I/O vs. OB -- What's the difference?

[Zanela123]

I've read, asked, and researched and still have not come up with much (or that big) of a difference.  Am I missing something?

[eternallyephemeral]

I might not be totally accurate here, as I've only gone through the application process (for I/O and OB) and am starting grad school this fall.

From what I understand, I/O has two sides, where industrial focuses on things like assessment and hiring, and organizational focuses on things like motivation, commitment, and team processes. OB, from my experience, focuses on things a bit broader and less at the individual level the way I/O psych does, like stigma, leadership (in a broader sense), emotional intelligence in organizations, and things like that. So the short answer is that I/O is more 'individual' than OB. However, people still move to business schools and study OB when they were from I/O psych programs in their PhDs.

If you're interested in grad school, it's best to look into the specific people you want to work with. There can be lots of overlap, and I find the largest differences to be in the program and the aspects outside of research topics. For example, the types of data gathering (qualitative vs quantitative) can be different, the types of degrees commonly offered can be different (there are more direct PhD programs in OB, and more tiered programs with Masters and PhDs separately in I/O), and the number of people going into industry/academia (and therefore the focus/interest of the students that make up the program) can be different. About half of people in I/O are interested in going into industry, which seemed to be to be a kind of taboo thing that no one does in OB/business PhD programs of any kind.

 

I hope this helps! I just applied to OB and I/O programs in Canada, so you can PM if you'd like and I can give you more info.