Dr Penny Dick
Reader in Critical Organizational Psychology
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Penny received her PhD from Sheffield University in 2000, which was concerned with the social construction of gender in police work. She is a Chartered Occupational Psychologist and holds a certificate in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy.
Penny´s professional background is in Occupational Psychology. She held a number of positions as an Occupational Psychologist in both the public and private sector prior to taking up an academic post at the University of Teesside in 1993. Her areas of professional expertise include critical incident stress debriefing, stress counselling, stress management, assessment and selection, management development, and training.
She lectures in Organizational Behaviour at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels, focusing on critical perspectives in work psychology and management.
Teaching
Penny’s teaching is very much informed by her practitioner experience which was gained before she became an academic in 1993. Feedback from students indicates that they find the modules she teaches highly relevant and enjoyable and very thought provoking. Penny’s research interests are all in the area of critical management, which means that she looks at the politics of work and work experiences and exposes how taken-for-granted ideas influence what happens in organizations, particularly in relation to inequalities and the distribution of power and resources. She encourages students to question mainstream theory and ideas in her lectures and seminars, through group discussion; critical examination of everyday organizational practices, such as, for example, recruitment interviews or stress management interventions; and through helping students apply theory to make sense of their own experiences. Penny currently teaches two undergraduate modules, MGT310: Critical Perspectives on Work and Organizational Psychology, and MGT140: Business Challenges. She also teaches the postgraduate module MGT658: Professional Development.
Research Interests
Penny´s research interests include stress; the management of diversity; identity, resistance and power; and the impact of family-friendly policies on organizations and individuals. She has published in journals such as the Journal of Management Studies, Work, Employment & Society, and the Journal of Occupational & Organizational Psychology. She is co-author of Introduction to Organizational Behaviour (3rd Edition McGraw Hill) and has recently completed a two year role as a principal investigator on an ESRC funded project, entitled, "Flexible working practices in Policing".
Current Research
Penny is currently supervising two PhD students. Kun Yang, jointly with Chris Clegg (formerly at IWP), who is researching the effects of agile software development methodology on team processes and knowledge management; and Bannaga Ibrahim, jointly with Phil Johnson, who is examining the role of performance measurement in the context of the Sudanese police service.
Selected Recent Publications
Refereed Journal Articles
Tietze, S. and Dick, P. (In Press) The Victorious English Language: Hegemonic Practices in the Management Academy. Journal of Management Inquiry.
Collings, D. G. and Dick, P. (2011) The relationship between ceremonial adoption of popular management practices and the motivation for practice adoption and diffusion in an American MNC. International Journal of Human Resource Management, 22, 18, 3849-3866.
Dick, P. and Nadin, S. (2011) Exploiting the exploited: the psychological contract, workplace domination and symbolic violence. Culture & Organization, 17, 4, 293-311
Yang, K., Dick, P. and Clegg. C. (2010) Organizational factors in agile business: Findings from software organizations. Systemics and Informatics World Network, 10, 12-17
Dick, P. (2010) The transition to motherhood and part-time working: mutuality and incongruence in the psychological contracts existing between managers and employees. Work, Employment and Society, 24, 3, 508-525.
Tietze, S. and Dick, P. (2009) Hegemonic practices and knowledge production in the management academy: An English language perspective. Scandinavian Journal of Management, 25, 1, 119-123.
Dick, P. (2009) Bending over backwards? Using a pluralistic framework to explore the management of flexible working in the police service. British Journal of Management, 20, 1, 182-193.