Research Spotlight: Jakov Jandrić

Can you give a brief summary of your career to date, and the journey that brought you here to us at the University of Edinburgh Business School?

After my undergraduate studies in Business and Management, I started working in insurance, and have worked for a few years as a Chartered Insurance Broker in Croatia. As I have always been passionate about performing arts I also began working in the creative sector, as technical manager and curator of a summer music and performing arts festival Amadeo Summer Stage. During this time I have worked closely with international partners on EU-funded projects in arts and culture. I started considering an academic career after graduating from the MSc in Management programme at the University of Edinburgh Business School. Soon after graduation I took the opportunity to teach as adjunct assistant lecturer, teaching on courses across business and management discipline at several business schools in Croatia. After a few years I decided to leave my job in insurance to pursue a PhD at UEBS. After completing my degree and postdoc I worked at Newcastle Business School as a lecturer, before returning to UEBS in 2022 as Nick Oliver Lecturer in Organisational Behaviour.

If you had to give your ‘elevator pitch’ and explain in layman terms what your research and/or teaching focuses on, how would you answer?

In my research I am interested in the interplay between organisational practices and employee lived experiences of work, and the mechanisms that support it. I am interested in the relationship between age, health and employment and focus on finding better ways in which organisations can support workers over 50 who often experience age-related discrimination in the workplace. I work closely with colleagues across the Business School and other departments such as Design Informatics on an UKRI-funded large-scale project SHAW.

The second strand of my research explores the changing landscape of university education. Here, I focus on business schools, their governance and the role of collegiality therein, and the positionality of students within university environments.

With regard to your work, is there anything exciting in the pipelines that you are working on?

I am excited to embark on a new joint project with the start-up Smplicare, which was recently awarded funding through the UKRI Healthy Ageing Catalyst Awards. We will be exploring ways to embed our research at the intersection of age, health and work in the development of a digital intervention for later life workers in the housing sector. This research has potential to help individuals better understand the ways in which their health, work and wider lives interact. Considering that project SHAW is coming to an end in early 2024, we are preparing a large event in December, as well as dissemination events in Newcastle, Manchester and London. We will invite business leaders, policy makers and other stakeholders interested in managing the ageing workforce to an event i that will showcase the exciting findings and interventions resulting from our project.

I collaborated with Professors Rick Delbridge and Paolo Quattrone on a research into academic staff experiences of the pandemic, and the implications of the resulting disruption for collegiality and collegial governance. Our work is forthcoming in Research in the Sociology of Organizations.

Finally, I am excited to get involved in the governance processes of the University of Edinburgh as a newly elected member of the University of Edinburgh Senate.

What do you enjoy most about your teaching and/or research? What challenges and excites you across both?

I teach Organisational Behaviour courses to MSc students on Management, International HRM and HRM programmes, and Human Resource Management 2 course to 2nd year UG students. Teaching is a passion for me, and an aspect of academic work that attracted me to this career in the first place. For me, learning is a process of discovery that requires both the transfer of knowledge and a space for open discussion. I always look for ways to open up the conversation in the classroom and challenge students to think about the topic matter critically and constructively. I also see learning as a collaborative process, and every year I learn a lot from our amazing students, too. I use my research in teaching as much as possible, making sure that the students are exposed to the cutting-edge work we are doing here at UEBS.

What do you enjoy most about working at UEBS?

First and foremost I would like to highlight the extent to which UEBS is a collegiate and intellectually stimulating environment. I am fortunate enough to work with some of the best researchers and colleagues whose doors are always open for collaboration and advice. Also, I enjoy working with students who are exceptional and a great source of knowledge and insight.

What one book, piece of music and beloved item would you take with you to a Desert Island?

• Book: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
• Music: Boatman’s Call by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
• Beloved item: my guitar

Jakov Jandrić

The Nick Oliver Lecturer in Organisational Behaviour