Spotlight on Global I-O
Lori Foster Thompson1
North Carolina State University
1 As always, your comments and suggestions regarding this column are most welcome. Please feel free to e-mail me: lfthompson@ncsu.edu.
Greetings TIP readers, and welcome to the July edition of the Spotlight column! Whether you’re a practitioner working in an applied setting or an academician concentrating on research and education, chances are you’ve got plenty to keep you busy this summer. As budgets tighten and professional responsibilities expand, many people find themselves longing for more hours in the day. Are you searching for an environment where you can leave work prior to sundown for once? If so, this column is for you! This issue provides an introduction to I-O psychology in Sweden, where inside sources say you’re unlikely to find many of our colleagues burning the midnight oil this time of year. To get a better handle on the state of Swedish I-O, I interviewed Per Tillman, who works for Personnel Decisions International in Stockholm. Read on for details.
I-O Psychology in Sweden
Per T. E. Tillman
Personnel Decisions International
Q: Can you give us some background information about the geographic and economic context in which Swedish I-O psychology operates?
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A: Certainly. The following excerpts from Wikipedia (2009) provide an accurate portrayal of the broader environment in which I-O psychology functions here.
Sweden, officially the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden has land borders with Norway to the west and Finland to the northeast, and it is connected to Denmark by the Öresund Bridge in the south. At 173,746 square miles, Sweden is the third largest country in the European Union in terms of area, and it has a total population of over 9.2 million. Sweden has a low population density of 52 people per square mile but with a considerably higher density in the southern half of the country. About 85% of the population lives in urban areas, and it is expected that these numbers will gradually rise as a part of the ongoing urbanization. Sweden’s capital is Stockholm, which is also the largest city in the country (population of 1.3 million in the urban area and with 2 million in the metropolitan area). The second and third largest cities are Gothenburg and Malmö. Sweden is a constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary system of government and a highly developed economy. It ranks first in the world in The Economist’s Democracy Index and seventh in the United Nation’s Human Development Index. Sweden has been a member of the European Union since January 1, 1995 and is a member of the OECD (“Sweden,” 2009).
Sweden is an export-oriented market economy featuring a modern distribution system, excellent internal and external communications, and a skilled labor force. Timber, hydropower, and iron ore constitute the resource base of an economy heavily oriented toward foreign trade. Sweden’s engineering sector accounts for 50% of output and exports. Telecommunications, the automotive industry, and the pharmaceutical industries are also of great importance. Agriculture accounts for 2% of GDP and employment (“Sweden,” 2009).
Some of the most well-known Swedish organizations are Volvo, Ericsson, Vattenfall, Skanska, IKEA, Electrolux, TeliaSonera, Sandvik, Scania, and Hennes & Mauritz. Sweden’s industry is overwhelmingly in private control. Unlike some other industrialized Western countries, such as Austria and Italy, publicly owned enterprises were always of minor importance. The World Economic Forum 2008 competitiveness index ranks Sweden fourth most competitive, behind Denmark. The Index of Economic Freedom 2008 ranks Sweden the 27th most free out of 162 countries, or 14th out of 41 European countries. Sweden ranked 9th in the IMD Competitiveness Yearbook 2008, scoring high in private-sector efficiency. According to the book The Flight of the Creative Class, by the U.S. economist Professor Richard Florida of the University of Toronto, Sweden is ranked as having the best creativity in Europe for business and is predicted to become a talent magnet for the world’s most purposeful workers. The book compiled an index to measure the kind of creativity it claims is most useful to business—talent, technology, and tolerance (“Sweden,” 2009).
Q: How would you describe the presence of I-O psychology in Sweden?
A: Overall, the practice of I-O psychology has had mixed penetration in Sweden. Some organizations, typically the large global ones, have well established processes for the management of their talents that are state-of-the-art and well on par with their U.S. or European counterparts. However, there is a large contingent of companies within the Swedish economy where the awareness and implementation of I-O psychology principles are limited. Thus, it is difficult to say that any one generalization fits the country, as the picture is rather fragmented. On the whole, it appears to be the large global companies who are leading the charge in the application of I-O psychology. Further, during the last 15 years there has been an upswing and increased interest in the professional and scientific work application of psychology, which has contributed to a positive trend in recent years across the board. For instance, in a study published recently, 68% of Swedish organizations reported implementing structured performance appraisals in the last 5 years, and the acceptance of such systems appears to be increasing (“Svenska Dagbladet,” 2008). In many large organizations, sophisticated I-O psychology work has been in place for more than 30 years.
Q: What are some cultural and historical factors that affect the application of I-O psychology in Sweden?
A: One of the explanations that has been put forth, which seems to be corroborated with anecdotal evidence, is that from the 1970s through the early to mid 1990s there was a very strong humanistic movement in Sweden—within the social sciences in particular. As a result, many of the “hard” topics that relate to individual differences psychology and measurement were deemphasized in the academic curricula. Thus, some things that are taken for granted within U.S.- or UK-I-O psychology communities, such as the importance of cognitive ability and personality differences in job performance, were less central in Sweden and for a long time treated with a high degree of skepticism.
Another cultural aspect that relates to the application of individual differences psychology is Sweden’s standing on Hofestede’s taxonomy of power distance. Sweden is one of the countries that scores the lowest on this dimension in the world (“Clearly Cultural,” 2009), indicating a very low tolerance for unequal distribution of power by those who do not have power. This fundamental outlook contributes to a society where status differences among people are reduced and where boasting or bragging is considered highly inappropriate. There is even a word for the value of humbleness called “jante,” or basically “not sticking out (positively).” From an I-O perspective there are some interesting consequences of this that have seemed to impact how some organizations work with HR issues. The “jante-principle,” and the strong humanistic movement from the 1970s to 1990s, led to a reluctance to differentiate among people, and steps to do so are considered somewhat controversial (“Svenska Dagbladet,” 2008). Although people can agree in theory that some employees perform better in their jobs than others, there has until recently been great reluctance to articulate or specify which people are and are not performing well. Lacking strong performance systems and data, and being skeptical of individual measurement methods, promotion and reward decisions were often made based on tenure and social network. This led to a paradoxical outcome: In a well-intentioned effort to be fair, the result is arguably unfair.
However, as described previously, the last 15 years have trended toward greater acceptance of individual differences measurement and the application of what one might call scientific work psychology principles, like structured performance appraisals and the use of reliable and valid selection/development tools such as cognitive and personality tests and assessment centers. These practices are now beginning to emerge as standard procedures in a large contingent of organizations and are viewed by many organizations as an integral link between organizational strategy and the organization’s human capital (“Svenska Dagbladet,” 2008).
Q: How are I-O psychologists trained in Sweden?
A: The educational track for I-O psychologists in Sweden is not as well established as it is in the U.S. or the UK. Most people who work in I-O are either clinical psychologists with an interest in the work application of psychology, people who have a BA or MS degree in personnel administration, or people with a business background who have converted to HR. The “I” side of I-O psychology is rarely mentioned. I-O courses—often offered as electives in clinical psychology programs—are usually referred to as “organizational psychology” or “work psychology.” The University of Gothenburg offers a MS in organizational psychology, but most other major universities do not have separate degrees for I-O or “organizational” psychology.
The Swedish research tradition within I-O psychology has historically concentrated on job stress, burnout, work–family conflict, and gender/equality issues where some contributions have been made. These topics are also central to public discussions, which likely helps generate interest for the research in these areas.
Q: How do I-O psychologists in Sweden network?
A: In general, I-O psychology as a discipline is probably less formally organized than it is in some other countries. There are fragmented segments of people interested in the area, and many people doing very good work, both inside organizations and in consultancies. However, these individuals don’t usually come from a common ancestral I-O psychology tree, as is the case in the U.S., and they do not typically hold formal meetings to network on a regular basis in the same way as is common in the U.S.
That said, there are some domestic and international networks that people are a part of. Some are members of SIOP or domestic organizations such as HRK (Sveriges Bransch Förening för Human Resource Konsulter; http://www.hrk.org/). Many people are also members of one of the pan-European networks, such as ENOP (European Network of Organizational Psychologists; http://www.enop.ee/index.php). Others use new electronic networking tools like LinkedIn to connect with colleagues holding similar interests.
Concluding Editorial
So there you have it, an enlightening primer on I-O psychology in the Kingdom of Sweden where there really are “more hours in the day,” at least during the summer months, which are marked by perpetual daylight in certain parts of the country. Clearly, our Scandinavian colleagues are putting those hours to good use, enabling the discipline of I-O psychology to endure and flourish in a unique environment shaped by its distinct cultural and historical context.
References
Betyg på jobbet (February 28, 2009). Svenska Dagbladet. Retrieved May 3, 2009, from http://www.e24.se/pengar24/jobbkarriar/artikel_288567.e24.
Clearly cultural: Making sense of cultural communication. Retrieved May 4, 2009, from http://www.clearlycultural.com/geert-hofstede-cultural-dimensions/power-distance-index/.
Godkänt för betyg på jobbet (May 10, 2008). Svenska Dagbladet. Retrieved May 3, 2009, from http://www.e24.se/pengar24/jobbkarriar/tipsikarriaren/artikel_453841.e24.
Sweden (2009, May 1). In Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved May 1, 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweden.