A Comparison of Assessment Center Practices in Organizations in German-speaking Regions and the United States

摘要

The development, execution, and evaluation of ACs in 281 German, Swiss, and Austrian organizations are examined for compliance with professional guidelines and consideration of moderator variables of validity, and the results are compared with those reported for U.S. companies (Spychalski et al., 1997). The authors show that some recommendations (e.g., systematic testing of reliability and validity) have not received sufficient attention in either the German-speaking or U.S. sample and that compliance with guidelines (e.g., the application of information policy to assessees) varies across the countries studied. The most important cross-national differences in the development, execution, and evaluation of ACs are explained as results of ideologically rooted reservations, insufficient professionalization in some aspects of intraorganizational AC use, as well as specific aspects of the Labor-Management Act and similar legislation in German-speaking regions. These factors are linked with a cultural difference―institutionalized collectivism, which is greater in German-speaking regions than in the United Sates.