EDITOR’S NOTES—SURVIVAL OF ISPI, HPT, PI: ARE WE STILL RELEVANT?
“Step one is to let go of old narratives and find inspiration in everyday intersections, overlaps, and patterns.” (Doorley & Carter, 2024, p. 199).
Survival of a field of study (e.g., human performance technology, HPT; performance improvement, PI), depends on the field’s ability to sustain its long-term relevance. The concept of relevance relates to how information produced from a field of study can address and help resolve real-world problems. Bastow et al. (2014) explained this in the following:
“For any societal [social science] research to be successfully applied in public or organizational decisions it must be timely, produced speedily, capturing the salient features of a situation and behaviors that may shift quickly in response to new factors, or interaction with previously separate phenomena” (p. xvii).
Relevance could be operationalized (measured) through matrixes that measure what Bastow et al. (2014) call “visibility.” The impact that a research study has in its designated field of study (internal of one’s discipline) in general, and to the larger scientific community (external of one’s discipline) specifically, is a combination of a study’s relevance and visibility (Bastow et al., 2014).
The more a field of study becomes disconnected from practice, the less relevant it becomes. In viewing a field of study as consisting of members engaged in practice and research (e.g., scholars, practitioners, professional organizations, academic programs), one could identify the field as a culture. The survival of a culture, or field of study from our perspective, depends on the relevance of its knowledge:
“The survival of human cultures as we know them will not only depend on the continued accumulation of scientific and technological knowledge but on the ways in which this accumulation will be shaped in the future and on how the knowledge it generates will be put into practice in order to ensure this survival” (Renn, 2020, pp. 325–326).
The challenge posed in this editorial, or our call to researchers, is to be critically reflective and identify how relevant the field’s research, or knowledgebase, is in today’s globally entangled environment. Are we still relevant today? Are we reshaping our theories for the future?
EXTERNALIZATION VS INTERNALIZATION
From an evolutionary perspective, organisms or systems (e.g., discipline, field of study) must involve the concepts of “externalization” and “internalization” (Renn, 2020). Externalization refers to the complex interaction between a field’s knowledge and its environment, whereas internalization refers to the interactions of the agents within the culture or field. Survival does not reside in one or the other, but in the interactions between both externalization and internalization. For example, agents within a field of study can prop up a field’s theory by stating that it is relevant, gaining support from other agents within the same field. However, unless the theory is found relevant external of the field, the theory has little to no utility. Additionally, if a new theory external to the field of study (from a different discipline) has been shown to address a phenomenon in a way that one’s field of study has been unable to resolve, the field of study has two options. Either adopt the theory from the external field of study, or ignore the theory because it didn’t originate from the member’s field of study. The former helps to update a field’s knowledgebase and keep the field current, while the latter keeps the field closed and homogenous.
Long-term survival depends on a field of study continuously updating its knowledgebase, so that it remains relevant to the external environment. It’s a reciprocal process. Current models or theories have limited utility, regardless of their origination (internal or external of one’s discipline). There MUST be rigorous discussions among researchers within a discipline around this issue. Because theories have limited utility, just because they were found viable in a few studies doesn’t mean they remain relevant in different contextual settings or over time. It is of paramount importance that researchers not only question the field’s knowledgebase, but to consider alternative theories and perspectives:
“A scientist who wishes to maximize the empirical content of the views he holds and who wants to understand them as clearly as he possibly can must therefore introduce other views; that is, he must adopt a pluralistic methodology. He must compare ideas with other ideas rather than with ‘experience’ and he must try to improve rather than discard the views that have failed in the competition.” (Feyerabend, 2010, pp. 13–14).
Thus, we challenge the field by asking the following questions. Are the models and theories touted in the fields of HPT and PI still relevant? Are we open to other perspectives and theories, or do we remain hidden amongst ourselves?
WESTERN VS EASTERN PERSPECTIVES
Western perspectives place significant value in cause-and-effect relationships, while Eastern perspectives place more importance on relational issues. As an example, causal mechanisms from one study in one context is often generalized to other contextual settings. In some cases, these causal mechanisms hold true, however, many times they do not. When generalizing, there are additional factors at play that may not have been accounted for, or controlled for, in the initial study. Some of these factors could include environmental factors, processual factors, or even human factors. It is extremely hard to replicate findings across different contextual settings, in part, due to these confounding variables that change from one context to the next. This point was highlighted by Feyerabend (2010) when talking about “practical advantage”: “The fact that an approach is ‘scientific’ according to some clearly formulated criterion therefore is no guarantee that it will succeed. Each case must be judged separately” (p. 258). Thinking that findings are transferable leads to what is called “naïve assimilation,” the belief that everything can be transferred from one setting or context to the next (Jullien, 1999). These points show why a field’s knowledgebase must be continuously updated with its theories challenged and tested, especially when the external environment is changing at a rapid pace.
Accounting for relational conditions (e.g., environment, human factors, processes, technology) positions the findings from a study in the context rather than a-priori in causal mechanisms: “It cannot totally ignore the causal relationship, but it resorts to it only within the framework of experiences taking place in front of us, where its impact is immediate” (Jullien, 1999, p. 220).
The field of HPT does account for relational conditions as is evident in Gilbert’s (2007) Behavior Engineering Model, consisting of a person’s repertory of behavior (P; knowledge, capacity, motives), and environmental supports (E; information, instrumentation, motivation). Gilbert’s (2007) behavior engineering model has been updated over the years and is still being used within the field, but it is hard to find utility external of the field.
Gilbert’s (2007) behavior engineering model provides an example of internalization and a model that is more relational than causal. However, due to internalization, the field’s utility is limited, posing the following questions: Why hasn’t this model been exploited more so that it can be found in other disciplines at a larger scale? Why hasn’t this model been replaced, or integrated, with more current and relevant models from outside of the HPT field?
RESEARCHER’S RESPONSIBILITY
As a researcher, our goal is to test theories and improve them so that they become more relevant to the ever-changing world. Theories only become relevant after they have been exposed to years of testing and modifications: “Theories become clear and ‘reasonable’ only after incoherent parts of them have been used for a long time. Such unreasonable, nonsensical, unmethodical foreplay thus turn out to be an unavoidable precondition of clarity and of empirical success” (Feyerabend, 2010, p. 11). Over time, theories can become outdated. If they are not tested and modified, newer theories that have been tested will replace older theories. This is the challenge. As internalization forces take place, with little to no interaction to the external realm, a field becomes closed-off and less relevant. It is the challenge of scholars within a field of study to keep the knowledgebase current. Failure to do so could result in the field becoming less and less relevant over time.
OUR CHALLENGE
It is our challenge, as members of the HPT and PI field of study, to assure that our knowledgebase remains current and relevant. We need to continue challenging our own theories and models (internalization) and expose them to tests in other domains (externalization). The results will be new and updated theories for the field of study, and a current and improved knowledgebase that supports the members of the field. We also need to introduce new theories to our field and integrate them into our context and practice.
This challenge extends to all members of the field, researchers, practitioners, scholars, editors, board members, etc… This challenge is a call to members of the HPT and PI field, to expand research into new areas that challenge traditional theories and models. The goal is to update and keep current our knowledgebase. To do so, we need researchers and practitioners to test our theories and models more, in several different contextual settings. This effort should be showcased in the leading journal in this field, Performance Improvement Quarterly.
This call is not only for researchers, but also for reviewers. The journal can only survive with the support of its reviewers. We need more research studies relevant to the HPT and PI field, and we need reviewers to support these efforts. The fields relevance partially comes from the backgrounds and experiences of the reviewers. This is part of the internalization/externalization reciprocal process. For it is the reviewer’s input that helps to shape the field’s knowledgebase. This is how we keep our knowledgebase current while sustaining PIQ as a leading journal in the field.
REVIEWERS NEEDED
Our goal, as editors of PIQ, is to grow and advance the journal’s reach to various disciplines, industries, and markets. We also look to provide an outlet of the field’s knowledgebase. However, to accomplish this goal, the journal needs continued support from existing reviewers and the addition of new reviewers to the peer review team. If you are interested in reviewing for PIQ submissions, please create an account and sign up as a reviewer athttps://www.editorialmanager.com/piq/default.aspx
New submissions from the performance improvement communities that meet the minimum requirements, as highlighted in previous editorials in this journal (Turner, 2018a, 2018b, 2018c, 2019a, 2019b), are encouraged to submit their research. If interested in having your manuscript considered for publication in PIQ, present your research study after reviewing the minimal requirements highlighted in the previously mentioned editorials as well as reviewing the author guidelines at https://ispi.org/page/PIQuarterly
NOTE TO CURRENT REVIEWERS
Peer review is necessary for a journal's success and reputation. We thank our current reviewers for their time and dedication to PIQ. We appreciate the support from our reviewers and need to continue growing the number of active reviewers for the journal. After switching to a new article management system, we need reviewers to create an account in the new system (see link provided above) and to enter their profile information. We are unable to search and contact reviewers if their details are not in the new system. We ask all reviewers who are interested in continuing to support PIQ to sign-in to the new system and update your profile information.
We appreciate your service to the field and the journal (PIQ), and thank you for signing into the new system.
