A Global Context: Future Goals of Work and Organizational Psychology and Demands of Civil Society

Abstract

The research in the psychology of work and organization has placed as the center of its interests at the beginning the individual needs and, subsequently, organizational needs. A strong element of discontinuity would be to change the focus, concentrating on the demands of civil society. These are the main requirements that emerge from a certain political, economic, and cultural demand; instances that influence the life, development, and decline of organizations. A precise connection between an organization’s political choices, economic strategies, and organizational practices exists. This connection is mostly manifested along four themes: environment, health, knowledge, and equity, which can be innovatively investigated by inverting the priority given to levels of analysis; not individual, group, organization, and society but rather, society, organization, group, and individual.