Industrial-organizational psychology and organizational behavior management: An objective comparison

This article compares traditional industrial-organizational psychology (I-O ) research published in Journal of Applied Psychology (JAP) with organizati onal behavior management (OBM) research published in Journal of Organizatio nal Behavior Management (JOBM). The purpose of this comparison was to ident ify similarities and differences with respect to research topics and method ologies, and to offer suggestions for what OEM researchers and practitioner s can learn from I-O. Articles published in JAP from 1987-1997 were reviewe d and compared to articles published during the same decade in JOBM (Nolan, Jarema, Br Austin, 1999). This comparison includes (a) author characterist ics,(b) authors published in both journals, (c) topics addressed, (d) type of article, and (e) research characteristics and methodologies. Among the c onclusions are: (a) the primary relative strength of OEM is its practical s ignificance, demonstrated by the proportion of research addressing applied issues; (b) the greatest strength of traditional I-O appears to be the vari ety and complexity of organizational research topics; and (c) each field co uld benefit from contact with research published in the other.