May 14, 2020 – Chandler, AZ – Trident Ph.D. in Business Administration graduate Dr. Julita Haber has published the paper, “Perceptions of Competency Norms in the Workplace: A Scale Development,” in the April 2020 issue of the Drake Management Review. This paper is based on her doctoral research at Trident.
Competency-based assessment has become a key basis for human resource decisions in organizations. As a result, employees may feel pressure based on organizational norms to portray themselves as highly competent, which can have negative consequences.
Until now there has been no valid and reliable way to measure employee perceptions or the extent to which they feel such pressure. Therefore in her research, Dr. Haber developed and validated a way to measure employees’ perceptions of competency norms in the workplace based on a diverse sample of more than 600 working professionals.
Dr. Haber found four conditions that may elicit competency norms in the workplace: toward profession, toward stakeholders (such as one’s boss), when competent, and when incompetent.
Based on the research findings and given the limited academic research on this topic, Dr. Haber and her coauthors recommend additional research on individual perceptions of competency norms. Potential future research could examine other norm conditions, like targeting co-workers or subordinates, or prescriptive behaviors, such as being seen as incompetent.
Dr. Stephen Fitzgerald, Trident’s Director of Faculty Development, Dr. Kanu Priya of Missouri State University, and Dr. Robyn Brouer of Canisus College served as co-authors on this paper.
Dr. Priya and Dr. Haber started to explore a research collaboration while still in their respective doctoral programs, after meeting at an Academy of Management conference. Dr. Fitzgerald served as Dr. Haber’s dissertation chairperson and mentor.
Dr. Haber currently serves as the Director, Full-time MBA Program and Clinical Assistant Professor at Fordham University’s Gabelli School of Business in New York. During her time there, she has been recognized with the Dean’s Award for Faculty Visibility and Dean’s Award for Teaching Innovation.
Dr. Haber earned a Ph.D. in Business Administration from Trident. She also holds a Master of Science in Management from Boston University and a Bachelor of Arts in Computer Science from New York University.
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