Bridging the divide in work and organizational psychology: evidence from practice

Steps towards bridging the scientist-practitioner gap in the field of Work and Organizational Psychology in Romania

“…organizing debates on the importance of psychological assessment, the psychologist's role in the organization); (7) Active involvement in legislation amendment, by lobby. All these possible measures can be actively supported by APIO and are in line with the recommendations issued by Bartlett and Francis-Smythe (2016) for reducing the gap between research and practice in WOP field by "providing easily accessible, cost-effective, easily readable, brief, examples of applications of research-in-practice for practitioners" (Bartlett & Francis-Smythe, 2016, p. 628). While this can be quite resource consuming if done only by scholars, by creating communities of both scholars (i.e., established researchers and students) and HR practitioners dedicated to this endeavor, consensus about what represents important topics, best scientific evidence and its most effective implementation could be reached easier (Rousseau and McCarthy, 2007).…”

“…While the former frequently invoke the practitioners' lack of interest in scientific research and the decoupling of organizational interventions from scientific evidence, the latter argue for the decoupling of scientists' research from practical issues. In a similar vein, Bartlett and Francis Smythe (2016) found that when analyzing the clients' organizational problems and choosing the right approach or intervention, WOP practitioners preferentially rely on their specialist knowledge or expertise, followed by the clients' demands and their previous experience. Scientific data and evidence as a source of knowledge provided by the Academia is ranked only on the fifth place.…”

“…However, over the past 10 years, inspired by medicine, WOP proposed the evidencebased approach in research, HR practice and management, as a way to reduce the gap between science and practice (Bartlett & Francis-Smythe, 2016;Rousseau & Barends, 2011;Valcour & De Janasz, 2015). EvidenceBased-Human-Resources (EBHR) advocates going beyond industry "fads and fashions" or the mindless implementation of the field's "best practice".…”

“…While there are many informational sources, such as the Internet, online, and social media communication, they do not entail the same quality. Bartlett and Francis-Smythe (2016) found that out of 17 possible information sources where practitioners seek out information in order to refine the problem formulation and design and implementation of organizational interventions, the general web search engine (e.g., Google) has the highest percentage, with 84.5% reporting to prefer this source. Also, Valcour and De Janasz (2015) describe a variety of useful strategies to communicating research beyond academia, including the Internet (e.g., via blogging, podcasting) and social media (e.g., LinkedIn, Facebook).…”

The pursuit of organizational impact: hits, misses, and bouncing back

“…The debate regarding the divide between science and practice, together with concern about real-world impact, is not new to organizational psychology (e.g., Anderson, Herriot, & Hodgkinson, 2001; Bartlett & Francis-Smythe, 2016;Gelade, 2006;Rynes, Bartunek, & Daft, 2001;Starkey & Madan, 2001). However, this debate feels strange to usakin to questioning whether child psychologists should try to improve children's lives; or whether clinical psychologists should try to alleviate their clients' distress.…”