here are numerous industries in which experts offer opinions about the quality of products and brands. For example, movie critics make suggestions about a soon-to-be released movie's artistic and entertainment value, BusinessWeek hosts Robert Parker's column recommending wines, Consumer Reports has long compared brands across numerous product categories, and so forth. In addition, consumers are increasingly posting online evaluations of products and brands-for example, they review books on Amazon.com, movies on Netflix.com, video games on Gamespot.com, or restaurants on Citysearch.com.Consumers find judgments from both professional critics and amateur communities to be helpful, in part because the sheer number of new products and the frequency of their launches (e.g., weekly releases for movies) can be overwhelming for consumers in the choice process. In addition, many such products appear wholly unique, so a comparison of the movies Terminator Salvation and X-Men Origins: Wolverine or a comparison of the wines Argentinian Malbec and Italian Prosecco is difficult; thus, both critics' and other ordinary consumers' evaluations assist in decision making.

Through simulation we investigate how characteristics of forced distribution rating systems (FDRS), which require firing a certain percentage of the workforce each year, might interact with ratings reliability, selection validity, selection ratio, and voluntary turnover to improve average workforce performance potential. Results suggest that a FDRS could lead to noticeable improvement in workforce potential, that most of the improvement should be expected to occur over the first several years, and that improvement is largely a function of the percentage of workers to be fired and the level of voluntary turnover. Greater improvement is associated with higher numbers being fired and lower levels of voluntary turnover. The effects of bundling FDRS with recruiting and retention initiatives are also investigated.

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