The country has been gripped by the events that have unfolded in the wake of the police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. In response to these new examples of long-standing police violence, there have been calls to substantially reimage policing to reduce the number of violent incidents that occur between officers and the public and to combat officers’ disproportionate use of force with Black Americans. In this article, we call on industrial-organizational (I-O) psychologists to leverage their expertise to help actuate meaningful change within law enforcement. To help guide our collective efforts as a field, we provide a review of the current state of affairs as they relate to recruitment, selection, training, performance management, occupational stress, and organizational culture in law enforcement and then offer recommendations for ways to change current practices to encourage more equitable and responsible policing. We also highlight areas in which further investigation is needed and urge I-O psychologists to invest in building the knowledge necessary to inform future practices. We hope this article can facilitate a discussion about how our field can contribute to achieving evidence-based and lasting change that benefits officers and the members of the communities they serve.

Ethical decision making has long been recognized as critical for industrial-organizational (I-O) psychologists in the variety of roles they fill in education, research, and practice. Decisions with ethical implications are not always readily apparent and often require consideration of competing concerns. The American Psychological Association (APA) Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct are the principles and standards to which all Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP) members are held accountable, and these principles serve to aid in decision making. To this end, the primary focus of this article is the presentation and application of an integrative ethical decision-making framework rooted in and inspired by empirical, philosophical, and practical considerations of professional ethics. The purpose of this framework is to provide a generalizable model that can be used to identify, evaluate, resolve, and engage in discourse about topics involving ethical issues. To demonstrate the efficacy of this general framework to contexts germane to I-O psychologists, we subsequently present and apply this framework to five scenarios, each involving an ethical situation relevant to academia, practice, or graduate education in I-O psychology. With this article, we hope to stimulate the refinement of this ethical decision-making model, illustrate its application in our profession, and, most importantly, advance conversations about ethical decision making in I-O psychology.

The paper proposes that industrial-organizational (I-O) psychology will benefit greatly from expanding our research focus from predominantly individual differences to studying organizational differences. We argue here that an increased organizational frame of reference on variables of interest to I-O psychology (e.g., selection, job design, performance management (PM), work motivation) is important because it will enhance our understanding of organizational behavior and make I-O research more effective in practice. After noting some organizational-level research already being done, several examples are provided for how an organizational mindset and methods can provide new insights into traditional areas of I-O effort. Also discussed is how methodological issues that may have constrained the study of organizational differences in the past and the potential new issues such research may yield can be addressed. We conclude that the future maintenance and enhancement of the I-O psychology brand as a science–practice profession requires enhanced attention to the organization level of analysis as our frame of reference for research.