Summary Personnel Psychology:
The role of scientific findings in evidence based HR (Briner&Barends)
The basic purpose of science is simple: to gather reliable and trustworthy information that
helps us answer questions about what things are like and how they work.
Confirmation bias: occurs when we interpret or selectively search for information that
confirms our existing beliefs and ignore contradictory information.
o If we strongly believe diverse teams perform best we will look for evidence that
supports that idea and reject information that doesn’t
The bandwagon effect: the tendency to do or believe something simply because others do
o helps explain why we follow HR best practices or copy the HR practices of other
organizations.
Science is about gathering information and testing assumptions (hypotheses) in ways that
allow us to estimate how likely it is that something is true.
3 reasons why we can never be sure:
1. It is always possible that new information will cast serious doubt on a well-established
theory and the body of evidence on which it is based
2. Second, even where something seems very close to being “proven,” it will still be subject to
boundary conditions— it always depends on the situation
3. as we find out more and more about something, we also find out that our original findings
were not quite right— or at least not specific nor detailed enough.
Evidence-based practice is about improving the chances of favorable outcomes from decision-
making through the conscientious, explicit and judicious use of the best available evidence from
multiple sources by:
1. Asking: translating a practical issue or problem into an answerable question
2. Acquiring: systematically searching for and retrieving the evidence
3. Appraising: critically judging the trustworthiness and relevance of the evidence
4. Aggregating: weighing and pulling together the evidence
5. Applying: incorporating the evidence into the decision-making process
6. Assessing: evaluating the outcome of the decision taken
Conscientious: means we should try hard and be careful in the way we collect and use
evidence.
Explicit: means we write down, represent, discuss and explain the evidence we have.
Being judicious means making judgements about the quality of the information we have
because not all evidence is trustworthy and therefore not all evidence deserves our
attention.
A HR professional should collect and critically appraise:
Scientific research findings
Organizational data
Professional experience and judgement
Stakeholder’s values and concerns
,Employee adjustment and well-being in the era of COVID-19: Implications for human resource
management (Carnevale & Hatak)
Person environment (P-E) fit theory: posits that individuals are attracted to and selected by
organizations whose work environments reflect the same values, cultures, and work features
as their own important beliefs, values, and desires.
o When PE fit is maximized, employees flourish in the work environment, but because
of COVID people’s work environment changed and this leads to experience of misfit
Virtual recruitment may also have an impact on the ability to develop and assess perceptions
of fit regarding potential employment situations.
Virtual lunches and coffee breaks may alleviate perceptions of misfit as a result of the abrupt
change in the social fabric of the work environment, they may also leave participants feeling
unsatisfied as they pine for the social interactions they had in their pre-pandemic work-lives.
In the pandemic the potential conflict between the work and family environment is huge.
Accordingly, understanding the impact these extreme family demands in conjunction with
heightened levels of work autonomy and thereby self-responsibility can have on employees’
productivity and well-being, and which practices can alleviate such new avenues of family to
work conflict, will be important
That is, when considering those unaccustomed to working in remote contexts, the extent to
which the provision of greater job autonomy will be effective may largely depend on the
extent to which an individual values autonomy and associated self-responsibility in the first
place
Employees who are childless and single may feel a lack of inclusion and belongingness, thus
posing considerable risk to their mental health and well-being, as well as the productivity of
organizations.
A relationship-oriented HR system can help employees build ties both within and outside the
organization which may help reduce the feelings of loneliness. Also organizing team
meetings and social events may help.
Some of the issues employees are facing in the COVID pandemic resemble entrepreneurs
daily work conditions including high levels of uncertainty and responsibility, a need to
flexibly and continuously adjust to new situations and a strong interrelatedness of the work
and family spheres. this may offer solutions.
one reason why entrepreneurs often thrive despite operating in highly uncertain and
demanding environments is due to the value they place on autonomy and their ability to
craft the “perfect job”
some entrepreneurs overcome social limitations by leveraging alternative, domain-specific
sources of social support – such as positive feedback from customers – ultimately enhancing
their well-being
The Covid-19 crisis as a career shock: implications for careers and vocational behavior
3 key lessons from the Covid-19 crisis:
1. the implications of Covid-19 reflect the dynamic interplay between individual and contextual
factors
Here, we argue that although the pandemic was difficult to predict and control, research
shows that certain psychological resources – such as career competencies and resilience
– could make this career shock more manageable
2. the pandemic may have differential implications over time, as suggested by research that
has shown the consequences of career shocks to differ between short-term vs. long-term
time horizons, and across life- and career stages.
3. even though the pandemic is clearly a negatively valanced shock for most people, further
into the future it may allow for more positive outcomes.
, This lesson builds on research showing how negative career shocks have long-term
positive consequences for some people.
Career shock: “a disruptive and extraordinary event that is, at least to some degree, caused
by factors outside the focal individual's control and that triggers a deliberate thought
process concerning one's career”
Two key elements:
1. An event
2. A process of initial sensemaking, which means that a disruptive and extraordinary event
is not necessarily a career shock in itself
The pandemic is by some people classified as negative and some people think there are
positive consequences due to the pandemic.
Lesson 1: The implications of career shock are directly impacted by the interplay between contextual
and individual factors varies across career and life stages
Career self management (individual agency) and career shocks (external events) both served
as antecedents of career decisions.
Event systems theory: events are external, and that they are at the intersection of an action
with its context supports the notion of contextual and individual interactions.
The theory also states that stronger events – characterized by novelty, criticality, and
disruption – are more likely to initiate change.
the features of the context (i.e., the career event) and the individual (i.e., decision
making) together determine the outcomes of a career shock
Bourdieu’s theory of practice: According to this theory, practice (here: career behaviors) are
the result of a dynamic interplay between people's dispositions (habitus), competencies
(capital), and circumstances (field).
Habitus: Bourdieu's theory argues that the habitus is embodied and highly stable, yet
constantly reinforced or modified by experiences and events
This can lead to a situation of hysteresis, when a sudden crisis – resembling the notion of
a career shock – can lead to adjustment problems because of a mismatch between
individual and context
The ability of the individual to realign their habitus and capital with their field is a critical
determinant of how successfully they can manage to deal with a career shock.
One thing that helps with dealing with career shock is developing career competencies.
individuals who develop reflective, communicative, and behavioral career competencies
are better able to capitalize on positive career shocks, such as unexpected promotions.
Psychological strategies in dealing with shock include dealing with distracting emotions and
nurturing a growth mindset.
Behavioral strategies in dealing with shock include developing social relationships and
participating in training activities.
Lesson 2: a career shock can have a different impact in the short term vs. long term and for different
career stages:
The actual impact of a career shock (positive or negative) on one’s career outcomes may not
be immediate, but rather only manifest over time.
research has demonstrated that employees who experience a novel and critical negative
workplace event were more likely to engage in improvisation behaviors such as taking
advantage of opportunities and “thinking outside the box”
