S11141/PB0302-Industrial and Organizational Psychology
1. Introduction (THEMA 1).................................................... 2 7.2 Objectives ................................................................... 45
1.1 What is I/O Psychology? .................................................. 2 7.3 Training design ............................................................. 46
1.2 Activities and settings of I/O Psychologists ......................... 2 7.4 Delivery of a training program ........................................ 50
1.3 I/O Psychology as a profession.......................................... 3 7.5 Evaluation of a training program ..................................... 50
1.4 I/O Psychology as a science .............................................. 3 8. Theories of employee motivation (THEMA 3)..................... 53
3. Job Analysis (THEMA 1) .................................................... 4 8.1 What is motivation ....................................................... 53
3.1 What is job analysis? ....................................................... 4 8.2 Work motivation theories .............................................. 53
3.2 Purposes of job analysis................................................... 5 8.3 Need theories .............................................................. 54
3.3 How job analysis is collected ............................................ 7 8.4 Reinforcement theory ................................................... 55
4. Performance appraisal (THEMA 1) ..................................... 8 8.5 Expectancy theory ........................................................ 56
4.2 Methods for assessing job performance ............................. 8 8.6 Self-efficacy theory ....................................................... 57
10. Productive and counterproductive employee behavior ..... 13 8.7 Justice theories ............................................................ 58
10.1 Productive behavior: task performance .......................... 13 8.8 Goal setting theory ....................................................... 60
10.2 Organizational citizenship behavior (OCB)....................... 15 8.9 Control theory.............................................................. 61
10.3 Counterproductive work behavior: withdrawal ................ 15 8.10 Action theory ............................................................. 62
10.4 Counterproductive work behavior: aggression, sabotage and 9. Feelings about work: job attitudes and emotions (THEMA
theft ................................................................................ 17 3) .................................................................................... 64
11. Occupational Health Psychology (THEMA 1) .................... 19 9.1 The nature of job satisfaction ......................................... 64
11.1 Occupational Health and Safety .................................... 19 9.2 The nature of job satisfaction ......................................... 64
11.2 Work schedules .......................................................... 23 9.4 Antecedents of job satisfaction ....................................... 65
11.3 Occupational stress ..................................................... 24 9.5 Potential effects of job satisfaction .................................. 67
11.4 Work-family conflict .................................................... 28 13. Leadership and power in organizations (THEMA 3) ........... 69
11.5 Burnout..................................................................... 28 13.1 What is leadership? ..................................................... 69
Digitale werkboek: Interventiecyclus (THEMA 1) ................... 30 13.2 Sources of influence and power .................................... 69
5. Assessment methods for selection and placement (THEMA 13.3 Abuse of supervisory power: sexual and ethnic
2) .................................................................................... 32 harassment....................................................................... 70
5.1 Job related characteristics.............................................. 32 13.4 Approaches to the understanding of leadership ............... 71
5.2 Psychological tests ........................................................ 32 13.5 Women in leadership positions ..................................... 77
5.3 Biographical information ............................................... 35 13.6 Cross-cultural issues in leadership ................................. 78
5.4 Interviews ................................................................... 36 12. Work groups and work teams (THEMA 4) ........................ 79
5.5 Work samples .............................................................. 38 12.1 Work groups versus work teams.................................... 79
5.6 Assessment centers ...................................................... 38 12.2 Important group and team concepts .............................. 79
6. Selecting employees (THEMA 2) ...................................... 40 12.3 Group and team performance....................................... 81
6.1 The planning of human resource needs............................ 40 12.4 Group diversity ........................................................... 84
6.2 Recruiting applicants ..................................................... 40 12.5 Interventions with work groups in organizations .............. 85
6.3 Selecting employees ..................................................... 41 14. Organizational development and theory (THEMA 4) ......... 87
7. Training (THEMA 2) ........................................................ 45 14.1 Organizational development ......................................... 87
7.1 Needs assessment ........................................................ 45 14.2 Organizational theories ................................................ 90
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, 1. Introduction THEMA 1
1.1 What is I/O Psychology? (p. 5-6)
I/O psychology
- contains two major divisions: the industrial (or personnel) and the organizational
- industrial psychology: is the older branch and tends to take a management perspective of
organizational efficiency through the appropriate use of human resources or people; is concerned
with issues of efficient job design, employee selection, employee training, performance appraisal
- organizational psychology: developed from the human relations movement in organizations; is
concerned with understanding behavior and enhancing the well-being of employees in the
workplace; topics include employee attitudes, employee behavior, job stress, supervisor practices
- does not deal directly with employees' emotional or personal problems
1.2 Activities and settings of I/O Psychologists (p. 6-8)
I/O settings
- practice activities: involve the use of psychological principles to solve real-world problems (e.g.
excessive job stress) (settings: consulting firms, government, the military, private corporations)
- research: provide principles that can be applied in practice (settings: universities)
- both practice and research are equally important within the I/O field; one major objective of I/O
psychology is to help organizations to function more effectively; in order to do so, the field must
have research findings on which to base practice, but not all research is done with practice in mind
major activities
- practice: basic functions: enhancing the effectiveness and functioning of organizations; activities:
analyse the nature of a job (job analysis), conduct an analysis to determine the solution to an
organizational problem, conduct a survey of employee feelings and opinions, design an employee
performance appraisal system, design an employee selection system, design a training program,
develop psychological tests, evaluate effectiveness of an activity or practice (e.g. training program),
implement an organizational change (e.g. a new reward system for employees who perform well)
- research: basic functions: to create and disseminate knowledge; activities: teach courses, do
research, write research papers and present them at meetings, publish articles in scientific journals,
provide consulting services to organizations, write textbooks, mentor graduate and undergraduate
students, provide information to the public, develop courses, keep up with their field, help
administer the teaching function of their university
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, 1.3 I/O Psychology as a profession (p. 8-8)
professional/scientific societies
- Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP): division of the American Psychological
Association (APA); largest organization in the US that is comprised entirely to I/O psychologists
- European Association of Work and Organizational Psychology (EAWOP): formed by European
professional associations of I/O psychologists
- International Association of Applied Psychology, Division of Organizational Psychology: I/O
psychologists from around the world, and especially those with interests in cross-cultural and
international issues, are members
1.4 I/O Psychology as a science (p. 8-10)
research
- can develop new methods and procedures for such activities as selecting and training employees
- is often conducted for a specific organization to solve a particular problem (e.g. for a company that
has a high turnover rate)
- other research focuses on understanding some organizational phenomenon (e.g. the effect of job
attitudes); results of these sorts of research studies are presented at professional meetings and
published in scientific journals
- the national and international associations all have conferences, usually annually, where results of
research are presented; practitioners often find such meetings to be a good place to learn about
new solutions to their organizational problems; researchers can find out about the latest findings
before they are published in the scientific journals
scientific journals
- represent the major outlet for research results
- the Journal of Applied Psychology is published by the APA, and the Journal of Occupational and
Organizational Psychology is published by the British Psychology Society; most are like magazines
that are published in four to six issues a year
- the International Review of Industrial and Organizational Psychology is published once a year and
summarizes the state of knowledge on various topics
- I/O researchers submit articles for possible publication in these journals; their work is then sent to
experts in the field for critique; articles are revised based on the critiques, and often several rounds
of revision and resubmission will be necessary before an article is accepted for publication
- only the 10-20% of submitted articles that survive a rigorous peer review process will be published
in the best journals; peer review helps maintain high standards for published work so that the best
research makes it into print
- publication of research papers is a competitive and difficult endeavor: college professors
particularly those without tenure, are under tremendous pressure to be successful at publication
- a publication record in the best journals is a major determiner of career success, as reflected in the
ability to find a job, earn tenure, get promoted, and receive raises
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, 3. Job Analysis THEMA 1
3.1 What is job analysis? (p. 50-53)
job analysis
- a method for describing jobs and/or human attributes necessary to perform them; elements:
- 1. the procedure must be systematic: the analyst specifies a procedure in advance and follows it
- 2. a job is broken into smaller units; we describe components of jobs rather than the overall job
- 3. the analysis results in some written product, either electronic or on paper
job oriented analysis
- provides information about the nature of tasks done on the job
- some methods describe the tasks themselves, other provides information on the characteristics of
tasks; the characteristic isn't a specific task but describes common features that cut across tasks
- the purposes of the job analysis determine which type of approach would be more useful: the task
descriptions provide a picture of what people do on a job, whereas the characteristics of tasks can
be used to compare the nature of tasks across different kind of jobs
- tasks can be divided into a hierarchy in which higher-level descriptions are broken down into
smaller and smaller pieces of the job
hierarchy
- position: a collection of duties that can be performed by a single individual; typically each employee
has a single position; a number of similar positions might be given the same title
- duty: a major component of a job; each duty is accomplished by performing associated tasks
- task: a complete piece of work that accomplishes some particular objective; each task can be
divided into activities
- activities: the individual parts that make up the task; to accomplish a task a number of very specific
actions or elements are involved
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,person-oriented job analysis
- provides a description of the characteristics (KSAOs) necessary for a person to successfully perform
a particular job
KSAOs
- the employee's knowledge, skills, abilities, and other characteristics necessary for a job; the first
three characteristics focus mainly on job performance itself; the 'other characteristics' relate to job
adjustment and satisfaction, as well as performance
- knowledge: what a person needs to know to do a particular job
- skill: what a person is able to do on the job
- ability: the person's aptitude or capability to do job tasks or learn to do job tasks; it is a person's
potential to develop skills; most skills require one or more abilities
- other personal characteristics: include anything relevant to the job that is not covered by the other
three characteristics
KSAOs vs tasks
- KSAOs and tasks are very distinct: a task is something a person does, a KSAO is an attribute or
characteristic of the person required to do a particular task or tasks
- tasks define what is done on a job, whereas KSAOs describe the sort of person needed
3.2 Purposes of job analysis (p. 53-57)
career development
- career ladder: a progression of positions is established for individuals who acquire the necessary
skills and maintain good job performance
- competency systems: have become popular in organizations to reward employees for acquiring the
knowledge and skills needed to both improve performance and be promoted; require the
identification of critical competencies, the availability of the means of learning and developing
competencies, and a procedure for evaluating progress
- job analysis contributes to career development by providing a picture of the KSAOs requirements
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, for jobs at each level of the career ladder and by identifying the key competencies
- knowledge of KSAO requirements can be incorporated into employee development and training
programs that can focus on skills necessary for career advancement
legal issues
- most industrialized countries have laws prohibiting discriminatory employment practices, especially
in the hiring of employees
- essentials functions: actions that must be done on a job; is important in deciding whether to hire a
person with a disability; in the US it is illegal to refuse to hire individuals with disabilities because
they cannot perform nonessential functions because they can easily been done by someone else
- job analysis is used to identify essential functions and KSAOs; this can help ensure that decisions
about actions that affect people are based on personal factors that are job relevant
- when KSAOs are derived from a properly conducted job analysis, employee actions based on those
KSAOs are likely to be legal; furthermore, employees and job applicants will probably believe that
they were fairly threated and will be unlikely to file a lawsuit claiming discrimination
performance appraisal
- a well-designed performance appraisal system will be based on job analysis; criterion development,
determining the major components of job performance to be evaluated, is one of the major uses of
job analysis information; a job-oriented analysis provides a list of the major components of a job,
which can be used as dimensions for performance evaluation
- critical incidents: instances of behavior that represent different levels of job performance from
outstanding to poor, and they become an important part of the assessment of performance
selection
- a person-oriented job analysis should be the first step in the design of an employee selection system
- once the KSAOs are identified, procedures can be chosen to determine how well job applicants fit
the job requirements; is done by interviews and personal tests to assess individual characteristics
- a person-oriented job analysis produces a list of the KSAOs for a particular job; these KSAOs are
both the characteristics that a job applicant is usually expected to have at the time of hiring and the
characteristics that will be developed on the job through experience and training
training
- the KSAOs for a job suggest the areas in which training efforts should be directed; the KSAOs that
applicants do not have when they apply for a position are areas for training after they are hired
- the KSAOs requirements can be compared to the KSAOs of applicants or employees; deficiencies on
the part of applicants or employees are the areas toward which training efforts might be directed
vocational counseling
- a number of vocational counseling tools exist to help individuals to match their KSAOs to the KSAO
requirements of jobs; some of these attempt to match individual preferences and personalities to
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, occupations they would enjoy; other approaches match individual capabilities to job requirements
research
- people who have an aversion to change and uncertainty are likely to experience high levels of
emotional strain at work, but only if their jobs are complex (Elovaino & Kivimäki, 1999)
3.3 How job analysis is collected (p. 57-59)
sources of information
- job analysists, trained observers: actually do the job or spend time observing employees doing the
job and translate those experiences into a job analysis
- job incumbents, supervisors: are considered subject matter experts (SME's), people with detailed
knowledge about content and requirements of their own jobs or the jobs they supervise; they are
asked to provide information about jobs in interviews or by completing job analysis questionnaires
approaches
- perform job: the job can be performed as an employee would, or can be performed under simulated
conditions; by doing the job, the analyst gains insight into the nature of the job tasks and how the
job tasks interrelate; also provides an appreciation for the context in which employees do their jobs;
is not often used, reasons: (1) can be costly and time consuming; (2) some jobs are dangerous; (3)
approach does not clearly indicate that tasks can differ among employees with the same job title
- observe employees working: can give insights into the context in which job tasks are performed;
disadvantages: (1) can be expensive and time consuming; (2) employees might not behave in the
same manner when they know they are being observed
- interview employees: one of the most popular ways to collect information about jobs is by
interviewing SMEs who are familiar with them; the experts are usually job incumbents and their
supervisors; interviews are used to generate lists of all tasks and activities done by everyone who
has the same job title
- administer a questionnaire: the most efficient means of collecting job analysis information; can
contain hundreds of questions and can be administered easily to thousands of employees
- multiple approaches: often used so that the limitations of one are offset by the strengths of another
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, 4. Performance appraisal THEMA 1
4.2 Methods for assessing job performance (p. 81-95)
objective measures of job performance
- counts of various behaviors or the results of job behaviors
- common objective measures: absences, accidents, incidents, lateness, productivity
- advantages: (1) can be easy to interpret the meaning of objective measures in relation to job
performances criteria; (2) the quantitative nature of objective measures makes it easy to compare
the job performance of different individuals in the same job; (3) objective measures can be tied
directly to organizational objectives; (4) objective measures can often be found in organizational
records, so that special performance appraisal system do not have to be initiated
- limitations: (1a) many of the objective measures are not appropriate for all jobs; when jobs do not
involve countable output, productivity is not a feasible measure of performance; (1b) it is not always
obvious what number is satisfactory performance; (1c) data taken from records can be
contaminated and inaccurate; (1d) people can also distort records by omitting bad incidents for
individuals who are being favored; (1e) employees might fail to report accidents and injuries; (2) are
often deficient as indicators of job performance criteria; they tend to focus on specific behaviors,
which may be only part of the criterion, and they may ignore equally important parts; (3) measure
of productivity focus on work quantity rather than quality; (4) what is reflected in an objective
measure is not necessarily under the control of the individual being assessed
subjective measures of job performance
- ratings by people who should be knowledgeable about the person's job performance
- are the most frequently used means of assessing the job performance of employees
graphic rating forms
- is used to assess individuals on several dimensions of performance
- focuses on characteristics or traits of the person or the person's performance
behavior-focused rating forms
- concentrate on behaviors that the person has done or could be expected to do
- behaviors are chosen to represent different levels of performance
- Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scale (BARS): response choices are defined in behavioral terms;
designed to assess performance on dimensions of Organizational Skills in the Classroom; contains
several individual scales, each designed to assess an important dimension of job performance
- Mixed Standard Scale (MSS): provides the rater with a list of behaviors that vary in their
effectiveness; for each statement, the rater is asked to indicate if: (1) the ratee is better than the
statement; (2) the statement fits the ratee; (3) the ratee is worse than the statement; the
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