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.

Organizations are undergoing unprecedented transformation in the area of talent management (TM). Companies are rapidly adopting new tools and approaches in a variety of what has traditionally been core areas of industrial and organizational (I-O) psychology such as performance management, employee attitudes, recruiting, testing and assessment, and career development. Increasingly, however, these new approaches have little to no research backing behind them, and they do not tend to be the focus of I-O psychology theory and research. We call this trend anti-industrial and organizational psychology (AIO), as we believe these forces to do not advance the field for long-term strategic impact. We present a framework that describes how AIO practices are adopted by organizations, and how I-O psychologists often gravitate away from these practices rather than actively help to separate the wheat from the chaff. We found support for our hypothesis through a brief analysis of Industrial and Organizational Psychology: Perspectives on Science and Practice, the peer-reviewed journal of the Society of Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP). In this analysis, we found that only 10% of the focal articles from 2008 to 2016 represented topics that we call frontier—emerging areas in organizations but where there is no research support for them. We propose a set of recommendations for the field of I-O psychology and call for a more strategic approach to identifying and vetting new TM trends in order to increase the relevancy and impact of I-O psychology for our key stakeholders.

We commend Rotolo et al. (2018) for introducing a new lens for viewing the well-known gap between industrial and organizational (I-O) psychology research and human resource (HR) practices in organizations. However, Rotolo et al.’s characterization of practitioner behavior as “anti I-O” suggests a particularly negative view of scientific research among some HR practitioners. The label implies that some HR practitioners are intentionally ignoring or actively resisting academic research. More likely, the behavior stems from a passive indifference to academia, which may be the appropriate attitude for some practitioners to adopt when a great deal of academic research is too slow, too theoretical, and too cryptically communicated to be useful in applied settings. We agree with Rotolo et al. when they say, “we are a discipline that is not geared for being cutting edge” (p. 182), and we appreciate their recommendations for addressing this lack of relevance. However, most recommendations in this broader discussion do not address the foundational problem within our field: a systemic mismatch between the incentives of practitioners and academics. To support this point, we briefly describe a typology of I-O psychologists as well as the varying contexts and incentives that drive their behavior. We then close with our own recommendations for how academia can improve its relevance to practitioners and close the gap. These changes are not easy, but we agree with Rotolo and colleagues that if any field can address such foundational problems, it is ours.

Rotolo et al. (2018) decry the rise in use of trendy, simplistic human resource management (HRM) procedures and practices such as talent management, regardless of any solid scientific basis culled from relevant disciplines such as industrial and organizational (I-O) psychology. Furthermore, they observe a propagating spirit of anti-I-O psychology that has recently emerged and that should provoke our concern. What has ignited and fueled this reality? Correctly noted, Rotolo et al. indicate that I-O psychology academics have, over the years, lost touch with the actual preoccupying needs of managers in organizations. Instead of promoting novel fields of exploration and devising innovative tools and procedures, I-O scientists overly invest their time, energy, and ingenuity in methodological minutiae and theorizing.

I have three issues I would like to add to Rotolo et al.’s (2018) arguments for research foci and with which academics must be concerned as we move forward. We must pay attention to all of what Rotolo et al. said plus at least my three additions if we are to compete with other fields playing in the talent management (TM) space. First, I will argue we have become overly concerned in our refereed outlets with theory to the detriment of validity against important organizational outcomes. Second, I will note that industrial and organizational (I-O) psychology has become fixated on individuals and their differences to the almost literal exclusion of research on the psychology of organizational phenomena. Third, I will present an argument for research on reciprocal relationships—on organizations as real systems—in an attempt to counter the left-to-right thinking in all of our research models.

Rotolo et al. (2018) identify a number of reasons why the field of industrial and organizational (I-O) psychology is losing relevancy, including a lack of focus on frontier topics, which may be most relevant to talent management practitioners. As someone who subscribes to the benefits of the scientist–practitioner approach to talent management, there is nothing I hold more precious than a healthy partnership between the I-O psychology academic community and talent management practitioners.

Better focus on the frontier of talent management (TM), the thesis of the focal article by Rotolo et al. (2018), is necessary but not by itself a sufficient condition for I-O psychologists (IOP) to influence organizational decision makers. Although I agree with the substance of their perspective, as professional psychologists we also need to communicate in a manner that decision makers recognize as worthy of their time and attention. We should pay greater attention to how, why, and when organizational stakeholders embrace, reject, or overlook our insights and recommendations.

The future of talent management will always be discovered on the frontier, and the frontier is always messy. There will always be charlatans selling snake oil and the latest personality assessments. What can be done? When operating at the edge of the map, one cannot rely on having the right answers because the challenges and the answers will be novel. However, adventurers can rely on the capabilities and processes that allow them to adapt and figure it out as they go.

Big data and its applicability to talent management (TM) as defined by Rotolo et al. (2018) has already been recognized by many outside the field of I-O psychology. The market is beginning to include offerings from vendors for products that use some combination of big data techniques to process vast amounts of data or previously unanalyzable data, which they claim will improve components of TM for organizations. Unfortunately, as noted in the focal article, this “frontier” issue makes it difficult for organizations to separate the wheat from the chaff. Further, with few exceptions, I-O psychology is just beginning to inform organizations about whether and how big data can be used for the purposes of TM.

We agree with Rotolo et al.’s (2018) assertion that talent management is a space where the academic–practice gap in industrial and organizational (I-O) psychology is quite cavernous and where the vulnerabilities to anti-I-O (AIO) are high. As researchers who began a journey a few years ago to explore the high potential (HiPo) identification process from the science perspective (largely inspired by Silzer & Church, 2009), we echo the frustration that the current focal authors express with the science-side lag in this area. For us, what started as a question from a senior officer in the Army turned into the development of a theoretical model and the start of multilocation research lab designed to further the understanding and success of the HiPo identification process. Our objective is to share a bit of our journey that got us to this point and some lessons for others inspired by this focal article to become anti-anti-I-O (AAIO) warriors.

Ralph Waldo Emerson is known to have said, “the greatest wonder is that we can see these trees and not wonder more.” As industrial and organizational (I-O) psychologists, we often encounter this very dilemma when we examine how numerous professions rise and fall in relevance. More recently, however, we have encountered this dilemma from an existential perspective as we strive to understand the evolution of our own profession and the situational characteristics making change inevitable. We have fallen into a trap—we, too, now look at all of our practices, aiming to reconfigure the makeup of our profession while losing sight of the macrotrends affecting more than just our evolved existence. Rather than focusing on the smaller issue first, we need to start by examining the broader issues affecting it.

Increasing the representation of women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) is one of our nation's most pressing imperatives. As such, there has been increased lay and scholarly attention given to understanding the causes of women's underrepresentation in such fields. These explanations tend to fall into two main groupings: individual-level (i.e., her) explanations and social-structural (i.e., our) explanations. These two perspectives offer different lenses for illuminating the causes of gender inequity in STEM and point to different mechanisms by which to gain gender parity in STEM fields. In this article, we describe these two lenses and provide three examples of how each lens may differentially explain gender inequity in STEM. We argue that the social-structural lens provides a clearer picture of the causes of gender inequity in STEM, including how gaining gender equity in STEM may best be achieved. We then make a call to industrial/organizational psychologists to take a lead in addressing the societal-level causes of gender inequality in STEM.

The focal article by Miner et al. (2018) convincingly argues that industrial and organizational (I-O) psychology professionals share a responsibility to adopt a social-structural perspective in understanding why women are underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. This approach offers the best path forward for explaining the disparity and improving the attraction and retention of women in these fields (Miner et al., 2018). In conjunction with the approach described, a deliberate effort to cast a spotlight on women of color is necessary, as they are the most marginalized, yet are often excluded from conversations about gender equality.

Miner et al.’s (2018) interpretation of gender inequity in STEM fields as a social-structural problem shifts the onus from “her” as the root of the problem to “us” as a society. However, despite noting the “even bleaker” outlook for women of color early on, the focal article lacks an intersectional focus, ignoring the differential experiences that exist between white women and women of color. Crenshaw's (1991) original work on intersectionality highlighted the fact that the experiences of women of color (WOC) often differ drastically from those of their White counterparts, and the subsequent body of intersectionality literature in a variety of fields reminds us that failing to include an intersectional perspective is an oversight we can no longer afford to make. With this in mind, we highlight the ways in which those at the intersection of both gender and racial minority status face a “double bind” (Malcom & Malcom, 2011), such that they are additionally disadvantaged by society's perceptions and expectations of the behavior of WOC.

To understand gender inequality in STEM, Miner et al. (2018) illustrate how an individual lens and a social-structural lens provide complementary perspectives. They indicate that gender inequality in STEM should not be simply understood from an individual lens concerning individual choices and responsibilities but also a social-structural lens concerning societal structures, processes, and meanings associated with gender. In this commentary, we would like to bring a cultural perspective to the consideration of the STEM field. Specifically, we focus on gender inequity in STEM in Japan and elaborate how Japanese culture, which emphasizes masculinity, collectivism, and a tight culture, imposes a stronger social-structural influence on gender inequality in STEM and at the same time strengthens the use of the individual lens to explain the phenomena, making the issue of gender inequality more prominent.

Miner et al. (2018) claim that focusing on individual factors to understand gender inequity in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) provides an incomplete explanation of the phenomenon. They challenge the appropriateness of individual-level explanations that hold women responsible for the injustices they experience, suggesting that this perspective fails to consider larger social-contextual influences. Instead, to explain gender disparity in the STEM fields, Miner et al. offer a social-structural lens through which to view the situation that relies on commonly held beliefs about women in society. The inequality that characterizes these fields, however, is a worldwide phenomenon that spans societal boundaries. Therefore, understanding the social-contextual factors that contribute to gender inequality in the STEM fields requires a cross-cultural examination of norms and values. In this commentary, I first outline a program of research aimed at developing an empirically supported theoretical framework that explains gender inequity in the STEM fields from a cross-cultural perspective. Then, I review the ways in which cultural beliefs influence education and careers in the STEM fields. Finally, I provide some practical suggestions of ways to promote gender equality in STEM fields. As such, this commentary serves as a call to integrate concepts from vocational, educational, and cross-cultural psychology to address an issue of upmost importance: equal representation.

We wholeheartedly agree with Miner et al. (2018) that industrial and organizational (I-O) psychologists should take a lead in addressing gender inequity in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. The focal article is particularly timely in light of the recent controversial “Google memo” (Damore, 2017), in which a senior software engineer endorsed the same individual-level myths regarding the gender gap in STEM that were critiqued by Miner et al. (2018). However, we caution against painting all STEM fields with the same broad brush. We argue that it is critical for I-O psychologists to be aware of important differences between STEM subfields, as these distinctions suggest that a “one-size-fits-all” approach may be inadequate for addressing existing gender disparities in STEM. In order to be maximally effective, interventions may need to emphasize distinct issues and target different points in the career pipeline depending on the specific STEM subfield in question.

Miner et al. (2018) do an excellent job of bringing the issue of gender disparity within STEM to the forefront of I-O psychology. However, we believe the focus on STEM is woefully inadequate and urge I-O psychologists to think bigger, better, and broader. There are clear problems with the way women are viewed and treated within the workforce, within the United States, and globally. In narrowing the discussion of the problem to target only STEM, we dramatically limit our understanding of and potential impact on the multifaceted and complex gender disparity problem in the world of work. Furthermore, we assert there are additional legitimizing myths that must be addressed in order to yield a more complete picture of the dilemma and allow us to move forward to make an impact.

Although Miner et al. (2018) effectively argue that there is a need for greater efforts on the part of I-O psychologists to confront gender inequity in the STEM fields, we feel that the preoccupation with STEM may blind us to other domains where similar issues not only exist but may be even more prevalent and problematic. Specifically, we would argue that more attention needs to be paid to skilled trades, transportation-related jobs, and other so-called “dirty work.”

Miner et al. (2018) have steered the trajectory of gender and STEM research in a new direction.