13th European Congress of Work & Organizational Psychology Conference

The International Relations Sub-Commitee gave 2 students a busary each to attend the EAWOP 2007 Conference in Stockholm. Below are the thoughts of the 2 Busary winners, Fiona Gavin and Sandra Haase, on the Conference.

Fiona Gavin, PhD Researcher, Manchester Business School

The Swedes’ main claim to fame may be founded on such global brands such as IKEA and ABBA, but their reputation for being purveyors of state-of-the-art IT equipment definitely deserves a higher profile! The 13^th European Congress of Work and Organisational Psychology was held in Stockholm in 2007, and proved to be a highly stimulating experience, as well as an IT showcase.

The conference theme was "Sustainable Work: Promoting Human and Organizational Vitality" and included tracks dedicated to sustainable organisational practices, human resources & leadership, employment relations and worker mobility, well-being at work, motivation and work attitudes, teams and group processes and work-family balance. It was a truly international conference, with presentations from academics and practitioners from 46 different countries, representing 5 continents.

I attended a variety of interesting presentations, the most notable being in the field of organisational identification, workplace bullying, expatriate working and equality at work. There were several papers of direct relevance to my PhD topic (which focuses on the way European expansion has affected experiences of equality and discrimination in multinational workforces). Of particular interest was a paper on Cultural Intelligence by Riana van den Berg, whose research findings indicated that managers in multinational organisations indicate that Cultural Intelligence is an important key competency, but that the performance of the organisation often has to take priority over matters relating to Cultural Intelligence. Another paper that was of great interest to me focused on organisational practices that enhance positive job attitudes of expatriate managers. The findings of this study, presented by Yvonne Du Plessis, were that the top three factors influencing the success of an expatriate assignment were: 1) promotional opportunities, 2) absence of role conflict and 3) inherent characteristics of the job such as responsibility, autonomy etc. These and other papers not only stimulated my thoughts on my own PhD topic, but they will serve to update my thesis literature review.

I also presented a paper, which was entitled "Sexism repackaged: how workplace discrimination is disguised in 21^st Century Europe"; this combined academic theory with results from my PhD research. The session was well attended, despite being an early-morning start, the morning after the conference dinner! The presentation generated an interesting debate and I received some useful feedback from audience members, which helped to extend my understanding of the complexities within the area of attitude disguise. I also had the opportunity to network with international researchers in the field of workplace diversity, as a result of which I have made useful contacts for future reference.

I am extremely grateful to have received a bursary from the BPS International Relations Sub-committee that enabled me to benefit from this conference experience. It proved to be a supportive and creative environment in which I was able to develop new ideas for my PhD research and also offered me the opportunity to establish contacts within the international academic community.

Sandra Haase

The XIIIth European Congress of Work and Organizational Psychology took place from the 9^th to the 12^th May, 2007 in Stockholm, Sweden. The bursary from the International Relations Sub-Committee of the BPS made it possible for me to attend this special event that presented a rich and exciting scientific programme.

The theme of the congress was "Sustainable Work: Promoting Human and Organizational Vitality". Issues related to this theme were covered in a range of keynote sessions, symposia, roundtable discussions and thematic oral and poster sessions by researchers and practitioners from all over the world. Even though the event was organised by the European Association of Work and Organizational Psychology, delegates and speakers came from as far away as Canada, New Zealand and China.

It was very interesting to participate in this exchange of scientific and practical experience. I attended a lot of sessions related to my own areas of research interest, career development and intercultural psychology. I particularly enjoyed the session on career planning and choice, where issues such as the changing nature of expatriate careers in the boundaryless career context were discussed. Talking to other delegates, learning about their research and the methods they applied, brought new knowledge and insights with regard to my own approaches.

In addition, I was also given the exciting opportunity to present my own research in an oral as well as a poster session. Presenting your work in front of your peers and experts in the field is quite challenging but also very rewarding. It requires you to think about your own work and reflect on its strengths and weaknesses, which is a valuable learning point in itself. It also helps you to focus on the most important issues, since the presentation has to be very clear and succinct. Apart from enhancing my presentation skills, this experience has also stimulated new ideas through subsequent discussions and questions from other delegates. The feedback I received was very positive, which was very encouraging.

Participating in the programme and attending various sessions, I made contact with a range of individuals. I am interested in establishing some of these links further with the aim of developing an ongoing dialogue, supporting the exchange of knowledge and the development of collaborations.

The congress also offered an excellent social programme that provided plenty of opportunities to meet and interact with friends and colleagues and to get to know the beautiful venue, Stockholm. This included, for instance, an organised city tour and a reception in the City Hall of Stockholm. In the course of the congress, I learnt a lot about Sweden in general and Stockholm in particular.

In summary, attending the congress was a valuable experience that I would strongly recommend. It provided many opportunities for learning, personal development and networking and stimulated new thought processes and created new insights with regard to work and organizational psychology. Being set in the wonderful surroundings of one of the most beautiful capitals in Europe made this event even more memorable.