Piety Runhaar
Wageningen University
| Introduction: I live in Almelo, I am married and have three children; the boys are studying and live elsewhere, our daughter is still on high school and lives with us. The region where we live, Twente, is beautiful. We love to cycle and walk in the weekends and watch movies with the children. I also like tinkering; regularly I meet with friends to draw, crochet, knit or paint. |
| Research topics: I studied organisation- and social psychology at Utrecht University and started my career as a consultant in the educational sector. I gave, for example, school boards advice on how to design and implement HRM and gave team leaders training on how to conduct performance appraisal interviews. After a couple of years I started conducting practice oriented research on HR related topics. For example, I wondered how teachers’ informal workplace learning could be supported. My research interest finally resulted in a dissertation on ‘Promoting Teachers’ Professional Development’ which I conducted as an external PhD candidate at Twente University; for four years I was facilitated by the university and the consultancy firm to work on my PhD project for 1.5 days per week. |
| Current research interest: After having worked as assistant professor at Twente University for a couple of years, I moved to Wageningen University where I work as Associate Professor for the chair group of Education and Learning Sciences. My research is still focused on the same topics as I used to be engaged in as consultant, albeit that my view is broadened. For instance, I supervised a PhD project on team oriented HRM and I am supervising a PhD project on school leaders’ role in stimulating team learning. Recently, I started studying HRM in schools from a socio-ecological perspective; this perspective allows me to combine various theoretical perspectives in my research. |
| Tips & tricks: What helped me was: ask your supervisors to provide feedback on short pieces of text or ideas and don’t wait until a piece is ‘complete or perfect’. Share knowledge and experiences with your peers; everyone is or once was in the same boat, so don’t be scared to ask others for advice. |