Organizational Psychology Interventions

Full course description

One of the main areas of research within the organizational psychology intervention is organizational change and development. Organizational change refers to “an empirical observation of difference in form, quality, or state over time in an organizational entity” (Van de Ven and Poole, 1995, p. 512). Both superficial and deep changes can be continuously observed, describing one of the basic characteristics of organizations.

Researchers try to understand and measure change efforts and their consequences. For example, downsizing can have an effect on emotional reactions of workers and their performance. Peiró and Martínez-Tur (2008) reviewed theories to understand organizational change, theories for intervention, differences between convergent and divergent changes, and conditions for change (internal vs. external). Oreg, Vakola, and Armenakis (2011) presented a model for the understanding of organizational change with three types of variables:

a) antecedents (characteristics of recipients, internal context of the organization, change process, perceived benefit; and change content);

b) reactions of employees (affective, cognitive, and behavioral); and

c) consequences of changes (work-related and personal).

In addition, organization change is investigated from quasi experimental (Morgeson, Johnson, Campion, Medsker, and Mumford, 2006) and field survey approaches (Martin, Jones, and Callan, 2005).

The final assessment for this course is a numerical grade between 0,0 and 10,0.