REF2021 sub-panel member - Business & Management
NBS Director of Staff Development
Associate Editor, Human Relations
CAST - Climate Change and Social Transformations - Scientific lead on Organisational Transformation
Scientific lead - What Works Wellbeing: learning 

Prof Olga Tregaskis was appointed as Head of Norwich Business School in August 2020 having joined the School in 2011 as Professor of International Human Resource Management. She was a founding member and Group Head of the Employment Systems and Institutions Group, and Director for Academic Staff Development. Since then she has helped establish the NBS Work and Wellbeing Research Group which is internationally recognised for its research and engagement with policy, organisational and individual stakeholders. She is also a REF2021 sub-panel member for her subject area, Business & Management.

Research by Professor Tregaskis examines the dynamics of learning and skills systems and how these influence individual wellbeing and organisational outcomes. Working within large interdisciplinary, inter-faculty and cross-institution research teams (attracting in excess of £7 million), her work provides the teams with core insight on organisational actors as system architects and implementers (ESRC, SSHRC, EU). Her work tackles applied problems including how UK multinationals redesign their people capabilities to compete as global leaders (ESRC funded Globalizing Actors Project), how organisations design for productive and happy workplaces (ESRC Wellbeing Practices Project), and how organisations are building environmental mindsets (CAST – ESRC Research Centre for Climate and Social Transformations). Beyond academic publication, this research has collectively led to the creation of open access practice tools and publications designed for policy groups, organisations and individual learners published through the What Works Centre, and the CRIMT International Partnership on Institutional Experimentation for Better Work which brings together a network of 150 researchers across 12 countries. Through her work with the ESRC What Works Wellbeing Research Centre examining the harmful impact of low quality education and skills programmes on individuals’ wellbeing she has fed into policy debates with government departmental analysts.

Professor Tregaskis is a PhD graduate of Cranfield School of Management, with an MSc in Applied Psychology from Cranfield University and BSc in Psychology from the University of Ulster. She is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, and member of the British Psychological Society.

My teaching input draws heavily from my research experiences, data and knowledge base in the field of international and comparative HRM. Cases used in teaching are often drawn from fieldwork I've undertaken or consultancy work. I use exerts from my research datasets in research methods workshops to give students a flavour of how to construct, prepare and check the accuracy of data they may be working with in dissertations. I also draw heavily from my practical research experience to help students appreciate the difficulties in realising the ‘ideal' research design and the necessity for robust methods as a requisite of quality research data. Currently at NBS I am involved with MSc teaching and research methods teaching. Responsibilities at NBS have included:

Module leader:

MSc Global Careers

MRes Methods

MSc Delivering High Performance

MBA Strategic HRM

Curriculum Development:

MBA Strategic HRM

MSc Global Careers

MRes Methods

MSc Delivering High Performance

PhD/MRes Methodology workshops

Guest lecturers – UG and Post-graduate modules

PhD Supervision

I am interested in supervising research degree students that intend undertaking work that has synergies with my own research interests in the area of comparative or international human resource management. Therefore I strongly advise any prospective students to look at my research publications and projects.

There is project work which potential applicants may want to organise their research around and these currently include:

1. The role of global actors in transnational contexts: this work would examine the role of key global actors in organisations. Themes that could be addressed within this work include e.g. the formation of social network; strategic function of global actors; boundary spanning context of global actor work.
2. Employment practices of multinational firms: this work would draw on secondary data as a starting point for exploring how human resource management practices are configures in international firms in the UK.
3. International Human Resource Function: this work would focus on understanding the structure and organization of the international HR function in global organisations. Themes that could be addressed would include e.g. networks structures and social capital as new forms of organizing; power and politics in human resource function centre-periphery relations; dynamic capabilities and the role of the international HR function.

Other areas I would be particularly interested in supervising include:

• Global talent management
• The strategies and structures of the international HR function in multinationals
• Inter-organizational and/or intra-organisational networks in multinational environments, and their role in knowledge diffusion.
• Social capital in multinational environments
• Relations between local governance actors (e.g. Local Enterprise Partnerships, sector skills bodies) and subsidiaries of multinational firms.
• How the multinational influences skills development through its supply chain.
• Learning and knowledge exchange in R&D communities, particularly across international boundaries.
• Learning and knowledge exchange associated with the widespread diffusion of new sustainable technologies.