Amazon Mechanical Turk in Organizational Psychology: An Evaluation and Practical Recommendations

Yarkoni highlights patterns of overgeneralization in psychology research. In this comment, we note that such challenges also pertain to applied psychological and organizational research and practice. We use two examples - cross-cultural generalizability and implicit bias training - to illustrate common practices of overgeneralization from narrow research samples to broader operational populations. We conclude with recommendations for research and practice.

While the term neural networks may be unfamiliar to many organizational psychologists, exciting new applications of artificial intelligence are attracting notice among organizational behavior researchers. In Networks in Organizational Research: Applying Pattern Recognition to the Analysis of Organizational Behavior, authors David Scarborough and Mark Somers bring researchers, academics, and practitioners up to speed on this emerging field, in which powerful computing capabilities offer new insights into longstanding, complex I/O questions such as employee selection and behavioral prediction. Neural networks mimic the way the human brain works, using interconnected nodes and feedback loops to learn to recognize even subtle patterns in vast amounts of data. They can process data far more quickly and efficiently than conventional techniques can, and produce better empirical results. They are especially useful for modeling nonlinear processes. The book traces the development of this methodology and demonstrates how it opens up new ways of thinking about traditional problems. Academic researchers will gain a design template for studying both the linear and non-linear elements of a given problem, and thus enhance their own research.

Social and organizational psychological research on creativity and innovation in the Netherlands: an overview Social and organizational psychological research on creativity and innovation in the Netherlands: an overview E. Rietzschel & O. Janssen, Gedrag & Organisatie, volume 21, March 2008, pp. 74-87 This is the first article of a series about creative and innovative performance by individuals and teams. We aim to give an overview of social and organizational psychological research in the Netherlands, published between 2000 and 2006 in Behavior & Organization and in international journals. The selected articles are classified according to subject (creativity versus innovation) and level of analysis (individual versus group level), followed by a general review and discussion.

IntroductionTeam mental models and team situational awareness are key components of healthcare team simulation. Human factors and organizational psychology researchers have developed clear definitions and theories about these concepts that are at times ‘lost in translation’ within the prevailing forms of measurement and training utilized in healthcare. Simulation research to date has often relied upon indirect and imprecise measures and a conceptualization of team cognition that ill equips simulation educators as they endeavour to optimize healthcare team performance.MethodsWe present a narrative review that examines how team cognition is assessed in healthcare team simulation, critically consider assessment strategies described in key studies, and contrast them to advances in human factors and organizational psychology.ResultsThis study presents a framework that reconceptualizes how we measure team cognition in healthcare simulation along the matrices of directness and timing of evaluation. We pair this framework with a table that exemplifies extant measurement techniques and highlight how simulation educators may decide between different ‘types’ of assessment based upon their needs.DiscussionWe offer recommendations for educators to consider capturing team cognition before, during, and after simulation. We also offer recommendations for researchers to develop tools that may be more readily applied across key settings.ConclusionHere, we present a framework of team cognition for healthcare action teams that advances healthcare simulation to better align with human factors and organizational psychology literature. This work will guide healthcare simulation educators and researchers on their quest to optimize team performance through improved team cognition.Trial registrationNone.

BACKGROUND OR RATIONALE: To improve health care, we need to improve the organization of care, along with the payment systems that shape organizational priorities and behavior. The opportunity and challenge for research are to find a way to work with health care leadership so that future management decisions can make use of strong evidence. This article uses findings from research on nursing to illustrate the potential for organizational research and management research to improve health care. It then distills recommendations from six focused stakeholder meetings to identify five ways in which we might improve organizational, management, and policy research to maximize its use. Hospital, health plan, and other system leaders have five recommendations for research: (1) Design studies that answer user questions, with a focus on the "why" and "what if" rather than just the "what." (2) Present findings in leaders' time and space, defining evidence as they do and identifying generalizability of findings. (3) Change the incentive system for researchers so that they are rewarded for the activities that maximize impact on decision making. (4) Build user-researcher collaborations and dialogue. (5) Change the way we disseminate evidence, with dissemination through "early adopters," trade association meetings, consultants, etc. System and policy leaders control important levers for improving health care, since they shape organizational structure, processes and culture, payment strategies, program design, and regulation. Just as evidence-based medicine can improve clinical practice, evidence-based management and policymaking can change how these powerful levers are used. But for evidence to inform the decisions of system and policy leaders, we will need to rethink and restructure the research enterprise itself, bringing the potential users of evidence into the production process.

Issues of women, work and poverty have received scant attention within organizational psychology. Given psychology’s mission of promoting the human welfare, social issues such as women, work and poverty seem well within the purview of the field (Carr et al., this volume). Humanitarian work psychology, with its prosocial focus, promises to open the doors to such research endeavours. As an emerging field, it can draw on existing organizational psychological knowledge and research approaches for its investigations. However, given the paucity of research on women, work and poverty in organizational psychology, humanitarian work psychology may well need to expand its repertoire and develop research foci more appropriate to its objectives.

ABSTRACTI welcome the paper on Neoliberal ideology in WOP as a valuable critique of Work and Organizational Psychology (WOP) encouraging practitioners and researchers to think carefully about what they are trying to achieve and how they make sense of the world of work.

This article puts forth an agenda for the psychological study of strategy and competitive advantage. It centers this agenda within the microfoundations program, a program originating within strategy that seeks to understand firm heterogeneity and competitive advantage by examining individuals and their interrelationships. The article first reviews key theories and frameworks in strategy by taking a functionalist view, that is, by starting with a focus on organizational criteria (operational performance, organizational performance, competitive advantage). It then discusses the importance of resources and how psychology may contribute to an understanding of these resources. Organizational psychology and organizational behavior research that links to higher-level outcomes or resources is reviewed next. The article concludes with questions that we believe will fascinate scholars of organizational psychology and organizational behavior as well as with implications for practice. We hope this article helps stimulate a paradigmatic shift in organizational psychology and organizational behavior, as their theories and findings are much more strategic than is currently appreciated.

The Internet can be a valuable data collection tool for organizational psychology researchers. It can be less expensive than traditional paper-and-pencil survey methods, and the potential pool of participants is much larger. In addition, it can be used in situations where traditional data collection methods are not feasible, such as research involving sensitive issues such as negative employee attitudes or deviant behaviors at work. In this study, we examined the organizational attitudes of employees from various companies using (a) a snowball sample, who completed a traditional paper and pencil survey (n = 135), and (b) a sample recruited over the Internet, who completed an on-line survey (n = 220). Participants in both the non-Internet and the Internet group were asked to describe a negative incident involving their company, and answer a number of questions regarding how they felt about their company and how they behaved toward their company following the negative event. They also completed measures of organizational cynicism and job satisfaction. The two groups were compared on demographic characteristics and on their attitudes toward their organization. There were very few demographic differences between the two groups. The Internet group tended to be more cynical and to judge their organization more harshly than the non-Internet group; however, the response patterns of both groups were similar. These results suggest that, when used with caution, the Internet can be a viable method of conducting organizational research.

Most studies of organizational performance define performance as a dependent variable and seek to identify variables that produce variations in performance. Researchers who study organizational performance in this way typically devote little attention to the complications of using such a formulation to characterize the causal structure of performance phenomena. These complications include the ways in which performance advantage is competitively unstable, the causal complexity surrounding performance, and the limitations of using data based on retrospective recall of informants. Since these complications are well-known and routinely taught, a pattern of acknowledging the difficulties but continuing the practice cannot be attributed exclusively to poor training, lack of intelligence, or low standards. Most researchers understand the difficulties of inferring causal order from the correlations generated by organizational histories, particularly when those correlations may be implicit in the measurement procedures used. We suggest that the persistence of this pattern is due, in part, to the context of organizational research. Organizational researchers live in two worlds. The first demands and rewards speculations about how to improve performance. The second demands and rewards adherence to rigorous standards of scholarship. In its efforts to satisfy these often conflicting demands, the organizational research community sometimes responds by saying that inferences about the causes of performance cannot be made from the data available, and simultaneously goes ahead to make such inferences. We conclude by considering a few virtues and hazards of such a solution to dilemmas involving compelling contradictory imperatives and the generality of the issues involved.

This paper considers environmental rule of law in Latin America in the context of security problems across the Atlantic region. It considers efforts to improve environmental rule of law through external pressures and domestic institutional reforms, and argues that the role of expert environmental NGOs, such as litigators, educators, community organizers, and research organizations is underappreciated and under-studied. Principle 10 rights, especially public participation in environmental decision-making is an important area in which these expert NGOs contribute.

A rich civic infrastructure of community-based organizations (CBOs) can help generate, diffuse and maintain a culture of engagement and health that benefits marginalized populations most at risk for illness, disability, and poor health. Attention to CBOs advances “meso-level” frameworks for understanding health cultures and outcomes by going beyond attention to social networks and social identities. We focus on three mechanisms: CBOs can (1) empower individuals by developing civic capacity and personal efficacy; (2) foster solidarity by building networks, social identities and a shared commitment to collective well-being; and (3) mobilize people to have a voice in health-related policies and programming, thereby affecting community well-being. We draw on theory and research in sociology, political science and psychology, and we illustrate the utility of a CBO approach by examining survey and semi-structured interview data from participants in youth civic groups in 13 low-income, predominantly immigrant communities in California. Interview data illustrate the ways in which CBOs enhance members' civic capacities, provide a sense of empowerment and efficacy to engage in healthy behaviors, develop solidarity among diverse participants, and elaborate networks among those committed to community well-being. We also discuss CBO-led campaigns in which youth mobilized for change in policies and practices of local institutions to illustrate possible community-wide health consequences of CBO engagement. CBOs can thus generate individual-level well-being effects, and reduce structural barriers to good health through changes in the broader environment.

Orientation: Qualitative research is marked by phenomenal growth and development over the years.Research purpose: This article aims to offer insight into the emerging qualitative methodologies used in the fields of Psychology, Industrial and Organisational Psychology and Human Resource Management.Motivation for the study: The value of qualitative organisational research has been recognised since the 1970s. Regardless of its perceived value, national and international trends show a greater tendency for quantitative research.Research design, approach and method: This article investigates qualitative articles (n = 242) published over two decades in the South African Journal of Industrial Psychology (SAJIP), South African Journal of Psychology (SAJP), and the South African Journal of Human Resource Management (SAJHRM). More specifically, a content analysis was conducted to highlight the trends of paradigms, designs and analysis methods employed in the studies.Main findings: Although there seems to be a slight increase in qualitative publications over the years, qualitative studies show a lower volume than its counterparts. The SAJIP published the least qualitative articles when compared to the SAJP and SAJHRM. There is a pattern of preference for specific paradigms and methods in all the journals. Overall, all the journals carry a large number of articles that do not specifically state their paradigmatic alignment or the designs they used, while some articles omits the methodology used in the studies altogether.Practical/managerial implications: The results indicate a clear need for increased exposure to qualitative methodology, both by publishing more qualitative studies in local journals and by providing formal training opportunities. A publication does not solely rely on authorship, but also on a review process. Therefore certain adjustments in this process may lead to more and better qualitative publications in future.Contribution/value-add: This article provides a critical analysis of the current trends and developments in qualitative research conducted in Industrial and Organisational Psychology(IOP) research in South Africa. The study identifies dominant methodologies in use, and thereby identifies possible opportunities to expand the ‘methodological menu’ of IOP research.

To effectively mobilize community-based organizations (CBOs) and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in research, important ethical issues must be addressed. A memorandum of understanding (MOU), providing a framework and a tool to be used for establishing effective community-research partnerships, was developed by the Community Collaboration Core (CCC) of the HIV Center for Clinical and Behavioral Studies. Aims of the CCC include: (1) Initiating and sustaining successful partnerships in HIV prevention research in areas of sexuality, gender, mental health, and of mutual benefit to communities; (2) Advancing the science of collaboration among researchers, practitioners, and government in HIV prevention. Developed and assessed over a two-year period by researchers, CBO/NGO and public health representatives, this MOU can be used by potential research and community partners to address the most important issues early in a collaborative research project. Clarifying essential roles, responsibilities, and relationships, establishing trust and transparency in that process, can guide collaborators in planning the important steps for beginning and sustaining an ethical and successful research project.

Book description: Essential Guide to Qualitative Methods in Organizational Research is an excellent resource for students and researchers in the areas of organization studies, management research and organizational psychology, bringing together in one volume the range of methods available for undertaking qualitative data collection and analysis. The volume includes 30 chapters, each focusing on a specific technique. The chapters cover traditional research methods, analysis techniques, and interventions as well as the latest developments in the field. Each chapter reviews how the method has been used in organizational research, discusses the advantages and disadvantages of using the method, and presents a case study example of the method in use. A list of further reading is supplied for those requiring additional information about a given method. The comprehensive and accessible nature of this collection will make it an essential and lasting handbook for researchers and students studying organizations.