Industrial Organizational Psychology

While this class was not hard, it was somewhat tedious to get though (it's HR), but I am glad I did. Understanding some of the theory and processes used in the workplace really helps when applying for jobs, working, and I assume when one is placed in a position of leadership. As a software developer, the process of designing jobs is similar to designing software, and both employ systems thinking which may be userful, especially if the workforce is moving towards a time where humans direct and conduct autonomous agents.

Resources

  • The 'father of I/O Psychology,' Frederick Winslow Taylor's book Shop Management
  • Levy's I/O Psychology is the textbook was taught with.
  • I would also reccommend Patrick Lencioni's books, which probably substitute for an MBA when it comes to management and HR

Major Areas

  • Selection - development and adminstration of tests (w/ a goal of predicting who will become an effective employee in a particular job)
  • Training and Development - material that teaches new employees how to do their jobs and more established employees how to do new jobs and adapt to changes
  • Organizational Development - analyze organizational sturctures, cultures, and climates and then developing interventions appropriate to make the organization run more effectively.
  • Performance Appraisal / Management - developing indiviudal and organizational measures of performace and using these measures to improve performance
  • Quality of Work Life - measurement and improvemnet of job-related attitudes such as job satisfaction and organizational commitment

History

  • Pre-WWI (initial): In 1901, Walter Dill Scott was invited by a western advertising manager of a chain of magazines at the Agate Club in Chicago. He published The Theory of Advertising in 1903. That same year, the The Division of Applied Psychology was established at Carnegie Tech (Carnegie Mellon) headed by Walter VanDyke Bingham, with Scott being its first professor in 1915. Hugo Mustenburg also published Psychology and Industrial Efficiency in 1913.
  • WWI~1920s (academia > applied world): Scott and Bingham established personnel files and the creation of performace rating forms in the Army. Robert Yerkes (then president of the APA) developed Army Alpha and Army Beta mental ability tests that were used to select and classify army personnel. Frederick Taylor wrote Scientific Management while Lillian Gilbreth (Mother of Scientific Managment) published her dissertation, .
  • 1930s~Pre-WWII: The Hawthorne Studies at the Western Electric plant in Hawthorne, Illinois (during the Great Depression), where researchers changed light intensities but discovered that workers reported changes based on viewing of lighting, and the researchers realized that social and psychological conditons of work (being watched) were often more important than the physical conditions.
  • WWII~Mid-1960s (large I/O research groups established in comprations and military):Army Research Institute and Air Force Human Resources Laboratory (AFHRL) research centers were created.
  • Mid-1960s~Mid-1980s: APA Division 14 changed their name to "Division of I/O Psychology", doctoral I/O programs emerged, and the 'Division of I/O Psychology' grew.
  • Mid-1980s~2000: Increase in I/O doctoral programs and new issues like DEI.
  • 2000~Today: There is a growth and focus on globalization, a virtual workforce, and coaching and developing top talent.

Job Analysis

  • Job Analysis - process of defining a job in terms of its component tasks or duties and the knowledge / skills required to perform them.
    • Element - smallest unit of work activity
    • Task - activity performed to achieve a specific objective
    • Position - individuals place defined by the tasks performed
    • Job - collection of positions similar enough to one another to share a common job title
    • KSAOs - knowledge, skills, abilities, and (other) characteristics required for successful job performance

Here, the focus is on the position itself, not the person who holds it. The task-oriented approach focuses on describing various tasks that are performed on the job, while the worker-oriented approach examines broad human behaviors involved in work activites.

Task Oriented Techniques

Functinal Job Analysis (FJA) - data are obtained about what tasks a worker does and how those tasks are obtained

Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOT) - tools developed by the Department of Labor in the 1930s that has been used to classify occupations and jobs, consisting of narrative descriptions of tasks, duties, and working conditions of about 12,000 jobs

  • Occuatpional Code
  • Occupational Title
  • Industry Designation
  • Lead Statement
  • Task Element Statements
  • 'May' Items

Occuatpinal Information Network Content Model:

  • Worker Characteristics
  • Worker Requirements (general knowledge / skills)
  • Experience Requirements
  • Occupational Requirements
  • Occupation-specific Inforamtion
  • Occupation Chracteristics (labor market / social information)

Worker Oriented Techniques

Job Element Method (JEM) - designed to identify the characteristics of superior workers in a particular job

Position Analysis Questionnaire (PAQ) - a structured job analysis technique that asks subject matter experts to evaluate a job in terms of the abilities required to perform the job

  • Information Input - where and how does the worker get the information he uses in performing his job?
  • Mental Processes - what reasoning, decision-making, planning, and infromation-processing activities are involved in performing the job?
  • Work Output - what physical activites does the worker perfrom and what tools does she use?
  • Relationships with Other People - what relationships with oterh people are required in performing the job?
  • Job Context - in what pysical or social contexts is the work performed?
  • Other Job Characteristics - what activites, conditions, or characteristics are relevant to the job?

Common-metric Questionnaire (CMQ) - attempts to improve the generalizability of worker-oriented approaches through the use of items focused on slighly less general work behaviors

Strategic Job Analysis - considers the status of jobs as they currently exist but also factors in how jobs are likely to change in the future as a result of anticipated organizational or industrial changes

  • Job Description - written statement of what jobholders actually do, how they do it, and why they do it
    • "...and performs other job-related duties as assigned."
  • Job Specifications ('Job specs') - delineating the KSAOs required for successful job performance

Work Design Questionnaire (WDQ) - comprehensive measure of job design to replace the incomplete and narrow existing measures

  • Task Characteristics (autonomy & task variety)
  • Knowledge Characteristics (reflect traditional KSAOs)
  • Social Characteristics (social support & feedback from others)
  • Contextual Chracteristics (physical demands & work conditions)

Job Evaluation - technique that attempts to determine the value or worth of particular jobs to organizations so that salaries can be set accordingly

  • Compensable Factors - characteristics of jobs that an organization values and chooses to pay for
  • Job Evaluation Methods
    • Ranking - simplest method, jobs are ranked from highest to lowest based on their value to the organization
    • Classification - jobs are classified into a predetermined number of grades or classifications
    • Point Method - jobs are broken down into components or factors, each of which is rated and scored
    • Factor Comparison - jobs are ranked based on a variety of factors, such as effort and skill, responsibility, and working conditions

Comparable Worth - doctrine maintaining that jobs of equal (or comparable) worth to the organization should be compensated equally

Criteria

Criteria - evaluate standards that can be used as yardsticks for measuring employees' success or failure

Ultimate Criterion - theoretical construction encompassing all performace aspects that define success on the job

Criteria for Criteria

  1. Relevance - extent to which the actual criterion measure is realated to the ultimate criterion
    • Criterion Deficiency - dimensions in the ultimate measure are not part of or are not captured by the actual measure
    • Criterion Contamination - condition in which things measured by the actual criterion are not part of the ultimate criterion (bias and error)
  2. Reliability - exent to which teh actual criterion measure is stable or consistent
  3. Sensitivity - extent to which the actual criterion measures can discriminate among effective and ineffective employees
  4. Practicality - degree to which the actual criterion can and will be used by those whose job it is to use it for making important decisions
  5. Fairness - extent to which the actual criterion measure is perceived by employees to be just and reasonable

Campbell's Taxonomy of Performance

  • Job-specific Task Proficiency -
  • Non-job-specific Task Proficiency -
  • Written and Oral Communication Tasks
  • Demonstrating Effort -
  • Maintaing Personal Discipline
  • Facilitating Peer and Team Performance -
  • Supervision -
  • Management / Adminstration - all the behaviors associated with management that are independent of supervision

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