title: The impact of research synthesis methods on industrial-organizational psychology: The road from pessimism to optimism about cumulative knowledge.
abstract: This paper presents an account of the impact that research synthesis methods, in the form of psychometric meta-analysis, has had on industrial/organizational (I/O) psychology. This paper outlines the central contributions of psychometric meta-analysis in providing a method for developing cumulative knowledge. First, this paper describes the concerns and the state of the field before the development of meta-analytic methods. Second, the paper explains how meta-analysis addressed these concerns. Third, the paper details the development of psychometric meta-analysis through VG research and describes how the use of psychometric meta-analysis spread to other topic areas in the field. Finally, the paper presents illustrative example literatures, such as training and leadership, where meta-analysis had crucial impacts. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
authors.affiliation: Department of Management and Organizations, Tippie College of Business, University of Iowa, IA, U.S.A.. david-degeest@uiowa.edu.
authors.forename: David S
authors.initials: DS
authors.lastname: DeGeest
authors.affiliation: Department of Management and Organizations, Tippie College of Business, University of Iowa, IA, U.S.A.
authors.forename: Frank L
authors.initials: FL
authors.lastname: Schmidt
keywords: industrial–organizational psychology; meta‐analysis; research synthesis; validity generalization