Prof Chantal Olckers and Prof Karel Stanz of the Department of Human Resource Management were part of a South African delegation attending the 17th Congress of the
European Association of Work and Organizational Psychology (EAWOP) in Oslo, Norway, in May 2015. The event is the largest and most important of its kind in Europe with 1 500 researchers, practitioners, students, and decision makers in attendance.
Stàle Einarsen, University of Bergen, Per A Straumsheim, Norwegian Psychological Association, Prof Karel Stanz, University of Pretoria, Ole Tunold, Norwegian Psychological Association.
The South African delegation, consisting of academics and practitioners from the University of Pretoria, Unisa, the University of Johannesburg, North-West University and the mining industry, contributed to this body of knowledge with presentations, symposium, a panel discussion and poster presentations.
The congress theme was particularly important and timely in 2015 as Europe and Africa in particular, but also the rest of the world, face and have faced turbulent times in many respects, posing serious challenges to employees, teams, organisations, nations and leaders. Leaders with responsibility for both employees and results face challenges such as globalised competition, the need for cost reduction, new technology, mergers and downsizing.
The question which work and organisational psychology needs to provide a new and good answer to, is how can one manage respectfully, contribute to the wider good of society and at the same time create, adapt and maintain an effective and sustainable organisation? The EAWOP 2015 Congress tried to address this complex and yet very basic question in its full breadth and the interaction between and contribution from both academia and professionals in the field were central to it.
Prof Chantal Olckers played a significant role in the symposium on positive organisational behaviour, themed ’New directions in psychological ownership research’. She contributed with her investigation on psychological ownership, work engagement and happiness in a professional services industry
Prof Karel Stanz, who served on the
Conference Advisory Board, participated as the Academy of Management’s Human Resource Ambassador for South Africa in a panel discussion. He and Wilmien Smith, the Department of HRM’s recipient of the SABPP Best Master Student in 2014, presented a poster on retention preferences from a multi-generation workforce perspective, focusing on the relationship between total rewards, perceived organisational support and perceived supervisor support. Prof Stanz also read the poster presentation of Dr Nasima Carrim, who could not attend, on Indian husbands’ social support of wives’ career advancement.
Prof Karel Stanz and Wilmien Smith presented a poster on retention preferences from a multi-generation workforce perspective.
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