Abstract
This chapter poses a number of practical and ethical considerations to developing internationally focused curricula and effective South–North partnerships. We focus on the differences, disparities, and power imbalances within our discipline, and reframe these as valuable learning opportunities to develop a new generation of globally and socially aware organizational psychologists.
Current organizational psychology curricula tend to be dominated by constructs originating from a so-called “Western” context, typically the USA, the UK, and Western Europe. While cross-cultural psychology has begun to infuse certain areas of organizational psychology, there is often an implicit assumption that constructs can be seamlessly exported to “non-Western” cultures. In addition to this, research examples typically used in courses, and in mainstream textbooks themselves, largely come from “Western” country settings, with little reflection of the types of challenges organizations in other countries face. Many students graduate with an awareness of today’s globally connected world, but little knowledge of the challenges faced by organizations in “non-Western” countries. A discussion of these challenges is crucial for developing the next generation of graduates, more and more of whom will be charged with working in a global labor market.
This chapter unpacks historical issues of dominance and power within our discipline, and outlines some of the important work being undertaken to expand the horizons of organizational psychology, for example, through a movement called ‘humanitarian work psychology’ (HWP). We highlight the critical need for all psychologists to remember that internationalizing a discipline is not about taking ’our’ discipline into a global arena, but about working to develop locally appropriate constructs, measures, and research as well. Just as organizations looking to expand into other country settings cannot do so without stopping to think about (and listen to) the cultural and human capital differences within that foreign context, so also our classes cannot be exported to different country settings without those same considerations (like developing local measures and broadening constructs).
Organizational psychology as a discipline needs to respond to the demands of a constantly evolving ’global’ business community. This chapter addresses strategies for balancing the local needs with the global when developing organizational psychology programs and courses.
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See http://www.gohwp.org.
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See previous URL.
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See http://www.siop.org.
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For details, see http://poverty.massey.ac.nz/#global_issue.
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The authors would like to thank Dr Arun Karpur and Dr R. Balasubraniam for providing details of the ILR-SVYM GSL Program.
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McWha, I., Mji, G., MacLachlan, M., Carr, S. (2014). Challenges and opportunities to developing South–North program partnerships. In: Griffith, R., Thompson, L., Armon, B. (eds) Internationalizing the Curriculum in Organizational Psychology. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-9402-7_2
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