The Current Issue

In our first article, “Rise of HR—New Mandates for I-O,” William Schiemann and Dave Ulrich present a thought provoking discourse regarding the future direction of industrial–organizational (I-O) psychology and human resources (HR). Drawing on interviews from over 70 thought leaders in the field, Schiemann and Ulrich summarize these insights into seven themes that detail what I-O psychologists and HR leaders need to know and do to be optimally effective in the 21st century business world.

The commentaries extend the focal article through the identification of additional thematic factors to be considered, such as work–family issues, and point to the importance of a cross-disciplinary perspective when considering the future impact of I-O. One commentary proposes that there is significant evidence that HR has in fact risen and continues to rise to meet the needs of the evolving 21st century organization, and although there are surely opportunities for further growth, HR and I-O are making good progress taking workforce practices from tactical to strategic. Another commentary focuses on I-O's core capabilities in effectively using analytics and metrics to build sustainable organizations and argues that the recent drive to abandon rigorous performance measurement appears to be a step backward relative to our profession's relevance and impact in this area. Our final commentary identifies organizational barriers that prevent HR and I-O professionals from being more impactful and offers up a series of recommendations for removing these hurdles.

In our second article, “Subtle Discrimination in the Workplace: A Vicious Cycle,” Kristen Jones, Dave Arena, Christine Nittrouer, Natalya Alonso, and Alex Lindsey advance our understanding of discrimination in the workplace by arguing for a multidimensional and continuous framework for discrimination. Specifically, Jones et al. provide a clarifying framework through which to understand the dimensions along which discriminatory instances may vary within the workplace, including subtlety, formality, and intentionality. Jones et al. present an in-depth and nuanced view of subtle discrimination and explore its antecedents, underlying mechanisms, and consequences—along with recommendations for remediation.

The commentaries extend the focal article in a variety of ways, from questioning whether or not differences on the intentionality construct actually produce differing impacts for targets to the need to build a more integrative framework that considers all three dimensions simultaneously. Other commentaries extend the focal article's framework to different business sectors (e.g., service industry standards for customer service may cultivate acts of subtle discrimination, how employees form shared perceptions that impact how they treat customers), and still other commentaries offer expanded perspectives for measuring and reducing subtle discrimination. One commentary builds on the focal article by highlighting how the cumulative effects of subtle discrimination limit the ongoing development and advancement of individuals from stigmatized groups, which has not been studied in our literature. Another commentary offers the perspective that subtle discrimination behaviors are natural, predictable, and rooted in a basic need to belong and affiliate. These authors contend that organizational actions taken to prevent overt discrimination serve to create an “equal and opposite” reaction of subtle discrimination, and to mitigate this phenomenon, employees should be given the prerogative to choose their work team, and their performance should be appraised as a team.

It would not be possible to publish this journal without the hard work of talented reviewers. I appreciate the significant help and input of William Strickland, Stephen Steinhaus, Aharon Tziner, Adrienne Colella, Mikki Hebl, and Alan Witt.