Organizational Psychology (PhD / MPhil) - 2013/2014 entry

This PhD/MPhil programme aims to train you to conduct research of a high academic standard and to make an original contribution to the subject through your thesis. It will not only prepare you to undertake research for your own dissertation, but will also equip you to be able to evaluate research results and reports more widely.

Our research interests include: selection and assessment; training; organisational communication; organisation studies and organisational sociology; well-being and emotion; technology development and organisational change; human resource management; employment and psychological contracts; pay; careers and innovation. We also have expertise in, and are committed to, both qualitative and quantitative research techniques.

To apply for a PhD/MPhil, you need to complete the Birkbeck postgraduate application form and submit a research proposal.

If you are still planning your research proposal but would like feedback about whether your proposal could lead to a successful PhD and whether we have a potential supervisor for you, you can write an outline of your research interests and aims (approx. 1500 words) and send them either to the PhD/MPhil programme director or to a member of staff in the department who you think would be a potential supervisor for your research.

• Watch interviews with our Organizational Psychology staff
• Watch a video with our graduates

Find out more about studying at Birkbeck and our PhD/MPhil course.

Birkbeck’s Department of Organizational Psychology is the only specialist department of its kind in the UK and has a long-standing reputation. It engages in significant collaborative research and has excellent contacts with many public and private sector organisations, professional bodies and researchers at other academic institutions.

As a research student, you will be trained in theory and research methodology, provided partly by the department and partly by other University of London institutions. You will also complete an annual report on your progress. 

Find out more about our student support and study facilities.

• Find out how to apply for these courses.

• Professor Raymond Caldwell, MBA, PhD: Organizational change theory with a critical focus on the meaning, scope and limitations of change agency and leadership discourses in organizations; the changing nature of the HR function; concepts of agency and change in organizations.
• Chris Dewberry, BA, PhD, CPsychol, AFBPsS: Personnel selection, including decision-making and self-regulation; the effects of everyday psychological processes on selection; psychometric testing.
• Professor Philip Dewe, BCom, MSc, PhD: Work stress and coping and the appraisal process; the costs of stress; human resource accounting.
• Julie Dickinson, BSc, PhD: Issues surrounding pay determination, particularly fairness of pay, pay and motivation, performance-related pay, gender pay equity and executive pay; occupational choice.
• Etlyn Kenny, BSc, MSc, PhD: Ethnicity in the organizational experiences of minority ethnic employees in contemporary Britain; how ethnicity, discrimination, ethnic identity and social class influence the ways in which minority ethnic graduates experience the workplace, and the implications of this for the development of their careers.
• Andreas Liefooghe, BSc, MSc, PhD, CPsychol(Occ): Power and politics at work; bullying in the workplace; job redesign; organisational structure; morale; uniformed forces; critical management theory.
• Kate Mackenzie Davey, BSc, PGCE, MSc, PhD, CPsychol(Occ): The individual–organisation relationship; identity, marginality and gender; organisational socialisation and acculturation; organisational politics.
• Katrina Pritchard, MSc, PhD: Professional knowledge; implementation knowledge management technologies in the workplace; social construction of technology.
• Skills tutor: Stewart Beever, BA, PGCE, DipCG, DipStCoun, MBAP, MBPC: Application of psychodynamic ideas in career consultation.

• Applications throughout the year, although October start advisable (applications by May or June at the latest).