Reshaping exercise design in assessment centers: Theory, practice, and research

• Main Authors: LIEVENS, Filip, SCHOLLAERT, Eveline
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2011
• Subjects: Human Resources Management; Organizational Behavior and Theory
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/lkcsb_research/5807; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/lkcsb_research/article/6806/viewcontent/Povah.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

Upon looking at this title, an obvious question is whether assessment center (AC) exercises need to be designed differently from what was done in the past. AC exercises have been around since World War I and their longevity attests to their success. So why propose some changes to this monument in personnel selection and development? Let us first acknowledge that we concur that ACs are in still in good shape. However, every good brand needs some adjustments (which is a more appropriate term than “changes” in this context) once in a while, based on new theoretical insights and empirical research. Therefore we build our novel exercise design approach on recent insights in person-situation interactionism to make a good tool even better. The structure of this chapter is as follows: we start with delineating the reasons behind our revised exercise design approach in ACs. Next we explain the theory behind the revised exercise design approach. In a third section, we report on our program of research related to this new approach. The fourth part discusses some other possible applications in the AC domain that are congruent with this revised exercise design approach.