Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2023
DOI
10.1016/j.actpsy.2023.104005
Publication Title
Acta Psychologica
Volume
239
Pages
104005 (1-15)
Abstract
The goal of industrial/organizational (IO) psychology, is to build and organize trustworthy knowledge about people-related phenomena in the workplace. Unfortunately, as with other scientific disciplines, our discipline may be experiencing a “crisis of confidence” stemming from the lack of reproducibility and replicability of many of our field's research findings, which would suggest that much of our research may be untrustworthy. If a scientific discipline's research is deemed untrustworthy, it can have dire consequences, including the withdraw of funding for future research. In this focal article, we review the current state of reproducibility and replicability in IO psychology and related fields. As part of this review, we discuss factors that make it less likely that research findings will be trustworthy, including the prevalence of scientific misconduct, questionable research practices (QRPs), and errors. We then identify some root causes of these issues and provide several potential remedies. In particular, we highlight the need for improved research methods and statistics training as well as a re-alignment of the incentive structure in academia. To accomplish this, we advocate for changes in the reward structure, improvements to the peer review process, and the implementation of open science practices. Overall, addressing the current “crisis of confidence” in IO psychology requires individual researchers, academic institutions, and publishers to embrace system-wide change.
Rights
© 2023 The Authors.
This is an open access article under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) License.
Data Availability
Article states: No data was used for the research described in the article.
ORCID
0000-0003-3083-2425 (Keener)
Original Publication Citation
Keener, S. K., Kepes, S., & Torka, A. K. (2023). The trustworthiness of the cumulative knowledge in industrial/organizational psychology: The current state of affairs and a path forward. Acta Psychologica, 239, 1-15, Article 104005. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actpsy.2023.104005
Repository Citation
Keener, Sheila K.; Kepes, Sven; and Torka, Ann-Kathrin, "The Trustworthiness of the Cumulative Knowledge in Industrial/Organizational Psychology: The Current State of Affairs and a Path Forward" (2023). Management Faculty Publications. 67.
https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/management_fac_pubs/67
Included in
Educational Methods Commons, Industrial and Organizational Psychology Commons, Scholarly Communication Commons