Tom Reader

Dr Tom Reader is an Associate Professor of Organisational Psychology, and directs the MSc in Organisational and Social Psychology.

Tom's expertise relates to organisational culture and resilience: Tom studies the values and practices within organisations that enable members and stakeholders to recognize, address, and learn from errors and disruptions before they lead to institutional failures (e.g., accidents, scandals). Concretely, and working in 'high-risk' domains (e.g., healthcare, finance, aviation, energy), Tom's empirical research focusses on how organisations can improve: voicing on conduct problems; listening to concerns; teamwork and decision-making; safety culture; learning from complaints; systems for reporting and learning; and whistleblowing.

Tom's research has been published in internationally leading academic journals within management and healthcare (e.g., Journal of Applied Psychology; Human Relations; Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology; Risk Analysis; Milbank Quarterly; Journal of Business Ethics; Human Factors; Ergonomics; Safety Science; Journal of Risk Research; BMJ). Tom also consults with numerous major corporations on the topic of organisational culture, advise governmental institutions internationally, and Tom's research is directly applied by private and public institutions around the world (e.g., healthcare systems, aviation organisations).

Tom is a chartered psychologist (MA and PhD, University of Aberdeen; Leverhulme Fellowship), and has been Deputy Head of Department (research); REF2021 lead; and Doctoral Programme director. Tom is a member of the School’s Knowledge Exchange Framework Strategic Committee (KEFSC).

Tom is highly committed to the application of academic research to real-world problems, and had impact case studies on organisations learning from complaints and improving organisational culture submitted to REF 2021. Tom's current impact work is focussing on the development and application of the Unobtrusive Corporate Culture Analysis Tool (for evaluating the cultural health of organisations). Tom's work has been funded by the Leverhulme Trust, European Commission, the AKO Foundation, NIHR, the Irish Health Research Board, UK government agencies, and private companies.