A paradigm shift toward a social-structural perspective may provide a better understanding of the gender inequity in STEM fields than its predecessor, but this perspective falls prey to the focal article authors’ (Miner et al., 2018) own criticisms: It offers an incomplete account of the phenomenon of interest. We argue that a multilevel systems perspective is the most appropriate approach when trying to understand any issue, especially an issue as dense as gender inequity in STEM. A deliberate effort to understand this phenomenon dynamically across levels and time can expand the scope of industrial and organizational (I-O) psychologists’ influence and can better protect us against interventions that result in unintended, adverse outcomes. Below, we discuss the importance of looking across multiple levels simultaneously to understand the temporal and interactional nature of individual and social-structural constructs. Without this depth of understanding, a disruption of the current structure may lead to an unstable, or unanticipated, new structure.

Miner et al. (2018) call for industrial and organizational (I-O) psychologists to examine the societal structures that influence women's underrepresentation in STEM. Here we extend their ideas and suggest that diversity in STEM would benefit from considering how people develop within the context of their environment. Educational researchers refer to the knowledge people develop through daily experiences with their cultural milieu as funds of knowledge. Funds of knowledge essentially represent a person's expertise, and educational researchers have recognized that designing environments that draw from expertise facilitates success for students, including women and underrepresented minorities in STEM.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the performance of two similar small businesses in seeking resource consent to expand their operations. The proposed developments are examples of locally unwanted land use. Why did one project proceed as planned, and the other project experience expensive delays? The different outcomes are examined from three perspectives: stakeholder theory, the NIMBY phenomena and the legislative framework. The paper then suggests approaches to address the growing problem of community resistance that can threaten small business development. The paper contributes to the literature by providing new insights into the complex relationship between stakeholder theory, the NIMBY phenomena and the legislative framework.

Miner et al. (2018) claim that focusing on individual factors to understand gender inequity in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) provides an incomplete explanation of the phenomenon. They challenge the appropriateness of individual-level explanations that hold women responsible for the injustices they experience, suggesting that this perspective fails to consider larger social-contextual influences. Instead, to explain gender disparity in the STEM fields, Miner et al. offer a social-structural lens through which to view the situation that relies on commonly held beliefs about women in society. The inequality that characterizes these fields, however, is a worldwide phenomenon that spans societal boundaries. Therefore, understanding the social-contextual factors that contribute to gender inequality in the STEM fields requires a cross-cultural examination of norms and values. In this commentary, I first outline a program of research aimed at developing an empirically supported theoretical framework that explains gender inequity in the STEM fields from a cross-cultural perspective. Then, I review the ways in which cultural beliefs influence education and careers in the STEM fields. Finally, I provide some practical suggestions of ways to promote gender equality in STEM fields. As such, this commentary serves as a call to integrate concepts from vocational, educational, and cross-cultural psychology to address an issue of upmost importance: equal representation.

Ralph Waldo Emerson is known to have said, “the greatest wonder is that we can see these trees and not wonder more.” As industrial and organizational (I-O) psychologists, we often encounter this very dilemma when we examine how numerous professions rise and fall in relevance. More recently, however, we have encountered this dilemma from an existential perspective as we strive to understand the evolution of our own profession and the situational characteristics making change inevitable. We have fallen into a trap—we, too, now look at all of our practices, aiming to reconfigure the makeup of our profession while losing sight of the macrotrends affecting more than just our evolved existence. Rather than focusing on the smaller issue first, we need to start by examining the broader issues affecting it.

Let's look at two solutions that should be effective in addressing the gender issue in STEM. First, early intervention works. Scientific and mathematical learning can, and should, be integrated into early childhood learning and development. Miner et al. (2018) mention the potential of nurturing a child's interest in STEM through early education. The challenge is that it is segregated by gender biases (“early schooling differences, parental choices in encouraging child interests and hobbies, and other early reinforcement differences that are societally based”; Miner et al., 2018, p. 270). According to Gunderson, Ramirez, Levine, and Beilock (2012) parents tend to expect that their boys are more gifted in STEM than their girls, even when their achievement levels do not differ objectively. The focus needs to shift from moving along with this gender bias to constructively using the gender difference.

We wholeheartedly agree with Miner et al. (2018) that industrial and organizational (I-O) psychologists should take a lead in addressing gender inequity in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. The focal article is particularly timely in light of the recent controversial “Google memo” (Damore, 2017), in which a senior software engineer endorsed the same individual-level myths regarding the gender gap in STEM that were critiqued by Miner et al. (2018). However, we caution against painting all STEM fields with the same broad brush. We argue that it is critical for I-O psychologists to be aware of important differences between STEM subfields, as these distinctions suggest that a “one-size-fits-all” approach may be inadequate for addressing existing gender disparities in STEM. In order to be maximally effective, interventions may need to emphasize distinct issues and target different points in the career pipeline depending on the specific STEM subfield in question.

Rotolo et al. (2018) identify a number of reasons why the field of industrial and organizational (I-O) psychology is losing relevancy, including a lack of focus on frontier topics, which may be most relevant to talent management practitioners. As someone who subscribes to the benefits of the scientist–practitioner approach to talent management, there is nothing I hold more precious than a healthy partnership between the I-O psychology academic community and talent management practitioners.

Big data and its applicability to talent management (TM) as defined by Rotolo et al. (2018) has already been recognized by many outside the field of I-O psychology. The market is beginning to include offerings from vendors for products that use some combination of big data techniques to process vast amounts of data or previously unanalyzable data, which they claim will improve components of TM for organizations. Unfortunately, as noted in the focal article, this “frontier” issue makes it difficult for organizations to separate the wheat from the chaff. Further, with few exceptions, I-O psychology is just beginning to inform organizations about whether and how big data can be used for the purposes of TM.

Better focus on the frontier of talent management (TM), the thesis of the focal article by Rotolo et al. (2018), is necessary but not by itself a sufficient condition for I-O psychologists (IOP) to influence organizational decision makers. Although I agree with the substance of their perspective, as professional psychologists we also need to communicate in a manner that decision makers recognize as worthy of their time and attention. We should pay greater attention to how, why, and when organizational stakeholders embrace, reject, or overlook our insights and recommendations.

The persistently changing landscape of cyberspace and cybersecurity has led to a call for organizations’ increased attention toward securing information and systems. Rapid change in the cyber environment puts it on a scale unlike any other performance environment typically of interest to industrial and organizational (I-O) psychologists and related disciplines. In this article, we reflect on the idea of keeping pace with cyber, with a particular focus on the role of practicing I-O psychologists in assisting individuals, teams, and organizations. We focus on the unique roles of I-O psychologists in relation to the cyber realm and discuss the ways in which they can contribute to organizational cybersecurity efforts. As highlighted throughout this article, we assert that the mounting threats within cyberspace amount to a “looming crisis.” Thus, we view assisting organizations and their employees with becoming resilient and adaptive to cyber threats as an imperative, and practicing I-O psychologists should be at the forefront of these efforts.

Miner et al.’s (2018) interpretation of gender inequity in STEM fields as a social-structural problem shifts the onus from “her” as the root of the problem to “us” as a society. However, despite noting the “even bleaker” outlook for women of color early on, the focal article lacks an intersectional focus, ignoring the differential experiences that exist between white women and women of color. Crenshaw's (1991) original work on intersectionality highlighted the fact that the experiences of women of color (WOC) often differ drastically from those of their White counterparts, and the subsequent body of intersectionality literature in a variety of fields reminds us that failing to include an intersectional perspective is an oversight we can no longer afford to make. With this in mind, we highlight the ways in which those at the intersection of both gender and racial minority status face a “double bind” (Malcom & Malcom, 2011), such that they are additionally disadvantaged by society's perceptions and expectations of the behavior of WOC.

Miner et al. (2018) have steered the trajectory of gender and STEM research in a new direction.

Organizations are undergoing unprecedented transformation in the area of talent management (TM). Companies are rapidly adopting new tools and approaches in a variety of what has traditionally been core areas of industrial and organizational (I-O) psychology such as performance management, employee attitudes, recruiting, testing and assessment, and career development. Increasingly, however, these new approaches have little to no research backing behind them, and they do not tend to be the focus of I-O psychology theory and research. We call this trend anti-industrial and organizational psychology (AIO), as we believe these forces to do not advance the field for long-term strategic impact. We present a framework that describes how AIO practices are adopted by organizations, and how I-O psychologists often gravitate away from these practices rather than actively help to separate the wheat from the chaff. We found support for our hypothesis through a brief analysis of Industrial and Organizational Psychology: Perspectives on Science and Practice, the peer-reviewed journal of the Society of Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP). In this analysis, we found that only 10% of the focal articles from 2008 to 2016 represented topics that we call frontier—emerging areas in organizations but where there is no research support for them. We propose a set of recommendations for the field of I-O psychology and call for a more strategic approach to identifying and vetting new TM trends in order to increase the relevancy and impact of I-O psychology for our key stakeholders.

The future of talent management will always be discovered on the frontier, and the frontier is always messy. There will always be charlatans selling snake oil and the latest personality assessments. What can be done? When operating at the edge of the map, one cannot rely on having the right answers because the challenges and the answers will be novel. However, adventurers can rely on the capabilities and processes that allow them to adapt and figure it out as they go.

To understand gender inequality in STEM, Miner et al. (2018) illustrate how an individual lens and a social-structural lens provide complementary perspectives. They indicate that gender inequality in STEM should not be simply understood from an individual lens concerning individual choices and responsibilities but also a social-structural lens concerning societal structures, processes, and meanings associated with gender. In this commentary, we would like to bring a cultural perspective to the consideration of the STEM field. Specifically, we focus on gender inequity in STEM in Japan and elaborate how Japanese culture, which emphasizes masculinity, collectivism, and a tight culture, imposes a stronger social-structural influence on gender inequality in STEM and at the same time strengthens the use of the individual lens to explain the phenomena, making the issue of gender inequality more prominent.

I have three issues I would like to add to Rotolo et al.’s (2018) arguments for research foci and with which academics must be concerned as we move forward. We must pay attention to all of what Rotolo et al. said plus at least my three additions if we are to compete with other fields playing in the talent management (TM) space. First, I will argue we have become overly concerned in our refereed outlets with theory to the detriment of validity against important organizational outcomes. Second, I will note that industrial and organizational (I-O) psychology has become fixated on individuals and their differences to the almost literal exclusion of research on the psychology of organizational phenomena. Third, I will present an argument for research on reciprocal relationships—on organizations as real systems—in an attempt to counter the left-to-right thinking in all of our research models.

Although Miner et al. (2018) effectively argue that there is a need for greater efforts on the part of I-O psychologists to confront gender inequity in the STEM fields, we feel that the preoccupation with STEM may blind us to other domains where similar issues not only exist but may be even more prevalent and problematic. Specifically, we would argue that more attention needs to be paid to skilled trades, transportation-related jobs, and other so-called “dirty work.”

The focal article by Miner et al. (2018) convincingly argues that industrial and organizational (I-O) psychology professionals share a responsibility to adopt a social-structural perspective in understanding why women are underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. This approach offers the best path forward for explaining the disparity and improving the attraction and retention of women in these fields (Miner et al., 2018). In conjunction with the approach described, a deliberate effort to cast a spotlight on women of color is necessary, as they are the most marginalized, yet are often excluded from conversations about gender equality.