Profile
Professor Karen Becker has been researching and teaching management and development of people in the workplace for over 15 years. Prior to this, she worked in corporate human resource management and consulting roles. Her mix of industry and academic experience gives her an applied approach to her work and she has a passion for bridging the gap between universities and industry.
Karen’s research focuses on workforce development, unlearning, innovation and change in the workplace, looking at these issues as they apply to individuals, in organisations and across industries. Her research projects have been funded by the public sector, cooperative research centres and directly by industry partners. Karen is widely published in her field in journals such as the Human Resource Management Journal, International Journal of Project Management and the Journal of Management Education (for a full list of publications refer to the USC Research Bank).
Karen has taught a range of HRM and Management courses at both undergraduate and postgraduate level, and has also supervised research higher degree students to completion in a variety of areas including change management, leadership, communication, blended learning and e-learning, and workplace safety governance.
Professional Memberships
- Member US Academy of Management
- Graduate Member Australian Institute of Company Directors (GAICD)
- Justice of the Peace (Qualified)
- Member US Academy of Management
Professional Social Media
Research areas
- Workplace learning and development,
- Workforce attraction and retention
- Employee engagement
- Change management
- Leadership development
Teaching areas
- Human resource management (performance management, learning and development, managing change, recruitment and selection, strategic HRM)
- Leadership and Management
- Research methods
Professor Karen Becker’s specialist area is human resource management, and in particular, learning and development, workforce attraction and retention, employee engagement, change management, performance management and leadership development