Prosocial I-O: Quo Vadis

How can I-O psychology assist with the global promotion of human rights to health and social inclusion?

Speaking directly from the Ninth Annual Global Development Conference in Brisbane Australia, our interview with Malcolm MacLachlan offers a fascinating insight into how I-O psychology is contributing and could contribute more.

Professor Malcolm MacLachlan (“Mac”) is with the Center for Global Health, and the School of Psychology, Trinity College, University of Dublin. His research paradigm is interdisciplinary social health science, with foci in disability, international aid, and culture. Prior to becoming an academic, Mac worked as a clinical psychologist and as a management consultant. Before moving to Trinity College Dublin, he worked for 3 years at the University of Malawi’s Chancellor College. Professor MacLachlan has held visiting positions at the University of Limpopo, University of Cape Town, and the University of Malawi’s College of Medicine. He is currently Extraordinary Professor of Disability & Development at Stellenbosch University, South Africa. He is a member of the Royal Irish Academy. He has served on research and capacity development committees for the Irish National Committee for Development Education and Irish Aid, has been chair of the National Committee for Economic and Social Sciences (NCESS), and is a member of the Irish Research Council for Humanities & Social Sciences. His publications include 13 books and over 150 academic papers and book chapters. Mac has worked with a broad range of NGOs, or nongovernment organizations (including Concern, Academy for Educational Development, Finnish Refugee Council, American Refugee Committee, Banja La Mtsogolo), and multilateral agencies (including WHO, UNICEF, UNHCR, OECD, UNESCO). He was a member of an EU specialist group on psycho-trauma and human rights. He recently exchanged an MOU with the Secretariat of the African Decade for People with Disabilities and is a research advisor to the Southern African Federation of the Disabled.

Tell us a little bit about your background and the work of the Center for Global Health.

The Center for Global Health is directed by Eilish McAuliffe, who is a psychologist with an MBA. She focuses on health policy and strengthening health systems in low-income countries. The Center’s strength is in conducting multi-country comparative projects, and it is currently undertaking research in 15 different countries, with a strong focus on Africa. I am one of the members of this interdisciplinary center, and I also have a background in psychology and management consultancy. The other disciplines in the center include sociology, economics, political science, and various health sciences. In fact, here I sit having just run, with you, a workshop on interdisciplinary research for development. What is apparent in interdisciplinary research is the undergirding influence of organizational influence and of workplace behavior. It is something of an irony that, through doing inter-disciplinary research, one finds the omnipresence of organizational behavior. This workshop has been funded by New Zealand Aid and Irish Aid, and it is gratifying that they have put their trust in three psychologists (including Ishbel McWha) to promote interdisciplinary research at a conference run by the Global Development Network. As far as we know, this is a “first” for industrial and organizational psychology.

The Center for Global Health has several program grants focused on understanding and promoting motivational factors among the health workforce in Africa. This work includes exploring the role of what have become known as “mid-level providers.” These are a cadre of workers that perform highly specialized tasks, although with a level of formal qualification that is considerably lower than would be conventional in more industrialized countries. What is particularly exciting about this is that it is becoming increasingly clear that it is possible to train people to undertake highly specialized tasks—such as certain types of surgery—that are performed with an equal degree of success as those with longer training. An example would be a C-section. In Ethiopia for instance, such operations are being successfully performed by people who have had short intensive training but without a medical degree. What is being shown there, and all over Africa, is that by developing appropriate job specifications, the training of health care professionals can be tailored to the jobs they are required to do. This of course is a huge challenge to professions globally, as research has shown that people with such training are equally effective to those who have had longer training, for instance in America.

Does the psychology of work play a role in these activities?

The psychology of work is often implicit in what I have described above. However it is my belief that developing a more explicit role for organizational psychology could help to fine-tune the development of skills amongst health workers. This of course would provide health care to some of the poorest of the poor, at a much more economically sustainable level. In fact, at the Center our major focus is on this new and exciting area of human resources for health (for a fuller account, see for instance Negussie et al., 2007). Another related area of work is looking at the effects of health worker migration on health services in sub-Saharan Africa. While respecting the right of individual health workers to mobility, the challenge is to develop work environments that are stimulating enough and rewarding enough to retain, and indeed pull back, some of those who have left home.

How prominent is I-O psychology in your field?

One of the areas I am involved in is supporting NGOs in their advocacy work. For example, as a technical advisor to SAFOD, I seek to support their capacity to undertake research that is emancipatory in how it is done and empowering in its results. Ultimately such research is about positioning people within organizations and society so that they can have greater influence on promoting the rights of people like themselves. The intersection between I-O psychology and the psychology of marginalized groups, for instance those who are “disabled,” those from ethnic minorities, women, and the poor, is an area sorely needing systematic research, of an interdisciplinary nature, in which I-O psychology and health psychology will interact with other disciplines.

How could I-O psychology do more?

I think I-O psychology has much to offer to civil society and international aid organizations. Much of my work with organizations such as IBM and Shell concerned issues that are equally relevant, both to small NGOs and to multilateral agencies. In fact, it is rarely appreciated that many NGOs are effectively trans-national organizations, working in a very competitive market. I am currently supervising research with CONCERN (which has over 4,000 employees worldwide), and which seeks to promote mechanisms for organizational learning.

From your perspective, and with your experience, how could the profession help, do you think?

Firstly, I-O psychologists need to develop a forum that will allow them to look at what they can offer. This should be a forum with a global output and a global input. Perhaps even a global task force. That task force needs to be outward looking, so that it is seeking to promote possibilities for poor and marginalized people, such as the disabled. I think the new initiative by SIOP, namely for a global task force to be launched at the forthcoming SIOP conference in San Francisco in April of this year, is both excellent and timely.

Thank you Mac, for a fascinating glimpse at how I-O psychology can be put to work in ways and places that many of us, I am sure, had not truly considered.

Reference

Negusse, H., Mc Auliffe, E. & MacLachlan, M. (2007). Initial community perspectives on the health service extension programme in Welkait, Ethiopia. Human Resources for Health, 5, 21.