“Employment is a political and socio-economic issue which needs to be examined in all its manifestations.” (Mirko, Reference Mirko2006, p. 435). It is with this framework in mind that we argue for an expanded understanding of the practical applications of I-O research and thereby an expanded understanding of meaningful industrial and organizational psychology (I-O) collaborative and engaged research, beyond what is outlined by Voss and colleagues (Reference Voss, Stoffregen, Couture, DiGirolamo, Furman, Haidar, Hammer, Lee, Maneotis, McCloy, Olson and Spector2025). Specifically, we argue that the practical value of I-O research need not only be operationalized as “identify[ing] and solv[ing] organizational problems” (Voss et al., Reference Voss, Stoffregen, Couture, DiGirolamo, Furman, Haidar, Hammer, Lee, Maneotis, McCloy, Olson and Spector2025, p. 14) but also societal problems related to the human experience of labor, and as such we argue for the inclusion of public policy makers as key stakeholders in I-O research. Moreover, to effectively identify and address societal problems related to labor, we argue that I-O research must integrate researchers and practitioners from economic and political science backgrounds.
We are hardly the first to suggest that I-O ought to embrace interdisciplinary research (e.g., Cucina et al., Reference Cucina, Peyton, Clark, Su and Liberman2013; Gonzalez & Cheban, Reference Gonzalez and Cheban2022) and training (e.g., Shanock et al., Reference Shanock, Rogelberg and Heggestad2010). Yet, we differ from our colleagues’ previous arguments in that we suggest that I-O psychology is inherently interdisciplinary, and a failure to approach our training, research, and practice in a way that reflects this creates significant deficiencies in our field and a myopic approach to the human experience of work, exacerbating the gap between research and practice highlighted by Voss and colleagues. Surely, embracing the interdisciplinary nature of I-O psychology is not a panacea, and it is unlikely to solve all of the problems of the field. Yet, by expanding our understanding of the nature of work to include the sociopolitical and economic contexts in which work occurs, we will create a much stronger science and practice. Failure to do so will relegate our field into obscurity, not quite answering significant questions about the human experience (as our social/cognitive psychology and sociology peers do) and not quite providing meaningful recommendations to workers, policy makers, or employers (as our economist and political science peers do).
In the following sections, we explore anticompetitive labor practices as one example of a specific topic that has underexplored implications for I-O researchers and practitioners, and has clear interdisciplinary collaborative possibilities. We do so at three key points of the research process outlined by Voss and colleagues. Specifically, although collaborations with economists and political scientists in research design, data collection, and data interpretation ought to yield valuable contributions such as macrolevel data collection/datasets or analysis models more frequently used in other fields, we focus our limited space on differences in research question identification, literature review, and results dissemination.
Anticompetitive labor practices as a collaborative research area
Identifying a research question
If we were to follow the procedure outlined by Voss and colleagues with this expanded understanding of collaborative and engaged, we would first need to identify a research question. Perhaps this is guided by government policies or hearings that are open for public comment and soliciting feedback on specific points (e.g., Federal Trade Commission “Hearings on Competition and Consumer Protection in the 21st Century,” 2018–2019), or a think tank (e.g., American Antitrust Institute) seeking to provide guidance to policy makers, or a relevant court case that is open for amicus briefs (e.g., Starbucks Corp v McKinney, 2023). In many of these instances, stakeholders that will inherently be part of the research team already include political scientists, policy makers, and economists. Moreover, these are stakeholders and opportunities for science translation that fall outside those identified by Voss and colleagues but are no less important. For our example, we focus on anticompetitive labor practices with this research question: How do anticompetitive labor practices impact job commitment and worker health and well-being?
Literature review
Having identified a research question, we then execute a literature review, which we argue must include an understanding of the research question through an economic and political science lens. From our broader economics and political-science informed literature review, we would identify a clearer understanding of anticompetitive labor practices as well as a range of specific anticompetitive labor practices on which we could focus. Anticompetitive labor practices are activities that organizations take that distort labor markets to reduce the cost of labor and have been the focus of recent federal actions in the United States (e.g., Exec. Order No. 14036, 2021). One anticompetitive labor practice is the creation of monopsonies (Robinson, Reference Robinson1969). A monopsony occurs when a single or small set of employers have captured the market of possible employees, resulting in limited if any job alternatives (Boal & Ransom, Reference Boal and Ransom1997; Manning, Reference Manning2021). Monopsonies can occur locally (e.g., a superstore being the only significant employer in a town; Wiltshire, Reference Wiltshire2022) or across broad sectors of the economy due to labor market concentration. Other anticompetitive labor practices work together to minimize organizations’ labor costs by minimizing the viable alternatives of better pay or working conditions for employees. For example, noncompete clauses that ostensibly protect employers from losing their intellectual property or clients through changes in employment in high-ranking employees have been used for frontline jobs such as sandwich maker (e.g., Wiessner, Reference Wiessner2016) or hairdresser (Ellis, Reference Ellis2023) to keep wages low by reducing employment competition. No-poach agreements (or requirements, such as was the case with Burger King franchises; Papscun, Reference Papscun2022) that prohibit employers from hiring the employees of other organizations serve the same purpose. Not only do these noncompetitive practices keep pay low, they also likely impact the quality and nature of the working experience.
An interdisciplinary literature review in these areas is particularly necessary because of the dearth of research in traditional I-O journals. For example, a recent searchFootnote 1 on Google Scholar search yielded only sixteen results in the Journal of Applied Psychology for “non-compete” or “noncompete,” “monopsony,” “anti-competitive” or “anticompetitive,” “cartel,” “poach,” or “NDA,” “non-disclosure,” or “nondisclosure.” Further, among these results, only three (Cascio & Ramos, Reference Cascio and Ramos1986; Flynn & Ames, Reference Flynn and Ames2006; Ogunfowora et al., Reference Ogunfowora, Nguyen, Steel and Hwang2022) actually reference anticompetitive labor practices in any capacity. The rest simply referenced NDAs researchers had that prevented data sharing, disclosure of identity or disability, or nondisclosure of sensitive information as a job responsibility. Certainly, this is not conclusive or exhaustive, but the lack of any explicit exploration of anticompetitive practices in what is widely recognized as our field’s top academic journal is reflective of a broader dearth of research on this topic in I-O psychology and an issue highlighted by Voss and colleagues.
Dissemination
Whereas Voss and colleagues rightfully highlight “podcasts, blogs, vlogs, trade publications, and other nontraditional outlets” (p. 28) as key places for science dissemination, we argue that collaboration with economists, political scientists, and policy makers highlight others as well. Public comments on government policies are one critical area of translation that may be overlooked without a broader understanding of stakeholders and collaborators of I-O research. For example, the first author submitted a public comment (Fletcher, Reference Fletcher2024) in response to a proposed regulation regarding heat stress. Similarly, submitting amicus briefs to state or federal courts (in the United States) may be another clear method of translating science to practice that would not be readily apparent without considering political science collaborations. Meetings or briefings with local representatives may also be another key point of translating I-O science to a set of stakeholders not identified by Voss et al.; the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (2020) has provided a “Guide to Federal Outreach & Advocacy” to aid in this work. We also find it necessary to point out that these more public policy-oriented methods of science translation ought not be viewed as undermining the quality or integrity of the science itself (Steele & Spector, Reference Steele and Spector2024) but rather are legitimate and necessary points of science translation akin to white papers, technical reports, or consultations for CEOs. Moreover, when addressing societal questions such as the impacts of anticompetitive labor practices, these outlets for dissemination are critical for the meaningful implementation of our findings, given that these are often issues that must be resolved outside of any one organization.
Additional areas for economic and political science informed collaboration
Above, we focus on anticompetitive labor practices as one clear example of a phenomenon that impacts the human experience of work that needs to be informed by economics and political science; however, there are many others, some of which we briefly outline below. For example, macro-economic concerns such as unemployment and inflation rates, national gross domestic product, or economic growth lay the environmental groundwork for the experience of work. Although some of these topics have received attention in the field of I-O (e.g., the psychological experience of unemployment/reemployment, McKee-Ryan et al., Reference McKee-Ryan, Song, Wanberg and Kinicki2005; Wanberg, Reference Wanberg1997; Zhou et al., Reference Zhou, Zou, Woods and Wu2019; unemployment insurance, Wanberg et al., Reference Wanberg, van Hooft, Dossinger, Van Vianen and Klehe2020), others remain relatively unexplored. Additionally, we argue that tariffs, trade agreements, and other national policies that impact the workforce should be studied by I-O psychologists in tandem with economists and political scientists. For example, The North American Free Trade Agreement has been identified as a cause of job loss and insecurity, wage stagnation and upward redistribution of wealth, and dislocation of workers across all participating nations (Faux, Reference Faux2013; Hakobyan & McLaren, Reference Hakobyan and McLaren2016). Last, industrial policy (i.e., intentional planning by the government to develop and grow specific economic sectors), which has gained increased favorability as of late (Chang & Andreoni, Reference Chang and Andreoni2020) can benefit from the input of I-O psychologists. For example, the CHIPS and Science Act (2022) in the United States, designed to increase domestic microchip manufacturing, includes a provision that recipients must have a plan to ensure workers have access to affordable childcare. This rejuvenation of industrial policy creates a key area of intervention, application, and growth of I-O psychology, much of which necessitates an interdisciplinary lens. Specifically, I-O psychology, by partnering with policy makers, economists, and political scientists may help to understand not only the impact on objective outcomes but also on the psychological experience of work. Conversely, without collaborating with policy experts or economists, I-O psychology may be left out of the conversation regarding these policies and their implementation.
Action items for interested parties
Although not exhaustive, we offer some potential action items to aid the interested I-O psychologist in traveling down this path. First, we recommend attending SIOP’s Advocacy Academy when offered. This experience, in partnership with Lewis-Burke Associates, is designed to give I-O psychologists the tools to speak to policy makers about our science. We also recommend attending conferences that are explicitly interdisciplinary. For example, Labor and Employment Relations Association attracts and welcomes scholars from economics, political science, sociology, labor and employment law, industrial relations, and human resource studies. In this vein, we also recommend seeking out special issues that have interdisciplinary appeal to aid in publishing interdisciplinary research. We recommend fostering your own interest in these areas and expanding your knowledge base. To aid in this, we recommend four books (Chomsky & Waterstone, Reference Chomsky and Waterstone2021; Posner, Reference Posner2021; Raworth, Reference Raworth2017; and Womack Jr., Reference Womack2023) as possible entry points. Last, as inspiration, we lift up four papers as strong examples of I-O psychologists already bridging these content gaps (Froidevaux et al., Reference Froidevaux, Koopmann, Wang and Bamberger2020; Hassard et al., Reference Hassard, Teoh, Visockaite, Dewe and Cox2018; Khan et al., Reference Khan, Patel and Barnes2024; Probst et al., Reference Probst, Sinclair, Sears, Gailey, Black and Cheung2018).
Conclusion
We seek to push the arguments made by Voss and colleagues further to highlight stakeholders and collaborators outside of the organization (i.e., policy makers, economists, political scientists) because we argue that our field is inherently interdisciplinary. Moreover, a narrower focus on collaborators and points of translation that exist within organizations or consulting firms does not help address the longstanding criticisms that I-O exists only as a handmaiden to capitalism or organizations (Baritz, Reference Baritz1960; Gloss et al., Reference Gloss, Carr, Reichman, Abdul-Nasiru and Oestereich2017). To address the impact of broader work-related issues, such as anti-competitive labor practices, on the human experience of work, we must work with these other disciplines and stakeholders, and embrace the “political and socio-economic” (Mirko, Reference Mirko2006, p. 435) nature of our field.
Open access
