Organizational Psychology

We are glad to introduce our readers to new issue of Organizational Psychology Journal.

Аbstract: the paper contains twenty-one reason for the increased number of man-made disasters and describes fourteen systemic organizational and psychological causes of man-made disasters: 1) characteristics of the social system; 2) the crisis of technical education and training; 3) the practiceof introducing new technologies; 4) accumulation of causes of accidents; 5) replacement of technical experts economists and lawyers; 6) the inevitability of risk when making decisions about stopping the system; 7) conformity of decision specialists; 8) lack of analysis of system errors; 9) no responsibility for improper management decisions taken; 10) lack of diagnostic systems and reducing the selectioncriteria indicators both for professional readiness and for professional competence; 11) “human factors”; 12) lack in enterprises and training centers complete training system to the specific conditionsof activity and extreme situations, prevention of adverse conditions of operators and other prevention activities; 13) the crisis of domestic engineering psychology; 14) the lack of a sufficient number of modern developments and textbooks on engineering psychology.

Purpose. The paper aims to conceptualize the resistance factors to organizational change, to assess their impact on the resistance to change according to line managers as the key change agents. Мethodology. Employee resistance to organizational change is considered as a form of organizational behavior on different levels: individual, group and organizational. According to the literature review and expert judgment, three-level system of resistance factors to organizational change has been offered. The paper uses a sample of 177 line managers from Russian companies in different fields for economics for an empirical test of the model. Findings. The result implies that the greatest impact on the employee resistance to change occur at the individual level. From the perspective of line managers, inertia and fear of negative consequences of changes have an impact on an individual level and group norms on the group level. The differences in the perception of managers, among the factors with different degrees of influence on the resistance to change at the organizational level are not detected. Research implications for practice. Two groups of resistance factors to organizational change have been identified: internal and external. Internal factors include: individual (inertia, fear of negative consequences of change,lack of trust and respect for managers) and social (group norms, group cohesion, the threat of losing power). External factors include organizational conditions of resistance to change: "rigid" organizational structure, characteristics of organizational culture, unclear organizational strategy, ineffective organizational change management, communication problem in organizations. Value of the results. Study contributes to the understanding of the patterns and managing employee resistanceto change, through providing three-level system of resistance factors to organizational change and examining this system empirically. It also has great importance for the successful implementing and managing organizational change.

The article describes general and specific laws of the world image development in professions of different types. The results of empirical studies of the world image development in different types of profession. General regularities of the development of the image of the world inherent in different types of occupations that appear at the level of perceptual and semantic layers of the image of the world. At the level of semantic layer dynamics for the development of vocational specificity of obese world is manifested in the increase of group cohesion level of incentives evaluation, increasing the degree of vocational specificity assessment with increasing experience of professional activity, as well as in the development of functional values of professionally significant incentives. The development of the perceptual world is also subject common to different types of trades the patterns manifested in the increase of the degree of vocational specificity with increasing experience of professional activity. Specific patterns are manifested at the level of nuclear layer of the world image. The nature of dynamics of structures nuclear layer image of the world in the development of the professional activity is different depending on the specific professional activities. Groups of professors with different experience of professional activity are more pronounced and professionally deterministic differences in value orientations than the accountants group with different experience of professional activity. Group of accountants with different experience professional activities differ in terms of internality in the area of failure (higher professionals with less experience) that is not observed when comparing groups of professors with different experience.

The main goal of this article is to look through the psychological literature on social risks problem aiming to find verified tools for classifying and measurement of social risks. We have attempted to cover and reflect the overall picture of social risks. Theoretical analysis of existing studies allowed to summarize and to highlight the areas of current state of social risks in organizations researches. We have found that social risks made its input in connection with the partial factors and extreme conditions, while in organizational psychology social risks have not been studied enough.Our typology of the social risks based on the ranking of students and the expert assessments. We also have compared them with observable phenomena and factors. Significant social risks ranked in the top positions of our classification, were they have been identified as organizational risks. Existential risks have less references. There were risk of uncertainty environment, risk of activity meaning loss, status risk and value risk. Risk of emotional infection, as well as the risk of communication, was assigned communication type of risk. Diagnostics directed to self-understanding of their own career path could help to choose relevant reducing means for the negative expectations. We consider gender approach for studying as the most perspective. This approach focuses attention on comparing the features of perception and the roles and stylistic peculiarities of the leaders both male and female. Our study is aiming at solving the organizational problem and at complementing the contemporary models and tools for understanding risks arising during the joint work.

The article is an attempt to understand the reasons why the abroad recognized and effective technology of personnel management do not work in a Russian companies. The reasons are considered: 1) ignoring the basic conditions for personnel management; 2) attempts to speedup and simplify the process; 3) simulation technology in favor of the persons concerned; 4) lack of necessary skills management personnel; 4) non-comlementary technology used in relation to the dominant ideology of the organization management. Introduced an operational definition of thec oncepts “technology” and “ideology”, as well as the “ideology of management”. Substantiates the close relationship between efficiency of technologies and the dominant ideology in the organization of management, especially management representations of a typical employee. The author shows some surface markers (symptoms) that appear in the course of consulting projects can serve as indicators behind them managerial ideology, and describes how these characteristics affect the quality of theproject. The author cites the example of the successful transformation of the ideology of the company’s management through the phased development of the new technology work with the staff. At the same time as the model uses the Litwin&Stringer’s concept of organizational growth. It concludes with recommendations for the introduction of advanced technologies of personnel management, which can be useful for professionals working in the field of organizational psychology.

This research is devoted to the phenomena on of transfer knowledge and skills received in training, in real life, particularly at the workplace. We research how some factors influence on transfer. Transfer of training is defined as the effective and continuing application, by trainees to their jobs, of the knowledge and skills gained in training – both on and off the job. The research base consist of the results of a survey of employees who participated in training sessions of the development of various professional skills and qualities. The obtained results describe the type and strength of the link between transfer and personal characteristics of the participants of the training, training design and work environment. We received interesting results concerning link between different types of motivation of participants and the level of transfer. There were also found some contentious issues that couldbe interesting for future research on this topic. The results of this study allow to make conclusions about how to increase the level of transfer and the effectiveness of trainings. This research could beuseful for specialists working in the area of training and development of personnel.

The article deals with the problem of understanding the constructs “employee engagement” and “work engagement“ in scientific and practical literature. Detailed analysis of the concepts of “organizational commitment”, “organizational citizenship behavior”, “job involvement” and “workengagement”, which are often seen as overlapping with the construct of “employee engagement” is presented. The similarities and differences in the content of the analyzed concepts are marked. Three reviews of new non-fiction book in Russian, “Work engagement: How to learn to love your work” are announced.

Review of the Book: Shaufeli, W., Dijkstra, P., Ivanova, T. Uvlechennost' rabotoi: Kak nauchit'sya lyubit'svoyu rabotu i poluchat' ot nee udovol'stvie [Work Engagement: How to learn to love my job and enjoy it]. M.: Kogito Center, 2015. 137 p.

Review of the Book: Shaufeli, W., Dijkstra, P., Ivanova, T. Uvlechennost' rabotoi: Kak nauchit'sya lyubit'svoyu rabotu i poluchat' ot nee udovol'stvie [Work Engagement: How to learn to love my job and enjoyit]. M.: Kogito Center, 2015. 137 p.

Review of the Book: Shaufeli, W., Dijkstra, P., Ivanova, T. Uvlechennost' rabotoi: Kak nauchit'sya lyubit'svoyu rabotu i poluchat' ot nee udovol'stvie [Work Engagement: How to learn to love my job and enjoy it]. M.: Kogito Center, 2015. 137 p.

We are pleased to announce the International scientific and practical conference "The main trends in the development of work and organizational psychology" which will be held on 15-16 October 2015 in Moscow.