Many industrial and organizational (I-O) and consulting psychologists who engage in practice of their profession, for example as “management consultants,” compete against consultants with a wide array of backgrounds and disciplinary degrees. Indeed, in consulting work, one of us has competed against practitioners with backgrounds in fields ranging from accounting (CPAs) to sociology, communication, anthropology, business administration, and even those with degrees in divinity.

Most psychological organizations, such as the American Psychological Association (APA), the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP), and the Association for Psychological Science (APS), have either guidelines or codes of ethical conduct, often with some enforcement (e.g., APA). Indeed, most graduate programs in psychology either offer a course in ethics or have ethics interwoven into the curriculum. Moreover, guidelines for the ethical treatment of human subjects in research, such as the APA, the Belmont Report (1979), and institutional review boards, require that psychologists working with human subjects consider the ethical treatment of people and avoid harming them. Many of the other disciplines that produce consultants working on issues involving humans in working environments either do not have ethical codes/guidelines or do not give the same strong emphasis on the ethical treatment of humans that is ingrained into those studying graduate-level psychology. As a result, psychologists, in general, and I-O psychologists, in particular, are likely the professionals engaged in practice in work organizations who are the most sensitive to ethical issues regarding the impact of their work on humans. We understand that actions labeled unethical, or those that steer away from an established ethics code, can potentially harm a client in any client-facing profession. In absence of any such code of knowledge or training, the likelihood of harm might be reasonably higher. Therefore, professionals who have had ethics training and are aware of ethical practices in their field of expertise should arguably be less likely to harm their clients than those who lack training. Baldick (Reference Baldick1980) finds that interns of psychology with a background in a formal ethics course were “able to discriminate the ethical problems or considerations in clinical practice at a rate significantly higher than interns who had received no formal training in ethics” (p. 276). Hergarty and Sims (Reference Hegarty and Sims1979), in their experimental study, also find an increase in ethical behaviors and decisions of employees when a company had a formal or informal ethical behavior policy in place. Given the strong and persistent emphasis on ethics in the practice of psychology, it seems that requiring licensure for psychologists who are practicing in work organizations would be disadvantageous, particularly when those psychologists are competing against nonpsychologists who have had far less ethical training.

The focal article (LCIOP Joint Task Force, 2017) clearly summarizes the fact that few US licensing jurisdictions recognize any psychological services that are not clinical/healthcare-related in nature. Moreover, in some jurisdictions the tests required for licensure have little to do with the practice of I-O psychology, and internship supervision is often monitored by persons with little or no knowledge of I-O psychology. In short, those overseeing licensing simply do not understand what I-O psychologists do nor with whom we compete. Licensure is an unnecessary hurdle for I-O psychologists, who already receive considerable education in the ethical treatment of human beings—far more than workplace practitioners from other disciplines. The APA's Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct (2002), which SIOP officially endorses, provides psychologists with clear guidelines for the ethical practice of I-O psychology. Many graduate students and professionals possess a very popular casebook (Lowman, Reference Lowman2006) that provides 61 real life cases involving ethics that I-O psychologists might encounter in their work in organizations. Further, I-O psychologists who affiliate with the Academy of Management and the Society for Human Resource Management also are exposed to those organizations’ ethical standards/guidelines. This is independent of coursework and training in ethics that each psychologist receives in both graduate and undergraduate work. I-O psychologists in academia routinely serve on institutional review boards to review research in order to protect human participants. I-O psychologists in practice often inform HR professionals about possible ethical violations in the treatment of applicants and employees. In sum, requiring licensure to “police the police” is unnecessary, given the rigor of curriculum, training, and resources available to I-O psychologists. I-O psychologists likely have more awareness of ethical issues and receive better overall training in methods than do other types of professionals with whom they compete in assisting organizations with workplace issues.

Licensing the people who are the least likely to need it inadvertently limits their ability to be competitive in the marketplace. Licensing standards focus primarily on healthcare, not workplace issues, and the licensing hurdles do not likely increase psychologists’ already deep understanding of ethical issues and practice. In sum, let's not require licensure for those who least need it.