Question

What is one reason why SME ratings on job analyses tend to have low reliability?

A) SMEs tend to be poorly trained.
B) Job crafting has led to more flexibility in jobs, so jobs that are supposed to be the same look quite different.
C) SMEs fail to understand their jobs fully.
D) SMEs prevent their attitudes from influencing their ratings of their own current job.

Answer 1

Low reliability in SME ratings on job analyses often results from the individual differences in job crafting, which causes the same job to vary across employees, leading to subjective and inconsistent evaluations.

Step-by-step explanation:

One reason why SME ratings on job analyses tend to have low reliability is due to the potential flexibility and variability within jobs, as mentioned in option B. Job crafting can lead to significant differences in jobs that are nominally the same, which makes it hard to standardize the ratings. When Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) are also the job holders, their ratings are often less reliable because their personal experiences and perspectives may impact their analysis. This subjectivity can stem from several factors, including cognitive biases or the desire to present one's job in a certain way. These biases are influenced by asymmetric information in the labor market, referenced in the job analysis literature, where employers rely on proxies like education and references to judge the unseen attributes of potential employees.