Our research

Research that improves health and social outcomes

The Health at Work Research Centre brings together unique expertise in behavioral science, entrepreneurship, leadership and innovation, and social and strategic marketing.

Our research programs reflect the interdisciplinary nature of our priorities, and highlights the diversity and strength of our partnerships and research capabilities. This approach is further strengthened by quantitative and qualitative methodological expertise. Learn more about each of our programs and associated projects below.

Workplace health and wellbeing

This research program focuses on a health-based model of organisational and employee factors associated with enhanced engagement and productivity, coping and resilience, and quality relationships at work.

Organisations have the capacity to either support or hinder employee health and wellbeing through the systems, structure and policies they create, and we are committed to understanding the work-related factors that strengthen people’s capacity to deal with challenges and trauma.

We further explore issues of social justice at work and their implications for wellbeing and sustainability. This includes an expertise in investigating the impacts of law and regulation pertaining to health at work, such as health and safety law and workers' compensation law.

• Wellbeing and mental health in mining is led by Rebecca Mitchell in collaboration with the Australian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy (AusIMM). It is designed to explore factors that increase the wellbeing of those who work in the mining industry.
• Gig economy as a facilitator for meaningful employment is a collaboration between Associate Professor Brendan Boyle (University of Newcastle), Professor Bronwyn Hemsley, Head of Speech Pathology at University of Technology Sydney, and Challenge Community Services (CCS). It is designed to increase the competence of young people with intellectual disability in the ‘gig economy’ as a facilitator for meaningful employment.
• Resilience among couples in business is led by Laramie Tolentino, in collaboration with the Institute for Couples in Business. It aims to show how couples in business manage and allocate their resources to address both business and family demands. The project examines how the interplay between individual difference (eg personality, emotions), dynamics of close relationships (eg intimacy), and contextual factors (eg income, stage of business growth) influence both business and family health and wellbeing.

Organising in health and social care

Health and social care, and the professionals who work within these spheres, face significant challenges related to changing technologies, social and economics demands, as well as profession-related concerns that potentially impact workplace, employee and patient outcomes.

This research program draws on human resource management, leadership, change management and organisational behaviour disciplines to investigate the workplace factors that contribute to effective teamwork, leadership and organisational development in health, aged and social care organisations.

• Nurse resilience and workplace mental health is led by Rebecca Mitchell, and is a collaborative venture with the Australian Nurse and Midwifery Federation (ANMF), Multicultural Health Service and University of Newcastle that aims to investigate the organisational and work-related factors that contribute to the resilience of nurses and midwives and lessen the negative impact of work-related stressors.
• Career persistence among women in STEM is led by Patrick Garcia. It aims to help address the ‘leaky-pipeline’ problem by examining person and organisational factors that influence early career women professionals’ career persistence in STEM. The project’s goals include:
  • developing evidence-based interventions that would strengthen women’s persistence
  • determining the relative effectiveness of these interventions, including workplace policies and support systems.

Health ecosystems design and innovation

Our research in this area investigates the strategy, design, and innovation of health ecosystems and organisations. We focus on innovation in healthcare, including open innovation and entrepreneurship.

This program also examines the wellbeing effects of technology on employees and explores how technology is shaping work.

• Examining the ‘community’ strand of the quadruple helix is led by Dr Sarah Bankins. It explores ways to expand community member involvement in the innovation process in healthcare. Through a case approach, this study will examine the ways in which community members are integrated into programs of innovation that directly affect them and ways in which this process could be improved.
• Open healthcare innovation: building capabilities for crowdsourcing and open service innovation is led by Ralf Wilden in collaboration with Krithika Randhawa (UTS) and Joel West (Keck Institute). It investigates open innovation in healthcare. The project team will study how healthcare providers employ crowdsourcing to leverage users in open service innovation. In answering these questions, this project will contribute to our understanding of the drivers of open healthcare innovation, demonstrating the value of open service innovation in the healthcare context.
• Artificial intelligence (AI) as a growth engine for healthcare startups is a collaborative work between Nidthida Lin and Massimo Garbuio (University of Sydney). It aims to provide a critical analysis of AI driven healthcare startups and identifies emerging business model archetypes that entrepreneurs from around the world have used to bring AI solutions to the healthcare market. Through the secondary data and interviews with executives in healthcare industry, we identify areas of value creation for the application of AI in healthcare and propose business model archetypes for designing business models for AI healthcare startups. This project is further extended to:
  • investigate the role of AI in healthcare professionals’ cognition and reasoning process
  • shed light on how entrepreneurs in the healthcare industry identify and create new business opportunities.

Health services marketing

This research program applies marketing theory to healthcare and, for example, seeks to identify those mechanisms that facilitate and inhibit consumers' adoption and utilisation of health services.

We also focus on developing effective health communications to promote sustainable behaviour change.

An emerging theme in this program explores the transformative aspects of service on the health sector and seeks to examine the role of disruptive technologies in shaping and changing the way service is delivered and experienced in health and social care.

• Improving the drinking culture in Australia is led by Leanne Carter and Cynthia Webster in collaboration with Steve D’Alessandro (Charles Sturt University) and Katherine Holmes (University of Western Sydney) and is funded by Momento Hospitality Group. It examines the drivers of the drinking culture amongst Australian youth with the aim to change drinking attitudes and behaviours through the development of an educational program and other intervention strategies.
• Message testing in healthy public policy is led by Cynthia Webster in collaboration with Penny Hawe (Menzies Centre for Health Policy, University of Sydney) and is funded by The Australian Prevention Partnership Centre. It tests the credibility and persuasiveness of health messages, and investigates public engagement with health conversations, on social media.
• Incentivising behavioural and attitudinal loyalty in membership associations is led by Cynthia Webster, and funded by nib health insurance. It focuses on incentives for health insurance customers and examines whether membership associations can increase behavioural and attitudinal loyalty through the use of reward and recognition schemes.