The case for psychology in human resource management research

• Date: 01 January 2020
• Author: Ashlea C. Troth,David E. Guest
• Published date: 01 January 2020
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1748-8583.12237

PROVOCATION PAPER

The case for psychology in human resource

management research

Ashlea C. Troth

1

|David E. Guest

2

1

Griffith Business School, Griffith University

2

Emeritus Professor of Organizational

Psychology and Human Resource

Management, King's Business School, King's

College

Correspondence

Ashlea C. Troth, Griffith Business School,

Griffith University, Brisbane, QLD, Australia

4111.

Email: a.troth@griffith.edu.au

Abstract

A recent literature has developed criticising the growing

influence of a psychological perspective within research on

human resource management (HRM). This paper addresses

and rebuts the various criticisms and outlines the positive

contribution of work and organisational psychology to

HRM research. In looking to the future and the continuing

development of HRM research, we argue that there is a

need to engage in research that is multidisciplinary,

multilevel, multistakeholder, and multimethod. We propose

a number of research topics that meet these criteria and

to which work and organisational psychology can offer a

distinctive contribution. We call for other disciplines to

make a more positive contribution to ensure that HRM

research continues to flourish.

KEYWORDS

economics, industrial relations, multidisciplinary, multilevel,

psychology, strategy

1|INTRODUCTION

Analysis of human resource management (HRM) journals reveals the extensive use of psychological concepts and

theories. This has not gone unnoticed by scholars from other disciplines who have sometimes been critical of what

they see as the unwelcome but increasingly widespread role of psychology within HRM research, what Godard

(2014) termed the psychologisation of HRM. Their criticisms, which have surfaced among other places in previous

HRMJ provocations, raise a number of concerns. They matter because behind them is the implication that a psycho-

logical perspective either threatens progress in HRM research or sends it in the wrong direction (Harley, 2015;

Kaufman, 2012, 2015a; Siebert, Martin, & Bozic, 2016). For example, they argue that psychological research is exces-

sively managerial and unitarist that it is highly individualistic and is overly wedded to a quantitative methodology.

These kinds of gross generalisations require a response which, to date, has not been forthcoming.

Received: 14 June 2017 Revised: 17 February 2019 Accepted: 13 March 2019

DOI: 10.1111/1748-8583.12237

34 © 2019 John Wiley & Sons Ltd wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/hrmj Hum Resour Manag J. 2020;30:34–48.