As acknowledged by Lord and Dinh (2014) in their focal article, across a plethora of organizational literatures and topics of interest, there often seems to be a common theme: context matters. Although this is not a very surprising statement and may seem obvious, the surprising reality is that within a number of topics in our field, context is either superficially taken into consideration or not examined at all. This oversight has the potential to skew our understanding of important concepts. Indeed, Joshi and Roh (2009) revealed in their meta-analysis exploring team diversity that context served as a significant moderator of performance, illustrating the criticality of understanding how contextual factors may predict outcomes above and beyond individual inputs.

As a practitioner with 25 years of experience applying industrial and organizational (I-O) psychology concepts to address business challenges, I want to expand upon the point that “robust science is relevant” (Grand et al., 2018, p. 10)—specifically, that making two changes in the field's research direction could greatly increase the impact, value, and credibility of I-O psychology in the broader world of work.

Miner et al.’s (2018) interpretation of gender inequity in STEM fields as a social-structural problem shifts the onus from “her” as the root of the problem to “us” as a society. However, despite noting the “even bleaker” outlook for women of color early on, the focal article lacks an intersectional focus, ignoring the differential experiences that exist between white women and women of color. Crenshaw's (1991) original work on intersectionality highlighted the fact that the experiences of women of color (WOC) often differ drastically from those of their White counterparts, and the subsequent body of intersectionality literature in a variety of fields reminds us that failing to include an intersectional perspective is an oversight we can no longer afford to make. With this in mind, we highlight the ways in which those at the intersection of both gender and racial minority status face a “double bind” (Malcom & Malcom, 2011), such that they are additionally disadvantaged by society's perceptions and expectations of the behavior of WOC.

The situational judgment test (SJT) development procedures outlined by the authors of the focal piece (Lievens & Motowidlo, 2016) provide an excellent framework to design SJTs that help answer fundamental questions about what SJTs measure and why they work. This article expands on this framework to explore further some of the issues faced in the development of SJTs. These issues include the implied assumption of linearity between general domain knowledge and effectiveness, whether the SJT measures a single construct or multiple constructs, and when a more criterion-centered approach to SJT development might be preferred.

I will be making some highly personalized comments on the Aguinis et al. (2017) focal article concerning rigor versus relevance, renaming/rebranding industrial and organizational (I-O) psychology, and I-O psychology versus business school organizational behavior (OB). Before commenting, however, I feel compelled to briefly frame my remarks from the perspective of my 50-year academic career. For example, I think it is important to note that I go back to the early 1960s at the University of Iowa, College of Business. I was studying for my PhD in the just emerging field of management and organizations (nothing was offered called organizational behavior or strategic management). However, and very unusual for the times for management majors, I also took a minor in the psychology department concentrating on social and I-O psychology. Also, after receiving my PhD in 1965, for my 2-year military obligation, after infantry officer training I was assigned to West Point and taught cadets the required psychology course and military leadership. This background had a formative and lasting impact on my thinking about OB and I-O psychology.

Bergman and Jean (2016) compare published industrial and organizational (I-O) literature with labor statistics, demonstrating an underrepresentation of “workers” (i.e., “wage earners, laborers, first-line personnel, freelancers, contract workers”) relative to managerial, professional, and executive positions. They note that one of four ways in which worker underrepresentation undermines the utility of I-O psychology research is that we could miss the role of worker status as a main effect on important variables and/or a moderator of key relationships, which could hinder understanding of important phenomena as they relate to workers. We applaud the emphasis on workers and agree with this basic premise.

By examining the psychological determinants of employability, Hogan, Chamorro-Premuzic, and Kaiser's (2013) model of employability provides a framework for exploring the hurdles that applicants with stigmatizing conditions must overcome in selection contexts. Specifically, the most qualified applicants not only must be willing and able to do the job, but they also must be rewarding to deal with. Reframing selection research in terms of perceptions of employability calls attention to the subjective decisions that continue to disadvantage members of stigmatized groups. Our comments address several issues with respect to the desirability of compensatory selection procedures that emphasize perceptions of social desirability and P–O fit.

For decades I tracked and filed information from many different sources on corporate wrongdoing, both the unethical but legal kind (all wrongdoing is unethical and some of the worst of it is made legal by a subservient government) and the illegal kind. After I retired as an industrial–organizational (I–O) psychologist I expanded substantially my archival research and eventually wrote two books that are very pertinent here.

Costanza and Finkelstein (2015) are correct to highlight the dangers of using generationally based stereotypes in organizations. Although popular, these stereotypes are related to a stigmatization based on group membership that can be pernicious and discriminatory. Costanza and Finkelstein are also correct in their assessment of the state of the literature on generational effects: theory and research is woefully lacking. Indeed, a recent review of research on generations at work characterized this research as descriptive and neither theoretical nor empirical (Lyons & Kuron, 2014). Yet, as pointed out by Costanza and Finkelstein, the idea of a generational identity is salient and even appealing to many people. Why would this be if it were completely devoid of psychological import? People seem to resonate with the idea that, to some extent at least, they are a product of their generation.

Although the authors of the focal article provide a comprehensive definition of 360° feedback, one exclusionary criterion results in an overly narrow definition of 360° feedback. Specifically, Point 3 in their definition described the criticality of strictly using quantitative methods in collecting 360° feedback. The authors provided a brief rationale by stating, “Data generated from truly qualitative interviews would not allow comparisons between rater groups on the same set of behaviors” (Bracken, Rose, & Church, 2016, p. 765). Although there is little doubt about the value in taking a quantitative approach for gathering 360° feedback, it is not clear why this has to be the sole approach. Below, I outline three issues with taking this constricted methodology. That is, first, excluding qualitative methods is not in line with the purpose of 360° feedback, which is directed at minimizing criterion deficiency. Second, qualitative methodologies (in conjunction with quantitative methodologies) are more equipped to provide and inspire a call to action (supporting the change component addressed by the authors). Finally, there are qualitative methods that allow for rigorous quantitative analysis and can provide an additional source of macro organizational-level data.