Fresh from the UK, Dr. Caroline Knight joined the team on 29th May 2017. She completed her PhD in December 2016 from Sheffield University Management School. Her PhD investigated the role and effectiveness of interventions to increase work engagement in organisations in which she conducted a meta-analysis of the effect of interventions on work engagement (published in the Journal of Organizational Behaviour; to read the paper click here).
This paper has been well received, and was featured in a SIOP TIP review as one of the top ten papers of 2016 with significant practical utility (to view the article click here).
During her PhD, Caroline also worked in a team conducting a participatory action research intervention in nursing staff working on acute elderly National Health Service (NHS) wards in the UK. As part of the wider project, which aimed to increase quality of patient care, she investigated the effects of the intervention on the relationships between social support, participation in decision-making and workload on work engagement in nursing staff (to read the early view online version, click here).
Caroline has also worked in a consultative capacity with Sheffield City Council to help increase employee work engagement, and has worked collaboratively on a number of other projects, including a report for Sport England, UK, which investigated the motivations of sports volunteers, and a review of depression in the workplace.
Generally, Caroline is very interested in what motivates people at work, their wellbeing, and the role of job design in relation to positive outcomes. She is also very interested in quantitative methods and enjoys the process of learning and applying different statistical methods within her work.
She is very much looking forward to getting stuck in at the Centre for Transformative Work Design!