Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide evidence from the experiences and the literature on organizational change and transformation to implement and sustain Lean higher education (LHE) initiatives designed to benefit the university, its employees, and the individuals it serves. Design/methodology/approach – The authors present organizational development literature and examples of success and challenges to better support the effective application of LHE. Findings – The authors address the importance of and techniques for first, assessing and improving institutional readiness; second, enhancing leadership awareness, understanding, and support for LHE; third, strategic planning, Lean leadership, and getting help for LHE; and fourth, facilitating an institution-wide transition to LHE. Originality/value – A structured, step-by-step approach offers practical guidance for implementing institution-wide Lean initiatives in HE.

Lean management and related ideas have had a significant impact on organizations throughout North America and the world. Despite its popularity and impact, I-O psychologists have largely neglected Lean as a research topic and few I-O psychologists engage in applied practice in the area. In this focal article, we provide a working definition of Lean and present examples of Lean’s influence. Next, we outline possible reasons to explain I-O psychologists’ indifference to Lean. Finally, we provide some topic areas that I-O psychologists can use to contribute to the Lean literature. By using I-O psychologists’ skill in measurement and evaluation, along with our considerable organizational theory, we believe that I-O psychology can improve Lean and broaden their impact. We hope this focal article will inspire I-O psychologists to reconsider a research and practice area that they have previously ignored. In addition, we hope that this article causes I-O psychologists to reflect on their role to play in addressing popular management trends.

In nonprofit organizations, motivating volunteers for particular activities is challenging because they can take place in unstructured environments. Therefore, members are disengaged despite their initial commitment to the cause. An important opportunity in the literature is to examine motivation from the perspective of the volunteer; and, more specifically, to test for the differential impact that self‐efficacy, collective efficacy, and perceived organizational support have on three motivational outcomes: effort, performance, and satisfaction. Our focus is on volunteer motivation to support a specific event or project. Teasing out the impact of one's efficacious beliefs about their group at the individual level is an important contribution that has yet to be examined. Using data from 285 volunteers, results indicate that collective efficacy and perceived organizational support positively influence volunteer satisfaction. An important contrast we confirmed, unlike self‐efficacy and perceived organizational support, was collective efficacy's negative relationship to effort, which in turn affected performance. We were able to isolate the unique relationships, corroborating extant research with respect to self‐efficacy and perceived organizational support. As a result, the potential for spurious relationships was ruled out, adding credibility to the new findings.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to discuss the importance of norms and inference, while providing national overall and subgroup norms for the updated Job Descriptive Index and Job in General measures of job satisfaction. Design/methodology/approach – A stratified random sample was drawn from an online panel to represent the US working population on key variables. Validity evidence is provided. Determination of subgroup norms was based on practical significance. Findings – The revised measures fit the theorized model and patterns of results are consistent with the literature. Practical subgroup differences were found for some stratification variables. Subgroup norms are made available; the first US overall norms are provided. Research limitations/implications – An updated job satisfaction measurement system is made available, complete with nationally representative overall and subgroup norms. A major limitation and direction for future research is the lack of norms for other nations. Practical implications – The revised measurement system is available for use in practice. National overall norms improve decision-makers’ ability to infer respondents’ relative standing and make comparisons across facets and employees. The JDI is useful for dimensional diagnostics and development efforts; the JIG is useful for evaluating overall job satisfaction levels. Social implications – By facilitating valid inferences of job satisfaction scores, the revised measurement system serves to enhance the quality of life at work. Originality/value – The authors provide the only publicly available job satisfaction measurement system that has US national overall norms.

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