Dr Kerrie Unsworth is a Professor at the UWA Business School. She is interested in studying motivation, creativity, pro-environmental behaviours and well-being. Underlying each of these is an interest in understanding how we juggle the different priorities we have at work and at home; and how we can make our working lives more fulfilling and productive.
Kerrie obtained an Honours degree in Psychology from the University of Queensland in 1994 and a PhD from the Institute of Work Psychology at the University of Sheffield in 2001. Her PhD was based on increasing the creativity and innovativeness of design engineers in Rolls Royce plc and BAE Systems.
She has won over $1.6 million in funding and has been cited over 1000 times in academic journals.
A training program that came out of an ARC Discovery grant (PositiveU) is now a successfully commercialised program being used by many private and public sector organisations. Please contact the Australian Institute of Management for more details on enrolling in or using this program. Modified versions have also been incorporated into the curricula at UWA and at QUT as well as at high schools such as Perth College.
Finally, Kerrie is Associate Editor of the international top-tier Journal of Organizational Behavior, Treasurer for the Managerial and Organizational Cognition Division of the Academy of Management, and sits on the Editorial Boards of Journal of Management Studies and Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology. She is the Associate Dean for International Relations and the Deputy Head of Discipline for Management & Organizations Discipline within the UWA Business School.
Unsworth, Lewandowsky, Morrison, Russell, Fielding & Lawrence, 2011: National Climate Change Adaptation Research Fund; $490,804; What about me? Climate change coping and adaptation in vulnerable populations
Griffin, Hodkiewicz, Cordery, Unsworth, & Morrison, 2011: National Offshore Petroleum Safety Authority Research Funding; $55,890; Fitness to operate: Stage One
Unsworth, 2010: CRCMining Grant; $115,000; High reliability organising in the mining industry
Unsworth & Morrison, 2010: UWA Research Collaboration Award; $12,000; GROWing Your Organisation - Building Collaborations with an International WUN Network of Green Behaviour Scholars
Unsworth, 2010: BHP Billiton Research Funding; $41,850; Understanding tool-time motivation at Mt Whaleback and Port Hedland maintenance
Unsworth & Hodkiewicz, 2009: CRCMining Grant; $364,964; Motivation for Collecting High Quality Data
Kerrie Unsworth, Claire Mason & Olga Epitropaki, 2006, “Self-Leadership Towards Innovation and Well-Being”, Australian Research Council Discovery, Funds Approved: $126,000.
Kerrie Unsworth, Neal Ryan & Boris Kabanoff, 2004, “Organizational Innovation Adoption: The Effect of External, Technology Diffusion Agencies”, Australian Research Council Linkage, Funds Approved: $290,000.
Artemis Chang & Kerrie Unsworth, 2004, “Employee Census”, Queensland Department of Treasury, Funds Approved: $58,000.
Nick Turner & Kerrie Unsworth, 2004, “Constructing Safety”, Canadian Social Sciences Research Council, Funds Approved: CAD$100,000.
Kerrie Unsworth, “Gratitude at Work: The Relationship between Supervisors & Students”, QUT Faculty Research Initiative Grant, Funds Approved: $4,599.
Associate Editor for Journal of Organizational Behaviour (impact factor 1.98; ranked by the Australian Business Deans Council as A*)
Treasurer, Managerial & Organizational Cognition Division of the Academy of Management
Organisational behaviour
Staffing organizations
Postgraduate organizational behaviour
Organizational behaviour
Goal hierarchy and motivation
Self-leadership
Well-being
Creativity & innovation
In 2015, UN member states agreed to 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all. This person’s work contributes towards the following SDG(s):