The goal of focal articles in Industrial and Organizational Psychology: Perspectives on Science and Practice is to present new ideas or different takes on existing ideas and stimulate a conversation in the form of comment articles that extend the arguments in the focal article or that present new ideas stimulated by those articles. The two focal articles in this issue stimulated a wide range of reactions and a good deal of constructive input.
The Current Issue
In our first article, Michael Pratt and Silvia Bonaccio review the prevalence of qualitative research in the field of industrial and organizational (I-O) psychology and explore the reasons why it is underrepresented in our research and top journals. They explore and debunk a number of myths and misconceptions that impact the method's prominence and present a number of recommendations for better integrating qualitative research into I-O psychology publications, training, and practice.
The commentaries extend the focal article by further addressing why qualitative research is not better integrated into the I-O journals and offering specific solutions for addressing the barriers. One commentary argued that qualitative researchers need to make their research more impactful and practical, and another commentary contended that until the disconnect between the quantitative and qualitative research communities is addressed, we will be left with the current state. Another commentary presents a view from European work psychologists who trace the evolution of qualitative psychology in Europe and strongly advocate the case for this method. This set of commentaries is rounded out by a thoughtful case study of how an interdisciplinary doctoral program integrates qualitative and quantitative methods into its curriculum. This particular commentary also provides recommendations and resources for other programs to follow suit.
In our second article, David Bracken, Dale Rose, and Allan Church present a critical analysis of 360° feedback's progress over the past 25 years. Despite the positive trends resulting from technology and its increasing value as a tool for both development and decision making, the authors contend that this tool's popularity and commodity status have led to many permutations under the label of 360° feedback, which have strayed from the original theoretical and research underpinnings. The authors offer a new definition of 360° feedback in an attempt to reposition the practice and to stimulate new theory, research, and possible innovations. Bracken et al. also provide specific research and practice recommendations to enhance the understanding and effectiveness of 360° feedback.
The commentaries extend the focal article in a variety of ways, from providing specific suggestions for what elements of the 360° process to retain moving forward to providing recommendations for enhancing leader accountability in the 360° feedback process. Another commentary focused on the importance of distinguishing between construct-level disagreements and rater reliability when attempting to understand rater group differences and provided an empirical process for addressing this entanglement.
It would not be possible to publish this journal without the hard work of talented reviewers. I appreciate the significant help and input of Allen Kraut, Lise Saari, Jeff McHenry, James Smither, and Kenneth Nowack.
From the Practice Forum Section Editor
The inaugural practice forum features an article by Rob Silzer, Allan Church, Christopher Rotolo, and John Scott entitled “I-O Practice in Action: Solving the Leadership Potential Identification Challenge in Organizations.” In this article, the authors describe a systematic process they undertook to better understand the challenge of identifying and developing those who have the potential to lead, which culminated in their model of leadership potential predictors, the Leadership Potential BluePrint. They then discuss an application of this model with PepsiCo's Leadership Assessment and Development (LeAD) program. The authors conclude by providing some lessons learned from their experiences to help guide practitioners who are involved with high-potential identification and development.
