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Explain The Events That Have Shaped The Field Of I/O Psychology

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The events that have shaped the field of I/O psychology since the 1960s are varied and yet conventional wisdom would have it that the field has bifurcated between science and application. The desire is for one to underpin the other but without the assistance of practitioners to help industry understand the purpose, it would seem that the field may be doomed to always explicate events rather than shape them (May, n.d.). 1960s In the 1960s the Equal Pay Act and the Civil Rights Act were passed and the government placed strict guidelines on organizations pertaining to their hiring and remuneration practices. In addition Participative Management was starting to gain a hold. This style of management relies on the notion that if an employee invests their time, energy and innovation in an organization, then should have a say in the decisions the organization makes (Pardo-del-Val, Martinez-Fuentes, & Roig-Dobón, …show more content…

This type of feedback mechanism relies on feedback being provided by an employee’s colleagues, supervisors and subordinates coupled with a self-evaluation (Janssen, Lam, & Huang, 2010, Lepsinger, & Lucia, 2009). Here was the closest relationship in the focus between industry and the field of I/O psychology with the notion of fairness in the evaluation process and equity and fairness in society. 1990s Feedback gave way to Talent Management in the 1990s and the ability to measure and predict performance. Talent Management is the art of predicting human capital needs for an organization and then planning how to meet those needs. It was popularized by McKinsey in this decade (Chambers et al, 1998). At this time, I/O psychologists were focusing on cognitive ability tests, personality inventories, biodata, and structured interviews. At this point the field of I/O psychology was underpinning the trends of organizations (Solon, 2015).

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