Development in Work and Organizational Psychology: Implications for International Business

Canadian Psychology, Feb 2008 by Lituchy, Terri R

Development in Work and Organizational Psychology: Implications for International Business, by Paul Jackson and Manfusa Shams (Eds.). Elsevier Publishing, 2006, 314 pages (ISBN: 978-0-08-044467-3, CA$99.95)

Reviewed by TERRIR. LITUCHY

DOI : 10.1037/0708-5591.49.1.71

The title of this book, Development in Work and Organizational Psychology: Implications for International Business intrigued me. When the book editor asked me to review it, as a cross-cultural management researcher who does work with colleagues in psychology and in international business, I was happy to do so.

This book is part of the Elsevier International Business and Management Series. Jackson and Shams state that the objective of this book is to "give authoritative accounts" of developments within work and organisational psychology for students and practitioners of international business. The editors emphasise that this book or any edited book cannot be a comprehensive work on all of the areas in organisational psychology, so they selected leading scholars from the United Kingdom and North America and invited these researchers to select a topic in their area of expertise. From this "reflective practitioner's perspective," the volume becomes a miscellany of chapters, some of which international business scholars would not consider to be international business. The main topics in international business (IB) include such things as international trade, foreign direct investment, global monetary system, international strategy, importing and exporting, global manufacturing and operations management, international marketing, global or international human resources management, international accounting, international finance, the international environment, economic and socioeconomic and sociocultural forces, and political and legal environment.

The introduction, by Shams and Jackson, restates that the purpose of the book is to "present thoughtful analyses of some major developments in work and organisational psychology, with a focus on international business and management." They further state that the book is expected to benefit students, scholars, and practitioners of international business. While I find many of the chapters of interest and of use to students, the book has not appeared to achieve its goals or aims (there are actually five specific "aims" and several others stated in the preface and introduction to the book).

The first chapter, "Issues in Family Business: An International Perspective" by Shams and Bjornberg, has too much background on defining family business (about 15 pages) given that this book is part of a management series and intended for researchers and practitioners in business. The psychological perspective on family is less than two pages and neither directly linked to family business nor international business. Chapter 2, "Teamworking in Organizations: Implications for Workplace Safety," compares research on safety in organisations between three types of groups: (a) health and safety committees, (b) autonomous work teams, and (c) cockpit crews. "Identity and Identification Processes in Mergers and Joint Ventures" is the title bf Chapter 3. This is a very interesting article. However, within it, there appears to be nothing specifically related to organisational psychology or international business.

Chapter 4 on Global Human Resources Management (GHRM) is one of the best in the book. It incorporates work psychology issues into GHRM. Paul Sparrow starts with the aim of the chapter defines and compares IHRM and GHRM, introduces psychological processes and then discusses the international mindset, international team, and adjustment. Many of the references that the author uses when introducing organisational psychology to international business are references from business and management journals or books are not especially recent.

McLean Parks and smith have an interesting title for Chapter 5, "Ghost Workers: Implications of New Workforce Realities for Organizations and Their Workers." Ghost workers are employees with alternative work arrangements such as contract workers, temp workers, or seasonal employees. The chapter is interesting and well written; the authors utilise organisational psychology and organisational behaviour theories that are familiar in management and international management to explain implications for employees in nontraditional work arrangements. These concepts may be less known to researchers and students at macrolevels of international business. How ghost workers or nontraditional work arrangements effect international business should be examined more in depth in future research.

Chapter 6 is "Complexity Theory and the Management of Change." The authors do an excellent job of explaining complexity theory and related concepts. The chapter is extremely well written. It would be beneficial to psychology researchers and students who want to understand complexity theory. While complexity and uncertainty are important topics to international business, as with other chapters mentioned above, Yeow and Jackson do not relate complexity theory to theories in organisational psychology nor to topics in international business.