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Most studies report a positive relationship of work engagement with health and job performance, but, occasionally, a \"dark side of engagement\" has also been uncovered. The current study examined two hypotheses: whether work engagement has (1) a U-shaped curvilinear relation with psychological distress and (2) an inverted U-shaped curvilinear relation with job performance (i.e., in-role performance and creative behavior). A two-wave longitudinal Internet survey with a time lag of seven months was conducted among 1,967 Japanese employees. To test our hypotheses, we used a two-wave panel design and examined the lagged and concurrent relations between work engagement and both outcomes. The results confirmed that work engagement had a curvilinear relation with psychological distress concurrently; a favorable effect was found initially, but this disappeared at intermediate levels of work engagement, and, at higher levels, an adverse effect became prominent. In addition, work engagement had a curvilinear relation with in-role performance both concurrently and longitudinally; the higher the levels of work engagement, the stronger the favorable effects on in-role performance. However, contrary to our expectations, work engagement had a linear relation with psychological distress longitudinally and with creative behavior both concurrently and longitudinally. Hence, our results suggest that work engagement plays a different role in health enhancement compared to performance enhancement. Leveling-off and adverse effects of high work engagement were observed for psychological distress in the short and not in a long run. In contrast, no leveling-off effect of high work engagement was observed for job performance. Thus, except for the short-term effect on psychological distress, no dark side of work engagement was observed for psychological distress and job performance.

Can a reward of an uncertain magnitude be more motivating than a reward of a certain magnitude? This research documents the motivating-uncertainty effect and specifies when this effect occurs. People invest more effort, time, and money to qualify for an uncertain reward (e.g., a 50% chance at $2 and a 50% chance at $1) than a certain reward of a higher expected value (e.g., a 100% chance at $2). This effect arises only when people focus on the process of pursuing a reward, not when they focus on the outcome (the reward itself). When the focus is on the process of reward pursuit, uncertainty generates positive experience such as excitement and hence increases motivation. Four studies involving real rewards lend support to the motivating-uncertainty effect. This research carries theoretical implications for research on risk preference and motivation and practical implications for how to devise cost-efficient consumer incentive systems.

We develop a theory that examines how a particular type of third-party quality signal, certifications, influences an actor's long-term reputation by addressing two different types of uncertainty. The first type deals with the degree to which the capabilities of an actor can be inferred over time based on known performance dimensions. We label this technical uncertainty. The second type deals with assessing whether the perceived capabilities of the actor meet the standard of desirability, which we call performance standard uncertainty. We propose and test that certifications will positively influence the long-term reputation of actors in situations that involve minimal technical uncertainty, and that, across levels of technical performance, certifications will have an inverted U-shaped relationship with assessments of actors such that certifications will have the greatest impact on assessments of actors who are close to the uncertain standard of desirability. We test our hypotheses in the context of the voting for Major League Baseball's Hall of Fame, an environment where comprehensive technical performance measures leave little technical uncertainty. Our results support our hypotheses and suggest that certifications can influence an actor's reputation by reducing performance standard uncertainty rather than just technical uncertainty, as previously presumed.

Harold Kerzner's essential strategies on measuring project management performance With the growth of complex projects, stakeholder involvement, and advancements in visual-based technology, metrics and KPIs (key performance indicators) are key factors in evaluating project performance. Dashboard reporting systems provide accessible project performance data, and sharing this vital data in a concise and consistent manner is a key communication responsibility of all project managers.  This third edition of Kerzner's groundbreaking work, Project Management Metrics, KPIs, and Dashboards: A Guide to Measuring and Monitoring Project Performance, helps functional managers gain a thorough grasp of what metrics and KPIs are and how to use them. Plus, this edition includes new sections on processing dashboard information, portfolio management PMO and metrics, and BI tool flexibility.  Offers comprehensive coverage of the different dashboard types, design issues, and applications Provides full-color dashboards from some of the most successful project management companies, including IBM, Microsoft, and others Aligns with PMI's PMBOK® Guide and stresses value-driven project management PPT decks are available by chapter and a test bank will be available for use in seminar presentations and courses Get ready to bolster your awareness of what good metrics management really entails today-and be armed with the knowledge to measure performance more effectively.

In a growing number of consumer transactions, firms exploit consumer confusion and promote poor buying choices. Consumer law generally responds with disclosure and design rules aimed at aligning consumer and firm interests. But with modern experimental and data-analysis techniques, firms can run circles around these rules. The process for enacting disclosure and design rules leaves regulators tied to slow, circumscribed responses. What is needed is a new regulatory instrument that can accomplish two objectives. First, it should unite the interests of firms with the goals of regulators through performance standards for consumer comprehension or suitable consumer product use, thereby redirecting the creative potential of the private sector (much like emissions standards do for pollution reduction). Second, the new regulatory instrument should institutionalize a monitoring system that provides feedback on actual consumer comprehension and product choices, which can be used to improve both the marketplace and regulation in a virtuous cycle. This Article suggests a fresh approach to consumer law, one that has been tried piecemeal in consumer regulation but without an express intellectual foundation—until now. The principal aim of the approach is modest—to bring consumer transactions in line with consumer expectations. Its broader objective is more ambitious—to make the law as agile as firms are. Performance-based consumer law has the potential to incentivize firms to educate rather than obfuscate, develop product designs that align with consumer expectations rather than defy them, and channel consumers toward products that are suitable for the consumers' circumstances. Moreover, even if performance-based regulation does not directly lead to dramatic gains in consumer comprehension or to marked declines in unsuitable uses of consumer products, the process of establishing and implementing such regulation promises dividends for improving traditional forms of regulation. But performance-based consumer law is more than a technocratic exercise. It is based on—and its operation would reinscribe—a normative vision of consumer law that places consumers at the center. This Article is particularly timely in at least three respects. First, it answers the question implicitly asked by recent critiques of mandated disclosure: What should we do instead? Second, it plots a promising course for the young Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that is plainly authorized by the Dodd-Frank Act. Third, the policy structure it proposes would be helpful in several areas in which policymakers are currently at a loss for what to do, including personal-data privacy, opaque consumer-product pricing schemes, and drug marketing to consumers.

Information about the characteristics of jobs and the individuals who fill them is valuable for career guidance, reemployment counseling, workforce development, human resource management, and other purposes. To meet these needs, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) in 1998 launched the Occupational Information Network (O*NET), which consists of a content model-a framework for organizing occupational data-and an electronic database. The O*NET content model includes hundreds of descriptors of work and workers organized into domains, such as skills, knowledge, and work activities. Data are collected using a classification system that organizes job titles into 1,102 occupations. The National Center for O*NET Development (the O*NET Center) continually collects data related to these occupations. In 2008, DOL requested the National Academies to review O*NET and consider its future directions. In response, the present volume inventories and evaluates the uses of O*NET; explores the linkage of O*NET with the Standard Occupational Classification System and other data sets; and identifies ways to improve O*NET, particularly in the areas of cost-effectiveness, efficiency, and currency.

Requirements for outcomes-based performance management are increasing performance-evaluation activities at all government levels. Research on public-sector performance management, however, points to problems in the design and management of these systems and questions their effectiveness as policy tools for increasing governmental accountability. In this article, I analyze experimental data and the performance-management experiences of federal job-training programs to estimate the influence of public management and system-design factors on program outcomes and impacts. I assess whether relying on administrative data to measure program outcomes (rather than impacts) produces information that might misdirect program managers in their performance-management activities. While the results of empirical analyses confirm that the use of administrative data in performance management is unlikely to produce accurate estimates of true program impacts, they also suggest these data can still generate useful information for public managers about policy levers that can be manipulated to improve organizational performance.

Nonpoint-source water pollution remains a major issue despite decades of research and sizable conservation programs. We suggest that by taking advantage of contemporary modeling and optimization approaches, good approximations to physical relationships can be constructed so that even in the presence of unobservable field emissions and nonlinear fate and transport relationships, standard economic tools of command-and-control requirements, performance standards, and trading can be implemented. The Boone River Watershed in the U.S. state of Iowa is used for empirical demonstration. Although the approach can be used to construct voluntary conservation policies, the described policies involve imposing requirements on agricultural polluters rather than relying on voluntary actions alone.

We use a regression discontinuity design to examine students' responses to being placed on academic probation. Consistent with a model of introducing performance standards, we find that being placed on probation at the end of the first year discourages some students from returning to school while improving the GPAs of those who do. We find heterogeneous responses across prior academic performance, gender, and native language, and discuss these results within the context of the model. We also find negative effects on graduation rates, particularly for students with the highest high school grades.

This study explores the nature of fast-food work in the Indian context using a qualitative case-study approach. The production and service systems at an Indian fast-food chain outlet and employees’ experiences of these systems are analyzed. Standardization and routinization is not strictly enforced compared to multinational chains like Domino’s or McDonald’s. Workers from rural background with little education oppose these practices as they find it difficult to adapt them. Poor pay, hectic workload and limited potential for growth become acceptable to young and vulnerable workers due to lack of alternate job opportunities.