Over the past two decades, substantial progress has been made in describing
how front-line staff, such as nurses and military commanders,
make rapid tactical decisions.
Managerial decisions, by contrast, are often made relatively slowly.
One important class of managerial decisions relates to staffing.
Managers often make decisions regarding the hiring and promotion of staff that have significant
The attraction-selection-attrition (ASA) model (Schneider, Smith, Tayler, &
Fleenor, 1998) predicts that different organizations attract, select, and retain different
types of people. People who have attributes that match the general type that
dominates the organization are more likely to be attracted to the organization than
are those who do not. Of the candidates who apply for positions in the organization,
those who more closely match the general type are more likely to be hired.
Of those who are hired, those who more closely match the organization’s type are
more likely to be promoted, whereas those who do not are more likely to leave.