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About This Site

“[F]or most of people, across most of their lives, work is the activity they spend more time on than any other activity except sleep. Work is central to how many people define themselves as individuals, not to mention being an important source of both material (pay, benefits, etc.) and symbolic (pride, emotional support, etc.) resources” (Sinclair, 2017, p. 1).

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In Industrial/Organizational Psychology: An Applied Approach, Aamodt (2023, p. 2) described a day in the life of a typical person in this manner:

 

  • Work = 8 hours

  • Commute to work = 1 hour

  • Watch TV = 3 hours

  • Sleep = 8 hours

  • Prepare and eat meals = 2 hours

  • Other = 2 hours

 

Incredibly, when given a choice to work or stop working, many of us would choose to keep on working!

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From 1973 to 1996, the National Research Council asked people one simple question, “If you were to get enough money to live as comfortably as you would like for the rest of your life, would you continue to work or would you stop working?” Over the span of two decades, 7 out of 10 people said that they would keep on working (NRC, 1999).

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“Work is clearly one of the most important domains of life, whether it is evaluated in terms of the proportion of a person’s waking life that is devoted to it or in terms of how it is related to the overall quality of life” (Campbell, Converse, & Rodgers, 1976, p. 318).

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What’s different about WorkplacePsychology.Net

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WorkplacePsychology.Net features scholarly and engaging contents about leadership development, talent development, talent management, learning & development, and industrial and organizational psychology.

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(1) Coverage of the world of work (the workplace and workers) from a scholarly perspective. The references cited are from reputable sources (e.g., textbooks, academic journals, and websites like Harvard Business Review and Wall Street Journal).

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(2) Information is presented in a clear, concise, and easy-to-understand manner. A major flaw of industrial-organizational psychology is that information is often packaged in academic jargon and is delivered to the audience in a long-winded, complicated, and/or boring manner. I’ll do my best to avoid those same mistakes on this site.

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WorkplacePsychology.Net is honored to be listed as a peer-reviewed resource in MERLOT (Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching), a digital library for instructors using technology in higher education.

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My writing style—guided by a desire to express myself in clear, concise, jargon-free, and nontechnical language—is inspired by this quote: 

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“Any one who wishes to become a good writer should endeavour, before he allows himself to be tempted by the more showy qualities, to be direct, simple, brief, vigorous, and lucid.” -H. W. Fowler (The King’s English)

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This blog focuses on these areas: Industrial and Organizational (I-O) Psychology, Talent Development, and Learning & Development (L&D).

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Industrial and Organizational (I-O) Psychology: I-O psychology studies people, work behavior (performance of tasks), and work settings to understand how behavior can be influenced, changed, and enhanced to benefit employees & organizations (Zedeck, 2011).

 

Talent Development: building the knowledge, skills, and abilities of others and helping them develop and achieve their potential so that the organizations they work for can succeed and grow (Bingham, 2014).

 

Learning & Development (L&D): Learning and development (L&D) is concerned with how individuals or groups acquire (get something that already exists) or create (make something completely new) knowledge and skills which enable them to perform and grow in their current or future occupational role (Sadler-Smith, 2006).

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I am fascinated about ways to make people and organizations more effective, by employee work behaviors, and by the impact of work and the workplaces on employees’ health and well-being and, vice versa, how employees’ behaviors, health, and well-being affect their jobs and the organizations that employ them.

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IMPORTANT NOTE: WorkplacePsychology.Net does NOT accept solicitations for guest articles, infographics, links, or ads.

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Thanks for visiting,

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Steve Nguyen, Ph.D.
Organizational & Leadership Development Leader

 

References

 

Aamodt, M. G. (2023). Industrial/organizational psychology: An applied approach (9th ed.). Cengage Learning.

 

Aguirre, D., Brown, A., & Harshak, A. (2010, October 5). Making change happen, and making it stick: Delivering sustainable organizational change. Strategy&.  http://www.strategyand.pwc.com/reports/making-change-happen-making-stick-2

 

Bingham, T. (2014). Talent Development. Association for Talent Development. https://www.td.org/insights/talent-development

 

Campbell, A., Converse, P. E., & Rodgers, W. L. (1976). The quality of American life: Perceptions, evaluations, and satisfactions. Russell Sage Foundation.

 

National Research Council. (1999). The changing nature of work: Implications for occupational analysis. National Academies Press.

 

Sadler-Smith, E. (2006). Learning and Development for Managers: Perspectives from Research and Practice. Blackwell Publishing.

 

Sinclair, R. R. (2017). Inaugural Editorial: Help on the Way. Occupational Health Science, 1, 1-10. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41542-017-0007-z

 

Zedeck, S. (Ed.). (2011). APA handbook of industrial and organizational psychology: Vol. 1. Building and developing the organization. American Psychological Association.

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