Professional Ethics of Industrial and Organisational Psychologists in Aotearoa New Zealand

The New Zealand Psychological Society’s Code of Ethics guides the ethical practice of all registered psychologists working in New Zealand. Yet, emerging research suggests that the availability of a general code of ethics may fail to adequately support psychologists practicing in non-clinical domains, including Industrial/Organisational (IO) psychologists. Our study relied on 12 structured interviews with registered IO-trained psychologists in New Zealand to explore the main ethical issues and dilemmas encountered in the profession, and their views about the Code’s ability to guide their practice. Findings from our thematic analysis show that IO-trained psychologists believe the Code offers limited and at times ambiguous direction for ethical decision-making and may contribute to sustaining blurred boundaries across scopes of practice. We discuss the contribution of our findings to a wider debate about the unification of the psychology profession and differentiation across domains of practice.