ERO (Enhancing Research Output) initiative

With the aim of improving the research output – both in terms of publications and grant applications-, research impacts and research led culture of the Departments of Management and Organizational Psychology, Dr Muthu de Silva, in her capacity as the Deputy HoD, has introduced the ERO initiative. This programme consists of three main interrelated and overlapping phases, namely (a) team formation and action plan development, (b) paper development workshops and (c) progress monitoring and future engagements.

The programme was initiated in October 2019 and since then 18 papers, involving 36 academics, have directly benefited from this initiative. Additionally, other faculty members and PhD students as participants of this initiative (e.g. workshops) have contributed to, and gained advantages from, the initiative.  

Three paper development workshops are conducted so far, during which colleagues presented their papers and received feedback from discussants as well as other participants. These workshops have also enabled participants to explore opportunities for further collaborations and learn from each other.

We have continued this initiative during the Covid-19 period via a virtual workshop, in which Prof Shlomo Tarba, The University of Birmingham, UK, shared with participants extremely useful suggestions and tips on how to publish good quality journal articles.

The next step of this initiative is to receive written feedback from external reviewers, which will help each paper in further strengthening prior to submitting to a journal.

We are hoping to continue this in the next year too……

Below are a few representative quotes from colleagues regarding their experience of the ERO initiative: 

1. Dr Benedetta Crisafulli, Lecturer in Marketing

“The ERO initiative has been a well thought-through inter-departmental initiative, I feel. It has brought together academics from Management, which is an already quite diverse community in the subjects covered, and Occupational Psychology, to share research ideas and experiences in undergoing journals’ review processes. It was insightful to see how some of our research overlaps, and crucially, how some of our expertise and skills complement each other. The best part of the initiative was, in my opinion, the third workshop where some of us were asked to present their work in progress and their assigned discussant provided feedback on a written draft sent in advance. The discussants took the task very seriously, and provided very insightful comments on the paper’s positioning, which is so incredibly crucial when submitting to a journal. Muthu did a really brilliant job with this initiative!”

1. Dr. Ashok Kumar, Lecturer in International Political Economy

“The ERO initiative has been an important avenue for research engagement and feedback. It gives us a chance to connect with colleagues over their research and areas of overlap. In particular, the feedback we received on a paper we were working on provided was invaluable and markedly improved the quality of our paper.”

2. Dr Pamela Yeow, SFHEA, MBA programme director, Reader in Management “The ERO has been a pleasure to be part of, as it has allowed me time out of my usual hectic work schedule to focus on my research. Receiving constructive feedback and suggestions from colleagues and having the time to revise them has been crucial in moving research ideas forward. It has also been tremendously interesting to hear what colleagues are researching or up to because through these conversations we can form new research teams to support each other.”