Home | Business News | Browse by Publication | J | Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology

But what does it mean in practice? The Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology from a practitioner perspective.

Article Excerpt
In a recent editorial in this journal, John Arnold (Arnold, 2004) discusses the 'academic-practitioner divide'. Many human resource (HR) practitioners feel that academic research in occupational and organizational psychology is abstract and inconsequential; research often fails to address the practical issues of improving workforce performance and maintaining employee well-being, and is inadequate as a source of guidance. Academics, on the other hand, counter that sound theory, supported by rigorous research, is the bedrock of good practice, and that it is up to practitioners to draw what conclusions they can from the empirical evidence.

Anderson, Herriot, and Hodgkinson (2001) also lament what they perceive as a growing and dangerous divergence between academics and practitioners, leading to a drift away from rigorous and practically relevant ('pragmatic') science, and towards rigorous but trivial ('pedantic') science or relevant but sloppy ('popularist') science. If they are correct, then the increasing separation between academics and practitioners is a threat to the core values of the discipline, and, as Anderson et al. warn, could seriously damage the field.

In an attempt to close this gap, the Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology (JOOP) now intends to consider practical relevance as a criterion for acceptance for publication, and the aim of the present article is to review JOOP's recent output from a practitioner perspective. But first we need to be clear who the 'practitioners' actually are.

Who are the practitioners?

For the purposes of this article, we focus on practitioners who make recommendations about the management or development of people in organizational settings, or advise those who do. We therefore exclude from consideration practitioners in training, and those producing primary research, for example, in government departments. Our typical practitioner in the UK is a member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD). The CIPD is the UK's largest organization for those professionally involved in the management and development of people. It promotes professional standards and ethics, and offers training in core competencies and specialist skills to its more than 100,000 practitioner members. It is also active in influencing public policy, participates in advisory groups, consults with government bodies and commissions its own research.

Judging by the readership (209,000) of People Management, which is the CIPD's official magazine, practitioners are an abundant species. They generally occupy one of two habitats. Most are to be found in the personnel or HR departments of commercial or not-for-profit organizations, and most of the remainder in the consulting sector. In either case, they typically come from a variety of backgrounds, and differ considerably in their levels of knowledge and experience.

Practitioners in organizational HR departments often have a first degree in psychology or a related discipline. However, many others will have drifted into HR from general management; these individuals are likely to have little knowledge of psychology, and no relevant academic qualifications. In fact, they may not be particularly numerate, something of a disadvantage for a potential reader of JOOP.

Consultancy-based practitioners also vary widely in experience. Practitioners with degrees--and even doctorates--in psychology can be found in all sectors of the consultancy market. However, in the smaller consultancy and freelance sectors, many practitioners seem to be ex-sales or ex-marketing people, whose psychological expertise is limited to knowledge of their own Myers-Briggs Type Inventory (MBTI) type. Some may even have attended a neurolinguistic programming (NLP) course. These individuals are often found lecturing managers about 'hearts and minds' whilst brandishing Belbin team-role questionnaires, and waving their...

View this article FREE - Now for a Limited Time, try Goliath Business News
Free for 3 Days!