Psychology, especially Industrial-Organizational Psychology has made a significant contribution to the research and policy formulation in the areas of organizational management and business administration. Motivation research is one of the areas which owe a great deal to the efforts made by Industrial-Organizational Psychologists. The paper discusses how Industrial-Organizational Psychology has contributed to the development of motivation theories, to the application of those theories to organizational management, and to the improvement of social conditions of workforce. In doing so, reference is made to the research carried out by the author herself on these topics. Lastly, the topics in which further research is expected are proposed.

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While the traditional branch of economics often assumes that people make decisions strictly to maximize their material well-being, there are increasingly many works which deviate from this paradigm and incorporate behavioral factors explicitly into economic analysis. A similar trend can also be observed in the field of organizational economics, where more attention is paid to behavioral aspects of incentive design in organizations. What issues are economists interested in, and how do they attempt to approach those issues? In this article, we overview recent developents in this emerging field, with particular focus on consequences which arise from the process of self-identification. We also discuss potential future research topics and the possibility of interdisciplinary collaboration.

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In order to prosper and survive in today’s continuously changing work environment, organizations need engaged employees, rather than merely “healthy” employees who are merely symptom free. However, the traditional approach of occupational mental health falls short because it focuses on preventing ill-health (e.g., burnout) rather than promoting health (e.g., work engagement). Accordingly, occupational mental health needs to use human resource management strategies to increase levels of employee engagement. The aim of this article is to consider really healthy worker and work place by focusing not only on negative but also on positive aspects of workers’ mental well-being. First, the concept of work engagement was introduced. Then, current situation of occupational mental health in Japan was mentioned. Finally, attention was paid to various strategies that can be used to improve employ mental well-being, whereby more collaboration between occupational health and management was emphasized.

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In this article, the relation of flexible culture and resilience engineering is reviewed from the awareness of issues that it is necessary to arrange the safety culture. Finally, relation to the safety culture is thought viewpoint of a human error of window work in junior college. Reason advocated a concrete method from the idea of engineering safety culture. There is a reporting culture, a just culture, a flexible culture, a learning culture. The word of resilience is frequently used at last few years. When the individual and the organization faced a situation outside assumption, flexible culture and resilience are requested. There is a concept of loose coupling. This is advocated as a frame of the organization of education. In that sense, junior college is an organization of the loose coupling. And it has the characteristic in which flexible culture can be achieved.

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Recently, the numbers of employees who take on sick leave because of mental problems, mainly mood disorder are increasing. Therefore, return to work programs have been designed to treat mood disorder. The purpose of this article is to review studies on psychological therapy for mood disorder, especially, to introduce ‘mindfulness-based cognitive therapy’ for which numbers of researches have increased to study preventing relapse of mood disorder and to discuss its usefulness for return to work programs.

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