Post-doc position on managerial meaning-making in understanding decision-making for organisational change

We seek a postdoctoral researcher who is motivated to study managerial meaning-making within the Dutch Smart Industry. The project aims to improve managers’ ability to lead successful Industry 5.0 transitions by analysing and supporting their meaning-, sense- and decision-making. The ideal candidate is interested in how managers interpret information (for example, about events, actions, contexts) and make meaning of their organisation, its opportunities for growth, and the inner workings of their organisation. You will specifically study how such meaning-making relates to the decisions they make about what changes they are (un)willing to make in their organisation’s ways of working. For example, managers might jump to certain solutions (without fully understanding the implications or needs), postpone or even avoid to engage in their business development. Together with a junior design researcher you will co-design a transformative intervention to support managers’ meaning- and decision-making processes regarding their organization’s Industry 5.0 transformations. Thus, a strong interest in applying theoretical insights to practice is important. Due to the nature of the project, mastering Dutch at minimally the B2 level is a must.

About this project

This postdoctoral project is part of the Smart Skills@Scale project, which aims to support a robust, resilient workforce and a human-centric, sustainable, and resilient Smart Industry. The current position is part of the research line that focuses on supporting organisations in Industry 5.0 transitions through, for example, ensuring human-centric production cells and fostering technology adoption and usage by production workers. You will collaborate with your fellow researchers to find synergy between the role of managers and employees in change processes. For more information about the entire project, please visit our website.

You hold your PhD (or are close to completion) in Psychology, Organisation Studies, Educational Science, or a related field. Also, you:

• have expertise or demonstrable interest in decision-making for organisational change, meaning-making or sensemaking, and applying those concepts to the Smart Industry context;
• have expertise or demonstrable interest in designing interventions, such as serious games, or game-based learning, especially aimed at transformative learning;
• have demonstrable strong qualitative methodological knowledge and skills
• have good social and communication skills in academic and non-academic contexts;
• are fluent in English and master Dutch (at least the B2 level, as the data collection will be in Dutch);
• have excellent writing skills;
• are willing and have a proven ability to work independently but also to collaborate with the project team, managers, and employees of regional SMEs.

A 4-year post-doc position (1 fte), starting July 2025. The gross salary is in accordance with the Collective Labour Agreement for Dutch Universities (CAO NU) € 3.378,- to € 5.331,- per month for a full-time position, depending on experience. On top of this, you receive a holiday allowance of 8% of the gross annual salary and an 8.3% end-of-year bonus.

We offer excellent auxiliary terms of employment, such as professional and personal development programs; a secondary remuneration package; a dynamic environment with enthusiastic colleagues; an organization focusing on internationalization and a high degree of responsibility and independence.

Researchers in our section study formal and informal learning of (future) employees, including the use of technology to measure and support professional learning. More broadly, we also study professional learning in relation to the collaboration and innovation processes of professionals, particularly so in multidisciplinary settings and new forms of organizing (such as learning communities or living labs). Our studies often take place in the high-tech, health, and educational sectors with the intention to understand, evaluate, and optimize (inter)professional and (inter)organizational learning, collaboration, and innovation in these various contexts. Increasingly, the settings we study revolve around grand challenges and wicked problems, such as the transitions to green energy and circularity or matters of digital transformation. To contribute to these challenges, we also design and evaluate (technology-based) interventions to optimize professional learning, innovation, and collaboration. In our research group, we combine expertise from a range of disciplines (e.g., educational sciences, psychology, business administration, organization studies, communication science).