Page 17 - Psychological Management of Individual Performance

Series Preface

Peter Herriot
The Empower Group

The dictionary definition of ‘handbook’ runs as follows:
A book of instruction or guidance, as for an occupation; a manual

A guidebook for travellers

A reference book in a particular field

A scholarly book on a particular subject, often consisting of separate essays or articles.

These definitions are placed in the historical order of their appearance in the language.
So the earliest use of a handbook was as a set of instructions which members of particular
occupations kept at hand in order to be able to refer to them when they were uncertain of
how to tackle a problem at work. The most recent definition, by way of contrast, refers
to a scholarly book consisting of separate essays or articles.
It is the modest ambition of the Wiley Handbooks in the Psychology of Management
in Organizations to reverse the course of (linguistic) history! We want to get back to
the idea of handbooks as resources to which members of occupations can refer in order
to get help in addressing the problems they face. The occupational members primarily
involved here are work and organizational psychologists, human resource managers and
professionals, and organizational managers in general. And the problems they face are
those that force themselves with ever greater urgency upon public and private sector
organizations alike: issues such as how to manage employees’ performance effectively;
how to facilitate learning in organizations; how to benefit from a diversity of employees;
and how to manage organizational change so that staff are engaged and supported.
Now the claim to provide something useful for professionals, rather than a set of
scholarly articles, is a bold one. What is required if such a claim is to be justified? First,
practising professionals need a clear theoretical basis from which to analyse the issues
they face, and upon which to base their solutions. Practice without underpinning theory
is merely applying what has worked in some situations to other ones without knowing
why, and hoping they will work there too. This is blind empiricism.
Theory without practice, on the other hand, is mere indulgence. It is indulgent because
theories in applied science can never be properly tested except by application, that is,
their attempted use in solving problems in the real world. A handbook in the original
sense of the word will therefore contain elements of practice as well as statements of
theory. The Wiley Handbooks in the Psychology of Management in Organizations seek to
demonstrate by descriptions of case studies, methods of intervention, and instruments of
assessment, how theory may be applied in practice to address real organizational issues.
It is clear that Work and Organizational Psychology is a core discipline for addressing
suchissuesasthoselistedabove,fortheyalldependfortheirsolutionuponanunderstand-
ing of individuals’ behaviour at work, and of the likely effects of various organisational