The comments and suggestions prompted by K. R. Murphy’s (2008) description of alternate models of the relationship between job performance and ratings of job performance reflect 3 broad themes: (a) the relationship between performance appraisal and performance measurement, (b) the best psychometric models for understanding performance ratings, and (c) the appropriateness of static measures for dynamic phenomena. This paper comments on these 3 themes and suggests directions for future research and practice in performance appraisal that focuses on rater goals, organizational interventions to improve the accuracy and value of ratings, and assessments of the value of performance ratings as criteria.

The goal of our focal article was to provide a current perspective on personality testing and its use in organizational research and to elicit constructive discussion and suggestions for future research and practice. The present article caps off the discussion by integrating the main ideas presented in the commentaries within our original framework of questions and topics, with the immodest hope of advancing our understanding of personality and its measurement in the context of industrial–organizational psychology. In short, we recommend continuing to take advantage of the organizing framework of the Big Five while also pursuing more “bottom-up” approaches that examine facet-level relationships with multidimensional performance outcomes, in addition to developing process models that include more proximal motivational and situational variables. Work along these lines is valuable to both organizational science and practice.

The focus of this article is on implicit beliefs that inhibit adoption of selection decision aids (e.g., paper-and-pencil tests, structured interviews, mechanical combination of predictors). Understanding these beliefs is just as important as understanding organizational constraints to the adoption of selection technologies and may be more useful for informing the design of successful interventions. One of these is the implicit belief that it is theoretically possible to achieve near-perfect precision in predicting performance on the job. That is, people have an inherent resistance to analytical approaches to selection because they fail to view selection as probabilistic and subject to error. Another is the implicit belief that prediction of human behavior is improved through experience. This myth of expertise results in an overreliance on intuition and a reluctance to undermine one’s own credibility by using a selection decision aid.

Perspectives from 22 countries on aspects of the legal environment for selection are presented in this article. Issues addressed include (a) whether there are racial/ethnic/religious subgroups viewed as “disadvantaged,” (b) whether research documents mean differences between groups on individual difference measures relevant to job performance, (c) whether there are laws prohibiting discrimination against specific groups, (d) the evidence required to make and refute a claim of discrimination, (e) the consequences of violation of the laws, (f) whether particular selection methods are limited or banned, (g) whether preferential treatment of members of disadvantaged groups is permitted, and (h) whether the practice of industrial and organizational psychology has been affected by the legal environment.

The article by Macey and Schneider (2008) brings me nostalgically back to 1975–1979 and my graduate program at the University of South Florida. In the Industrial-Organizational (I-O) program, Dr. Herb Meyer was reminding us of “split roles in performance appraisal,” and in the Clinical program, Dr. Charlie Spielberger was gaining fame on his state–trait anxiety research—propelling him to president of the American Psychological Association in 1991. The logic of “state–trait” was compelling then and has withstood the test of time. It is surprising that it has taken this long to apply state–trait logic to other important measurements. As a practitioner who is soon to hire 12,000 new employees under one roof to open CityCenter in Las Vegas (2009), it is my hope that we can move beyond concept to selection tools that can help organizations create engaged cultures.

Top management teams (TMTs) of postmodern multinational corporations are increasingly confronted by new multiple context shifts defining our advancing global knowledge era (Grant, 2000). These include seven major context changes, not the least of which is knowledge becoming the new driver, not labor, machine, or money (Graen, in press). In addition, some complicating elements are the dysfunctions of human psychology under drastic changes in contexts (Snowden & Stanbridge, 2004). Clearly our 20th-century organizational designs and processing engineering systems are in need of continuous improvement to remain competitive. What TMTs seek are new practical ways to bring about needed changes in corporate structures and systems (Graen, 2007).