the practice of leadership: developing the next generation of leaders

PERSONNEL PSYCHOLOGYVol. 60, No. 3—Autumn, 2007767–803

JOHN W. FLEENORBook Review Editor

Center for Creative LeadershipGreensboro, North Carolina

COPYRIGHT C© 2007 BLACKWELL PUBLISHING, INC.

767

768 PERSONNEL PSYCHOLOGY

BOOK REVIEW ADVISORY PANEL

David G. Altman, Center for Creative LeadershipGary B. Brumback, Palm Coast, FLVictoria Buenger, Texas A&M UniversityRobert G. Jones, Missouri State UniversityClaude Levy-Leboyer, Institut de Recherches et D’Applications en

Psychologie du TravailJeffrey Pfeffer, Stanford UniversityMalcolm James Ree, Our Lady of the Lake UniversityPaul Spector, University of South FloridaLynn Summers, North Carolina Office of State PersonnelPaul W. Thayer, North Carolina State University

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CONTENTS

Peggy Holman, Tom Devane, and Steven Cady. The Change Handbook:The Definitive Resource on Today’s Best Methods for Engaging WholeSystems (2nd edition).Reviewed by Mitchell Lee Marks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 771

Jay A. Conger and Ronald E. Riggio (Editors). The Practice of Leadership:Developing the Next Generation of Leaders.Reviewed by Cynthia D. McCauley . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 773

Kelly M. Hannum, Jennifer W. Martineau, and Claire Reinelt (Editors). TheHandbook of Leadership Development Evaluation.Reviewed by John M. Ford . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 775

James M. Hunt and Joseph R. Weintraub. The Coaching Organization:A Strategy for Developing Leaders.Reviewed by Stephen Hrop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 778

Therese F. Yaeger, Thomas C. Head, and Peter F. Sorensen. GlobalOrganization Development: Managing Unprecedented Change.Reviewed by Ira J. Morrow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 781

Chester A. Schriesheim and Linda L. Neider (Editors). Power and Influencein Organizations: New Empirical and Theoretical Perspectives.Reviewed by M. Peter Scontrino . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 784

Howard Karger. Short Changed: Life and Debt in the Fringe Economy.Reviewed by Gary B. Brumback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 787

Deborah L. Duarte and Nancy Tennant Snyder. Mastering VirtualTeams (3rd edition).Reviewed by Donald L. Harville . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 790

Leonard D. Goodstein and Eric P. Prien. Using Individual Assessmentsin the Workplace: A Practical Guide for HR Professionals,Trainers, and Managers.Reviewed by Lee J. Konczak . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 793

Sandra L. McIntyre and Leslie A. Miller. Foundations of PsychologicalTesting: A Practical Approach (2nd edition).Reviewed by Paul F. Ross . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 796

Madhu Viswanathan. Measurement Error and Research Design.Reviewed by Malcolm James Ree . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 800

Books and Materials Received . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 803

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Peggy Holman, Tom Devane, and Steven Cady. The Change Handbook:The Definitive Resource on Today’s Best Methods for Engaging WholeSystems (2nd edition). San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 2007, 732 pages,$59.95 softcover.Reviewed by Mitchell Lee Marks, College of Business, San FranciscoState University, San Francisco, CA.

The Change Handbook: The Definitive Resource on Today’s Best Meth-ods for Engaging Whole Systems (2nd edition) is a substantial revision ofthe book’s first edition, originally published in 1999 with a mere 18 changemethods. The second edition has bulked up to 61 change methods, 19 ofwhich are explored in depth with case studies, answers to frequently askedquestions, conditions for success, and detailed descriptions of the roles andresponsibilities of the people involved in the activity. The other 42 changemethods are presented in a manner more typical of handbooks, with briefand direct instructions on implementation.

The intended audience for the handbook is as broad as its contents—the authors claim that the book is “for anyone who needs a change thatinvolves people.” In particular, it is written for people in organizations andcommunities who are seeking dramatic, sustainable change. The writingis clear and at a level that should be understandable to most any memberof a work organization. However, it seems most appropriate for internaland external change management consultants who seek to broaden theirarsenal of change activities, senior managers who want to gain more so-phistication in the art of change, and middle managers who want to gainmore thoroughness in the practice of change.

The handbook is organized in three parts. Part I, “Navigating Throughthe Methods,” provides overviews on selecting methods and sustainingresults. Part II presents “The Methods” and is sorted into four categories:adaptable methods, planning methods, structuring methods, and support-ing methods. Part III, “Thoughts About the Future From the Lead Au-thors,” is just that, an essay from each of the three lead authors on emergingthemes in the field of organizational change management.

The comprehensiveness of the volume is indeed impressive. The hand-book covers prominent change management interventions such as appre-ciative inquiry and strategic visioning, specific interventions addressedto matters ranging from meeting effectiveness to decision-making qual-ity, and popular interventions including GE’s WorkOut process and SixSigma. Literally, there should be something for everyone concerned withplanning and implementing change.

The opening chapters in Part I are among the most distinctive anduseful in the entire collection. They provide a sophisticated, yet readilyunderstandable, primer in the selection and utilization of change methods.


Especially helpful are Chapter 2 on selecting methods and Chapter 4 onsustaining results. The coverage throughout Part I shows that the authorsare experienced change management practitioners and have contendedwith real matters of making change stick rather than merely designing achange intervention in a vacuum. That is, the authors seem committedto helping readers pull back and understand the bigger picture of puttingan intervention in a context and of supporting desired outcomes beyondimplementation. Their recognition of the realities—and difficulties—ofsuccessfully implementing change methods comes across in the tone andcontent of the writing.

Less helpful is the “summary matrix” in Chapter 1, which aims toprovide an overview of all the processes in the handbook. Although itcovers a lot of ground, ranging from number of participants to time requiredfor preparation, it does not provide much help in selecting methods basedon content or purpose. Methods are named, but their purposes are notprovided. Given that there are over five dozen methods described in thehandbook, it would be useful to have a “quick reference guide” to directthe reader to interventions, say to help groups make decisions or clarifytheir roles and responsibilities.

As noted, Part II sorts the methods into four categories. Unfortunately,it is not obvious how the four categories are distinct from one another orhow the interventions are placed into their respective categories. To fur-ther complicate the organization, one of the categories called “AdaptableMethods” is defined in the book as “methods used for a variety of pur-poses, including planning, structuring, and improving”—the other threecategories. Thus, there is obvious overlap across the categories. Grantedthis is not a major flaw in the book, but the categorization is insufficientto quickly help the reader zero in on which of the 61 interventions is mostsuited for immediate needs.

Overall, the in-depth chapters in Part II do an excellent job of reviewingsome prominent change methods. Each chapter presents a case example,theoretical foundation, and clear guidelines for using the methods. Schol-arly types will be disappointed by the uneven treatment of theoreticalfoundations across the in-depth chapters, some theoretical discussions arevery thorough and others simply are shallow. But the value of the practicalguidelines will more than compensate for the lack of theoretical depth forthe vast majority of readers. This is not a book for someone who wantsto learn about the scientific bases of organizational change; rather, it isdefinitely for practitioners, students, and managers interested in appliedknowledge.

Readers probably won’t want to—or need to—contend with Part III.After 600 solid pages of interventions, the closing chapters seem a little

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fluffy. Perhaps students will find some value in topics like “a frameworkfor a multifront approach to effective change,” and semiretired consultantsmay enjoy reflecting on “seeding the ground for inspiration and enlighten-ment,” but the busiest of readers probably won’t bother. What anyone whoobtains this book will do, however, is consult it over and over again. It isjam-packed with practical interventions and genuinely insightful guidanceon how to apply them. I know my copy will become dog-eared in shortorder.

Jay A. Conger and Ronald E. Riggio (Editors). The Practice of Lead-ership: Developing the Next Generation of Leaders. San Francisco:Jossey-Bass, 2007, 402 pages, $50.00 hardcover.Reviewed by Cynthia D. McCauley, Senior Fellow, Center for CreativeLeadership, Greensboro, NC.

The Practice of Leadership is an edited volume based on papers fromthe 2005 Kravis-de Roulet Leadership Conference sponsored by the KravisLeadership Institute. I found it to be one of the better books producedout of a conference. The coverage of the domain is good; all the majortopics related to leadership are covered. The chapters are well written byrecognized experts who synthesize and summarize what they know aboutsome aspect of the practice of leadership, drawing largely on a researchbase. There is minimum overlap in content across the chapters, thus the400 pages don’t contain much repetition (as can happen in a collectionof chapters from different authors). And the editors provide their ownperspective on what is important in each chapter and what can be learnedabout the practice of leadership from looking at the collection as whole.

The book is divided into four sections. The first section, Leader Se-lection and Development, contains a chapter on selection (by Howard),a chapter on assessment (by London, Smither, and Diamante), and twoon development (one by O’Connor and Day and one by McCall andHollenbeck). The remaining chapters are divided into three sections: TheTasks of the Leader, Leading the Organization, and Leading in Today’sWorld. All of these chapters focus on the practice of leadership, eachlooking at best practices aimed at producing a particular outcome: influ-ence (by Yukl), innovation (by Mumford, Eubanks, and Murphy), ethicalbehavior in organizations (by Johnson), effective teams (by Stagl, Salas,and Burke), recovery after a major organizational transition (by Marks),corporate social responsibility (by Waldman), effective boardroom gov-ernance (by Conger), surviving a crisis (by Mitroff), organizations thatdeal effectively with a diverse workforce (by Offermann and Matos), andleading effectively across cultures (by Teagarten).


A few things to note about the practice chapters in general: They fo-cus on the practices of individuals who hold formal positions of authorityin organizations (i.e., people whom we used to call managers and exec-utives). By focusing on practices, they describe what leaders can do toproduce particular outcomes (e.g., innovation, ethical behavior in organi-zations). For the most part, they don’t describe competency models, whichshould please chapter authors McCall and Hollenbeck, who make the casethat competencies are the wrong focus for leader development and thatorganizations should instead focus on competence (i.e., how effective theleader is at doing the work and getting the results the organization needs).By examining effective practices for producing particular outcomes, thechapter authors are focusing on competence. However, the chapters varya great deal in terms of how much attention is given to the developmentof effective practices.

Most of the chapters are distillations of content that the authors havewritten about extensively elsewhere and that are, or are becoming, a main-stay of the leadership field. But you will find some chapters on newertopics, including Waldman’s chapter on corporate social responsibility,Conger’s chapter on corporate governance, and O’Connor and Day’schapter on developing collective leadership identities. In the section onleader selection and development, a number of the common shortcom-ings in these processes are noted, for example, the overreliance on in-terviews in selection processes and the underutilization of challengingassignments for development. The authors explain why these shortcom-ings tend to persist in organizations. Later, as I read the remaining chapterson leadership practices, I realized that this would have been a useful lensfor these authors to also have taken (i.e., in addition to best practices,what common leadership practices are flawed yet continue to persist inorganizations?).

The editors’ purpose for the book was to produce “a single, easy-to-read resource of the best and most current thinking on a broad essentialrange of leadership topics.” I think they have substantially fulfilled thatpurpose. The book is surprisingly easy to read. Although written largelyby academics, the writing is straightforward, the chapters are well orga-nized, and summaries at the end of each chapter reiterate key points. And“resource” is a good label for the volume. I imagine that I will use it asa handy reference when I need to be reminded of a particular framework(e.g., Yukl’s influence tactics) or need a good summary of a key leader-ship topic (e.g., team leadership) or a useful way of organizing complexmaterial (e.g., what all goes in to leader selection processes). I can alsosee how the book would add value to an academic course on leadership,particularly in showing how the study of leadership can inform the practiceof leadership.

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But will this book also be useful for the first audience Conger andRiggio said they had in mind: managers and executives who practice lead-ership and who want to become more effective. It is not the kind of bookmost managers would typically read. Although straightforward and prag-matic in its approach, the writing is not an engaging narrative, occasionallylapses into what people outside the field would consider jargon, and doesn’thave the detail of a “how to” book. On the other hand, I could imaginegiving a chapter from the book to a manager who is facing a particularchallenge or is working to improve his or her competence in a particularcontext and saying, “here’s an overview of what people in my professionknow about this topic.” In other words, I don’t think this book will endup in managers’ hands unless we selectively put it there when they arelooking for better ways to deal with a challenge.

There’s one other impression the book left with me: We have highexpectations of formal leaders to be the major drivers of a wide variety ofoutcomes in organizations. The expectations for best practice expressedin an individual chapter don’t seem that unreasonable, but taken as awhole, the demands we place on leaders are daunting. It’s no wonderthat there is so much concern expressed about leader bench strength intoday’s organizations. As a colleague of chapter authors O’Connor andDay, I resonate with their efforts to develop communities of leaders whocollectively face the organizational demands placed on them rather thanexpect individual leaders to excel in all domains of leadership practice.

Kelly M. Hannum, Jennifer W. Martineau, and Claire Reinelt (Editors).The Handbook of Leadership Development Evaluation. San Francisco:Jossey-Bass, 2007, 606 pages, $95.00 hardcover.Reviewed by John M. Ford, Research Psychologist, U.S. Merit SystemsProtection, Gaithersburg, MD.1

“After hundreds of studies and many years of research, we still findourselves playing with a few pebbles on the shore of this vast sea of subjectmatter.” The editors and contributing authors—too numerous to properlycredit here—do an admirable job of enticing readers into their game. Thissolid work presents the essentials, intricacies, and challenges of evaluatingleadership development programs. Most readers will be outsiders to thisspecialized field, but the book is accessible and relevant to anyone wholeads or works with leaders, as well as to its primary audience of evaluationpractitioners.

1 The opinions expressed in this book review are those of the author and do not reflect theopinions, policies, or practices of the Federal government or the Merit Systems ProtectionBoard.


The editors begin by acknowledging that “leadership means manythings to many people” and suggest that evaluation is one way to ensurethat leadership programs are really about leadership, as defined by programstakeholders. The chapters that follow explore how evaluation can meet theneeds of both traditional stakeholders, such as program participants andfunding sources, and more distal beneficiaries in surrounding communitiesand in the evaluation profession.

This book contains 19 chapters organized into three sections. Thefirst five chapters review strategies for designing leadership evaluations.Two of these chapters cover technical issues: measurement and researchfundamentals (Chapter 1) and justifying the financial return on invest-ment in leadership development (Chapter 5). The other three chaptersaddress an equally important topic: Evaluators must make explicit thetheory of change that underlies a leadership program before choosingmethods and measures to evaluate it. The pathway mapping process(www.pathwaystooutcomes.org) described in Chapter 2 can be used bystakeholders to negotiate the outcomes that evaluators will measure. Theprocess is usefully illustrated by two sample pathway maps. The Eval-uLEAD (www.evalulead.net) framework presented in Chapter 3 encour-ages evaluators to consider a range of immediate- to long-term indicatorsof leadership development. Chapter 4 suggests ways that evaluators canreduce the effects of their biases and blind spots, developing greater sen-sitivity to other cultures and assumptions about leadership. The readerleaves this section with a firm grasp of the basic tools needed to evaluateleadership development programs.

Chapters 6 through 14 explore “evaluation in context.” The authorsexamine evaluation of leadership development in an evaluation profes-sional association (Chapter 6), municipal nonprofits (Chapter 7), healthservice organizations (Chapter 8), for-profit manufacturing corporations(Chapter 9), grant recipients of philanthropic foundations (Chapters 10and 12), school systems (Chapter 11), adolescent leadership programs(Chapter 13), and “distressed” neighborhoods (Chapter 14). This exhaus-tive list conveys a sense of the almost overwhelming amount of infor-mation in this section. Each chapter follows a helpful strategy of pro-filing the leadership development program, summarizing the evaluationactivities, then highlighting lessons learned. Most chapters include con-cise case summaries. These cases represent a variety of leadership defi-nitions, program contexts, and evaluation strategies. Along with organi-zational case studies, several chapters include individual cases or storiesfrom developing leaders. These features bring life and concreteness towhat could have been written as a shorter—and less readable—proceduralguidebook. Sacrificing conciseness for concreteness was a good editorialdecision.

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The third and final section (Chapters 15 through 19) discusses howevaluations should be designed, conducted, and reported to increasechances that the results will be used. The ideas in this section are use-ful beyond the narrow context of leadership programs. Chapters 15 and 16emphasize the importance of using evaluation results for strategic decisionmaking—and the need to integrate evaluation design into program designand implementation to do this. Chapter 17 emphasizes communicationwith stakeholders, particularly using each audience’s language and modes(e-mail, memos, etc.) of communication effectively. Chapters 18 and 19discuss how the professional evaluation community and stakeholder or-ganizations can apply and use evaluation results. Readers are invited tovisit the book’s Web site (www.leadershiplearning.org) to participate inan ongoing discussion of how to improve leadership evaluation.

Effective communication is a theme of this book on two levels. Thechapters are well written and logically organized and make effective useof flowcharts and diagrams. The authors model a concern for effectivecommunication that many of them also discuss explicitly. For example,Chapter 12 stresses communicating with participants and stakeholdersin a language they understand. Chapter 17 begins with a story about acommunication crisis that both illustrates and models effective storytellingand ends with advice about the delicate task of communicating negativeevaluation findings. This theme is a thread the reader can follow throughoutthe book.

A related theme is the value of descriptive detail in evaluation data.Chapter 3 recommends that evaluation reports include evocative data“obtained and conveyed as stories, viewpoints, or discourse throughmethods such as open-ended surveys, case studies, anecdotes, jour-nals, and video diaries.” Chapter 10 discusses elicitation and analy-sis of life maps, a structured biography of critical incidents usefulin tracing the trajectory of leaders though their development expe-riences. The leadership pathways presented in Chapter 14 are simi-lar (see www.aecf.org/initiatives/mc/llp/chapter8 1.htm). Chapter 14 alsodescribes—in detail—the somewhat nonevaluative task of documentation,which accumulates detailed descriptions of participant experiences. Chap-ter 12 advocates effective use of open-ended questions to understand thedevelopment of participants by eliciting unanticipated details. The readeris convinced by both argument and detailed examples.

One issue not addressed in the book is which leadership competenciesare responsive to development in the first place. Are some key compe-tencies more a result of innate abilities or early learning? These abilitiesmay not just be hard to measure but hard to change through any typeof development. Evaluators should consider whether some program ob-jectives may target the unchangeable. Some chapters tread close to this


issue. The authors recommend pretesting before a program begins andacknowledge that different competencies may be required by leaders indifferent disciplines or leadership roles (such as leading versus manag-ing). But there is no explicit consideration that leadership competenciesmay differ in their fundamental learnability. To the contrary, the programsevaluated in Chapter 8 all assume that “leadership can be learned” in abroad sense. Leadership development evaluation practice can benefit froma close examination of this issue.

The authors traverse an expanse of territory and can be forgiven forany minor locations left unvisited. Their journey is well documented, witheach chapter’s shortlist of sources usefully annotated. These resourcesinclude selected Web links for those eager to expand their knowledgeimmediately. Many of the book’s resources are collected centrally in theeditors’ “Knowledge Pool” at www.leadershiplearning.org. The book alsoincludes several reusable question sets, such as those for evaluating work-group climate, and a 12-item civic activism scale. Careful readers will bewell provisioned for their own next visit to the leadership developmentevaluation frontier.

This is a good reference book and a good read. If you are an evaluator ordesign leadership training, consider adding it to your personal bookshelf—after a determined effort to get your employer to buy it for you first, ofcourse. It’s worth having.

James M. Hunt and Joseph R. Weintraub. The Coaching Organization:A Strategy for Developing Leaders. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publica-tions, 2007, 252 pages, $34.95 softcover.Reviewed by Stephen Hrop, VP, Executive & Organization Development,Automatic Data Processing, Roseland, NJ.

The Coaching Organization picks up where the authors’ prior book(Hunt & Weintraub, 2002) left off. The latter focused on what happenswithin the coaching relationship between managers and their direct re-ports, but this one takes a much broader perspective by including threeadditional types of coaching (external expert, internal expert, and peercoaching) and addressing all four from an organizational and businesspoint of view. Given this macro focus, the target audience for this bookis internal human resources professionals who have responsibility for de-signing and managing leadership development and coaching programswithin their organization.

The authors limit their coverage to developmental coaching, which theydefine as “relationship-facilitated, on-the-job learning, with the most basicgoal of promoting an individual’s ability to do the work associated with thatindividual’s current or future work roles.” Other types of coaching, such as

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life coaching, targeted skill building (e.g., presentation skills), transitioncoaching, mentoring, career counseling, and “remedial” coaching are notaddressed. Don’t be put off by this seemingly narrow focus because withinthe umbrella of developmental coaching are four varieties, as noted above.The result is a book that achieves a nice blend of focus and breadth.

Drawing on the pioneering work of Hall (2002), the authors identifyfour developmental outcomes relevant to this type of coaching: improvedperformance, attitude (how a person evaluates his or her role and career),adaptability (dealing with change), and identity (the ongoing yet evolvingsense of self in the workplace).

Before doing a deep dive on each type of developmental coaching,the authors set the table with four overview chapters. This early materialnot only defines key terms and provides a general overview of what is tofollow but includes several excellent tools for conducting a needs assess-ment prior to launching a coaching program. For example, their “coachingvalue chain” exercise helps program designers establish explicit linkagesbetween business and organizational outcomes, the human resource out-comes needed to support the business outcomes (e.g., eliminating a cultureof blame), the capabilities and attitudes of managers (e.g., team-building)that drive the human resource outcomes, and the coaching interventionsneeded to improve these capabilities and attitudes.

In my opinion, the centerpiece of the book is their comprehensiveCoaching Organization Assessment. This six-page assessment provides anin-depth checklist of factors to consider before embarking on a coachingprogram. It includes four dimensions (cultural context, business context,the human resource management context, and organizational experi-ence with coaching-related activities). Each dimension contains numerouschecklist items for conducting a thorough needs assessment (e.g., a policyof promotion from within, completion of performance appraisals on time,senior executives have been known to act as mentors). After describingthe assessment, the authors apply it to a biotech company and provide asample action plan.

Aside from these excellent needs assessment tools, the early chaptersinclude some useful conceptual models. A good example is a five-stagemodel of skill acquisition (novice, advanced beginner, competent, pro-ficient, expert). The bulk of the book focuses on the four types of de-velopmental coaching I enumerated in the first paragraph of this review.The authors blend extensive conceptual material (definition of terms, adescription of the primary objectives of each type of coaching, etc.) withpractical application. The latter is achieved via a detailed case study oneach type of coaching. As a former external coach, I found the chapters on“executive coaching” (i.e., coaching provided by external expert profes-sionals) to be both conceptually stimulating and practical. For example,


their description of “limited confidentiality” is a more realistic notionthan the standard promise of “complete confidentiality” that frequently isviolated in subtle (and often unconscious) ways by coaches in their conver-sations with other members of the organization (e.g., when the manager ofa coached individual asks the coach to comment on the person’s progress).

They offer excellent guidance to those charged with selecting and man-aging a cadre of external coaches, such as their nine-step list of major tasksand a “competencies of the expert executive coach” model that lists wellover 100 capabilities organized into knowledge, skill, and attribute sec-tions. Also, their exploration of the boundary between executive coachingand therapy is illuminating reading for both coaches and those who hirethem (the latter can use this section as a basis for probing the philosophical“school” of executive coaches prior to hiring them).

The case study on executive coaching comes from the authors’ workon a major coaching initiative at the Whirlpool Corporation. They link thecase to the prior overview chapters (e.g., by highlighting aspects of thecoaching value chain within Whirlpool). Readers looking for guidance onthe macro program flow of an executive coaching program will find it inthe authors’ diagram of an 18-week coaching initiative consisting of fourcoaching sessions of 90 minutes each. The case study concludes with aninsightful “Lessons Learned at Whirlpool” section. A key lesson (one thatI personally can attest to be based on our coaching program at ADP) isthat the experience of being coached strengthens participants’ ability tocoach others.

The authors differentiate internal expert coaching from peer coaching.According to the authors, the former type is almost always provided byhuman resource professionals (e.g., OD consultants and executive devel-opment specialists) rather than line managers. They seem to condone thisconventional wisdom as reflected in their case study at Wachovia where“only seasoned HR professionals were recruited” to be coaches. If limitedtraining and support are available to those in the internal coaching pool,then the authors have a valid point. However, when a robust training andcertification program is available to prepare internal coaches, then a blendof line managers and HR professionals is a much better approach. As anexample, about half of our internal coaches at ADP are line managers whoattend a 12-month intensive training program prior to their first coachingassignment. We completed a recent ROI evaluation of the program thatdemonstrated a significant business impact of this approach. Setting asidethe issue of line managers as internal coaches, the Wachovia case studyprovides numerous practical examples of how to build and run an internalcoaching program.

The chapter on managers as coaches is essentially a distillation of thekey points from the authors’ prior book on this topic (Hunt & Weintraub,

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2002). The major question they seek to answer is: Can managers coachdevelopmentally? Their answer is a qualified “yes,” given the presence ofsupporting conditions and resources. Such conditions and resources areprofiled in their case study of nurses at Children’s Hospital in Boston,where participants attended two training sessions separated by 6 weeksand completed extensive “homework assignments” between sessions. Asin the Whirlpool case, this chapter concludes with an invaluable “lessonslearned” section.

The last section of the book focuses on peer coaching and illustratesthe principles via a case study from Citizen’s Financial Group. The au-thors cite some of the extensive research showing that peers are the best(and most preferred) source of developmental learning for managers andexecutives. Their coverage of peer coaching is sparse (only 10 pages) andconsists mostly of a reiteration of some of the material from prior sectionsof the book (e.g., “build your business case for peer coaching” and “pro-vide training in developmental coaching before peers begin a coachingrelationship”).

Overall, this book contains enough value for coaching program ad-ministrators to warrant a “buy” recommendation.

REFERENCES

Hall DT. (2002). Careers in and out of organizations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.Hunt J, Weintraub, J. (2002). The coaching manager: Developing top talent in business.

Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Therese F. Yaeger, Thomas C. Head, and Peter F. Sorensen. Global Orga-nization Development: Managing Unprecented Change. Greenwich,CT: IAP, 2006, 146 pages, softcover.Reviewed by Ira J. Morrow, Associate Professor of Management, LubinSchool of Business, Pace University, New York, NY.

In this work, the authors examine the issues currently facing the fieldof organization development (OD), as well as the challenges confrontedby practicing OD professionals in today’s global economy. The majorthemes of the book, namely that OD professionals need to be as sensitiveas possible to the cultural milieu in which they operate as they providetheir services to clients around the world and OD interventions that maywork well in one country or region may not be as effective in anotherlocation, are certainly important and timely. As stated, “Global consultingtakes far more than an understanding of how organization developmentoperates in one’s own country: One must know how to adapt the theories,principles, and techniques so that they will be compatible with a varietyof different cultures, economic systems, and legal systems.”


The authors begin with a brief discussion of the humanistic, optimistic,and democratic roots and values of OD, and of the major characteristicsof the OD practitioner, including interpersonal competence, the ability tolink scientific knowledge with organizational problems, the ability to ed-ucate others, and self-insight. Next, the book introduces the reader to theissue of cultural diversity and provides a review of the literature sugges-tive of either cross-cultural divergence or of cross-cultural convergence.The authors also cite a meta study that reviewed the cultural divergence–convergence debate, which concludes that most of the studies indica-tive of convergence focus on macro-level issues such as organizationalstructure and technology, but the studies suggesting cultural divergencetypically focus on micro-level issues, namely the behavior of people inrganizations.

The authors provide an overview of four models of change com-monly used in the OD field starting with Kurt Lewin’s pioneering un-freezing, movement, refreezing model, before turning their attention to abrief description of three categories of OD interventions, including grouporientation interventions (T-groups, team building, process consultation),technostructural interventions (total quality, job design, organizational de-sign, sociotechnical), and total organization interventions (managementby objectives, survey feedback, and managerial grid). The book’s atten-tion then shifts to a discussion of culture using Hofstede’s model of thefour national cultural variables of power distance, uncertainty avoidance,individualism versus collectivism, and masculine versus feminine as itsframework. The authors then examine the degree to which various ODinterventions may be adaptable in different cultures, organizing their dis-cussion around interventions that are likely to have universal applicability(survey feedback), limited applicability (T-groups), and those that can bemodified to fit the particular culture (team building, MBO). The authorsprovide guidance as to how OD practitioners should function in coun-tries with values that are compatible with OD (such as the Scandinaviancountries of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden), in countries with moderatelycompatible values (such as Germany, Great Britain, and the United States),in countries that are less supportive of OD values (such as Venezuela), andfinally in cultures that are undergoing significant cultural transition (suchas Poland, China, and the Republic of South Africa).

This material is followed by a discussion of OD within the context ofthe level of economic development found in different regions includingthose with underdeveloped economies, developing economies (such asChina), and highly developed economies, continuing with a review of thelikely applicability of different OD interventions in regions characterizedby different levels of economic development. The authors examine thelegal issues that global OD consultants are most likely to encounter in

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their work, including laws related to working conditions including com-pensation, laws related to workplace discrimination (“Employment dis-crimination laws say a great deal about a country’s culture. These lawsare tangible evidence that a social problem has been recognized by thegovernment and perceived significant enough as to require action.”),visa requirements, travel within foreign nations, intellectual propertyrights, restrictions on bringing materials (such as computers, recordingdevices, and printed material) into a country, compensation and tax is-sues, access to information, workplace democracy, and establishing anoffice.

There is obviously much in this book that is likely to be of consider-able interest to OD practitioners. The authors provide a valuable serviceto the field of OD by approaching it from a fresh and important globalperspective, and such a big-picture orientation to the topic is certainlynecessary and highly commendable. For these reasons alone, the bookis recommended to anyone who currently works or hopes one day tofunction as a global OD consultant. Because of its specialized focus, thebook could also serve as an interesting supplemental reading in either agraduate or undergraduate OD course but not as a primary text in suchcourses.

Despite this overall recommendation, however, the book’s deficienciesare also noteworthy. These include an often unacceptably weak quality ofwriting and editing so that many points are almost totally incomprehensi-ble or at least not as clear as desired. The book often reads like a carelesslywritten first draft and often made for a very irritating and annoying readingexperience. Hyphens and question marks appear inappropriately; incor-rect words are used such as “employers” instead of employees; sentencesare sometimes incomplete; capital letters are used incorrectly; words thatshould be included are omitted, and tenses are used inconsistently. Authorswho are in effect presenting themselves as global experts refer to Africaas a country (“The countries included here are Africa and China. . .”; “InAfrica, the transformation of the country is the major change effort. . .”).

The authors provide a definition of OD but never really offer a clear def-inition of what they mean by global OD. Throughout the book the wordsglobal and international are used interchangeably. Are these the samething? What exactly constitutes, defines, and limits the field of globalOD? When is one truly a global OD consultant as opposed to a mereOD consultant? The book’s subtitle, Managing Unprecedented Change,is either overblown or at least unexplained. No mention is made of whatchanges the authors are referring to and whether or how they are unprece-dented, or how they should be managed. In several instances, chaptersbegin with cases that refer to the personal OD experiences of “I,” but nofurther information is provided as to whom this refers to, and no citations


are provided for these cases. The authors make a rather big deal about asuccessful OD intervention at Scandinavian Air Systems, allocating 3.5pages to it in a rather short book (127 pages of actual text after subtracting10 empty pages), but the citation indicates a publication date for the orig-inal case of 1994 or 12 years prior to the publication date of this book, sothis is getting rather stale.

The book is divided into three sections, but these sections are not givenhelpful titles or headings. Most critically, the tone of the book is sometimesrather lazy in that often no examples are provided to illustrate and fleshout conceptual points, and concepts are sometimes merely mentioned orlisted without providing a full or clear explanation of what they mean.An about-the-author section would have been a nice touch but is absent.Finally, the intended audience for the book is unclear. The authors do notexplicitly address this issue. Sometimes very basic points that are likelyto be familiar to readers with even a cursory knowledge of OD (such asLewin’s three-stage change model) are explained more fully than ratheresoteric and unfamiliar terms and concepts that are likely to be familiar tofar fewer readers (such as Future Search, or Appreciative Inquiry Summit).The book’s value and appeal could have been considerably enhanced byavoiding or addressing these deficiencies.

Chester A. Schriesheim and Linda L. Neider (Editors). Power and Influ-ence in Organizations: New Empirical and Theoretical Perspectives.Greenwich, CT: IAP, 2006, 177 pages, softcover.Reviewed by M. Peter Scontrino, Industrial-Organizational Psychologist,Scontrino & Associates, Sammamish (Seattle), WA.

Power and Influence in Organization is the fifth volume in the Re-search in Management series. The purpose of this volume is to “highlightnew theoretical and empirical perspectives that advance the frontiers ofknowledge about power and influence in organizations.”

The book includes seven chapters: four empirical studies and threetheoretical papers. All of the chapters are interesting, but it is not clearhow the editors decided on these specific seven topics as illustrations oftheory and research on power and influence.

Chapter 1 is a research study that addresses the question of what man-agers do when subordinates refuse to comply with downward requests.The author looked at the impact of the following four variables: man-agers’ responses (hard follow-up tactics or withdrawal of the request) tosubordinates’ refusal, requests that are within or outside of the person’srole, attributions for subordinates’ resistance (malingering or task ambi-guity), and leader–member exchange. Leader–member exchange refers tothe relationship the leader has with each subordinate. These relationships

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can range from very positive (mutual interest, trust, and equivalence) toless positive (self-interest, low trust, and close score keeping).

The author found that managers used hard follow-up tactics when sub-ordinates’ refusal was in role, when the subordinate was seen as malin-gering, and when leader–member exchange was low. Managers withdrewthe request when the request was seen as outside of the person’s role orambiguous. When leader–member exchange was less positive, managerswere also more likely to withdraw requests.

I believe that managers will find this study quite helpful in those situ-ations where they plan to make extra-role requests from their employees.It is also quite helpful in directing managers to make their requests asspecific as possible.

The second chapter studies power and influence in the context of orga-nizational innovation. In this research study, the author presents a model ofhow power-based and influence-based leadership affect middle manager’sinnovation-related perceptions, emotions, and behaviors.

Power-based leadership involves the use of (a) extrinsic incentives asrewards and (b) punishment or threats. Influence-based leadership drawson the use of (a) charisma, (b) expert knowledge, (c) granting degrees offreedom, (d) support for innovation, (e) openness in the decision-makingprocess. A crucial condition for any innovation to occur is that the leaderbelieves that the work situation needs to change and that it is susceptibleto change.

The author found that the following factors supported innovation:influence-based leadership, perception that change was needed and pos-sible, positive emotions such as enthusiasm for change, and the lack ofnegative emotions such as threat or fear.

This information should be invaluable to managers involved in changeefforts. The author provides a useful model that can serve as a checklistfor managing change and innovation efforts.

Chapter 3 is a theoretical paper that reviews how the different basesof power can be used in different contexts. The authors agree with thedefinition that views power as a change in the belief, attitude, or be-havior of a person that results from the action or presence of anotherperson. They see power relations as marked by interdependence andreciprocity.

Their review of the literature identified 11 bases of power: nonmaterialreward, material reward, nonmaterial punishment, material punishment,legality, legitimation via the norm of reciprocity, legitimation via the normof equity, legitimation via the norm of social responsibility, identification,expert knowledge, and information. They offer a number of critiques ofthese power bases and move on to discuss different inventories for mea-suring power. They conclude their chapter with a presentation on how


the context affects the use of the bases of power. I particularly liked theirdiscussion and critique of the bases of power.

In the fourth chapter, the authors provide a research paper on leader–member exchange and the proactive influence tactics that can be used toinfluence those exchanges. They identified 11 different influence tactics(e.g., consultation, collaboration, ingratiation), as well as the actions aleader must take to maintain positive relationships with subordinates. Theyfound that leaders use different proactive influence tactics depending onthe nature of the relationship they have with their subordinates. I found thediscussion of the work it takes for a leader to maintain positive relationshipsto be quite interesting.

Chapter 5 is the most interesting chapter in the book. The topic ofthe chapter is power and politics in relay CEO succession. Relay CEOsuccession describes the process wherein the heir apparent for a CEO isidentified well before the expected departure date of the current CEO. Theheir apparent and the CEO work closely with each other in preparation forthe heir’s ascension to the CEO job.

They focus their discussion on three broad tasks for the heir to accom-plish: (a) managing the relations with the incumbent CEO, (b) building aninternal power base, and (c) gathering the confidence of the board. In eachof these areas, they identify steps that the heir can take to have a smoothtransfer of power. I think the authors provide a very thorough discussion ofthe many dynamics involved in CEO succession and the numerous factorsthat can cause this succession process to derail.

The sixth chapter is another theoretical paper. In it, the authors pro-pose a dynamic model of person–group fit wherein both the newcomerto a group and the group itself can change behaviors to fit the situation.The model includes the following components: (a) newcomer individualdifference factors (e.g., personality traits), (b) group characteristics (e.g.,group size, position characteristics), (c) relative power, (d) culture, (e)incumbent group members’ reactions, and (f) group effectiveness.

The authors offer a very interesting set of variables that can be usedto understand the transition process as a person enters a new group. I canthink of many ways this information could be used to design an effectiveorientation process at the group or team level.

The last chapter of the book is a research paper that studies managers’conflict-handling styles and the level of conflict likely among subordinatesas predictors of decision-making approaches. The authors used a decisiontree that included five decision-making styles ranging from autocratic tofull participation. They also used a five-factor conflict-handling model thatincluded the dimensions of concern for self-goals and concern for others’goals.

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The authors found that managers are less inclined to share decision-making power when they believe that conflict is likely among their subordi-nates. They were surprised to discover that the manager’s conflict-handlingstyle was not strongly related to their decision-making style. I think man-agers will find this chapter interesting in that it highlights the tendency tobe autocratic in the face of potential conflict among subordinates.

The book does suffer from editing errors. Table 3.3 is labeled Ta-ble 3.4. There were numerous subject–predicate mismatches. Proposition 9in Chapter 6 should have been indented to match the other propositions.These mistakes detract from the overall quality of the book.

Overall, I enjoyed each of the chapters and found that they offeredvaluable summaries of the literature as well as provocative suggestionsfor theory and further research.

Howard Karger. Short Changed: Life and Debt in the Fringe Economy.San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 2005, 252 pages, $24.95 hardcover.Reviewed by Gary B. Brumback, Palm Coast, FL.

The “historical neighborhood banker.” Know what it is? It’s the pawn-shop says the author, a professor of social policy. Most likely not in yourneighborhood, though. Indebted people have been pawning their belong-ings as long ago as 1000 BC. If your image of today’s American pawnshopis of a storefront operation owned and operated by a shady character, you’llbe as surprised as I was to learn that many of those storefronts have beengobbled up by five publicly traded corporations (e.g., EZ Pawn) rakingin hundreds of millions of dollars yearly from pawnshop loans and withboards of directors lavishly paying their CEOs. Even the shrinking popu-lation of go-it-alone pawnshop brokers gets loans to set up their operationsfrom big banks.

Karger defines the fringe economy as “corporations and business prac-tices [that prey on the poor] by charging excessive interest rates or fees,or exorbitant prices for goods and services.” He divides this economy intoseven sectors and gives a chapter to each. Besides a storefront loan sectorthat includes pawnshop businesses, the other sectors are the credit cardindustry, alternative financial services such as check cashing and rent-to-own, fringe housing, real estate speculation and foreclosure, the fringe autoindustry, and the “getting out of debt” industry such as the multibillion-dollar debt management business. Large corporations operate in each ofthese sectors, and some, like EZ Pawn, may not be household names toreaders of this review, whereas other large corporations that operate inboth the fringe and mainstream economies surely are, such as Bank ofAmerica, Wells Fargo, Verizon, and AT&T.


Karger fills his book with a lot of facts about his subject, so much sothat he warns early on that reading them “may be tedious” yet necessarybecause the “devil is in the details.” He compensates nicely for them thoughby fleshing out the facts with many anecdotes. I couldn’t help but thinkhow Charles Dickens might have novelized them into a modern classic,absent the debtor’s prison in David Copperfield.

Karger’s name for the last sector, the getting-out-of-debt industry,surely has to be tongue-in-cheek, for as he describes and explains it, thisindustry can only be a multibillion-dollar business because its customersnever get out of debt. Businesses in the other sectors, as he amply shows,are no different in that they all seek to sink already indebted people furtherinto debt by escalating the interest fees levied on them, amounting in somecases to nearly a 500% APR! It would not be profitable to put these peo-ple in debtors’ prisons. Indeed, the entire subprime and predatory lendingbusinesses of the fringe economy are built on the backs of persistentlyindebted customers.

Obviously it would it not be profitable either to drive indebted peopleinto bankruptcy, an escape hatch of last resort so to speak. This explainswhy corporations, especially in the credit card industry, lobbied heavily toget the draconian Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer ProtectionAct passed a few years ago by a captive Congress. Known pejoratively butaptly as the “loan shark law,” Karger notes that it “intensifies the economicwar on the poor and credit-challenged.”

If you are thinking loan sharks might starve if people stopped spendingbeyond their means you would be giving, in Karger’s opinion, too muchcredence to what he calls the “overconsumption” argument. Although heagrees that “affluenza” (see, e.g., de Graaf et al., 2002) is a contributingfactor, he maintains that the argument fails to address a major cause ofindebtedness, “the high cost of living in a privatized society.” He notesthat the rising cost of necessities now amounts to 75% of a family’s two-person income, leaving little left for luxuries for the “functionally poor.”Moreover, consumer spending is less than it was a decade ago. The argu-ment, he believes, lets lawmakers fault debtors “for an economic realitythey can’t control.”

Besides its loan shark law, the government has boosted the fringeeconomy in various other ways. For example, what Karger means by a“privatized society” is that stricter federal and state public assistance poli-cies more quickly than before throw former recipients into jobs with nobenefits and with pay suppressed by the miserly minimum wage law thathas been frozen by conservative politicians since 1997. Another example ispublic policy on homeownership along with subprime mortgage lendersand their low teaser rates that lure unqualified customers to buy homesthat are eventually foreclosed. And not to leave out the judiciary’s role,

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Karger cites a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that allows national banks tocharge the highest rate allowable in their home states to borrowers livingelsewhere.

What, you might ask, is the difference between the two types of lend-ing, subprime and predatory? Is the first legal and the second not? No.Illegalities exist in both. Moreover, state usury laws vary, so what may beillegal loans in one state are legal in another. Ethical considerations cer-tainly don’t differentiate the two types of lending. Unscrupulous but legalpractices abound in both types. The difference between them, Karger says,is blurry, offering his own blurry view that the first is generally “beneficial”and the second is “destructive.” In my opinion the only difference may bein how excessively customers are gouged. It seems to me, moreover, thatsubprime loans cannot be beneficial because the effects of being gougedbenefit only the gouger.

The profitability of the fringe market has been too tempting for main-stream financial institutions not to enter it. Some observers, Karger says,believe this development will help to counteract unscrupulous lendingpractices. Not a chance! Anyone who tracks big financial institutions andcorporations in general should know that the profit to be made and thepressure to make it every quarter will compromise the means to makeit. Karger is not “optimistic” either and offers some corroborating evi-dence by citing several legal settlements involving fraudulent and abusivelending practices of some very prominent corporations that entered thefringe market. Customers of this market represent what I would call ourown undeveloped “subcountry,” so why should we expect it to be any lessexploited than are undeveloped countries by multinational corporations?

The solution, Karger thinks, is not to eliminate the fringe market, as ifthat were even a remote possibility! He also thinks it would not be desir-able because compared to fringe services the mainstream ones are not asaccessible physically or as culturally compatible to poor neighborhoods.At the end of each sector’s chapter and in the concluding chapter, there-fore, he suggests numerous solutions, some more plausible than others,that would accommodate the realities of these neighborhoods while alsoeliminating some of the abusive and fraudulent practices of doing businesswith the people who live in those neighborhoods. Many of the solutions,like lending “only to borrowers who have the income or liquid assets torepay the debt” (how really plausible, though, is that for some borrow-ers?), could be voluntarily adopted by lenders. But business being what itis, whether in the fringe or mainstream economy, socially and genuinelyresponsible behavior is rarely volunteered. So Karger adds some legisla-tive recommendations. In this sense his book is very timely. As I write thisreview, for instance, I see that Congress is considering legislation to curbthe excesses of the subprime mortgage business.


I really have no criticisms of this book, which is rare for me. I learnedmore about a part of our economy I knew little about before, and the bookis easy reading despite all of its details. But would I recommend it to I-Opsychologists? Yes. Although I have no idea whether any I-O’s are doingany teaching about, any research on, or any working with businesses in thefringe economy, I nevertheless think the subject is relevant for both the Iside and the O side of our field. If I tried for a few hours I think I could,for example, come up with a long list of research questions. Admittedly,answering them might be daunting, as Karger discovered when he soughtout primary sources, so I leave the opportunity of raising and answeringthe questions with you rather than take it upon myself (give me a break,I’m retired).

REFERENCES

de Graaf J. et al. (2002). Affluenza. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler.Labaton S. (March 17, 2007). Lawmakers aim to curb loan abuses. New York Times Online.

Deborah L. Duarte and Nancy Tennant Snyder. Mastering Virtual Teams(3rd edition). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2006, 247 pages, $49.00 hard-cover.Reviewed by Donald L. Harville, Research Psychologist, Air Force Re-search Laboratory, Brooks City-Base, TX.2

This book is oriented toward managers and team members, not to-ward researchers. However, the Notes and Further Readings sections canbe used to locate relevant research articles. Both authors have impressiveexperience and training relevant to virtual teams. The book follows a log-ical progression from understanding virtual teams, to creating them, andfinally to mastering them. A useful strategy for reading this book coverto cover would be to read the Near Virtual Disaster example at the end ofmost chapters prior to reading the chapter. If you already have a virtualteam established, another strategy would be to read all the disaster exam-ples then immediately read the chapters potentially relevant to your team.Unfortunately, the book is not always user friendly for someone unfamiliarwith all of the technologies mentioned. It would slightly increase produc-tion costs, but photos, or even schematic figures of the lesser well-knowntechnologies (e.g., electronic meeting systems), would be very useful.

I strongly recommend that everyone new to virtual teams read thevirtual team myths discussed in Chapter 4. Even if you do not hold anyof these myths yourself, someone else on your team probably holds one

2 Views expressed are the reviewer’s and not necessarily those of the U.S. Air Force orthe Department of Defense.

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or more of them. In my opinion, the more common myths include teammembers not needing attention; the added complexity of using technologyis greatly exaggerated; the leader needs to be multilingual, have lived inother countries, or have worked in different functions; and building andmaintaining trust is unimportant. Less common myths are that when youdo not regularly see team members, it is difficult to help them with theirassignments and career progression; networking matters less in virtualenvironments, it is only about results; and every aspect of virtual teamsshould be planned, organized, and controlled so that there are no surprises.Each myth is fortunately broken down into a relevant competence, as wellas developmental activities for developing the competence. One develop-mental activity for the myth involving planning every aspect is to speakwith other virtual team leaders to discover any common processes relevantto all teams.

There are numerous checklists and tables both in the book and on theCD that comes with it. Multiple tables with strengths and weaknessesof the various technologies will help generate high-quality questions onwhich technology to see, use, try, or buy. However, the authors have somuch experience with virtual teams that sometimes the text seems to makevirtual teams more complex than they usually are. In other words, at timesthe reviewer thought, “Why not skip the headaches, and not do it at all orjust hire consultants with experience with virtual teams?” In fairness tothe authors, the reviewer’s opinion is that many professionals make theirprofessions sound more complex than they are in reality.

Useful examples in addition to the Virtual Disaster ones keep thereader’s interest. One was a prison parole example. For two out of fourprisoners, face-to-face prison parole board members recommended againstparole, but closed-circuit television parole board members recommendedparole. This difference was explained by noting that in interviews theface-to-face board members mentioned body language and facial expres-sion cues not available to the closed-circuit television board members. Asa hardcore fan of time management, I really appreciated the examples ofusing keywords in the subject lines of e-mails to help the recipient pri-oritize them. Using “FYI” only in the subject line means that it is noturgent but contains something of interest. Seeing “ACTION BY (DATE):(SUBJECT)” means that a response or action is needed by the given dateand to notify the sender immediately if you cannot make the deadline. An“URGENT FYI” means that the information must be read immediately,and “URGENT ACTION: (SUBJECT)” means the recipient must readand take action on the noted subject immediately.

In a vein similar to time management, one of the near virtual disastersends with a lessons-learned checklist of activities that will help preventdisasters. These include having a dry run, checking on the meeting room


and the technology the day before, personally learning how to work thetechnology in the room, having a technology backup, ensuring that eachlocation has an alternative technology that can be used without disrupt-ing the meeting (e.g., instant messaging), and scheduling a technologyprofessional and assistant to help in the event that problems should arise.Although not mentioned, the assistant could be responsible for completingpart or even most of the checklist.

Because virtual teams often involve personnel from different cul-tures/countries, the section on the national category of culture was useful.Most of this text used the work of Hofstede (1967), who looked at em-ployees of IBM Corporation. One dimension of national culture is powerdistance. This dimension refers to how much inequity among people thepopulation expects and accepts. For example, China, Mexico, France, andArab countries are high-power countries, with great respect for one’s su-periors. Lower-power countries include the United States, Great Britain,and Germany. Uncertainty avoidance, the extent to which members of aculture are comfortable with uncertainty, is another dimension of culture.Japan, France, and Italy are countries high on uncertainty avoidance. In-dividuals from these cultures seek details about plans, desire closure, andprefer predictability. In contrast, individuals from low-uncertainty coun-tries, such as Singapore, India, Canada, and the United States, have lessof a need for defined rules, procedure, and processes.

There is also a functional category of culture, and a useful tablecompares behaviors in engineering, software development, research anddevelopment (R&D), accounting and finance, sales and marketing, andproduction and manufacturing cultures. For example the authors claimthat personnel in R&D prefer structure and detail within scientific con-text. The table helps to understand how differences in functional back-grounds can cause conflicts regarding resource allocation and how tobest proceed at different stages of the team’s duties. These differencesare also important for the areas of competence that virtual team mem-bers need to exhibit. The technologies used, combined with the amountof geographic dispersal, affect the competencies of project management,networking, and self-management, spanning boundaries of cultures andfunctions, and interpersonal awareness. These competencies can be max-imized by using special efforts to keep those in remote areas or in partnerorganizations aware of what is happening. This is especially importantwhen communicating a balanced presentation of controversial informa-tion. A near virtual disaster provides an example of not exhibiting thesecompetencies. It involves a videoconference where one person makes neg-ative comments about someone else, without knowing that the other per-son is in attendance at the conference, but outside of the view of thecamera.

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In summary, I strongly recommend this book both for managers andfor team members who currently use or plan to use virtual teams. It hasvery useful discussions of technological, cultural, and personality aspectsof team success. Investing some time in reading and applying it can easilysave significant amounts of time, reduce or even eliminate headaches, andimprove the products/services produced by teams.

REFERENCE

Hofstede G. (1967). Culture’s consequences: International differences in work-related val-ues. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Leonard D. Goodstein and Eric P. Prien. Using Individual Assessments inthe Workplace: A Practical Guide for HR Professionals, Trainers, andManagers. San Francisco: Pfeiffer, 2006, 213 pages, $45.00 hardcover.Reviewed by Lee J. Konczak, Director, Executive Development & Selec-tion Systems, Anheuser-Busch Companies, St. Louis, MO.

Evidence suggests that HR professionals spend a considerable amountof their time devoted to individual assessment of applicants and employees(Jeanneret & Silzer, 1998). And, with the advent of Internet testing, testingand assessment tools are even more accessible than in the past (Tippinset al., 2006). Given these trends, a nontechnical, practical book geared to-ward a practitioner audience that outlines the key issues to consider in usingassessments appropriately to enhance business results would be a welcomeresource. Goodstein and Prien wrote this book to increase understanding ofhow tests and assessments can be used effectively for employment-relatedpurposes. The book is intended for four target audiences, including (a)managers who use assessments for decision making, (b) HR professionalswho conduct such assessments but may lack a good understanding of theinherent issues involved in assessment work, (c) trainers who may use testsand assessments in their training and development efforts, and (d) otherswho are interested in how individual assessments should be conducted.Although professional psychologists are not included as members of theintended audience, the authors suggest that they too may find this bookuseful.

In general, I found the book to be clearly written and well organized. Bydesign, the book is intentionally prescriptive throughout and is composedof six chapters and nine appendices that include a listing of tests commonlyused in business settings, a description of how to conduct a job analysisstudy, sample job descriptions, sample competency models, and sampleassessment reports.

In terms of content, the first chapter provides an overview of the book’sorganization, a definition of individual assessment that focuses on the data


collection process, and a brief description of subsequent chapters. Chapter2, entitled “The Practice of Individual Assessment,” outlines a model ofindividual assessment that entails five phases or steps that the authorsemphasize should be addressed in an assessment effort:

1. Organization and work setting analysis2. Job and person analysis3. Integration and interpretation of all relevant data4. Reporting of results5. Follow-up and program evaluation

I liked the emphasis placed on analyzing the work context and the joband person requirements before initiating assessments. One critical phaseof the assessment process that was not included in the model concernsclearly defining the purpose of the assessment and how the data will beused. I believe this should have been included as the first step in the as-sessment process. For example, in the last chapter of the book, the authorsdiscuss different contexts and applications of assessment results such asselecting new hires, determining promotional suitability, and assessmentfor development. In this reviewer’s experience, ensuring clarity of pur-pose with the customer requesting the assessment is critical before anyassessment process is initiated to avoid problems later. This chapter alsoincluded a good discussion of the pros and cons of computer-based test-ing. I particularly liked the section that outlined the issue concerning theequivalence of computer-based and conventional testing, a key issue froma practical perspective in organizations.

Chapter 3, entitled “Psychological Measurement,” is the most tech-nical chapter in the book but does a good job of describing the moretechnical aspects of testing and assessment, including reliability, validity,and normative comparisons, in a practical and understandable manner.This chapter also provides a brief description of categories of tests andassessments such as cognitive ability, personality, and specific job com-petencies and some information concerning the validity of assessmentsin work settings. I wondered if a more compelling summary of the valueof testing in business might have been warranted in this chapter, partic-ularly for non-HR members of the target audience. Experience suggeststhat assessment experts are “singing to the choir” when discussing thebusiness value of assessments to fellow HR types but that may not be thecase when it comes to line managers. I think some additional informa-tion on the validity and business value of various assessments should havebeen included here. In addition, there was no mention of the legal issuesthat should be considered in selection contexts, which was surprising. The

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presentation would have been strengthened by including a brief sectionon the legal aspects of testing and assessment for selection purposes. Atminimum, I would have liked the authors to recommend that practitionerswork closely with their company’s legal counsel to ensure alignment andsupport in the event of any legal issues that could surface as a result of theuse of tests and assessments.

Chapter 4 focuses on collecting and analyzing assessment data. Thechapter describes the process of job analysis and gives some practical sug-gestions on how one goes about acquiring knowledge and skill in choosingand using an unfamiliar test.

The process of integrating various pieces of data and information todevelop an overall evaluation of a job candidate is discussed in Chapter 5.Here, the “database” includes the resume, interview data, psychologicaltests, job samples, and observed behavior to develop a picture of the wholeperson. There are practical suggestions throughout the chapter that are on-target and helpful. For example, the authors suggest that when choosingtests to use in an assessment process, more than one test should be usedto measure those competencies deemed most critical to ensure solid, validdata. I liked the fact that incorporating all of the various bits of data wasstressed to come up with a comprehensive view of the candidate versuszeroing in on one or two bits of information.

Reporting individual assessment results is covered in Chapter 6. Thischapter not only gives suggestions on the form of the written report butalso gives recommendations on the role HR professionals should play inthe reporting process. As an example, when an external consultant is usedto conduct an assessment, it is recommended that the HR representativeserve as the liaison between the consultant and the end user, usually aline manager. Ensuring direct communication between the consultant andthe end user short-circuits problems that can occur at the decision-makingstage later on. The chapter includes a recommended report format for usein selection and a 40-question checklist that can help to ensure high-qualityreports and customer satisfaction. There are also several appendices thatinclude sample reports, which provide concrete examples of format, data,and writing styles. This chapter also includes a section on developmentalassessments and the differences between assessments used for selectionversus development. And, finally, the issue of decision making is alsoaddressed in Chapter 6. Although the issue of whether to use cut scores isnot addressed, the authors briefly discuss several decision-making models,including compensatory and noncompensatory approaches, and the prosand cons of each.

Overall, I liked the book and could see recommending it to HR profes-sionals who lack extensive training and education in testing and assessmentmethods. It provides an easy-to-read and practical treatment of key issues


that should be considered when using individual assessments with the ex-ceptions noted previously. Managers who use individual assessments area target audience of this book. I would recommend the book only to thosemanagers who are committed to the practice and eager to deepen theirunderstanding of assessment and its uses in organizational settings, as thelength of the presentation, though not excessively long, may detract fromthe message for less committed users.

REFERENCES

Jeanneret R, Silzer R. (1998). Individual psychological assessment: Predicting behavior inorganizational settings. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Tippins N, Beaty J, Drasgow F, Gibson WM, Pearlman K, Segall DO, et al. (2006). Un-proctored Internet testing in employment settings. PERSONNEL PSYCHOLOGY, 59,189–225.

Sandra L. McIntyre and Leslie A. Miller. Foundations of PsychologicalTesting: A Practical Approach (2nd edition). Thousand Oaks, CA: SagePublications, 2007, 632 pages, $84.95 hardcover.Reviewed by Paul F. Ross, Bellevue WA.

Surveying and testing are a part of life today and will be with us intothe foreseeable future. These procedures gather responses from an indi-vidual about whom, when responses are gathered in sufficient quantity andwith appropriate care, we then can note prior experience, infer attitudes,identify skills, observe knowledge, and even predict future individual and,when responses are accumulated across many people, group behavior.The technologies are used by the classroom teacher, the physician, theemployer, the political analyst, the marketer, the university admissionsofficer, the community leader, the media executive, the psychologist, andthe individual seeking self-insight—in short, by many. When examinedcritically by the professional who has specialized in measuring humanbehavior and attitudes, very few surveys and tests used today are built totoday’s state-of-the-art levels of excellence. Among many respondents, themethods provoke resistance (“I’m not going to answer voting-preferencephone surveys during this crazy political season.”), anxiety (“Is it fair todeny a student who has spent 12 years in school a high school graduationdiploma because they can’t pass a test?”), and skepticism (“Can we be-lieve the media reports from those pollsters in the heat of this debate aboutnational direction?”) along with friendship-injuring private debate.

What are these technologies? They are means for evoking a responsefrom an individual, a response that can be recorded without error and eval-uated using a computer and an equation. Why are they used? Surveying

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and testing are used to guide and improve decision making to helpindividuals enjoy the benefits these improved decisions deliver—the socialand economic payouts—to individuals, organizations, and society. If con-sumers were well educated about these technologies, would use of thetechnologies be upgraded from what it is today? My answer, along withMcIntyre and Miller’s, is yes. At what time in life can the consumer best beeducated to achieve a long-term impact on society? McIntyre and Miller’sanswer, along with mine, is “at the undergraduate level in college.” The un-dergraduate, an about-to-be college graduate and opinion leader, can carrya solid grounding in these technologies into personal life, life at work, andlife in his or her community, knowing their power and promoting both useand participation.

Almost immediately, nevertheless, the authors and this reviewer partcompany. The authors present the technologies as if psychology were theonly contributor to their development and the only profession promotingproper and ethical use. Wrong. Educators and psychologists have beenpeers in the development and use of testing technology for more than acentury. The consumer needs to see the contributions and payout poten-tials from the points of view of all disciplines using the technologies, tolearn the several places where she or he can turn for help in the yearsahead. McIntyre and Miller have written Foundations of PsychologicalTesting when future opinion leaders need, instead, Surveying and Testing:Information Gathering Supporting Improved Decisions.

McIntyre and Miller’s text contains 15 chapters. Four chapters (∼125pages) introduce test history, test types, test uses, ethics in testing, andcomputerized test administration. Five chapters (∼175 pages) treat scaling,norms, descriptive statistics, reliability, and content-predictive–constructvalidities. Three chapters (∼125 pages) describe the process of developinga test or a survey, item writing, item analysis, the need for cross validation,and developing norms. Three chapters (∼125 pages) describe test use ineducational, clinical-counseling, and organizational settings. Each chap-ter concludes with a summary, a dozen or so multiple-choice questionswith keys showing correct answers, and several questions seeking a shortanswer in essay form. I examined the second edition of this text and didnot review the first edition to discover what changes have been introducedin the new edition.

McIntyre and Miller, in sidebars, describe about three dozen specifictests to acquaint the student with the testing genre. Roughly half the testsdescribed are personality tests, although—even when delivering what thepublic perceives to be psychological services—personality testing is not amajor contributor to career decisions and problem diagnosis. Skills and in-terests are much more important in shaping an individual’s future, habits of


perceiving one’s world, and personal style in responding to the world beingin third place, perhaps. No survey instruments are described in sidebars.The text introduces equations for linear regression and multiple regression,validity shrinkage, research designs for determining convergent and dis-criminant validity, and discusses item response theory. All are intriguing,powerful methods, but this complexity cannot be mastered or even storedfor mental reference in a 1- or 2-semester course. The text fails to addressdirectly the frets and worries of the public with respect to surveying andtesting, apparently assuming—incorrectly, according to me—that learningthe underlying technology will reduce the anxieties and win participation.The text offers proper item-writing rules but fails to show good and baditems side by side along with the responses they win so that the consumer’sattention to the consequences of bad items is riveted. In the future, there-fore, she or he can recognize bad items when they are presented, thusshaping that consumer’s willingness to respond or, better yet, causingthem to talk back to the surveyor or tester. The text says nothing of the im-portance of having measurements when one’s scientific purpose is to buildand test theories of (consumer, competitor, political, or terrorist) behavior.Of high importance, the scatterplot—the simplest and most direct meansfor teaching the power and the risks for errors in decision making whenguided by information from tests or surveys—is nowhere to be found inthe text. The scatterplot should be seen in this text, not just once but 20times. The relationship between test-survey responses and outcome is theidea that needs reinforcement.

Suppose the undergraduate, seeing these technologies, thinks she orhe wants a career in constructing measures of human behavior and seeingthem put to use. Does McIntyre and Miller’s text introduce the studentto the educational steps needed to get to that career, all the professionalsocieties supporting development of the technologies, and the scientificjournals in which new developments are reported? No.

When I wander the aisles in my local university bookstore and look atstatistics texts, I see separate statistics texts for biologists, mathematicians,social scientists, businessmen, and engineers. Isn’t a mean a mean, a ttest a t test, a multiple regression equation a multivariate approach todata no matter what the data? Yes, students like to see the technology(be it statistics, surveying, testing, research design) applied to the subjectof their interest and this variety of offerings may be needed at graduatelevels of education. But, at undergraduate levels, we need to educate theopinion leader about the power of surveying and testing for informingdecision making. It is inefficient and unwise to teach these universally usedmeasurement technologies separately in courses for majors in psychology,education, government, business, and so on. Authors and publishers need

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to take note and understand the size of the market for their text if it werewritten for all undergraduates interested in surveying and testing.

Each year for my annual physical, I answer the same two-pagequestionnaire about my health history and my current health-affectingactivities—exercise, diet supplements, medicines, that sort of thing. Myphysician cannot possibly be sensitive to changes in my answers fromone year to the next in the time available to my physician to scan thosemarks on paper and look into my earlier answers. As a fan of psycho-metrics, I know that the questionnaire would be much more valuable ifit were quadrupled in length, administered by a computer so that laterquestions were contingent on my answers to earlier questions, and currentanswers were compared with answers made in prior years. The computercould then inform me and my physician about health-significant changesin my answers. Students need to emerge from an undergraduate course insurveying and testing aware of possibilities like this one and demandingthat current practice be state-of-the-art, now! This application alone woulddeliver longer, higher-quality life to many people.

Do you know any employer whose annual review validly measureswhat should be career-guiding aspects of performance on the job—knowing what’s going on, truth telling, customer sensitivity, communi-cation skill, importing new ideas, productivity, recognizing what is impor-tant, and so on—achieving respectable interrater agreement about theseaspects of performance, the records of these measures in turn then influenc-ing future invitations to new job responsibilities for that person? Neitherdo I. Yet these practices are possible today, the technologies for support-ing them having been invented half a century ago (see Ross, 2005). Wouldsuch practices reduce the risk of experiencing another WorldCom, anotherEnron? I think they would. Would valid information gathering help avertusing military methods in international problem situations when othermethods are more likely to be successful? Probably. See Pfeffer and Sutton(2006) for a strong and appropriate push in the direction of evidence-baseddecision making—evidence gathering being what surveying and testingaccomplish.

McIntyre and Miller’s text is not the one you want for your under-graduate course in surveying and testing in support of improved decisionmaking, not even if the only students in your class are undergraduatepsychology majors. I doubt that a text of the kind I think you shoulduse has been written. I hope that it will soon be competently written, re-shape undergraduate course offerings in the liberal arts and behavioraland management sciences, capture the very large market that is there to becaptured, and help move us toward much improved use of surveying andtesting technologies—for the sake of society.


REFERENCES

Pfeffer J, Sutton RI. (2006). Hard facts, dangerous half-truths, and total nonsense: Profitingfrom evidence-based management. Cambridge MA: Harvard Business Review Press.

Ross PF. (2005) No one’s looking. Available at http://home.att.net/∼pfrswr.

Madhu Viswanathan. Measurement Error and Research Design. Thou-sand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2005, 434 pages, $48.95 softcover.Reviewed by Malcolm James Ree, Professor of Leadership Studies, OurLady of the Lake University, San Antonio, TX.

Usually I like to begin a review by presenting something to catch yourattention. This time I am going to BLUF, Bottom Line Up Front. Here it is.This is a most unusual book. First, it is 600 hundred pages of informationpacked into 400 pages. Secondly, it is not written from the perspective ofa psychologist. Finally, the author has identified a sin in the orthodoxyaccording to psychometrics and science, which will be identified later inthis review.

Dr. Viswanathan is an associate professor of marketing at the Univer-sity of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana. He earned a PhD in business fromthe University of Minnesota and a Bachelor of Technology in mechanicalengineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras. His easewith both mathematics and business are evident.

The book is a convenient size and easy to read with clear if some-what small typeface. Figures and tables are well presented. The book isorganized into 12 chapters, a foreword by Professor Bagozzi of Rice Uni-versity, a preface by the author including a flow chart showing chapternumbers and titles demonstrating how each chapter leads into the next,and ends with the hope that “this book delivers what is promised here.”

The role of measurement error cannot be emphasized enough in eitherbasic or applied research. Unfortunately, most curricula do not emphasizeit outside of psychometrics classes (or tests and measurements classes).One of the problems is that we, as professors, tend to teach research designand statistics as if all measures were completely without error variance(Ree & Carretta, 2006). When was the last time you looked at a text onregression and noted that the author stated that all measures are subjectto only true variability? Rarely. This is not said but implied in all but afew occasions (Fuller, 1987; Ree & Carretta, 2006). Viswanathan remindsus that not only continuous variables are subject to various sources oferror but that the same is true of categorical variables. This may be asubtler problem not as easily noticed in the conduct of studies. However,it is just as problematic. Just because you have a categorical independentvariable in analysis of variance does not mean that you are safe in ignoringerror variance in your interpretation of the results. Measurement error can

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occur if you create a three-category independent variable when it shouldhave been four categories. Measurement error applies to all measurementsituations and all levels of measurement.

The first five chapters address types of measurement errors, how toidentify them, and how to correct for them. There is an incredibly largeamount of information here and to truly understand it I would suggest yougo back and reread Chapters 8 through 11 in the classic Theory of MentalTests by Gulliksen (1950).3 Doing so you can apply examples providedby Viswanathan to the equations provided by Gulliksen and observe themagnitude of the error types for tests of differing lengths and reliabilityand so forth.

On the topic of reliability, one thing is mysterious to me. The authoromits the gold standard of reliability estimation, parallel forms. Some ofthe earliest discussions of reliability by Spearman, Rulon, and the otherpioneers centered on the idea of reliability being the correlation of truescores and hence the correlation of parallel forms. Mysterious!

Presented in the text, there are rules for writing items, somethingmuch neglected in classes today. As part of the development process,Viswanathan illustrates the use of confirmatory factor analysis. He pro-vides results in tables and also as copies of output from LISREL 8.5. Trythe input and you duplicate his output, a nice demonstration. Viswanathanprovides copies of the data sets on his personal Web site. Also providedare copious endnotes that frequently cover as much as the text.

The exercises in Appendix 2.1 are particularly noteworthy. Most stu-dents of psychometrics or measurements would benefit from completingthem. As the raw data are provided, the student could do the exercise byhand and then compute the effects using statistical software as a demon-stration.

There is an unexpected section on projective testing that includes theRorschach, the Thematic Apperception Test, and sentence completion testssuch as the Rotter. The author notes that projective tests might be useful forsuggesting testable hypotheses. Maybe, maybe not. A local wag has sug-gested that projective tests are the equivalent of “creation science.” Maybe,maybe not. Viswanathan notes that “Ambiguity and lack of structure hereis deliberate; however, a lack of clear and consistent procedures calls re-liability into question” and “traditional reliability . . . procedures . . . maynot be appropriate means to assess unstructured approaches.” Yes indeed!

Chapter 8, “What Are Examples of Measures and Measurement AcrossVarious Disciplines?” deserves special recognition. It provides a short,handy compendium of tests and measures that can be the starting point

3Republished in 1989 by Erlbaum under the same title.


to searches for scales to measure a wide variety of topics ranging fromability and attitudes to quality of life and weight management.

The last chapter, “What Are the Principles and Guiding Orientations ofThis Book?” provides a summary of the chapters. Viswanathan providesa concise summary to be kept in mind: “A central theme of this book isthat measurement error should be understood in each stage of developingmeasures and in their use.” It cannot be said any better.

This is a book that must be read carefully and slowly so that none ofthe material is glossed over or lost. Oh, yes I almost forgot. What was thatpsychometric and scientific sin? See the next to last sentence on page 239of your copy of the book.

REFERENCES

Fuller W. (1987). Measurement error models. New York: Wiley.Gulliksen HO. (1950). Theory of mental tests. New York: Wiley.Ree MJ, Carretta TR. (2006). The role of measurement error in familiar statistics. Organi-

zational Research Methods, 9, 99–112.

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BOOKS AND MATERIALS RECEIVED∗

Allen, Michael. Creating Successful e-Learning: A Rapid System. San Fran-cisco: Pfeiffer, 2006, 190 pages, $35.00 softcover.

Barbazette, Jean. Training Needs Assessment: Methods, Tools and Techniques.San Francisco: Pfeiffer, 2006, 173 pages, $40.00 softcover.

Eisler, Riane. Real Wealth of Nations. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 2007.Fiske, Susan T., Kazdin, Alan E., and Schacter, Daniel L. (Editors). Annual

Review of Psychology, Vol. 58. Palo Alto, CA: Annual Reviews, 2007,$75.00.

Gilliland, Stephen W., Steiner, Dirk D., and Skarlicki, Daniel P. (Editors).Managing Social and Ethical Issues in Organizations. Greenwich, CT:IAP, 2007, 369 pages, $39.95 softcover.

Gratton, Linda. Hot Spots: Why Some Teams, Workplaces, and OrganizationsBuzz with Energy and Others Don’t. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler,2007, 213 pages, $24.95 hardcover.

Hale, Judith. The Performance Consultant’s Fieldbook: Tools and Techniquesfor Improving Organizations and People (2nd Edition). San Francisco:Pfeiffer, 2006, 268 pages, $50.00 softcover.

Hiatt, Steven. (Editor). A Game as Old as Empire. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 2007, 312 pages, $24.95 hardcover.

Irwin, Tim. Run With the Bulls Without Getting Trampled. Nashville, TN:Nelson Business, 2007, 256 pages, $24.99 hardcover.

Martin, Chuck, Dawson, Peg, and Guare, Richard. Smarts: Are We Hardwiredfor Success? New York: AMACOM, 2007, 240 pages, $21.95 hardcover.

McPhail, S. Morton. (Editor). Alternative Validation Strategies: DevelopingNew and Leveraging Existing Validity Evidence. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2007, 447 pages, $75.00.

Preziosi, Robert C. (Editor). The 2007 Pfeiffer Annual: Human Resource Man-agement. San Francisco: Pfeiffer, 2007, 285 pages, $75.00 hardcover.

White, Joseph B. and Prywes, Yaron. The Nature of Leadership: Reptiles,Mammals, and the Challenge of Becoming a Great Leader. New York:AMACOM, 2006, 192 pages, $21.95 hardcover.

Wilhelm, Anthony G. Digital Nation: Toward an Inclusive Information Soci-ety. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2004, 161 pages, $27.95 hardcover.

∗The publications listed are either already scheduled for review and/or are includedas a new listing. Readers interested in reviewing for Personnel Psychology are invited towrite our Book Review Editor, Dr. John W. Fleenor, Center for Creative Leadership, OneLeadership Place, Greensboro, NC 27410—or e-mail him at [email protected]—providing information about background and areas of interest.

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