President's Column

Mo Wang

Happy Summer, SIOPers 😊

Before I start my first presidential column, I would like to thank my predecessors, Eden King, Georgia Chao, and Steven Rogelberg, who have made SIOP a better organization through their vision and agility, and navigated SIOP through the challenging time of the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, after 2 gap years, we were able to successfully hold our conference in person this April in Seattle and reengage with our great I-O community.  Thank you!

I hope to continue my awesome predecessors’ paths to move SIOP forward with my presidency. We are transitioning into a postpandemic world, and with that, I would like to commence a new era for our organization. A critical task for this new era is to help forge a content-driven SIOP. The past 2 years have demonstrated the importance for SIOP to deliver its content and promote its brand beyond our traditional channels, such as conferences.

Therefore, my presidential theme is to “Go Beyond.” With that, I believe we can continue SIOP’s growth and influence by focusing on three things in this postpandemic era. First, we need to cultivate an international landscape for SIOP’s operation and expansion. To date, SIOP has largely focused its operations in North America, whereas science and practices in I-O psychology have been developing rapidly in other parts of the world as well. Thus, to promote our brand and deliver our content to other parts of the world is of strategic importance, especially in terms of nurturing the organic growth of our profession.

Second, I would like to focus on I-O psychology’s involvement in shaping the postpandemic era of working and organizing. As the world begins to find a new “normal” in all aspects of life, I hope that SIOP can be a leading/guiding organization for the new ways of working and organizing. This will require us to better disseminate our knowledge and expertise in those areas. This will also require us to be more user driven and more public facing.

That leads me to my third goal, which is to focus on generating signature educational content to help SIOP continue to grow. I envision leveraging our expertise to influence the future of I-O psychologists by putting our content and brand in front of them while they are still in college or just started participating in the workforce. I am confident that our content will be the best ambassador of SIOP to connect with people and groups all over the world.

In closing, I would like to express my gratitude to our members, our volunteers, our Executive Board, and our community. I feel so fortunate to be a part of SIOP, and I am looking forward to leading our organization to enter this new era. At the same time, I would like to use this space to thank my mentors from graduate school, Michael Zickar, Yiwei Chen, Scott Highhouse, Steve Jex, and Milt Hakel. Without them, I would not be here to devote my service to SIOP. I thank them for their kindness, friendship, patience, and guidance. BGSU rocks!​