Advancing theory in organizational psychology

Abstract

Organizational psychology is an applied science. It is driven by a desire to address issues that are important to people at work. Perhaps as a consequence of this applied focus that sometimes appears to prioritize data over theory and applicability over fundamental insight, the field of organizational psychology seems undertheorized. Of course, good scientific research in organizational psychology is guided by well-developed conceptual analyses, but by the realities of research in academia these analyses are limited to what can actually be tested in the particular study at hand. As a result, there is much ‘‘micro-theory’’ limited to the set of relationships that can be covered empirically in one study, but far less conceptual work that is integrative and overarching—work that offers broader ranging theoretical perspectives that speak more comprehensively to the issues under consideration. Probably exacerbating this problem is that academic journals often prioritize novelty in empirical contributions to such an extent that programmatic development of a theoretical analysis across studies increasingly seems to be penalized by the observation that the contribution is ‘‘too incremental’’ in building on prior work to warrant publication (belying the very fact that scientific progress is largely incremental and providing an incentive to downplay conceptual connections with prior work). Yet, as Kurt Lewin, one of the founders of organizational psychology as a scientific discipline, famously noted, the practical significance and value of good theory is enormous. Theory explains and thus allows practice to move beyond an ill-understood ‘‘bag of tricks’’ to better informed actions, and theory guides the further development of knowledge to develop more sophisticated practice. Perhaps part of the problem here is that many academic outlets in the field seem less than welcoming to conceptual work. Despite the substantive number of journals for empirical research, there is a striking lack of dedicated outlets for conceptual work in organizational psychology. While a number of empirical journals in principle are open to conceptual