Imagine a world where workplaces don’t just drive profits but also fuel positive change. For two pioneering researchers interviewed for this article, that vision isn’t just theoretical—it’s their life’s work. From tackling safety hazards in rural rice fields to championing a global living wage, these experts are proving that psychology isn’t just about productivity; it’s about purpose. In this article, we explore how their research is reshaping the future of work and the advice they have for others also looking to make a difference.
This column is sponsored by the SIOP Visibility Committee. The goal of SIOP’s Visibility Committee is to increase the visibility of SIOP, SIOP members, and I-O psychology to business leaders, public policy officials, and the public. Within the Visibility Committee sits the Advocacy & Prosocial Subcommittee, which aims to promote, guide, and encourage SIOP members’ use of industrial and organizational (I-O) psychology knowledge for prosocial purposes.
In the last issue, Eileen interviewed a prosocial I-O practitioner. For this issue, Shujaat conducted an interview with two academics who are making a prosocial impact in I-O psychology around the world. Dr. Stuart Carr is a UNESCO chair on Sustainable Livelihoods, professor of I-O psychology at Massey University, and a fellow of multiple societies, including SIOP. Stu’s research focuses on the organizational psychology of poverty reduction and eradication. Notably, he co-facilitates the Clean SLATE (Sustainable Livelihoods and The Ecosystem), which focuses on just transitions from precarious labor to decent work and living wages that protect the planet and leave nobody behind. Linked to SLATE is the Project Global Living Organizational Wage (GLOW), a multicountry, multigenerational, interdisciplinary study aimed at creating decent and sustainable livelihoods for the eradication of poverty, which Stu also cospearheaded. Dr. Mahima Saxena is an assistant professor of I-O psychology at the University of Nebraska Omaha and the recipient of the 2020 SIOP Humanitarian Award. She directs the Decent Work and Well-being Lab at UNO where her research focuses on areas such as decent work, informal economy and informal work, worker well-being, and occupational health, with particular emphasis on workers living in poverty, highly skilled individuals in the informal economy, and those facing occupational health challenges in the workplace.
Humanitarian work psychology (HWP), which will be referenced throughout this article, focuses on applying I-O principles to address social issues, improve well-being, and create positive change for underserved or marginalized populations. This focus on social impact and ethical practices aligns closely with prosocial I-O psychology, which seeks to create fair and inclusive work environments. The integration of HWP with prosocial I-O allows researchers and practitioners to shift the focus from purely organizational efficiency to making meaningful, positive changes for individuals, organizations, and society at large, particularly for those in vulnerable or disadvantaged situations.
What inspired you to pursue research in prosocial work? Were there any pivotal moments that drew you to conduct research in this area?
Mahima: What motivated me was the ability inherent in I-O to focus on the greater good and how this application is a core element of HWP. The prosocial aspect of it, along with the goal of making I-O psychology more accessible and impactful, really resonated with me. Prosocial-focused research can make our science holistic and well-rounded, and in practice, it can bring about meaningful change with a tangible impact on the lives of individuals.
A lot of those early learnings began in graduate school where I realized that although we have a plethora of research and practice in mainstream, traditional work, there is limited focus on other, alternate types of work. I remember Howard Weiss, my former advisor, often spoke about the criticality and need for I-O to impact larger policies related to work and labor. All my experiences up to that point began to resonate with a desire to delve deeper into this space.
A pivotal moment for me was when I first heard Stu Carr and Walter Reichman talk at a SIOP conference about how I-O psychology had to do more in relation to HWP. As a bright-eyed, early career I-O, soon to become a faculty member, this opened the door for me in terms of realizing that I-O is also a home for rigorous prosocial research and practice. Under Stu’s coleadership, HWP has provided a core content area in I-O that allows the pursuit of research on critical topics of global importance as they relate to the world of work.
In addition to HWP, I have always had an interest in occupational health psychology. Another pivotal moment for me occurred over a decade when I visited a rural, low-income, daily-wage, agricultural community where infectious diseases were seasonally endemic. I implemented the experience sampling method (ESM) to examine occupational safety and health hazards for this community of rice farmers. Although ESM is typically deployed for collecting data with employees in formal organizations, it was incredibly neat to utilize ESM in this rural, informal community of workers. One of the many challenges was collecting data on the experience sampling surveys without a smartphone app given literacy and access limitations. After modifying the method to fit the local context, we were able to successfully identify the triggers for the disease burden borne by the community. This project applied I-O and its methods to a critical, high-need, prosocial area.
This experience brought my attention to real-world issues that could significantly benefit from our science. In 2015, I received the SIOP Small Grant with John Scott to conduct research on decent work. This was the first time SIOP had awarded a research grant focused on HWP, it was tremendously encouraging, and it allowed me to formally assess issues related to decent work. Since then, there has been no looking back.
Stu: Networking and connections don’t happen at a single point in time. The more you connect with people, the more you realize that others are thinking the same way you are. We need to make more meaningful contributions and never end that process because if we do, we stop growing ourselves. Prosocial work keeps renewing itself because the challenges society faces don’t stand still.
Mahima was talking about finding a space and realizing that what you do could be useful. Malawi did that for me, as it was where I got my first job. I started off as a lecturer at the National University in Malawi with a PhD in Social Psychology. Malawi was economically very poor—the level of poverty there was something I’d never seen before, even though I came from a working-class family and knew a little bit about poverty. Students and faculty told me that I had to be applied; I couldn’t just be in my ivory tower and pontificate. The world was asking me, “What are you going to do about it?” So, I wanted to do something. I-O psychology beckoned.
At the time, there was a revolution going on in Malawi, with a democratic regime coming in and the country transitioning into a multifaceted market. Many people were trying to start businesses, and things took off from there. In any such context of dynamic change, finding people like ourselves continues to inspire me. Your work, Mahima, and yours, Shujaat, keeps inspiring others. It’s like one inspiration fuels the other. Prosocial work happens within this network—it is the change we want to see in the world.
Briefly share your joint research collaborations and others, if relevant, that have deepened our understanding of prosocial work. How, if at all, has this research addressed real-world challenges or social issues?
Stu: I am part of the UNESCO chair collaborative network, which is pushing towards sustainable livelihoods. Mahima mentioned something to me the other day about how work is much more than just making money—it’s about traditions, skills, dignity, and liberty if it’s decent work. This made me realize that education, science, and culture, which UNESCO, by name and definition, promotes, are all intertwined with decent and dignified work, and that’s the space we’re in. This is a broader perspective, as opposed to the stereotype that work is simply a means to an end.
Mahima, Dr. Veronica Hopner, and I are coworking on the first Sustainability Livelihoods Index, which we believe could be useful and bring about change. We are part of 23 colleagues from around the world involved in this project (a mix of I-O psychologists, sociologists, economists, and business professionals), and we all bring different perspectives, backgrounds, and experiences to the table. This project, under Clean SLATE, has roots that can be traced back to connections made in earlier years.
Project GLOW is one of those roots which allowed diversity of thoughts and ideas to come together in a collective effort. Wages can be a taboo topic, but when you can’t put bread on the table, when wages cannot meet the cost of living, that’s pretty salient. A critique of work research, in general, is that we have overrepresented socially privileged (POSH) samples. The more you work with lower paid work groups, who are often not paid living wages, the more you realize that money matters and is fundamentally relevant to work psychology.
How can educators, policymakers, or community leaders encourage prosocial work on a larger scale?
Mahima: Educators play a big role in interacting with their students on a regular basis. One of the ways educators can make an impact is by introducing the idea of prosocial work and HWP right from the start in I-O classes both at the undergrad and graduate levels—certainly, in I-O core seminars for graduate students but also undergraduate psychology classes as well as undergraduate I-O courses. It weaves in nicely across so many topics. Just yesterday we spoke about history and systems in I-O, and in terms of where we are today, HWP was automatically brought up in tracing the trajectory of our field. Another class I love teaching is occupational health psychology, and HWP gets brought up there as well. Prosocial work is really woven into everything we do in our field, no matter what the topic is.
Policymakers and researchers can also connect for better application of our field to policy matters. On a global scale too, tighter partnerships with policymakers, along with efforts directed toward translational pieces and policy briefs to share the impact of our work with a global audience, might be useful avenues to pursue.
Stu: On the educator front, as Mahima was saying, there’s so much there—it’s not just about supply, there is much demand. The students are hungry for this information; they truly are. The most common feedback I get from students is, “I didn’t realize I-O psychology has so many different aspects.” They see it as a lens, almost like a telescope, to look at the different functions of work. And as you turn it around, you start to see all these prosocial applications, edges, and foundations.
It would be helpful for us to create a cloud where educators can share resources—so we can exchange materials and collaborate across different platforms in a prosocial way. This is a core idea in our UNESCO chair group project to teach sustainable livelihoods across institutions globally, called SLiC (Sustainable Livelihoods Collaboration). Another area that comes to mind is cities. The US was a pioneer in living wage initiatives. Cities are powerful agents of change. They have councils, and those councils have organizations that make decisions, like putting in a living wage ordinance. Some of the work from Project GLOW has ended up in those council meetings. The evidence is being pushed by I-O groups, along with NGOs, labor movements, unions, and small business owners. This happened in New Zealand during the COVID-19 pandemic when a local council adopted a living wage (which was higher than the minimum wage) for their employees and contractors. It created a ripple effect throughout the region. This was incredibly prosocial at a very particular time in history, both in NZ and the world.
The last point I’d like to mention is greenwashing, which denoted that people were skeptical about corporate social responsibility (CSR). Yet today, through CSO (chief sustainability officer) roles, sustainability work is becoming more mainstream and more embedded in organizational roles. “Green collar” work is expanding, which allows us to contribute more to this space. Consumers are now looking at what companies are doing before deciding to buy their products. In the Sustainability Index project that I’m collaborating on with Mahima, Veronica, and others, we’ve made it so that people in different roles can wear different “collars” at work, allowing room for growth in work evolution. And this is happening within formal organizations. The big challenge, though, is the informal sector, which is much larger.
What advice do you have for I-Os (in different career stages and contexts) who want to get started with prosocial research?
Mahima: SIOP conferences often provide a curated set of prosocial sessions, so if you’re interested in attending or learning about this area, that’s a great way to get involved. Students have great ideas. I see this firsthand in my classroom and within the student community. Encouraging students and providing a space to pursue prosocial interests would also be tremendously positive.
Stu: The first thing you should do is reach out to a community and collaborate with like-minded people. There are more of them out there than people realize. Connect in classrooms, at conferences, with local I-O groups, CoP groups, or through free projects like GLOW. We also have technology that makes it easier to connect with people around the world, something that wasn’t as widely available 15 years ago. You can change the world—it may take time, but it’s definitely possible. Change is in the wind!
Are you doing prosocial I-O work you’d like to see featured in TIP? The Advocacy & Prosocial Subcommittee would love to hear from you! Contact us to find ways to share your experiences with the broader SIOP community.
