Dr. Karen Harlos is Professor (Full) and past Inaugural Chair, Department of Business and Administration, at the University of Winnipeg. Her field is organizational behaviour and she conducts research on workplace mistreatment and bullying, employee silence and voice in the face of work mistreatment, healthcare workplace issues, and quality of worklife. Her work has been published in high-quality journals such as Human Relations, Research in Personnel and Human Resource Management, Journal of Management Education, Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, Healthcare Policy, Journal of Health Organization and Management, Journal of Nursing Management, Advances in Qualitative Organizational Research, and Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science.
Her honours include several grants as Principal Investigator from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) and Fonds Québécois de Recherche sur La Société et la Culture, research awards and distinctions (Best Paper Prize, Australian Industrial/Organizational Psychology Conference; Best Dissertation Competition Finalist, Social Issues in Management Division, Academy of Management; Best Dissertation Proposal Finalist, INFORMS College on Organization Science; Dorothy Harlow Best Paper Finalist, Academy of Management), invited service on merit review panels (Canadian Health Services Research Foundation, SSHRC) and national health research committees (American Psychological Association Psychologically Healthy Workplace Award Committee, Canadian Health Services Research Foundation Advisory Committee on Teams in Healthcare), and several exceptional performance awards for recent university research, teaching and service. At the University of Otago, her early career success was honoured by appointment as the University`s Emerging Scholar Representative as well as Chair of the Social Sciences Panel in an annual competition grant, in which she brought together scholars expert in different disciplines, paradigms, and methodologies for merit review awards totalling $¼ million in university research funds.
Dr. Harlos completed her role as Project Director of partnered research funded by SSHRC (2015-2019) examining workplace bullying and mistreatment using international and integrative perspectives for prevention. Here, she led an interdisciplinary team of researchers from Canada, the UK, Germany and Denmark, who worked closely with Canadian decision-makers and policy analysts, to generate large datasets using longitudinal, multi-method approaches for evidence-informed practice, policy, and decision support. This Workplace Bullying and Mistreatment Partnership for Prevention produced five waves of provincial workforce data across three large Manitoba organizations in education, government, and healthcare. On completion of the final internal report for the partner organization from the fifth dataset, analyses aggregating datasets within and across organizations (where appropriate) for scientific publication are extending preliminary results presented at numerous international conferences and seminars to date.
Currently, Dr. Harlos is a co-investigator on a SSHRC-funded national project (New Frontiers in Research Fund) to foster employer capacity in recruiting, hiring, and retaining persons with disabilities through research-industry collaboration for workplace accessibility and inclusion. She also contributed to research on integrated knowledge translation for more effective health practice, programs and policy (Canadian Institutes for Health Research) as well as workplace, supervisor, worker, and accommodation factors associated with workers’ compensation outcomes (Workers Compensation Board of Manitoba). Other projects on which Dr. Harlos was a co-investigator looked at productive organizational conflict (SSHRC), the ‘aspiring workforce’ business case for recruiting and retaining persons with mental illness (Mental Health Commission of Canada), health system changes for primary care renewal in Manitoba (Manitoba Health Research Council), and supervisors’ and workers’ perspectives of mental health accommodations (Workers Compensation Board of Manitoba).
Dr. Harlos has served on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Management and Journal of Management Inquiry. She also served on executive committees of the International Association of Conflict Management, the Western Academy of Management (elected) and was a reserve Board member for the International Association for Workplace Bullying and Harassment (elected). She was on the Board of Directors for the Prairie Women’s Health Centre of Excellence and the Manitoba Workplace Psychological Health and Safety Advisory Board (invited), contributing to cross-sector collaboration to develop SAFE Work Manitoba’s first Psychological Health and Safety in the Workplace Strategy. Dr. Harlos has presented numerous academic papers and delivered executive workshops in Europe, Australasia, and North America. She continues to train and consult in conflict resolution, team building, leadership, and psychologically healthy workplaces in various industries and work settings.
Prior to joining the University of Winnipeg to take on the role of Inaugural Chair of the Business Department, Dr. Harlos was on faculty at McGill University, Montreal, and the University of Otago, New Zealand. She has held adjunct appointments at the University of Northern British Columbia (Nursing) and McGill University (Management).
Her doctoral work was supported by a prestigious SSHRC doctoral fellowship while her master’s thesis was funded by a highly competitive National Sciences and Engineering Council of Canada award.
PhD Business Administration (Organizational Behaviour), University of British Columbia (1st Class Standing); MA Psychology (Industrial/Organizational), University of British Columbia (1st Class Standing); BA Psychology (Clinical), University of British Columbia (1st Class Standing).