Online activities

June 27th 2025

Online Webinar:  Why 1 + 2 = Elephant: Polarization, Perception, and the Absence of Shared Reality at Work

Speaker:  dr. Maja Graso, University of Groningen

Why do people working in the same organization interpret the same event or policy so differently? Why does the same issue spark protest in some and an eye-roll in others? And why have so many ordinary practices become sites of polarization?
This seminar explores the growing sense that today’s workplaces are not just divided by opinion, but by divergent judgments of what is fair, harmful, or good. It focuses especially on diversity, politicization, and the unintended consequences of well-meaning inclusion efforts - without offering easy answers or moral prescriptions.
Rather than a "how-to" session, this is a space to explore the deeper tensions that divide teams and institutions. From clashes over values to competing claims of exclusion, we ask why misunderstandings are intensifying, how interventions can backfire, and what it might take to move forward - imperfectly, but together.

Who should attend: Consultants, Managers, HR professionals, educators, and others navigating the front lines of inclusion, conflict, and workplace cohesion.

dr. Maja Graso

Maja investigates the factors that shape how people perceive visible and invisible harms in their social environments. Whereas visible threats - such as a fire threatening a community - tend to generate shared urgency and collective action, invisible harms often produce disagreement and division. Their ambiguity invites competing interpretations, making them more difficult to address in a coordinated and lasting way. Her research focuses on how people perceive harms they cannot directly observe and how they seek to resolve them. When individuals or groups disagree on what constitutes harm, whose interpretation should guide social norms, and how should organizations respond? Which interventions meant to address harm provide only superficial or temporary relief, while exacerbating deeper conflicts or undermining long-term peace?

Before joining the University of Groningen, Maja spent six years at the University of Otago in New Zealand and five years at Zayed University in the United Arab Emirates, where she gained firsthand experience of Arab hospitality. Originally from Croatia, she has also lived in the Netherlands Antilles and studied and worked in the United States.

To register click here

July 12th 2024

Online Webinar:  Neurodiversity at work and in business. Key priorities for people, organisations and research

Speaker: Professor Almuth McDowall

This session will outline the current programme of research undertaken by the Centre for Neurodiversity Research at Work (C4NRAW) based in London, UK.

The session will commence with five key priorities. It will then be outlined how research relevant to work and organizational psychology is developing, and also what can be learned from other domains such as neuroscience.

This will lead to an overview of current findings from the centre's activities and in particular a large survey of UK neurodivergent workers, employer representatives and also 2024 comparison data from colleagues.

We will revisit the five key priorities in the light of this data and conclude the session with smaller discussion groups to embed learning.

Professor Almuth McDowall

Almuth is Professor of Organisational Psychology at Birkbeck University of London where she co-directs the centre for Neurodiversity Research at Work with her academic best friend Dr Nancy Doyle. The team are also co-authors of the best selling book Neurodiversity Coaching.  Almuth's research and publications have been award winning and she is committed to dissemination to practice, as well as acting as a consultant to a range of organisations.  She is very happy to have developed the first bespoke module at undergraduate level on neurodiversity, and is now doing the same at postgraduate level and a short course for further professional development.  She is Senior Editor for the Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology and Associate Editor for Neurodiversity.  In her spare time, she is an instructor for Sleek Technique and delivered online ballet based fitness classes.

This event is free to attend for EAWOP members.

Constituent members of EAWOP can nominate up to 5 of their members to attend.

9th October 2024

Victims, Villains, and Vigilantes in the Age of Soft Crimes

Speaker: Professor Karl Aquino

This session,  will describe three social types – the victim, the villain, and the vigilante-- that can be found in organizations and wider society. In the context of organizations, he will discuss the relationships between these types, the social and cultural conditions that lead to their emergence, and what effects their presence might have on the people around them.  He will present a model of social relationships called the drama triangle (Karpman, 1968) to speculate about how the same person can play the roles of victim, villain, and vigilante at various times and for different purposes. He will also propose that a psychological disposition known as communal narcissism (Gebauer, Sedikides, Bas Verplanken, & Maio, 2012), defined as a grandiose or exaggerated belief about one’s prosociality and concern for others, can predict who is more likely play these roles with greater frequency and present data that tests this hypothesis.

Professor Karl Aquino

Karl Aquino is the Richard Poon Professor of Organizations and Society in the Marketing and Behavioral Sciences Division at the Sauder School of Business. He studies how moral beliefs and motivational processes influence behavior and social judgment. He also studies workplace victimization, ideologically motivated cognition, revenge and forgiveness, status, power, and social dominance, workplace vigilantes, and various topics in consumer psychology. He has published over 100 papers in management, psychology, marketing, management information systems, business ethics, and political science outlets.

This event is free to attend for EAWOP members.

Constituent members of EAWOP can nominate up to 5 of their members to attend.

8th September 2023

Online facilitation for high engagement

Facilitator: Fedrik Fogelberg, Reg. I/O Psych.

Since the pandemic, a large part of our work has gone online and even though Covid is behind us, there is no going back to the ‘old days’ of working exclusively face to face with clients. As professionals, we have made the shift to hosting online meetings, facilitating workshops and training sessions and other online events. And this transition has gone remarkably well.

However, online sessions do have a set of characteristics that differs markedly from F2F facilitation. The most important difference is how to build engagement & interaction in a group. The attention span of participants is much shorter online and the temptation to be distracted by other devices, people, pets etc. (home office!) is always there.
Nomadic IBP has gained experience since 2009  in the field of online facilitation and has trained hundreds of facilitators since. Join this 90 minute taster session to experience the ’10 principles of online facilitation’ in a fun and informal setting, with room to experiment and play together.

Fedrik Fogelberg, Reg. I/O Psych.

Fredrik Fogelberg is an Organisational Psychologist specialized in leadership development and team facilitation in international organizations. He coaches and trains leaders and their teams in “getting the job done” in a complex, international and changing business environment. Since 2008, he has been studying the dynamics of geographically dispersed teams and has been helping clients to increase the performance of virtual teams. Together with a colleague, he published ‘Live Connections’, a handbook for online facilitators.

Fredrik has worked with many international organisations and he has delivered programmes at business schools across Europe, Asia, Africa, Russia, USA, and the Middle East.