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Integrating Big 5 Personality Factors, Great 8 Competencies, Typologies and Leadership Research

through Saville Consulting Wave®

© 2008 Saville Consulting. All rights reserved. www.savilleconsulting.com

ObjectivesThis poster gives an overview of how Saville Consulting Wave® integrates leading assessment approaches into a coherent, unified model. It outlines the structure of the underpinning model, describes the development process and provides criterion validity evidence from two studies.

References

Kurz, R. (2005). Convivence of Personality, Motivation, Interest & Ability Theories in Competency. Paper presented at the EAWOP Congress, Istanbul.

Kurz, R, & Bartram (2002). Competency and individual performance: Modelling the world of work. In I.T. Robertson, M. Callinan, & D. Bartram, Organizational Effectiveness: The Role of Psychology. John Wiley & Sons.

MacIver, R., Saville, P., Kurz, R., Mitchener, A., Mariscal, K., Parry, G., Becker, S., Saville, W., O’Connor, K., Patterson, R., & Oxley, H. (2006). Making Waves – Saville Consulting Wave Styles questionnaires. Selection & Development Review, 22, 17-23.

Introduction

Saville Consulting Wave® provides a fresh approach to assessment by integrating trait psychology, typologies, competency modelling and leadership research. Professional Styles (See MacIver et al., 2006) and all questionnaires in the range are based on an overarching model featuring four clusters and twelve sections. Figure 1 gives an overview of this structure through the Wave Wheel that also shows their mapping to the Big 5 personality factors at the centre followed by the Great 8 competencies (Kurz & Bartram, 2002). The classic leadership research distinction of Task (Initiation of Structure) and People (Consideration) themes is reflected in the axis of the Wave wheel quasi-circumplex arrangement.

Figure 2 shows how cluster scores are used to plot People Type (based on Influence & Adaptability) and Task Type (based on Thought & Delivery). They combine into one of 16 Types where the Transformer-Transactor type is predicated to be most suited to high level leadership roles.

The development, structure and criterion-related validity of the Professional Styles questionnaire is described below.

Development Study

Based on an extensive review of the literature and existing questionnaires 214 styles facets (with one motive and one talent item each) were developed. In parallel a four cluster model was devised representing a higher-order structure of the Great 8 (Kurz, 2005), and 11 criterion dimensions for each cluster were developed. 1011 volunteers completed the styles items while criterion ratings were gathered from 373 external raters. Some criterion dimensions that showed low correlations with overall performance and potential were dropped or merged. For the remaining 36 behaviour dimensions predictor corresponding predictor scales comprising of three facets each were developed in an iterative process.

Dr. Rainer Kurz, Prof. Peter Saville,Rab MacIver, Gabrielle Parry &

Katie Mariscal (Saville Consulting)

Figure 1: Saville Consulting Wave ® Wheel Cluster and Section Mapping to Big Five Personality Factors at the centre and Great Eight Competencies

Figure 2: People Type and Task Type Matrices of Influencer-Thinker Type

Table 1: Factor Analysis showing Loadings of Saville Consulting Wave Behaviour and

Styles Dimensions in the Development Study

Criterion-related Validity

Kurz et al (2007) reported high validities for Professional Styles in the development study (N=373) where ‘a-priori’ styles trait validities (unadjusted) averaged .21, and in the standardisation study (N=428) where the Types total score showed solid prediction of Job Proficiency (.21) and Potential (.23) single item ratings and excellent validity (.26) for the sum of the 36 behaviour ratings..

Factor Structure

Principal Axis Factor Analysis was performed separately on the styles predictor and behaviour criterion dimensions to investigate the hypothesised underlying structure. Table 1 shows the PCA factor loadings accounting for 47% and 50% of the variance when requesting a four factor rotated solution.