Lesson in Industrial Psychology

1. Industrial Psychology
Prepared by:
Orlando A. Pistan, MAEd
Psychology Instructor

2. Industrial Psychology
Throughout history,
individuals and organizations
have attempted to
understand work behavior.
By the turn of the twentieth
century, industrial
psychology emerged as a
way to meet these needs
scientifically.

3. What is Industrial
Psychology
 Also known as Organizational
Psychology
 The application of psychological
facts and principles to the problems
within the context of business and
industry
 The branch of psychology concerned
with behaviour in work situations
 It studies how individual behaviour
affects and is affected by the
physical environment and the
organizational culture of the
workplace

4. 2 Sides of I/O Psychology
Industrial side – involves looking at how to best match individuals to
specific job roles. People who work in this area might assess
employee characteristics and then match these individuals to jobs in
which they are likely to perform well. Other functions that fall on the
industrial side of I-O psychology include training employees,
developing job performance standards, and measuring job
performance.
Organizational side – focused on understanding how organizations
affect individual behavior. Organizational structures, social norms,
management styles, and role expectations are all factors that can
influence how people behave within an organization.

5. Fields of I/O Psychology
According to Muchinsky's
book, Psychology Applied to Work: An
Introduction to Industrial and
Organizational Psychology, most
industrial-organizational psychologists
work in one of six major subject areas:
1. Selection and Placement
2. Training and Development
3. Performance Appraisal
4. Organization Development
5. Quality of work life
6. Ergonomics/Engineering

6. Selection and Placement
 This area involves developing
employee selection assessments,
such as screening tests to determine
if job applicants are qualified for a
particular position.
 Involved in studying jobs and
determining to what degree tests
can predict performance in those
jobs.
 Concerned with the placement of
employees and identifying those
jobs that are more compatible with
an individual’s skills and interest.

7. Training and Development
Concerned with identifying
employee skills that need
to be enhanced to improve
performance.
Design ways to determine
whether training and
development programs
have been successful.

8. Performance Appraisal
I-O psychologists who work
in this area develop
assessments and
techniques to determine if
employees are doing their
jobs well.

9. Organization Development
Help improve
organizations, often
through increasing profits,
redesigning products, and
improving the
organizational structure.

10. Quality of Work life
Concerned with factors that
contribute to a healthy and
productive workforce.
Involved in redesigning jobs to
make them more meaningful
and satisfying to the people
who perform them.
A high quality work life
contributes to greater
productivity of the organization
and to the emotional health of
the individual.

11. Ergonomics/Engineering
Concerned with designing
tools, equipment and
machines that are
compatible with human
skills.
Design work systems that
humans can operate
effectively.

12. Question: What are the Fields
of I/O Psychology?
Selection and Placement
Training and Development
Performance Appraisal
Organization Development
Quality of work life
Ergonomics/Engineering

13. Founding figures of I/O
Psychology?
Walter Dill Scott
Frederick W. Taylor
Lillian Moller Gilbreth
Hugo Munsterberg

14. Walter Dill Scott
An individual commonly credited as the founder
of industrial-organizational psychology is Walter
Dill Scott, who was trained by Wundt. Scott’s
status derives from his early texts on advertising
and his founding of the first personnel consulting
firm.
Because of him, 2 books were published: The
Theory of Advertising (1903) and The Psychology
of Advertising (1908).
By 1911, he expanded his areas of interest and
published two more books: Influencing Men in
Business; and Increasing Human Efficiency in
Business.

15. Hugo Munsterberg
Munsterberg, a German psychologist,
conceptualized and studied selecting
the best worker for the job and
designing jobs to best workers.
He applied experimental methods to
practical business problems in his
comprehensive text, Psychology and
Industrial Efficiency (1913).
His book was divided into three parts :
selecting workers, designing work
situation, and using psychology in sales.

16. Frederick W. Taylor
Another main figure whose involvement was
indirect was an industrial engineer, Frederick
W. Taylor. While Munsterberg and Scott
concentrated on individuals, Taylor focused on
the organization with his Principles of Scientific
Management.
Taylor’s ideas served as a lightning rod for many
early I-O psychologists who objected to his
engineering approach.
He worked on the value of redesigning the
work situation to achieve both higher output
for the company and a higher wage for the
worker.

17. Lillian Moller Gilbreth
She broke new ground in I/O
Psychology with her book- The
Psychology of Management, which
concerned the health of the industrial
workers. She was the first to recognize
the effects of stress and fatigue on
workers.
She remarked that the human being
was the most important element in
industry.

18. Kurt Lewin
Lewin was an influential applied
psychologist who described a number of
leadership styles that people may exhibit:
Authoritarian
Democratic
Laissez-Faire
His work also focused on looking at all of
the forces that influence a situation
rather than just taking individual behavior
into account.

19. Theories of Organization
Classical Organization
Theory
Bureaucratic Theory
Administrative Theory
Contingency Theory

20. Classical Organization Theory
Frederick Taylor (1917)
developed scientific
management theory (often
called "Taylorism") at the
beginning of this century.
His theory had four basic
principles:

21. Classical Organization Theory
1. Find the "best way" to
perform each task,
2. Carefully match each worker
to each task,
3. Closely supervise workers,
and use reward and
punishment as motivators, and
4. The task of Management is
planning and control.

22. Bureaucratic Theory
Max Weber (1947) argued
that bureaucracy constitutes the
most efficient and rational way in
which human activity can be
organized and that systematic
processes and organized
hierarchies are necessary to
maintain order, maximize
efficiency, and eliminate
favoritism.

23. Bureaucratic Theory
What are the three principles of
bureaucracy?
This is a system of organization and
control that is based on three
principles: hierarchical authority, job
specialization, and formalized rules.
These features are the reasons
why Bureaucracy, as a form of
organization, is the most efficient
means of getting people to work
together on tasks of large magnitude.

24. Administrative Theory
Formalized in the 1930's by
Mooney and Reiley. The
emphasis was on establishing
a universal set of management
principles that could be
applied to all organizations.

25. Contingency Theory
Lawrence and Lorsch (1969) also
studied how organizations adjusted
to fit their environment. In highly
volatile industries, they noted the
importance of giving managers at all
levels the authority to make
decisions over their domain.
Managers would be free to make
decisions contingent on the current
situation.

26. 5 Basic Parts of the
Organization

27. 5 Basic Parts of the
Organization
Writing in 1979, Henry Mintzberg identified five components to
answer the question 'what is an organization?‘
Mintzberg’s generic organizational model also illustrates an
important principle of organization structure: the separation of
direction and management, whereby those people who decide the
mission and general direction of the organization are different
(other than in a very small organization) from those who handle the
implementation of plans and subsequent controlling of operations
to ensure that objectives are met

28. Strategic Apex
At the top of the organization is
a Strategic Apex the purpose of which
is to ensure the organization follows its
mission and manages its relationship
with its environment. The individuals
comprising the apex, for example, the
Chief Executive Officer (CEO), are
responsible to owners, government
agencies, unions, communities and so
on.
Senior managers (the Strategic apex)
will establish long-term organizational
objectives and policies through which
goals are to be achieved.

29. Middle Line
Below the apex is
the Middle line, a group of
managers who are
concerned with converting
the objectives and broad
plans of the Strategic apex
into operational plans that
can be carried out by the
workers.

30. Middle Line
 Middle managers (the Middle line)
will be responsible for translating the
necessarily broad and general
strategic plans into detailed action
plans, specifying managerial
responsibilities for particular tasks
and how resources are to be
allocated.
 These middle managers will also be
responsible for monitoring activities
and taking action to ensure that
resources are being
used efficiently and effectively to
achieve organizational objectives.

31. Operating Core
These are the people that do the
basic work of producing the
products or delivering the
services of the organization or
company.
In the simplest organizations, the
operators are largely self-
sufficient, coordinating through
mutual adjustment. In those
organizations, there is almost
nothing but operating core.

32. Technostructure
As organizations grow and
become more complex, they
usually develop a separate
group of people who are
concerned with the best way of
doing a job, specifying output
criteria (e.g., quality standards)
and ensuring that personnel
have appropriate skills (e.g., by
organizing training programs).

33. Support Staff
The organization adds
other administrative
units that provide
services to itself, such
as a cafeteria,
mailroom, legal
counsel, public
relations, etc.

34. Industrial Psychology
Thank you for
paying attention.