What do you like most about your job?

Many things. I enjoy the autonomy in pursuing research ideas and the flexible working hours. I appreciate that my colleagues are very supportive of each other, open-minded, and fun to work with! I also like the fact that students at UvA have very diverse backgrounds. This often leads to very interesting and inspiring discussions in the classes.

Which project or what research from the past year are you most proud of?

I do experimental research on management accounting topics. Last year, I started a new project looking into how management controls designed to motivate employees’ short-term effort may interfere with employees’ motivation to engage in long-term skill development. Specifically, we’re studying how showing a performance ranking (for example, to sales representatives to promote higher effort) affects the willingness of employees to take voluntary training. We argue that such management control can either encourage or discourage employees to invest in skill development, depending on whether firms organise the training outside or within regular working hours. This project is a collaboration with researchers from 3 other universities and we are currently workshopping it at different places. We’re very excited about this project (and the broad topic of the long-term impacts of management controls) and have already started to brainstorm follow-up studies!

What don’t most colleagues know about you?

When I’m at a restaurant, I am always tempted to try dishes that are new to me, and most times I do just that. Well, more often than not, it turns out to be a bad idea. But I know I will do it again in the next restaurant! Just out of curiosity.