Humanitarian work policy and praxis

Through engaging with real world issues, such as low-wage and precarious work, this chapter highlights the importance of praxis for work and organizational psychologists (WOP) who want to influence society for the greater good. A focus on praxis enables systems thinking, ultimately supporting a shift in WOP research processes to be more relevant and impactful, and creating genuine, enduring, evidence-based change. We argue for integrated and recursive engagement across three areas. First is dialog, to identify and engage stakeholders to develop a relevant and impactful problem statement. Dialog feeds into and stimulates knowledge generation which includes engaging in research and gathering an understanding of what is already known from WOP (including what is unique about our perspectives). Finally, dissemination is about finding novel ways to share our knowledge with stakeholders, including practitioners, academics and through education, and in doing so links back to dialog, because meaningful engagement in dissemination prompts identification of new problem statements to be explored through knowledge generation. Throughout the chapter collaboration with community partners and policymakers around the living wage is used as an example of how this dynamic, interconnected and multilevel framework can operate in practice.