David De Cremer of Cambridge Judge receives Mid-Career Award from the British Psychology Society.
The Social Psychology Section of the British Psychology Society has named David De Cremer, KPMG Professor of Management Studies at Cambridge Judge Business School, as recipient of this year’s Mid-Career Award in recognition of his contributions to social psychology.
As prize winner, David will deliver the Mid-Career Award address at the group’s Social Psychology Section conference in Manchester, England, in September.
News of the award came as David delivered his inaugural lecture at Cambridge Judge on 13 April, on the topic of The New Leadership: On the Challenge of Building a Trustworthy & Pro-Active Work Culture.
He spoke about how many companies have “too many managers and not enough leadership,” and this fosters unimaginative “status-quo thinking” and an “ownership gap” in terms of responsibility.
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Like leadership, an understanding of social psychology is essential to business and business education.
“Work and business deals, codes of conduct, organisational systems are all social settings that have a significant influence on how we think, feel and act,” says David. “The field of social psychology studies the impact of the social context and therefore is of important use to develop theories and training when it comes down to being a business negotiator, leader or manager. Social psychology has contributed greatly to the development of new interdisciplinary fields like behavioural economics and organisational behaviour.”
David has edited two books – Social Psychology and Organizations and Social Psychology and Economics – which document the interdisciplinary nature of social psychology as it concerns understanding behaviour in economic and organisational settings.