Dr Lynne Millward Purvis

NNEB RSCN BA Hons (Exeter) PhD (Kent),
Chartered Psychologist, Full member of the Division of Occupational Psychology, AFBPSs, Reader in Psychology

Senior Tutor Undergraduate Professional Training
Supervisor for post-MSc practitioners in training to be Occupational Psychologists .

I have been practicing applied psychology in the work and organizational domain 20 years, and teaching/supervising Undergraduates, Masters, PhD, PsychD and post-MSc trainees in social, occupational and organizational psychology for 16 years. My research which now spans back to 1987, has been funded by the ESRC, the MoD, DERA, QuinetiQ, Royal Navy, Housing Corporation, Allianz, DTI, National Audit Office, NHS and other organizations, and is oriented primarily to informing organizational strategy and policy (i.e., on equal opportunities, merger, diversity, recruitment, retention, training and development, appraisal, stress management, change management). All of this work is informed by the following questions:

• What does it mean for an individual to be part of a social system?
• What is the psychological impact of this on the individual and on the system itself?
• How can the relationship be described and explained from a distinctively psychological point of view?
• What leverage can be secured from answers to these questions for intervention in work and organizational settings?

These interests are akin to question of how to understand and explain psychologically the relationship between individual and society, and accounts for my longstanding interest in the relationship between personal identity and the ‘system’, be it a group, an organization, or society as a whole. My theoretical interest in this psychological issue is also informed by writings in philosophy, sociology, political science and anthropology.
The very first formal piece of research I undertook on this issue was an undergraduate project on children’s understandings of their personal privacy. From this work involving semi-structured interviews and a survey study, I developed a theoretical model of privacy as a strategy for negotiating self within the family and wider system, whether through the use of space, keeping secrets, or ‘keeping self to oneself’. This inspired an interest in how the personal and the collective become psychologically intertwined. For answers to this question, Social Identity Theory caught my attention. To test the applicability of this theory (at the time, built largely from laboratory work) to the real world, I looked at how people become nurses, and in particular, the question of how the personal (i.e., uniquely individual) and the social (i.e., identification at a collective level) is played out in every day nursing practice.
Since it is my intention that all of my research has implications for the practice of psychology, I have pursued this journey to understand the personal interface with the collective, with reference to the world of work. To this end, I am especially interested in:-

• Personal and Social identity in the context of work and organizational life.
• Psychological contracts and processes of contracting at the interface between employee and organizational life.
• Vocational Choices and Decisions across the Developmental Spectrum

Teaching

I currently convene and teach:-

• MSc Research in Organizational Settings (M46
• MSc Social Psychology of Organizations (M23)
• Professional Skills to undergraduates as part of placement preparation
• Professional skills to MSc students – specifically, communication skills
• Other MSc Workshops - Presentation Skills, Facilitation and Consulting Skills, Influencing Skills, Project Management, Coaching Skills, Instructional Design. (Competence assessed).
• Adhoc lectures to undergraduates on occupational psychology, the contribution of Vygotsky to psychology, and group psychology

Historically I have also taught: Health Promotion, Training and Development, Individual Differences, Research Methods, Choosing Statistical tests, final year option in Occupational Psychology, Assessment Psychology, Organizational Behavior, and Social Psychology.

Practicing the Science – Key Competences

Whilst occupational psychology has its own domain-specific knowledge base, I nonetheless aspire to use knowledge, theory or methods from other knowledge domains to inform my practice. And this I do. For instance, in my work looking at young people’s vocational decisions and decision making processes I harness research and thinking from developmental, cognitive, social and occupational psychology. Whilst to some this chaotic looking ‘tool kit’ eclecticism will imply a jack-of-all trades and master-of-none approach, my work on the contrary, is always coherently underwritten. Indeed, for me the main challenge in dealing with any specific issue or problem is to integrate an otherwise diverse knowledge into some kind of ‘working model’ or framework. Sometimes the challenge of synthesising and integrating knowledge across fields to produce new insights has been undertaken at the cost of focusing on one or two specific areas of application or research interest. However, often this has been in response to pragmatic requirements in the service of a research tender.
I have the following key practitioner competences:-

• Coaching
• Career Counselling
• Mediation
• Research in Organizational Settings.
• Bespoke training/development design and delivery to address individual, team and organizational training needs.
• Generating and assessing executive competences using psychological but non-psychometric methods.
• Intervention Evaluation
• Team Development
• Culture analysis and change
• Change management
• Morale surveys

My repertoire of expertise in research methods and techniques include:-

• IPA Interpretative phenomenological analysis
• narrative approaches
• Grounded Theory
• Repertory grids
• Q-sorts and other card sorts
• Focus groups
• Semi-structured interviews
• Surveys
• Critical incident technique
• Cognitive mapping
• Process mapping
• Cognitive task analysis
• Thinking aloud methods (verbal protocol)

I have designed and run over 80 focus groups on a range of topics, some highly sensitive and with a diverse range of participants (disabled, elderly, adolescents, managers, ethnic minority groups, mental health patients, nurses, blue and white collar employees, housewives).

Bespoke training/development design and delivery to address individual, team and organizational training needs.
I have design and/or delivered over 60 different training courses in a range of management and applied psychology skills including influencing skills, stress management, counselling skills, coaching skills, designing training programmes, project management, presentation skills, change agent skills, consultancy skills, designing and running assessment centres, selection systems, appraisal systems and team development.

Intervention evaluation. 
Evaluation projects for example, conducted for facilities management (National Power Plc), Card Services Lloyds Bank, and facilities management (British Standards Institution), Celemi, UK (e.g. Neles Automation, Castrol, ICL, and Metso Paper, and Driving Standards Agency.

Team Development
Teamwork projects, for example, conducted for National Power Plc, British Standards Institution, Loders Croklaan, Ministry of Defence, British Aerospace (Military Aircraft), Vauxhall Motors, NatWest (Information Technology).

Culture Analysis and Change
I have conducted culture surveys for Nuttall, Saer UK, Cornhill Insurance, Homebase, Odeon, OCS Smarts Group, Sitel UK I have been involved in culture change projects for National Power Plc, British Standards Institution, Lederlie Laboratories (Cyanamid UK), Loders Croklaan (Unilever), Vauxhall, TNT Worldwide Express, Housing Corporation, Bass Breweries, Military, and

Morale Surveys
Surveys conducted with nurses in various NHS Hospitals (e.g. RSCH, Horsham & Crawley Hospitals, Guy's Hospital, St Mary's Hospital, St Georges Hospital), Geest, and Unilever.

Across the board I have worked with many different companies both public and private sector (across white-collar and blue-collar employee populations) examples including Lodars Croklaan, the Automobile Association, Sedgwick Insurance, Lederlie Laboratories (Cyanamid Uk), Surrey County Council, Aberdeen Airport, Sun Microsystems, Unilever, Brake Bros, Greenhalls Pubs and restaurants, Reed Personnel Services Plc, Courts Plc, BOC, Bentalls Plc, Kvaerner Construction Lt, BAeSEMA, Staveley Industries plc, Edmund Nuttall Ltd, Saur UK Ltd, TNT Worldwide Express, National Power Plc, Cornhill Insurances, Odeon Cinemas, National Power and OCS Smarts Group, Surrey Police, Metropolitan Police, Kent Police, NHS, Driving Standards Agency, QuinetiQ, and Allianz.

Professional Activities

Professional Development

Coaching and Counselling in work/career contexts using psychodynamic, CBT, systemic narrative approaches combined with a Process Consultation/Appreciative Inquiry frameworks.

Advisor to Women and Work Commission (2005-2006)

External Examiner
for MSc in Employee Relations and Industrial Psychology London School of Economics (2003-2006),
for MSc Occupational and Organizational Psychology, University of Hertfordshire. January 2004- January 2007,
for BSc in Psychology (level 3) University of Kent, Sept 2004-June 2008,
for Diploma in Psychology (BPS) 2008 ongoing.

Publications

Millward, L.J., & Postmes, T. (in press) Who I am affects what I do: the financial implications of organizational identification. British Journal of Management.

Millward, L.J., Banks, A., & Riga, K. (in press) Who do we think we are? A generative psychological approach to understanding and managing effective teams.  Team Performance Management: An International Journal.

Cropley, M., & Millward, L.J. (in press). How do individuals ‘switch-off’ from work during leisure? A qualitative description of the unwinding process in high and low ruminators, Journal of Leisure Studies

Tomprou, M., Nikolaou, I., & Millward, L.J. (in review) The potential dynamics of psychological contracting. Group and Organization Management.

Millward, L.J., Markwick, C., & Santos, S. (in review) Engaging with responsibility through self-determination – Psychological ownership in Organizational Contexts.

Millward, L.J., Haslam, S.A. (in preparation) Culture or salience as a predictor of different foci of identification. Journal of Organizational Behaviour

 

Further Publications and Professional Activies