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Toward an ethics of ambiguity in critical work and organizational psychology: From ‘blank’ to ‘troubled’ subjectivity
Abstract
In recent years, a scholarly movement has taken hold that is critical of work and organizational psychology (WOP). Referred to as critical work and organizational psychology (CWOP), this movement problematizes some of the foundational premises of WOP, including its lack of reflexivity on its own values and ethics. While bringing increased attention to reflexivity and ethics as vital to critical theorizing and praxis, CWOP has yet to concertedly engage with ethics. This conceptual paper has two aims. The first is to outline existing ethical approaches in CWOP. Reviewing the literature, we suggest there are currently three tentative critical-ethical positions: 1) a critique of mainstream WOP for its ethical failures, 2) espousal of a radical humanist ethics, and 3) an ethics of ambiguity. The latter is embedded in CWOP literature, but not yet articulated as such. Our second aim is therefore to make an ethics of ambiguity a recognized and explicitly embraced form of ethics that is rooted in a sustained engagement with the conceptualization of subjectivity as such. To clarify the risks inherent to theorizing ethics without a sufficiently robust understanding of subjectivity, we juxtapose ‘blank subjectivity’ with ‘troubled subjectivity,’ two notions informed by psychoanalysis and psychosocial studies. We argue that a theory of subjectivity as troubled is at the heart of an ethics of ambiguity. The paper concludes by discussing the contribution of an ethics of ambiguity to CWOP, while also pointing to some convergences between the different critical-ethical positions.
... However, critical psychology (and its subfields of critical work-and organizational psychology: Dashtipour et al., 2024 and critical social psychology: O'Doherty, 2015) offers a valuable counterbalance by emphasizing the need to address (social) contexts. These contexts are addressed in two lines of critique, firstly, the larger social contexts of any research objective and its power dynamics and contextual conditions. ...
In organizations, change is often framed as an induced measure supposedly leading to operationalizable and desired outcomes. Besides such willful attempts, change often occurs spontaneously or even impetuously with unforeseen or even reverse outcomes. In any case, change is a complex matter driven by explicit and implicit social dynamics, impacted by its contexts and challenging those involved. This chapter delves into the multifaceted nature and directions of change in organizations, exploring the complexities and challenges that researchers and leaders face in navigating through power dynamics, group interests, communicative mechanisms, and cognitive biases. By integrating perspectives from work and organizational psychology, critical psychology, and social psychology, the chapter emphasizes the potential of integrative and participatory understandings in facilitating meaningful and sustainable change processes in applied settings. Ultimately, the chapter offers a practical guideline for researchers and leaders to navigate through the complexities of change, in terms of processes, roles and methodology, aiming to foster positive outcomes for the stakeholders involved.
The objective of this brief meta-theoretical contribution is to outline recent developments associated with the emergence of an epistemologically critical paradigm in the academic field of psychology applied to work and organizations. First, the background of these developments and the shortcoming of conventional or mainstream work and organizational psychology are sketched out. Subsequently, attention is called to recent scientific debates involving calls for a critical paradigm in work and organizational psychology. Preliminarily and pragmatically, three waves of publications are distinguished. Building on early pioneering works and representing important geographical crystallization points, these debates were published in key journals of the field in Europe, the United States, and Germany. Further, extant contributions positioning and promoting the emerging paradigm of critical work and organizational psychology are reviewed. This includes journal articles, special issues, designated conferences, and academic organizing attempts aimed at institutionalizing the new paradigm. Integrating these contributions within the framework of meta-theory on social science paradigms in organizational research, a preliminary ontological, epistemological, and axiological definition of critical work and organizational psychology is attempted. Drawing on parallels with the adjacent field of critical management studies, alternative future trajectories for the emerging paradigm are developed, including promises, pitfalls, and opportunities for researchers striving for social transformation.
This article provides a compilation or, rather, composition of the position statements by the participants of the panel discussion at the first International Conference on Critical and Radical Humanist Work and Organizational Psychology, held from the 11 th to the 13 th of July 2022 at the University of Innsbruck. Unlike the loosely sewn together "patchwork quilt" one might expect, the resulting text deserves the label "bricolage"-a sculpture of ideas, complementing and contextualizing each other to form a higher-order meaning that goes beyond the sum of its parts. Bricolage can refer to the creation of cultural identity among social groups as well as to the psychological processes through which individuals retrieve and recombine knowledge. Both meanings seem fitting here and, in this sense, each individual contribution is a fractal of the overall gestalt of this article, which is structured as follows: The first contribution by Laura Röllmann is entitled "Creating niches or intervening from within-How individual theories of change influence our strategies towards transforming Work and Organizational Psychology". This introduction is followed up by Johanna Degen's thoughts on "Why a critical stance comes without didactics". Subsequently, Edina Dóci writes on the topic of "Deterritorializing and reterritorializing Work and Organizational Psychology", followed by Matthijs Bal, pondering the issue of "Criticalizing our colleagues?". Next, Severin Hornung raises the question "Or should we even aspire to? Dialectics of resistance and assimilation in times of crisis". After that, Gazi Islam elaborates on "Critique of practice and critique by practice: Collaborative possibilities in Critical Work and Organizational Psychology". Next comes Thomas Kühn's vision, entitled "The urge for a revolution of hope in Work and Organizational Psychology". Finally, Zoe Sanderson concludes with "Building a house we want to live in: The importance of how we do Critical Work and Organizational Psychology". Aside from adjusting the order of contributions , the organizers have refrained from summarizing or commenting on the contents, convinced that the "magic of bricolage" speaks for itself. Keywords Critical and Radical Humanist Work and Organizational Psychology-transforming academic psychology-scholarly activism-radical engagement-bricolage Bricolage of positions and perspectives from the panel discussion on prospects and contestations of Critical and Radical Humanist Work and Organizational Psychology: Are we ready to take over?
This foundational text was one of the first books to integrate work from moral philosophy, developmental/moral psychology, applied psychology, political and social economy, and political science, as well as business scholarship. Twenty years on, this third edition utilizes ideas from the first two to provide readers with a practical model for ethical decision making and includes examples from I-O research and practice, as well as current business events. The book incorporates diverse perspectives into a "framework for taking moral action" based on learning points from each chapter. Examples and references have been updated throughout, and sections on moral psychology, economic justice, the "replicability crisis," and open science have been expanded and the "radical behavioral challenge" to ethical decision-making is critiqued. In fifteen clearly structured and theory-based chapters, the author also presents a variety of ethical incidents reported by practicing I-O psychologists. This is the ideal resource for Ethics and I-O courses at the graduate and doctoral level. Academics in Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management will also benefit from this book, as well as anyone interested in Ethics in Psychology and Business.
In this editorial, we tell the story of how the Special Issue on Critical Perspectives in Work and Organizational Psychology (CWOP) came about, how it fits within the broader agenda of building a critical community within Work and Organizational Psychology, and how future research and thought may be inspired by the collection of critical papers related to work and organizational psychology. We introduce the term “criticalizing” as a key concept in how the Special Issue was developed by the editorial team and the authors. Criticalizing moves beyond fixed static notions of “critical” scholarship toward a process of engaging in more fluid, expansive, and creative perspectives on the scholarship within work and organizational psychology. We illustrate how the set of papers within the Special Issue engages in such criticalizing of the field and offer new ways of thinking about and researching relevant topics in work and organizational psychology.
When applied to the Global South, mainstream positivist approaches to work and organisational psychology impose alien theories of personality (the self) and leadership. In the case of women, they fail to capture the richness of their experiences of life and leadership, which are influenced by the nexus between history, power and marginalisation – for many, even oppression. The purpose of this article is to demonstrate the value of a critical social psychological approach, despite its grounding in the Global North discourse, to analyse women’s leadership from a cross‐cultural context. To illustrate, we provide an empirical example of a Vietnamese woman leader’s life‐story drawing on the theoretical resources from critical social psychology to interpret her experiences. When viewed from this perspective, women’s leadership is understood within a dialogical space, which is prior to and more fundamental than any instrumental reason and technical rationality. It is argued that this approach resists essentialising assumptions about gender and cultural practices of leadership, providing a more liberating means to understand the life and leadership of Vietnamese women. In the final analysis, we argue that this study contributes to the nascent field of critical work and organisational psychology.
This paper argues that critical perspectives have constituted a marginal yet continued presence in work and organizational (W-O) psychology and calls for a reflexive taking stock of these perspectives to ground a critical research agenda. We argue that critical W-O psychology has been positioned between a psychology literature with limited development of critical perspectives, and an emergent critical management literature that has allowed their selective development. This in-between position has allowed critical W-O psychology to persist, albeit in a fragmented form, while limiting its potential for theoretical and applied impact. We use this diagnosis to reflect on how critical perspectives can best develop from within W-O psychology. We end with a call for developing a critical movement unique to the current historical moment, drawing upon without repeating the experiences of its home disciplines, in a future oriented and reflexive psychology research agenda.
This conceptual article draws on critical traditions from several social science disciplines, notably, social, political, and systems theory, sociology, psychology, and management studies, as it seeks to explore, assemble, and integrate some constitutive components of a socio- and psychodynamic perspective on power and control in work organizations. At its core is an archetypal taxonomy of formal (economic), real (technocratic), normative (ideological), and formative (biopolitical) modes of power and managerial control through various means and combinations of commodification (contracts, compensation, competition), coercion (commands, constraints, compliance), cooptation (culture, consent, commitment), and creation (corrosion, conception, coevolution). Other integral elements are domains or foci of inquiry, specifically, interests, ideologies, institutions, and identities. These domains are linked to meta-, macro-, meso-, and micro-levels of analysis, resembling economy, society, organization, and individual. Accordingly, behavioural control and psychological governance processes are reinforced by a pervasive economic system logic, cascading into political, social, and psychodynamic sublogics. These taxonomies are integrated with concepts from the depth and dynamic psychology and traced across economic (meta-system interests), societal (macro-political ideologies), organizational (meso-social institutions), and individual (micro-psychodynamic identities) levels revealing patterns of self-similarity. It is argued that societal subsumption and subjugation reproduce psychodynamic subjectification (submission, sublimation) at the individual level, mediated by the subordinating and socializing forces inherent in organizational control systems. Discussed are implications for the dynamics of power and control in contemporary societies, organizations, and individuals under hegemonic governance of neoliberal ideology.
The conundrum of industrial-organizational psychology - Volume 12 Issue 4 - Joel Lefkowitz
Researchers misunderstand their role in creating ethical problems when they allow dogmas to purportedly divorce scientists and scientific practices from the values that they embody. Cortina (J Bus Ethics. 10.1007/s10551-019-04195-8, 2019), Edwards (J Bus Ethics. 10.1007/s10551-019-04197-6, 2019), and Powell (J Bus Ethics. 10.1007/s10551-019-04196-7, 2019) help us clarify and further develop our position by responding to our critique of, and alternatives to, this misleading separation. In this rebuttal, we explore how the desire to achieve the separation of facts and values is unscientific on the very terms endorsed by its advocates—this separation is refuted by empirical observation. We show that positivists like Cortina and Edwards offer no rigorous theoretical or empirical justifications to substantiate their claims, let alone critique ours. Following Powell, we point to how classical pragmatism understands ‘purpose’ in scientific pursuits while also providing an alternative to the dogmas of positivism and related philosophical positions. In place of dogmatic, unscientific cries about an abstract and therefore always-unobservable ‘reality,’ we invite all organizational scholars to join us in shifting the discussion about quantitative research towards empirically grounded scientific inquiry. This makes the ethics of actual people and their practices central to quantitative research, including the thoughts, discourses, and behaviors of researchers who are always in particular places doing particular things. We propose that quantitative researchers can thus start to think about their research practices as a kind of work, rather than having the status of a kind of dogma. We conclude with some implications that this has for future research and education, including the relevance of research and research methods.
Our meta‐analytic review investigates how employee participation in democratic enterprises is related to psychological outcomes. We gathered 60 studies through a systematic literature search of quantitative field studies (published between January 1970 and May 2017) and extracted 138 effect sizes related to three indicators of organisational democracy (OD) and 15 psychological outcomes. The overall findings suggest that employees’ individually perceived participation in organisational decision making (IPD) had a stronger relation to job satisfaction (ρ = .25), job involvement/work motivation (ρ = .36), prosocial work behaviours (ρ = .24), civic and democratic behaviours (ρ = .21) and perceived supportive climate (ρ = .44) than the other two OD indicators: structurally anchored employee participation (SAEP) and employee participation in collective ownership (EO). This was not the case for value‐based commitment: the relations of SAEP (ρ = .40), EO (ρ = .34), and IPD (ρ = .46) with commitment were nearly equal. Mediation analyses indicated that IPD partially mediated most of the effects of SAEP and EO on the outcomes mentioned. The cross‐sectional database and a small number of studies for some of the outcomes are the main limitations of this study.
This manifesto presents 10 recommendations for a sustainable future for the field of Work and Organizational Psychology. The manifesto is the result of an emerging movement around the Future of WOP (see www. futureofwop.com), which aims to bring together WOP-scholars committed to actively contribute to building a better future for our field. Our recommendations are intended to support both individuals and collectives to
become actively engaged in co-creating the future of WOP together with us. Therefore, this manifesto is open and never “finished.” It should continuously evolve, based on an ongoing debate around our professional values and behavior. This manifesto is meant, first of all, for ourselves as an academic community. Furthermore, it is also important for managers, decision makers, and other stakeholders and interested parties, such as students, governments and organizations, as we envision what the future of WOP could look like, and it is only through our collective efforts that we will be able to realize a sustainable future for all of us.
Arguing that psychology and business ethics are best brought together through a multi-level, broad-based agenda, this essay articulates a vision of psychology and business ethics to frame a future research agenda. The essay draws upon work published in JBE, but also identifies gaps where published research is needed, to build upon psychological conceptions of business ethics. Psychological concepts, notably, are not restricted to phenomena “in the head”, but are discussed at the intra-psychic, relational, and contextual levels of analysis. On the basis of this presentation, I discuss future directions for development in psychology and business ethics, including but not limited to studies of personality, emotion, decision making, motivation, and the biological bases of psychology and business ethics. An inclusive approach to these and related areas, it is argued, will both bring about depth of understanding on the psychological bases of business ethics, and allow dialogue across disciplinary areas within JBE.
Prior to engaging in a substantive discussion on the supposed influence of neoliberalism on research in work and organizational psychology (WOP), it is important to verify the empirical basis of the trends advanced by Bal and Dóci (Neoliberal ideology in work and organizational psychology, European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology [Online First Publication, 2018]). To this end, we content analysed 745 abstracts of empirical studies published in leading WOP journals during the years 2006–2007 and 2016–2017. Results of our content analysis do not support the hypothesized trends towards more instrumentality and individualism in WOP research, suggesting that Bal and Dóci’s (2018) portrayal of the WOP literature does not provide a solid basis for discussion. On the basis of our findings, we conclude with recommendations to broaden the scope of WOP research to also include macro-level, societal issues.
This paper explores the role of neoliberal ideology in workplace practices and in work and organizational psychology (WOP) research. It analyses how neoliberal ideology manifests in these two domains by using a prominent framework from the field of political theory to understand ideology through three different logics: political, social and fantasmatic logics. We explore the main neoliberal assumptions underlying existing practices in the workplace as well as in WOP research, how individuals are gripped by such practices, and how the status quo is maintained. The paper analyses how individuals in the contemporary workplace are henceforth influenced by neoliberalism, and how this is reflected in the practices and dominant paradigms within WOP. In particular, we focus on three ways neoliberalism affects workplaces and individual experiences of the workplace: through instrumentality, individualism and competition. The paper finishes with practical recommendations for researchers and practitioners alike on how to devote more attention to the, often implicit, role of neoliberal ideology in their work and research. The discussion elaborates on how alternative paradigms in the workplace can be developed which address the downsides of neoliberalism.
Psychology may have to get seriously political as human aims in living and selfhood itself are increasingly influenced in a deleterious manner by the vicissitudes of living in a neoliberal political economy and 1-sided “enterprise culture” (Martin & McLellan, 2013; Sugarman, 2015). This article reviews recent writings of several social critics, including Jackson Lears (2015), Sebastion Junger (2015), Philip Blond (2010), and Christopher Lasch (1995), who richly flesh out the picture of this detrimental state of affairs. We note that many of these critics have little to say about credible alternatives to neoliberalism. The article then seeks to identify resources within theoretical and philosophical psychology, including hermeneutic philosophy and interpretive social science, for helping to overcome neoliberalism. They might help clarify and nurture a renewed democratic populism or engaged democratic politics and contribute to gaining what Lasch termed a much-needed “wisdom of limits” in today’s society.
Over the past decade, critical scholarship in the field of management has experienced a veritable explosion. In this paper, I introduce the critical scholarly tradition to scholars and practitioners of I-O psychology in the hopes of stimulating dialogue. I begin with an account of the critical tradition’s intellectual history in relation to two better-known traditions in the social sciences. I then go on to demonstrate how a critical vantage cultivated from the critical scholarly tradition can offer 1) new approaches to theory-building, 2) new methodologies for research, and 3) new frameworks for practice. The result is a preliminary outline for a new sub-field of study called “critical I-O psychology.”
Although I wholeheartedly agree with Gloss, Carr, Reichman, Abdul-Nasiru, and Oestereich (2017) that a focus on those living in the deepest forms of poverty is sorely needed in industrial and organizational (I-O) psychology, the real issue is not so much who we serve but how we serve, and specifically how we continue to neglect the systemic failures of capitalism at the root of poverty. Ultimately, it is this global market system that determines not only the distribution of wealth but also how wealth is often achieved at the expense of another's poverty. Moreover, it is this system that constrains and undermines capabilities. For these reasons, I am skeptical of the authors’ proposal for mitigating the pervasive POSH bias in our field, especially because this bias seems premised on a pervasive neglect of capitalism the authors fail to fully address.
Consumer culture and neoliberal political economy are often viewed by social psychologists as topics reserved for anthropologists, economists, political scientists and sociologists. This paper takes an alternative view arguing that social psychology needs to better understand these two intertwined institutions as they can both challenge and provide a number of important insights into social psychological theories of self-identity and their related concepts. These include personality traits, self-esteem, social comparisons, self-enhancement, impression management, self-regulation and social identity. To illustrate, we examine how elements of consumer culture and neoliberal political economy intersect with social psychological concepts of self-identity through three main topics: ‘the commodification of self-identity’, ‘social categories, culture and power relations’ and the ‘governing of self-regulating consumers’. In conclusion, we recommend a decommodified approach to research with the aim of producing social psychological knowledge that avoids becoming enmeshed with consumer culture and neoliberalism.
What is social psychology? The kind of answer you will get to this question will depend on who you ask, the epistemological and theoretical perspective they hold, and it will, to a large extent, also depend on the region of the world they live in and the university or faculty they work in. Social psychology is not a unified discipline; there is not one social psychology, but many social psychologies. However, despite the diversity of the field today, the positivistic approach is more pervasive and dominant than other approaches. This is the perspective which is usually taught in standard psychology courses and textbooks in most parts of the world and it is this version of social psychology that informs various applied fields, of which organizational behaviour is one of the most popular. Organizational social psychology involves the application of social psychological theories and methods to understand, inform and ultimately improve organizational practices. Organizations are ubiquitous to everyday life and they are the main instruments of capitalism. As long as social psychology is deployed to solve management problems, a critique of social psychology must include a solid critique of organizational social psychology.
This chapter will begin with a short historical overview, showing that social psychology was born out of an early interest in crowds or groups (Stainton Rogers 2011). It will then review the critiques made against mainstream social psychology, concentrating on the social identity perspective. The final part of the chapter will expand on the critical agenda by focusing on the applied field of organizational social psychology. The chapter will end by suggesting that organizational social psychology should renounce its fixation with groups within organizations and pay serious attention to critical management scholars who point to the relationship between broader societal ideologies and organizational life.
This article draws attention to the relationship between neoliberalism and psychology. Features of this relationship can be seen with reference to recent studies linking psychology to neoliberalism through the constitution of a kind of subjectivity susceptible to neoliberal governmentality. Three examples are presented that reveal the ways in which psychologists are implicated in the neoliberal agenda: psychologists’ conception and treatment of social anxiety disorder, positive psychology, and educational psychology. It is hoped that presenting and discussing these cases broadens the context of consideration in which psychological ethics might be examined and more richly informed. It is concluded that only by interrogating neoliberalism, psychologists’ relationship to it, how it affects what persons are and might become, and whether it is good for human well-being can we understand the ethics of psychological disciplinary and professional practices in the context of a neoliberal political order and if we are living up to our social responsibility.
This paper presents data from a series of exploratory qualitative studies investigating ordinary people’s responses to information about human rights violations. The studies analysed how people understand and account for what happens in the gap between knowledge and action and how they justify their own passivity. This paper focuses on what we can learn about the issue of public passivity in response to human rights violations from psychoanalysis and, in specific, through the concept of denial. The paper proposes a psychosocial theorisation of public passivity that takes into account sociocultural as well as intrapsychic factors. It illustrates how psychoanalysis plays a double role when applied to the investigation of public passivity. On the one hand, it enables an appreciation of the dynamic defences activated by the disturbing information of human rights violations; on the other, it can be used to give credence and legitimacy to justifications of passivity and self-distancing. We need to understand and engage with both. The implications of such theorisation for psychodynamic practice are also discussed.
Levinas and Lacan, two giants of contemporary theory, represent schools of thought that seem poles apart. In this major new work, Mari Ruti charts the ethical terrain between them.
At first glance, Levinansian and Lacanian approaches may seem more or less incompatible, and in many ways they are, particularly in their understanding of the self-other relationship. For both Levinas and Lacan, the subject’s relationship to the other is primary in the sense that the subject, literally, does not exist without the other, but they see the challenge of ethics quite differently: while Levinas laments our failure to adequately meet the ethical demand arising from the other, Lacan laments the consequences of our failure to adequately escape the forms this demand frequently takes.
Although this book outlines the major differences between Levinas and Judith Butler on the one hand and Lacan, Slavoj Žižek, and Alain Badiou on the other, Ruti proposes that underneath these differences one can discern a shared concern with the thorny relationship between the singularity of experience and the universality of ethics.
Between Levinas and Lacan is an important new book for anyone interested in contemporary theory, ethics, psychoanalysis, and feminist and queer theory.
This work suggests that researchers in work and organizational psychology (WOP) and WOP as a discipline would benefit from a critical perspective on their own research and practice. We highlight the value of critical reflection and critical reflexivity on contexts of research and practice in order to increase the practical impact of WOP for everyone. First, we outline how WOP currently fails to address pressing global issues, such as precarious employment, by focusing on work‐related phenomena in affluent societies and neglecting issues relevant to the majority of the world’s working population. Second, we present a heuristic framework of four fundamental contextual components that are important to consider when engaging in a continuous process of critical reflection and critical reflexivity: history; economy and politics; society and culture; and personal background. Third, we illustrate why these contexts are important for WOP with the example of precarious employment. Considering context more explicitly is important for future WOP research because context not only co‐determines the experiences of the working people under investigation but also the subjectivity of researchers themselves. We hope to encourage WOP researchers to engage in critical reflection and critical reflexivity to promote a more critical WOP.
Psychosocial studies is methodologically and theoretically diverse, drawing on a wide range of intellectual resources. However, psychoanalysis has often taken a privileged position within this diversity, because of its well-developed conceptual vocabulary that can be put to use to theorise the psychosocial subject. Its practices have become a model for some aspects of psychosocial work, especially in relation to its focus on intense study of individuals, its explicit engagement with ethical relations, and its traversing of disciplinary boundaries across the arts, humanities and social sciences.
This article begins with a brief description of some principles of psychosocial thinking, including its transdisciplinarity and criticality and its interest in ethics and in reflexivity. It then explores the place of psychoanalysis in this genealogy, presenting the case for psychoanalysis’ continuing contribution to the development of psychosocial studies. It is argued that this case is a strong one, but that the critique of psychoanalysis from the discursive, postcolonial, feminist and queer perspectives that are also found in psychosocial studies is important. The claim will be made that the engagement between psychoanalysis and its psychosocial critics is fundamentally productive. Even though it generates real tensions, these tensions are necessary and significant, reflecting genuine struggles over how best to understand the socially constructed human subject.
Alex Haslam has thoroughly revised and updated his ground-breaking original text with this new edition. While still retaining the highly readable and engaging style of the best-selling First Edition, the author presents extensive reviews and critiques of major topics in organizational psychology - including leadership, motivation, communication, decision making, negotiation, power, productivity and collective action - in this thoroughly revised edition. New to the Second Edition: An entirely new chapter on organizational stress which deals with highly topical issues of stress appraisal, social support, coping and burnout.; New, wider textbook format and design making the entire book much more accessible for students.; A wide range of pedagogical features are included - suggestions for further reading at the end of each chapter and comprehensive glossaries of social identity, social psychological and organizational terms
In this article, we demonstrate that samples in the industrial and organizational (I-O) psychology literature do not reflect the labor market, overrepresenting core, salaried, managerial, professional, and executive employees while underrepresenting wage earners, low- and medium-skill first-line personnel, and contract workers. We describe how overrepresenting managers, professionals, and executives causes research about these other workers to be suspect. We describe several ways that this underrepresentation reduces the utility of the I-O literature and provide specific examples. We discuss why the I-O literature underrepresents these workers, how it contributes to the academic–practitioner gap, and what researchers can do to remedy the issue.
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This article argues that HRM is by nature a multidisciplinary subject area, and that it has traditionally been closely associated with the field of industrial relations (IR). However, it appears to have increasingly been taken over by industrial and organisational (I-O) psychology, and in the process increasingly associated with organisational behaviour, which has also been taken over by I-O psychology. Coupled with the narrowing and marginalisation of IR, this has meant an increasing ‘psychologisation’ not only of the study of HRM, but of the study of employment relations in general. This article discusses why this appears to have been happening, what its implications might be and what (if anything) might be done about it. Focus is on developments within North America, although the issues raised apply, perhaps, to different degrees, across liberal market countries and possibly beyond.