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Our PhD in Management degree program with a concentration in Organizational Behaviour (OB) and Human Resource Management (HRM) is a four-year program. In the first two years, you will complete courses and your comprehensive exams. In years three and four, you will focus on research with your supervisor and other faculty members. Opportunities for teaching are also available. If you complete your MSc in Management with us, you will receive credit for those courses you have already completed, which can decrease the length of the time it takes to complete this degree. This program is designed for students who wish to become academics and researchers.
This is a full-time, four-year program, starting in September each year. You will focus on completing course work in Years 1 and 2. Your comprehensive exams occur at the end of Year 2. You will further refine your research skills and complete your dissertation in Years 3 and 4.
Note: Students admitted into the PhD program from the Laurier MSc in Management will be exempt from some courses already completed at the master’s level.
Our OB/HRM faculty supervisors are leading scholars with exceptional research and teaching records. They publish in the leading journals in the field and are nationally/internationally recognized for their research expertise. They are active in the top conferences in the field; this involvement in the larger research community provides you with remarkable networking opportunities.
Laurie Barclay
Associate Professor
"My research interests focus on fairness in the workplace. I am particularly interested in what makes people feel unfairly treated and how to help employees recover from unfair experiences. I also examine emotions and aggression in the workplace. Some examples of the research questions that I investigate in those areas include what makes some emotions 'toxic,' how can people’s emotions impact the way that they respond to fairness issues, what makes some people more likely to be the recipient of aggression, and when is it functional or 'moral' to engage in revenge?"
Amy Christie
Associate Professor
"My research is centred on status and power in organizations. I explore how positions or feelings of power and status relate to attitudes, behaviour, and well-being. For example, I have asked whether power corrupts, if powerful individuals become 'power-hungry,' how status differentials affect relationships in teams, why those with high status enjoy better health, and if the stigma of following is self-reinforcing."
Ivona Hideg
Assistant Professor
"My research program encompasses two lines of research: research on gender and cultural diversity in the workplace, and research on emotions and emotion regulation in the workplace. In my first line of research, I examine issues of diversity in the workplace in two ways: by examining reactions and support for gender- and race-based employment equity (EE) policies, and by examining diversity in teams. For example, I have been examining how different types of sexism (hostile and benevolent) influence reactions to diversity policies in the workplace. In my second line of research, I examine the effects of emotions and emotion regulation on the individuals who experience and regulate emotions (intrapersonal effects of emotions) and individuals who observe emotions in others (social effects of emotions). In particular, I have been examining cultural influences on the social effects of emotions such as the effects of culturally different thinking styles."
Greg Irving
Professor
"My research interests centre on the processes by which individuals move from being organizational outsiders to insiders. To that end, I examine the role of factors such as the impact of Realistic Job Previews (RJPs) and applicants’ pre-entry expectations on their post-entry adjustment. Although post-entry adjustment can mean many things, my interests focus primarily on employee attitudes toward the organization (e.g. organizational commitment) and behaviours (e.g. turnover). I am also interested in the ways that organizations can facilitate the transition from outsider to insider via activities such as organizational socialization and the development of psychological contracts."
Lisa Keeping
Professor
"Employee performance reviews are conducted by most organizations on an annual or semi-annual basis, often at great time and expense. Interestingly, research indicates that managers and employees alike find performance evaluations to be among the most disliked aspects of their jobs. My research examines the process and outcomes of performance evaluations from the perspective of both managers conducting the evaluations and employees being evaluated. Some of the issues I examine are why managers deliberately provide evaluations of employees that they know to be inaccurate as well as the reactions employees have to receiving performance feedback. The approach I like to take to research is to examine what are largely considered to be human resource issues by applying theories and concepts from organizational behaviour. Secondary areas of interest to me are leadership and employee selection."
Lindie Liang
Assistant Professor
“My research interests can be broadly classified into three overlapping areas: leadership, workplace aggression, and emotions. In my research, I apply motivational theories to answer the questions when and why employees behave in certain ways. For example, I am interested in exploring why leaders mistreat their employees, what emotions leaders experience after mistreating their employees, and why mistreated employees behave badly. My other research interests include mindfulness, conflict in the workplace, and ostracism."
Chet Robie
Professor
"My research interests focus on the use of personality variables in the workplace. I am interested in questions such as, 'What personality variables predict important individual and organizational outcomes such as performance and retention?' and 'What is the best way to measure personality variables in the face of such threats as applicant faking?'"
Yujie (Jessie) Zhan
Assistant Professor
"My research interests include two streams: emotion regulation and retirement. My research on emotion regulation mainly concerns service employees who are required to express a cheerful emotion when they are interacting with clients or customers. I am particularly interested in how service employees react to difficult customers and why they use different strategies to regulate their emotions. My interest in retirement research is stimulated by the aging trend of population. My research aims to explore factors that impact older employees’ retirement decision and retirement adjustment process."
In addition to the financial support that you receive as part of your acceptance into our program, you will have opportunities to receive funding from other sources within and outside of the university.
For example, our students have been successful in receiving grants and fellowships from external funding sources including the prestigious Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) and Ontario Graduate Scholarships. Our students have also received support in the form of travel grants for conference presentations and small research grants ($1,500-$3,000) that support their research initiatives. There are also opportunities to work as teaching assistants (TAs), instructors, and research assistants (RAs) for supplemental funding.
For information about our program’s tuition costs, please take a look at the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies' tuition and fees webpage.
Contact Us:
For more information about the OB/HRM MSc and PhD program, email our OB/HRM graduate field coordinator at obhrm@wlu.ca.
For admissions-related inquiries, email sbephdmasters@wlu.ca.
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