Dr Beatrice Piccoli

Biography

Dr Beatrice Piccoli is a Lecturer in Human Resource Management and Organizational Behaviour at Essex Business School whose research examines job insecurity and precarious work, with a particular focus on their individual, organisational, and societal consequences across countries. Her research is entirely based on advanced quantitative methods and multi-level, cross-national analyses to inform evidence-based policy and practice. Beatrice has published numerous peer-reviewed articles in leading academic journals such as Work & Stress (ABS 4), Journal of Experimental Psychology (ABS 4), Economic and Industrial Democracy (ABS 3), Journal of Business Research (ABS 3), Journal of Career Development, Personnel Review, Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, and others. Her contributions to the field are widely cited in the most important reviews and meta-analyses, particularly on the topic of job insecurity, as evidenced by more than 1,000 citations (Google Scholar: https://tinyurl.com/BPICCO). She has also established a strong track record of securing competitive external research funding, obtaining grants from both international and national bodies. Beatrice held the prestigious Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 programme (EUR 160,800) to study the micro- and macro-level determinants and consequences of job insecurity across Europe. Earlier, she led a project on ageing and well-being at work, funded by the Italian bank Banco Popolare (EUR 144,000) and a COOPERINT internationalisation grant from the University of Verona (EUR 7,500), which supported her visiting scholarship at St. John’s University, New York. Most recently, she won a British Academy/Leverhulme Small Research Grant (£8,955.80) for research on “Enhancing Collective Creativity in Contexts of Job Insecurity” (2023–2025). She has also secured, together with a colleague, a SeNSS Collaborative Studentship funded by the ESRC in partnership with Working Families, to support a PhD project on flexible working and caring responsibilities starting in October 2026. This award provides full doctoral funding, including tuition fees and a £20,780 annual stipend for 3.5 years, as well as research support. Moving to Beatrice’s research leadership, her roles include, among others, serving as co-editor of the forthcoming Handbook on Precarious Work (Edward Elgar, March 2026), which brings together 22 chapters authored by contributors from five continents. Also, she regularly presents at international conferences—such as the Academy of Management, the European Association of Work and Organisational Psychology, the European Academy of Occupational Health Psychology, and the International Society for Justice Research—and has organised symposia and chaired sessions. Beatrice’s work has received recognition within and beyond academia. For example, she won the Best ECR Publication Award from the Association of Organizational Psychology for the article in Work & Stress, and was awarded Best Poster and Best Paper at the EAWOP Conference (2021). Moreover, her research has been featured by prestigious outlets such as the World Economic Forum (https://tinyurl.com/yr3f6kp8), Business Insider Australia, and The Conversation (https://routledge.altmetric.com/details/15932276/news). At EBS, Beatrice contributes to undergraduate and postgraduate teaching in HRM and Organisational Behaviour, and has led large core modules and final-year projects, coordinating multi-instructor teaching teams and innovating assessment and interactive learning practices. She has successfully supervised numerous HRM master’s dissertations, as well as doctoral researchers to completion—including a cross-departmental PhD in Psychology that resulted in multiple publications and led to a research post at LSE—and is currently supervising new doctoral work in HRM and Organisation Studies. She has also served as Associate Director of Education and as Programmes Coordinator for Kaplan Online. In addition, she acts as the School’s Library Representative and holds the role of Academic Link for the University of Essex Online within the Partnerships team, leading programme quality and tutor recruitment for EBS Online.

Qualifications

• Postdoctoral researcher (funded by the European Commission, Horizon 2020, Individual Fellowship) University of Leuven (KU Leuven),

• PhD in Work and Organizational Psychology, joint PhD awarded by the University of Verona (Italy) and KU Leuven (Belgium),

• MSc in Management of Training Services, University of Verona (Italy),