Evidence-based practice is now well established in several fields including medicine, nursing, and social policy. This article seeks to promote discussion of whether the practice of industrial–organizational (I–O) psychologists is evidence based and what is needed to make I–O psychology an evidence-based discipline. It first reviews the emergence of the concept of evidence-based practice. Second, it considers the definitions and features of evidence-based practice, including evidence-based management. It then assesses whether I–O psychology is itself an evidence-based discipline by identifying key characteristics of evidence-based practice and judging the extent these characterize I–O psychology. Fourth, some key strategies for promoting the use of evidence in I–O psychology are considered: practice-oriented research and systematic reviews. Fifth, barriers to practicing evidence-based I–O psychology are identified along with suggestions for overcoming them. Last is a look to the future of an evidence-based I–O psychology that plays an important role in helping consultants, in-house I–O psychologists, managers, and organizations become more evidence based.

Our focal article sought to promote discussion of evidence-based approaches to practice in industrial–organizational (I–O) psychology. It did so by describing the meanings and origins of evidence-based practice, evaluating the extent to which I–O psychology practice is currently evidence-based, and considering the role of systematic reviews in promoting evidence-based practice. The commentaries on our focal article raised many interesting and important points. In our response, we divide them into two broad categories. The first category consists of comments and objections that arise from what we believe to be misinterpretations of evidence-based practice and our focal article. The second category contains those comments that in various ways extend and elaborate the issues raised in our focal article. Although we are not there yet, we hope that these commentaries will take us a little nearer to an evidence-based approach to I–O psychology.

In this essay we argue for a more person-centric direction for research in industrial–organizational (I–O) psychology. We argue that the prevailing paradigm within I–O treats workers as objects and in so doing limits the ability to develop a deep and continued understanding of the important ways in which humans relate to work. In response, we think there is a need for a more coherent focus on the worker and on the subjective experience of working. After describing the current paradigm we suggest an alternative—a person-centric work psychology that takes the worker as its focus and worker experience as a topic of study.