Recognizing the Need for a Humanistic Movement Within Industrial–Organizational Psychology

Abstract

I do not take issue with the King and Cortina (2010) article on the need for expanded legal workplace protections or the need for increased research attention on the experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered (LGBT) employees. I commend them for recognizing the importance of the ''social imperative,'' hence bringing the idea of values explicitly into the discussion about workplace issues. I believe that industrial-organizational (I-O) psychologists have spent a disproportionately large amount of effort pursuing questions deemed important by for-profit organizations and considerably less time researching questions motivated primarily by humanistic concerns such as social justice and personal welfare (see Lefkowitz, 2003 for an excellent discussion of this). As Lefkowitz mentions, research related to corporate profitability is socially useful in that profitability provides incomes for employees; however, researchers should not be constrained by issues directly related to profitability. In this commentary, I use Arthur Kornhauser as a role model of a famous applied researcher who was motivated primarily by humanistic concerns and provide some suggestions and strategies for researchers who are interested in topics not directly related to corporate

Work–Family Research Has a Public Relations Problem: Moving From Organizational Nicety to Necessity

“…We propose that acting upon these espoused values is the path that I-O psychologists must take to ensure that work-family research impacts employing organizations. Along these lines, Zickar (2010) proposed that the scientist (or academic) has a ''special responsibility'' to include research that is not aligned specifically with the business agenda. This, we believe, is how we can make work-family research matter-do what is right for the organization, the employee, and society.…”

Stated and Unstated Opportunities and Barriers to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgendered Supportive Organizations

“…The philosophical debate implied by the independent contributions of Zickar (2010) and Locke (2010) is evidence of a powerful barrier to LGBT‐supportive organizations: genuine philosophical differences among stakeholders about whether such change is justified. The juxtaposing views in these articles represent a wide range of deeply held beliefs about people and organizations that affect the likelihood of successful implementation of LGBT‐supportive policies and programs.…”

“…It is possible that the coincidence of the SIOP conference deadline and the deadline for commentaries made it particularly difficult for practitioners to use their precious-little research time to respond to the focal article. But, extending Zickar's (2010) line of thought, it is also possible that practitioners lack the freedom to respond to social issues. Practitioners who do not have the luxury of tenure may fear greater penalties than tenured researchers for socially undesirable views or for being associated with an article on the topic of LGBT workers.…”

Teaching I-O psychology for the greater good

“…Although this approach has a venerable tradition in natural science, some would argue that in I-O psychology it has led to the tacit and widespread adoption of the profit-motivated, promanagement values that dominate the organizations in which we work to the exclusion of humanistic concerns. Accordingly, some have challenged I-O psychology to expand its values model to encompass humanistic values (Lefkowitz 2008(Lefkowitz , 2010(Lefkowitz , 2014Zickar, 2010).…”