EFFECTIVENESS OF THE DIRECT-PRODUCT VERSUS CONFIRMATORY FACTOR MODEL FOR REFLECTING THE STRUCTURE OF MULTIMETHOD-MULTIRATER JOB-PERFORMANCEDATA

Most job-related decisions are based on information concerning the nat ure or structure of work. For example, the extent to which certain asp ects of the job are separable and critical for successful performance often serve as inputs to an organization's performance management and compensation systems. Because the information needs to be as veridical as possible, it is common to have this information provided on multip le perspectives of the job and from multiple sources. This multimethod -multirater structuring of job data is typically analysed to determine such things as convergent and discriminant validity. It is imperative that the user select the correct model for these analyses, as each ap proach makes very different assumptions about the composition of the d ata. The authors describe the 2 most common approaches-the additive an d direct product models. Data from 7 different jobs are analysed. The researchers argue the direct product model provides a better represent ation of the data.