Andrew Neal

Professor - School of Psychology
University of Queensland

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Profile

Andrew is Professor of Business and Organizational Psychology. Andrew leads a large program of applied research into human performance and safety in complex environments. This program has received more than $10 million in funding from the ARC, Federal and State Governments, and industry. A key focus of this program has been on end user impact, with the ultimate goal of improving the safety and effectiveness of critical national infrastructure.

Andrew’s major scientific contributions have been in two areas:

1. Performance, safety and effectiveness of people at work. He has published a series of influential papers on safety climate and work role performance. For example, the paper by Griffin, Neal and Parker (2007), which has been highly cited, reports the development of a theory of work role performance that explains how different forms of behaviour, such as adaptivity and proactivity, contribute to the effectiveness of individuals, as well as the teams and organizations that they work in.
2. Workload, decision making, and self-regulation. Andrew’s research has improved our understanding of how people manage task demands in complex systems, such as air traffic control and emergency response. These environments require people to make decisions under time pressure, and often require tradeoffs to be made amongst competing goals (eg safety vs productivity). He has developed computational models to simulate the way that people make decisions in these environment, and how they manage their workload. His research has clarified the mechanisms by which people make choices amongst competing goals, and regulate the amount of effort they apply.

Professor Neal is also a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia.