Introduction

Understanding your preferences for various job characteristics can help you assess your match to working in an organization that implements certain competitive business strategies. This application will present you with a brief description of three generic competitive business strategies. You will also be asked to take a survey that contains a series of statements about your personal preferences for a variety of job characteristics. After you take and score the survey responses, you will be provided with feedback that indicates how good a "match" there is between your preferences and an organization that employs a particular competitive business strategy. Issues related to the strategic management of human resources are discussed in Chapter 2 of Fisher, Schoenfeldt, and Shaw's Human Resource Management, Fourth Edition.