In the focal article, Jones, Arena, Nittrouer, Alonso, and Lindsey (2017) provide a review and a conceptual framework for examining subtle discrimination in the workplace. The focal article, however, mainly focuses on subtle discrimination that occurs among coworkers and only mentions customers once. The current commentary delves deeper into this notion and extends their framework by focusing on customer-based subtle discrimination. We mainly focus on research from the service industry, in part because the service industry is the largest industry in the United States, employing more than half of all employees in the United States (Lopez, 2010), and because the service industry involves frequent customer interactions. Whether it is a server in a restaurant, a front-desk clerk at a hotel, a flight attendant on a plane, or an attendant in a retail store, stigmatized service employees often face subtle discrimination. Consistent with the focal article, we argue that the subtle discrimination faced by service employees can be both interpersonal (e.g., rudeness directed toward a stigmatized service employee) and formal (e.g., a lower tip for a stigmatized service employee). The purpose of this commentary is to highlight the research on subtle discrimination by customers, focusing on a discussion of the reasons why stigmatized service employees are particularly vulnerable to subtle discrimination from customers during service encounters.

The idea of embedded versus peripheral corporate social responsibility (CSR) proposed by Aguinis and Glavas (2013) appears to be very intuitive and functional. After all, who can on face deny the argument that CSR will have the maximum positive outcomes when it is not just an add-on but is thoroughly integrated into the strategies, routines, and operations of the business? However, on closer inspection, there appear to be several problems with the embedded–peripheral dichotomy. Three major ambiguities of the embedded–peripheral dichotomy are focused on in this commentary. The first lies in the potential for significant ambiguity in whether a company falls in one category or the other based on how the totality of the organization's operations and functions are categorized. A company can have CSR built into their operations and strategies for part of their business (embedded) while have them not be built into their operations for different aspects of the operations or product strategies. The second ambiguity area is how CSR actions get defined as peripheral or embedded that does fit well with the actual importance level of the action to the organization. We look at an organization example (TOM Shoes) where peripheral CSR actions have significant impact on organizational success.

Dissatisfaction with performance management (PM) has had a long history. Managers and employees alike have frustrations with the system, and numerous calls for the elimination of performance appraisal have been made over the years (e.g., Scholtes, 1999). The dissatisfaction and calls for elimination have created pressure for change in the practice of PM, and I applaud the focus on feedback and coaching that Pulakos, Mueller Hanson, Arad, and Moye (2015) have proposed. Providing feedback and being actively involved in the PM process would seem to be a key part of the job of managers, yet many managers are uncomfortable addressing this central task. Focusing efforts in our field on improving the skills of managers and helping managers become effective coaches can play a key role in improving PM. The need for improvement in the informal process, however, does not mean that the formal process is not needed. Pulakos et al. have suggested streamlining the formal PM system as much as possible, with particular emphasis on the possibility of eliminating performance ratings. It is argued here that the formal PM system still serves important purposes. It is also argued that a balance between the informal and formal aspects of the PM system needs to be maintained. These two issues are addressed below.

One of the key characteristics of a rigorous and robust science is that it has the ability to self-correct when mistakes are made. The focal article by Grand et al. (2018) has plenty to say about what faithful actors can do to ensure a more robust industrial and organizational (I-O) psychology literature, but we were surprised at how little attention the issue of correcting the research record was given. To be clear, the target article mentions the issue of research misconduct and even cites an article from Leadership Quarterly (Atwater, Mumford, Schriesheim, & Yammarino, 2014) that deals specifically with the issue, but it does not include guidance on this issue for editors or publishers. This is not surprising. The issue of misconduct is one that produces a great deal of discomfort in academic circles (Wager, 2015), and when it is discussed, it is usually only in the vaguest terms (e.g., Banks et al., 2016). Moreover, as Grand and colleagues point out, it could be argued that the “gathering storm” of questionable research that has enveloped other fields such as social psychology seems distant. Perhaps to reassure us, the authors point to several articles showing that results of our field seem to be replicable, robust, and relevant. But are they?

For industrial and organizational psychologists who are unfamiliar with the mindfulness literature, Hyland, Lee, and Mills (2015) nicely introduce the concept by highlighting key findings from prior studies. Although their review focuses on the many benefits of mindfulness, we believe that mindfulness research should address certain questions that will help us understand whether mindfulness interventions result in a cost-effective positive return on investment. In alignment with the perspective of evidence-based practice (Briner & Rousseau, 2011; Pfeffer & Sutton, 2006), we call for a holistic evaluation of mindfulness, including a consideration of when or how unintended side effects emerge. Importantly, we discuss the potential mechanisms by which mindfulness generates valued outcomes (e.g., performance and collective psychological climate) and the need for more sophisticated research to isolate these causal effects. We also consider how the judicious use of utility analytics (e.g., cost effectiveness and return on investment) might help demonstrate the value of mindfulness interventions while also acknowledging questions of causality that must be addressed for such value to be experienced. We close by clarifying that we have the intention of promoting research to further evidence-based practices. There are organizations that have already begun providing mindfulness meditation interventions, and it is our hope that our commentary will help practitioners in these settings to consider the evidence suggesting that there may be unknown nuances regarding mindfulness practice. Ultimately, we believe that mindfulness is an important burgeoning area of research deserving of more scholarly attention.

Hyland, Lee, and Mills (2015) asserted that the many benefits of mindfulness practices have been underutilized and understudied at work. We agree with the focal article's stance that more research is needed on mindfulness at work. We extend this argument to include a request that future research pays attention to the mechanisms responsible for the effects of mindfulness at work. In this commentary, we (a) briefly discuss the practical importance of understanding the mechanisms by which mindfulness practices lead to positive outcomes, (b) outline the mediating mechanisms proposed by the leading theoretical model of mindfulness effects and how those mediators apply to work, and (c) argue that more rigorous, empirical research is needed to understand the mechanisms through which mindfulness practices lead to positive work outcomes.

Ree, Carretta, and Teachout (2015) outlined a compelling argument for the pervasiveness of dominant general factors (DGFs) in psychological measurement. We agree that DGFs are important and that they are found for various constructs (e.g., cognitive abilities, work withdrawal), especially when an “unrotated principal components” analysis is conducted (Ree et al., p. 8). When studying hierarchical constructs, however, a narrow emphasis on uncovering DGFs would be incomplete at best and detrimental at worst. This commentary largely echoes the arguments made by Wee, Newman, and Joseph (2014), and Schneider and Newman (2015), who provided reasons for considering second-stratum cognitive abilities. We believe these same arguments in favor of second-stratum factors in the ability domain can be applied to hierarchical constructs more generally.

It is safe to assume that an accurate performance appraisal (PA) is an important prerequisite to an effective performance management (PM) system, because with accurate PA information, management, teams, and employees can engage in the process of identifying and developing a wide range of job-relevant knowledge or skills to improve job performance. However, researchers and practitioners alike must continue to push for PA to be something other an administrative ritual; the ideal goal for PA is for it to contribute to a reliable process that can offer practical help to organizational operations, including PM. As Pulakos, Mueller Hanson, Arad, and Moye (2015) have pointed out, supervisors are concerned about demotivating or disengaging employees by providing PA ratings that are too much lower than the highest rating or ranking that is available, so having ratings that are clustered at the high end of the rating scale is quite common across organizations (Bretz, Milkovich, & Read, 1992).