Recent media coverage has called attention to what some see as an unreasonable use of force by law enforcement officers against unarmed Black citizens. Many of these incidents have stirred widespread concern, as there has been a large public outcry indicating that the incidents appear to have racial undertones, which is particularly pronounced given the fatal consequences that are too frequent. This article focuses on how psychological research on racial bias can explain some of the cognitive and affective processes that could be influencing law enforcement officer behavior in at least some of these incidents. Further, we discuss how industrial–organizational (I-O) psychologists can use this research and leverage current practices within the field to develop solutions and effectively deal with individual racial biases among officers within the law enforcement community. We also discuss avenues of future research within I-O psychology and hope to spark a conversation within the I-O community about additional ways the field can address tensions that have arisen between law enforcement and different communities regarding perceptions of excessive use of force by officers.

I agree with Costanza and Finkelstein (2015) that it is futile to further invest in the study of generational differences in the work context due to a lack of appropriate theory and methods. The key problem with the generations concept is that splitting continuous variables such as age or time into a few discrete units involves arbitrary cutoffs and atheoretical groupings of individuals (e.g., stating that all people born between the early 1960s and early 1980s belong to Generation X). As noted by methodologists, this procedure leads to a loss of information about individuals and reduced statistical power (MacCallum, Zhang, Preacher, & Rucker, 2002). Due to these conceptual and methodological limitations, I regard it as very difficult if not impossible to develop a “comprehensive theory of generations” (Costanza & Finkelstein, p. 20) and to rigorously examine generational differences at work in empirical studies.

It is our contention that industrial-organizational (I-O) science can do many great things for the world of work, but we must first get it out there more readily and fully into the hands of decision makers, policy makers, and the public. This focal article addresses the following topics: (a) Why isn’t I-O science reaching the public? (b) What are good mechanisms to bring I-O science to the public? (c) What are some keys to translation and public consumption? Specific public-facing activities discussed include writing a trade book, writing for trade magazines (e.g., Harvard Business Review [HBR]) and online blogs (e.g., Fortune), leveraging social media (e.g., LinkedIn), submitting op-eds, doing podcasts as a producer and/or guest, and joining a speakers bureau. We also discuss barriers to these activities such as time, reward structures, and skill deficits.

Pay inequality remains a pervasive problem within the workforce. However, it can be challenging for even well-meaning and responsible organizations to effectively assess which jobs should be considered equivalent and paid the same based on both legal criteria (which have shifted over time and differ across specific statutes and jurisdictions) and scientific evidence (which continues to amass). This paper intends to initiate a solution-focused discussion on how organizations can proactively categorize jobs so that pay decisions that are made about men and women are both legally defensible and fair. We propose that integrating the job analysis/job classification literature and the pay discrimination literature (e.g., legal opinions given by courts) will inform this discussion. We first review federal and state legislation and court opinions that have set legal standards for identifying pay discrimination. We then review the relevance of job analysis/job classification for systematically defining and categorizing jobs, highlighting the legal issues that should be but (to the best of our knowledge) have not been considered when undertaking such processes. Our intention is for this article to spark dialogue among researchers and practitioners regarding the identification of methods with which organizations can strive to meet equal pay standards and goals, applying both legal and scientific perspectives.

The debate over eliminating performance ratings addresses many important theoretical and practical issues. However, the academic debate on the topic is disconnected from the concerns of practitioners. Knowledge gained from theory-driven research is not leading practice on the use of performance ratings, despite the large volume of potentially relevant research findings. Many organizations are charging ahead with performance management solutions that seem sensible to them. They may be interested in academic research, but they are not waiting for it. We will argue that academic researchers who hope to influence practice need to better understand the concerns of practitioners and the research opportunities that are presented by contemporary practice.

The term resilience has grown in popularity among the general public and within the scientific community. Unfortunately, the rise in popularity has advanced neither our theoretical understanding of this construct nor the methodological approaches to study this topic. Britt, Shen, Sinclair, Grossman, and Klieger (2016) highlighted important conceptual, methodological, and practical advances and shortcomings within the literature on employee resilience. However, critical conceptual issues remain unaddressed within the focal article. Specifically, in our commentary, we differentiate between resiliency and resilience, identify key dimensions of each construct, and explicate the role of adversity and context to further advance our theoretical understanding of this construct. We conclude by discussing the implications of our proposed conceptualization and refinement of resilience for theory, research, and practice.

This article addresses the tensions between calls for civility and rights to free speech in public academic employment. We begin by summarizing relevant organizational science on workplace incivility. Next come critical perspectives from other fields, asserting that civility appeals infringe on rights to freedom of expression. Following this is a review of key court decisions within the jurisprudence of free speech in the workplace, especially as it applies to academics. We also address the protections afforded by tenure and (at some institutions) unions. Bringing these streams of scholarship together, we expose predicaments faced by public universities seeking to cultivate safe and civil work environments while, at the same time, respecting faculty rights to free speech. We conclude by suggesting compromises between these conflicting aims that would allow organizations (in academia and beyond) to protect workforce dignity without infringing on the rights of reasonable people.

In their focal article, Chernyak-Hai and Rabenu (2018) argue that social exchange theory (SET) needs an update, and in this they are aligned with Cropanzano, Anthony, Daniels, and Hall's (2017) recent critical review of SET. Drawing on Chernyak-Hai and Rabenu's research, we explore two issues in more depth: first, that work relationships are becoming more complex than can be represented by simple dyadic reciprocity; and second, that the context of work is changing rapidly, with implications for workplace relationships. In exploring the ideas put forward by Chernyak-Hai and Rabenu, we draw on Cropanzano et al.’s two-dimensional model of social exchange, with the first dimension being desirable (positive) resources contrasted with undesirable (negative) ones, and the additional dimension being active (exhibit) behavior versus passive (withdraw) behavior. The first valence-oriented dimension fits clearly with the four foci of Chernyak-Hai and Rabenu's research, which cover both positive constructs, namely leader–member exchange (LMX), perceived organizational support and loyalty, and organizational citizenship behaviors (OCB), as well as negative constructs of perceived organizational politics and counterproductive work behaviors (CWB). The second, behavioral dimension proposed by Cropanzano et al. adds useful theoretical specificity that may address Chernyak-Hai and Rabenu's contention that SET needs updating to account for changes in how employees work and how organizations function.

A dominant general factor (DGF) is present when a single factor accounts for the majority of reliable variance across a set of measures (Ree, Carretta, & Teachout, 2015). In the presence of a DGF, dimension scores necessarily reflect a blend of both general and specific factors. For some constructs, specific factors contain little unique reliable variance after controlling for the general factor (Reise, 2012), whereas for others, specific factors contribute a more substantial proportion of variance (e.g., Kinicki, McKee-Ryan, Schriesheim, & Carson, 2002). We agree with Ree et al. that the presence of a DGF has implications for interpreting scores. However, we argue that the conflation of general and specific factor variances has the strongest implications for understanding how constructs relate to external variables. When dimension scales contain substantial general and specific factor variance, traditional methods of data analysis will produce ambiguous or even misleading results. In this commentary, we show how several common data analytic methods, when used with data sets containing a DGF, will substantively alter conclusions.