Kara Ng

Presidential Fellow, Organisational Psychology

Kara Ng says she has always been interested in how people think and behave, which led her to initially studying psychology. "I have always been particularly interested in its application to real world issues. As such, organisational psychology has always seemed a more applied route for me to take."

Kara's PhD was in workplace bullying and she admits that she has always been fascinated in the psychology behind people who do bad things, at work and beyond.

"It is usually quite easy to understand great leaders and what motivates them. But how do you justify bad behaviours, and how do these people live with themselves afterwards? There are many cases where you see people do horrible things before simply moving on to another company and repeating the behaviour, only to leave another trail of ruined lives behind."

Bystanders

She is particularly interested in understanding the role bystanders have in workplace bullying.

"We often think of bullying as an issue between the bully and target, but there are many instances, especially at work, where people witness these harmful acts and bystanders have the power to improve or worsen the bullying situation. I'm also interested in applying ethical frameworks to explain unethical behaviours at work, such as counterproductive work behaviours."

Kara says that governments and regulatory bodies are now starting to realise just how serious workplace bullying is, and there is more of a questioning of behaviours. "But we still have a way to go," she adds.

Pandemic

Such issues have been brought into even sharper focus by the pandemic which has thrown up a whole host of questions in relation to our working lives and our wellbeing.

For instance, Kara is working with WEI colleague Professor Sheena Johnson – along with the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) and the Thomas Ashton Institute - to further understand issues around work-related violence and COVID-19.

In a recent workshop, they spoke to representatives from many UK organisations across a variety of sectors including retail and waste management, about the difficulties they face in addressing work-related violence and the importance of staff reporting incidents, and how to tackle such problems.

Adds Kara: "It is an unfortunate reality that many workers are targets of such violence, which the HSE defines as incidents in which a person is abused, threatened, or assaulted in circumstances relating to their work. This can include physical, verbal, or psychological behaviours, and can have profoundly negative consequences on workers' health and quality of life. Looking ahead, I plan to continue researching workplace bullying and seek to draw findings from different sectors to explain phenomena."

Other research

Kara also works with organisations on supporting new ways of working more generally. For instance, with Professor Robin Martin and WEI colleague Professor David Holman, she is involved with a Management Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (MKTP) between Alliance Manchester Business School and business consultancy firm Cirrus.

Unlike a more general Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP), where business and academia usually join forces to develop a specific product or service, a MKTP is built around identifying strategic management-based initiatives to increase business effectiveness and improve management practices.

As Kara explains: "Cirrus works with major organisations on leadership development and employee engagement, and the MKTP will help it embed and transfer knowledge of agile leadership and team agility to support new ways of working."

"The partnership will also look at how to develop and adapt training materials to address challenges brought by the pandemic. Because of the unprecedented disruption caused by COVID-19, organisations now need to be much more agile."

Future

Kara's Presidential Fellowship at The University of Manchester is a four-year post after which she will take up a lectureship within the Organisational Psychology group at AMBS. The prestigious Fellowships are designed for early career academics and she says it has been a fantastic opportunity.

"For me it's been simply amazing for my career to have these four years just to focus on my own research."

Born in Hong Kong, Kara spent her childhood attending various international schools across the Far East as her parents moved jobs around the region. Kara then moved to the US to take her BA in Classics and Psychology at the University of Rochester, before coming to Manchester to take her MSc and PhD in Organisational Psychology from Alliance Manchester Business School.