The psychologisation conversation: An introduction

• Author: Dora Scholarios,Adrian Wilkinson,Elaine Farndale,Anthony McDonnell
• Date: 01 January 2020
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1748-8583.12276
• Published date: 01 January 2020

EDITORIAL

The psychologisation conversation:

An introduction

As part of this issue of Human Resource Management Journal,we present a collection of four articles that represent a

conversation around the “psychologisation”of the human resource management (HRM) and employment relations

(ER) fields of study. The first article is a provocation arguing “The case for psychology in human resource manage-

ment research”co-authored by Ashlea Troth and David Guest. This is followed by the first of two commentaries in

response to this provocation, “The psychologisation of employment relations, alternative models of the employment

relationship, and the OB turn”authored by John Budd. The second is authored by Bruce Kaufman and pronounces

“The real problem: The deadly combination of psychologising, scientism, and normative promotionalism take strate-

gic HRM down a thirty-year dead end.”The final article in this conversation is a short response by John Godard,

“Psychologisation revisited,”responding to Troth and Guest as well as building from his original article “The psycho-

logisation of employment relations?”published in HRMJ in 2014 (volume 24, issue 1).

This quadriptych presents a lively debate that is occurring in our discipline today. Our aim in this intr oduction is not to

discuss all aspects of this debate (that is done with great passion and adeptness in the articles that follow) but instead to

outline the essence of why this debate is taking place. At the heart of the conversation is the question of whether HRM

and ER scholarship is being dominated by a microlevel, largely positivist industrial/organizational (I/O) or work psycholog y

approach to research questions, to the detriment of a broader perspective that addresses the multiple levels of analysis

that are required to understand the complexity of the employment relationship and the management of people at work.

The industrial relations field of study was built on pluralist labour relations roots, whereas the HRM tradition

focuses on a more unitarist perspective of manager–employee relations in the workplace. Fundamentally, the two

fields represent different assumptions about the employment relationship. I/O psychology presents yet another

focus, which is embedded at the micro or individual level of employees and pays less attention to the employment

relationship per se, instead focusing on how people experience work. It is not surprising, therefore, that debate

between scholars working across these fields has always been lively: studying employees or workers from different

perspectives, each starting from very different mindsets and assumptions.

One of the critiques targeted at the I/O psychology field by some HRM and ER scholars is the focus on a “pure

science”approach to analysing employees. This produces rigorous research that meets many of the criteria for publi-

cation in the top journals in the management field, hence, the argument that such research has come to dominate

our publication strategies. The counter to this benefit is that the relevant research questions in HRM and ER fields

are much broader. The EURAM E-News Quarterly (April 2019) highlighted this concern as part of its presidential

activities that convene presidents of other academic management societies to discuss the state of management

research. They conclude that this theme is picked up and debated in the articles published here.

The currently dominant reductionist scientific approach that (…)promotes quantitative method sophistica-

tion for a more correct identification (estimation) of causal effects –which is necessary –to the detriment

of building on existing literature and theories has given rise to a scholarship crisis and doesn't address mana-

gerial/organizational complexity in a holistic way as managers and other employees experience it

(Durand & Castañer, 2019).

Received: 10 December 2019 Accepted: 10 December 2019

DOI: 10.1111/1748-8583.12276

© 2019 John Wiley & Sons Ltd wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/hrmj Hum Resour Manag J. 2020;30 :32–33.

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