4.2 I/O Psychology and Organisational Behaviour
Work motivation research is located within the broader framework of industrial
and organisational (I/O) psychology - also referred to in Europe as work and
organisational (W/O) psychology (Salgado 2006). Huelsman (2007) describes the
two strands, industrial and organisational, as being distinctive but with a
considerable overlap.
Industrial psychology – also known as personnel psychology - predates
organisational psychology and to an extent focuses on people- /individual-related
themes rather than wider organisational issues. For example, Huelsman (2007)
describes four major themes in industrial psychology as being: (i) job analysis –
characterising a specific job towards identifying the best-suited individual for that
job; (ii) prediction and selection – identifying best-suited individuals by means of
a range of assessment techniques; (iii) performance criteria and appraisal –
developing criteria and criterion measurement methods for employees’
performance appraisal; and (iv) training – employees’ training needs,
organisational resources, training methods and evaluation of training.
Organisational psychology, on the other hand, is described by Aamodt (2010: 4)
as generally relating to broader organisational issues such as organisational
structures and processes and how these influence, and are influenced by,
employees’ attitudes, perceptions and behaviours. Elsewhere, Jex and Britt
(2008), however, differentiate organisational psychology (OP) from organisational
behaviour (OB). They define organisational psychology as:
...the scientific study of individual and group behavior in formal
organizational settings
(Jex and Britt 2008: 2)Organisational behaviour, according to Jex and Britt (2008: 4, citing Moorhead
and Griffin 1998: 4), differs in that it moves beyond individual and group
behaviour to also examine the both the interface between humans and the
organisation and the organisation itself.
Hueselman (2007) offers an attractively simple conceptual framework for
organisational psychology where organisational outcomes can be regarded as a
function of psychological processes at individual, interpersonal, group and