Editorial - tribute to José Maria Peiró

Editorial - tributo a José Maria Peiró

Borges-Andrade, J. E^I; González-Romá, V^II; Pérez-Nebra, A^III; Zornoza Abad, A^IV

^IUniversity of Brasília and Senior Editor of rPOT
^IIUniversity of Valencia
^IIIUniversity of Brasília and Valencian International University
^IVUniversity of Valencia

This fourth 2020 issue of "Revista Psicologia Organizações e Trabalho" (rPOT) is a Tribute to José Maria Peiró, PhD. Since 1981, his activities as a researcher and a professor of Work and Organizational Psychology (WOP) were developed at the University of Valencia (UV), Spain, where he retired this year. They were also developed in invited stays to research centers in Europe, USA, and Latin America (LA) countries (Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, and Uruguay). He was granted the title of Doctor Honoris Causa by the Universities of Miguel Hernández (Spain), Maastricht (The Netherlands) and Methodist of São Paulo (Brazil).

He was responsible for more than 30 research projects with a length of time larger than two years, supported by local, Spanish, and European agencies. These projects had goals related to methodological development and knowledge production. They covered a wide range of topics such as well-being at work, burnout and stress, workplace quality, health in business firms, service orientation, client and user satisfaction, emotions and affect at the workplace, psychological contracts, cooperation at work, safety culture, organizational and team climate, performance and diversity in teams and groups, innovation, employability and work socialization of youngsters, professional satisfaction, careers, absenteeism, training needs assessment, religion and prejudice, competencies, and professional certification. Their findings were disseminated through teaching and advising to public and private organizations.

At UV, he was Head of two Departments, Dean of the Faculty of Psychology, founding Director of the Research Institute of Personnel Psychology, Organizational Development and Quality of Working Life (IDOCAL), founding Director of the Graduate Employment Service (OPAL), and Director of a PhD Program. Around 60 Doctoral Dissertations were advised by him, mostly in Spain. He coordinated an Erasmus Mundus Master Program consortium of several Universities in Europe and the Americas. One of them is in LA (University of Brasília, Brazil).

Prof. Peiró served as President of Division 1 (WOP) of the International Association of Applied Psychology (IAAP). He also was President of IAAP, the European Association of Work and Organizational Psychology, and the European Network of Organizational Psychologists. He developed editorial activities in several scientific journals in Europe and North and South America. These leading activities, along with those research and teaching activities, profoundly impacted health, labor, economy, psychology, and education in Europe, LA, and other Regions of the World.

He made more than 350 presentations in worldwide Conferences and similar events as part of the effort to promote the impact of those mentioned activities. Part of these events occurred in LA countries: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, Peru, and Puerto Rico. The findings of those projects and research activities were included in more than 150 books and more than 300 articles in scientific journals authored by him and his teammates and advisees. The publishers of these books and journals were mostly housed in Western Europe and the USA, and some in LA (Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru).

A word cloud (Figure 1) was produced to summarize Peiró’s contribution and a dendrogram (Figure 2) was conceived to organize his major themes and co-authors. Iramuteq was used to achieve these purposes. Both Figures are based on his English written publications (articles and chapters) and the summary description in his CV. Some words with similar meanings were equalized to improve the depiction of concepts.

The cloud illustrates a portrayal in which the central framework encompasses the key concepts that make part of the definition of WOP: "study", "psychology", "work", and "organization" (Figure 1). This cloud also highlights the most frequent shared authorships and WOP themes of these publications: role, climate, culture, team, group, service, costumer, performance, quality, innovation, communication, management, health, stress, burnout, well-being, satisfaction, safety, job insecurity, and justice. They are coherent with those projects with a larger time length.

The dendrogram detaches those leading activities (in pink) from those that embody research (Figure 2). The latter is organized into five classes that may represent the most frequent themes and teammates, and hopefully make justice to the genuine connections between both.

As a Tribute, the proposal of this rPOT issue is a means to recognize Prof. Peiró’s worldwide importance for WOP, along with his relevant scientific impact in LA. A specific Editorial Team was appointed to handle this issue that comprised professors from Brazil and Spain. As part of the researchers who work(ed) with him, we express our appreciation and gratitude for what he did for the field of WOP and the IDOCAL generation. He is a standard-bearer as a supervisor, and his weighty legacy has helped the development of this field in several parts of the world, particularly in LA.

In March 2020, some ideas came up, and calls started. In April 2020, messages were sent to individuals who were close to IDOCAL/University of Valencia. This was a challenge for the Spanish editorial team because Peiró worked with so many researchers. It was hard to decide a feasible criterion for the invitation that would prevent to edit an entire handbook. A closer look at the word cloud or the dendrogram reveals several Tribute’s authors there. Their contribution also seems coherent within the five research classes.

The messages acknowledged the intention to make a Tribute to him in an issue of rPOT. This issue would include empirical studies, reviews of scientific literature, and reviews of contributions to the literature, based on topics he studied. He has a special fondness for sustainability and well-being at work, but the submitted manuscripts could focus on other WOP themes investigated by him. Part of the author’s challenge was to find themes to write about, but without his inclusion as an author! Sustainable well-being at work is one of them.

The deadline to send the manuscript was June 2020. Further instructions were attached to those messages. Their recipients were asked about their feasibility to submit a manuscript, alone or along with other authors. Ad hoc reviewers were invited in July 2020. Two independent reviewers who were not authors evaluated the received manuscripts from July to August 2020. Based on the received feedbacks, the manuscripts were revised by the authors and reevaluated by one reviewer from September to November 2020. Authors and reviewers put a lot of effort into this project and worked under very strict deadlines during the COVID-19 Pandemia. We are very grateful to them.

Fourteen approved articles that resulted from this process are published in this issue of rPOT. They are organized into four categories: careers and jobs; emotions and affect; leadership; and performance. However, there could be other ways to classify them. Most of them report results of empirical studies with a focus on knowledge production. One of them focus on methodological development. Some are reviews of scientific literature. We hope the readers enjoy them.

For tu(sted), José María, muito obrigado from us all,

December 2020

Editorial Team (in alphabetical order):

Borges-Andrade, J. E; University of Brasília and Senior Editor of rPOT

González-Romá, V.; University of Valencia

Pérez-Nebra, A.; University of Brasília and Valencian International University

Zornoza Abad, A.; University of Valencia

Ad hoc reviewers and their institutions

• Adriano Lemos Peixoto, Universidade Federal da Bahia, Salvador, Brazil.
• Ana Claudia Souza Vazquez, Universidade Federal de Ciências da Saúde de Porto Alegre, Brazil.
• Daren Tashima Cid, Serviço Nacional de Aprendizagem Comercial - SENAC-SP, Brazil.
• Eva Cifre, Universitat Jaume I, Castelló, Spain.
• Gisela Demo, Universidade de Brasília, Brazil.
• Inmaculada Silla, Universitat de Valencia, Spain
• Isabel S. Silva, Universidade do Minho, Portugal.
• José Ramos, Universitat de Valencia, Spain.
• Juan C. Marzo, Universidad Miguel Hernández, Elche, Spain.
• Katia E. Puente-Palacios, Universidade de Brasília, Brazil.
• Luís Manuel Mota de Sousa, Universidade de Évora, Portugal.
• Maria Beatriz Esperança, ISCTE-Instituto Universitário de Lisboa, Portugal.
• Maria Isabel de Campos, KNBS Telecomunicações e Informática Ltda, Campinas, Brazil.
• Nuria Gamero, Universidad de Sevilla, Spain
• Pascale M. Le Blanc, Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands.
• Polyanna Péres Andrade, Centro Universitário de Brasília, Brazil.
• Sônia Maria Guedes Gondim, Universidade Federal da Bahia, Salvador, Brazil.
• Vicente Peñarroja, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Spain