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Professor Mark Fenton-O'Creevy

BA (Warwick), PGCE (Bangor, UCNW), MBA (London Business School), PhD (London Business School), NTF, SFHEA,

Profile summary

  • Central Academic Staff
  • Professor of Organisational Behaviour
  • The Faculty of Business & Law
  • The Open University Business School
  • Department for People & Organisations
  • mark.fentonocreevy

Professional biography

Mark Fenton-O'Creevy is Professor of Organisational Behaviour at The Open University Business School, where he has worked as an academic since 1997 

His research and scholarship is focused on three primary areas: -

1) He is a founder member member of an EPSRC/ESRC/NERC funded network on Challenging Radical Uncertainty in Science, Society and the Environment (CRUISSE) a collaboration between leading UK universities and major companies, NGOs and government agencies focused on high impact decision-making in contexts of  radical uncertainty. He has a long standing interest in the work, behaviour and performance of professional traders and the role of emotion in financial decision-making for traders and investors. This has more recently turned to a broader interest in the psychology of financial behaviour and in bringing together insights from the social sciences and technology to provide support for effective financial decision-making and decision-making under radical uncertainty more broadly. 

2) He studies the ways in which business and management practices develop and are transformed or corrupted within businesses and organisations. Particular interests include the transfer of HR practices between different national settings and the professional practices of traders in investment banks.

3) He has a profound interest in the relationship between formal and informal learning. He spent five years running a Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning the Centre for Practice-Based Professional Learning (http://cetl.open.ac.uk). His book on "Learning in Landscapes of Practice" with Etienne Wenger-Trayner, Beverly Wenger-Trayner, Chris Kubiak and Steve Hutchinson, builds on Etienne's prior work on communities of practice and the work of the OU Centre for Practice-Based Professional Learning. This book has been cited around 800 times with many of these citations offering evidence of  the impact of the book in teaching practice.. He has co-directed  AACSB Seminars on Online and Blended Learning. From 2005 to 2010 he was Director of a government funded Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning - the Centre for Practice-based Professional Learning across four faculties of The Open University. He was awarded a National Teaching Fellowship in 2007 and was made a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy in 2009.

Mark has led a varied career. He has at various times worked as a school groundsman, a commis chef, a mathematician in a government research establishment, an outdoor pursuits instructor, a teacher of mathematics, a therapist with emotionally disturbed adolescents, a management consultant, and latterly a business school academic.

His academic development has been equally varied. His first degree is in pure mathematics. Subsequently he studied psychotherapy and psychology before later taking an MBA and PhD at London Business School, where he joined the faculty to start his academic career. While his early research was firmly routed in the traditions of occupational psychology, he increasingly draws on other disciplines (primarily economics and sociology). His research on the role of traders in investment banks and management practices in multinational firms contributes to fields such as international business, behavioural finance, the sociology of markets, consumer behaviour, industrial relations, strategic decision-making and cognitive psychology.

He acts as a consultant to a range of organisations with a particular focus on change management and international HR management and on supporting and improving decision-making processes.

His radio and television appearances include on BBC Radio4's MoneyBox, Scottish Television's "Stopping Scotland's Scammers" and live on BBC1's "Right on the Money". He has acted as an academic advisor to BBC programmes: The Money Programme; documentary series 'Can Gerry Robinson Fix the NHS'; 'The Love of Money'; Escape from the Boardroom; and (with Adrian Furnham) created the 'Big Money Test for the BBC's LabUK and the Watchdog programme.

He has authored articles for the Financial Times and the Daily Telegraph and a wide range of magazines. His research blog can be found at Emotional Finance.

 

Research interests

Decision-Making, Radical Uncertainty, International Management, International HR, Financial Trading, Investment Psychology, Psychology of Finacial Behaviour,  Practice-Based Learning, 

Teaching interests

  • Organisational Behaviour
  • Human Resource Management
  • International Business and Management
  • Decision-Making
  • The Psychology of Finance

Impact and engagement

Mark's work on financial decision-making featured as a case study on research impact for the 2014 Research Excellence framework OUBS was rated 50% world leading and 50% internationally excellent). He has contributed to several BBC projects and high impact documentaries on management topics. He has co-designed (with Adrian Furnham) a study of psychological and emotional relationships with money, the Big Money Test, in collaboration with the BBC's LabUK and Watchdog consumer programme. Over 110,000 people participated in the study.

His podcast on iTunesU on "Money and Emotions" has been downloaded over 20,000 times.

A  collaboration with the BBC for the show "Right on the Money" led to 250,000 people engaging with an online diagnostic test he designed, with many going on to seek further help and support via the Money Advice Service website and the Open University MOOC on "You and Your Investments".

Academic Advisor for BBC2 documentary on the financial crisis Love of Money, 2009.

Academic advisor for BBC2 documentary series Can Gerry Robinson Fix the NHS, 2006/7.

Academic Advisor for BBC series The Money Programme, 2005 - 2008.

Mark has also acted as an advisor at a senior level for a wide range of companies and public sector organisations.

External collaborations

  • National Teaching Fellow
  • Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
  • Review Board, Journal of Management Education
  • Member of Advisory Board, Essentia Analytics
  • Member of Board, The Case Centre
  • Current and recent research collaborations with:-
  • University of Granada
  • University of Ulm
  • University of Augsburg
  • Blekinge Tekniska Högskola, Karlskrone, Sweden
  • International Centre for Numerical Methods in Engineering, Barcelona, Spain
  • Erasmus Research Institute of Management, Erasmus University, Rotterdam
  • Forschungszentrum Informatik, Karlsruhe, Germany
  • Saxo Bank, Copenhagen, Denmark
  • Norges Handelshøyskole, Bergen, Norway
  • Etienne Wenger, Grass Valley, California, USA

Research groups

NameTypeParent Unit
Financial Capabilities Research GroupGroupThe Faculty of Business and Law
International Management Practice, Education and Learning ThemeThemeThe Faculty of Business and Law

Publications

Control of subsidiary HRM Policies by Multi-national Corporate Headquarters: The Role of Institutional Differences and Labor Unions (2025-02)
Fenton-O′Creevy, Mark and Gooderham, Paul
International Business Review, 34, Article 102323(1)

Correlates of stock market investment (2024)
Furnham, A.; Cuppello, S. and Fenton-O'Creevy, M.
Journal of Neuroscience, Psychology and Economics, 17(2) (pp. 80-87)

Money attitudes, budgeting and habits (2024)
Furnham, Adrian and Fenton-O'Creevy, Mark
Journal of Financial Management, Markets and Institutions, Article 2450001

Common Methodological Issues in Quantitative Management Education Research and Recommendations for Authors (2023-12)
Hamdani, Maria Riaz; Wallin, Ann; Ashkanasy, Neal M. and Fenton-O’Creevy, Mark
Journal of Management Education, 47(6) (pp. 572-588)

Personality and wealth (2023-06)
Fenton‐O'Creevy, Mark and Furnham, Adrian
Financial Planning Review, 6, Article e1158(2)

Selecting futures: The role of conviction, narratives, ambivalence, and constructive doubt (2022-09)
Fenton‐O'Creevy, Mark and Tuckett, David
Futures & Foresight Science, 4, Article e111(3-4)

Money attitudes, financial capabilities, and impulsiveness as predictors of wealth accumulation (2022)
Fenton-O'Creevy, Mark and Furnham, Adrian
PLOS ONE, 17, Article e0278047(11)

Financial distress and money attitudes (2021-09)
Fenton-O'Creevy, Mark and Furnham, Adrian
Journal of Neuroscience, Psychology, and Economics, 14(3) (pp. 138-148)

Money Attitudes, Personality and Chronic Impulse Buying (2020-09-23)
Fenton-O'Creevy, Mark and Furnham, Adrian
Applied Psychology: An International Review, 69(4) (pp. 1557-1572)

Personality, ideology, and money attitudes as correlates of financial literacy and competence (2020-03)
Fenton-O'Creevy, Mark and Furnham, Adrian
Financial Planning Review, 3, Article e1070(1)

Personality and political orientation (2018-07-15)
Furnham, Adrian and Fenton-O'Creevy, Mark
Personality and Individual Differences, 129 (pp. 88-91)

A Multilevel Analysis of the Use of Individual Pay-for-Performance Systems (2018-04-30)
Gooderham, Paul; Fenton-O'Creevy, Mark; Croucher, Richard and Michael, Brookes
Journal of Management, 44(4) (pp. 1479-1504)

Antecedents and consequences of chronic impulsive buying: Can impulsive buying be understood as dysfunctional self-regulation? (2018-03-31)
Fenton-O'Creevy, Mark; Dibb, Sally and Furnham, Adrian
Psychology & Marketing, 35(3) (pp. 175-188)

Is the disposition effect related to investors’ reliance on System 1 and System 2 processes or their strategy of emotion regulation? (2018)
Richards, Daniel W.; Fenton-O'Creevy, Mark; Rutterford, Janette and Kodwani, Devendra G.
Journal of Economic Psychology, 66 (pp. 79-92)

Stock market investors' use of stop losses and the disposition effect (2017)
Richards, Daniel W.; Rutterford, Janette; Kodwani, Devendra and Fenton-O'Creevy, Mark
European Journal of Finance, 23(2) (pp. 130-152)

‘I understood the words but I didn’t know what they meant’: Japanese online MBA students’ experiences of British assessment practices (2016)
Fenton-O'Creevy, Mark and van Mourik, Carien
Open Learning: The Journal of Open and Distance Learning, 31(2) (pp. 130-140)

Sex differences in money pathology in the general population (2015-09-30)
Furnham, Adrian; von Stumm, Sophie and Fenton-O'Creevy, Mark
Social Indicators Research, 123(3) (pp. 701-711)

Financial capability, money attitudes and socioeconomic status: risks for experiencing adverse financial events (2013-02)
von Stumm, Sophie; Fenton-O'Creevy, Mark and Furnham, Adrian
Personality and Individual Differences, 54(3) (pp. 344-349)

Emotion regulation and trader expertise: heart rate variability on the trading floor (2012-11)
Fenton-O'Creevy, Mark; Lins, Jeffrey; Vohra, Shalini; Richards, Daniel; Davies, Gareth and Schaaff, Kristina
Journal of Neuroscience, Psychology and Economics, 5(4) (pp. 227-237)

Thinking, feeling and deciding: the influence of emotions on the decision making and performance of traders (2011-11)
Fenton-O'Creevy, Mark; Soane, Emma; Nicholson, Nigel and Willman, Paul
Journal of Organizational Behavior, 32(8) (pp. 1044-1061)

Measuring competing explanations of human resource management practices through the Cranet survey: cultural versus institutional explanations (2011-03)
Brookes, Michael; Croucher, Richard; Fenton-O'Creevy, Mark and Gooderham, Paul
Human Resource Management Review, 21(1) (pp. 68-79)

Building the foundations of professional expertise: creating a dialectic between work and formal learning (2010)
Fenton-O'Creevy, Mark and Hutchinson, Steven
Learning and Teaching in Higher Education (LATHE), 4(1) (pp. 69-90)

Human resource management in US subsidiaries in Europe and Australia: centralisation or autonomy? (2008-01-30)
Fenton-O'Creevy, Mark; Gooderham, Paul and Nordhaug, Odd
Journal of International Business Studies, 39(1) (pp. 151-166)

Diffusion of human resource management systems in UK headquartered multinational enterprises: integrating institutional and strategic choice explanations (2007-11)
Fenton-O'Creevy, Mark and Wood, Stephen
European Journal of International Management, 1(4) (pp. 329-349)

Noise trading and the management of operational risk; firms, traders and irrationality in financial markets (2006)
Willman, Paul; Fenton-O'Creevy, Mark; Nicholson, Nigel and Soane, Emma
Journal of Management Studies, 43(6) (pp. 1357-1374)

Personality and domain-specific risk-taking (2005-03)
Nicholson, Nigel; Soane, Emma; Fenton-O'Creevy, Mark and Willman, Paul
Journal of Risk Research, 8(2) (pp. 157-176)

Direct involvement, representation and employee voice in UK multinationals in Europe (2005-03)
Wood, Stephen J. and Fenton-O'Creevy, Mark P.
European Journal of Industrial Relations, 11(1) (pp. 27-50)

Diffusion of HRM to Europe and the Role of US MNCs: Introduction to the special issue (2005)
Fenton-O'Creevy, Mark; Gooderham, Paul and Nordhaug, Odd
Management Revue: The International Review of Management Studies, 16(1) (pp. 5-11)

Pro-social behavior and job performance: does the need for control and the need for achievement make a difference? (2004)
Baruch, Yehuda; Fenton-O'Creevy, Mark; Hind, Patricia and Vigoda-Gadot, Eran
Social Behavior and Personality: an international journal, 32(4) (pp. 399-412)

Trading on illusions: unrealistic perceptions of control and trading performance (2003-03)
Fenton-O'Creevy, M.; Nicholson, N.; Soane, E. and Willman, P.
Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 76(1) (pp. 53-68)

The Diffusion of HR practices within the multi-national firm: towards a research agenda (2003)
Fenton-O'Creevy, Mark
Beta: Scandinavian Journal of Business Research, 17(1) (pp. 36-47)

Traders, managers and loss aversion in investment banking: a field study (2002)
Willman, Paul; Fenton-O'Creevy, Mark; Soane, Emma and Nicholson, Nigel
Accounting, Organizations and Society, 27(1/2) (pp. 85-98)

Knowing the risks: theory and practice in financial markets (2001-07)
Willman, Paul; Fenton-O'Creevy, Mark; Nicholson, Nigel and Soane, Emma
Human Relations, 54(7) (pp. 887-910)

Employee involvement and the middle manager: saboteur or scapegoat? (2001)
Fenton-O'Creevy, Mark
Human Resource Management Journal, 11(1) (pp. 24-40)

Employee involvement and the middle manager: evidence from a survey of organizations (1998-01-01)
Fenton-O'Creevy, Mark
Journal of Organizational Behavior, 19(1) (pp. 67-84)

Company Prospects and Employee Commitment: an Analysis of the Dimensionality of the BOCS and the Influence of External Events on Those Dimensions (1997-12)
Fenton-O'Creevy, M.P.; Winfrow, P.; Lydka, H. and Morris, T.
British Journal of Industrial Relations, 35(4) (pp. 593-608)

Opening up the black box: a UK case study of top managers' attitudes to tbeir performance related pay (1996-09)
Morris, Timothy J. and Fenton-O'Creevy, Mark
International Journal of Human Resource Management, 7(3) (pp. 708-720)

The middle manager: Friend or foe of employee involvement (1996-06)
Fenton-O'Creevy, Mark
Journal of Applied Management Studies, 5(1) (pp. 47-52)

Traders: risks, decisions, and management in financial markets (2004-09-16)
Fenton-O'Creevy, Mark; Nicholson, Nigel; Soane, Emma and Willman, Paul
ISBN : 9780199226450 | Publisher : Oxford University Press | Published : Oxford, UK

Policing the pandemic: deciding and acting in the face of uncertainty and the unexpected (2024)
Fenton-O'Creevy, Mark; Miller, Nicola; Selby-Fell, Helen and Bowles, Benjamin
In: Dickinson, Helen; Yates, Sophie; O'Flynn, Janine and Smith, Catherine eds. Research Handbook on Public Management and COVID-19. Elgar Handbooks in Public Administration and Management (pp. 192-205)
ISBN : 9781802205947 | Publisher : Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd | Published : Cheltenham, UK; Northampton, MA

Intuition, expertise and emotion in the decision making of investment bank traders (2014-07)
Vohra, Shalini and Fenton-O'Creevy, Mark
In: Sinclair, Marta ed. Handbook of Research Methods on Intuition. Handbooks of research methods in management (pp. 88-98)
ISBN : 9781782545989 | Publisher : Elgar | Published : Cheltenham, UK - Northampton, MA, USA

Students at the academic workplace boundary: tourists and sojourners in practice-based education. (2014-06-22)
Fenton-O'Creevy, Mark; Brigham, Lindsay; Jones, Sylvia and Smith, Ann
In: Wenger-Traynor, Etienne; Fenton-O'Creevy, Mark; Hutchinson, Steve; Kubiak, Christopher and Wenger-Traynor, Beverley eds. Learning in Landscapes of Practice: Boundaries, Identity, and Knowledgeability in Practice-Based Learning (pp. 43-63)
ISBN : 978-1-13-802218-8 | Publisher : Routledge | Published : Abingdon

Bridging roles, social skill and embedded knowing in multinational organisations (2011-04)
Fenton-O'Creevy, Mark; Gooderham, Paul; Cerdin, Jean-Luc and Rønning, Rune
In: Dörrenbächer, Christoph and Geppert, Mike eds. Politics and Power in the Multinational Corporation: The Role of Institutions, Interests and Identities (pp. 101-138)
ISBN : 9780521197175 | Publisher : Cambridge University Press | Published : Cambridge, U.K.

A Practice-Centered Approach to Management Education (2006)
Fenton-O'Creevy, Mark; Knight, Peter and Margolis, Judith
In: Wankel, Charles and DeFillippi, Robert eds. New Visions of Graduate Management Education. Research in Management Education and Development (pp. 103-123)
ISBN : 978-1-59311-554-8 | Publisher : Information Age | Published : Greenwich, CT

Benefitting from a multi-channel approach (2005)
Fenton-O'Creevy, Mark and Wood, Stephen
In: Storey, John ed. Adding Value Through Information and Consultation (pp. 59-68)
ISBN : 1403948984 | Publisher : Palgrave McMillan | Published : London, UK

HR practice: vive la difference (2002-10-18)
Fenton-O'Creevy, Mark
In: Pickford, James ed. Mastering people management (pp. 143-148)
ISBN : 273661922 | Publisher : Prentice Hall | Published : London, UK

Seeking success by involving workers (2002-10-18)
Fenton-O'Creevy, Mark
In: Pickford, J. ed. Mastering People Management (pp. 165-170)
ISBN : 273661922 | Publisher : Prentice Hall | Published : London, UK

Learning in Landscapes of Practice: Boundaries, identity, and knowledgeability in practice-based learning (2014-07-23)
Wenger-Trayner, Etienne; Fenton-O'Creevy, Mark; Kubiak, Christopher; Hutchinson, Steven and Wenger-Trayner, Beverly eds.
ISBN : 978-1-13-802218-8 | Publisher : Routledge | Published : Abingdon

Investigating the role of ‘uncomfortable knowledge’ in failures to address longstanding problems harming the trustworthiness of UK policing (2023)
Bowles, Ben and Fenton-O'Creevy, Mark
In : European Group for Public Administration Conference “Steering European Union Through Poly-Crises Storms: The Role of Public Administration" (5-8 Sep 2023, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia)

A game based approach to improve traders' decision-making (2015-09-21)
Fenton-O'Creevy, Mark; Adam, Marc; Clough, Gill; Conole, Grainne; Gaved, Mark; Lins, Jeffrey Todd; Lindley, Craig; Peffer, Gilbert; Scanlon, Eileen and Smidts, Ale
In : The International Gamification for Business Conference 2015: Strategic Industrial Applications of Games and Gamification (21-22 Sep 2015, Innovation Birmingham, Faraday Wharf, Innovation Birmingham Campus, Holt Street, Birmingham Science Park Aston, Birmingham, B7 4BB)

Antecedents and consequences of impulsive buying: can impulsive buying be understood as dysfunctional emotion regulation? (2012-07-02)
Fenton-O'Creevy, Mark; Furnham, Adrian; Dibb, Sally and Davies, Gareth
In : Eighth International Conference on Emotions and Worklife: Emonet VIII (02-03 Jul 2012, Helsinki)

A learning design to support the emotion regulation of investors (2012-02-04)
Fenton-O'Creevy, Mark; Conole, Grainne; Lins, Jeffrey; Peffer, Gilbert; Adam, Marc; Lindley, Craig; Smidt, Ale; Clough, Gill and Scanlon, Eileen
In : OECD-SEBI International Conference on Investor Education (3-4 Feb 2012, Goa, India)

Managing the heart of finance: domain specific emotion regulation in the work of financial traders (2011-08)
Vohra, Shalini and Fenton-O'Creevy, Mark
In : 71st Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management (12-16 Aug 2011, San Antonio, TX, USA)

Beyond prototypes: Enabling innovation in technology-enhanced learning (2013)
Scanlon, Eileen; Sharples, Mike; Fenton-O'Creevy, Mark; Fleck, James; Cooban, Caroline; Ferguson, Rebecca; Cross, Simon and Waterhouse, Peter
Open University, Milton Keynes.

xDelia final report: emotion-centred financial decision making and learning (2012-09-25)
Peffer, Gilbert; Fenton-O'Creevy, Mark; Adam, Marc; Astor, Philipp; Cederholm, Henrik; Clough, Gill; Conole, Gráinne; Davies, Gareth; Eriksson, Jeanette; Gaved, Mark; Heuer, Stephan; Jerčić, Petar; Lindley, Craig; Todd Lins, Jeffrey; van Overveld, Mark; Scanlon, Eileen; Schaaff, Kristina and Smidts, Ale
Open University, CIMNE, Milton Keynes UK.

xDelia: D18-2.4.2 Learning Intervention Package - Development and Evaluation (Year 3) (2012-05-31)
Fenton-O'Creevy, Mark; Gaved, Mark; Astor, Philipp; Cederholm, Henrik; Davies, Gareth; Eriksson, Jeanette; Jerčić, Petar; Lins, Jeffrey Todd; van Overveld, Marc; Schaaff, Kristina and Smidts, Ale
xDelia Consortium, Milton Keynes, UK.

xDelia: emotion-centred financial decision making and learning (final report) (2012)
Peffer, Gilbert; Fenton-O'Creevy, Mark; Adam, Marc; Astor, Philip; Cederholm, Henrik; Clough, Gill; Conole, Grainne; Davies, Gareth; Eriksson, Jeanette; Gaved, Mark; Heuer, Stephan; Jercic, Petar; Lindley, Craig; Lins, Jeffrey Todd; van Overveld, Marc; Scanlon, Eileen; Schaaff, Kristina and Smidts, Ale
xDelia Consortium, Milton Keynes, UK.