Sensing Big Data: Multimodal Information Interfaces for Exploration of Large Data Sets

Abstract

This chapter offers an integrative perspective on the import of big data. Organizational psychology places a great premium on theories. Big data elevate the importance of theorizing. The process of generating theory will change with big data, as illustrated by Putka and Oswald's example of creating new theory where there is little in the selection and assessment context. Boundaries that big data change include those that exist between scientific disciplines, such as organizational psychology, labor economics, sociology and others that focus on work and organizations. Big data enable organizational researches and practitioners to do more with more. Botsford Morgan, Dunleavy, and DeVries illustrate this nicely with regard to using big data to meet diversity and inclusion challenges in organizations. Technologies that generate big data, such as email traffic, also capture workplace data that can provide a new window on where in organizations inclusive and exclusive behaviors are occurring, such as might be evidenced by communication patterns.