This is the latest edition of our The unexpected world of business podcast series exploring topics you wouldn’t normally associate with business.
In this podcast, host Mark Swain talks to Karen Jansen, Professor of Leadership and Change at Henley Business School, about her research into organisational fit. They will touch on topics such as how to fit into the workplace, how this can change over time and they’ll discuss the toll poor fit does for wellbeing and job satisfaction.
Professor Karen Jansen

Karen is a Professor of Leadership and Change at Henley Business School. She has an honorary appointment at the Australian National University and previous positions at the University of Virginia and Penn State University. Her research examines two adaptive processes at the nexus of change and temporal processes: aligning evolving talent with strategic goals and creating and sustaining momentum over the course of strategic or cultural change. Karen is currently exploring how to maintain change engagement across multiple change initiatives simultaneously without leading to change fatigue.
In addition to an active research agenda, she serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Management and the Academy of Management Review. Prior to becoming an academic she had a nine-year career at IBM as a systems engineer and was a member of the IBM Information Network, which was the precursor to IBMโs professional services arm.
Karen is a Professor of Leadership and Change at Henley Business School. She has an honorary appointment at the Australian National University and previous positions at the University of Virginia and Penn State University. Her research examines two adaptive processes at the nexus of change and temporal processes: aligning evolving talent with strategic goals and creating and sustaining momentum over the course of strategic or cultural change. Karen is currently exploring how to maintain change engagement across multiple change initiatives simultaneously without leading to change fatigue.
In addition to an active research agenda, she serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Management and the Academy of Management Review. Prior to becoming an academic she had a nine-year career at IBM as a systems engineer and was a member of the IBM Information Network, which was the precursor to IBMโs professional services arm.
Karen has consulted and collaborated with military, manufacturing, financial, and professional service organisations to successfully navigate large-scale change, customise strategic vision and change messaging and design well-timed interventions for various stakeholder groups. She has also developed a ‘momentum mapping’ tool to help organisations manage change-related energy during transformational change.
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