Spotlight on Global I-O
Lori Foster Thompson1
North Carolina State University
Greetings, TIP readers, and welcome to the latest edition of the Spotlight column! This issue’s compass points east, far east, to mainland China, where our profession has advanced significantly in the past 3 decades. Read on for an excellent overview of the state of I-O psychology in China, compliments of Zhongming Wang and Bill Mobley.
Industrial-Organizational Psychology Developments in China
Zhongming Wang2
Zhejiang University
William H. Mobley3
Mobley Group Pacific Ltd.
Industrial and organizational (I-O) psychology in China has developed significantly over the past decade. This development has been in the context of China’s rapid economic growth; globalization in terms of both multinational firms’ increasing investment in China as well as Chinese organizations, be they state enterprises, private firms, or joint ventures, becoming more competitive and global in their strategy; and high demand for talent, including I-O psychologists. In this article, the general progress of I-O psychology in China is reviewed and several trends are discussed. The emerging problem-driven and integrated approaches to I-O psychology research, as well as the demand for multilingual I-O psychologists, are highlighted.
Although industrial psychology in China started in the late 1930s, it was not until the 1980s that it gained its momentum under the new era of economic reform and open-to-outside-world policy (Wang, 1993). In a review and theory-building chapter of industrial and organizational psychology, Wang (1995) summarized the role and development of industrial and organizational psychology in China based upon Chinese cultural tradition and recent management reform practices. Several Chinese cultural traditions in management have affected I-O psychology in the country, including the group approach, the harmony concept, the equality mentality, and the organizational commitment. In recent years, I-O psychology has witnessed significant developments in three areas: (a) professional program development, (b) problem-driven research, and (c) globally integrated collaboration in relation to key issues in the social and economic development of China. With the continuous growth of the economy and rapid development of internationalization in China, I-O psychology is becoming one of the most widely applied disciplines.
Professional Program Development
As a program of study, industrial psychology was first established at Hangzhou University in the early 1980s under the general guidance of the late professor Li Chen, who was the 1930s founder of Chinese industrial psychology. It was the economic reform in China that stimulated the nationwide needs for industrial and organizational applications and development. Since 1980, industrial psychology has become an important area of psychological research and a special concentration for graduate programs of psychology, especially active among psychology programs at East-China Normal University, Beijing Normal University, and the Institute of Psychology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. In 1990, the industrial psychology program at Hangzhou University (now Zhejiang University) was awarded the National Academic Key Program and the National Laboratory of Industrial Psychology distinctions. There was a nationwide movement to widen the program areas, and the industrial psychology program then transitioned into a broader “applied” psychology program to include key areas of industrial, organizational, social, and clinical psychology. Industrial and organizational psychology was becoming more and more linked with global research development and academic upgrading on the one hand and on the other hand more geared with professional/practitioner jobs applying psychology. Since 2009, universities in China have started to emphasize professional education by offering a newly launched professional degree program of applied psychology, with the first set of programs at Peking University, Zhejiang University, Nankai University, Nanjing Normal University, and East-China Normal University in 2010. The professional program development of applied psychology has built a special concentration in industrial and organizational psychology with an emphasis on occupational skills in personnel selection, compensation, organizational change, and entrepreneurship. This has signified that I-O psychology is no longer just an academic discipline and that I-O psychologist is formally recognized as a profession in China.
Problem-Driven Research
While the educational program of I-O psychology was adjusted and transformed into applied psychology from the 1990s, the Chinese I-O psychology Division of the Chinese Psychological Association has been an active academic group, characterized by its cultural–social orientation and linked with economic reform practices and joint efforts with practitioners. Much of the recent research activities among I-O psychologists are carried out under the second significant development in Chinese I-O psychology, that is, a problem-driven approach, in the following areas:
• Work motivation for core employees and reward/compensation strategy with a concern for low income groups and justice perceptions. More efforts have also been made in strategic competence modeling, comprehensive personality and values assessment, and HR strategies.
• Group dynamics and team effectiveness among R&D groups and virtual teams among Internet businesses, as well as entrepreneurial team development and cross-cultural/global teamwork.
• Personnel selection and assessment centers are still hot topics in China. More research has been carried out in the areas of leadership competence modeling, comprehensive assessment centers with validation (tests, in-basket tasks, leaderless group discussion, field site visits with total-solution recommendations) and career development packages.
• Organizational decision making in key areas such as strategic change decisions, participative leadership, and global business strategies. A recent focus has been on organizational learning, psychological safety, and accountability in the face of high-growth and high-uncertainty business environments.
• Cross-cultural management and global leadership. A new emphasis has developed, shifting from managing foreign expatriates in China to how Chinese managers can more effectively operate overseas. In addition, corporate culture is still an active area of research and development in relation to global entrepreneurship.
• Organizational change and entrepreneurship research in relation to rapid developments in mergers and acquisitions, growth in Internet mobile business, corporate entrepreneurship, green entrepreneurship, and global business.
New directions in Chinese industrial and organizational psychology reflect significant theory development, problem-driven systematic research, and a holistic approach.
Globally Integrated Collaboration
The third significant area of development in Chinese I-O psychology has been the more integrated collaborative research supported by various international foundations, agencies, and organizations. Some examples of significant projects in which researchers from different countries are working closely and effectively include the following:
• Psychological factors and action modeling in small- and medium-sized enterprise firms’ success in 350 Chinese firms and 350 German firms, a key project partially supported by the Chinese National Science Foundation and German Finance Association (German DFG);
• Strategic human resources and psychological mechanisms for 800 Chinese firms under collaboration supported by the Ministries of Science & Technology China and the Royal Academy of Sciences, Netherlands;
• Organizational learning and strategic change decision making in collaboration among professors from Zhejiang University and Harvard Business School.
Talent Constraints
In China, as in the Western world, many I-O psychologists are pursuing careers in business schools and consulting. And, as with many other disciplines in China, there is an encouraging flow of talent in the early career pipeline but an imbalance of supply and demand in the mid-and later-career talent pipelines. Thus, demand is quite high for mid- and later-stage PhD-level I-O psychologists in both academia and in consulting. In particular, there is a need for talent that is bilingual and can contribute to Western firm and management effectiveness in China as well as Chinese firm and management effectiveness in China and abroad. Returning Chinese, who have studied and worked abroad, are helping alleviate this constraint. More western I-O psychologists learning Chinese would be a welcome development as well.
In general, I-O psychology has developed very rapidly in China. The professional program development, the problem-driven approach, and globally integrated collaboration are among the most significant advances. The Chinese SIOP is looking forward to working more closely with SIOP in the near future.
Concluding Editorial
So there you have it, an enlightening summary of I-O psychology in China, which offers many exciting challenges and opportunities for I-O psychologists worldwide, as well as a notable flow of talent in the early career pipeline to contribute to the future of our profession.
1 As always, your comments and suggestions regarding this column are most welcome. Please feel free to e-mail me: lfthompson@ncsu.edu.
2 Professor Zhongming Wang is the president of Chinese SIOP and director of the Global Entrepreneurship Research Center at Zhejiang University. E-mail: zmwang@zju.edu.cn
3 Professor William Mobley is the chairman of Mobley Group Pacific Ltd., professor emeritus at China Europe International Business School in Shanghai, and visiting chair professor of Management at the University of Macau. E-mail: WilliamM@mobleygrouppacific.com
References
Wang, Z. M. (1993). Psychology in China: A review dedicated to Li Chen. Annual Review of Psychology, 44, 87–116.
Wang, Z. M. (1995). Culture, economic reform and the role of industrial and organizational psychology in China. In M. D. Dunnette & L. M. Hough (Eds.), Handbook of industrial and organizational psychology, (2nd ed., pp. 689-726). Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press.