Kathryn moved to Strathclyde University Business School from Lancaster University Management School in March 2007. She has been studying for her PhD since October 2005. Prior to joining Strathclyde University Kathryn was a Lecturer in HRM and Business Strategy, and before that a Research Associate at Heriot Watt University, Edinburgh. She has a Masters from the University of Sheffield.
As a student and research associate, Kathryn has been the recipient of a number of research grants from the ESRC, The Carnegie Trust, internal university grants and commercial business. She is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA) and a member of several academic and practitioner networks and associations. Before she worked in higher education, she was an occupational psychologist for four years, working with firms in the private and public sectors in the UK. During this period her work focused on management and executive development, psychological testing and assessment centre design.
Kathryn is currently researching emotional intelligence (EI) as part of her PhD studies. Emotional intelligence offers much hope to businesses of the twenty first century but its growing popularity is more than an advancement towards civility for its own sake. The concept promises benefits to the bottom line which, like other management trends, has attracted substantial attention from organisations. On closer examination, the commercial interest in EI is multifaceted, influenced by a broad range of changing societal and competitive market factors which have served to shape changing attitudes, needs and expectations in the workplace.
Building on existing studies, Kathryn aims to gain rich understandings of EI by exploring the experiences of employees who are the recipients of EI training. This study is different to many others in that it seeks a more longitudinal, reflective approach to the investigation of EI using a qualitative methodology of participant observation. By attending and observing an EI training course and then interviewing participants several months later in the workplace, this study aims to provide new insights into EI training and application.
