Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology Special Issue Call for Papers

Call for papers: Organizational Risk and the COVID-19 Pandemic

Submissions open: 1 November, 2021
Submissions close: 1 February, 2022

Risk refers to the threats, hazards, and dangers that organizations face, yet risk-taking also brings opportunities. Therefore, risk is inherent in organizational activity, and the recent COVID-19 pandemic has brought the topic into sharp focus. In this special issue, we aim to bring together studies of risk as experienced by individuals and teams; as created and influenced by leaders; and, as reflected in organizational-level outcomes.
Recent developments in the field have encompassed interpretive approaches to understanding the lived experiences of those affected by risk, assessments of dispositions and attitudes towards risk as well as the conditions under which people are willing to accept risk, and connected risk-related behaviour to models of work and organization. Examinations of leaders and culture are contributing to an enhanced understanding of how organizational structures and processes both create and mitigate risk. Knowledge about the effects of the pandemic on individual, team and organizational risks is growing, yet nascent. Furthermore, the extent to which concepts used within organizational psychology to understand organizational risk can be adapted to explain and improve the management of the pandemic is unclear. With this special issue, we encourage submissions from a range of theoretical perspectives and the use of various methodologies that focus on one or more levels of analysis so that we continue to build our understanding of risk.

Potential research questions include:

- What are the experiences of frontline and critical workers, and what are the implications for individual, team and organizational risk?
- What are the consequences of furlough, redundancy and isolation for risk-related processes and outcomes of individuals, teams and organizations?
- Has the pandemic shifted employee perceptions about the key occupational risks they face?
- What are the implications of the pandemic for leaders and risk managers, and the organizational structures they create? For example, how have methods used to manage risk been adapted?
- What are the connections between risk taking and opportunity realization during the pandemic for organizations and the gig economy?
- How have changing work practices altered organizational risk profiles?
- What are the implications of the pandemic for advancing theorizing about risk? For
example, are concepts useful for managing traditional risk-related behaviour in organization (e.g., safety climate) relevant for managing pandemic-related risks?

Other risk-related questions based on organizations and the COVID-19 pandemic will be considered if they can provide clear theoretical and practical contributions.
In addition to addressing relevant content for the special issue, submissions should be prepared and submitted in accordance with the journal’s author guidelines: https://bpspsychub.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/page/20448325/homepage/callforpapersrisksi

In particular, please note that all submissions require practitioner points.

Cross-sectional self-report data - Studies conducted using only cross-sectional self-report data will be considered only in exceptional circumstances. For example, if the sample is exceptionally large, representative or multiple. In all other cases, cross-sectional self-report data should form part of a wider selection of data, including other measures such as longitudinal or experimental elements, corroborating or comparison data, third party records or psycho-physiological data. For more details on the use of cross-sectional self- report data please see the December 2011 Editorial.

For enquiries related to this special issue, please contact the Guest Editors: Emma Soane (London School of Economics and Political Science; e.c.soane@lse.ac.uk), Carl Macrae (carl.macrae@nottingham.ac.uk), Rhona Flin (Aberdeen Business School, RGU, r.flin@rgu.ac.uk) and Tom Reader (London School of Economics and Political Science, t.w.reader@lse.ac.uk).