Van der Vegt appointed as Professor of Work and Organizational Psychology

Dr Gerben van der Vegt (38) has been appointed Professor of Work and Organizational Psychology in Business and Economics at the Faculty of Management and Organization. He focuses on research into the functioning of teams whose members have varying degrees of knowledge and skills.

‘My research concentrates on questions such as how you can make optimal use of each other’s knowledge and skills, when team members learn from each other, and whether everyone is aware of each other’s expertise’, explains Van der Vegt. ‘Or, what happens when team members leave and new people join the team. What does this mean, for example, for the team members’ dedication to the team, for the communication between members, or for conflicts that may have emerged? Another important research subject is team management. How well are managers able to assess their own behaviour and to what extent can team members take over a manager’s tasks such as motivating and monitoring people and maintaining external contacts?’

TNO

Van der Vegt   studied Social and Organizational Psychology at Utrecht and gained his PhD in this field in Groningen in 1998. After having worked as a consultant/researcher for TNO in Soesterberg for two years he returned to the faculty as a KNAW fellow. In 2004 he began work as a Senior Lecturer at the Faculty of Management and Organization, where he has now been appointed Professor.

Lectures

Van der Vegt lectures in the Master’s degree programme in Human Resource Management and the faculty’s Research Master’s programme. ‘My lectures are about the instruments of personnel policy’, explains the professor, ‘for example, about how to recruit and keep talented staff, and about the effects of various types of feedback for the functioning of the team.’ Van der Vegt considers his experience at TNO as a ‘mixed blessing’: ‘I conducted contract research for the government, for example, research into the effects of stress training for groups of military personnel, but after some time I started to sense a lack of theoretical depth in the studies. On the other hand, I learnt a lot during this period, such as the ability to keep several different projects going at the same time. I like to use this type of experience in my lectures and research.’