A Handbook of Work and Organizational Psychology

Volume 1: Introduction to Work and Organizational Psychology

Charles De Wolff, PJD Drenth, Thierry Henk, Charles, De, Wolff, P J D Drenth, THIERRY HENK

• Publisher: Psychology Press
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9780863775208
• eBook ISBN: 9781317734987
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Personal Success
• Index: Psychology

The introductory volume of the Handbook of Work and Organizational Psychology is concerned with definitional, historical and methodological fundamentals. It explores the nature of studies in work and organizational psychology; the role played by the professional psychologist; and the ways in which the discipline has developed within Europe. The editors attempt to characterize the domain of work and organizational psychology, and examine relations between this and other subdisciplines within psychology, as well as those disciplines outside psychology also concerned with work and organization.

Contributors to Volume 1

Charles J. de Wolff, Gomarius Messtraat 19, Alverna, 6603 CS Wychen, The Netherlands.

Pieter J.D. Drenth, Vrije Universiteit, Faculteit Psychologie en Pedagogiek, Van der Boechorststraat 1, 1081 BT Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

Sylvia Shimmin, 12 Strait Lane, Huby, Leeds LS 17 OEA, UK.

Pieter J. van Strien, Elsschotlaan 26, 9721 WN Groningen, The Netherlands.

Henk Thierry, Katholieke Universiteit Brabant, Faculteit Sociale Wetenschappen, P.O. Box 90153, 5000 LE Tilburg, The Netherlands.

1

What is Work and Organizational Psychology?

Pieter J.D. Drenth, Henk Thierry and Charles J. de Wolff

In the first half of the 1980s, the Handbook of Work and Organizational Psychology edited by us—and by our deceased colleague Paul Willems—appeared, at first in Dutch and subsequently in an English translation. It was the first comprehensive handbook in this field on European soil, and the Handbook found a widespread market. Our discipline is developing rapidly, and the need for an enlarged and new edition of the Handbook became apparent. An enlargement was deemed necessary, as in many fields many new studies had been published and many interesting applications had presented themselves. A revision was required as some new topics deserved a separate chapter.

The present result has appeared, not as an updated book, but as a completely rewritten new Handbook. In this first chapter we will begin with a characterization of the domain of work and organizational psychology. Attention will be paid to its relations with other subdisciplines in psychology, and its relation with other disciplines that are also concerned with work and organization. In connection with this topic, a section deals with the relation between pure and applied science. Following an exploration of possible or probable developments in work and organizational psychology in the (near) future, the chapter is concluded with a brief presentation of the organization of this new Handbook.

THE DOMAIN OF WORK AND ORGANIZATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY

Work and organizational psychology refers to the subfield within psychology that is specifically concerned with human behaviour at work in, or in connection with, a work organization. Three aspects characterize this description. First, it concerns the behaviour of working people. Behaviour is not only understood to mean directly observable work actions, but also intentions, attitudes, emotions, habits, motives, etc. of a person in work. In fact, behaviour at work comprises all actions and reactions coming from a worker that can be observed or derived from this behaviour. This is why in work and organizational psychology of old, much emphasis is laid on the importance of valid diagnostic instruments—such as tests and scales—and of proper methods of research (see also Chapter 2, this Volume). Many topics in work and organizational psychology relate to behaviour of the individual (and therefore to individual differences), such as selection, performance assessment, designing a career plan, support and advice in case of difficulties, etc. In other subject areas, however, individual differences among those employed remain a little more in the background and attention is focused on the behaviour of what we wish to call “sets” of people. Such a set may have the characteristics of a group, defined in a social-psychological sense—such as semi-autonomous or self-steering units in a company—but this is not necessarily the case. Consider topics such as (re)designing work tasks, enhancing productivity, flexibilizing employment conditions, reducing the chance of stress. The common element in human behaviour, then, is for example their position as employees in a work organization, the fact that they come under the same Collective Labour Agreement, or that they attend the same course or take the same training. It is true that work and organizational psychologists are concerned with human behavioural characteristics in relation to these topics, but not (primarily) with individual differences.

Second, we have the concept of employment or work. In a strict sense, work refers to the activities someone performs based on his or her position in a work organization and entitle him/her to an income or another financial recompense. This context applies to most topics in work and organizational psychology. But in addition, an increasing amount of interest has developed for topics relating to other forms of work. For example, it is important to know what interests and objectives pupils consider concerning their first position, how entrants to the labour market are made fully aware of the standards and values in their first company (socialization), how people suddenly confronted with dismissal can be motivated by devoting themselves to new challenges, how the elderly are prepared for the time in which they no longer have a job, and so on. More and more people will also (have to) adjust themselves to having more than one career, constant further training and retraining and using leisure time meaningfully during intermediate “jobless” periods.

The third aspect, behaviour at work in or in connection with a work organization, demonstrates first and foremost that work is always part of a “regulated collaboration” with others. Work presupposes “organization”, which means for example a social system with a structure consisting of distribution, assignment, coordination and control of tasks and people. Interesting work and organizational psychological research questions relate for example to an inherent dilemma, that is to what extent can each individual’s causes, interests, and qualities run parallel with the interests, objectives, and characteristics of a work organization? Furthermore, the vastly increasing number of people with a “flexible” employment contract form an important area for special attention for work and organizational psychology; for example many people do not work “in”, but do work “for” a work organization as temps. Another example is the teleworker who communicates with his or her work organization from “a distance”. Important issues are, for example, commitment to the organization among stand-by employees, their education and training, social relations among teleworkers, the effectiveness of external (“outsourced”) staff positions, etc.

In this sense, the domain of work and organizational psychology can be characterized as the surface of a triangle in which the angular points are formed by the behaviour of (individual) people, their work tasks, and the work organization, and the mutual relations are also paid attention to. Inside this triangle, various emphases in work and organizational psychology may be distinguished. We prefer to speak of distinctions, rather than separate, isolated areas. First and foremost, work psychology: in this field topics discussed are for example work and job analysis, task characteristics, determinants of fatigue and mental load, task acceptance and performing task activities, measuring work performance, rest periods and the design of working time arrangements, etc. Attention is generally focused on component characteristics of work tasks, and determinants of the quality of work activities in relation to the capacities and other characteristics of individuals. Second, personnel psychology: the topics that are considered to be included are all linked to staff “management” or staff care, for example recruitment, selection and placement, education and training, staff appraisal, development of managers and employees, developing career plans, policy for the elderly, specific measures for minorities, etc. In a certain sense, these topics reflect the “advance” made by an employee from his or her first job up to and including the last job. Third, organizational psychology: this encompasses topics such as leadership, decision making, participation and industrial democracy, conflict and power, quality care, (re)design of organizations, organizational culture, and planned processes of change. Important questions are whether such topics exhibit large differences when a distinction is made between profit organizations and non-profit organizations, or between sectors such as industry and commercial service.

Quite many well-known industrial and organizational topics are wanting in the overview provided and we have mentioned only a few examples in passing, in order to make clear the difference in orientation between the three “types” of work and organizational psychology. There is a certain arbitrariness in this trichotomy, however. A topic such as appraisal that has now been mentioned in our discussion of personnel psychology can also be approached from a work psychological point of view, for instance in emphasizing important characteristics of a job that have been identified by means of job analysis. If the question were to be posed to what extent objectives possessing strategic or cultural value for the organization can be realized by means of appraisal, the emphasis is on a more organization psychological perspective. Another example is motivation: it can be approached from any of the three subareas, depending on the problem requiring a solution. What is being stated holds for many more topics; this is why we prefer not to separate these approaches from each another, but to view them in mutual connection as characteristic for work and organizational psychology.

The domain of work and organizational psychology furthermore comprises various levels of analysis. As has been noted earlier, the individual often forms the level at which analyses of behaviour take place. Consider, for example, the choice of the performance targets that a staff member wishes to accomplish, or the training someone wants to take. Such choices are possibly affected by individual-bound variables such as age, experience, need for achievement, and so on, but probably also by external variables. One might think of the work task, for example, of which the duration, degree of difficulty, the skills and capacities required, interruptions (possibly by another task with more urgency), etc. may be the focus of attention. The next level of analysis is the group, in which case the central issues are for example the views held by a majority (or by all members together) regarding the quality of the performance to be delivered, the questions how the manager can be influenced best, how a dispute with another department should be dealt with, etc. The behaviour of people at work can none the less also be examined and interpreted at the level of a “business unit” or the entire organization. In this case, attention pivots around, for example, the degree to which privatization of a business unit affects people’s behaviour (and simultaneously also becomes a success or a failure as a result of that behaviour), around a newly launched system of quality care or the “self-steering” working climate aimed at. Finally, we distinguish the level of the organizational environment. Consider the meaning of external “networks” of organizations for the way a company or an institution works, such as an association of branch organizations, an “umbrella” in health care or a conglomerate of banks for an aircraft industry.

In the maiden years of work and organizational psychology—often called industrial psychology at the time—the main emphasis was on the individual. With the development of the discipline, but of course also as a consequence of changing problems in work organizations, the other levels of analysis mentioned gradually emerged more distinctly. In this sense, the history of work and organizational psychology can also be described on the basis of the changes in the level of analysis (see also Chapter 4, this Volume). In this context, what is of particular interest is that data from different levels of analysis, for example those collected within the same study, cannot be related to each other arbitrarily, but often require the use of advanced “multilevel” techniques (see also Chapter 2, this Volume).

WORK AND ORGANIZATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY AS A DISCIPLINE

At all Dutch universities where a full curriculum in psychology may be taken, work and organizational psychology is one of the specializations, though not necessarily under this full name. Smaller or larger groups also exist at the other (technical) universities, which provide courses (in subareas) in work and organizational psychology. In the last 10 to 20 years, the number of students entering was considerable (the reader may find more information on this topic in Chapter 3, this Volume). Similar developments are taking place in many other countries.

Work and organizational psychology did not really “fit” the university curriculum of psychology however, at least not in the well-known typology of the field presented by Duijker (1976). According to Duijker, four types of discipline and an auxiliary science are central to psychology, namely experimental psychology (psychonomics), developmental psychology, personality psychology (individual differences), and behavioural psychology, with methodology as a backing. What is also missing in this typology is social psychology, for example. Duijker however preferred the label “behavioural psychology” and expected that not only the social and cultural conditions of behaviour would be treated via behavioural psychology, but also that the contributions made by the three other disciplines would be integrated.

Is it true, then, that work and organizational psychology—just as other subareas in psychology, such as economic, clinical, and educational psychology—form “applications” of one or several of the disciplinary types just mentioned? It is certainly not. Yet, the perspective of one or several disciplines may be recognized in some work and organizational topics, as may have been made clear by examples provided earlier in this chapter. For example, psychonomics is recognizable in problems surrounding training and development, design of safer work situations, maximum workload, etc. Developmental psychological topics are to be found in for example management development, socialization of junior employees, and ageing staff members. Personality psychology may be observed in issues such as selection, placement, and appraisal, whereas social-psychological approaches are recognizable in subjects such as semi-autonomous groups, leadership, and conflict behaviour. The importance of methodology is particularly shown in the heavy emphasis on design and methods of research and on data analysis in work and organizational psychology.

The circumstantial fact that a particular discipline (in Duijker’s sense)—really an approach starting from one specific determinant of behaviour—can be recognized in various work and organizational psychological topics, forms an illustration of the embedding of work and organizational aspects within the whole of psychology. But this fact says little about the immense development that work and organizational psychology as a scientific discipline has shown, both within the university and beyond. Work and organizational psychology would be underrated if it were viewed merely as a “field of application” of other psychological disciplines or subdisciplines; we will return to this topic in the next section. Work and organizational psychology has developed itself as a self-reliant field to a large extent because it has “gone its own way” (see also Chapter 4, this Volume), often in close connection with the “field” of work organizations. Here we will name only a few examples that form a visible piece of evidence, i.e. the theory regarding methods for the appraisal of people would never have developed to such an extent without the empirical and experimental evidence on staff appraisal in organizations. Diagnostics and test research would not have reached their current level without the developments in practice concerning selection and placement. Many theories of motivation and performance models have been sophisticated by being elaborated for work situations, in which specific production targets have to be achieved or performance is realized under pressure. Experiments involving financial reward were based on the question of whether staff members who have specific expectations about consequences of their behaviour at work are high performers. Ergonomics or “human engineering” psychology is a direct result of the need for psychological analyses of work tasks, the optimization of work performance and the reduction of the probability of mistakes, errors, and accidents. Specifically in research on work organizations, theories and insights have developed, or have been refined, in the field of group behaviour, group performance, communication and information, effects of stereotyping, conflict behaviour, resistance to and conditions for change, etc. A great deal of knowledge of stress and strain, and its effects on health and absenteeism from work, has accumulated because of the...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Contributors to Volume 1
• 1. What is Work and Organizational Psychology?
• 2. Research in Work and Organizational Psychology: Principles and Methods
• 3. The Role of the Work and Organizational Psychologist
• 4. History of the Psychology of Work and Organization
• Author Index
• Subject Index