Dr Rebecca Pieniazek

Profile

Formally I go by the name of Rebecca, but colleagues call me Bekki. I am interested in studying people in organisations or people at work. I have expertise in/experience of quantitative (survey or experiment-based) and inductive qualitative research, as well as working on literature review, methodology, and non-empirical/theory papers.

Current roles and responsibilities

• Lecturer in Organisational Psychology and Behaviour.
• Member of the Leeds University Business School Management and Organisations Division research working group (since September 2024). 
• Deputy director for the White Rose Doctoral Training Partnership’s Wellbeing Health and Communities pathway (since Autumn 2023).
• Member of the Leeds University Business School training steering group (since 2021). 
• Editorial board member for the prestigious Human Relations Journal (since September 2020).

Previous roles and responsibilities

• Deputy director for the White Rose Doctoral Training Partnership’s Sustainability, productivity and management pathway (mid November 2022-June 2023).  
• Leeds University Business School values working group (2021). 
• Journal reviewer for Human Relations (2018-2020). 
• Co-director of the Workplace Behaviour research centre (March 2018-Sept 2020). 
• Member of UoL reduce campus smoking working group (2019). 

Research interests

Research areas and expertise

• Organisational resilience, including operational resilience - i.e., protecting organisations’ operations in the context of uncertainty through activities at the micro (i.e., the role of individuals), and/or meso (i.e., the role of teams) and/or macro-levels (i.e., the role of organisational level top-down factors). 
• Personal resilience of employees - employees’ ability to cope with and recover from stressful situations directly impacting their tasks, behaviours, and emotions at work. 
• Employees’ or organisations’ multiple goals and/or goal conflict. 
• Well-being and/or adverse experiences work. 
• Motivation at work.
• Environmental sustainability related to work or organisations.

Working with organisations/impact 

• I work with industrial partners to conduct research projects which contribute scientifically and practically to the real world. I am committed to providing rigorous evidence-based knowledge to provide people, organisations, and society with practical solutions for enhancing success and social impact. I have worked with both private, public, and third sector organisations since 2013, and have experience working in interdisciplinary teams. 

Research awards

• University of Leeds Outstanding Academic Performance PhD Prize (2017)
• ESRC PhD scholarship 
• Division of Occupational Psychology Conference paper Prize (2014)

Grant funding

• (2020-2021). Unsworth, K.L. (PI), Pieniazek, R. (Co-I), Davis, M.C. (Co-I), Song, L. (Co-I), McKay, A. (Co-I). Sustainable and Productive?! Helping Manufacturing SMEs to Manage Multiple Goals. ESRC Productivity Insights Network. Six-month project, £70,370.
• (May 2023-October 2023). Pieniazek, R. (PI) &  Unsworth, K.L. (Co-I). Co-designing a goal interdependency method for incorporating sustainability into company goals to enable transformation. UKRI Transforming Foundations Industry Network. £68,260.

PhD and Post-Doctoral/Fellowship supervision

• I welcome applications focused on studying one or more of my main research interests (see above); or performance management, career development, or scenarios where health and work overlap such as experiencing the menopause transition whilst working.
• Despite thesis writing being very different to writing an ABS journal paper, I now guide my supervisees towards creating at least two projects which have the potential to be ABS papers.
• If potential students demonstrate the skills and qualities to be able to successfully handle the PhD process, I will consider helping and guiding the development of their research proposals. 
• I have expertise in and/or experience supervising quantitative (survey or experiment-based), inductive qualitative, literature review, methodology contributions, and non-empirical/theory projects.
• I also welcome applications for post-doctoral students studying organisational psychology/behaviour topics.

Current PGR students

• (Completion due 2025) Lead supervisor to Emma Findlay - conceptual theory projects, and an inductive qualitative project exploring multi-team systems from a goal interdependency lens. 
• (Completion due 2025) Lead supervisor to Andrew Brown - quantitative survey-based projects exploring configurations of team processes. 
• (Completion due 2025/2026) Lead supervisor to Ellie Lucas - literature review project, and quantitative experimental projects exploring goal conflict at work. 
• Second supervisor to Nicola Smith - literature review and conceptual theorising project, and quantitive projects exploring goal disengagement. 
• Second supervisor to Jie Tang (Started October 2024) - quantitative projects studying goal conflict in the context of pro-environmental behaviour at work.

Completed PGR supervision

• (Completed 2020) Second supervisor to Olivia Solomon - a qualitative and quantitative project exploring job crafting. 

Qualifications

• PhD Business Management and Economics (2017) (University of Leeds)
• MSc Organizational Psychology (2013) (University of Leeds)
• B.A Experimental Psychology (2010) (University of Oxford)

Student education

I have led four different PG modules (2016-present). As well as lots of experience of supervising dissertations, I have teaching experience at Ugrad, MSc, and PGR levels teaching the following: 

• Introductory and advanced qualitative and quantitative research methods and analyses 
• Critically assessing research  
• Performance management 
• Career development 
• Personal and organisational resilience 
• Organisational/occupational/work psychology or organisational behaviour topics (e.g., teamwork, leadership, well-being, motivation, personality and individual differences, change management, training and development etc). 
• Socio-technical systems thinking 
• Disseration supervision

Teaching excellence awards

• Leeds University Business School Dean’s award (2024). 
• Fellowship of the HEA (September 2023). 
• Leeds University Business School Management Division award (September 2020).

Research groups and institutes

• Socio-Technical Centre
• Workplace Behaviour Research Centre

Current postgraduate researchers

• Emma Findlay
• Annalise Galea
• Jie Tang