dr. S. (Sofya) Isaakyan

ERIM’s research group in Organizational Behaviour (OB) and Human Resource Management (HRM) is seeking a highly motivated PhD candidate to contribute to its research program and activities. The core tenet of this program is that people—and how they lead, collaborate, and organize— are the greatest asset in today’s organizations. Indeed, in order to be able to deliver complex, innovative products or services it is crucial that employees proactively contribute their knowledge, expertise, and creativity in collaborative team efforts. With growing diversity and reliance on cross-national collaborations, employees also increasingly need to be able to bridge differences in perspectives and expertise to achieve this type of effective collaboration and synergy. Furthermore, global scale events (e.g., Covid-19, global warming, international conflicts) underscore the continued need to reconsider and reinvent the workplace and how people work (e.g., virtual work, work safety, job loss, work-nonwork interface). In the light of these organizational realities and challenges, ERIM’s OB/HRM research group aims to contribute to society by answering the essential question of how to foster motivation, collaboration, and performance in today’s workplace, with a focus on the role of leadership, teamwork, HR practices, and well-being in individuals and teams. As a PhD candidate you will be able to determine the focus of your PhD endeavour in collaboration with the supervising faculty, yet the expectation is that the focus would be aligned with the core expertise of the supervisory team and relate broadly to one or more of the department’s research foci (i.e., leadership; human resource management, performance and well-being outcomes; diversity; creativity and innovation; teamwork; social relations and social networks; empowerment; motivation; proactive and extra-role behaviour).