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Industrial-Organizational Psychology Topics

Industrial-Organizational (I-O)Psychology is defined simply as “psychology applied to work” (APA 1971). It studies “work” in its broadest sense, including paid and unpaid effort, recreation, and any purpose-driven effort (sports, hobbies). Compared with other specialties, I-O is more “applied” – putting practice above theory, since it typically aims to solve specific problems, increase efficiency, and maximize outcomes.

Industrial-Organizational Psychology Research Topics

• Corporate Ethics Topics
• Group Dynamics Topics
• Individual Differences Topics
• Job Satisfaction Topics
• Leadership and Management Topics
• Organizational Behavior Topics
• Organizational Development Topics
• Recruitment Topics
• Work Motivation Topics

Compared with other fields of psychology, I-O psychology today has several features: (a) Small: I-O is a small specialty, including just 5% of US psychologists. (b) High-employment: Since I-O is in high demand in the industry; it has a negative unemployment rate below zero. (c) Lucrative: I-O has long had the highest salary, averaging at least 25% higher than 14 other psychology specialties. (d) Separate: I-O has become a very separate specialty within psychology, with its own independent association since 1987 – the Society for I-O Psychology (SIOP). (e) Hybrid: I-O overlaps with business and other social sciences. (f) Credentials: There is no one credential to define who is an I-O psychologist – be this a M.A., M.S., M.B.A., Ph.D., Psy.D., state license, APA or SIOP membership, or ABPP Diploma. (g) Demographics: SIOP members today are 6% ethnic minorities, 37% female, only 26% licensed, and 85% have a doctorate. I-O work settings vary greatly – employees in large firms, small “boutique” consulting firms, professors in psychology or business programs, or solo-practitioners.

Today, I-O psychology faces several challenges – such as globalization of organizations, the increased diversity of the US workforce, increased regulation by government and labor law, and the changing nature of work. These same challenges make a science-based I-O psychology more indispensable to successful organizations.

References:

• American Psychological Association (APA). (1971). Effective practice of psychology in industry: Task Force on the practice of psychology in industry. American Psychologist, 26, 974–991.
• Benjamin, L.T.,&Baker, D. B. (2004). Fromse´ance to science: Ahistory of the profession of psychology in America. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
• Dunnette, M. D., & Hough, L. (Eds.). (1990–1994). Handbook of industrial-organizational psychology. Palo Alto: Consulting Psychologists Press.
• Jones, J.W., Steffy, B. D., & Bray, D.W. (1991). Applying psychology in business: Handbook for managers and HR professionals. Lexington: Lexington Books.
• McGregor, D. M. (1960). The human side of enterprise. New York: McGraw-Hill.
• Riggio, R. E. (2008). Introduction to industrial-organizational psychology (5th ed.). Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall.
• Roethlisberger, F. J., & Dickson, W. J. (1939). Management and the worker. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
• Scott, W. D. (1903). The theory of advertising. Boston: Small, Maynard, & Co.
• Zedeck, S. (Ed.) (2011). APA Handbook of industrial-organizational psychology. Washington, DC: APA.

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6.2 Topics in Industrial and Organizational Psychology

Topics in Industrial and Organizational Psychology 1 2

Work occupies a central part of people’s lives around the world. For example, full-time workers in the U.S. work an average of 8.5 hours/day, spending more time working than performing any other life activity except for sleep (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2016). Work experiences exert a heavy effect on people’s life satisfaction (Erdogan, Bauer, Truxillo, & Mansfield, 2012), and career goals are a central concern of many young adults (e.g., Rogers, Creed, & Glendon, 2008). Indeed, most readers of this chapter are likely in college as a step toward achieving a hoped-for career!

However, the world of work is changing in many ways that present new questions and challenges for workers. For example, advances in technology, including automation, are disrupting major industries and changing or eliminating many jobs (Susskind & Susskind, 2016). Employers are increasingly experimenting with alternative work arrangements, like contract workers in “gig” jobs (e.g., driving for Uber or Lyft), rather than offering full-time work with job security and stable benefits (Friedman, 2014). Despite progress, women, racial and ethnic minorities, religious minorities, LGBTQ+ individuals, and people with disabilities still struggle to be accepted and successful in many workplaces (Myors et al., 2008). And, around the world, hundreds of thousands of migrant workers continue to search for decent work opportunities that can fulfill their basic needs (Moyce & Schenker, 2018).

Against this backdrop, industrial-organizational (I-O) psychology has an important role to play in improving organizations and promoting the well-being of workers. This chapter first presents a brief overview of I-O and what work in this field entails, and then reviews a series of major areas of research and practice within each half of the field.

I-O psychology is the scientific study of working and the application of psychological principles to workplace issues facing individuals, teams, and organizations. I-O psychologists apply the scientific method to investigate issues of critical relevance to individuals, businesses, and society. As a consequence, I-O psychologists are trained as scientist-practitioners with the ability to both conduct rigorous research and engage in the practical application of scientific knowledge alongside business people.

There are roughly 500 graduate programs in the U.S. that grant master’s and doctoral degrees in I-O psychology. Unlike many areas of psychology that require a doctoral degree practice, a terminal master’s degree is sufficient to pursue many excellent work opportunities in I-O psychology (Michalski, 2017). Moreover, the Department of Labor projects increased demand for I-O psychology into the mid-2020s. Much more information about graduate training and work opportunities is available on the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP) website; SIOP is the primary professional body for the field.

Figure 1. SIOP, Division 14 of the American Psychological Association, has over 9,000 members as of January 2018.

Photo source: SIOP, used with permission.

Industrial Psychology

As the name “industrial-organizational” suggests, I-O psychology has often been viewed as a field with two distinct, though related, components. The industrial half of I-O Psychology, which is sometimes referred to as personnel psychology , focuses on the analysis of jobs; recruitment, selection, and training of employees; and evaluation of performance in the workplace. Industrial psychology is a close partner of human resource (HR) management in organizations, with industrial psychologists supplying the technical and legal expertise to create and evaluate the personnel systems that HR managers use on a daily basis. To this end, the major areas of research and practice that fall within industrial psychology include job analysis, recruitment and selection, performance appraisal, and training.

Job Analysis

Before we can hire people, before we can assess their performance, before we can decide on their salaries, before we can train them – before we can do virtually anything to affect a job, we must first understand what a job consists of. What tasks does it include? What skills does the job require? Where does the job fit within the organization? Job analysis helps I-O psychologists answer these questions (Sanchez & Levine, 2012). Because of its importance for making further decisions about jobs, many I-O psychologists begin their consulting work with a job analysis.

Generally speaking, a job analysis can fall into one of two categories: work-oriented or worker-oriented (Brannick, Levine, Morgeson, & Brannick, 2007). Work-oriented job analysis focuses on the job itself, and involves developing a list of tasks that the job involves. For example, a retail store sales clerk might assist customers in finding merchandise, answer customer questions, use a cash register to take money and make change, bag the merchandise, and thank the customer, among other responsibilities.  If we put this all together, it produces a job description that we can later use to identify training needs and the valuable behaviors that we should reward.

On the other hand, worker-oriented job analysis focuses on identifying the qualities needed by an employee to successfully perform the job in question. Traditionally, I-O psychologists have tried to identify several key characteristics of employees, including their knowledge (things they know), their skills (such as skill at persuading others), and their abilities (more stable traits they possess, like mathematical ability), often referred to as the “KSAs” required to perform the job. Returning to the example of our retail sales clerk, we might find that they need to be friendly, detail-oriented, reliable, and have the ability to learn about the merchandise the store has in stock. This information is crucial to developing a selection system that identifies job applicants with the right qualifications to be successful.

The process of completing a work- or worker-oriented job analysis procedure is actually quite similar. In each case, I-O consultants typically interview current employees and supervisors, or ask them to complete surveys, to gather information about the job. The consultants then use this information to write the task or KSA statements that describe the job.

Recruitment, Selection, & Placement

Once I-O psychologists understand what a job entails, and the requirements that are necessary to do the job, they can use this information to assist an organization in a wide variety of ways. Generally, this information will be used to aid the hiring process in an organization–quality job analysis information can help with this process in a variety of ways.

The hiring process actually begins with recruitment—before people can be hired into an organization, they must first apply for an open position. Recruitment refers to the process of attracting people to submit applications for open positions within an organization. Today, recruitment often takes advantage of technology, such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and internet job boards like Indeed.com and Monster.com. In their attempts to recruit people to apply for a job opening, organizations will typically describe the requirements of the position, including educational requirements, and the main tasks and responsibilities associated with the position. Organizations may also attempt to describe aspects of the culture of the organization, such as the feel of the work environment, or the values or mission of the company. An organization that describes itself as “fast-paced” or “competitive” is likely to attract rather different applicants than an organization that advertises “teamwork” and “cooperation.”

Once an organization has recruited an applicant pool, the organization must decide how to assess the applicants, and the formal hiring process begins. The process used to evaluate job candidates and decide which ones to hire is typically referred to as personnel selection .  Personnel selection is one of the oldest topics in I-O psychology, dating back to the very roots of the field at the start of the 20 th century (Farr & Tippins, 2010; Ployhart, Schmitt, & Tippins, 2017). Selection usually involves administering a series of instruments, such as tests or interviews, to job applicants; the instruments are often scored and combined with other information, such as letters of recommendation, to help employers select the best applicant(s). The selection instruments an organization uses are commonly referred to as predictors , and helping organizations develop effective predictors are one of the most common roles that I-O consultants engage in. Common predictors that I-O psychologists help develop include tests of various qualities (such as intelligence, personality and other traits), and interviews (Cascio & Aguinis, 2011).  Determining the right combination of predictors to give applicants for a given job is a central topic for consultants that assist with personnel selection, and involves the consideration of many factors, including cost, time, legality, validity, reliability, practicality, and acceptance in the business world. Selection often occurs in multiple stages. During the initial stage, it is common for applicants to participate in some initial screening assessments to “weed out” unqualified applicants.  Following this, subsequent stages in the selection process attempt to select the optimal candidate from the qualified applicants that remain after screening.

What predictors do the best job of helping organizations choose qualified applicants? One of the most consistent findings in I-O psychology, based on decades of research, is that general mental ability , or intelligence, is the single most effective predictor of job performance in nearly all jobs, and especially complex jobs (Schmidt & Hunter, 2004). One of the reasons this is the case is that general mental ability helps predict a person’s ability to learn new information and skills, a critical component of success in virtually any job.

Beyond general mental ability tests, many other predictors have been found to be effective for predicting employee success as well. Personality tests , such as those measuring the Big 5 traits, have also been found to successfully predict which applicants will make effective employees. In particular, the Big 5 trait conscientiousness has been found to predict performance in a wide variety of jobs. This is not surprising, given that people high in this trait are typically hard-working, reliable, and organized, all traits that should lead to success in most jobs (Barrick, Mount, & Judge, 2001). Additional predictors, such as simulations and work samples, can be used to successfully assess a person’s ability to handle actual job-related tasks in realistic settings (Scott & Reynolds, 2010).

What about interviews? Interviews have long been used by organizations to help make hiring decisions, and they remain one of the most commonly-used predictors in organizations today (Posthuma, Morgeson, & Campion, 2002). Interviews can be written to evaluate a variety of applicant characteristics and qualifications (Landy & Conte, 2010). Research on the effectiveness of interviews is mixed. Most interviews used in organizations tend to be fairly flexible conversations, where the interviewer is free to ask an applicant a wide variety of different questions. Each applicant may be asked different questions, and the questions may not be directly related to the job the applicant is applying for. These interviews are typically known as unstructured interviews , and, despite their prevalence, they are not very effective predictors for evaluating applicants. One reason for this is that the information gained from one applicant’s interview might be quite different from the information gained from another applicant’s interview, thus making it difficult to compare “apples to apples.”

Fortunately, interviews can be improved by making the interview process more structured . Strategies for structuring an interview include deciding on a consistent list of questions that will be asked of all applicants, ensuring that the questions are related to the content of the job, and using a scoring system to evaluate applicants’ responses. Structured interviews that have these features are much more effective at predicting which applicants will be successful in a given job (Huffcutt, Conway, Roth, & Stone, 2001). I-O consultants often help organizations to design and implement structured interviews to improve the organization’s selection process. Unfortunately, many organizations continue to rely on traditional unstructured interviews, which are much more prone to errors and subjective evaluations of job applicants. This divide between the predictors that I-O psychologists know are effective, and the predictors that many organizations utilize, remains an important concern for many I-O psychologists today.

Evaluating and Managing Worker Performance

Once employees are hired and placed into their roles in an organization, it is typically necessary to assess their performance to see how well they are performing in their new role. Evaluating how well employees perform their jobs, and documenting this performance, is important for a variety of reasons. Certainly, performance information is often used to make decisions about whether and when to promote, train, re-assign, or terminate employees; it can also be used for decisions about compensation, bonuses, and other rewards. If an employee’s performance is lacking, the gap between how he or she is performing, compared to the ideal, might be addressed by training (or re-training) the needed knowledge, skills, or abilities. Performance appraisal can also be used to give employees feedback, and help employees learn about their strengths and weaknesses–thus, another goal of performance appraisal is general employee development.

Performance appraisals are often conducted on a recurring schedule—once or twice a year is common. The review itself is typically structured around the employee’s primary tasks and responsibilities, such that the supervisor provides a summary of the employee and their performance. The appraisal will often involve making ratings on numeric scales corresponding with specific aspects of performance, as well as comments and/or illustrative critical incidents to communicate to the employee how well they are performing on each aspect of the job. Critical incidents are specific behaviors the employee has engaged in—they are used to illustrate good or bad performance and often supplement numeric performance ratings. Feedback and critical incidents from other coworkers may be gathered by the supervisor with the goal of basing the performance appraisal on complete information.

One variant of performance appraisal that has become popular in recent years is 360-degree appraisal, which seeks to gather feedback from multiple sources that the person being evaluated interacts with, such as subordinates, peers, supervisors, clients/customers, and others.  Self-appraisal, provided by the employee him- or herself, may also be included. The goal of this process is to provide employees with a more well-rounded sense of how they’re performing.

Numeric performance ratings are a common part of a performance appraisal.  For example, an employee may be rated on dependability on a scale of one to five, with anchors ranging from unacceptable (1), to average (3), to superior (5). Employees are often rated in the context of how other members of their team or work group are performing. Other rating approaches involve making direct comparisons between employees within a unit, such as ranking all employees, or comparing them two at a time and deciding which of the two is the superior performer. When using any numeric rating method, organizations need to be aware of the biases that raters may unknowingly exhibit. One risk is that all raters will not use a rating scale the same way—for instance, some might provide more generous, or harsher, ratings regardless of how the employee is performing. Such errors can lead to biases in the appraisal process, and impact the fairness of a performance appraisal system; fortunately, rater training can help avoid some of these issues.

What kinds of employee performance are typically assessed in organizations? In many cases, the answer to this question is determined by the type of organization the employee works in—effective performance for an employee who makes electric motors in a factory is likely to be very different from an employee who creates apps for your phone. For legal reasons, it is important for an organization to avoid assessing people based on irrelevant characteristics, such as their age, gender, or race. Here again, I-O consultants often help organizations design performance appraisal systems that focus on core aspects of job performance, and avoid evaluating irrelevant characteristics. For many jobs, the main focus of performance appraisal is on task performance —that is, how effectively an employee performs the key requirements of their job. However, many organizations are also concerned with additional behaviors that employees may engage in outside of their job responsibilities. These “extra” behaviors can be positive or negative in nature. Positive behaviors are typically referred to as organizational citizenship behaviors , or OCBs, and may include actions such as bringing donuts or bagels to an early morning meeting, staying late to assist a coworker with a project, or speaking positively about the organization to outsiders. Negative behaviors, often called counterproductive work behaviors , or CWBs, range from fairly minor actions, such as being rude to a coworker from time to time, to more serious, criminal activities such as theft, sabotage, or arson. As you would expect, employees who enjoy their work are more likely to engage in OCBs, while dissatisfied employees are likely to engage in CWBs. Thus, if organizations want to promote OCBs, and prevent CWBs, it is important for them to consider their employees’ thoughts and feelings about their workplace.

Training & Development

Over time, it often becomes necessary for employees to learn new knowledge or skills, to enhance their job performance and keep pace with changes in their occupation. I-O psychology intersects with cognitive psychology and learning theories in the domain of training and development , which focuses on increasing employees’ knowledge, skills, and abilities. Like many other organizational processes, training is, in part, based on job/task/work analysis to determine the elements of a job that a person requires training to do. The training process often begins with a training needs analysis, which is an analysis of the organization, tasks, and person that results in objectives for training (Arthur, Bennett, Edens, & Bell, 2003). Principles of learning and cognition serve as the basis for designing training and development interventions. Basic principles about memory, perception, judgment, and learning include cognitive biases, primacy and recency, interferences, decision-making, and developments. These are relevant to determining how best to convey information about how and when to engage in various work behaviors, and how to assess how well training has accomplished its goals.

What topics do organizations commonly use training for? Some training is motivated by legal considerations, such as diversity and sexual harassment training. With diversity training, employees are typically educated on the benefits of diversity, and provided with suggestions for acting with sensitivity in a diverse workplace. Sexual harassment and discrimination, which are typically prohibited both by law and organizational policies, can also be addressed via training. Employees may be educated on key terms and ideas related to harassment, practice identifying situations in which harassment may occur, and discuss appropriate courses of action for reporting and preventing harassment.

Other types of training are prompted when employers require employees to possess a particular area of knowledge, skill, or ability to meet organizational needs. If an organization wants to avoid training, they may look to hire employees that already have those KSAs that they desire (a selection approach). Alternatively, they may use help current employees develop those KSAs (a training approach). The decision between these approaches is driven by several considerations, including cost, timing, other available resources, and staffing goals. For example, for employers do not wish to increase the size of their workforce, training may be a more attractive option. In addition, the expected trainability of a knowledge, skill, or ability and skill level of current personnel might be taken into account. Consider the likelihood of successfully teaching someone a specific skill, such as typing, using a cash register, or engaging in successful customer service interactions, compared to the more difficult challenge of improving a person’s mathematical abilities or extraversion.

In organizations today, training can occur in a wide variety of formats. Training often occurs with a face-to-face instructor , but many organizations today are relying on remote or distance training, mediated by communication technology, and self-paced training. In addition, employers are generally motivated to understand whether their resources devoted to training are achieving key training objectives. Consequently, many employee trainings are followed, either immediately or after a delay, with some form of evaluation. Some evaluations focus on how much of the training content was understood and retained by the trainee, while others focus on how well that information transfers to on-the-job behaviors, how well the trainee feels about the training process, and what the outcomes for the organization are (Kirkpatrick, 1959). For the individual, training can be considered in terms of impact on career development and advancement in the organization.

Organizational Psychology

The organizational half of I-O Psychology is broadly concerned with the social and psychological context of the workplace. Organizational psychology focuses on many different levels of workplace phenomena, including micro, within-person experiences, like attitudes and emotions; meso, small group dynamics like teamwork and interpersonal discrimination; and macro, organization-wide factors, such as leadership and organizational culture. Overall, organizational psychology helps us understand the experience and consequences of working life in modern organizations. Major areas of study within organizational psychology include employee attitudes, worker health and safety, motivation, and teamwork and leadership.

Employee Attitudes

I-O psychologists are often concerned with the attitudes employees hold about their work.  Several attitudes have been the focus of extensive research over the past several decades, and the importance of employee attitudes has been demonstrated by their ability to predict whether employees will exert less effort at work, engage in CWBs, or even leave the organization altogether.

Job satisfaction , which refers to an employee’s overall evaluation of their job, is the most fundamental attitude studied in I-O psychology (Judge & Klinger, 2007).  When a worker has positive feelings and thoughts about his or her job, positive outcome are likely. These outcomes include performing their job at a high level, feeling motivated, and being inclined to do extrarole behaviors that are helpful but aren’t explicitly required as part of the job. Job satisfaction is often measured using scales, which include questions with a range of numeric response options with either images or phrases as anchors (e.g., 1 = very dissatisfied to 5 = very satisfied). While job satisfaction can be measured using a single question, a more nuanced understanding of satisfaction can be achieved using multi-item scales that ask the respondent about various aspects of a job (e.g., pay, autonomy, coworkers). Measuring satisfaction in this way can help I-O consultants get a more detailed understanding of which aspects of their jobs employees like and dislike the most.

Another attitude important for understanding work behavior is organizational commitment , or an individual’s psychological attachment to an organization (Meyer & Allen, 1991).  Researchers studying the nature of organizational commitment have identified three types of commitment. Affective commitment reflects an emotional connection an employee may feel with their organization. Employees with high affective commitment may feel as though they are a “part of a family” with their organization. Continuance commitment reflects commitment that is based on a lack of available alternative employment options. Employees with high continuance commitment may stay at their current job because of poor job prospects in their area, or because they lack necessary education or training to make themselves competitive for other job opportunities. Finally, normative commitment is driven by employees’ sense of obligation to their organization. For instance, if a company gives an employee their first job after graduating from college, or has invested resources in an employee in the form or training or development, the employee may feel obligated to stay with the organization to “pay back” these investments. Overall, strong ties have been found between organizational commitment and turnover, or leaving one’s organization.

Employees’ attitudes about an organization may also be based on how fairly they feel they are treated.   Organizational justice theory suggests that employees pay attention to the fairness of how they’re treated in several ways.  The various types and subtypes of justice focus on how outcomes or results are distributed across employees, the fairness of organizational procedures or decision rules, and the nature of interactions among organizational members.  For example, an employee may feel that the process of performance appraisal is fair (procedural justice), but that it did not result in a sufficient pay raise (distributive justice).

What can an organization do to improve their employees’ attitudes? Unfortunately, psychological research on attitudes in general suggests that attitude change is often quite difficult. A basic principle of attitudes is that once an attitude or belief is held, it serves as an anchor around which new information is judged. Thus, once an employee begins to evaluate their workplace negatively, they may seek out and focus on additional information that supports this attitude.

Worker Health & Safety

Occupational health is a multidisciplinary field concerned with the health and safety of people at work, and has become the subject of much research in I-O psychology. Jobs place a variety of demands on workers, and these demands can lead to the experience of stress, which may be followed by various negative outcomes such as effects on the physical and mental health of employees (Beehr, 1995; Jex, 1998; Tetrick & Quick, 2011). Occupational health research examines internal and external sources of occupational stress, as well as ways to decrease worker stress and methods for preventing stress. Evidence suggests that organizations should be concerned with occupational health, as consistent exposure to stressful working conditions can impact not only employees, but also organizational effectiveness: studies have estimated that billions of dollars are lost from the U.S. economy due to occupational stress, based on the assumption that stress plays a role in negative outcomes such as increased medical, legal, and insurance costs, higher rates of absenteeism and turnover, diminished productivity, and increased occupational accidents (e.g., Goldin, 2004).

While I-O psychologists have contributed to the study of occupational stress, the occupational stress literature consists of important contributions from multiple perspectives, including medical (focusing on the contribution of stress in the workplace to employee health and illness), clinical/counseling (which focuses on the impact of stressful working conditions on mental health outcomes such as anxiety and depression), engineering psychology (which focuses on stressors originating from the physical work environment), and organizational psychology . Organizational psychology focuses heavily on cognitive appraisal (the process by which employees perceive the work environment and decide whether it is stressful), as well on sources of stress that are social in nature (e.g., are sourced from interactions with others). Recently, these four approaches have joined into one field known as occupational health psychology (OHP; Barling & Griffiths, 2011). OHP is an interdisciplinary field that focuses on using psychological theories and methodology to enhance health, safety, and well-being for individuals and organizations.

Another focus within the field of OHP is employee safety, usually with regard to preventing accidents and injuries in the workplace. Research has examined workplace safety outcomes in relation with both situational factors in the work environment (e.g., physical hazards such as heat and noise; Jex, Swanson, & Grubb, 2013) and personal factors in the employee (e.g., personality traits; Clarke & Robertson, 2008). Most models of employee safety posit that certain factors influence the experience of accidents and injuries through an effect on the safety performance of the employee (i.e., employees being compliant with safety procedures and notifying others in the organization about safety concerns; Griffin & Neal, 2000). Most studies have found moderate to strong relationships between different types of safety performance and the experience of workplace accidents (Jiang, Yu, Li, & Li, 2010). Moreover, the safety climate of a work unit and/or organization is predictive of safety performance, which has been linked to workplace accidents (Zohar, 2011). Safety climate refers to whether the employees in a company share similar perceptions of policies and procedures regarding workplace safety, such as rules regarding the use of safety equipment. A recent review of the injury and accident prevalence literature suggested that thousands of American workers die each year from injuries sustained in the workplace; however, prevalence rates are far worse in countries that do not have government oversight of labor practices: over two million individuals worldwide die each year as a result of injuries suffered in the work environment (Kaplan & Tetrick, 2011). In the United States, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is the government agency established to assure safe and healthful working conditions by setting and enforcing standards and providing training, outreach, education, and assistance to US organizations. Most private employers are responsible for ensuring that OSHA standards are met, and employers concerned with worker health and well-being seek to maintain safe working conditions and offer channels for addressing issues as they arise.

Understanding employee motivation –the forces that direct employees’ behaviors at work–has a long history in I-O psychology. The study of motivation in I-O psychology can be traced back to studies by Hugo Munsterberg , who studied motivation issues for employees working at knitting mills (Landy & Conte, 2004). He saw that employees were working 12-hour days, and working 6 days a week.  With some modifications (i.e., having kittens play with balls of yarn on the factory floor), Munsterberg was able to influence the satisfaction and alertness of the employees.

Some of the basic motivational questions that I-O psychologists study include what needs elicit action for individuals, what traits impact the engagement of behaviors, and how the environment (space and individuals) influences the motivation and behaviors of people.  While the study of work motivation is continually evolving, there are several seminal theories that have informed our understanding of motivation.

One of the most well-supported theories of motivation in I-O psychology is goal-setting theory (Locke & Latham, 1990). This theory emphasizes that goals can influence employees in a variety of ways. For instance, goals can influence the direction of actions; Goals can also affect the effort that employees put forth to those actions; In addition to these benefits, goals can increase employee persistence, and motivate them to choose more effective strategies for attaining those goals. Goals that tend to provide the benefits just described tend to share some key characteristics. Specifically, goals that are specific, measurable, actionable, realistic, and time-bound (SMART) are typically more effective than goals that lack these qualities (Locke & Latham, 2002).

Despite the popularity of goal-setting theory, several other motivation theories have received attention, and research support, from I-O psychologists. Expectancy theory (Vroom, 1964) suggests that employees are unlikely to be motivated unless they can provide affirmative answers to three questions. The first question involves asking whether employee effort will lead to performance (instrumentality). If an employees feels that working hard will not result in success on the job, they are likely to have low motivation. If an employee decides that their effort will actually result in a sufficient level of performance, they must then evaluate whether their performance is likely to be rewarded or recognized in satisfactory ways (expectancy). In some workplaces, employees may feel that their strong performance goes unrecognized–if this pattern persists over time, they are likely to lose motivation. Finally, the third questions associated with expectancy theory concerns whether an employee values the rewards they are able to receive (valence). If an organization rewards its employees with public “employee of the month” ceremonies, but an employee would prefer a cash reward rather than public recognition, they may find their motivation limited.

The job characteristics theory (Hackman & Oldham, 1976) takes a rather different approach to motivation. This theory suggests that several key features of job themselves can also influence the motivation level of employees. For example, autonomy , or the freedom that employees have to choose how their work is done (or at least certain elements of it) typically has a positive effect on motivation. Doing work that allows employees to use a variety of different skills and abilities (task variety), and performing work that feels important to other peoples’ lives (task significance) can also generate higher levels of motivation. Finally, receiving feedback , such as from supervisors and peers, can improve motivation for many employees.

In many organizations today, work is often conducted in the context of a group or team. Teams are defined as two or more individuals who share one or more common goals, and interact to perform activities that are relevant to the organization. Teams are influenced by a wide variety of social dynamics. As an example, consider Susie who just graduated medical school and has started her intern year in a department that emphasizes teamwork. Her role in the interdisciplinary team is that of the physician, which she feels comfortable doing as she graduated with honors from her university. What she is concerned about is how to function effectively in the team. She personally likes to do things on her own, so she is uncertain how this part of her job will actually go, especially since she knows the intern year is a very stressful one and she knows that two of the other team members have reputations of being really difficult to work with.

Some of the concerns that Susie has are ones that I-O psychologists try to grapple with as consultants and researchers. Many topics that originated in social psychology are relevant to the study of teams. For instance, many people have a tendency to work with less intensity when they are in a group, compared to when they are by themselves, which social psychologists refer to as social loafing (see Latané, Williams, & Harkins, 1979). Managers can help avoid social loafing in their work groups by making sure that each employee knows what they are responsible for.

Management and Leadership

A natural sister topic of teams concerns the individuals tasked with facilitating teams— leaders . While there are many definitions of leadership, the common elements of the definitions are influence and guidance of others towards a goal. Over time, I-O psychologists have studied management and leadership from several different perspectives. In the 1920s and 1930s, early leadership research focused on the trait approach , which centers on the idea that leaders possess certain traits (e.g., ambition, dominance, extroversion, height) that non-leaders do not possess.  However, this approach did not prove to be productive, as research did not show consistent relationships among the traits. Undeterred, I-O psychologists re-focused their attempts to understand leadership by looking for specific behaviors that successful leaders might engage in. Fleishman and Harris (1962) defined leadership using two dimensions, consideration (concern for the individual’s needs) and initiating structure (organizes and defines activities). This approach proved to be more successful, and the legacy of this work can be seen in more modern research on transactional and transformational leadership (Bass, 1985).

I-O psychologists have a unique place as researchers and consultants when informing the greater population as to the practice of leadership. With changing workforce practices, such as the utilization of temporary workers, teleworking, virtual teams, increasing diversity in the workforce and other existing ambiguous boundaries that modern jobs hold, I-O psychologists are prepared to contribute to our understanding of leadership and how we best develop and coach the leaders of today and tomorrow.

A significant portion of I-O research focuses on management and human relations. Douglas McGregor (1960) combined scientific management (a theory of management that analyzes and synthesizes workflows with the main objective of improving economic efficiency, especially labor productivity) and human relations into the notion of leadership behavior. His theory lays out two different styles called Theory X and Theory Y. In the  Theory X  approach to management, managers assume that most people dislike work and are not innately self-directed. Theory X managers perceive employees as people who prefer to be led and told which tasks to perform and when. Their employees have to be watched carefully to be sure that they work hard enough to fulfill the organization’s goals. Theory X workplaces will often have employees punch a clock when arriving and leaving the workplace: Tardiness is punished. Supervisors, not employees, determine whether an employee needs to stay late, and even this decision would require someone higher up in the command chain to approve the extra hours. Theory X supervisors will ignore employees’ suggestions for improved efficiency and reprimand employees for speaking out of order. These supervisors blame efficiency failures on individual employees rather than the systems or policies in place. Managerial goals are achieved through a system of punishments and threats rather than enticements and rewards. Managers are suspicious of employees’ motivations and always suspect selfish motivations for their behavior at work (e.g., being paid is their sole motivation for working).

In the  Theory Y  approach, on the other hand, managers assume that most people seek inner satisfaction and fulfillment from their work. Employees function better under leadership that allows them to participate in, and provide input about, setting their personal and work goals. In Theory Y workplaces, employees participate in decisions about prioritizing tasks; they may belong to teams that, once given a goal, decide themselves how it will be accomplished. In such a workplace, employees are able to provide input on matters of efficiency and safety. One example of Theroy Y in action is the policy of Toyota production lines that allows any employee to stop the entire line if a defect or other issue appears, so that the defect can be fixed and its cause remedied (Toyota Motor Manufacturing, 2013). A Theory Y workplace will also meaningfully consult employees on any changes to the work process or management system. In addition, the organization will encourage employees to contribute their own ideas. McGregor (1960) characterized Theory X as the traditional method of management used in the United States. He agued that a Theory Y approach was needed to improve organizational output and the wellbeing of individuals.  Table summarizes how these two management approaches differ.

Another management style was described by Donald Clifton, who focused his research on how an organization can best use an individual’s strengths, an approach he called strengths-based management . He and his colleagues interviewed 8,000 managers and concluded that it is important to focus on a person’s strengths, not their weaknesses. A strength is a particular enduring talent possessed by an individual that allows her to provide consistent, near-perfect performance in tasks involving that talent. Clifton argued that our strengths provide the greatest opportunity for growth (Buckingham & Clifton, 2001). An example of a strength is public speaking or the ability to plan a successful event. The strengths-based approach is very popular although its effect on organization performance is not well-studied. However, Kaiser & Overfield (2011) found that managers often neglected improving their weaknesses and overused their strengths, both of which interfered with performance.

Leadership is an important element of management. Leadership styles have been of major interest within I-O research, and researchers have proposed numerous theories of leadership. Bass (1985) popularized and developed the concepts of transactional leadership versus transformational leadership styles. In  transactional leadership , the focus is on supervision and organizational goals, which are achieved through a system of rewards and punishments (i.e., transactions). Transactional leaders maintain the status quo: They are managers. This is in contrast to the transformational leader. People who have  transformational leadership  possess four attributes to varying degrees: They are charismatic (highly liked role models), inspirational (optimistic about goal attainment), intellectually stimulating (encourage critical thinking and problem solving), and considerate (Bass, Avolio, & Atwater, 1996).

As women increasingly take on leadership roles in corporations, questions have arisen as to whether there are differences in leadership styles between men and women (Eagly, Johannesen-Schmidt, & van Engen, 2003). Eagly & Johnson (1990) conducted a meta-analysis to examine gender and leadership style. They found, to a slight but significant degree, that women tend to practice an interpersonal style of leadership (i.e., she focuses on the morale and welfare of the employees) and men practice a task-oriented style (i.e., he focuses on accomplishing tasks). However, the differences were less pronounced when one looked only at organizational studies and excluded laboratory experiments or surveys that did not involve actual organizational leaders. Larger gender-related differences were observed when leadership style was categorized as democratic or autocratic, and these differences were consistent across all types of studies. The authors suggest that similarities between the genders in leadership styles are attributable to genders needing to conform the organization’s culture; additionally, they propose that gender-related differences reflect inherent differences in the strengths each gender brings to bear on leadership practice. In another meta-analysis of leadership style, Eagly, Johannesen-Schmidt, & van Engen (2003) found that women tended to exhibit the characteristics of transformational leaders, while men were more likely to be transactional leaders. However, the differences are not absolute; for example, women were found to use methods of reward for performance more often than men, which is a component of transactional leadership. The differences they found were relatively small. As Eagly, Johannesen-Schmidt, & van Engen (2003) point out, research shows that transformational leadership approaches are more effective than transactional approaches, although individual leaders typically exhibit elements of both approaches.

Work-Family Balance

Many people juggle the demands of work life with the demands of their home life, whether it be caring for children or taking care of an elderly parent; this is known as  work-family balance . We might commonly think about work interfering with family, but it is also the case that family responsibilities may conflict with work obligations (Carlson, Kacmar, & Williams, 2000). Greenhaus and Beutell (1985) first identified three sources of work–family conflicts:

• time devoted to work makes it difficult to fulfill requirements of family, or vice versa,
• strain from participation in work makes it difficult to fulfill requirements of family, or vice versa, and
• specific behaviors required by work make it difficult to fulfill the requirements of family, or vice versa.

Women often have greater responsibility for family demands, including home care, child care, and caring for aging parents, yet men in the United States are increasingly assuming a greater share of domestic responsibilities. However, research has documented that women report greater levels of stress from work–family conflict (Gyllensten & Palmer, 2005).

There are many ways to decrease work–family conflict and improve people’s job satisfaction (Posig & Kickul, 2004). These include support in the home, which can take various forms: emotional (listening), practical (help with chores). Workplace support can include understanding supervisors, flextime, leave with pay, and telecommuting. Flextime usually involves a requirement of core hours spent in the workplace around which the employee may schedule his arrival and departure from work to meet family demands.  Telecommuting  involves employees working at home and setting their own hours, which allows them to work during different parts of the day, and to spend part of the day with their family. Recall that Yahoo! had a policy of allowing employees to telecommute and then rescinded the policy. There are also organizations that have onsite daycare centers, and some companies even have onsite fitness centers and health clinics. In a study of the effectiveness of different coping methods, Lapierre & Allen (2006) found practical support from home more important than emotional support. They also found that immediate-supervisor support for a worker significantly reduced work–family conflict through such mechanisms as allowing an employee the flexibility needed to fulfill family obligations. In contrast, flextime did not help with coping and telecommuting actually made things worse, perhaps reflecting the fact that being at home intensifies the conflict between work and family because with the employee in the home, the demands of family are more evident.

Posig & Kickul (2004) identify exemplar corporations with policies designed to reduce work–family conflict. Examples include IBM’s policy of three years of job-guaranteed leave after the birth of a child, Lucent Technologies offer of one year’s childbirth leave at half pay, and SC Johnson’s program of concierge services for daytime errands.

Link to Learning:  Glassdoor  is a website that posts job satisfaction reviews for different careers and organizations. Use this site to research possible careers and/or organizations that interest you.

Organizational Culture

Each company and organization has an organizational culture.  Organizational culture  encompasses the values, visions, hierarchies, norms, and interactions among its employees. It is how an organization is run, how it operates, and how it makes decisions—the industry in which the organization participates may have an influence. Different departments within one company can develop their own subculture within the organization’s culture. Ostroff, Kinicki, and Tamkins (2003) identify three layers in organizational culture: observable artifacts, espoused values, and basic assumptions. Observable artifacts are the symbols, language (jargon, slang, and humor), narratives (stories and legends), and practices (rituals) that represent the underlying cultural assumptions. Espoused values are concepts or beliefs that the management or the entire organization endorses. They are the rules that allow employees to know which actions they should take in different situations and which information they should adhere to. These basic assumptions generally are unobservable and unquestioned. Researchers have developed survey instruments to measure organizational culture.

With the workforce being a global marketplace, your company may have a supplier in Korea and another in Honduras and have employees in the United States, China, and South Africa. You may have coworkers of different religious, ethnic, or racial backgrounds than yourself. Your coworkers may be from different places around the globe. Many workplaces offer diversity training to help everyone involved bridge and understand cultural differences.  Diversity training  educates participants about cultural differences with the goal of improving teamwork. There is always the potential for prejudice between members of two groups, but the evidence suggests that simply working together, particularly if the conditions of work are set carefully that such prejudice can be reduced or eliminated. Pettigrew and Tropp (2006) conducted a meta-analysis to examine the question of whether contact between groups reduced prejudice between those groups. They found that there was a moderate but significant effect. They also found that, as previously theorized, the effect was enhanced when the two groups met under conditions in which they have equal standing, common goals, cooperation between the groups, and especially support on the part of the institution or authorities for the contact.

One well-recognized negative aspect of organizational culture is a culture of  harassment , including sexual harassment. Most organizations of any size have developed sexual harassment policies that define sexual harassment (or harassment in general) and the procedures the organization has set in place to prevent and address it when it does occur. Thus, in most jobs you have held, you were probably made aware of the company’s sexual harassment policy and procedures, and may have received training related to the policy. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (n.d.) provides the following description of  sexual harassment :

Unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature constitute sexual harassment when this conduct explicitly or implicitly affects an individual’s employment, unreasonably interferes with an individual’s work performance, or creates an intimidating, hostile, or offensive work environment. (par. 2)

One form of sexual harassment is called quid pro quo. Quid pro quo means you give something to get something, and it refers to a situation in which organizational rewards are offered in exchange for sexual favors. Quid pro quo harassment is often between an employee and a person with greater power in the organization. For example, a supervisor might request an action, such as a kiss or a touch, in exchange for a promotion, a positive performance review, or a pay raise. Another form of sexual harassment is the threat of withholding a reward if a sexual request is refused. Hostile environment sexual harassment is another type of workplace harassment. In this situation, an employee experiences conditions in the workplace that are considered hostile or intimidating. For example, a work environment that allows offensive language or jokes or displays sexually explicit images. Isolated occurrences of these events do not constitute harassment, but a pattern of repeated occurrences does. In addition to violating organizational policies against sexual harassment, these forms of harassment are illegal.

Harassment does not have to be sexual; it may be related to any of the protected classes in the statutes regulated by the EEOC: race, national origin, religion, or age.

Violence in the Workplace

In the summer of August 1986, a part-time postal worker with a troubled work history walked into the Edmond, Oklahoma, post office and shot and killed 15 people, including himself. From his action, the term “going postal” was coined, describing a troubled employee who engages in extreme violence.

Workplace violence is one aspect of workplace safety that I-O psychologists study.  Workplace violence  is any act or threat of physical violence, harassment, intimidation, or other threatening, disruptive behavior that occurs at the workplace. It ranges from threats and verbal abuse to physical assaults and even homicide (Occupational Safety & Health Administration, 2014).

There are different targets of workplace violence: a person could commit violence against coworkers, supervisors, or property. Warning signs often precede such actions: intimidating behavior, threats, sabotaging equipment, or radical changes in a coworker’s behavior. Often there is intimidation and then escalation that leads to even further escalation. It is important for employees to involve their immediate supervisor if they ever feel intimidated or unsafe.

Murder is the second leading cause of death in the workplace. It is also the primary cause of death for women in the workplace. Every year there are nearly two million workers who are physically assaulted or threatened with assault. Many are murdered in domestic violence situations by boyfriends or husbands who chose the woman’s workplace to commit their crimes.

There are many risk factors for workplace violence that can be committed by leaders, employees, and even customers. A significant risk factor is the feeling of being treated unfairly, unjustly, or disrespectfully, and may become more serious when combined with other individual factors like personality and history, environmental stressors, and lack of community. In a research experiment, Greenberg (1993) examined the reactions of students who were given pay for a task. In one group, the students were given extensive explanations for the pay rate. In the second group, the students were given a curt uninformative explanation. The students were made to believe the supervisor would not know how much money the student withdrew for payment. The rate of stealing (taking more pay than they were told they deserved) was higher in the group who had been given the limited explanation. This is a demonstration of the importance of procedural justice in organizations. Procedural justice  refers to the fairness of the processes by which outcomes are determined in conflicts with or among employees.

In another study by Greenberg & Barling (1999), they found a history of aggression and amount of alcohol consumed to be accurate predictors of workplace violence against a coworker. Aggression against a supervisor was predicted if a worker felt unfairly treated or untrusted. Job security and alcohol consumption predicted aggression against a subordinate. To understand and predict workplace violence, Greenberg & Barling (1999) emphasize the importance of considering the employee target of aggression or violence and characteristics of both the workplace characteristics and the aggressive or violent person.

As you can see, I-O psychologists are concerned with a wide variety of topics related to the performance and well-being of both employees and their organizations. Some topics, such as recruitment, selection, and performance appraisal, have been important from the start, while others, such as worker attitudes, stress, and motivation, have increased in importance in recent years. Today, while it is still possible to make a distinction between “I” and “O” topics within this field, there is greater recognition that these areas represent two sides of the same coin, and that both sides can have a substantial influence on one another. As work continues to become more complex and subject to global and technological pressures, I-O psychologists will become increasingly important for helping both workers and organizations weather these changes.

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Introduction to Psychology as a Social Science Copyright © by The Introduction To Psychology As A Social Science Teaching and Learning Group is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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The Oxford Handbook of Organizational Psychology, Volume 1

Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA

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Organizational psychology is the science of psychology applied to work and organizations. It is a field of inquiry that spans more than a century and covers an increasingly diverse range of topics as the nature of work continues to evolve. This publication provides a comprehensive treatment of key topics that capture the broad sweep of organizational psychology. It features contributions by sixty-nine leading scholars who provide cutting-edge reviews, conceptual integration, and directions for future research. The forty-two articles of the handbook are organized into ten major sections, spanning two volumes, including such topics imperative to the field as: the core processes of work motivation, job attitudes and affect, and performance that underlie behavior at work; phenomena which assimilate, shape, and develop employees (i.e. socialization, networks, and leadership); the challenges of managing differences within and across organizations, covering the topics of diversity, discrimination, and cross-cultural psychology; and the powerful influence of technology on the nature of work and work processes. This two-volume set compiles knowledge in organizational psychology to date, and looks ahead with a roadmap for the future of the field.

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Home > Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Capstone Projects > ALL-PROGRAMS > Industrial/Organizational Psychology Theses

Industrial/Organizational Psychology Theses

Theses/dissertations from 2022 2022.

Employee Satisfaction and Perceptions of Organizational Leadership Accountability , Caroline M. Clancy

The Effects of Transformational Leadership on Sales Performance in a Multilevel Marketing Organization , Alexander Techy

Theses/Dissertations from 2021 2021

Too Illegit to Quit: The Impact of Illegitiate Tasks on Turnover Intentions and Well-Being , Jacob Wessels

Theses/Dissertations from 2020 2020

The Effects of Positive and Negative Humor at Work , Trevor Frey

Diverse Teams, Team Effectiveness, and the Moderating Effect of Organizational Support , Hannah Tilstra

Theses/Dissertations from 2019 2019

Effects of Psychological Need Satisfaction on Proactive Work Behaviors , Shota Kawasaki

Theses/Dissertations from 2018 2018

Gender Differences in Development Center Performance in a Healthcare Organization , Samuel Lawson

Theses/Dissertations from 2017 2017

Success in Learning Groups: Where have we been? And Where are we going? , Tiffany Michelle Ackerman

Individual Differences as Predictors of Success for Learning Community Students , Nicole Haffield

Moderating Effects of Resilience and Recovery on the Stressor-Strain Relationship Among Law Enforcement Officers , Austin Hearne

Selection Portfolio: Applying Modern Portfolio Theory to Personnel Selection , Eric Leingang

The Hogan Development Survey: Personality in Selecting and Training Aviation Pilots , Jenna McChesney

Evaluating a Measure of Student Effectiveness in an Undergraduate Psychology Program , Colin Omori

Participant Self-Assessment of Development Center Performance , Ryan Powley

“Let’s be clear”: Exploring the Role of Transparency Within the Organization , Maxwell Salazar

Theses/Dissertations from 2016 2016

The Effect of an Email Intervention Tailored to Highly Ambitious Students on University Retention , Lauren Bahls

911,What's My Emergency? Emotional Labor, Work-Related Rumination, and Strain Outcomes in Emergency Medical Dispatchers , Jessica Lee Deselms

Can You Hack It? Validating Predictors for IT Boot Camps , Courtney Gear

Intervention E-mails and Retention: How E-mails Tailored to Personality Impact an Undergraduate Student's Decision to Return to School or Not , John Kelly Heffernon

Prudence and Persistence: Personality in Student Retention , Logan J. Michels

Examination of the Antecedents, Reactions, and Outcomes to a Major Technology-driven Organizational Change , Ngoc Dinh Nguyen

Training Coping Techniques to Reduce Statistics Anxiety , Brittany Prothe

Assessing the Effect of Personality Characteristics of Minnesota Golfers on the Brand Equity of Golf Drivers , Eric Schinella

Mood and Engagement Contagion in a Call Center Environment , Sarah Welsch

Why Do Some Employees Readjust to Their Home Organizations Better Than Others? Job Demands-Resources Model of Repatriation Adjustment , Yukiko Yamasaki

Theses/Dissertations from 2015 2015

Fitting Flow: An Analysis of the Role of Flow Within a Model of Occupational Stress , Jeffrey Alan Dahlke

Created Equal? Comparing Disturbing Media Outcomes Across Occupations , Christine Nicole Gundermann

The Influence of Perceived Similarity, Affect and Trust on the Performance of Student Learning Groups , Jennifer Louise Lacewell

Depth of a Salesman: Exploring Personality as a Predictor of Sales Performance in a Multi-Level Marketing Sample , Colleen Rose Miller

Expatriate Adjustment of U.S. Military on Foreign Assignment:The Role of Personality and Cultural Intelligence in Adjustment , Jennifer Pauline Stockert

Organizational Trust As a Moderator of the Relationship between Burnout and Intentions to Quit , Glenn Trussell

Theses/Dissertations from 2014 2014

Ethnic Names, Resumes, and Occupational stereotypes: Will D'Money Get the Job? , Tony Matthew Carthen

Examining the Effectiveness of the After Action Review for Online and Face-to-Face Discussion Groups , William Cradick

University Commitment: Test of a Three-Component Model , Brittany Davis

An Investigation into the Effect of Power on Entrepreneurial Motivations , Jack Reed Durand

Development and Enhancement to a Pilot Selection Battery for a University Aviation Program , Ryan Thomas Hanna

Overseas Assignments: Expatriate and Spousal Adjustment in the U.S. Air Force , Andrew R. Hayes

The Roles of Social Support and Job Meaningfulness in the Disturbing Media Exposure-Job Strain Relationship , Hung T. Hoang

Student Assessment of Professor Effectiveness , Roger Emil Knutson

Dirty Work: The Effects of Viewing Disturbing Media on Military Attorneys , Natalie Lynn Sokol

Theses/Dissertations from 2013 2013

Selection System Prediction Of Safety: A Step Toward Zero Accidents In South African Mining , Rachel Aguilera-Vanderheyden

Examining Generational Differences across Organizational Factors that Relate to Turnover , Kimberly Asuncion

An Investigation of Online Unproctored Testing and Cheating Motivations Using Equity Theory and Theory of Planned Behavior , Valerie Nicole Brophy

Race, Gender, and Leadership Promotion: The Moderating Effect of Social Dominance Orientation , Chelsea Chatham

Disentangling Individual, Organization, and Learning Process Factors that Drive Employee Participation , Diana Colangelo

Will [email protected] get the Job Done? An Analysis of Employees' Email Usernames, Turnover, and Job Performance , Jessica Marie Lillegaard

Using Personality Traits to Select Customer-Oriented Security Guards , Tracy Marie Shega

Mobile Internet Testing: Applicant Reactions To Mobile Internet Testing , Sarah Smeltzer

Ethical Leadership: Need for Cross-Cultural Examinations , Shuo Tian

Development of a Pilot Selection System for a Midwestern University Aviation Program , Kathryn Wilson

Theses/Dissertations from 2012 2012

Identifying Organizational Factors that Moderate the Engagement-Turnover Relationship in a Healthcare Setting , Stevie Ann Collini

Organizational Wellness Programs: Who Participates and Does it Help? , Justin Michael Dumond

Coping with Economic Stressors: Religious and Non-Religious Strategies for Managing Psychological Distress , Jonathan Karl Feil

The Creation and Validation of a Pilot Selection System for a Midwestern University Aviation Department , Jacob William Forsman

The National Survey of Student Engagement as a Predictor of Academic Success , Paul Michael Fursman

Perceptions of a Text-Based SJT versus an Animated SJT , Amanda Helen Halabi

The Moderating Effects of Work Control and Leisure Control on the Recovery-Strain Relationship , Jason Nicholas Jaber

The Role Social Influence Has On Dormitory Residents' Responses to Fire Alarms , Michael Otting Leytem

The Impact of Culture, Industry Type, and Job Relevance on Applicant Reactions , Olivia Martin

Someone Who Understands: The Effect of Support on Law Enforcement Officers Exposed to Disturbing Media , Jessica Morales

The Effects of Task Ambiguity and Individual Differences on Personal Internet Use at Work , Hitoshi Nishina

The Roles of Self-Efficacy and Self-Deception in Cheating on Unproctored Internet Testing , Christopher Adam Wedge

Theses/Dissertations from 2011 2011

Assessing Transfer Student Performance , Hyderhusain Shakir Abadin

Should You Hire [email protected]?: An Analysis of Job Applicants' Email Addresses and their Scores on Pre-Employment Assessments , Evan Blackhurst

The Dirty Work Of Law Enforcement: Emotion, Secondary Traumatic Stress, And Burnout In Federal Officers Exposed To Disturbing Media , Amanda Harms

Comparison of a Ranking and Rating Format of the 5Plus5: A Personality Measure , Kristy Lynn Jungemann

Cultural Intelligence and Collective Efficacy in Virtual Team Effectiveness , Pei See Ng

Relationship Type Determines the Target of Threat in Perceived Relational Devaluation: Organizational Self vs. Interpersonal Relationships , Peter Sanacore

Development of an Assessment Center as a Selection Method for I/O Graduate Applicants , Ting Tseng

Hiking, Haiku, or Happy Hour After Hours: The Effects of Need Satisfaction and Proactive Personality on the Recovery-Strain Relationship , Paige Woodruff

Exploring the Antecedents of Organizational Citizenship Behavior in Knowledge-based Virtual Communities , Luman Yong

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Field of work Organizational Psychology

... to the pages of the field of work Organizational Psychology within the Faculty of Business Studies and Economics.

In the focus of research: How can we improve the conditions for work, learning and professional development of employees in organizations?

Focal teaching topics: organizational development, methods of organizational diagnosis, and diversity in organizations.

Experimental Study Published in “Learning and Instruction”

Together with Prof. Dr. Vera Hagemann (Chair of Business Psychology & Human Resource Management), Dr. Julian Decius has published an article in the high-ranking journal “Learning and Instruction” ( IF = 6.2). The results of a computer-based laboratory experiment with 142 two-person teams illustrate the importance of feedback orientation for the perceived usefulness and fairness of feedback, which in turn positively influences acceptance and, to some extent, team awareness. The study also showed the superiority of process-oriented feedback over performance-oriented feedback. The study results are freely available and can be accessed here .

People and topics

Dr. Julian Decius

WiWi1, Room A2390 Enrique-Schmidt-Str. 1 28359 Bremen

Phone: +49 421 218 66590 E-mail: julian.decius protect me ?! uni-bremen protect me ?! .de

The objective of UNC Charlotte’s nationally recognized master’s degree program in Industrial/Organizational (I/O) Psychology is to provide students with the knowledge and skills necessary to improve the world of work from both an employee and organizational point of view. The program and its curriculum are built on five key foundational elements: Leadership, Organizational Change and Development, Talent, Culture/Climate, and Analytics. The program provides these foundations in the context of science-driven practice. Specifically, students are provided with a strong foundation in (a) reading, understanding and applying the science of I/O Psychology to solve organizational problems and (b) collecting, critically evaluating, and statistically examining data to support organizational decision-making. Students receive individual attention from faculty members who maintain rigorous standards of academic excellence.

The program is designed to be accessible for working professionals. Courses are offered in the evenings and on weekends so that individuals who work full-time can complete the program. The program is ideal for people working in an I/O-related field, such as in a Human Resources function within an organization, who are looking for a degree that will allow them to expand their career options. The program is also appropriate for working individuals looking to change careers and for individuals who have just completed an undergraduate degree. Work in an I/O-related career is not required for admittance into the program.

An Advisory Board has been established for the I/O Program. The Board, made up of leading I/O psychologists and human resource professionals working in the Charlotte Community (see the department website for a list of current Board members), provides regular reviews and evaluations of the programs’ curriculum to ensure that course content addresses current topics and issues facing I/O psychologists working in the business community. The Board also plays a key role in identifying  business leaders in the community who can provide information or guidance to students.

Admission Requirements

• Test Scores - Submit scores from the Graduate Record Exam (GRE), Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT), or Miller Analogies Test (MAT). The I/O program will accept scores from any one of these tests.
• Letters of Recommendation - Two letters of recommendation from working professionals who received a bachelor’s degree more than five years ago are suggested to seek out recommenders who can speak to their capabilities and potential as an I/O or HR professional (e.g., supervisors, coworkers, individuals with an advanced I/O degree). Applicants who have recently graduated from a bachelor’s program, should seek out academic recommenders who can speak to their potential for graduate studies.
• Statement of Purpose - Minimally, the statement should address: (a) motivation for seeking a degree in I/O psychology, (b) preparation for graduate studies in I/O Psychology, and (c) expectation of how the degree will positively impact your career. Statements should be kept to approximately two pages.
• Degree - Applicants must also have a bachelor’s degree from a college or university accredited by an accepted accrediting body (the Graduate School requires that applicants upload transcripts from each institution attended). While a degree in psychology or business is not required, applicants with backgrounds in these disciplines may be given preferential treatment.
• Additional Requirements - The Graduate School has additional requirements for applications. Please see The Graduate School    section and/or the website at graduateschool.uncc.edu for additional details.

Admission to the program is competitive. Applicants whose native language is other than English must offer acceptable scores on the Test of English as a Foreign Language (see graduateschool.uncc.edu for what constitutes an acceptable score). Applications should be submitted by February 1 of years that applications are accepted (applications are accepted on an every other year basis).

Degree Requirements

A minimum of 31 credit hours of graduate coursework is required.  Courses will be required during the Summer Session between the first and second year in the program.  Additional details about these requirements can be found in the I/O Psychology Graduate Student Handbook .

Core Courses (30 credit hours)

• PSYC 6102 - Organizational Research Methods (3)
• or   OSCI 8102 - Research Methodologies in Behavioral Sciences (3)
• PSYC 6171 - Industrial/Organizational Psychology (3)
• or   OSCI 8000 - Organizational Science Overview (3)
• PSYC 6172 - Talent Acquisition (3)
• or   OSCI 8610 - Micro Organizational Science I (3)
• PSYC 6173 - Job Attitudes (3)
• or   OSCI 8611 - Macro Organizational Science I (3)
• PSYC 6175 - Organizational Development and Change (3)
• or   OSCI 8621 - Macro Organizational Science II (3)
• PSYC 6177 - Talent Management (3)
• or   OSCI 8620 - Micro Organizational Science II (3)
• PSYC 6205 - Field and Lab Based Quantitative Research Methods (3)
• or   OSCI 8103 - Basic Quantitative Analyses for Behavioral Sciences (3)
• PSYC 6207 - Measurement in Organizations (3)
• or   OSCI 8630 - Micro Seminar in Organizational Science (3)
• PSYC 6630 - Topics in Talent Management (3)
• or   OSCI 8206 - Qualitative Research Methods (3)
• PSYC 6640 - Topics in Organizational Psychology (3)
• or   OSCI 8640 - Macro Seminar in Organizational Science (3)

Specialization Tracks (1 or 6 credit hours)

Students select a specialization track:  (1) a thesis research track or (2) a practice track.  These tracks allow the student to tailor, in part, their educational experience to their career objectives.  The only difference between the tracks is the capstone experience.  A complete description of the specialization tracks and requirements (including a thorough discussion of the comprehensive exam) can be found in the most recent version of the  I/O Psychology Graduate Student Handbook . 

Thesis Research Track Option (6 credit hours)

Students choosing the thesis track defend an empirical thesis and take the following:

• PSYC 6999 - Thesis (1 to 3) (taken for 6 credit hours if completing the empirical thesis)
• OSCI 8948 - Independent Pre-Doctoral Organizational Science Research Project I (3)
• and   OSCI 8949 - Independent Pre-Doctoral Organizational Science Research Project II (3)

Practice Track Option (1 credit hour)

Students choosing the practice track complete a standardized comprehensive examination in the summer of year two in the program and take the following course.  The examination samples content from across the I/O Psychology discipline. 

• PSYC 6899 - Readings and Research in Psychology (1 to 4) (taken for 1 credit hour if taking the comprehensive exam)

Additional Requirements

All PSYC courses in the Industrial/Organizational Psychology curriculum may be taken only with permission of the Department of Psychological Science or course instructor.  Access to registration for these courses is only by permission of the Department of Psychological Science or course instructor.

Students enrolled in both the M.A. in Industrial/Organizational Psychology program and the Ph.D. in Organizational Science    program must meet additional requirements.  If the student chooses a thesis chair who is not an I/O Psychology faculty member or I/O program affiliated faculty member as listed on the website, the student must complete an extra requirement to demonstrate mastery and socialization as an I/O psychologist.  This can be achieved in one of two ways.

• The student may take the I/O Psychology M.A. comprehensive exam (to be administered by an I/O program faculty member) OR
• The student may take 2 or more credit hours of practicum.  The practicum content must be approved by the I/O M.A. Graduate Program Director.  Practicum credit hours do not count toward the required credit hours for the I/O program, but may be used as elective credit hours towards the Ph.D. in Organizational Science    program.
• OSCI 8477 - Organizational Science Practicum (1 to 6)

Degree Total = 31-36 Credit Hours

Grade requirements.

Students who receive two grades of C or one Unsatisfactory (U) grade during their graduate career are automatically terminated from the program.

Students must complete either a comprehensive examination or orally defend a thesis project.  Failure to pass the qualifying exam or the oral defense after two attempts will result in termination from the program.

Practica and Applied Experiences

Students who desire I/O-related work experiences have a wide range of opportunities for applied experiences. These can occur as part of a formal practicum experience (i.e., internships) or more informally through the UNC Charlotte Organizational Science Consulting and Research Unit. While practicum experiences are not required as part of the program, Faculty and Advisory Board members have connections within the local community to help students find relevant experiences.

Insights in: Organizational Psychology

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