Hyland, Lee, and Mills (2015) open a door for discussing the benefits, utility, and challenges of mindfulness at work. Although it is evident from Hyland and colleagues that mindfulness can minimize negative employee outcomes (such as the experience of stress, strain, and burnout) and promote cognitive functioning, there seems to be limited consideration of how mindfulness actively promotes employee growth, development, high performance, and engagement. In this commentary, we speak to how mindfulness can encourage positive well-being at work in a hospital context. Specifically, we consider how mindfulness programs are currently being used in the ongoing training and development of nurses to cultivate patient-centered compassionate care. We propose that mindfulness can encourage positive well-being and compassionate care via the cultivation of resources and the creation of resource gain spirals, and we provide preliminary evidence for the utility of mindfulness training in hospital care settings.

Pulakos, Mueller Hanson, Arad, and Moye (2015) have stated that performance management (PM) best practices have resulted in the dissatisfaction of employees and managers with PM reviews and systems. The authors have suggested that the focus should be on driving critical PM behaviors that have been shown to increase engagement and performance. Corporate Leadership Council (2004) research demonstrated that increased engagement takes place when PM behaviors such as setting clear expectations, providing regular feedback, and helping employees develop and succeed occur. In addition, effective PM happens when employees are contributing to the process as well.

Here, we expand on Landers and Behrend's (2015) discussion of the external validity of convenience samples. In particular, we note that their focal article failed to mention one important limitation of multi-organization convenience samples (e.g., MTurk samples, student samples): Multi-organization convenience samples tend to confound levels of analysis, which affects the external validity of these samples. Specifically, between-organizations phenomena (i.e., organization-level) and within-organizations phenomena (i.e., individual-level) are distinct and separable (Ostroff, 1993; Robinson, 1950). Unfortunately, multi-organization samples such as those found in MTurk or MBA student samples can confound these two sets of phenomena. The current commentary uses a levels-of-analysis framework to expand on Landers and Behrend's discussion of what external validity is, and then the commentary illustrates how the diversity of convenience samples can actually harm external validity under some common circumstances.

For many, Penn State is synonymous with football and Coach Joe Paterno, an association that has been a source of pride for many alumni, staff, and students for years. As Alderfer's (2013) article summarizes, that overlap has now made the horrific behaviors of the former football coach Sandusky indelibly connected to Penn State. Alderfer argues that the scandal can be explained by the actions or inactions of nine Penn State groups “whose collective behavior first allowed the criminal acts to occur and then put an end to them” (p. 117).

This response highlights the common themes across the commentaries that reflect both opportunities and barriers to the successful creation of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered supportive organizations. In addition, in the interest of comprehensiveness, we describe additional perspectives and points that were not offered in the dialogue. Finally, in line with the evidence presented in the focal paper, we urge readers to consider their own roles in advocating for equity.

Adler et al. (2016) raise some controversial issues about whether performance rating systems should be eliminated or not. We strongly believe that the decision to do away with performance ratings is premature because more research needs to be done, as suggested by “the better questions” that Adler et al. listed at the end of the focal article. We propose that those questions can be extended further by testing them in other cultures and supplemented with these questions: When, how, and why do cultural values influence performance management? Given the nature of our increasingly diverse workforce in which employees with different cultural values work together within the same organization, it is crucial to identify and document the influence of culture on performance appraisal practices. In this commentary, we briefly summarize research to date on the influence of cultural values on performance management and identify some important future research directions.

The “big data” movement is forcing many fields to establish best practices for the collection, analysis, and application of big data, and the field of industrial–organizational (I-O) psychology is not exempt from this disruptive influence. Over the last several years, I-O scientists and practitioners have grappled with questions related to the definition, application, and interpretation of big data (e.g., Doverspike, 2013; Maurath, 2014; Morrison & Abraham, 2015; Poeppelman, Blacksmith, & Yang, 2013). The focal article by Guzzo, Fink, King, Tonidandel, and Landis (2015) continues this discussion and represents one of the first attempts to establish a formal set of recommendations for working with big data in ways that are consistent with I-O psychology's professional guidelines and ethics requirements.