Program Description
The Industrial and Organizational track within the Business Psy.D. program prepares graduates to assume high-level responsibilities in today's global and multicultural business environment. Students enrolled in Business Psychology, I/O track will gain a strong foundation in psychology principles that enhance business acumen to provide effective business solutions. The program culminates with a dissertation helping to prepare students to become active scholar practitioners. Students are encouraged to present their work at academic conferences and for publication in peer-reviewed journals.
The program prepares students to assume high-level responsibilities in today's global and multicultural business environments and is ideal for business professionals who want to maximize their career potential. Integrating industrial and organizational psychology, clinical psychology, and business coursework, the curriculum provides students with advanced knowledge of theory as well as the skills to apply that theory to a variety of business challenges—including rightsizings, mergers and acquisitions, strategic repositioning, project management, change consultation, and executive succession planning. The program combines strategic thinking and psychological theory, as well as leadership and best business practices, to help graduates be more effective in their roles as leaders, consultants, and researchers.
L.A. Campus students benefit from rich, hands-on learning experiences through the department's ConCISE Center for Performance Management and Consulting. The center targets the business community, helping to develop leadership programs, manage change, and undertake strategic planning initiatives. These endeavors allow students to make significant contributions to the community through partnerships with local organizations.
The program faculty of the Business Psychology Department is comprised of business and psychology professionals. By design, our faculty crosses disciplines and is diverse in education and experience, representing the areas essential to our conceptualization of business psychology. Faculty members have degrees in I/O psychology, business, clinical psychology, and organizational development. Blending their multidisciplinary perspectives and approaches provides for more integrated learning across fields.
Department
Business Psychology
Concentrations
I/O Psychology, Consulting Psychology
Licensure
Total Credits
• 54 credit hours post-master’s, 97 credit hours post-baccalaureate
Fieldwork Requirements
Two supervised internships, 300 hours each (post-baccalaureate entrance only)
Sample Courses
Business and Financial Literacy
Designed to give students the basic terminology, logic, and framework to understand business thinking and decisions. The goal is to teach students to look at the 'vital signs' of a business. The first part of the class looks at what information a business collects and how it uses that information. Students learn to use a financial lens to look at an income statement and balance sheet to determine the health of an organization. Students learn the importance of interest rates as a key to understand corporate planning and valuation. The second part of the course helps students understand how companies make operational decisions. Using the lens of micro-economics, students learn how supply and demand, costs, and prices effect output decisions. Considers the ways this impacts marketing through the marketing mix, segmentation, and branding decisions. Examines behavioral economics to show how the erratic nature of decisions.
Strategic and Organizational Planning
Gives students the fundamentals to understand business strategy and organizational effectiveness. The first part of the course will address the concepts and practice of policy formation. Expands on marketing, financial, and economic ideas. Environment analysis and value chain leads to assessing business level strategy, corporate level strategy, and competitive actions. The second part of the class emphasizes the organization factors in determining and implementing business policy. Discusses organizational planning as aligning the business with the environment through strategy, design, operations, supply chain, and culture. Students learn the critical significance of the managing their interdependence.
Change Management
Helps students advise organizations on to how restructure, reposition, or revitalize itself. Integrates strategy and organizational due diligence with consultation and change strategies. Within the frame of community development, students learn to consider the process of change and the techniques of change to various types of organizations. Focuses on project change management and emphasizes psychological change management. Prepares student to understand the corporate conditions and change options available to consult on and facilitate transitions ranging from innovation and new technology, merger and acquisition integration, business succession planning, corporate reorganizations, to board governance.
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