Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-jbqgn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-05T10:26:56.689Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Thinking Big About Big Data

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 December 2015

Amy Wax ,
Raquel Asencio  and
Dorothy R. Carter
Amy Wax*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, California State University, Long Beach
Raquel Asencio
Affiliation:
School of Psychology, Georgia Institute of Technology
Dorothy R. Carter
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of Georgia
*
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Amy Wax, Department of Psychology, California State University, PSY 100, 1250 Bellflower Boulevard, Long Beach, CA 90840. E-mail: amy.wax@csulb.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Guzzo, Fink, King, Tonidandel, and Landis (2015) review important issues—privacy, informed consent, and data/data analysis integrity—that are critical logistical considerations in any program of research with human subjects, including studies utilizing big data. Overall, we agree with the cautionary sentiment conveyed throughout the focal article; industrial and organizational (I-O) psychology researchers and practitioners should not assume that big data is a panacea, and many of our established disciplinary approaches for ensuring ethical and accurate research are applicable—or modifiable—in big data contexts. However, we believe that the conversation about big data in I-O psychology is broader than that reviewed by Guzzo et al., and we would like to further elaborate on the focal article. We present this commentary from our perspective as junior scholars entering the field at a critical time—a time when I-O psychology is becoming increasingly intertwined with big data science.

Type
Commentaries
Information
Industrial and Organizational Psychology , Volume 8 , Issue 4 , December 2015 , pp. 545 - 550
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Butts, C. T. (2008). A relational event framework for social action. Sociological Methodology, 38 (1), 155–200.Google Scholar
Cohen, J. (1994). The earth is round (p < .05). American Psychologist, 49, 997–1003.Google Scholar
Guzzo, R. A., Fink, A. A., King, E., Tonidandel, S., & Landis, R. S. (2015). Big data recommendations for industrial–organizational psychology. Industrial and Organizational Psychology: Perspectives on Science and Practice, 8 (4), 491–508.Google Scholar
Hall, K. L., Feng, A. X., Moser, R. P., Stokols, D., & Taylor, B. K. (2008). Moving the science of team science forward: Collaboration and creativity. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 35 (2), S243–S249.Google Scholar
Kozlowski, S. W., Chao, G. T., Grand, J. A., Braun, M. T., & Kuljanin, G. (2013). Advancing multilevel research design: Capturing the dynamics of emergence. Organizational Research Methods, 16, 581–615.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lazer, D., Pentland, A. S., Adamic, L., Aral, S., Barabasi, A. L., Brewer, D., . . . Van Alstyne, M. (2009). Life in the network: The coming age of computational social science. Science, 323, 721–723.Google Scholar
Leenders, R. T. A. J., Contractor, N., & DeChurch, L. (in press). Once upon a time: Understanding team processes as relational event networks. Organizational Psychology Review.Google Scholar
Noguchi, Y. (2015). Recruiting better talent with brain games and big data. All Tech Considered: Tech, Culture, and Communication. Retrieved from http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2015/02/25/388698620/recruiting-better-talent-with-brain-games-and-big-dataGoogle Scholar
Peck, D. (2013, December). They're watching you at work. The Atlantic, 312 (5), 72–84.Google Scholar
Shaw, J. (2014, April). Why “big data” is a big deal. Harvard Magazine, 3, 30–35.Google Scholar
Van de Ven, A. H. (2015). Welcome to the academy of management discoveries (AMD). Academy of Management Discoveries, 1 (1), 1–4.Google Scholar