Workplace isn’t built on opinion. It’s built on evidence.
Every definition, metric, and signal we use traces back to decades of peer-reviewed research in organizational psychology, management science, and team dynamics. This page exists so leaders can see exactly where our thinking comes from and why we’re confident it holds up in the real world.
Our Research Philosophy
We don’t chase novelty. We look for ideas that have survived scrutiny.
The frameworks below were chosen because they meet three standards. They’re empirically validated, replicated across contexts, and directly observable in day-to-day work. If a concept can’t be seen in behavior, it doesn’t belong in culture measurement.
Foundational Thinkers on Culture
These thinkers shaped how modern organizations understand culture as a system, not a slogan.
Edgar Schein
Schein defined culture as a pattern of shared basic assumptions learned by a group as it solves problems. His work made clear that culture is embedded in behavior and norms, not stated values.
Key takeaway: culture is learned, reinforced, and largely invisible to insiders.
Reference
https://www.jstor.org/stable/2237324
Joanne Martin
Martin’s work emphasized that culture is interpreted differently across groups within the same organization. This insight explains why culture is rarely uniform and why averages hide risk.
Key takeaway: subcultures matter.
Reference
https://www.wiley.com/en-us/Organizational+Culture%3A+Mapping+the+Terrain-p-9781452232223
Burnout Research
Burnout is one of the most studied constructs in occupational psychology.
Christina Maslach and Susan Jackson
Maslach and Jackson developed the Maslach Burnout Inventory, which established burnout as a multidimensional construct consisting of exhaustion, cynicism, and reduced professional efficacy.
Key takeaway: burnout is not just fatigue. It’s a relationship shift with work.
References
https://www.mindgarden.com/117-maslach-burnout-inventory
https://academic.oup.com/occmed/article-abstract/74/9/630/7958938
World Health Organization
The WHO classified burnout as an occupational phenomenon caused by chronic workplace stress that hasn’t been successfully managed.
Key takeaway: burnout is a work design issue, not a personal failure.
Psychological Safety Research
Psychological safety explains why teams with similar talent perform so differently.
Amy Edmondson
Edmondson’s research showed that teams with high psychological safety report more errors but perform better because they surface issues early and learn faster.
Key takeaway: silence is more dangerous than mistakes.
Reference
https://journals.aom.org/doi/10.5465/256287
Timothy Clark
Clark expanded psychological safety into four stages, showing how teams progress from belonging to challenge.
Key takeaway: safety deepens over time and is not binary.
Reference
https://www.amazon.com/Four-Stages-Psychological-Safety-Inclusion/dp/1523088436
Google Project Aristotle
Google’s internal research found psychological safety to be the strongest predictor of team effectiveness across hundreds of teams.
Key takeaway: how teams interact matters more than who is on them.
Reference
https://rework.withgoogle.com/teams/
Conflict Research
Conflict research explains why some disagreement improves decisions while other conflict destroys trust.
Karen Jehn
Jehn distinguished between task, process, relationship, and values conflict, showing that not all conflict has the same effects.
Key takeaway: what people argue about matters more than how loudly they argue.
De Dreu and Weingart
Their meta-analysis showed that relationship conflict consistently harms performance and satisfaction, and that task conflict often turns negative without strong norms.
Key takeaway: unmanaged conflict rarely stays productive.
Employee Engagement Research
Engagement research connects culture directly to outcomes leaders care about.
Gallup Q12 and Meta-Analyses
Gallup’s research across millions of employees links engagement to profitability, productivity, safety, and retention.
Key takeaway: engagement is a performance driver, not a feel-good metric.
References
https://www.gallup.com/workplace/349484/state-of-the-global-workplace.aspx
https://www.gallup.com/workplace/236441/employee-engagement-drives-growth.aspx
Harter, Schmidt, and Hayes
Their work demonstrated consistent relationships between engagement and business outcomes at the business-unit level.
Key takeaway: engagement scales with performance.
Reference
https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2002-13911-006
Alignment and Fit Research
Alignment research explains why effort alone doesn’t guarantee results.
Kristof-Brown, Zimmerman, and Johnson
Their meta-analysis on person–organization fit showed strong links between alignment, commitment, performance, and retention.
Key takeaway: misalignment creates friction that compounds over time.
Reference
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1744-6570.2005.00672.x
Execution and Team Process Research
Execution risk draws heavily from research on coordination and team processes.
Marks, Mathieu, and Zaccaro
Their framework identified communication, coordination, and decision-making as core processes driving team performance across time.
Key takeaway: execution fails when processes break, not when effort disappears.
Reference
https://journals.aom.org/doi/10.5465/amr.2001.4845785
Harvard Business Review on Execution
HBR research consistently highlights that strategy fails most often at execution due to unclear ownership, poor coordination, and slow decision-making.
Key takeaway: execution is cultural before it’s operational.
Reference
https://hbr.org/2010/07/why-strategy-execution-unravels-and-what-to-do-about-it
Measurement and Methodology Foundations
These works inform how we think about measurement, bias, and leading indicators.
Lagging vs Leading Indicators
Research across operations and psychology shows that leading indicators allow earlier intervention and better outcomes than lagging metrics.
Key takeaway: timing matters as much as accuracy.
Reference
https://hbr.org/2009/02/how-to-measure-the-unknowable
Cognitive Load and Context Switching
Research from the American Psychological Association shows frequent task switching degrades performance and increases error rates.
Key takeaway: execution risk rises when focus is fragmented.
Reference
https://www.apa.org/monitor/nov01/costs
How We Use This Research
We don’t copy frameworks blindly.
We translate them into observable signals, aggregate them responsibly, and use them to describe systems, not judge individuals. Every insight Workplace surfaces can be traced back to established research and real-world behavior.
The Bottom Line
Culture isn’t soft. The research proves it.
The work of these researchers laid the foundation for treating culture as measurable, observable, and actionable. Workplace.io exists to bring that research out of journals and into daily leadership decisions.
That’s the standard we hold ourselves to.