School of Business Professor features in FT on impact of trauma

The impact of trauma on working life, and how it can even affect political and economic decisions, is the subject of a FT article featuring the views of a University of Leicester professor.

Professor Mark Stein, of the University’s School of Business, has had an interest in trauma, both that of employees and leaders in organizations, for some time. He has published a paper on the subject, which the FT article refers to, focusing on how the trauma of European leaders shaped their thinking in the decision to create the single European currency.

Professor Stein also gave this as a keynote paper at conferences in Limerick and Oxford, and as a talk at a number of other venues around Europe and the UK.

The FT article describes how trauma – ‘an emotional and physical response to an unbearable event, such as bereavement, war, physical attack or abuse’ – impacts on an individual and work.

In his 2016 article ‘Fantasy of Fusion’ as a Response to Trauma: European Leaders and the Origins of the Eurozone Crisis, published in the journal Organization Studies, Professor Stein looks at the impact of the Second World War and reunification of Germany as influencing decisions to create European monetary union.

He goes on to describe how organisational change can impact employees who have experienced trauma in the past.

• Read the full article here (requires an account with the Financial Times)
• Press release