Role
Gwen is a senior lecturer in Human Resource Management undertake a series scholarly activity; teaching, researching and other administrative duties. Within the role as the course leader for BA (Hons) International Business Management, Gwen is responsible for course operation, support student engagement, enhance student experience, provide pastoral care, nurturing and maintaining the partnership with the course international partners. Other administrative duties include acting as departmental quality representative, supporting department with all the quality assurance queries, processes and standards, review quality related documentations and attend school level of academic standard and quality committee meeting.
Teaching duties include lecture and seminar delivery as well as research project supervision, this covers all levels; Undergraduate, postgraduate, MBA and doctoral levels. Gwen’s research area is predominantly in the areas of transition and liminality, interested in exploring the experience of time spatial transition in connection with liminal identity, current projects are with the focus of migrants and female professional athletes. Gwen has two successfully supervised two DBA completions, and interested in receiving and discussing potential doctoral research proposal in the above areas.
Career overview
Prior to Nottingham Business School, Gwen worked at Newcastle University Business School and Liverpool Hope University, where she undertook teaching and supervisory and scholarly activities across Undergraduate, Postgraduate and Doctoral levels in the areas of human resource management, human resource development, organisational behaviour and research methods. Course management experience in both PG and UG levels, this includes course leadership in MSc Human Resource Management and Development. Several enterprise projects with local SMEs including the wellbeing project in the creative sector and evaluation of impact of redundancy and organisational restructuring on employee work attitude and behaviour in the transport sector.
Research areas
Gwen's current research activities are in the following areas:
Migration and Transition- this study aims to explore how self- initiated migrants navigate the liminal experience of cross- cultural work transitions. Specifically, we are interested in understanding the occurrence of these liminal experiences with the transformative learning opportunity. Individual’s engagement in the various identity narratives.
Boundary crossing- experience of time and spatial boundaries crossing in the work-related contexts, such as commuting, working from home, work related travel and etc. We are interested in how individual perceives the boundary crossing and its implications in work extensification and intensification.
Women in Sports- exploring the journey of being an elite athlete, the journey of from an amateur to professional, individual’s identity work and experience of boundary crossing. We ask the question of how these individuals exercise and engage in identity work to manage the precariousness nature of the sector.
Gwen is interested in supervising students with the above topic areas.
External activity
Member, Royal Society or Art
Fellow, HEA
Academic Member, CIPD
Sponsors and collaborators
Publications
Trusson, C., Chen, G., and Bridger, J (OnlineFirst) ‘When the daily commute stops’: a long- distance commuter’s reflections on commuting and telecommuting across the COVID- 19 pandemic. Work, Employment and Society. https://doi.org/10.1177/09500170231188660
Chen, G., Tansley, C., and Chou, R. (2021) “Towards liminality competence: a migrant’s talent identity narratives for re-imagining talent management”, Journal of Organizational Effectiveness: People and Performance, Vol. 8 No. 4, pp. 427-443 https://doi.org/10.1108/JOEPP-02-2021-0037