18:15: Alec Rodger Memorial Lecture
Resilience: People, Organisations and their Communities
Professor Tom Cox CBE
This event requires registration. Please email events@bbk.ac.uk if you would like to attend.
The Alec Rodger Memorial Lecture is held annually by the Department of Organizational Psychology, and is part-funded by the T. Ritchie Rodger Research Fund, which is managed by the British Psychological Society. This fund was set up by Alec Rodger, the first Professor of Occupational Psychology at Birkbeck, in memory of his father. In many ways, Alec Rodger was the founder of Occupational Psychology in the UK. This lecture series began in 1983 and is held in memory of Alec Rodger. Speakers are invited by the Department, and are chosen on the basis of a distinguished record as an academic, in public service or in commerce. We are delighted to announce that this year's Alec Rodger Memorial Lecture will be delivered by Professor Tom Cox CBE.
Prof Cox holds the Chair of Organizational Psychology at the University of Nottingham where he set up the Institute of Work, Health & Organisations and remained its Director until 2010. Professionally, he is a Chartered Psychologist and a full member of the Divisions of Occupational and of Health Psychology. He specialises in occupational health and in safety management. In 2000, he was awarded a CBE in the New Years Honours List for his contribution to occupational health. In 2003, he was made an Honorary Fellow of both the Faculty of Occupational Medicine, Royal College of Physicians of Ireland and of the Institute of Ergonomics and Human Factors. In 2008, he was presented with an award for a Distinguished Contribution to Occupational Health Psychology jointly by the American Psychological Association, the US National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health and the Society for Occupational Health Psychology. Most recently, he has joined the Steering Committee of Mental Health Research UK, a national charity for the funding of research on mental health with a particular interested in work-related issues. He is Managing Editor of the journal Work & Stress. He will talk to us about resilience, the main theme of Business Week.
The concept of resilience is a relatively new addition to the toolbox of research issues and areas of practice both in organisational psychology and in occupational health psychology. Arguably, when applied there, it is a metaphor, with its roots in physics, alluding to the capacity to "bend and bounce back" when experiencing a significant challenge. Psychological definitions of such a capacity vary but usually incorporate notions of stress, adaptation and coping, recovery and, sometimes, growth. Implicit in most definitions is something of a process or development across time. There are several distinct areas of research and practice within what is now an increasingly broad interest. This talk considers the concept of resilience in the context of how civil organisations prepare for, respond to and manage disasters, personal, natural or otherwise, and how they may aid recovery and growth. The perspective sits at the interface between the person, the organisation and the community. Among other things, it seeks to emphasise the importance of the interactions, of both understanding and activity, between those stakeholder groups and, in doing so, points up the different roles that civil organisations can play across the different types of disaster situation. In each case, there is a contribution to be made by organisational psychologists and by occupational health psychologists.
This event requires registration. Please email events@bbk.ac.uk if you would like to attend.
