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RESEARCH
Positive Change is a Responsibility
Activism for Social Change
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OUR RESEARCH
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What do we study?
The Future of Work and Organizational Psychology
Goal: Now is the time to think about the Future of Work and Organizational Psychology (FoWOP). Many scholars have ideals, thoughts, frustrations, ideas, wishes, and feelings about how the field should develop, change, or pursue another path. It is important to bring together our voices, give the opportunity to have them heard, and jointly work on shaping the future of WOP. This project will collect many ideas (amongst others as expressed during the last EAWOP conference in Dublin) about how we could change, and also forms a platform to connect and actively shape that future.
Psychologie des Alltagshandelns (Psychology of Everyday Activity)
A Special Issue
Edited by Severin Hornung, Christine Unterrainer, & Thomas Höge
The purpose of this special issue is twofold: First and foremost, it documents the first International Conference on Critical and Radical Humanist Work and Organizational Psychology, which was held from the 11th to the 13th of July 2022 at the University of Innsbruck. As such, it features a conference report describing the event in some detail, distinguished contributions by the keynote speakers, and a vibrant bricolage of the position statements of the participants of the panel discussion convened as part of the closing session. The second and closely related purpose is to honor the person who has during his whole career worked tireless, determined, and courageously to eventually make such an event possible here in Innsbruck. Although his scientific and political activities are by no means ceasing but, in the contrary, vigorously ongoing, Wolfgang G. Weber has officially retired from his Professorship in Applied Psychology at the University of Innsbruck in September 2022.
The psychology of robotization of work: Four fantasies of technology
P. Matthijs Bal
It was not long ago that technology and robotization were not of any interest to work psychologists or organizational scholars. The impact of technology on people and organizations was not something worth researching, and there were more pressing issues, such as the aging workforce, engagement, or work-life balance. However, this has changed dramatically during the last years. In this paper, I discuss four main fantasies that are present in our discourses around technology and work, and debunk these myths.
FoWOP response to the Covid-19 crisis
Zoe Sanderson, P. Matthijs Bal, & Gazi Islam
What is the response of work psychologists to the current Covid-19 crisis? What do work psychologists have to offer in these times of uncertainty? The Future of Work and Organizational Psychology (FoWOP) Movement calls for academics worldwide to contribute to sustainable solutions for workplaces, the economy, and individuals. The current crisis offers possibilities in the midst of all horror unfolding - a chance for change - a chance to reorganize the workplace and the economy in a fundamentally different way, that protects the dignity of each individual human being and the planet. this piece is a brief call for contributions. Please do get in touch with us!
Unpacking psychological inequalities in organisations: Psychological capital reconsidered
Edina Doci, Lena Knappert, Sanne Nijs, & Joeri Hofmans
In this paper, we argue that psychological capital is unequally distributed among people from different social classes, ethnic backgrounds and genders. Confronting the limitations of the current, individualistic perspective on psychological capital, we offer a re‐conceptualization of the construct from a critical, interdisciplinary perspective, placing it at the intersection of sociology and psychology...
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?
Laura Röllmann, Johanna L. Degen, Edina Doci, P. Matthijs Bal, Severin Hornung, Gazi Islam, & Thomas Kühn
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 11th to the 13th 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...
Sustainable careers & Health in academia
Goal: If we are to advice practitioners about positive organizational practices, we need to become practitioners within our own organizations and implement our expertise to safeguard the well-being of academic employees. Achieving positive change is always the most feasible on the local level. If we strive for practical and societal relevance, we need to first improve the workplaces we inhibit: the universities. The goal is to use our collective intelligence and expertise in envisaging a university that provides its employees with stability, security, and a psychologically safe and supportive environment where health abounds and creative thinking and research can flourish.
Creating healthy academic workplaces: What do we know and where do we go from here?
Vincent Angel, P. Matthijs Bal, Rein De Cooman, Hans van Dijk, Sara De Gieter, Motahareh Alsadat Ghoreishi Galugahi, Davide Giusino, Stefan Thomas Mol, Noémi Nagy, Sofija Pajic, & Ferdinando Toscano
Research goals and why the work was worth doing: Academia is in crisis. Numerous studies show that academics worldwide suffer from enormous workloads, health problems, stress, and burnout. However, there is still a dearth of knowledge on how academic workplaces can be designed and organized to sustainably protect academics’ well-being. The current project set out to take on these issues. First...
Critical Work & Organizational Psychology
Goal: Critical perspectives, which are many and varied, invite us to ask fundamental questions about the nature of how, what, and why we research. As part of the movement for the Future of Work and Organizational Psychology (www.futureofwop.com), we are creating space for scholars and practitioners who want to explore some of these questions together.
“Important for you to be there”: Employee activism and the dialectics of researcher–practitioner collaborations
Manuel Ramírez & Gazi Islam
The current study examines researcher–practitioner collaborations in the context of employee activism, a context in which the role of reflexivity and theorisation relate in unique ways. Specifically, we examine the collaboration between researchers and a practitioner sustainability manager, in the context of an ongoing organisational sustainability campaign at a French business school...
The story of this special issue on critical perspectives in work and organizational psychology
Ruth Abrams, P. Matthijs Bal, Premilla D'Cruz, Severin Hornung, Gazi Islam, Matthew McDonald, Zoe Sanderson, & Maria José Tonelli
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...
Unpacking psychological inequalities in organisations: Psychological capital reconsidered
Edina Doci, Lena Knappert, Sanne Nijs, & Joeri Hofmans
In this paper, we argue that psychological capital is unequally distributed among people from different social classes, ethnic backgrounds and genders. Confronting the limitations of the current, individualistic perspective on psychological capital, we offer a re‐conceptualization of the construct from a critical, interdisciplinary perspective, placing it at the intersection of sociology and psychology...
Keeping a foot in the door: Neoliberal ideology in subjects who opt out of a corporate career
Francesco Tommasi & Johanna L. Degen
It is well researched that ideals of freedom and self-fulfillment through work are perpetuated by the neoliberal ideology that permeates subjective reasoning, meaning-making, and everyday practices. While these ideals may seem attractive and enticing to the subject, their pursuit usually leads to less secure working contracts and conditions...
Holding up a democratic facade: How 'new work organizations' avoid resistance and litigation when dismissing their managers
Johanna L. Degen & Massih Zekavat
New work is used as a general term to summarize professional developments in contemporary work style, structure and modus of organizations and society-this means collaborative work and flexible working hours on individual levels, and flat hierarchies and participatory decision-making on organizational levels...
Meaningful or meaningless? Organizational conditions influencing doctoral students’ mental health and achievement
Francesco Tommasi, Ferdinando Toscano, Davide Giusino, Andrea Ceschi, Riccardo Sartori, Johanna L. Degen
This paper presents a quantitative investigation of the organizational factors predicting the attrition of doctoral students’ experience of meaning and how meaningful experience and meaningless work affect doctoral students’ mental health and achievements. Background: Today’s academic environment subsumes neoliberal principles of individualism, instrumentality, and competition. Such an environment can harm doctoral students’ meaningful experience...
Critical positions: Situating critical perspectives in work and organizational psychology
Gazi Islam & Zoe Sanderson
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...
COVID-19 and the Future of Work and Organisational Psychology
Amalia Raquel Pérez Nebra, Chrysavgi Sklaveniti, Gazi Islam, Ivana B Petrovic, Jennifer Pickett, Makfire Alija, P. Matthijs Bal, Milena Tekeste, Milica Vukelic, Sandiso Bazana, & Zoe Sanderson
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has caused a ‘coronafication’ of research and academia, including the instrumentalisation of academic research towards the demands of society and governments. Whilst an enormous number of special issues and articles are devoted on the topic, there are few fundamental reflections on how the current pandemic will affect science and work and organisational psychology in the long run...
An ideological analysis of sustainable careers: Identifying the role of fantasy and a way forward
Lee Matthews, Edina Doci, Lucy McCarthy, & Matthijs Bal
Scholarly and general interest in sustainable careers is flourishing. Sustainable careers are focused on the long-term opportunities and experiences of workers across dynamic employment situations, and are characterized by flexibility, meaning, and individual agency. The current paper analyzes and challenges the underlying ideological assumptions of how sustainable careers are conceptualized and advocates the inclusion of the ecological meaning of sustainability and the notion of dignity into the sustainable careers concept...
Humanitarian identifications: Heterogeneous responses to institutional complexity at Médecins Sans Frontières
Neha Chatwani & Gazi Islam
Studies of institutional complexity have explored how multiple logics influence organizational practices. In the current paper, we illustrate how a single logic is maintained through its heterogeneous enactments and practices, via strong identification, in this case, with the logic of humanitarianism. Using the case of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), we develop theory around identity work and the heterogeneous enactment of institutional logic...
Why we should stop measuring performance and well-being
P. Matthijs Bal
In this essay, I argue that work and organizational psychology needs to move beyond measuring performance and well-being as the only outcomes relevant to our research. I outline the main difficulties with a narrow focus on performance and well-being, and argue that we need to broaden our scope of outcomes to stay relevant in a rapidly changing society. One example includes a dignity-paradigm, which postulates that there may be other outcomes in work and organizational psychology research which are relevant for both researchers, practitioners and society.
Checklist for researchers interested in conducting critical WOP research
Edina Doci, Zoe Sanderson, & P. Matthijs Bal
For anyone interested in becoming a more critical researcher, or conducting research from a more critical perspective, we have now made a Checklist for Critical Work and Organizational Psychology. In this checklist you will find some background as well as many questions that stimulate thinking about critical issues in our work.
The State of Organizational Research and I-O Psychology
Goal: These studies aim to improve the future of academic fields in organizational research and enhance relevance and equality in research. With our studies, we address the problematic issues of current publication practices and research trends in Industrial and Organizational Psychology and Organizational Research in general.
Should eminent academics stop publishing?
P. Matthijs Bal
In this piece, I want to address a relatively controversial and sensitive topic, which may seem to be somewhat farfetched, and deals with the question whether eminent (and often older, senior or retired) academics should stop publishing in academic journals. While this question may seem to be somewhat ludicrous to those who never reflected on the issue before, there are actually quite some valid reasons to reflect on this very issue, which I will outline in this piece.
On fictional science: Imagination in work psychology
P. Matthijs Bal
This paper introduces the concept of fictional science to the field of work and organizational psychology. It describes the necessity of such introduction, and the intended benefits for the field of work psychology. Work psychology is a scientific discipline dominated by a positivistic paradigm, which stifles the possibilities of abductive reasoning in the field, and thus the envisioning of possible future workplaces. Fictional science as the imagined...
Together we can make academia an environment where we thrive.
Edina Doci, Zoe Sanderson, & P. Matthijs Bal
Today, we face a burnout crisis in universities. More than half of UK academics experience high or very high levels of work related stress. Early career academics are at least 6 times more likely to develop mental illness than people working outside academia. Universities and governments typically address these problems by using psychological interventions to make academics more resilient to stress...
The future of critical perspectives in WOP research: Update from the FOWOP day 2019
Zoe Sanderson, Laura Röllmann, P. Matthijs Bal, & Severin Hornung
This year’s FOWOP day explored, critiqued, and re-envisioned the conditions in which knowledge in our discipline is created and shared. Two of the sessions focused on people-related aspects of this issue. The equality and inclusion session discussed...
Bringing I-O Psychology to the public: But what if we have nothing to say?
Mehmet A. Orhan, P. Matthijs Bal, & Yvonne van Rossenberg
In their timely piece, Rogelberg, King and Alonso (2022) eloquently elaborated on the reasons why I-O science experiences difficulties in reaching the public and presented the tactics of how I-O psychologists could elevate scientific findings to the broader masses. Undoubtedly, there is a growing need for advancing...
Pardon my French: On superfluous journal rankings, incentives and impacts on Industrial-Organizational Psychology publication practices in French business schools
Mehmet A. Orhan
Highhouse et al. (2020) provided evidence of how the Society for Industrial and OrganizationalPsychology (SIOP) members’ perceptions of the prestige of academic journals are structured andhow these perceptions play a role in scholarly communication...