Dr Nicholas Jackson

Profile

Nicholas Jackson is Associate Professor in Organisational Behaviour in the Faculty of Business, University of Leeds. His teaching and research focus on student engagement, higher education pedagogy, and educational inequality.

Nick's professional background includes managing a family business before spending 10 years with Aviva plc, where he progressed to the role of Senior Accountant. During this period, he was responsible for managing the relationship between Life Finance and investment fund managers in London, an experience that helped develop his enduring interest in human attitudes and behaviour in organisational settings.

Following the completion of Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees with Honours, Nick obtained a PGCE inPost-Compulsory Education and Training, before undertaking doctoral study at the University of Leeds. He completed a PhD in Organisational Behaviour, examining perceived fairness in mergers and acquisitions, together with its antecedents and outcomes. As a relatively under-researched area within organisational psychology, the study made a significant contribution to understanding employee responses to organisational change.

Nick’s current research focuses on pedagogical approaches within post-compulsory education. His work explores contemporary course and programme design to enhance student engagement and learning, alongside the challenges experienced by marginalised student groups in higher education.

His forthcoming book, Supporting Marginalized Students in Higher Education: From Transition to Progression, will be published by Edward Elgar Publishing in January 2027. He is also the author of Organizational Justice in Mergers and Acquisitions: Antecedents & Outcomes and The Architecture of Student-Oriented Course Design: Building a course for contemporary higher education students.

Nick is currently working on his fourth single-authored book, which challenges dominant explanations of student success and failure in higher education. Drawing upon empirical research, the book integrates insights from academic literacies, student transition, engagement, belonging, widening participation, and educational inequality. It advances a new theoretical framework centred on system literacy, constrained agency, and differential system usability, demonstrating how inequality can emerge through everyday interactions between students and institutional structures.

Responsibilities

• Director of Taught Programmes (Quality)

Research interests

Nick’s previous interests include organizational justice and trust in the merger and acquisition process:

Organizational Justice in Mergers and Acquisitions: Antecedents and Outcomes | SpringerLink

and organizational culture, including a book review in Personnel Psychology:

Organizational culture in action: A cultural analysis workbook (3rd edition, pp. 270). Gerald W. C. Driskill. New York: Routledge, 2019, pages, $83.95 paperback. - Jackson - 2020 - Personnel Psychology - Wiley Online Library

Nick's current research interests are centered around pedagogical development in higher education.

Qualifications

• PhD organizational behaviour (University of Leeds
• MA Business
• BA Business Management
• PGCE (post compulsory education & training)

Professional memberships

• Senior Fellow Higher Education Academy

Student education

Nick has taught various undergraduate and postgraduate modules in organizational behaviour. He has recently redesigned his Flagship module for Year 1 Business students, Organizational Behaviour.