Dr Elizabeth (Liz) Kummerow

Biography/ Background

Liz has wide teaching experience in the management area, at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Over the past several years, she has developed skills in the supervision of both Honours and PhD students in management. Liz is a registered psychologist and, prior to her current appointment, was the director of a supported employment programme for adults with intellectual disabilities. She has worked as a consultant to management, providing training to first-line and middle level managers in a range of human resource management skills.

Liz's main research interest is in the area of organisational culture, with a particular emphasis on a contextual approach to the conceptualisation and measurement of organisational culture. Much of her work in this area is currently being incorporated into a book, which she is co-authoring with Neil Kirby from the School of Psychology. Liz has a strong commitment to building links between research and practice and, to this end, has worked with South Australia's Public Sector Reform Unit (more recently, the Government Reform Commission)to develop case study accounts of the culture change programmes of two large public sector organisations.

Qualifications

B.A. (Flinders); Dip App Psych (Adelaide); PhD (Adelaide)

Teaching Interests

Liz's teaching experience - at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels - is primarly in the management area, though she has also contributed to courses in social and organisational psychology. In management, Liz has taught in the areas of Human Resource Management, Organisational Behaviour, Organisational Change, and Organisation Theory.

Liz's interest in, and commitment to, teaching has been acknowledged with two awards, namely: (i) the Faculty of P.A.L.A.C.E. (now the Professions) Learning and Teaching Award, 2000; and (ii) a University of Adelaide Certificate of High Commendation, awarded in recognition of contributions to teaching, 2003.

In addition to her regular teaching commitments, Liz has also been an active contributor to the training and development of newly hired tutors in the Business School.

Research Interests

Liz's main research interest is organisational culture. Her PhD was concerned with the development of a practically useful method for assessing the deeper levels of an organisation's culture. The method is built around a conceptualisation of organisational culture as comprising different dimensions of context (e.g. the past, the present, the future etc.), with organisation members' causal attributions providing important insights into the nature, and cultural implications, of the linkages between contexts.

Since completing her PhD, Liz has been working on the further development of this framework. In particular, she has conceptualised the link between causal attributions and cultural beliefs and assumptions, and has developed a framework for the systematic analysis of organisational attributions. Based on her experience of field research, during her PhD, she has also prepared a detailed account of strategies that can be used for building effective research relationships in the field.

Liz is currently incorporating this work into a book titled "Organisational culture: A contextual analysis". The book is being co-authored with Neil Kirby from the School of Psychology and will be published by World Scientific.

Professional Associations

Member, Australian Human Resources Institute (AHRI) and the AHRI Young Professionals (YP)Group. With respect to the latter affiliation, Liz represents The University of Adelaide on the AHRI YP Committee. This committee plans and organises networking and professional development events that are designed specifically to meet the needs of human resources young professionals and students of management and human resource management.

Registered Psychologist, South Australian Psychological Board

Professional Interests

Over recent years, Liz has been engaged in an industry-based project concerned with organisational culture change in the public sector. She has studied the culture change programmes of two large public sector organisations, namely, SA Water and SA Police. In addition to preparing case study accounts of these initiatives, Liz has recently contributed a number of 'Lessons for Culture Change' to the 'Organisational Culture' resource on the Government Reform Commission's website.

Entry last updated: Tuesday, 26 May 2009