Human Resources Literature Review in an Article

¶ … Human Resources Literature Review

In an article titled "Management Derailment: Personality Assessment and Mitigation," which was published in the American Psychological Association Handbook of Industrial and Organizational Psychology in 2010, the research team of Joyce Hogan, Robert Hogan and Robert B. Kaiser conduct a thorough literature review on the subject of management derailment. By examining over 100 scholarly articles and case studies, the reviewers sought to determine why a curious phenomenon within the study of human resource practices has consistently emerged. As the authors of the literature review observe in their Introduction, although "the economic literature clearly shows that good management enhances organizational performance and that some managers are better than others & #8230; there is little consensus in the psychological literature regarding the characteristics of good managers & #8230; (while) the research on bad managers converges rather well" (Hogan, Hogan & Kaiser, 2010). The thrust of the authors' research focus is therefore directed at determining why, despite more than a century of scientific inquiry on the subject of management, the abundance of accepted research on the subject of human resources has failed to identify the characteristics and traits which define competent leadership in a managerial setting. As such, the literature review provides several examples of contemporary research on the concept of management derailement, which is simply the author's preferred vernacular through which to describe incompetent management techniques.

According to the authors of the literature review "failed managers have bad judgment, can't build teams, have troubled relationships, and can't manage themselves or learn from their mistakes" (Hogan, Hogan & Kaiser, 2010), and over the course of 21 pages they provide an exhaustive investigation into the consequences that bad bosses can bring to a business. The literature review begins with an analysis of the financial costs associated with failed management, with the authors citing studies by Lombardo, DeVries & Kaiser, and Smart to demonstrate that businesses absorb estimated losses between $500,000 and $2.7 million when an executive position is vacated due to unplanned termination. The review's focus then shifts to the moral implications of failed leadership, as incompetent managers can wreak havoc on the lives of their subordinates. According to a previous study published by the authors which is cited in the literature review, "organizational climate surveys routinely show that about 75% of working adults report that the most stressful aspect of their job is their immediate boss" (Hogan, Hogan & Kaiser, 2010). Rather than simply provide a blanket conclusion of this nature without further substantiation, the authors then provide a detailed list of academic research to support their claim, stating "Ashforth (1994), Tepper (2000), and Skogstad, Einarsen, Torsheim, Aasland, and Hetland (2007) trace the empirical links between bad managers and employee stress -- Kelloway, Sivanathan, Francis, and Barling (2005) provide a fine review of this literature" (Hogan, Hogan & Kaiser, 2010). This organizational scheme is indicative of the literature reviews structure, as the authors continue to make assertive suppositions regarding the impact of derailed management before providing the basis for these assertions in the form of peer-reviewed academic research and objective scientific studies.