“Project GLOW is a unique global network of research service and teaching hubs (SIOP, 2017). GLOW began in 2016, prompted by the prior work on poverty eradication by Stuart C. Carr at Massey University, Auckland, New Zealand. As pointed out in a superb summary of the project’s aims and ambit, and links to the United Nations SDGs (Scott, 2017), in 2016, half of all people classified in the world as “extremely poor” were not unemployed but working, in jobs. Dealing with “working poverty” has become a strategic objective for poverty reduction. The road to achieving this is by establishing true living sustainable wages that enable people (and organizations) to not only survive but, more importantly, to flourish and thrive. This emphasis on shared prosperity is emphasized in SDGs 9 and 10, for example.” – SIOP (2017)
Virtual Conference Sessions

The SIOP 2020 virtual conference features many interesting pro-social, humanitarian, diversity & inclusion sessions as well as a GOHWP co-founded Project Glow session. Select the links below to access a few of the selected sessions.
– https://whova.com/webapp/event/program/1042280/
– https://whova.com/webapp/event/program/1058881/
GOHWP Task Force
Interested in joining a GOHWP Task Force?

SIOP Foundation Awards
Dear GOHWP members, Please consider nominating yourself, or someone you know for one of the SIOP Awards outlined below. The three awards are particularly well aligned with HWP and the work you are all doing. 1. SIOP Humanitarian Award “This award is given for sustained, significant, and outstanding humanitarian contributions related to I-O psychology.” 2. Joel Lefkowitz Early Career Award for Humanistic I-O Psychology (*NEW* award this year) “A fundamental objective of research and practice in I-O Psychology ought to be to assure that organizations are safe, just, healthy, challenging and fulfilling places in which to work. An appropriate award nominee will have published work that is concerned with advancing those objectives and/or protecting or enhancing worker rights or well-being.” 3. Raymond A. Katzell Award in I-O Psychology “This award is designed to recognize a SIOP member who, in a major way, has shown to the general public the importance of work done by I-O psychology for addressing social issues, that is, research that makes a difference for people.” There are a range of other awards too, see here for an interactive poster with more information. If you would like support from the GOHWP board please let us know! GOHWP Executive Board |
Nobel Economics Prize Goes to Pioneers in Reducing Poverty

Jonathan Nackstrand/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Cash, Food and Health Care All Help the Poor, but Something’s Still Missing
Sustainable Development Goals (SDG)
Dear SDG actors,
What are the inspiring breakthroughs and success stories that illustrate SDG implementation? What are the good practices that can be replicated and scaled up? What are the gaps and constraints and how should we address them? Looking ahead, what steps should we take to accelerate progress?
To help answer these and other questions, UN DESA circulated a call for submissions of SDG-related good practices or success stories from Member States, the UN system and stakeholders – and received more than 600 suggestions! After a vetting from an interagency panel of experts, the first batch of good practices have been released on a searchable online database (//sustainabledevelopment.un.org/partnerships/goodpractices), featuring more than 400 submissions. More SDG good practices will be made available as the review is finalized. Our intention is to periodically issue a Call for Submissions of good practices, so if you missed this round, there will be another opportunity in the future.
To search the submissions including by sorting them by individual SDGs, click here and select the “SDG Good Practices” checkbox under the “Action Network & Databases” section in the left column. There is also a search bar for searching by country name or organization name.
We hope that this database will be useful in pointing out projects and initiatives being done to implement the SDGs around the world, and inspire others to take action.
Best regards,
UN DESA Division for Sustainable Development Goals
Alliance for Organizational Psychology
Whether working in consulting, academia, industry, or government, the niche field of Industrial- Organizational (IO) psychology is growing. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects an 8.4% increase between 2016 and 2026. Despite this growth, many students remain unaware of careers available within I-O psychology and gravitate toward less science-practitioner fields.
In an effort to educate students, the team at Psychology.org has created a series of comprehensive guides that explore I-O psychology degrees, licensure, and careers.
You can read the guides here:
Guide to Industrial-Organizational Psychology Degrees: //www.psychology.org/online-degrees/industrial-organizational-psychology/
Guide to Psychology State Licensure: //www.psychology.org/online-degrees/
Guide to Industrial-Organizational Psychology Careers: //www.psychology.org/careers/industrial-organizational-psychologist/
It’s time to vote in the 2018 GOHWP Elections!
Voting is now open!
To vote, please click on the link below, or copy and paste it into your browser. If you are a full member, you’ll be asked to vote for the chair, vice chair, and 3 board members at large. If you are a student member, you will vote for the aforementioned positions, as well as a student representative
https://xavier.co1.qualtrics.c
Or, the short form:
https://tinyurl.com/2018Electi
The election will be open until Saturday, October 27th. We will announce the new GOHWP Executive Board shortly thereafter.
Thank you for your participation in this important process!
Sincerely,
Morrie Mullins, on behalf of the GOHWP Leadership Team
Organizational Democracy
From GOHWP Member Matt Grabowski, IUPUI Doctoral Candidate, USA
Democracy is a cornerstone in western society. Many major governments operate utilizing the principles of democracy such that their citizens are encouraged to participate in their government and that the voice of the people can be heard. Though it has its flaws, we consider democracy to be superior to any other form of governance, yet organizations often do not operate by these principles.
Even organizations that employ thousands of people are usually governed by just a handful who use their resources as they see fit, even if their actions are not in the best interests of the majority. It seems counterintuitive to believe that people collectively should have control over how they are governed in greater society but not in the businesses they spend nearly one third of their life working. The concept of organizational democracy differs entirely from the typical hierarchical power structure by bringing many of the same principles we use in a democratic society into the organization.
Organizational democracy is exactly what it sounds like. It is employing the principle of “one person, one vote” into the workplace to ensure a voice is given to all workers. Organizational democracy is not as simple as just giving everyone a chance to vote on certain topics, this is a system that is built into the structure of the organization that guarantees the power of the majority. Specifically, employees in democratic organizations are tasked to participate in all levels of decision making with equal weight, and this is considered part of their responsibilities to the organization. These decisions range from simple proximal things (e.g. employee PTO or the purchasing new equipment for their department) to large scale decisions (e.g. what products/services will the company offer and how the profits are distributed).
A few companies exist using this type of model. The most notable example, Mondragon is worker cooperative federation which is made up of 261 companies and co-operatives (including a university) which collectively employ 74,335 people. The company was founded in Spain over 60 years ago and now operates internationally. As a democratic system, members of the co-operative federation participate in decision making collectively by form of a congress in which the members are elected to their positions to represent their respective co-operative members. While some members of the organization may hold a higher elected position, even lower member still get to participate with their vote being equally weighted.
The bulk of the research on organizational democracy is theoretical and comes from outside the field of psychology. Research in sociology and economics seems to focus on the larger impact of democratic organizations within society, but research at the organizational level and the individual level seems limited. Research from applied psychology fields have addressed the effects of culture and structure on democracy in the workplace, attitude and motivational differences of employees in democratic organizations versus non-democratic organizations, and even the effects of democracy on a few behaviors like organizational citizenship behaviors. This leaves ample opportunity for continuing research for I-O, especially on the “I” side such as considerations for hiring, performance appraisal, and training just to name a few topics. Plus, given the broader implications of organizational democracy increasing equality and the general welfare of people, this should be a topic to further explore in the HWP realm as well.
In summary, organizational democracy would mean bringing our societal form of governing down to the organizational level. Though this seems like an odd and unusual form of running an organization this organizational structuring exists and there is evidence that it is effective. We in the I-O and HWP fields have only begun to explore this topic and much more research still needs to be done! If democracy is the key to participation and equality, then organizational democracy is the next logical step in our society.
Further readings
Weber, W. G., Unterrainer, C., & Hoge, T. (2008). Socio-moral atmosphere and prosocial and democratic value orientations in enterprises with different levels of structurally anchored participation. German Journal of Research in Human Resource Management, 22, 171-194. doi:10.1177/239700220802200205
Wegge, J., Jeppesen, H., Weber, W., Pearce, C., Silva, S., Pundt, A., … Piecha, A. (2010). Promoting work motivation in organizations: Should employee involvement in organizational leadership become a new tool in the organizational psychologist’s kit? Journal of Personnel Psychology, 9, 154-171. doi:10.1027/1866-5888/a000025
The Sociological Quarterly Volume 57, Issue 1 (the whole issue is on democracy at work)
A link to Mondragon’s website