Conducting Multinational Research (Hardback) | Released: 15 Apr 2012

Researchers conducting multinational organizational studies face considerable challenges. They must not only understand psychological variables, but also translate measures across several languages and administer those measures across several countries and organizational settings. Furthermore, once the data are collected, the researchers must determine whether the measures operate in a similar statistical manner across cultures in terms of their factor structure, reliability, and predictive validity. The entire process can be daunting.

This book presents accessible models and real-world examples of large-scale, multinational research within organizations. The contributors describe their own successful research projects, highlighting the challenges they have faced and how they have overcome them. Psychometric, ethical, and methodological concerns are explored, as well as the personal and professional rewards of conducting this type of research.
About the Author: Ann Marie Ryan, PhD, is a professor of organizational psychology at Michigan State University (MSU).

Her major research interests involve improving the quality and fairness of employee selection methods, and topics related to diversity and justice in the workplace. She also has recently conducted research on work-nonwork conflict. In addition to publishing extensively in these areas, she regularly consults with organizations on improving assessment processes.

She is a past president of APA's Division 14 (Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology [SIOP]) and past editor of the journal Personnel Psychology.

Dr. Ryan has a long record of professional service on SIOP committees and National Academy of Sciences panels, and she currently serves on the Defense Advisory Committee on Military Personnel Testing.

She received her PhD in psychology from the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Frederick T. L. Leong, PhD, is a professor of psychology at Michigan State University (MSU) in the industrial/organizational and clinical psychology programs. He is also the director of the Consortium for Multicultural Psychology Research at MSU.

He has authored or coauthored more than 200 journal articles and book chapters and has edited or coedited 12 books. He is editor-in-chief of the Encyclopedia of Counseling and the APA Handbook of Multicultural Psychology. He is also editor of APA's Division 45 (Society for the Psychological Study of Ethnic Minority Issues) book series Cultural, Racial and Ethnic Psychology and founding editor of the Asian American Journal of Psychology.

Dr. Leong is a fellow of APA Divisions 1, 2, 5, 12, 17, 29, 45, and 52; the Association for Psychological Science; the Asian American Psychological Association; and the International Academy for Intercultural Research.

His major research interests center on culture and mental health, cross-cultural psychotherapy (especially with Asians and Asian Americans), cultural and personality factors related to career choice, and work stress.

He is the past president of APA Division 45, APA Division 12--Section VI (Clinical Psychology of Ethnic Minorities), the Asian American Psychological Association, and the International Association of Applied Psychology's Division 16 (Counseling Psychology Division).

Dr. Leong received his PhD in counseling and industrial/organizational psychology from the University of Maryland, College Park.

Frederick L. Oswald, PhD, is an associate professor in the industrial/organizational psychology program at Rice University.

His research deals with employment testing and personnel selection in organizational, educational, and military settings. Specifically, his work involves defining, modeling, and predicting performance outcomes from measures of cognitive and motivational constructs (e.g., cognitive abilities, personality traits, situational judgment, job knowledge and skill, biographical data).

His statistical work deals with psychological measurement, adverse impact, meta-analysis, and structural equation modeling.

Dr. Oswald publishes his research in close collaboration with the graduate students he mentors, and he has a history of large-scale, grant-funded projects (e.g., U.S. Navy, College Board).

Currently, he is an associate editor of the Journal of Management and Journal of Business and Psychology; he also serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Applied Psychology, Personnel Psychology, Psychological Methods, Organizational Research Methods, International Journal of Selection and Assessment, and the Journal of Research in Personality.

Dr. Oswald received his PhD in psychology from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities Campus.