The Narrative Capability's Structure And Influence In The Job Interview

Interview has been widely used in the organization as a tool for human resource assessment and selection. However, there is still some judgement bias. Some applicants may show excellent narrative capability and be very persuasive during the job interview, while their actual job performances are far below expectation. This kind of narrative influence existes not only in the job interview, but also in the context of project application, daily presentation, annual report, and so on. Some people are more of a talker instead of a doer. The one with good narrative capability gets the job. The report better-presented gets the approval. All these examples show that even though the content is similar, the way to present has great influence on the evaluation result. The narrative capability can affect the judgements.Currently, there is not a clear definition of the narrative capability or an available scale to measure it in the human resource management area. So, this research is designed to explore the structure and dimension of the narrative capability, to develop an appropriate measurement scale, and to test its influence on the job interview.After reviewing the literature and summarizing the previous studies, we conducted semi-structured interview, questionnaire survey and laboratory experiment in order to develop the scale with qualified reliability and validity to measure the narrative capability. This research is made up of three main parts.Study 1:The qualitative analysis of narrative capability.We conducted semi-structured interview with 22 interviewers and 26 managers in the organization. Based on the content analysis, we summarized the descriptions of the narrative capability and the examples of the narrative influence on decision-making. This study qualitatively explored behaviors related to the narrative capability. The examples gathered proved the significance of the narrative influence. The result of Study 1 provided the qualitative basis for the further study.Study 2:The scale development of the narrative capability.First, the initial item pool was created. Then we did further qualitative ananlysis to revise the content validity, improving the impression and wording. Second, we collected 182 questionnares and did the exploratory factor ananlysis. Based on the statistical results and the theory background, we adjusted the scale significantly. Four demensions were deleted and one new dimension was added. Third, we gathered another 192 questionares and did another round of EFA. This time, we got a three factor model made up of 20 items. After that, we tested the validity and reliability of the new scale. Study 2 provided measurement tool for the Study 3.Study 3:The laboratory experiment to test the narrative capability's influence on the decision-making process in the job interview.We used the laboratory experiment to imitate the interview.51 participants watched 3 videos and made the evaluation as well as the hire decision as an interviewer. The results showed that the three dimensions of the narrative capability, the logic, the vertural reality and the non-verbal behaviors, all have significant influence on the interview decision-making. This study demonstrated the significant influence of the narrative capability on the hiring decision, which can be very meaningful for the applicants and the interviewers.This research has significant theoretical and practical implications. Theoretically speaking, this research came up with the three dimension models and developed the measurement scale. We also tested the validity and reliability of the new scale. Practically speaking, the applicants can improve their performance in the interview from the three aspects, which are logic thinking, non-verbal behavior and virtual reality. The interviewers should notice the significance of the narrative influence to better assess the applicants, in order to reach the goal of person-position-organization fit.