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Professor Mark Fenton-O'Creevy

Staff photo

Professor of Organisational Behaviour

You can email Professor Mark Fenton-O'Creevy directly; but for media enquiries please contact a member of The Open University's Media Relations team.

Staff profile

See below for Professor Mark Fenton-O'Creevy's:

Biography

Mark is Professor of Organisational Behaviour at The Open University Business School. He co-leads the research strand on International Management Practice, Education, and Learning (IMPEL) From 2005 to 2010 he was  Director of a government funded Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning - the Centre for Practice-based Professional Learning across four faculties of The Open University. He was awarded a National Teaching Fellowship in 2007 and was made a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy in 2009.

Mark has led a varied career. He has at various times worked as a school groundsman, a commis chef, a mathematician in a government research establishment, an outdoor pursuits instructor, a teacher of mathematics, a therapist with emotionally disturbed adolescents, a management consultant, and latterly a business school academic.

His academic development has been equally varied. His first degree is in pure mathematics. Subsequently he studied psychotherapy and psychology before later taking an MBA and PhD at London Business School, where he joined the faculty to start his academic career. While his early research was firmly routed in the traditions of occupational psychology, he increasingly draws on other disciplines (primarily economics and sociology). His recent research (on the role of traders in investment banks and management practices in multinational firms) contributes to fields such as international business, behavioural finance, the sociology of markets, industrial relations and cognitive psychology.

He is currently engaged in a large scale cross-European research project which seeks to improve our understanding of the role played by emotion in the financial decision-making of consumers, investors and professional traders. The project aims to develop new, technologically supported, approaches to learning which enhance the quality of financial decisions.

He acts as a consultant to a number of multinational organisations on topics such as the cross-national harmonisation of HR practices, leadership development and the management of change.

Teaching interests

Organisational Behaviour

Human Resource Management

International Business and Management

Decision-Making

The Psychology of Finance

Research interests

Managerial work, international comparative HRM, emotion and cognition, risk behaviour, social capital, professional learning and expertise, the work of financial traders.

Impact and engagement

Mark has contributed to several BBC projects and high impact documentaries on management topics. Most recently he has co-designed (with Adrian Furnham) a study of psychological and emotional relationships with money, the Big Money Test, in collaboration with the BBC's LabUK and Watchdog consumer programme. Over 110,000 people participated in the study.

His recent podcast on iTunesU on "Money and Emotions" has been downloaded over 20,000 times.

Academic Advisor for BBC2 documentary on the financial crisis Love of Money, 2009.

Academic advisor for BBC2 documentary series Can Gerry Robinson Fix the NHS, 2006/7.

Academic Advisor for BBC series The Money Programme, 2005 - 2008.

Mark has also acted as an advisor at a senior level for a wide range of companies and public sector organisations.

External contributions

National Teaching Fellow

Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy

External Examiner

Review Board, Journal of Management Education

International collaborations

Currently involved in research collaborations with:-

Blekinge Tekniska Högskola, Karlskrone, Sweden

International Centre for Numerical Methods in Engineering, Barcelona, Spain

Erasmus Research Institute of Management, Erasmus University, Rotterdam

Forschungszentrum Informatik , Karlsruhe, Germany

Saxo Bank, Copenhagen, Denmark

Norges Handelshøyskole, Bergen, Norway

Etienne Wenger, Grass Valley, California, USA

 

 

 

 

 

 

Areas of expertise

  • organisational behaviour
  • decision making
  • financial decision making
  • comparative management
  • organisational commitment
  • psychology of investment and trading
  • behavioural finance
  • emotions and finance
  • emotion in the workplace
  • practice-based learning
  • professional learning
  • workplace learning

Current projects

Research student supervision

Publications

Journal papers
von Stumm, S, Fenton-O'Creevy, M, Furnham, A  (2013)  'Financial capability, money attitudes and socioeconomic status: risks for experiencing adverse financial events', Personality and Individual Differences, vol. 54, issue 3, pp. 344-349. Abstract
Fenton-O'Creevy, M, Lins, J, Vohra, S, Richards, D, Davies, G, Schaaff, K  (2012)  'Emotion regulation and trader expertise: heart rate variability on the trading floor', Journal of Neuroscience, Psychology and Economics, pp. (In press). Abstract
Brookes, M, Croucher, R, Fenton-O'Creevy, MP, Gooderham, PM  (2011)  'Measuring competing explanations of human resource management practices through the Cranet survey: cultural versus institutional explanations', Human Resource Management Review, vol. 21, issue 1, pp. 68-79. Abstract
Fenton-O'Creevy, M, Soane, E, Nicholson, N, Willman, P  (2011)  'Thinking, feeling and deciding: the influence of emotions on the decision making and performance of traders', Journal of Organizational Behavior, vol. 32, issue 8, pp. 1044-1061. Abstract
Fenton-O'Creevy, MP, Hutchinson, S  (2010)  'Building the foundations of professional expertise: creating a dialectic between work and formal learning', Learning and Teaching in Higher Education (LATHE), vol. 4, issue 1, pp. 69-90. Abstract
Fenton-O'Creevy, MP, Gooderham, PM, Nordhaug, O  (2008)  'Human resource management in US subsidiaries in Europe and Australia: centralisation or autonomy?', Journal of International Business Studies, vol. 39, issue 1, pp. 151-166. Abstract
Fenton-O'Creevy, MP, Wood, SJ  (2007)  'Diffusion of human resource management systems in UK headquartered multinational enterprises: integrating institutional and strategic choice explanations', European Journal of International Management, vol. 1, issue 4, pp. 329-349. Abstract
Willman, P, Fenton-O'Creevy, MP, Nicholson, N, Soane, E  (2006)  'Noise trading and the management of operational risk; firms, traders and irrationality in financial markets', Journal of Management Studies, vol. 43, issue 6, pp. 1357-1374. Abstract
Fenton-O'Creevy, MP, Gooderham, PM, Nordhaug, O  (2005)  'Diffusion of HRM to Europe and the Role of US MNCs: Introduction to the special issue', Management Revue: The International Review of Management Studies, vol. 16, issue 1, pp. 5-11. Abstract
Wood, SJ, Fenton-O'Creevy, MP  (2005)  'Direct involvement, representation and employee voice in UK multinationals in Europe', European Journal of Industrial Relations, vol. 11, issue 1, pp. 27-50. Abstract
Nicholson, N, Soane, E, Fenton-O'Creevy, MP, Willman, P  (2005)  'Personality and domain-specific risk taking', Journal of Risk Research, vol. 8, issue 2, pp. 157-176. Abstract
Nicholson, N, Soane, E, Fenton-O'Creevy, MP, Willman, P  (2005)  'Personality and domain-specific risk-taking', Journal of Risk Research, vol. 8, issue 2, pp. 157-176. Abstract
Baruch, Y, Fenton-O'Creevy, MP, Hind, P, Vigoda-Gadot, E  (2004)  'Pro-social behavior and job performance: does the need for control and the need for achievement make a difference?', Social Behavior and Personality: an international journal, vol. 32, issue 4, pp. 399-412. Abstract
Fenton-O'Creevy, MP  (2003)  'The Diffusion of HR practices within the multi-national firm: towards a research agenda', Symposium on International Diffusion of HR Practices, May 25thBeta: Tidsskrift for bedriftsokonomi [Scandanavian Journal of Business Research], vol. 17, issue 1, Bergen, Norway: NHH, pp. 36-47. Abstract
Fenton-O'Creevy, MP, Gooderham, PM  (2003)  'International management of human resources', Beta: Scandinavian Journal of Business and Research, vol. 17, issue 1, pp. 02/05/10.
Fenton-O'Creevy, MP, Nicholson, N, Soane, E, Willman, P  (2003)  'Trading on illusions: unrealistic perceptions of control and trading performance', Academy of Management ConferenceJournal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, vol. 76, issue 1, pp. 53-68. Abstract
Willman, P, Fenton-O'Creevy, MP, Soane, E, Nicholson, N  (2002)  'Traders, managers and loss aversion in investment banking: a field study', Accounting, Organizations and Society, vol. 27, issue 1/2, pp. 85-98. Abstract
Fenton-O'Creevy, MP  (2001)  'Employee involvement and the middle manager: saboteur or scapegoat?', Human Resource Management Journal, vol. 11, issue 1, pp. 24-40. Abstract
Willman, P, Fenton-O'Creevy, MP, Nicholson, N, Soane, E  (2001)  'Knowing the risks: theory and practice in financial markets', Human Relations, vol. 54, issue 7, pp. 887-910. Abstract
Fenton-O'Creevy, MP, Morris, TJ, Lydka, H, Winfrow, P  (1998)  'Company prospects and employee commitment: an analysis of the influence of external events on organisational commitment and their implications for the BOCS', British Journal of Industrial Relations, vol. 35, issue 4, pp. 593-608.
Fenton-O'Creevy, MP  (1998)  'Employee involvement and the middle manager: evidence from a survey of organizations', Journal of Organizational Behavior, vol. 19, issue 1, pp. 67-84.
Fenton-O'Creevy, MP  (1996)  'The middle manager: friend or foe of employee involvement?', Journal of Applied Management Studies, vol. 5, issue 1, pp. 47-62.
Morris, TJ, Fenton-O'Creevy, MP  (1996)  'Opening the black box: attitudes of top managers to their own performance related rewards', International Journal of Human Resource Management, vol. 7, issue 3, pp. 708-720.
Books
Fenton-O'Creevy, MP, Nicholson, N, Soane, E, Willman, P  (2004)  'Traders: risks, decisions, and management in financial markets', Oxford, UK, Oxford University Press, pp. 244. Abstract
Fenton-O'Creevy, MP, Callerot, E, Wood, SJ  (1998)  'Employee involvement within European multinationals', Uxbridge, European Works Council Study Group.
Fenton-O'Creevy, MP, Nicholson, N  (1994)  'Middle Managers: their contribution to employee involvement, Employment Department Research Series 28', London, Stationary Office Agencies.
Fenton-O'Creevy, MP, Davies, T, Gelides, P, Abbas, R  (1989)  'Staying the Course: survival characteristics of family businesses', London, Stoy Hayward.
Book chapters
Fenton-O'Creevy, MP, Gooderham, PM, Cerdin, J-L, Rønning, R  (2011)  'Bridging roles, social skill and embedded knowing in multinational organisations', Politics and Power in the Multinational Corporation: The Role of Institutions, Interests and Identities, Cambridge, U.K., Cambridge University Press, pp. 101-138. Abstract
Fenton-O'Creevy, MP, Knight, P, Margolis, JM  (2006)  'A Practice-Centered Approach to Management Education', New Visions of Graduate Management Education, vol. 5, Greenwich, CT, Information Age, pp. 103-123. Abstract
Fenton-O'Creevy, MP, Wood, SJ  (2005)  'Benefitting from a multi-channel approach', Adding Value Through Information and Consultation, London, UK, Palgrave McMillan, pp. 59-68.
Fenton-O'Creevy, MP  (2002)  'HR practice: vive la difference', Financial Times (Mastering People Management), 26 NovemberMastering people management, London, UK, Prentice Hall, pp. 143-148. Abstract
Fenton-O'Creevy, MP  (2002)  'Seeking success by involving workers', Mastering People Management, London, UK, Prentice Hall, pp. 165-170. Abstract
Fenton-O'Creevy, MP, Soane, E  (2001)  'The subjective perception of risk', Pickford, J (ed.) Mastering Risk, Volume 1: Concepts, London: Pearson Education, pp. 25-30.
Soane, E, Fenton-O'Creevy, MP, Willman, P, Nicholson, N  (2000)  'The individual perspective', Futures and Options Association (ed.) Derivatives 2000, Futures and Options Association, pp. 174-177.
Fenton-O'Creevy, MP  (1997)  'Employee involvement', Nicholson, N (ed.) Dictionary of Organizational Behaviour, London: Blackwell, pp. 153-154.
Conference papers
Fenton-O'Creevy, M, Furnham, A, Dibb, S, Davies, G  (2012)  'Antecedents and consequences of impulsive buying: can impulsive buying be understood as dysfunctional emotion regulation?', Eighth International Conference on Emotions and Worklife: Emonet VIII, Helsinki. Abstract
Fenton-O'Creevy, M, Conole, G, Lins, J, Peffer, G, Adam, M, Lindley, C, Smidt, A, Clough, G, Scanlon, E  (2012)  'A learning design to support the emotion regulation of investors', OECD-SEBI International Conference on Investor Education, Goa, India. Abstract
Richards, D, Fenton-O'Creevy, MP, Rutterford, JM  (2011)  'Do stop losses work? The disposition effect, stop losses and investor demographics', Behavioural Finance and Economic Psychology: Recent Developments, Cass Business School, 7-8 April.
Vohra, S, Fenton-O'Creevy, M  (2011)  'Managing the heart of finance: domain specific emotion regulation in the work of financial traders', 71st Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management, San Antonio, TX, USA. Abstract
Fenton-O'Creevy, MP, Cerdin, J-L, Gooderham, PM  (2008)  'Bridging roles, social skill, and embedded knowing in multinational organisations', European Group on Organization Studies, Amsterdam, June 2008.
Fenton-O'Creevy, MP, Soane, E, Nicholson, N, Willman, P  (2008)  'Thinking feeling and deciding: the influence of emotions on the decision-making and performance of traders', Academy of Management Conference, Anaheim, CA, August 2008.
Fenton-O'Creevy, MP, Cerdin, J-L, Gooderham, PM  (2007)  'Lost in translation? Developing the skills of sharing knowing within multinational corporations', Symposium on the Development of Social Capital for Knowledge-Sharing Purposes in Multinational Corporations, Academy of Management Conference, Philadelphia, USA, 6 August.
Cerdin, J-L, Fenton-O'Creevy, MP, Gooderham, PM  (2007)  'The role of expatriates in diffusing HRM practices across the MNC: an agency perspective', 9th International Human Resource Management Conference, Tallinn, Estonia, 12-15 June.
Fenton-O'Creevy, MP  (2006)  'A dialectical approach to practice based learning', Symposium on 'Towards a Pedagogy of Practice', Acadamy of Management Conference, Atlanta, USA, August.
Fenton-O'Creevy, MP, Yusof, S  (2006)  'Negotiating the Budi complex in the transfer of management practices: embedding Western European health and safety practices in Malaysia', Academy of International Business Conference, Beijing, June.
Fenton-O'Creevy, MP  (2006)  'Traders expertise in its context', Conference on Expertise in Context, Humbolt University, Berlin, July.
Yusof, S, Fenton-O'Creevy, MP  (2005)  'The cross national transfer of health and safety practices: a dual institutional approach', 5th international workshop on Human Resources Management, Seville, May.
Fenton-O'Creevy, MP, Yusof, S  (2005)  'The cross-national transfer of corporate health and safety values: unpacking the role of institutions', 8th International Human Resource Management Conference, Cairns, Australia. June.
Cerdin, J-L, Fenton-O'Creevy, MP, Gooderham, PM  (2005)  'What makes locals implement and internalize headquarters HRM policies: the role of expatriates in performance management diffusion within MNCs', Academy of Management Conference, Honolulu, August.
Fenton-O'Creevy, MP, Gooderham, PM, Nordhaug, O  (2004)  'HRM in US Subsidiaries in Europe: centralization or autonomy?', Academy of Management Conference, New Orleans, 6-11 August.
Gooderham, PM, Fenton-O'Creevy, MP  (2003)  'Personnel management in subsidiaries of US multinationals in Europe: centralisation or autonomy?', 7th Conference on International Human Resource Management, Limerick, June.
Fenton-O'Creevy, MP, Wood, SJ  (2001)  'Antecedents of strategic international human resource management in UK MNCs: putting resource based theory in an institutional context', (American) Academy of Management Conference, August 2001, Washington.
Wood, SJ, Fenton-O'Creevy, MP  (2001)  'Divergence in patterns of communication and consultation: the case of UK multinationals in the European Community', 3rd International Workshop: Human Resource Management: In What Ways Have We Changed, Seville,16 - 18 May (Awarded Best Paper prize).
Nicholson, N, Fenton-O'Creevy, MP, Willman, P, Soane, E  (1998)  'Financial decision making: risk taking by traders in financial markets', British Psychological Society London Conference.
Other
Peffer, G, Fenton-O'Creevy, M  (2012)  'xDelia Final Report: Emotion-Centred Financial Decision Making and Learning', Milton Keynes UK, Open University, CIMNE. Abstract
Fenton-O'Creevy, M, Gaved, M, Astor, P, Cederholm, H, Davies, G, Eriksson, J, Jercic, P, Lins, JT, van Overveld, M, Schaaff, K et al.  (2012)  'xDelia: D18-2.4.2 Learning Intervention Package - Development and Evaluation (Year 3)', Milton Keynes, UK, xDelia Consortium. Abstract
Peffer, G, Fenton-O'Creevy, M, Adam, M, Astor, P, Cederholm, H, Clough, G, Conole, G, Davies, G, Eriksson, J, Gaved, M et al.  (2012)  'xDelia: emotion-centred financial decision making and learning (final report)', Milton Keynes, UK, xDelia Consortium. Abstract
Fenton-O'Creevy, MP  (2009)  'A reckless love of money?', issue 01/10/10, Blog for the BBC's The Bottom Line.
Fenton-O'Creevy, MP  (2008)  'Has Robert Peston caused a recession? Social amplification, performativity and risks in financial markets', issue 17/10/10, Open2net article for the BBC's Money Programme.
Fenton-O'Creevy, MP  (2008)  'Trading on emotion: traders, reason and emotion in financial markets', issue 16/05/10, Blog for the BBC's The Money Programme.
Fenton-O'Creevy, MP  (2007)  'Has Gerry Robinson fixed the NHS?', issue 10/01/10, Blog for OpenLearn.
Fenton-O'Creevy, MP  (2007)  'Why is change so hard?', issue 08/01/10, Blog for OpenLearn.
Fenton-O'Creevy, MP  (2006)  'Thomas Hardy, the wired world and the business of love', issue 31/01/10, Blog for the BBC's The Money Programme.
Fenton-O'Creevy, MP  (2005)  'The psychology of deception', issue 10/11/10, Blog for the BBC's Money Programme.