What is W&O Psychology

• Specialization focused on the application of psychological principles to understanding people in the workplace

• Psychology of work

• Focuses on how people influence work and how work influences people

• Blends theories and principles borrowed from different areas of psychology

• Aims to benefit both the organization and the worker

• Quality of workers’ lives is just as important as the retention and productivity of workers

The Scientist-Practitioner Model

• A strong W&OP is both a scientist engaged in research as well as an active practitioner

• Combo between science and theory

• Some may focus on one side and there forms a gap

Pace of Advancement - General Purpose Technologies

• The modern era has witnessed a rush of GPTs

• Lipsey et al. 2005 only 23 true GPTs have ever been invented with 15 of those developed in the last 550 years

• The pace is accelerating, 9 have been developed in the last 125 years

• Jobs are going to be different as time progresses

Capitalism

• Pre-Capitalist Society (pre 1700)

  • Antiquity

  • Ancient empires

  • Reformation

  • Enlightenment

• Pre Industrial Capitalism - Seeds of Great Transformation (1700-1900)

  • Early commercial organizations and corporations

  • Agricultural revolution

• Towards an Industrial Capitalist Society (1900+)

  • Rational capitalism

  • Free markets

  • Urbanization

  • Consumer culture

Definition of W&OP

• Focus on the individual, the relationship between the individual and the group, how both interact with the organization, and the relationship between the latter and its environment

• Descriptive rather than prescriptive, with a primary emphasis on describing relationships between variables

Early Years

• Beginning can be traced back to Wilhelm Wundt’s lab

• Hugo Munsterberg and James McKeen Cattell trained under Wundt and moved to the YS and focused on the role of individual differences in human behavior

• Walter Dill Scott published essays describing the application of psychology to industry

  • Led to more widespread awareness of the value of approaching work using psychological principles

World War I

• Army Alpha: version of test for recruits who could read

• Army Beta: version of test for recruits who couldn’t read

• Promoted the use of testing in personnel selection

• During early years and the war, the field emphasized:

  • Productivity and efficiency

  • Quantification and statistics

  • Personnel selection

  • Tension between science and practice

• More industrial psych instead of organizational

Scientific Management

• Frederick Taylor 1911

• Approached the management of organizations using logical and scientific principles

• Proposed idea that the best person should be chosen for a job instead of a friend or relative

• Assumed workers were ignorant of the best way to do their job and were motivated primarily by financial incentives

World War II

• W&OP assisted in the selection of enlistees for WWII

• Pioneered the use of biographical data in selection

• Provided recommendations for the redesign of airplane cockpits to be standardized and consistent

Cheaper by the Dozen

• Frank and Lillian Gilbreth (1950s) used motion pictures to conduct time and motion studies aimed at understanding the most efficient ways to work

• 1st person to receive a Ph.D. in industrial psychology

Bureaucracy

• Max Weber 1947

  • Adopts a rational approach

  • Hierarchy of authority and its relationship with responsibility

  • Rights and duties of employees are clearly stated

  • Division of labor and specialization

  • Clear and specification of rules and procedures

  • Reliance on documentation

  • Emphasis on technical skills

  • Impersonality in selection, rewards, promotions, client relations

  • Separation of ownership from control

  • Dysfunctional Aspects: lacks human face, ignores informal organization

Principles of Organization

• Henri Fayol 1949

  • Rational approach to organizational design

  • State the purpose of the organization, planning

  • Create a hierarchy with different levels and spans of control

  • Communication, unity of direction and command

  • Division of labor and specialization

  • Control and coordination

  • Centralization / decentralization

  • Continuous adjustment and striking a balance

  • Criticisms: de-emphasizes power of personality and overlooks power of employees to influence their work environment

Human Relations Era (1927-1950s)

• Focused on workers’ feelings and attitudes on performance

• Changed to a 5 day work week and reducing working hours increase productivity

• Many suggest movement was born out of the Hawthorne Studies at Western Electric

• Hawthorne Effect: research participants behave in a certain way because they know they are in a study

• Elton Mayo 1949

  • A reaction to the individualistic and overrational emphasis of scientific management

  • Experimental changes in physical conditions of work (Hawthorne Studies)

  • Unexpected consequences, expressed as the power of the group and the motivational effect of social needs

  • Quality of the relationship between management and workers

  • Involvement of workers in the process of change using participative processes

  • Recognition of the importance of feelings and emotions at work

  • Different reactions by the Relay Assembly and Bank Wiring groups

  • Criticism: reservations about research methodology (stressful and bad working conditions, had idea that all organizations are the same), acceptance of a unitarist view, fractions based on gender, ignores organizational environment (separated ppl from organizational environment, sub teams)

• People enjoy the people they work with, the work they do, and the meaning

• If a supervisor was caring towards an employee, the employee worked better

Neo-Human Relations Movement

• Chris Argyris 1964, Douglas McGregor 1960

• Motivation, leadership, and group dynamics

• Contract between this perspective and earlier work in industrial psychology where the emphasis was on understanding fatigue, monotony, boredom, and the demands of the physical environment

• People were seen as machines

Systems Theory

• Fred Emery and Eric Trist 1960, 1965, 1970

• Biological model

• Focus on the organization as an open system consisting of input, transformation, output, and feedback from the environment

• Concept of the socio-technical system

• How do different organizations impact the individual

• Organizations are evolving 

• Tavistock Institute: how is technology and the environment impacting us

Contingency Theory Approach

• Paul Lawrence and Jay Lorsch 1967

• Challenges the universality of principles of organization

• Organization is situationally based on the contingencies facing the organization

• Might need a certain type of leader depending on situation

• Recognized the influence of technology and markets in shaping the structure of the organization

• Differentiation and integration in the context of structural adaptation to environmental conditions

Civil Rights Era (1964-Present)

• Civil Rights Act of 1964 focused in part on the fairness of hiring practices

• Challenged organizations to develop and implement fair and legally defensible selection procedures

• Resulted in focus on managing diversity in teams and organizations

• Gender pay gaps, ethnic pay gaps

High-Tech HR Era

• Rapidly advancing technology has changed the traditional way HR procedures were designed and implements

• Traditional

  • Job applications on paper

  • Applicant testing took place in HR department and took weeks to score

  • Employees trained using in person trainer

• High Tech

  • Job applications submitted electronically

  • Applicant testing administered online and scored immediately

  • Employees trained via online material and trainers

• Allows for massive range of performance measures and other employee information to be gathered

• Helps predict employees who might have the greatest potential

• Challenge is to know which data to focus on and how to come to meaningful conclusions about the data