Relationship between organizational context and job analysis task ratings.

This research examined whether differences among job incumbents in their task ratings could be attributed to systematic as well as random variation. Data collected from 83 respondents showed that there was a significant degree of interrater agreement regarding task importance but not for ratings of task time spent. Moreover, measures of job context were significantly correlated with ratings of time spent but not task importance. These results suggest that within-job variation among raters can have both systematic and random components. Thus, practitioners should collect data on the job context as well as on incumbents' demographic characteristics and experience. Personnel practices based on task analyses may need to be examined to ensure that they are compatible with local variation in the job.