This illuminating and incisive textbook traces the development of work psychology and organizational behaviour from the early twentieth century to the present day. Far from being a conventional history of ideas, it is a demonstration of how each emerging school of thought has reflected the search for solutions to particular management problems, within specific social, political and economic contexts. Its primary focus is the relations among knowledge, power and practice.
Hollway deftly documents the key developments in the field, from scientific management and industrial psychology, through the human relations movement, to such current concerns as organizational culture, leadership and human resources management. She examines their production within particular conditions and power structures. She charts the impact of each trend upon the emergence of new management tools, work practices and ways in which employee regulation is attempted. The book concludes with a projection of the likely future development of work psychology and organizational behaviour in the light of current changes in work and employer-employee relations.
Work Psychology and Organizational Behaviour will be essential reading for teachers, students and practitioners in occupational psychology, organizational behaviour, industrial and organizational sociology, personnel and human resources management and public administration.
Industry Reviews
`should be read by all occupational psychologists (both academics and practitioners) who can only benefit from the challenging examination of the political bases of their work that the book undertakes. It fills a gap which has existed for far too long in occupational psychology' - Michael West, MRC/ESRC Social and Applied Psychology Unit, University of Sheffield `Hollway presents a well-researched and well-explicated personal construal of the historical development of occupational psychology, particularly the interdependences between scientific knowledge, power relations in the production process and our everyday practices as occupational psychologists... the author intersperses a reflective and often highly critical thesis of the naive, managerialist and manipulative precepts underscoring occupational psychology as a social science.... As a timely intervention and a much-needed challenge to these precepts, the book is to be congratulated.... Perhaps the real strength of this book lies in its dismissal of the model of the `expert' occupational psychologist supposedly standing in detached isolation from her or his subject matter and studying it with appropriate methods in the attempt to measure its properties. Instead, Hollway continually forces the reader to contextualize their own experiences and actions as psychologists.... I would recommend this book to others as a laudable intervention, but more importantly as one which offers an alternative perspective of both the discipline of occupational psychology and of the actions of practising psychologists working either in industry or in academia' - The Occupational Psychologist
