Professor Kerrie Unsworth
- Position: Chair in Organisational Behaviour
- Areas of expertise: People in organisations; juggling goals; pro-environmental behaviour; corporate social responsibility; motivation; leadership; creativity; well-being; diversity and inclusion
- Email: K.L.Unsworth@leeds.ac.uk
- Phone: +44(0)113 343 4310
- Location: 2.10 Charles Thackrah
- Website: Prof. Kerrie Unsworth | Twitter | Googlescholar
Profile
Dr Kerrie Unsworth is a Professor of Organisational Behaviour at Leeds University Business School. People spend most of their waking hours during most of their life at work, so Kerrie's main interest is in how we can make work-life work for everybody. With a background in psychology and a keen interest in making the world a better place, her aim is to help people and organisations find the best solutions for productive, fulfilling and socially responsible workplaces.
More specifically, Kerrie studies topics such as motivation, creativity, pro-environmental behaviours, leadership, inclusion and well-being. Underlying each of these is an interest in understanding how we juggle the different priorities we have as individuals and how we juggle the different priorities that occur across relationships.
Kerrie obtained an Honours degree in Psychology from the University of Queensland in 1994 and a PhD from the Institute of Work Psychology at the University of Sheffield in 2001. She has won over £1 million in funding and has been cited over 10,000 times in academic journals. Her work has appeared in prestigious journals across a number of disciplines including Journal of Applied Psychology and Academy of Management Review and she is an Editorial Board member of Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Management Studies, Journal of Management, Human Relations and Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology.
Research interests
Kerrie’s research focuses on how we juggle our goals, tasks and identities and the effect this has on motivation and particular behaviours such as leadership, collaboration and pro-environmental behaviour. She has a strong belief in the need for both rigour and relevance. As such, although her research is varied in that it includes both qualitative and quantitative methods, it is always in-depth and focused on how it can make a difference to the world.
Kerrie's current projects focus on workplace CSR and pro-environmental behaviour: What can a company do to increase socially-responsible and pro-environmental behaviours in its employees? What happens when being a good employee means not being as green/socially responsible as you could be? How can you have it all? How can an organization work towards being both profitable and environmentally sustainable? If these tensions, or others, are of interest to you or your organization, please get in contact.
Research groups and institutes
- Workplace Behaviour Research Centre
- Socio-Technical Centre