KEY NOTE SESSIONS
Prof. dr. Arnold B. Bakker, Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Arnold B. Bakker is full professor and chair at the Department of Work and Organizational
Psychology at Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands. He is president of the
European Association of Work and Organizational Psychology, and secretary-general of the
Alliance of Organizational Psychology. His research interests include work engagement,
burnout, spillover and crossover. His research has been published in journals such as Journal
of Applied Psychology, Journal of Vocational Behavior, and Human Relations. He is the editor
(with Michael Leiter) of Work engagement: A handbook of essential theory and research
(Psychology Press), and the series editor of Current issues in Work and Organizational
Psychology (Psychology Press). See also: www.arnoldbakker.com
Abstract
Engaged employees have high levels of energy and are enthusiastic about their work.
Moreover, they are often fully immersed in their work so that time flies. The concept of work
engagement is becoming more and more popular among scientists and practitioners,
because the empirical evidence suggests that engagement is predictive of organizational
performance. Research has consistently shown that job resources including social support
from colleagues and supervisors, performance feedback, skill variety, and autonomy are
positively associated with work engagement. Recent studies in this field start to illuminate
how engaged employees stay engaged. In my presentation, I will discuss my research
program on work engagement, and show how engaged employees stay engaged by
proactively changing their own work environment.
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Prof. dr. Rob Briner, Birkbeck, University of London. United Kingdom.
Rob Briner is Professor of Organizational Psychology. His research focuses on the reciprocal
links between work and various aspects of well-being such as moods and emotions. His
other interests include the psychological contract at work, absence, ethnicity, work-nonwork
relationships, and contextual performance. He is also involved with a number of evidencebased
management initiatives. He has published in journals such as Journal of Occupational
and Organizational Psychology, Journal of Organizational Behavior, and Journal of Vocational
Behavior. Rob Briner is currently on the editorial board of a number of journals including
Journal of Organizational Behavior, Human Relations, and International Journal of Work,
Organisation and Emotion and was Associate Editor of Human Relations from 1997-2007. He
has edited special issues of a number of journals including European Journal of Work and
Organizational Psychology , Occupational Medicine and Human Relations. Currently, prof.
Briner is Consultant Editor for Organizational Psychology for Wiley-Blackwell.
Abstract
Evidence-based management: Where’s it from and where’s it going? How do you do it?
How is it relevant to Organizational Psychology?
The notion of evidence-based management (EBMgt) though relatively new and
undeveloped has attracted some support and some criticism. The origins of EBMgt can be
traced to parallel (though very different) developments in other areas of practice such as
medicine. At the same time, the notion that management and OP research should, where
relevant, inform management and OP practice is as old the academic discipline of
management itself. Some of the critiques of EBMgt are aimed at what is perceived to be a ‘movement’ and a particular view about what EMBgt entails. However, activity to date does
not suggest a large nor active ‘movement’ nor much agreement about what EBMgt might be.
Given this context, where might EBMgt be going? And how do you do EBMgt? They key role
of systematic reviews of evidence will be considered.
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Dr. Nik Chmiel, University of Chichester. United Kingdom
Nik Chmiel is the Head of Psychology and Counselling, Programme Co-ordinator BSc
Psychology at the University of Chichester. Nik is a Chartered Occupational Psychologist, and
past president of the European Association of Work and Organizational Psychology 2003-
2007. He is on the policy committee for the British Psychological Society publication ‘the
Psychologist’ and an associate editor of the European Journal of Work and Organizational
Psychology. His research interests focus on psychology in the workplace, and include the
psychology of safety at work, job stress and work engagement. He has published in journals
such as Journal of Occupational Health Psychology and Personality & Individual Differences.
He is an academic Referee of several journals as Applied Cognitive Psychology; Behavioural
Research Methods, Instruments, and Computers; British Journal Of Psychology; European
Journal of Work & Organizational Psychology and Journal of Occupational Health Psychology.
Abstract
Countries and Organizations are both concerned about accidents at work. Many
countries have extensive Health and Safety legislation in place requiring organizations to
establish safe work systems and identify and control hazards, and employees to comply with
safety procedures. Retrospective analyses of past accidents has led to a view that both
organizational practices and individual behaviours are implicated in major accidents, leading
to the proposal of a general accident causation scenario (GACS). Of key interest to work and
organizational psychologists, the GACS proposes that it is unsafe behaviour that leads to
accidents unless organizational/system safeguards and defences prevent it. Unsafe
behaviours are hypothesised to arise from psychological precursors such as lack of attention
or a poor attitude toward safety. Psychological precursors, in turn, are elicited through
organizational practices and the working environment, called general failure types (GFTs).
Examples of GFTs include bad equipment design, poor training for safety, requiring operation
under extreme time pressure, poor safety procedures, poor communications, and poor
management approaches to safety. In this talk this conceptualisation of accident causation
will be examined by reference to other approaches to safety that incorporate organizational
influences on safety behaviour and accidents, and to empirical evidence from survey data.
This approach throws up several interesting questions that have received scant research
attention, and these will be discussed. One result is the acknowledgement that traditional
approaches to safety have largely ignored established theorising in occupational health
psychology that investigates the relationships between jobs and stress. This gap is
addressed by the presentation of a study that uses the Job Demands/Resources Model as a
framework to predict safety behaviour, and which then considers the role of traditional
approaches to safety in it.
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WORK-TEAM CLIMATE
Prof. Dr. Vicente González-Romá. University of Valencia. Spain
Vicente González-Romá is full professor of Work and Organizational Psychology at the
University of Valencia, Spain. Currently, he is the Editor of the European Journal of Work and
Organizational Psychology, and Contributing Editor of the Journal of Applied Psychology. His
research has been published in journals such as Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, Journal of Vocational Behavior, European Journal of Work
and Organizational Psychology, Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology,
Multivariate Behavioral Research, and Structural Equation Modeling. His research interests
include team climate, team processes, collective mood, burnout and engagement, and
leadership. He is also serving as the Director of the Observatory of Job Insertion and
Occupational Guidance of the University of Valencia.
Work-Team Climate
Abstract
Research in organizational climate has a long tradition in our discipline. Traditionally,
a work unit’s climate (e.g., team, department, organization) has been operationalized as the
average of the unit members’ climate perception. This operationalization has neglected the
role that within-unit dispersion in climate perceptions may have to understand work units’
emergent states, processes, and outcomes. In this presentation, I propose a
conceptualization of team climate as a configural unit property that allows researchers to
investigate the relationship between dispersion dimensions in work-team climate and team
processes and outcomes. Moreover, some empirical evidence about the aforementioned
relationship will be presented.
How to Publish in Scientific Journals
Abstract
Publishing in scientific journals is one of the tasks that we, as researchers, must
accomplish. Especially at the beginning of an academic career, this task may appear as
highly difficult and tough. But fortunately, it involves a number of elements (e.g., strategies,
competences) that can be learnt and practiced. In this session, we will focus on some of
these elements with the goal of improving the quality and publishability of our research
papers.
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Prof. Dr. Remus Illies. Michigan State University. USA
Remus illies is Professor of Management, at the Eli Broad College of Business and Graduate
School of Management, Michigan State University. Dr. Ilies's work in these areas has been
published in premier scholarly journals such as Academy of Management Journal, Journal of
Applied Psychology, Journal of Organizational Behavior, Leadership Quarterly, Organizational
Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Personnel Psychology, and Psychological Bulletin.
Currently, Dr. Ilies serves on the editorial boards of Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of
Management, Journal of Organizational Behavior, Leadership Quarterly and Psihologia
Resurselor Umane. His research focuses on topics such as individual differences, employee
well-being, work-family processes, attitudes, leadership and motivation, with a particular
interest in understanding the role of emotional processes in explaining outcomes relevant to
these research topics. For his research, professor Ilies has received numerous awards, most
recently the Early Career Achievement Award, Human Resources Division of the Academy of
Management, 2010 and the 2009 Cummings Scholarly Achievement Award, recognizing an
early- to mid-career scholar, from the Organizational Behavior Division of the Academy of
Management.
Diary Research on Employee Well-being
Abstract
In this presentation, I will first give an overview of the nature and importance of
diary research on employee well-being. Then, I will explain the differences between
traditional cross-sectional research and diary research, and show how the repeatedmeasures
data collected in diary studies can be used to study both between- and withinindividual
difference in well-being. I will also explain how diary data are analyzed with
multilevel modeling. Next, I will illustrate the types of research questions that diary research
can answer through examples of diary studies from applied psychology and organizational
behavior that focused the effects of various work demands and experiences on indicators of
employee well-being. Finally, I will present several suggestions for future diary studies on
the topic.
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PERSONNEL SELECTION
Prof. Dr. Martin Kleinmann. University of Zurich, Switzerland.
Martin Kleinmann is a professor of Work and Organizational Psychology at the University
of Zurich, Switzerland. He studied psychology and computer sciences at the Universities of
Kiel and Konstanz, Germany. After his dissertation (topic: Reactivity of assessment centres)
he received a full professorship at the University of Marburg, Germany. He also worked as a
consultant for several years in the field of personnel selection. His books about personnel
selections are published in German and translated into Russian. Journal articles of Martin
Kleinmann dealing with the construct validity of personnel selection procedures are published
in the Journal of Applied Psychology, Personnel Psychology, Human Performance,
International Journal of Selection and Assessment among others. Currently, he is the
president of the German Society of Work and Organizational Psychology
http://www.aodgps.de and one of the editors of the leading German journal of personnel
psychology.
Construct Validity of Personnel Selection Methods
Abstract
Personnel selection procedures such as assessment centers, structured interviews,
and personality inventories are useful predictors of candidates’ job performance. But they
also lack on construct-related validity. In addition to existing explanations for their criterion related
validity and their insufficient construct validity, I suggest that candidates’ ability to
identify the criteria used to evaluate their performance during a selection procedure
contributes to their criterion-related validity. Conceptually, the ability to identify criteria
might be framed in the broader literature on peoples’ ability to read situational cues. Based
on theoretical approaches and a body of empirical results, the potential of this ability to
account for selection results and for performance outcomes on the job is outlined. Finally,
implications for future research are presented.
Funds and Fundraising Abstract
The beginning work and organisational scientist may have a lot of interesting ideas
for his or her own future research. But normally European universities do not fund research
directly; they pay for salaries of their researchers but not for the research itself. So the
researcher needs to get money from national (or international) funding organisations. Such
national research funding organisations exist in every European country. The way to write
successful proposals is often in some aspects for applicants nontransparent. In the
workshop it will be presented step by step possible ways to write a successful research
proposal for national funding organisations. As well possible contents of proposals as selling
arguments will be discussed. Typical mistakes that lead to rejections are also presented and
discussed as ways to handle these unpleasant incidents. Tips for beginning researchers to
write successful proposals and the funding organisations of all countries in Europe are also
described.
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ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE
Prof. Dr. José M. Peiró Silla. University of Valencia. Spain.
José María Peiró is Full Professor of Work and Organizational (W&O) Psychology at the
University of Valencia. He is Director of the Research Institute of Human Resources
Psychology, Org. Development and Quality of Working life (IDOCAL). He is also senior
researcher at the IVIE (The Valencian Institute of Economic Research). Prof. Peiró is
President elect of the International Association of Applied Psychology (IAAP). He served as
President of the European Association of Work and Organizational Psychology (EAWOP),
Fellow member of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP), and
the European Academy of Occupational Health Psychology (EAOHP). He is the coodinator
of the Erasmus Mundus Master Program of Work, Organization and Personnel Psychology
taught by a consortium of five European Universities: Barcelona, Bologna, Coimbra, Paris
and Valencia. He has been member of the Europsy Project and also a former Associate
Editor of the European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology. He has published
articles in scientific journals on occupational stress, psychosocial risk prevention at work,
absenteeism training in organizations, organizational climate, team work, and customer
satisfaction in service organizations. His research has been published in journals such as
Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Vocational Behavior, European Journal of W&O
Psychology, Applied Psychology and Internantional Review.
Abstract
Leadership and Occupational Health: Research and Intervention
In this presentation, the role of leadership in promoting work and
organizational health and well-being at an individual and collective (work unit and
company) level will be analysed. Special attention will be paid to psychosocial risk factors
and work stress. In order to do it, first, the recent trends in work stress conceptualization
and theoretical models will be outlined. Special attention will be paid to the perspective of
positive psychology. This analysis will provide insights relevant to promote stress
prevention at work. Moreover, the multiple roles leadership can play at an individual and
collective level in work stress will be revised and special attention will be paid to the role
played by leadership on stress from a cross-level approach. Shared leadership and its
implications for work stress will also be considered, and finally, the implications from the
empirical evidence and knowledge available for the assessment of leadership and for
intervention will be discussed. In this point the interventions on occupational health will be
reviewed from the point of view of the theory that has grounded them.
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