Thoughts on SIOP’s Strategic Direction
2006 Member Survey Results
Mary Doherty
Valtera Corporation
Every 2 years, SIOP surveys the membership to understand industrial and organizational psychologists’ thoughts about SIOP and the issues facing the Society. Results from this survey are used to guide planning and strategy set by the SIOP committee chairs and the Executive Committee.
In September 2005, the SIOP Executive Committee, along with some additional SIOP members, held a strategic planning session. The purpose of the meeting was to identify the strategic issues on which SIOP should focus to achieve its vision in the future. As part of this year’s membership survey, the Executive Committee has taken the opportunity to understand the membership’s perceptions of the issues identified in the strategic planning session. This article will present information on the membership’s perceptions of the issues the Executive Committee has identified.
Survey Participants
Questar conducted the survey via the Internet from January 30 through February 17.
E-mail invitations were sent to 5,701 individuals and 1,881 people completed the survey (33% response rate).
Tables 1, 2, and 3 provide information on the respondents’ membership status, employment setting, and years since they received their doctoral degree. Most of the respondents were members or students from a university or consulting setting. Note: Seventy-four percent of the respondents who left the Years Since Doctoral Degree question unanswered were either Student Affiliates or Associate Members and probably didn’t have their degree yet.
Strategic Planning—SIOP Goals
During the strategic planning meeting, the Executive Committee identified four goals they believed were important for SIOP to achieve in order to be more successful. These four goals are:
1. Visibility. SIOP will be a visible and trusted authority on work-related psychology.
2. Science and Practice. SIOP will provide forums for I-O psychologists to exchange research, insights, and information related to the science, practice, and teaching of I-O psychology.
3. Advocacy. SIOP will promote the value of I-O psychologists to policy makers.
4. Membership. SIOP will be the organization of choice for I-O professionals.
The Executive Committee decided to include two questions on the Member Survey about each goal to gather SIOP membership perceptions about these goals. The two questions were “How important do you feel these goals are for SIOP to be successful?” and “Where do we currently stand on each of these goals?” Charts 1 through 8 provide the responses to these two questions for each of the four goals.
Visibility Goal
Definition of goal: SIOP will be a visible and trusted authority on work- related psychology. Included here are (a) outreach to the broader field of psychology, organizations, policy makers; (b) promoting the value of I-O psychologists, and (c) heightening awareness of I-O psychology in improving productivity and well-being in the workplace.
Charts 1 and 2 show that although 92% of the respondents believe that this goal is very or critically important, only 21% think that SIOP has successfully met the goal or has made major progress towards meeting it. This large discrepancy highlighted the fact that SIOP members believe more work in this area is needed.
Science and Practice Goal
Definition of goal: SIOP will provide forums for I-O psychologists to exchange research, insights, and information related to the science, practice, and teaching of I-O psychology.
Again, respondents thought that the Science and Practice goal was very or critically important (85% of the respondents; see Chart 3). Chart 4 indicates that the majority of people (58%) believe that SIOP has successfully met the goal or has made major progress toward the goal.
Advocacy Goal
Definition of goal: SIOP will promote the value of I-O psychologists to policy makers. Specific objectives here include increased efforts to obtain federal funding for I-O research and heightened awareness of key decision makers as to the value of I-O psychology.
Charts 5 and 6 show that respondents view the Advocacy goal as very important, but one on which SIOP is not making progress. The charts show that 80% of the respondents thought that the Advocacy goal was very or critically important, but only 18% indicated that SIOP has successfully met the goal or has made major progress towards meeting it.
Membership Goal
Definition of goal: SIOP will be the organization of choice for I-O professionals. Relevant objectives considered here include increased member satisfaction and retention.
The final goal is Membership. Charts 7 and 8 show that respondents thought the goal was very or critically important (73%). Additionally, a large percentage of respondents (63%) indicated that SIOP has successfully met the goal or has made major progress towards meeting it.
Summary of Strategic Goal Results
Table 4 provides a summary of the Members’ perceptions of the strategic goals in terms of the importance of the goals and the degree of progress SIOP has made towards the goals. The results for the four goals indicate that the biggest discrepancy between importance of a goal and where SIOP stands in terms of meeting the goal is on the Visibility goal. The Advocacy goal also shows a large discrepancy between importance and progress. The Science and Practice and Membership goals show less of a discrepancy.
Strategic Planning—Other Issues
During the strategic planning meeting in September 2005, five additional issues were identified as critically important to SIOP and to the field of industrial-organizational psychology. These issues were included on the survey and respondents were asked to rate each of the issues in terms of their importance and to provide input and ideas on how each of the issues could be addressed. The responses to each of the five issues will be presented next.
Issue 1: Improved governance structure—How important is this issue to SIOP and the field of I-O?
Only 22% of survey respondents thought that an improved governance structure was very or critically important (see Chart 9). In fact, when asked directly if the current governance structure was adequate to meet the needs of the organization, 86% of respondents replied “Yes.” The 14% of respondents that said “No” were then asked “What needs to be changed in terms of the current governance structure and why?” as an open-ended question.
The 150 people that provided responses gave comments such as:
1. Representation is needed from more areas (e.g., practitioners).
2. Term of positions (e.g., presidency) should be longer.
3. Governance structure should not be composed of same individuals every year.
4. Governance structure needs to increase the visibility of I-O (e.g., clarify to the business world).
Note: Comment categories1 are listed in top-down order, meaning that first bullet came up most often, followed by the next bullet, and so on.
1 The responses to the open-ended questions were coded by graduate students under Daniel A. Sachau’s supervision at Minnesota State University. The students were J. R. Rowenhorst, Adam Roybal, and Yun-Mi Choi.
Issue 2: Improving the attraction and retention of I-O PhDs to faculty positions in psychology departments rather than losing them to other university departments—How important is this issue to SIOP and the field of I-O?
Chart 10 shows that 57% of respondents thought that keeping I-O talent in psychology departments was very or critically important. All respondents were asked to provide ideas about how the issue could be addressed, and provided suggestions such as:
1. Provide more money to I-O talent.
2. Promote I-O’s value to the psychology department and the university.
3. Provide research support and resources to I-O talent.
Issue 3: Greater visibility in psychology departments—How important is this issue to SIOP and the field of I-O?
Chart 11 shows that 64% of respondents thought that obtaining greater visibility in psychology departments was very or critically important. All respondents were asked to provide ideas about how the issue could be addressed and provided suggestions such as:
1. Develop good teaching tools (e.g., introductory psychology texts).
2. Market appropriately to the public (e.g., emphasize the broad range of work performed within I-O psychology, publicize our successes, do pro-bono work, attend meetings of other organizations [Association of Test Publishers]).
3. Focus on undergraduate involvement (e.g., develop courses and presentations, involve students in research, create scholarships).
4. Emphasize the critical role of I-O psychology (e.g., show the relevance of I-O, show the relationship of I-O to other areas of psychology, demonstrate real world applications).
5. Improve our role within APA and with other divisions (e.g., create more collaboration with other psychology disciplines and with business, build bridges between I-O psychology and others).
6. Encourage I-O involvement in department (e.g., volunteer to do guest lectures, become department chairs).
Issue 4: Greater visibility in the business arena—How important is this issue to SIOP and the field of I-O?
Chart 12 shows that 89% of respondents thought that obtaining greater visibility in the business arena was very or critically important. All respondents were asked to provide ideas about how the issue could be addressed and provided suggestions such as:
1. Promote more media involvement.
2. Promote interaction with other organizations (e.g., collaborate, network, and/or partner with organizations, alumni, human resource professionals, and/or people within the Society of Human Resource Management [SHRM] and the American Society of Training and Development [ASTD]).
3. Promote the value of I-O to businesses (e.g., become more metric-oriented, conduct more return-on-investment (ROI) research and share it with businesses).
Issue 5: Credentialing—How important is this issue to SIOP and the field of I-O?
Chart 13 shows that 36% of respondents thought that credentialing was very or critically important. All respondents were asked “What is SIOP’s role in credentialing?” and provided opinions such as:
- Fully active role (e.g., SIOP should take a leading or majority role, could develop workshops).
- Partial role (e.g., SIOP should advise, advocate, support, guide, work with states).
- Defining role (e.g., SIOP should set standards, guidelines, policies/ procedures).
- No role should be taken (e.g., SIOP should not take a role because credentialing is not necessary or important).
Comparison of Responses Between Groups
Subgroups of professionals exist within SIOP. The data was explored to see how the subgroups differ in their responses to various questions. Responses to the questions above were compared across various subgroups including licensed vs. nonlicensed respondents, between the work settings, and between the membership categories.
Licensure
T-tests were conducted on the strategic questions to determine the differences between the licensed respondents (sample size ranged from 191 to 213) and the non-licensed respondents (sample size ranged from 1,379 to 1,505). The results indicated that licensed respondents (as compared to nonlicensed respondents):
- Rated the Membership goal (SIOP will be the organization of choice for I-O professionals.) as more important.
- Rated the issue of credentialing as more important.
- Rated the issue of visibility in psychology departments as less important.
Work Setting
An ANOVA was conducted to identify any differences between work settings. Post hoc tests (i.e., Tukey) indicated that significant differences were found between groups on six of the strategic issues in the survey. Tables 5 through 10 show the results for these six strategic issues.
Membership Status
An ANOVA was conducted to identify any differences between membership categories. Post hoc tests (i.e., Tukey) indicated that significant differences were found between membership categories on seven of the questions presented above. The following series of tables present the results for these seven questions. (See Tables 11 through 17.)
Conclusion
The 2006 Member Survey included questions about a number of additional areas of concern to SIOP members, such as member satisfaction, license issues, ethnic and minority affairs, the Consultant Locator, international affairs, and the awards nomination process. Additional reports and information can be found on the SIOP Web site that provide a great deal of interesting data.
For more information about the SIOP Member Survey results, visit http://www.siop.org/reportsandminutes/survey_results06.aspx.