Criterion-Related Validity of a Preemployment Integrity Inventory: A Large Scale Between-Groups Comparison

Abstract

This study was conducted to examine whether the Honesty scale of the Personnel Selection Inventory differentiates a counterproductive group of individuals from a randomly-selected group of employment applicants. The Honesty subscale measures applicants' attitudes toward theft and counterproductivity. In this study, a group of 100,000 job applicants randomly selected from a normative data base was compared to a group of 1,073 employees from a variety of industries. Each of the latter group of employees had been hired regardless of their Honesty scale scores and had been terminated for acts of counterproductivity including workplace theft. This counterproductive group scored significantly lower on the Honesty scale than the comparison group of applicants. Also, approximately 43% of the counterproductive group admitted to past theft but only 4% of the comparison group did so.

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