The Master said, ‘If one learns from others but does not think, one will be bewildered. If, on the other hand, one thinks but does not learn from others, one will be in peril.'

Confucius, The Analects, II: 15

Nik

To TA, JA-C, RA-C, you know who you are, may the force be with you.

Franco

To Alba, Cecilia, Nicolò and Pietro.

Magnus

To Ingrid, Emeli, Elina and Ebba, and to all those people who strive to make organizations better places in which to work.

• Michael Allvin, Associate Professor of Psychology and Sociology, Department of Sociology, Uppsala University, Sweden
• Neil Anderson, Professor of Human Resource Management and Director of Research of the HRM-OB research group and the IDEAL (Innovation, Diversity, Employment and Law), Brunel Business School, London, UK
• Arnold B. Bakker, Professor of Work and Organizational Psychology and Director of the Center of Excellence for Positive Organizational Psychology, Erasmus University, Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa, and Adjunct Professor at Lingnan University, Hong Kong
• Talya N. Bauer, Cameron Professor of Management and Management Area Director, School of Business Administration, Portland State University, Oregon, USA. Associate Editor, Journal of Applied Psychology
• Debby G. J. Beckers, Assistant Professor of Work and Organizational Psychology, member of the research group ‘Work, Health and Performance' of the Behavioural Science Institute at the Radboud University, Nijmegen, the Netherlands
• Claudia Bernhard-Oettel, Associate Professor and Senior Lecturer, Department of Psychology, Stockholm University, Sweden
• Joseph A. Carpini, PhD candidate, Department of Management and Organisation, Business School, the University of Western Australia, Perth, Australia
• Nik Chmiel, Professor of Psychology and Head of Department, Department of Psychology and Counselling, University of Chichester, UK. Past president of the European Association of Work and Organizational Psychology (EAWOP)
• Catherine E. Connelly, Associate Professor and Canada Research Chair, DeGroote School of Business, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
• Arla Day, Canada Research Chair and Professor of Industrial/Organizational Psychology, Department of Psychology, Saint Mary's University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. Founding Board Member of the CN Centre for Occupational Health and Safety and Chair of the Nova Scotia Psychologically Healthy Workplace Program
• Nele De Cuyper, Associate Professor, Research Group Work, Organizational and Personnel Psychology, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, KU Leuven, Belgium
• Jan de Jonge, Professor of Work, Organizational and Sports Psychology, Department of Industrial Engineering and Innovation Sciences, Human Performance Management Group, Eindhoven University of Technology, the Netherlands. Adjunct Professor, School of Psychology, Asia Pacific Centre for Work Health and Safety, University of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia
• Evangelia Demerouti, Professor of Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Human Performance Management Group, Department of Industrial Engineering and Innovation Sciences, Eindhoven University of Technology, the Netherlands. Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa
• Marco Depolo, Professor of Work and Organizational Psychology, Department of Psychology, University of Bologna, Italy. Vice-Rector for Organizational Innovation at the University of Bologna. Past president of SIPLO (Società Italiana di Psicologia del Lavoro e dell'Organizzazione; Italian Society for Work and Organizational Psychology)
• James M. Diefendorff, Professor Industrial/Organizational Psychology, Department of Psychology, University of Akron, Ohio, USA
• Julie Dinh, Doctoral graduate student researcher, Department of Psychology, Rice University, Texas, USA. National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow
• Christian Dormann, Professor of Business Education and Management, Department of Law and Economics, Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz, Germany. Adjunct Professor, School of Psychology, Asia Pacific Centre for Work Health and Safety, University of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia
• Constanze Eib, Lecturer in Organisational Behaviour, Norwich Business School, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK
• Allison M. Ellis, Assistant Professor of Management and Human Resources, Orfalea College of Business, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, USA
• Helena Falkenberg, Post-doctoral researcher, Department of Psychology, Stockholm University, Sweden
• Franco Fraccaroli, Professor of Work and Organizational Psychology, Department of Psychology and Cognitive Science, University of Trento, Italy. President of the Alliance of Organizational Psychology and past president of the European Association of Work and Organizational Psychology (EAWOP)
• Adrian Furnham, Professor of Psychology, University College London, UK. Adjunct Professor at the Norwegian Business School, Oslo, Norway. Visiting Professor at the University of KwaZulu Natal, South Africa
• Stephanie Gilbert, Assistant Professor of Business, Shannon School of Business, Cape Breton University, Sydney, Nova Scotia, Canada
• Gudela Grote, Professor of Work and Organizational Psychology, Department of Management, Technology, and Economics, ETH Zürich, Switzerland. Associate Editor of Safety Science and President of the European Association of Work and Organizational Psychology
• Nic Hammarling, Partner and Head of Diversity, Pearn Kandola, Oxford, UK
• Johnny Hellgren, Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, Stockholm University, Sweden. Extraordinary Associate Professor, North-West University, Potchefstroom, South Africa
• Daniel P. Hinton, Lecturer in Psychology, Institute of Psychology, University of Wolverhampton, UK
• Henry Honkanen, Organizational Psychologist, OD Consultant, Arena Nova, Finland. President of W/O-Psychology Forum in Finland. Former Secretary-General of the European Association of Work and Organizational Psychology (EAWOP), 2003–2011
• Göran Kecklund, Professor, Deputy Director and Head of the Sleep and Fatigue Division, Stress Research Institute, Stockholm University, Sweden. International research fellow at Behavioural Science Institute, Radboud University, Nijmegen, the Netherlands
• E. Kevin Kelloway, Canada Research Chair in Occupational Health Psychology and Professor of Psychology at Saint Mary's University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
• Christian Korunka, Professor of Work and Organizational Psychology, Department of Applied Psychology, University of Vienna, Austria
• Barbara Kożusznik, Professor and Chair of Work and Organizational Psychology, Department of Pedagogy and Psychology, University of Silesia, Katowice, Poland. President-Elect, Division 1, Work and Organizational Psychology, of the International Association of Applied Psychology (IAAP)
• Joana Kuntz, Senior Lecturer, Department of Psychology, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand
• Annika Lantz Friedrich, Professor of Work and Organizational Psychology, Department of Psychology, Stockholm University, Sweden
• Gary Latham, Secretary of State Professor of Organizational Effectiveness, Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto, Canada. President of Division 1, Work and Organizational Psychology, of the International Association of Applied Psychology (IAAP)
• Pascale M. Le Blanc, Associate Professor of Work and Organizational Psychology, Human Performance Management Group, Department of Industrial Engineering and Innovation Sciences, Eindhoven University of Technology, the Netherlands. Affiliate researcher, Department of Psychology, Stockholm University, Sweden
• Constanze Leineweber, Associate Professor and Data Manager of the Swedish Longitudinal Occupational Survey of Health (SLOSH), Division of Epidemiology, Stress Research Institute, Stockholm University, Sweden
• Hannes Leroy, Assistant Professor, Department of Organisation and Personnel Management, Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University, Rotterdam, the Netherlands
• Chang-qin Lu, Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, Peking University, China
• Sanna Malinen, Senior Lecturer, Department of Management, Marketing and Entrepreneurship, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand
• Francisco J. Medina, Professor of Psychology and Dean of the Faculty of Psychology, University of Seville, Spain
• Lucas Monzani, Postdoctoral fellow, the Ian O. Ihnatowycz Institute for Leadership, Ivey Business School, Western University, London, Ontario, Canada
• Silvia Moscoso, Professor of Psychology and Dean of Faculty of Labour Relations, University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain
• Fredrik Movitz, Senior Lecturer, Department of Sociology, Stockholm University, Sweden
• Lourdes Munduate, Professor of Organizational Social Psychology, Department of Social Psychology, University of Seville, Spain. Chair of the Spanish Research Agency for Psychology (ANEP)
• Megan Murphy, PhD candidate, DeGroote School of Business, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
• Katharina Näswall, Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand
• Karina Nielsen, Professor of Work Psychology and Head of Institute of Work Psychology, University of Sheffield, UK. Research affiliate, Karolinska Institutet, Sweden and CPH-NEW, a Centre of Excellence funded by the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, USA
• Anne-Sophie Nyssen, Professor of Cognitive Ergonomics and Work Psychology and Head of the Cognitive Ergonomics Laboratory, Department of Psychology, University of Liège, Belgium
• Jaco Pienaar, PhD, Senior Lecturer, Department of Psychology, Umeå University, Sweden. Professor, WorkWell Research Unit, North-West University, Potchefstroom, South Africa
• Ivan Robertson, Founder Director, Robertson Cooper Ltd., Professor Emeritus, Manchester University, UK
• Diana Rus, Organizational Psychologist, Innovation Management Consultant, Creative Peas, the Netherlands
• Eduardo Salas, Professor and Allyn R. and Gladys M. Cline Chair, Department of Psychology, Rice University, Texas, USA. Former president of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP)
• Jesús F. Salgado, Professor of Psychology, University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain. Editor of Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology
• Guido Sarchielli, Professor Emeritus of Work Psychology, Department of Psychology, University of Bologna, Italy
• Matt Smeed, Senior Business Psychologist at Robertson Cooper, now CEO and Business Psychologist, SISU Psychology, UK
• Guillaume Soenen, Apicil Chaired Professor of Health and Performance at Work, Associate Professor of Management and Head of the Cognitions-Behaviors-Transformations Research Center, EMLYON Business School, Lyon, France
• Christian Stamov-Roßnagel, Professor of Organisational Behaviour, Department of Psychology and Methods, Jacobs University, Bremen, Germany. Scientific Director of Germany's first Age Management Academy (ddn-Akademie)
• Magnus Sverke, Professor and Chair of the Division of Work and Organizational Psychology, Department of Psychology, Stockholm University, Sweden. Extraordinary Professor, North-West University, Potchefstroom, South Africa
• Philip Tucker, Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, Swansea University, UK. Visiting Researcher at the Stress Research Institute, Stockholm University, Sweden
• Daniela Ulber, Professor of Organizational Development and Management, Faculty of Business and Social Sciences, Hamburg University of Applied Sciences, Germany
• Anja Van den Broeck, Associate Professor, Research Centre for Work and Organization Studies, Faculty of Economics and Business, KU Leuven, Belgium. Extraordinary Professor, Optentia Research Program, North West University, Potchefstroom, South Africa
• Rolf van Dick, Professor of Social Psychology and Director of the Center for Leadership and Behavior in Organizations, Goethe University, Frankfurt, Germany. Visiting Professor at the Work Research Institute (AFI), Oslo, Norway
• Matti Vartiainen, Professor of Work and Organizational Psychology, Department of Industrial Engineering and Management, Aalto University, Helsinki, Finland
• Mo Wang, R. Perry Frankland Professor of Management and Director of Human Resource Research Center, Department of Management, Warrington College of Business Administration, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, USA. Past president of the Society for Occupational Health Psychology (SOHP)
• Vicky Ward, Head of Occupational Health and Wellbeing Strategy, Network Rail, UK. A qualified nurse, with over 20 years' experience in health and well-being
• Amanda Woods, Doctoral graduate student researcher, Department of Psychology, Rice University, Texas, USA
• Stephen A. Woods, Professor of Work and Organizational Psychology and Head of Department, Department of People and Organizations, Surrey Business School, University of Surrey, UK, and a Chartered Occupational Psychologist
• Fred R. H. Zijlstra, Professor of Work and Organizational Psychology, Vice-Dean Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience, Department of Work and Social Psychology, Maastricht University, the Netherlands

Current times are exciting, not least for work and organizational psychology. Profound economic changes are taking place because of globalization and technological innovations. Also the workforce is changing as more women, aged workers and workers from ethnic minorities are employed than ever before. In addition, in many countries the level of education is historically high and expectations about work have increased; rather than working only for their pay check, today's employees demand meaningful work.

These changes trickle down to organizations and employees' jobs. Today's workplaces are characterized by continuous change (instead of stability); horizontal networks (instead of vertical hierarchies); self-control and empowerment (instead of external supervision and control); accountability and employability (instead of dependence on the organization); blurred boundaries (instead of fixed schedules and work patterns); team work (instead of individual work); and job crafting (instead of detailed job descriptions). Taken together, this means that mental capital and soft skills have become crucially important for employees and organizations to survive and thrive. For instance, working in teams within horizontal networks requires conflict management skills and empathy, working in a continuously changing environment requires flexibility and adaptability, dealing with uncertainty involves boundary management, and working in jobs that are not clearly defined requires crafting the job yourself.

In other words: a psychologization of work is taking place in today's organizations. The usual technical qualifications and competencies need now to be supplemented by psychological skills. For instance, service technicians not only have to fix a broken washing machine (their ‘real' job) but they also must leave a satisfied customer (their ‘psychological' job).

This psychologization of work is, of course, good news. It explains the increasing popularity of work and organizational psychology, for instance in Human Resource Management (HRM) programmes and business schools, as well as in psychology departments of universities. Rather than only focusing on administrative efficiency, HRM is now concerned with increasing employee motivation and performance. Moreover, organizational behaviour is a key element in the curriculum of most business schools.

However, all that glitters is not gold. There are also serious challenges for work and organizational psychology. Because the world of work is rapidly changing, it has to reinvent itself in order not to provide yesterday's solutions for current problems. I see three main areas where change is most urgently needed.

First, many models were developed in the 1950s to the 1970s so that their validity for current workplaces may be questioned. For instance, new stressors have appeared on the scene, which are associated with the use of ICT or the emphasis on customer satisfaction. Also the traditional stress models that associate work with damage, disease, disorder and disability should be supplemented by a more positive approach that views work as enriching, exciting, energizing and engaging.

Second, Spector and Pindek (2016) have recently argued that research should use more exploratory and inductive approaches instead of only testing deductive, theory-driven hypotheses. By investigating burning issues in organizational life, the relevance of work and organizational psychology is increased for professionals in the field. For instance, instead of testing hypotheses about organizational change that have been derived from existing theoretical models, the process of change itself should be described. That way, practitioners receive information about what is actually going on, and researchers may inductively enhance their knowledge of change processes.

Third, although a lot of adequate tools are available, new tools must be developed. Jobs are changing, new leadership concepts are being introduced, and employees need other competencies. Hence these new jobs need to be analyzed, and new assessment tools for leadership and competencies need to be developed. Another important, but relatively neglected area is intervention research. It is important to know which interventions are working so that organizations can spend their resources effectively. By investing in tool development and intervention research work and organizational psychology contributes to evidence based management.

This book is about modern work and organizational psychology that contributes to solving today's problems with today's solutions. It brings together the expertise of a fine selection of top-notch experts, who not only present the current state-of-the-art in their fields, but who, throughout the book, pay much attention to the current challenges of work and organizational psychology.

Wilmar Schaufeli

Reference

1. Spector, P., & Pindek, S. (2016). The future of research methods in work and occupational health psychology. Applied Psychology, 65, 412–431.

Nik Chmiel, Franco Fraccaroli and Magnus Sverke

We wanted to produce a book relevant to modern-day work and organizations where psychology rather than management held centre stage, but where the psychology concerned is related to the way managers manage, coworkers behave and organizations function. We wanted the book to be engaging to readers interested in why people behave the way they do at work. So each chapter title is in the form of a question that people at work could ask about their work or workplace because it is important to contemporary organizational life and where the answers matter to how people think, feel and behave when doing their jobs, working with others, grappling with technology, and contributing to the organization they belong to. The answers emerge, as they must do from a science-based field of inquiry, from systematic research into the issues involved and the careful accumulation of evidence that relates working conditions and organizational functioning to people's reactions and behaviour.

Peter Medawar, Nobel Prize-winner and leading light in understanding how the immune system of the body reacts to organ transplants, characterized scientific enquiry as

a logically articulated structure of justifiable beliefs about nature. It begins as a story about a Possible World – a story which we invent and criticize and modify as we go along, so that it ends by being, as nearly as we can make it, a story about real life. (1969: 59)

In this book our beliefs are formed around questions we might ask about working life and each chapter tries to articulate answers that are justifiable, having been subject to modification and critique through the research process. So what we have are narratives, as close to real life as we can make them with current knowledge, about important issues to people's working lives.

Karl Popper (1991) argued that science itself is a social institution, and therefore knowledge produced by its practice is necessarily influenced by politics, social considerations, economics and the particular interests and experiences of the scientists involved. This book is based, by and large, on a Western perspective, which carries implications for the way in which science and scientists may choose what is important to ask questions about, and what a good answer would look like. Previous editions were sub-titled ‘a European perspective' because the authors lived and worked in Europe and were asked to consider the European context in their writing. This edition, however, is sub-titled ‘an international perspective'. There are several reasons for this. First, although all the editors and many of the contributors are European (spanning from north to south, east to west) they have an international outlook. Second, other contributors are not from Europe; they live and work, in general, in North America, South Africa and Australasia. We believe widening the social group brings more to the table when a story about real working life requires justification, but also that our desire to bring many contributors to the book means an enriched range of particular interests and experiences are brought to bear on issues important to us all.

In his Foreword Wilmar Schaufeli highlights how much work has changed in the last few years and how much it is continuing to change. He characterizes the change as making mental work and soft skills much more prominent than hitherto, placing people at the heart of organizations and their success, and this observation chimes with that made by Schneider (1987) – that ‘the people make the place'. In short, it matters who we are and what we contribute to our organization, both for our own well-being and that of the organization. It is us that are being organized and doing the organization. So it matters what sort of questions we ask of ourselves and our workplaces, and it matters that we understand what type of contribution is made, why and by whom, to our collective endeavour and well-being. The emphasis on people though necessarily entails asking what happens to us when we leave work: What is our work–life balance like? What if we work part time? What if we are unemployed? What if we are moving towards retirement?

We have organized the book into four parts. The first three are: Job-focused; Organization-focused; and People-focused. The chapters in these three parts do just what they should do – focus on jobs, organizations or people, but without ignoring that jobs are offered within organizations and are done by people. Part I highlights that competencies, both technical and with people, have become a focus for organizational recruitment and selection. Thereafter a key message is that when work goals agreed with managers are committed to by employees there is a better outcome for both. Part II points to the ways that organizations gain by paying attention to how well they create healthy workplaces, how people are embraced and come to be a part of them, how well they are led, how fairly they are treated, and how well they are organized into teams. Part III concentrates on how and why people may make their contribution to organizational life as a function of their personalities, attitudes, values, and experiences of their organizations, management and working conditions.

The fourth part is about how organizations may be advised by work and organizational psychologists using the evidence and theorizing produced through the research that is so well discussed in the first three parts of the book. This part is introduced by two practising consultants with an excellent overview of how to advise organizations and the strengths and challenges in our field when doing so. There are also five case studies to demonstrate the kinds of effective contributions work and organizational psychologists can make to the ways organizations and people can function and thrive.

Psychologists trace the dawn of scientific psychology to the laboratory set up by Wilhelm Wundt in Leipzig in 1879, and along the way take in Harvard professor William James' hugely influential book The Principles of Psychology, published in 1890. So the fact that Münsterberg, born in Danzig, now modern-day Gdansk, published his book Psychology and Industrial Efficiency in an English edition in 1913 means the study of psychology related to the workplace is nearly as old as psychology itself. Throughout the twentieth century the field of work and organizational psychology developed at pace, particularly following World War II, with courses becoming established in universities, and associations being formed devoted to advancing research and practice in this area. The International Association of Applied Psychology (IAAP) was founded already in 1920, making it the oldest international psychology association, and its Division 1 – Work and Organizational Psychology – represents the oldest field of applied psychology.

As editors based in Europe we'd like to make special mention of a person who made important contributions to the further development of work and organizational psychology both as a scientific field and as a profession – Robert Roe – who died recently. Robert was responsible, with others, for establishing the European Association of Work and Organizational Psychology (EAWOP) in 1991 and was its first president. The association has gone from strength to strength providing for a European forum to inform work and organizational psychology that attracts people from around the world to its congresses. Latterly IAAP (Division 1), EAWOP and the American Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP) have founded an Alliance of Organizational Psychology (AOP) to further the impact of work and organizational psychology around the world.

Work and organizational psychology represents the combination of two sub-disciplines: work psychology and organizational psychology. We strongly believe that this combination is a fruitful one. Work psychology traditionally embraces areas such as recruitment and selection, career choices, working conditions and safety, as well as stress and health, which involve a focus on individual workers and their well-being. Organizational psychology, on the other hand, typically includes areas such as organizational governance and leadership, employee motivation and performance, and organizational productivity, thus representing a focus on organizations and their prosperity. The combination of these two sub-fields into work and organizational psychology thus highlights the importance of studying, and understanding, factors at work that are beneficial to both individual employees and the organizations in which they work. We believe that this Introduction to Work and Organizational Psychology contributes to an increased understanding of how jobs, organizations and people are mutually dependent on one another. We also believe that the book's international perspective will make it a valuable tool for work and organizational psychology students in various parts of the world.

References

1. James, W. (1890). The principles of psychology. New York: Holt.
2. Medawar, P.B. (1969). Induction and intuition in scientific thought. London: Methuen.
3. Münsterberg, H. (1913). Psychology and industrial efficiency. Boston: Houghton.
4. Popper, K. R. (1991). The poverty of historicism. New York: Routledge. (first published in 1957)
5. Schneider, B. (1987). The people make the place. Personnel Psychology, 40, 437–453.