Christa Wood

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Research Interests

• Performance management in the Public Service
• Discourse analysis
• Strategic HRM

Profile

Through a career in the federal public service, Christa Wood has seen first-hand the repeated attempts to shift the service’s culture when it comes to performance management.

She’s now researching a PhD on that subject, including why so many attempts at change have failed.

“Things started to change within the public service as they strived to adopt more of a model aligned with private industry, but it kept falling over,” she says.

“It struck me that the theory and systems they put out into the workforce were great, but in practice it didn’t work. I thought there must be more to it than just leadership problems, or a problem with adopting the systems. There must be a more systemic problem.”

Christa says the push for change started in the mid 1980s, but there has not been a lot of progress made. She believes some of the issues relate to the differences between the work culture of public servants and their private sector colleagues.

“Previously in the public service there was job security, perhaps a job for life, and automatic progression up the ladder,” she explains. “That used to be the case until the new model came in. Now those people have to deal with competing for jobs, providing tangible results, feeling accountable and responsible. In certain instances, they can’t be held accountable because they have to follow certain rules and regulations, yet they’re still expected to be innovative and flexible.”

Another of Christa’s projects is looking at student motivation and a possible link with work status; whether they’re working full-time, part-time, casual, or not at all.

She sees huge benefit in the People and Organization Research Centre.

“I see the benefit in sharing knowledge and getting mentoring, and in the long term becoming a mentor, in getting that intellectual exchange of ideas, and getting insight into other people’s thinking and research,” she says.

UOW Research Profile

Christa Wood's UOW web page