International Seminar: “The Future of Work and Organizational Psychology: Emerging issues and trends”

THE FUTURE OF WORK AND ORGANIZATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY: EMERGING ISSUES AND TRENDS
April 23-24, 2018 | Facultad de Psicología, UCM

For further information, please contact the organizers: alfredo.rodriguez@psi.ucm.es, m.antino@psi.ucm.es

The event is free of charge, but attendants must register in advance via email: decanato@psi.ucm.es

NEW TRENDS IN W/O PSYCHOLOGY: AN INTRODUCTION
Assoc. Prof. Alfredo Rodríguez-Muñoz
Universidad Complutense de Madrid

As the field of work and organizational psychology is one century old, it is worth to reflect on its evolution due to changing social and work environments. I will review future trends in our discipline such as increased importance of employee well-being, impact of technology on personnel selection or efficacy of interventions, among others. This talk will also provide a framework for the keynotes of the seminar. The presentation will end by discussing some implications for W-O psychology research and practice.

THE WORK-HOME RESOURCES MODEL: STATE OF THE ART
Prof. Arnold Bakker
Erasmus University Rotterdam

The work–home resources (W-HR) model explains how personal resources (e.g., time, energy, and mood) link demanding and resourceful aspects of one domain to outcomes in the other domain. In addition, the W-HR model delineates how conditional factors such as personality may influence the occurrence and development of work–home conflict and enrichment. In this presentation, Prof. Bakker will give an overview of recent research with the model, and discuss its relevance for work-life interface theory and practice.

THE SOCIAL IDENTITY APPROACH TO EFFECTIVE LEADERSHIP
Prof. Rolf Van Dick
Goethe University Frankfurt

Employee identification with their groups and organization typically has positive implications for work-related attitudes and behaviors. But which role do leaders play in establishing employee identification and on the impact of such identification? In this presentation, I will  first give a short overview of theory and research on identification. Then, I will present empirical studies on the following three aspects: 1) The role of leader prototypicality, 2) the transfer of leader identification on their followers, and 3) the ways for leaders to actively manage the identities of the groups they lead. 

TECHNOLOGY IN EMPLOYEE RECRUITMENT AND SELECTION: WHERE ARE WE NOW, AND WHERE ARE WE GOING?
Prof. Ioannis Nikolaou
Athens University of Economics & Business

Technology has always been an important part of effective employee recruitment and selection. In my presentation, I will first review the most recent work on the ways technology has affected recruitment and selection. I will review both new technologybased selection methods (e.g., gamification and digital interviewing), along with wellestablished selection methods (e.g., on-line testing and situational judgement tests). I will also review new recruitment methods affected by technology, such as Social Networking Websites, and how these developments have affected the applicants’ perspective. Finally, we will provide suggestions for future research in the field.

JOB INSECURITY: A CHALLENGE OR HINDRANCE STRESSOR?
Prof. Hans De Witte
KU Leuven

Job insecurity refers to subjective concerns about the continued existence of the actual job, alternatively defined as the perceived threat of job loss and the worries related to that threat. In this lecture, a short overview of job insecurity research will be presented, focussed on some of the ‘popular assumptions’ in media and consultancy nowadays: that job insecurity motivates employees (e.g. it constitutes a challenge) rather than being a factor that demotivates (e.g. a ‘hindrance’). However, the core conclusion of the presentation is that job insecurity acts as a hindrance stressor rather than a challenge.

WORK-RELATED WELL-BEING AND WELL-BEING DYNAMICS IN THE 21ST CENTURY: THE ROLE OF MOBILE TECHNOLOGIES
Prof. Sabine Sonnentag
University of Mannheim

Work is important for a person’s well-being - and well-being shapes how a person experiences work and behaves on the job. In this presentation, I first will give a brief overview of research findings on work-related well-being and well-being dynamics. I then will discuss how technological change occurring in people’s (working) lives might impact well-being and well-being dynamics. In particular, I will focus on mobile technologies (e.g., smartphones) that, on the one hand, may contribute to the stress process and might interfere with recovery and well-being. Mobile technologies, on the other hand, provide ample opportunities for stimulating processes that enhance people’s well-being.

THE MULTILEVEL APPROACH TO ORGANIZATIONAL RESEARCH: CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES
Prof. Vicente González-Romá
Universidad de Valencia

Organizations are multilevel systems in which organizational entities (e.g., employees, teams, departments, organizations) reside in nested arrangements (e.g., employees are nested in teams, teams in departments, and departments in organizations). To fully understand phenomena that take place within organizations, the multilevel nature of these phenomena has to be acknowledged. This involves conceptual, theoretical, and methodological challenges and opportunities. From a conceptual perspective, multilevel research involves higher-level constructs whose nature and emergence process have to be explained. From a theoretical perspective, organizational phenomena require multilevel models that specify the multilevel relationships considered. To do so, researchers can take advantage of the different types of multilevel models proposed. From a methodological perspective, multilevel research requires specific analytical methods that take the special characteristics of multilevel data into account. The objective of this talk is to present and analyze these  challenges and opportunities from a three-fold perspective: conceptual, theoretical and methodological.

FROM “WHAT WORKS?” TO “WHAT WORKS FOR WHOM IN WHICH CIRCUMSTANCES?”: EVALUATING ORGANISATIONAL INTERVENTIONS
Prof. Karina Nielsen
University of Sheffield

Interventions that aim to improve employee health and well-being through changing the way work is organized, designed and managed (organizational interventions) are generally recommended (ILO, 2001, EU-OSHA, 2010). In my presentation, I will first outline some of the limitations that I see relating to the randomised, controlled design and meta-analytic approaches and I will then discuss how realist evaluation could be used to evaluate organisational interventions (Nielsen & Miraglia, 2017). I argue that in the current literature there are examples of the Mechanisms that bring about improved employee well-being, both in terms of the content of the intervention but also the implementation process. I will also provide examples of how different organisational Contexts may either facilitate or hinder these Mechanisms being triggered.