In their focal article, Lapierre et al. (Reference Lapierre, Matthews, Eby, Truxillo, Johnson and Major2018) draw attention to several key unanswered concerns academics face in establishing, developing, and maintaining research partnerships with organizations. Though mentioned briefly in the article's introduction, one potential concern that would benefit from further attention is selling a potential research topic to organizations. Many academics find themselves with research interests that organizations would prefer to avoid shedding light on (e.g., workplace mistreatment, sexual harassment, hiring practices, diversity and inclusion practices, etc.). In these instances, it may be particularly difficult to convince key stakeholders within organizations to partner on research projects, especially in situations that might raise organizational fears of negative publicity. In their introduction, Lapierre et al. (Reference Lapierre, Matthews, Eby, Truxillo, Johnson and Major2018) state that “middle or frontline managers may be reluctant to facilitate a study out of fear of what the research could reveal in terms of problems in their units, particularly if such problems might be perceived as reflecting poorly upon them (e.g., poor leadership skills)” (p. 545). Further, “managers may fear raising employees’ expectations or highlighting particular problems by involving them in research projects” (Lapierre et al., Reference Lapierre, Matthews, Eby, Truxillo, Johnson and Major2018, p. 544). In the following several paragraphs, I address how academics may proactively address and minimize these potential concerns. Although not meant to be an exhaustive set of recommendations, the goal is to provide several potential avenues for “selling” industrial and organizational (I-O) psychology research to potential organizational stakeholders.
Although academics may face difficulty gaining access and selling their research topics to potential organizational partners, academics studying areas that may lead to negative organizational reactions may face even greater challenges gaining entry to organizations. Though this process of selling may be an uphill battle, there remain several available options for academics hoping to conduct their research within organizations. The first option focuses primarily on the framing of the topic of interest. In the case of studying “dark topics” such as workplace mistreatment, harassment, or discrimination, researchers may choose to be transparent about their interest in these negative behaviors or focus on a positive construct that may be loosely conceptualized as the opposite of their construct of interest. However, this approach is potentially problematic, given that researchers may be in the position of having to disguise the true nature of the work. A second, alternative option may be to instead highlight the importance of the chosen research topic through identifying potential costs and liabilities of failing to tackle their research question. For example, Starbucks recently spent $12 million on a company-wide diversity and inclusion training, and yet failed to include any behavioral researchers whose input would have been priceless in terms of identifying the effectiveness of such a large organizational training (Jefferson & Lewis, Reference Jefferson and Lewis2018; Meyer, Reference Meyer2018). Finally, researchers may find that neither of these options results in the organizational partnerships they desire and instead choose to pursue recruitment of participants in an alternative manner.
Selling the Topic
The first potential option for researchers is to attempt to sell their research topic directly to organizations, for example, openly discussing the presence of negative behaviors such as mistreatment, harassment, or counterproductive work behaviors. This may be effective in instances where stakeholders are already aware that these behaviors are a problem within the organization. Recent publicity highlighting organizational issues or informal networking interactions with organizational members may signal to the researchers that these issues are of concern within the organization. It is important to remember, though, that the concerns of one manager (perhaps the first person encountered by the researcher) may not be shared by members of upper management, as highlighted by Lapierre et al. (Reference Lapierre, Matthews, Eby, Truxillo, Johnson and Major2018). The researchers should assure organizational stakeholders that although it is possible that negative findings may come to light through the course of the research project, it is critical to understand the prevalence and nature of those behaviors so that the organization and employees can do better in the future. Researchers may choose to provide an additional offer of recommendations—or better still, training opportunities—to help the organization address and mitigate any concerning behaviors that arise throughout the course of the research. For example, if the researcher chooses to study workplace mistreatment, offering recommendations on empirically supported civility interventions aimed at increasing positive interactions at work would be useful in sharing with and implementing in organizations in these instances (e.g., Leiter, Laschinger, Day, & Oore, Reference Leiter, Laschinger, Day and Oore2011).
Alternatively, the research question may be reframed to focus on the promotion of positive behaviors within the workplace while minimizing attention on the negative aspects of employee or organizational behavior. This approach may minimize potential “red flags” for organizational stakeholders, as it does not draw direct attention to the occurrence of possible negative behaviors in the workplace, thereby carrying less risk of potential litigation, expectations of redress, and so forth. Specific to workplace mistreatment, many organizations are likely to shy away from openly exploring this topic to possibly avoid negative publicity or expectations from employees that the organization take action to address concerns raised by study findings. One way to address these potential concerns is through focusing on an overall interest in workplace interactions—highlighting an interest in promoting positive interactions (e.g., civility, Leiter et al., Reference Leiter, Laschinger, Day and Oore2011; relational energy, Owens, Baker, Sumpter, & Cameron, Reference Owens, Baker, Sumpter and Cameron2016). Even with a focus on positive behaviors, researchers will likely still want to include survey items that capture their original construct of interest. Should there be pushback around the inclusion of such items, researchers can highlight the need to understand a range of behaviors within the organization, both good and bad. In my own research on workplace mistreatment, I have come to understand that it is imperative to present a positive focus on such research topics while managing to avoid being disingenuous in your interests.
A second approach to take in selling our research to organizations involves focusing on the potential costs and liabilities of failing to address and understand our research topic of interest. Often, organizations are not aware of potential problems until after there has been a major fallout, at which point it is too late to prevent and address issues within the workplace. As illustrative examples, estimates suggest that Wells Fargo may lose nearly $99 billion in deposits and $4 billion in revenue within a year and a half of the revelations of the fake-account scandal that plagued the organization (White, Reference White2017). Estimates suggest that the economic impacts of workplace aggression may range anywhere from $114.64 million to $35.9 billion annually (Hassard, Teoh, Visockaite, Dewe, & Cox, Reference Hassard, Teoh, Visockaite, Dewe and Cox2018). Highlighting the potential financial fallouts of unidentified organizational concerns may be more likely to strike a chord with organizational stakeholders who are more interested in profitability than speaking in generalities about improving the organization overall. Though beyond the scope of this commentary, increasing our field's focus on demonstrating return on investment (ROI) in our projects would also further advance I-O psychologists’ ability to sell their research to organizations. Though this may be a particularly difficult route to take, it provides researchers an opportunity to demonstrate the direct value of their research to the organization.
Finally, it is entirely possible that organizations may be unwilling to let researchers collect all the necessary information regarding their construct(s) of interest. In this case, it may be of most benefit to the researcher to follow the common recruitment approach suggested by Lapierre et al. (Reference Lapierre, Matthews, Eby, Truxillo, Johnson and Major2018)—that of recruiting employees directly across many organizations (i.e., through listserv posts, advertisements, convenience sampling, etc.). This may, however, directly limit researchers’ ability to test research questions related to team or organizational-level variables, thereby potentially limiting the direct overall contribution of individual research projects.
Managing Organizational Responses
After securing an agreement to collect data within an organization, there will likely still be barriers to navigate regarding data collection (e.g., specific survey items, questions asked of focus groups or interviewees, etc.). Organizational stakeholders may be unwilling to include items asking about negative workplace behaviors and experiences, and researchers will need to be particularly sensitive in assuaging concerns. It is particularly important to come to an agreement as to when changes to survey items will no longer be allowed, as last-minute changes to survey items may severely impact the ability to accurately address research questions as well as erode potential trust among survey participants.
Further, it is especially worth heeding Lapierre et al.’s (Reference Lapierre, Matthews, Eby, Truxillo, Johnson and Major2018) recommendations as to signing a written agreement about how to manage potential concerns that may arise throughout the course of the research project. In light of the recent #MeToo movement, organizations may be acutely aware of the potential problems that can occur if problematic employee behavior is uncovered during the course of the research project. Particularly when researching issues of sexual harassment and workplace mistreatment, it would be worthwhile for researchers to spend time investigating how the organization currently handles such behavior, along with the climate surrounding support for addressing these behaviors.
Disseminating Findings
Lapierre et al. (Reference Lapierre, Matthews, Eby, Truxillo, Johnson and Major2018) provide several useful recommendations for reporting research findings back to organizational partners at the end of a project. Arguably, these recommendations are even more critical when findings have the potential to lead to negative publicity for the organization or the possibility that anyone involved may “lose face.” It is also incredibly important to address the concerns that were agreed upon with the organizational partners. For example, if the researcher focused on positive aspects of organizational behavior in pitching their project to the organization, positive behaviors should also be the focus of the findings that are disseminated to the organization. If the organization agreed to examine negative behaviors in the workplace with the understanding that the researcher would offer potential solutions to these problems, the researcher should be prepared to follow through with recommendations, up to and possibly including the implementation of workplace trainings.
Lapierre et al.’s (Reference Lapierre, Matthews, Eby, Truxillo, Johnson and Major2018) recommendations regarding “right-to-review” versus “right-to-edit” agreements are also particularly relevant for the study of research topics that organizations may be hesitant to address in the first place. It is in the researcher's best interests to come to a clear understanding of who will be involved in the dissemination of research findings to the academic community. It may also be useful to discuss the possible range of research questions that could be addressed with the organization's data. These conversations may help to minimize potential negative reactions down the road should the researcher choose to publish research findings highlighting areas that the organization may prefer to keep private. Agreeing to protect the identity of the organization may help to address fears of negative attention. In cases in which researchers may choose to coauthor peer-reviewed articles with organizational stakeholders, the researchers may need to do further coaching and education on the need to publish findings that will most clearly address gaps in current knowledge within the academic community rather than focusing on research findings that may provide the most positive attention for organizations.
Conclusion
As clearly outlined by Lapierre et al. (Reference Lapierre, Matthews, Eby, Truxillo, Johnson and Major2018), there are a number of areas to address when developing research partnerships with organizations. One critical area for further training and research is the process through which researchers sell their research topics to organizations and manage the dissemination of their findings. Although in no ways meant to be exhaustive, the goal of this commentary was to provide a few potential ways of selling research topics to organizations in the pursuit of developing research partnerships. In preparing the next generation of researchers to develop these applied research partnerships, it may be useful to consider to adding training specific to selling research topics to organizations in graduate training. Many graduate courses currently require the writing and presentation of research proposals. Faculty may want to consider including required pitches to organizational leaders—either through the use of community business leaders as volunteers or relying on other students and faculty to role play feedback on pitch effectiveness. Although such practice would be beneficial for all researchers hoping to collect data within organizations, it may particularly benefit researchers interested in topics that organizational stakeholders may prefer to otherwise avoid.
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Access
In their focal article, Lapierre et al. (Reference Lapierre, Matthews, Eby, Truxillo, Johnson and Major2018) draw attention to several key unanswered concerns academics face in establishing, developing, and maintaining research partnerships with organizations. Though mentioned briefly in the article's introduction, one potential concern that would benefit from further attention is selling a potential research topic to organizations. Many academics find themselves with research interests that organizations would prefer to avoid shedding light on (e.g., workplace mistreatment, sexual harassment, hiring practices, diversity and inclusion practices, etc.). In these instances, it may be particularly difficult to convince key stakeholders within organizations to partner on research projects, especially in situations that might raise organizational fears of negative publicity. In their introduction, Lapierre et al. (Reference Lapierre, Matthews, Eby, Truxillo, Johnson and Major2018) state that “middle or frontline managers may be reluctant to facilitate a study out of fear of what the research could reveal in terms of problems in their units, particularly if such problems might be perceived as reflecting poorly upon them (e.g., poor leadership skills)” (p. 545). Further, “managers may fear raising employees’ expectations or highlighting particular problems by involving them in research projects” (Lapierre et al., Reference Lapierre, Matthews, Eby, Truxillo, Johnson and Major2018, p. 544). In the following several paragraphs, I address how academics may proactively address and minimize these potential concerns. Although not meant to be an exhaustive set of recommendations, the goal is to provide several potential avenues for “selling” industrial and organizational (I-O) psychology research to potential organizational stakeholders.
Although academics may face difficulty gaining access and selling their research topics to potential organizational partners, academics studying areas that may lead to negative organizational reactions may face even greater challenges gaining entry to organizations. Though this process of selling may be an uphill battle, there remain several available options for academics hoping to conduct their research within organizations. The first option focuses primarily on the framing of the topic of interest. In the case of studying “dark topics” such as workplace mistreatment, harassment, or discrimination, researchers may choose to be transparent about their interest in these negative behaviors or focus on a positive construct that may be loosely conceptualized as the opposite of their construct of interest. However, this approach is potentially problematic, given that researchers may be in the position of having to disguise the true nature of the work. A second, alternative option may be to instead highlight the importance of the chosen research topic through identifying potential costs and liabilities of failing to tackle their research question. For example, Starbucks recently spent $12 million on a company-wide diversity and inclusion training, and yet failed to include any behavioral researchers whose input would have been priceless in terms of identifying the effectiveness of such a large organizational training (Jefferson & Lewis, Reference Jefferson and Lewis2018; Meyer, Reference Meyer2018). Finally, researchers may find that neither of these options results in the organizational partnerships they desire and instead choose to pursue recruitment of participants in an alternative manner.
Selling the Topic
The first potential option for researchers is to attempt to sell their research topic directly to organizations, for example, openly discussing the presence of negative behaviors such as mistreatment, harassment, or counterproductive work behaviors. This may be effective in instances where stakeholders are already aware that these behaviors are a problem within the organization. Recent publicity highlighting organizational issues or informal networking interactions with organizational members may signal to the researchers that these issues are of concern within the organization. It is important to remember, though, that the concerns of one manager (perhaps the first person encountered by the researcher) may not be shared by members of upper management, as highlighted by Lapierre et al. (Reference Lapierre, Matthews, Eby, Truxillo, Johnson and Major2018). The researchers should assure organizational stakeholders that although it is possible that negative findings may come to light through the course of the research project, it is critical to understand the prevalence and nature of those behaviors so that the organization and employees can do better in the future. Researchers may choose to provide an additional offer of recommendations—or better still, training opportunities—to help the organization address and mitigate any concerning behaviors that arise throughout the course of the research. For example, if the researcher chooses to study workplace mistreatment, offering recommendations on empirically supported civility interventions aimed at increasing positive interactions at work would be useful in sharing with and implementing in organizations in these instances (e.g., Leiter, Laschinger, Day, & Oore, Reference Leiter, Laschinger, Day and Oore2011).
Alternatively, the research question may be reframed to focus on the promotion of positive behaviors within the workplace while minimizing attention on the negative aspects of employee or organizational behavior. This approach may minimize potential “red flags” for organizational stakeholders, as it does not draw direct attention to the occurrence of possible negative behaviors in the workplace, thereby carrying less risk of potential litigation, expectations of redress, and so forth. Specific to workplace mistreatment, many organizations are likely to shy away from openly exploring this topic to possibly avoid negative publicity or expectations from employees that the organization take action to address concerns raised by study findings. One way to address these potential concerns is through focusing on an overall interest in workplace interactions—highlighting an interest in promoting positive interactions (e.g., civility, Leiter et al., Reference Leiter, Laschinger, Day and Oore2011; relational energy, Owens, Baker, Sumpter, & Cameron, Reference Owens, Baker, Sumpter and Cameron2016). Even with a focus on positive behaviors, researchers will likely still want to include survey items that capture their original construct of interest. Should there be pushback around the inclusion of such items, researchers can highlight the need to understand a range of behaviors within the organization, both good and bad. In my own research on workplace mistreatment, I have come to understand that it is imperative to present a positive focus on such research topics while managing to avoid being disingenuous in your interests.
A second approach to take in selling our research to organizations involves focusing on the potential costs and liabilities of failing to address and understand our research topic of interest. Often, organizations are not aware of potential problems until after there has been a major fallout, at which point it is too late to prevent and address issues within the workplace. As illustrative examples, estimates suggest that Wells Fargo may lose nearly $99 billion in deposits and $4 billion in revenue within a year and a half of the revelations of the fake-account scandal that plagued the organization (White, Reference White2017). Estimates suggest that the economic impacts of workplace aggression may range anywhere from $114.64 million to $35.9 billion annually (Hassard, Teoh, Visockaite, Dewe, & Cox, Reference Hassard, Teoh, Visockaite, Dewe and Cox2018). Highlighting the potential financial fallouts of unidentified organizational concerns may be more likely to strike a chord with organizational stakeholders who are more interested in profitability than speaking in generalities about improving the organization overall. Though beyond the scope of this commentary, increasing our field's focus on demonstrating return on investment (ROI) in our projects would also further advance I-O psychologists’ ability to sell their research to organizations. Though this may be a particularly difficult route to take, it provides researchers an opportunity to demonstrate the direct value of their research to the organization.
Finally, it is entirely possible that organizations may be unwilling to let researchers collect all the necessary information regarding their construct(s) of interest. In this case, it may be of most benefit to the researcher to follow the common recruitment approach suggested by Lapierre et al. (Reference Lapierre, Matthews, Eby, Truxillo, Johnson and Major2018)—that of recruiting employees directly across many organizations (i.e., through listserv posts, advertisements, convenience sampling, etc.). This may, however, directly limit researchers’ ability to test research questions related to team or organizational-level variables, thereby potentially limiting the direct overall contribution of individual research projects.
Managing Organizational Responses
After securing an agreement to collect data within an organization, there will likely still be barriers to navigate regarding data collection (e.g., specific survey items, questions asked of focus groups or interviewees, etc.). Organizational stakeholders may be unwilling to include items asking about negative workplace behaviors and experiences, and researchers will need to be particularly sensitive in assuaging concerns. It is particularly important to come to an agreement as to when changes to survey items will no longer be allowed, as last-minute changes to survey items may severely impact the ability to accurately address research questions as well as erode potential trust among survey participants.
Further, it is especially worth heeding Lapierre et al.’s (Reference Lapierre, Matthews, Eby, Truxillo, Johnson and Major2018) recommendations as to signing a written agreement about how to manage potential concerns that may arise throughout the course of the research project. In light of the recent #MeToo movement, organizations may be acutely aware of the potential problems that can occur if problematic employee behavior is uncovered during the course of the research project. Particularly when researching issues of sexual harassment and workplace mistreatment, it would be worthwhile for researchers to spend time investigating how the organization currently handles such behavior, along with the climate surrounding support for addressing these behaviors.
Disseminating Findings
Lapierre et al. (Reference Lapierre, Matthews, Eby, Truxillo, Johnson and Major2018) provide several useful recommendations for reporting research findings back to organizational partners at the end of a project. Arguably, these recommendations are even more critical when findings have the potential to lead to negative publicity for the organization or the possibility that anyone involved may “lose face.” It is also incredibly important to address the concerns that were agreed upon with the organizational partners. For example, if the researcher focused on positive aspects of organizational behavior in pitching their project to the organization, positive behaviors should also be the focus of the findings that are disseminated to the organization. If the organization agreed to examine negative behaviors in the workplace with the understanding that the researcher would offer potential solutions to these problems, the researcher should be prepared to follow through with recommendations, up to and possibly including the implementation of workplace trainings.
Lapierre et al.’s (Reference Lapierre, Matthews, Eby, Truxillo, Johnson and Major2018) recommendations regarding “right-to-review” versus “right-to-edit” agreements are also particularly relevant for the study of research topics that organizations may be hesitant to address in the first place. It is in the researcher's best interests to come to a clear understanding of who will be involved in the dissemination of research findings to the academic community. It may also be useful to discuss the possible range of research questions that could be addressed with the organization's data. These conversations may help to minimize potential negative reactions down the road should the researcher choose to publish research findings highlighting areas that the organization may prefer to keep private. Agreeing to protect the identity of the organization may help to address fears of negative attention. In cases in which researchers may choose to coauthor peer-reviewed articles with organizational stakeholders, the researchers may need to do further coaching and education on the need to publish findings that will most clearly address gaps in current knowledge within the academic community rather than focusing on research findings that may provide the most positive attention for organizations.
Conclusion
As clearly outlined by Lapierre et al. (Reference Lapierre, Matthews, Eby, Truxillo, Johnson and Major2018), there are a number of areas to address when developing research partnerships with organizations. One critical area for further training and research is the process through which researchers sell their research topics to organizations and manage the dissemination of their findings. Although in no ways meant to be exhaustive, the goal of this commentary was to provide a few potential ways of selling research topics to organizations in the pursuit of developing research partnerships. In preparing the next generation of researchers to develop these applied research partnerships, it may be useful to consider to adding training specific to selling research topics to organizations in graduate training. Many graduate courses currently require the writing and presentation of research proposals. Faculty may want to consider including required pitches to organizational leaders—either through the use of community business leaders as volunteers or relying on other students and faculty to role play feedback on pitch effectiveness. Although such practice would be beneficial for all researchers hoping to collect data within organizations, it may particularly benefit researchers interested in topics that organizational stakeholders may prefer to otherwise avoid.