APA Handbook of Industrial and Organizational Psychology (Apa Handbooks in Psychology) 3 Volume Set

Each of the 63 chapters in these 3 volumes is written by a different author and gives a concise review/history of the academic research on that topic and often important developments that occurred outside of academia as well. Most chapters have several figures or tables that may show the most recent or most comprehensive models discussed or a summary of the data or sources. I am not a psychologist but in my work I deal with a lot of these topics that fall into "industrial psychology." This set gives me a thorough background on a topic with an average chapter length of about 30 pages of writing and then at the end of each chapter is an extensive list of references--some chapters have several hundred. For the average professional, the writing in this collection may be considered too "academic," but if you like to get a deep understanding of a topic that you're working on like I do, this will save you a lot of time compared to searching the literature and piecing together your own background. I will say that the writing is NOT as technical as the typical academic journal article: most of the authors do not discuss the statistical tests or analysis techiniques used in the studies they are reviewing. This set would be a great reference for a human resources department.

Well Done! - This is the first comprehensive review of all areas of I/O Psychology since the four volume Handbook of Industrial & Organizational Psychology, 2nd Ed. by Dunnette and Hough (Consulting Psychology Press) in 1991. This three volume compendium has good background and history on each subject, it is well organized, has properly cited references and each volume has a comprehensive index. The typically separate author index and subject index are combined here in a single index which I personally find more efficient. If you want to stay abreast of the I/O field this is the only current reference.