Alliance Update

Mark Poteet

The Alliance for Organizational Psychology (AOP) is a federation of industrial, work, and organizational psychology (IWOP) societies from around the world. The aims of the AOP are to advocate for evidence-based policies and practices related to the quality of work life and the effectiveness of individuals and organizations; advocate internationally for the science and practice of industrial, work, and organizational psychology; and enhance communication and collaboration among its member societies and the individuals who are members of these societies as well as in the global community of industrial, work, and organizational psychologists. With this in mind, the AOP Executive Committee would like to share the following welcome letter from new President Annemarie Hiemstra outlining some of the goals and plans of the Alliance looking forward.

Dear Colleagues,

It is with great pleasure and honor that I greet you as the new president of the Alliance for Organizational Psychology (aka. Alliance). Together with the Executive Committee, we are eager to contribute to the global impact of organizational psychology in the workplace via the Alliance.

The Alliance for Organizational Psychology (AOP) was established in 2009, envisioning support and advancement of the science and practice of organizational psychology globally, to promote cross-national collaboration and to facilitate more effective communication among the federated members. By doing so, we improve working life globally. The founding members of AOP are SIOP, IAAP (Division 1), and EAWOP, with CSIOP joining soon afterwards. We are very pleased to announce that we have recently welcomed two new federated members, the Brazilian Association of Organizational and Work Psychology (SBPOT) and the College of Organisational Psychologists (COP) of the Australian Psychological Society. Their joining AOP marks an important milestone toward our goal to facilitate collaboration and impact working life globally.

During the 15 years of the existence of AOP, various successful activities have been launched to reach our aims. There is lively exchange of thoughts based on the latest empirical evidence during joint symposia at our main organizational psychology congresses. We continue to build a global community of scientists and practitioners via the “big tent” initiative, which connects leadership of organizational psychology associations across the globe to promote local activities, discuss, and disseminate knowledge and best practices. Furthermore, we identified and depict our connecting themes and practices as organizational psychologists with the Declaration of Identity (check it out here: https://alliancefororganizationalpsychology.com/declaration-of-identity). Highly recommended!

For the coming years the AOP will focus on global representation and facilitation of cross-national communication and collaborations via three main activities.

• First, to meet our global goals, we will look for opportunities to expand our group of federated members and representation across the globe.
• Second, to facilitate communication and collaboration between global associations, we will work with our delegates to assess needs with an aim to substantiate and celebrate our cross-national alignment and spark initiatives by connecting IWOP leadership during the first AOP Summit meeting. Keep an eye out for further announcements on this!
• Third and last, but certainly not least, we will continue to do what we do well: organizing state-of-the art joint symposia by our program committee, disseminating knowledge, practices, and discussions via the “big tent” and the Declaration of Identity.

We look forward to joint initiatives with organizational psychologists across the world over the coming years. AOP exists for and through its members. Please feel free to reach out to me and the Executive Committee to share your ideas and suggestions.

Kind regards,

Annemarie Hiemstra (President)

Sharon Glazer (Secretary General)

Mark Poteet (Treasurer)

Alexandra Michel (Communications Officer)

info@alliancefororganizationalpsychology.com