Centre for People, Work and Organizational Practice

• Professor Helen Shipton
• Professor Daniel King
• Professor Steve Brown
• Yvonne Carlisle
• Dr Sarah Pass
• Associate Professor Zara Whysall
• Nadia Kougiannou
• Amanda Hay
• Associate Professor Douglas Renwick
• James Leinster
• Stefanos Nachmias
• Dr Fotios Mitsakis
• Val Caven
• Associate Professor Stephanie Giamporcaro
• Professor Marius van Dijke
• Dr Claudia Bordogna
• Maranda Ridgway
• Dr Kiri Langmead
• Dr Ishan Jalan
• Dr David Hollis
• Dr Louise Oldridge
• Associate Professor Scott Lawley
• Associate Professor Will Rossiter
• Dr Michaela Edwards
• Associate Professor Lynn Oxborrow
• Nene Ibokession
• Sarah Smith
• Ghazal Vahidi
• Dr Hoa Do
• Dr Stephen Kumako
• Dr Diana Frost
• George Kuk
• Dr Preethi Misha
• Jessey Pswarayi
• Dr Suzanne Ross
• Matthew O’Meara Wallis
• Dr Xiaozheng Zhang
• Dr Mumin Abubakre

• Adam Kitt
• Amanda Thompson
• Dana Al-Hajri
• Siham Alharthy
• Lindsay Crichton
• Keeley Evans
• Anila Khalique
• Ashley Purcell
• Charming Maxwell Nakweya
• Manal AlAHasawi
• Caroline Bishop
• Hazel Williams
• Sarah Gregory
• Mahn Dohn
• Mavis Mataranyika
• David McAdam

This ESRC-funded project, led by Professor King, examines COVID-19 impact on voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) organisations. In particular, it focuses on providing real-time data about how the pandemic is impacting voluntary organisations working practices and operations, their responses, learning and resilience. The project is conducted in conjunction with NCVO and Sheffield Hallam University.

The results of the barometer survey in this project have been featured in BBC Radio 4 Today programme, Financial Times (8^th November 2020) and The Telegraph (24^th October 2020).

CPWOP has been working in partnership with the CIPD investigating the topic of employee voice since February 2018.  A first stage of the work, led by Professor Shipton, involved a YouGov commissioned survey of nearly 3000 UK employees. The second stage, led by Professor King, followed up by in-depth case study analysis of six organizations. The first report, is published here.

Led by Professor Brown, CPWOP conducted a rapid evidence review on psychological wellbeing within safety-critical sectors. This evidence assessment reviewed the academic and grey literature globally to establish key factors that impact on mental health across five sectors responsible for critical social and economic infrastructure – maritime/energy; construction; engineering; food and digital. The review highlighted that psychosocial factors play a central role in mediating the relationship between structural aspects of the working environment and psychological wellbeing.

CPWOP are leading a Programme Level evaluation of the Department of Digital, Media and Sport £6.5 million funded programme on encouraging 50+ people to volunteer. Led by Professor King the evaluation includes interviews, producing case studies and analysing quantitative data.

Engage for Success is a voluntary movement that was launched in 2011 by the UK Government in response to the MacLeod Review. The movement promotes the importance of employee engagement through a portfolio of research projects, action groups, and regional events. Sarah Pass is an Ambassador for Engage for Success and leads research projects on 'The Role of Line Managers', 'Engagement Champions', co-leads a project on 'Behavioural Economics', and is part of the 'People Productivity' project. Sarah chairs the 'East Midlands Area Network' and sits on the Engage for Success Steering Group Committee. Engage for Success works in alliance with the CIPD.

This 24-month project will be delivered by colleagues from across NBS (Dr Zara Whysall, Dr Wendy Chapple, Dr Ishan Jalan) and Psychology (Dr Maria Karanika-Murray). In collaboration with NTU, Fujitsu are seeking to drive sustainable change in individual and team working practices through an enhanced culture assessment and change methodology, positively impacting organisational effectiveness, resilience and agility.

CPWOP conducted an analysis of the responses to the Government Equality Office consultation around the reform of the Gender Recognition Act. The team, led by Professor King, analysed one of the largest responses to a government consultation, with over 100,000 respondents and a data set of over 63 million words, using a variety of quantitative, qualitative and machine learning techniques. The report was published in 2020.

In collaboration with a major regional organisation, the research team led by Drs Nachmias and Caven, examines the psycho-social influences of job choice and the impact this may have on the gender pay-gap. This research will be using both quantitative and qualitative approaches to investigate the presence and persistence of gendered jobs with the aim to identify the extent and reasons behind why certain roles are perceived as being more appropriate for women or men and to see if this accounts for the gender pay gap.

Led by Associate Professor Scott Lawley and supported by Dr Sarah Smith the project was funded by Pride Sports and Sports England. The research explored governance and capacity building within LGBT+ sports organisations in England and led to the creation of a directory of LGBT+ sports organisations in England. The directory can be accessed through Pride Sports’ website: pridesports.org.uk/lgbt-club-finder/

Coaching for Creativity is a framework developed by Professor Shipton in conjunction with Dr. Margaritia Nyfoudi from Birmingham Business School that optimises creativity and innovation in individuals and teams using coaching techniques. Using in-depth data collection and analysis to identify skill gaps, inform insights with leadership and team members, and enhance defined competencies for organisational development and growth.

This KAKEN-HI - funded project, led by Dr Do, explores the underlying mechanism through which HPWS affect employee turnover/engagement, and also considers the boundary conditions of supervisor support and autonomy that surround this mechanism. This Project adopts quantitative positivist research design, multilevel perspective and Job Demands-Resources Framework to provide insights into this phenomenon.

Working alongside Professor Lynn Oxborrow, the Centre team have delivered ‘consultancy’ style projects to SMEs in the D2N2 region. These projects have explored issues within SMEs such as innovation, growth and managing change. In addition to this, we have produced a number of evaluations exploring the impact of projects such as Scale Up and The Big House which have provided coaching and business support for SMEs in the same region.

In 2019, CPWOP won the category of ‘Achievement in Research’ in the NTU Team Awards for developing in the key areas of world-leading impactful interdisciplinary research.

In 2019, Amanda Hay won the Best Paper in Management Education Award at the Academy of Management Conference, Boston, US, for “Exploring Unknowingness in Management Education: A DBA Example”.

In 2018, a paper Helen Shipton co-authored entitled: “Performance-based rewards and innovative behaviours “was awarded the best international paper of year by the HR Division of the Academy of Management.

In 2016 Helen Shipton together with co-authors won the Best Paper Award at the British Academy of Management Conference for their paper ‘From customer-oriented strategy to perceived organizational financial performance: The role of human resource management and customer-linking capability’.