Robert Cardy, PhD, is a professor of management and chair of the Department of Management in the College of Business at the University of Texas at San Antonio. His research and teaching interests have been in human resource management, particularly in the areas of performance appraisal and the design of effective management systems. Initially focused on narrow issues regarding the accuracy of performance evaluations, his work has broadened to the effective management of people in the contemporary organizational environment.He has published research studies in numerous journals, including Journal of Applied Psychology, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Journal of Management, and HR Magazine. He cofounded and edited the Journal of Quality Management, and he has cowritten and edited such books as Performance Appraisal: Alternative Perspectives and Managing Human Resources.His recent focus has been on retention. The retention of employees, for example, can make a critical difference to organizations and to individuals. A cohesive retention framework can help managers to effectively address retention issues. Further, application of retention concepts to school settings can help to improve student retention. He hopes to continue to work on the development and application of retention concepts.Robert Cardy currently lives in the San Antonio area. His hobbies include working with stained glass and woodworking, as time permits. He occasionally does consulting for organizations regarding performance management., Brian Leonard is an established corporate strategist, trainer, coach, facilitator, and implementation specialist, with more than a decade of experience creating organizational structure and business process improvements in companies of every size in various industries. He performs comprehensive industry-specific benchmarking analyses for businesses and then designs and implements customized programs for improvement that allow each company to reach
