaphor the authors use throughout). Not taking it any more and getting even. Although purportedly wrapped in systems thinking, the book comes across more as the authors attempt to tell their stories in a style that blends Aesops Fables with the Rocky and Bullwinkle Shows Fractured Fairytales. This effort falls at and many of their snappy learning points

494

PERSONNEL PSYCHOLOGY

and overly clever morals are just downright silly. Rather than laughing at a clever play on words or groaning at a dreadful pun, the dominant reaction on the readers part is likely to be embarrassment. Is there anything to redeem Beating the System? Perhaps. The collection of anecdotes67 of themcomprises the middle section of the book. So, if redemption is to be found, it will lie in the brief rst section, or in the briefer third (and nal) section. The rst part, called What You Need to Know to Beat Systems, explains why systems need to be beaten, gives a brief overview of systems and describes an approach to creative problem solving. The authors ask:
When was the last time you interacted with an organization, a business, a government agency, or an institution such as a school or hospital and got a direct and accurate answer to a question or received a desired service without having to weave your way through a maze of frustrating hand-offs?

If you live in the same universe as I, your answer is likely to be, Not recently! The authors hopefully suggest that if we beat a system often enough, it may be forced to change. Sensitive organizations may even try to actively learn why customers or employees try to beat them. But system change is a long shot. Alas, the sheer pleasure of beating a system is all the reward a dedicated system beater needs. The authors insights on systems are delightfully clear and caustic. One can see the ngerprints of cynical activists here. Some examples: Contrary to what the textbooks say, corporations do not operate in ways to maximize shareholder value but rather to maximize their executives standards of living. Healthcare systems are designed to perpetuate illness to maintain the systems income streams. And universities exist to provide faculty the quality of life they enjoy. Teaching, they add, as if fanning the ames, is the price they have to pay, and like any price, they try to minimize it. So, if you know how a system is disorganized and mismanaged, and can see how incentives inuence the behavior that irritates, you have insight into the vulnerabilities that will enable you to beat it. Creativity is the method of choice for beating systems. Creativity, according to Ackoff and Rovin, consists of (a) identifying an assumption that constrains the options available in a situation, (b) denying that assumption, and (c) exploring the consequences of that denial. In one of the anecdotes, tenants in an ofce building complained about the slowness of the buildings elevators. Engineers proposed several alternatives for modernizing the elevators, all sufciently costly to make the ofce building unprofitable. In desperation, the facility manager called a brainstorming session with his staff. A newly hired personnel psychologist attended the session and it was his suggestion that was actually implemented: to put mirrors

BOOK REVIEWS

495

in the lobbies. Being nave to the technology involved, he denied the assumption that the only solution was to manipulate the elevators in some way. He saw the problem from the ofce workers perspectivethey got bored waiting for the elevator to arrive. The mirrors gave them something to do while they waited. This is one of the more instructive of the 67 anecdotes. Many are rather inane and I am not sure how they illustrate using creativity to beat systems. There is, for example, the story of a young architectural student who hitchhikes from Pennsylvania to Frank Lloyd Wrights summer workshop, Taliesin, near Scottsdale, Arizona. (This anecdote, as do many of the others, goes back quite a few years.) The great architect does not see walk-ins but the student is persuasive and Wright grants him a few minutes. The student reexively pulls out his pack of cigarettes and Wright points out that habits are precisely what must be broken to be creative. The student dramatically crumples the pack of cigarettes and tosses it into the replace. Wright is so impressed that he invites the student to stay for dinner. As he leads the student up a stairway, the student asks Wright if he habitually climbs stairs facing forward. Wright is incensed and tosses the student out. I have given up trying to make out the signicance of this story. Too many anecdotes glorify the cleverness of the system beater. Too often the system beater is acting boorishly. In one anecdote, for example, an airline bumps a man from his ight. The man protests to the agent, threatening to call his good friend, the president of the airline. He gets his seat. This is the sort of irritating individual everyone within earshot would want to tar and feather and toss down the luggage chute. Beating the System closes with advice for system beaters and suggestions (for organizations) for making systems unbeatable. The rules of thumb for system beaters recap methods that have been featured in the anecdotes: do the unexpected, do not rely on experts, ask for forgiveness (rather than permission), do not accept the rst no, do not assume the boss wont go for it, nd allies, and clog the system. What can organizations do to reduce the need for system beaters? Empower their employees. Those who formulate rules and regulations, say Ackoff and Rovin,
often assume that their subordinates, the implementers of the rules, are not intelligent enough to know when an exception is warranted. Consequently, they require that the rule be applied without exception. This reduces these subordinates to unthinking bureaucrats and results in system users disrespect for all rules and regulations made by the organization.

496

PERSONNEL PSYCHOLOGY

Nothing new here, I am afraid. Some years ago, Carlzon (1987), among others, showed how to create a exible system that responds to customer needs through employee empowerment. Ackoff and Rovin pay tribute to Carlzon but add nothing new. The best they can do is suggest hiring an ombudsman, having customers on the organizations board, requiring executives to mystery shop their own organization, and engage in a process called idealized design. My quest for redeeming value turned up little. Unless odd anecdotes with tortured taglines are your cup of tea, I would not invest in Beating the System.
REFERENCE
Carlzon J. (1987). Moments of truth. Cambridge, MA: Ballinger.

Karen S. Cook and John Hagan (Editors). Annual Review of Sociology, Volume 31. Palo Alto, CA: Annual Reviews, 2005, 438 pages, $76.00 hardcover. Reviewed by James A. Wilson, Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, Fordham University-Lincoln Center, New York, NY.
Invited Annual Reviews authors contribute, for the benet of all scientists and students, the highest-quality scientic literature reviews in the world. As a nonprot organization, our mission is to provide the widest possible dissemination of this invaluable work (Annual Reviews, 2005a).

Pretty heady stuff when you think about it. The highest-quality scientic literature reviews in the world? The widest possible dissemination of this invaluable work? When asked to review the Annual Review of Sociology (hereafter ARS), I once again puzzled over the task assigned to me despite having reviewed ARS in the past. How does one begin to seriously assess, in a more than adequate manner, a publication that (a) covers such a broad and diverse range of topics, (b) draws on the energies and expertise of what are generally recognized as the premier scholars in the eld, and (c) sets out such lofty goals for itself? For those unfamiliar with the Annual Reviews series, the title is an accurate descriptor. Annual Reviews publishes invited reviews by noted scholars across more than 30 scientic disciplines in an annual publication. According to information on the organizations Website, the Institute for Scientic Information ranks nearly 6,000 journals by the number of times journal articles are cited, or by their impact. By this measure, more than half of the Annual Reviews titles are in the top 100 regardless of category (Annual Reviews, 2005b). For sociology in particular, recent data suggest that ARS ranks in the top

BOOK REVIEWS

497

5 journals (despite being an annually published book of articles rather than a journal per se) of the 90 or so top publication outlets for sociologists (Allen, 2003; Annual Reviews, 2005b). In beginning my read of ARS this year, I was reminded of and struck by a conversation I had with another academic at the disciplines annual meetings several years ago. I was presenting an extension of some work , one of sociologys top tier journals that I had previously authored in and acknowledged that prior work. In large part, my acknowledgement of that work was relevant to the material at hand, but I was also quite proud of the fact that as a newly minted PhD, I had managed to publish in what is generally considered one of the disciplines more prestigious and inuential journals. In the discussion period following the presentation, I again referenced the material previously published to illustrate a point when the scholar I was responding to rapidly brought me back to earth with the comment, Most of my colleagues and I no longer read because the article topics are so irrelevant to what we do, the writing is so obtuse and tortured, and the methods so sophisticated as to be incomprehensible. What is my point you might ask? As a sociologist in an academic setting, I sometimes nd time to read articles from relevant journals that I think will inform my teaching, research or service to the university, or profession. This year, the opportunity to review ARS turned out to be a double-edged sword. I do read (and typically enjoy) the articles that seem especially relevant to my particular corner of the universe, and I have found it a chance to catch up on and read reviews of the literature with which I have some vague familiarity but in general with which I do not often keep up to date. In this latter case, articles are usually more of a struggle as I am often unfamiliar with the research and the terms used. As most people are aware, this is usually the case when one wanders outside what they know and are familiar with. But as a sociologist, reading sociological articles, I found much of the work this year, much as the scholars comment in the last paragraph indicates, simply too dense, too obtuse, and too uninformative to be useful to what I do. In the book review guidelines included with the copy of ARS, the guidelines ask is this book soporic (i.e., sleep-inducing, hypnotic, monotonous, dull)? For the rst time, I would have to answer an unqualied YES. This makes me seriously question how useful it would be to the audience of Personnel Psychology in general Perhaps I may be expecting too muchafter all, one cannot seriously expect a book of literature reviews, even the highest-quality literature reviews in the world, to be an attention-grabber across the board. Although this may be viewed as a reluctance to recommend ARS to journal readers, it is not a complete reluctance. Articles on New Directions in Corporate Governance and Agency Theory were primarily interesting to me in that

498

PERSONNEL PSYCHOLOGY

both bemoan the lack of a sociological presence in the study of these particular topics. When Davis (Corporate Governance), for example, states that there is a vibrant intellectual community researching and debating the development of corporate governance systems, but sociologists are largely absent from this community, I can only hope he is referring to their absence from the community researching corporate governance and not the community of vibrant intellectuals. In a less sardonic tone, both authors are pointing to topics and areas of investigation in which they believe sociologists have important contributions to make but are largely (and conspicuously) absent. Nevertheless, given the contributions of the management literature to these topics and the implications of both for organizations, it seems likely that readers may nd some value in these manuscripts. It is worth noting that Shapiros (Agency Theory) is worth the read simply for its caricature of agency theory from the classic economics perspective. Pattillos Black Middle-Class Neighorhoods is one of those interesting reads that is an excellent review of the extant literature on racial and class segregation and the associated issues and that I did not nd to be soporic. Her synopsis of the literature on White and Black preferences for neighborhood racial composition suggests some role of individual choice in continued neighborhood segregation, a statement that is tied as much, or more, to the preferences of Whites as Blacks in understanding past, present, and future degrees of integration and segregation. The average reader of Personnel Psychology may be unlikely to nd much of interest in many of the articles this year. ARS is clearly meant for a community of scholars with specic interests and it is those scholars, with those specic interests, who are likely to gain most from it. My general sense is that ARS achieves at least part of the goal it sets out for itself, in that these are generally excellent reviews of the literature around a given topic (despite my own sense of self-importance, I think it would be somewhat presumptuous of me to pronounce that ARS achieves without question, the highest-quality scientic literature reviews in the world). Furthermore, the authors generally do an excellent job of summarizing not only the sociological literature but the relevant literatures from other disciplines as well. In short, this volume of the Annual Reviews series continues a tradition of high-quality literature reviews. Some of these manuscripts are better at sketching out the implications or considerations in their concluding remarks for where that literature is taking usfrom my view, an important element given the prominence of the scholars selected. And in some cases, but certainly not all, some manuscripts might be excellent as a nonprescriptive remedy for a severe case of insomnia.

BOOK REVIEWS

499

REFERENCES
Allen MP. (2003, December). The core inuence of journals in sociology revisited. Footnotes, 31(9), 710. Retrieved December 26, 2005 from www.asanet.org Annual Reviews. (2005a). Instructions for the preparation of manuscripts: Information for authors. Palo Alto, CA: Annual Reviews. Retrieved December 26, 2005, from www.annualreviews.org. Annual Reviews. (2005b). Retrieved December 26, 2005, from www.annualreviews.org.

500

PERSONNEL PSYCHOLOGY

BOOKS AND MATERIALS RECEIVED

Barabba, Vincent P. Surviving Transformation: Lessons from GMs Surprising Turnaround. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2004, 256 pages, $19.95 hardcover. Cameron, Kim S. and Quinn, Robert T. Diagnosing and Changing Organizational Culture: Based on a Competing Values Framework. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2005, 242 pages, $40.00 softcover. Conway, Neil and Briner, Rob B. Understanding Psychological Contracts at Work: A Critical Evaluation of Theory and Research. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2005, 226 pages hardcover. Cook, Karen S. and Hagan, John (Editors). Annual Review of Sociology, volume 31. Thousand Oaks, CA: Annual Reviews, 2005, 438 pages, $76.00 hardcover. Cutcher-Gershenfeld, Joel and Ford, J. Kevin. Valuable Disconnects in Organizational Learning Systems. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2004, 202 pages, $35.00 hardcover. Glaser, Judith E. The DNA of Leadership. Avon, MA: Platinum Press, 2006, 306 pages, $24.95 hardcover. Green, Marnie E. Painless Performance Evaluations: A Practical Approach to Managing Day-to-Day Employee Performance. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2006, 162 pages softcover. Teece, David J. Managing Intellectual Capital. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2002, 300 pages, $34.50 softcover. Van der Molen, Henk T. and Gramsbergen-Hoogland, Yvonne. Communications in Organizations: Basic Skills and Conversation Models. New York: Psychology Press, 2005, 200 pages, $14.95 softcover. Wainer, Howard. Graphic Discovery: A Trout in the Milk and Other Visual Adventures. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005, 232 pages, $29.95 hardcover. Wendover, Robert W. and Gargiulo, Terrence L. On Cloud Nine: Weathering the Challenge of Many Generations in the Workplace. New York: AMACOM, 2005, 142 pages, $19.95 hardcover.

The publications listed are either already scheduled for review and/or are included as a new listing. Readers interested in reviewing for Personnel Psychology are invited to write our Book Review Editor, Dr. John W. Fleenor, Center for Creative Leadership, One Leadership Place, Greensboro, NC 27410or email him at eenorj@leaders.ccl.org providing information about background and areas of interest.