Reflecting this multidisciplinary interest, the mechanisms by which hu- man resource decisions create and sustain value are complicated and not well understood. Early efforts, such as utility analysis, sought to quantify the dollar value of improvements in employee selection and other human resource activities. However, these estimates typically have rather broad confidence intervals and are not always as robust as one would like in the face of changes in assumptions (e.g., those regarding the standard deviation of performance in dollars). Moreover, there is some doubt regarding whether managers' deci- sions are particularly responsive to information about the estimated dollar value of alternative decisions, especially as the estimation procedures be- come increasingly complex and difficult to understand