Professor Stephen Woods
About
Biography
I am Professor of Work and Organisational Psychology, and Head of the Department of People and Organisations at Surrey Business School, University of Surrey.
My main research specialism is personality at work and my research in this area focuses on psychometric and personality trait assessment, and personality development and change at work. I also conducts research on recruitment and selection in organizations, with special interests in how to ensure fair and effective assessment and digital selection procedures and analytics. I have wider interests in human resource management and development, for example in diversity management, coaching and well-being at work.
My work is published in scientific and professional journals (e.g. Journal of Applied Psychology; Journal of Vocational Behavior; Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology), scholarly books, and international conferences. I am an Associate Editor of the Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, and Editorial Board member for the journal Work and Stress. I co-author an international text in Work and Organizational Psychology (Woods, Stephen A. & West, Michael A. 2020, The Psychology of Work and Organizations).
I collaborate with industry to help put research into action, and to help develop solutions to real world challenges of management, as a work and organisational psychologist in the UK and with businesses and organisations globally, especially in the areas of HR assessment and development.
I joined Surrey Business School in June 2022. Since gaining my PhD in 2004, I held a lectureship at University of Nottingham, a Readership at Aston Business School, was previously Chair at Surrey Business School (2014-2019) and a Chair at University of Liverpool, as well as a visiting Professorship at University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus.
Affiliations and memberships
ResearchResearch interests
Personality assessment at work, especially the structure and effectiveness of trait assessments used in organizations and human resource management.
Personality change and development at work, particularly how work influences traits through working life.
Recruitment and selection, particularly the challenges of finding, assessing and hiring people in the digital age.
The role of work and organizational psychology in making work more positive, for example through improving diversity management and inclusion, workplace well-being, and personal development.
Indicators of esteem
Academy of Management (2018)
Winner, best overall paper at the Careers Division of the AoM Conference 2018:
Zhou, Y., Zou, M., Woods, S., & Wu, C. (2018, July). The Restorative Effect of Work after Unemployment. In Academy of Management Proceedings (Vol. 2018, No. 1, p. 11598). Briarcliff Manor, NY 10510: Academy of Management.
British Psychological Society, Division of Occupational Psychology (2019)
Invited Keynote Speaker to Annual DOP Conference 2019.
The Influence of Work on Personality Development and Change through Life: Implications for Thriving at Work
Research interests
Personality assessment at work, especially the structure and effectiveness of trait assessments used in organizations and human resource management.
Personality change and development at work, particularly how work influences traits through working life.
Recruitment and selection, particularly the challenges of finding, assessing and hiring people in the digital age.
The role of work and organizational psychology in making work more positive, for example through improving diversity management and inclusion, workplace well-being, and personal development.
Indicators of esteem
Academy of Management (2018)
Winner, best overall paper at the Careers Division of the AoM Conference 2018:
Zhou, Y., Zou, M., Woods, S., & Wu, C. (2018, July). The Restorative Effect of Work after Unemployment. In Academy of Management Proceedings (Vol. 2018, No. 1, p. 11598). Briarcliff Manor, NY 10510: Academy of Management.
British Psychological Society, Division of Occupational Psychology (2019)
Invited Keynote Speaker to Annual DOP Conference 2019.
The Influence of Work on Personality Development and Change through Life: Implications for Thriving at Work
Supervision
Postgraduate research supervision
I am interested to hear from prospective PhD students whose interests are aligned to my research areas.
Example completed and current PhD students:
- Hannah Collis (Commenced 2018; University of Surrey) Well-being effects of personality change at work
- Emily Kitson (Commenced 2017, University of Surrey) Safety Behaviour at Work: The Role of Personality and Stress
- Mojdeh Mehganrad (Awarded 2019, University of Surrey) When Employee Engagement is Shared: An Examination of Engagement Crossover Effects between Co-workers
- John Barratt (Awarded 2019, Aston University) Performance and recruitment in the UK Care Sector
- Jo-anne Kandola (Awarded 2016, Aston University) Examining the impact of implicit bias on gender discrimination in personnel decision making
- Rebecca Jones (Awarded 2016, Aston University) Coaching Effectiveness: An Examination of the Individual and Practice Antecedents of Outcomes of Coaching
- Daniel Hinton (Awarded 2016, Aston University) Ethnic differences in cognitive ability: Issues for testing in organizations
- Amr Swid (Awarded 2013, Aston University): Proactive Personality and the Big Five in Predicting Newcomer Socialization
Teaching
I teach modules on Business and Occupational Psychology at undergraduate level at Surrey Business School and Department of Psychology.
I also teach on the MSc Occupational and Organizational Psychology and supervise student dissertations in the Department of People and Organizations.
I run workshops on effective competencies of leadership for the Surrey Business School MBA Programme.
Publications
Highlights
Woods, S. A., Wille, B., Wu, C. H., Lievens, F., & De Fruyt, F. (2019). The influence of work on personality trait development: The demands-affordances TrAnsactional (DATA) model, an integrative review, and research agenda. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 110, 258-271.
Woods, S. A., & Anderson, N. R. (2016). Toward a Periodic Table of Personality: Mapping Personality Scales Between the Five-factor Model and the Circumplex Model. Journal of Applied Psychology, 101(4), 582-604.
Woods, S. A., Lievens, F., De Fruyt, F., & Wille, B. (2013). Personality across working life: The longitudinal and reciprocal influences of personality on work. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 34(S1), S7-S25.
Woods, S. A., Ahmed, S., Nikolaou, I., Costa, A. C., & Anderson, N. R. (2020) Personnel selection in the digital age: a review of validity and applicant reactions, and future research challenges. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 1-14.
Woods, S. A., & Hampson, S. E. (2010). Predicting Adult Occupational Environments From Gender and Childhood Personality Traits. Journal of Applied Psychology, 95(6), 1045-1057.
Zhou, Y., Zou, M., Woods, S. A., & Wu, C. H. (2018). The Restorative Effect of Work after Unemployment: An Intra-individual Analysis of Subjective Well-being Recovery through Reemployment. Journal of Applied Psychology.
Woods, S. A., Edmonds, G. W., Hampson, S. E., & Lievens, F. (2020). How our work influences who we are: Testing a theory of vocational and personality development over fifty years. Journal of Research in Personality, 85, 103930.
Woods, S. A. & West, M. A. The Psychology of Work and Organizations. CENGAGE: London.
This article presents a critical review of the use of cognitive ability testing for access to graduate and higher professional occupations to promote further debate and reflection in both the academic and practitioner community. The main contentions are that the practice of applying cognitive ability testing in these contexts has strong potential to both maintain and exacerbate social inequality in access to higher occupations and professions, and that validity evidence does not justify this to the extent that has previously been presumed. Five critical observations are examined, namely (1) evidence of adverse impact in test outcomes; (2) the tendency to position cognitive ability testing early in selection processes in high-volume recruitment; (3) recent evidence challenging the meta-analytic validity of cognitive ability tests; (4) weaknesses in historical primary validity studies; (5) conceptually flawed examination of differential validity evidence in the literature. Implications for practice are discussed, contrasting strategies that involve modifying selection systems that include cognitive testing, versus removing and replacing cognitive tests.
Studies of personality at work have made significant contributions to theory and applied practice in work and organizational settings. This review article proposes that there are also reciprocal influences between core personality science and research on personality in work and organizations, each drawing on insights from the other. Following this tradition, the objective of this article is to review key foundations of research in a way that informs and critically reflects on state-of-the-art evidence in four main themes: (1) conceptualization and structure of personality at work, (2) personality assessment in work settings, (3) personality processes and dynamics at work, and (4) impact of situations on personaliy at work. Critically reflections on key implications, and directions for future research are presented, anticipating how the field may adapt to the changing nature of work and society. Relevance Statement The objective of this review is to set out key tenets and foundations of research in the area of personality at work in a way that informs and critically reflects on its development, and continued contributions to core personality science. Combining input from twelve researchers in the field, the article proposes that the development of research in personality science and in the area of personality in work and organizational settings is interdependent, each drawing reciprocally on insights from the other. We aim to review key findings in well-established literatures around the conceptualisation of personality and its role in assessment at work. However, our review also presents contemporary developments examining personality dynamics and the role of situations that are advancing understanding in the literature. This positioning leads us to set out future research questions and directions, which we believe are relevant for scholars shaping and contributing to this area in the coming years, reflecting changes to work and its place in society. Key Insights Core personality science and research into personality in work settings influence each other reciprocally through their development. Personality has been found to be important for understanding a wide array of organizational behaviors and outcomes. Recent developments examining personality dynamics and situations at work are challenging and advancing research findings. Studies of personality at work should continue to bridge different disciplines of research, responding to changes to work and its place in society.
This study examined self-leadership, an integrative concept in organisational behaviour and psychology, that represents a person's ability to manage themselves and improve their own performance through a combination of behavioural, cognitive and motivational strategies, in the context of learning and development outcomes. Change in three aspects of self-leadership (termed the Doing-self, Thinking-self and Energising-self) following a short development intervention was examined in a sample of management school students in a pre-intervention and postintervention design. The study also expanded upon the role of personality traits in moderating self-leadership change. The data additionally provide evidence of the association of self-leadership with learning attainment. The findings of this study underline the potential benefits of self-leadership learning and development. Implications for theory and practice in organisations are discussed.