Department of People and Organisations

The work of Department for People and Organisations (PO) can be considered under three main areas:

• Organisational studies and human resource management
• Organisational psychology and professional development
• Management learning and organisational change

Contact details: To contact the Department of People and Organisations, please email our Department Secretary, Karen McCafferty.

• Business Perspectives: Change Management Masterclass

The focus of the most recent Business Perspectives event was change management; how organisations navigate their way through changing external environments, for both individual and corporate performance. The event saw discussions around how change management is critical for the success of innovation and explored how management style can help or hinder success.

On Tuesday, 30th July 2013 we will be hosting an hour long webinar which will introduce video highlights from the event and invite delegates to participate in Q & A forums and interactive polls to develop learning and understanding from the Change Management Masterclass which focused on "Putting it into practice: the acid test of strategic change".

Research

The Department has strengths in development and change strategies, practice based-learning, creativity and innovation, strategic and cross-national human resource management, surveillance studies, leadership and critical organisational theory. Staff conduct a wide range of research. Areas covered include:

Organisational studies and human resource management

• Strategic and international human resource management
• Cross-national comparative management
• Innovation across supply chains and networks
• Governance and incentives
• Surveillance in organisations and society
• Organisational and individual identity
• Enterprise, the home-work interface, and home-based businesses

Organisational psychology and professional development:

• Personal and professional development
• Creativity in organisations, change strategies
• Positive organisational development, applied positive psychology
• Use of coaching and action learning in management education
• Management and leadership development in small businesses
• Critical approaches to leadership
• Leadership in small and medium enterprises

Management learning and organisational change:

• Practice and work-based learning
• Action-centred approaches to change
• Work-based risk
• Narrative and conversational approaches
• Cross-national management learning
• The development of MBA education
• Visual images/representations of management education/business schools

Department researchers are associated with the CETL in Practice-based Professional Learning, the proposed centre for International Management Learning and the inter-faculty Open Creativity Centre. Department staff hold grants from research-funding, government, commercial, charitable and educational institutions.

Teaching

Members of the Department teach organisational behaviour, management of learning and change, professional development, human resource management, creativity, leadership, innovation, organisational culture and organisational development. They contribute at foundation, undergraduate, certificate, diploma, masters, MBA and CPD levels. We also host the CIPD accredited Masters in Human Resource Managment. Department staff are currently responsible for leading the following Open University Business School courses:

• Making it happen! Leadership, influence and change
• Fundamentals of senior management
• Creativity, innovation and change
• Making a difference
• Managing human resources
• The human resource professional

A course on Organisational Behaviour is under development. 

Department members

• Mrs Eileen Arney
  Lecturer in Management
• Dr Punita Bhatt
  Research Fellow
• Dr Kirstie Ball
  Reader in Surveillance and Organisation
• Dr Caroline Clarke
  Senior Lecturer in Management
• Dr Bjorn Claes
  Lecturer in Operations Management
• Professor Mark Fenton-O'Creevy
  Professor of Organisational Behaviour
• Dr Diannah Lowry
  Lecturer in Human Resource Management
• Dr Ben Hardy
  Lecturer in Management
• Dr Jane Henry
  Senior Lecturer in Applied Psychology
• Dr Richard Holti
  Senior Lecturer in Human Resources Management
• Mr David Mayle
  Lecturer in Management
• Dr Nceku Nyathi
  Lecturer in Management Learning
• Dr Diane Preston
  Senior Lecturer in Human Resource Management and Head of Department for People and Organisations
• Emeritus Professor Derek Pugh
  Emeritus Professor of International Management
• Dr Ruslan Ramanau
  Lecturer in eLearning
• Dr Caroline Ramsey
  Senior Lecturer in Management Practice
• Christine Ruschak
  Research student
• Emeritus Professor Graeme Salaman
  Emeritus Professor in Organisation Studies
• Dr Keith Spiller
  Post Doctoral Research Associate
• Professor John Storey
  Professor in Human Resource Management
• Professor David Wilson
  Professor in Organisation Studies and Associate Dean for Research and Scholarship
• Emeritus Professor Andrew Thomson
  Emeritus Professor
• Dr Sheila Tyler
  Senior Lecturer in Management Development

Research students

• Willie Chinyamurindi
  Research student
• Helen Darch
  Research student
• Sara Degli Esposti
  Research student
• Paul Grayson
  Research student
• Clare Mumford
  Research student
• Christine Ruschak
  Research student
• Matthew Shawcross
  Research student
• Joanne Vincett
  Research student