Managing People in Organizations (MPIO)

Professor of Organisational Behaviour, Dept. of Human Resource Management

Oct. 1991 – present Dept. of Human Resource Management, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow. Professor of Organisational Behaviour (from June 2009), Reader (2003-2009), Senior Lecturer (1998-2003), Lecturer (1991-1998).  Accelerated Increments, 1994, 1997, 2001.
Oct. 1990 - June 1991 Part-time lecturer in Organizational Psychology, Dept. of Business Organization, Heriot-Watt University and Dept. of Industrial & Social Studies, Napier University, Edinburgh.
April - Sept. 1990  Social Research Scientist, American Institutes for Research, Washington, D.C..
June - Sept. 19
90 Research Associate, GWU & the American Red Cross, Washington, D.C..
Sept. 1987 - March 1990 Research Assistant, Institute for Defense Analysis, Alexandria, Virginia & GWU.
Sept. 1985 – June 1997 Teaching Fellow, The George Washington University, Washington, D.C..
Sept. 1986 - Sept. 1987  Student Intern, Morris & McDaniel Management Consultants, Alexandria, Virginia.
EDUCATION

1987–1990    Ph.D. (Industrial/Org. Psychology, The George Washington University, Washington, D.C..
1985–1987 M.Phil. (Industrial/Org. Psychology) Distinction, George Washington University.
1981–1985 M.A. (Upper 2nd), Psychology, University of Glasgow.

SUMMARY OF RESEARCH ACTIVITY

Her research activity spans four areas within work psychology and HRM/organisational behaviour.

The development of employee selection and classification procedures
This work began with my Ph.D. research at The George Washington University in Washington, D.C.. Since then I have published a number of papers in this area including articles in the Journal of Applied Psychology (the top internationally ranked journal in work and organizational psychology), Kybernetes, and two papers in Military Psychology (the official journal of the American Psychological Association’s Division 19 which encourages research and the application of psychological research to military workforce applications).  This research has also been presented at numerous conferences including a Special Symposium at the American Psychological Association and the International Military Testing Association, and continued with research grants from the U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences to carry out a series of experimental simulations of the U.S. Army’s personnel selection and classification procedures using alternative test battery structures. This resulted in significant policy changes in the Army’s system of selection and assignment of recruits to jobs, and, more broadly, provided crucial empirical evidence only possible from large datasets which challenged existing theory on general intelligence testing for employment. As part of this continuing stream of research, I am a member of the Classification Network coordinated by the Belgian Armed Services Psychological Laboratories and the U.S. Office for Naval Research.

Recruitment and selection processes
A related stream of research has focused on the organisational context of recruitment and selection decision processes. My empirical work across a variety of industry sectors has been published in refereed journals (International Journal of Selection and Assessment, Career Development International, International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, Personnel Review) and review papers have appeared in internationally recognised textbooks, handbooks and journals (Contemporary HRM (3rd edition), Handbook of Human Resource Management, Handbook of Selection, International Journal of Management Reviews). This work has been funded by The Leverhulme Trust, Strathclyde University Research and Development Fund, and the British Psychological Society. A research proposal is currently being considered by The Leverhulme Trust to examine ‘Recruitment/Selection Strategy and Value Conflicts in Third Sector Organisations’ with Dr Eleanor Burt (St Andrews).

New forms of work design and employee wellbeing
My activity in this area began with research on the psychological effects of shiftwork (see paper in Ergonomics) and developed later in my collaboration with Bill Harley and Harvie Ramsay. The latter focused on the area of High Performance Work Systems and employee attitudes and continues most recently with Bill Harley through an ongoing analysis of the UK’s Workplace Employment Relations Survey 2004 dataset. A 3-year project funded by the Economic and Social Research Council’s Future of Work Programme (£195k) explored new forms of work (specifically in call centres and software development) and the effects on employees including issues of work-life balance, career expectations, job satisfaction, and commitment. This project, which was based at Strathclyde University and for which I was one of five principal investigators, has generated a number of journal articles, book chapters and a book – The Meaning of Work in the New Economy. My work on call centres has continued with Phil Taylor (Strathclyde), and Ernesto Noronha and Premilla d’Cruz (Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad) examining union formation in the Indian call centre/Business Process Outsourcing industry. I have also developed further research collaborations, through a Strathclyde Research Enhancement Grant for a multidisciplinary approach to work-life balance, and as a member of the organising team of the ESRC-funded Work Attitudes Measurement Network Research Seminar Series (led by Mile Rose, Bath University).

Skills and employability in ICT professions
The Future of Work project findings on software development professionals have formed the basis of several recent papers on skill and identity in software work (with Abigail Marks, Heriot-Watt University). My contribution to understanding employment in this new occupation has also been extended by an EU-funded project on the employability of ICT professionals, where Strathclyde University (allocated Euros 87k) was the only UK partner in a seven-country team. This project has generated high quality cross-cultural data on the antecedents and consequences of employability in ICT professions (see 2008 paper in International Journal of HRM where I am lead author) and its findings have been presented in several practitioner fora (e.g. European e-skills workshops during 2005/2006 organised by EU bodies and the EAWOP Small Group Meeting on Aging and Work, January 2007).

Professional affiliations

• British Psychological Society, Chartered Psychologist & Member of Division of Occupational Psychology; European Association of Work & Organizational Psychology, Member; American Psychological Association & Division 14 (Society for Industrial & Organizational Psychology), International Affiliate; International Association of Applied Psychology, British Sociological Association, Member.