What is I-O?

CHRM (pronounced charm) was established in 1991 to foster innovative field research by faculty members, provide HR practitioners in member organizations access to field research that addresses their specific organizational problems, and provide a forum for continuing interactions among HR practitioners and I-O and HR faculty at the University of Illinois. CHRM is a collaborative effort involving HR practitioners in approximately 25 member organizations and the I-O and HR faculties of the Department of Psychology, the Institute of Labor and Industrial Relations, and the College of Commerce and Business Administration at the Urbana-Champaign campus and the College of Business Administration at the Chicago campus of the University.

CHRM holds twice-yearly roundtable meetings for HR practitioners and university researchers to discuss issues, debate solutions, and share experiences. Each meeting has a theme that stresses a current and common concern of the organizational members. Themes have included the impact of the Internet and technology on HR, medical benefits, executive compensation, recruiting and retaining talented employees, HR implications of mergers and acquisitions, HRM in the next century, and HR issues of multinational organizations. Two speakers, one with an academic background and a practitioner, make keynote presentations at these meetings. In addition, faculty members describe planned studies in an attempt to find an organizational setting for their research, findings from completed research projects are presented, updates on court decisions related to employment law are given, and a practitioner panel involving HR managers from the partner organizations shares experiences from their companies.

The Center is organized with three directors: One is a faculty member from the Urbana-Champaign campus, the second is a faculty member from the Chicago campus, and the third is an HR practitioner. A Board of Directors consists of two representatives from each campus and four HR practitioners from member organizations. This heterogeneous set of directors ensures representation of the interests of faculties of all departments and colleges affiliated with Center as well as the partner organizations.

A major focus of CHRM is supporting University of Illinois faculty research. Twice a year faculty members may submit proposals for applied research projects. To identify important topics for research, the CHRM directors meet with the organizational partners and ask When youre lying in bed awake at 3 a.m., what HR issues are you worrying about? Compilations of these issues are distributed to the faculty members to guide, but not dictate, their research proposal preparations. Faculty members are free to submit proposals outside of the areas suggested by the organizational representatives if they wish. These wild card proposals are judged according to the same standards of those prepared to address one or more issues from the list of organizational concerns, and many have been funded.

The Board of Directors evaluates proposals and uses two fundamental principles to guide funding decisions: Research studies must be both scientifically rigorous and relevant for the member organizations. The faculty members on the Board of Directors review research proposals to ensure that they meet the theoretical and empirical rigor of the research area. The organizational members on the Board of Directors also evaluate research proposals to ensure the proposed studies meet the criterion of organizational relevance. Research proposals that do not pass the twin tests of rigor and relevance are not funded.

The research funded by CHRM has included a study of anger in organizational managers, multinational studies of the effectiveness of HR practices in diverse cultures, studies of mood and affect at work using palm-top computers to conduct real-time surveys of work events and the moods these events engender, development and validation of multimedia computerized assessment of interpersonal skills, examination of the socialization of new organizational members, studies of contingent workers, and many more. A number of funded studies have supported PhD dissertations of students in the departments associated with the Center. These have included Sharon Arad, now an independent consultant; Berrin Erdogan, Portland State University; Theresa Glomb and Andy Miner, now at the University of Minnesota; Maria Kraimer, University of Illinois at Chicago; Chris Robert, now at the University of Missouri; Ray Sparrowe, University of Washington in St. Louis, and Reeshad Dalal, currently in progress.

CHRM has been a success from its inception. Organizational partners have found value in meeting and discussing key HR issues. Despite the recent economic downturn, corporate membership in the Center has not declined.

Organizational membership in CHRM is $7,500 per year. Most of the member organizations are located in the Midwest but others are drawn from locations across the U.S. including Texas, California, and Massachusetts. The Center plans to expand its organizational membership to 30 partner firms and expand its associated academic programs to include other disciplines, such as education, health sciences, sociology, and political science, that also conduct research relevant to effective development and use of human resources, and organizational functioning.

I thank Charles L. Hulin, Jean Masiunas, and Darold Barnum for their help in preparing this article.