Dr Ruchi Sinha

Dr Ruchi Sinha is Senior Lecturer in the School of Management. Ruchi has a Master’s Degree and a PhD in Industrial/Organizational Psychology from Michigan State University, USA. Before entering academia, Ruchi worked as an HR consultant and delivered training programs on psychometric profiling, team-building, negotiation and leadership development. Before UniSA, Ruchi was a tenure-track Assistant Professor of Organizational Behaviour at the Indian School of Business (Hyderabad). She is an expert facilitator who specialises in teaching Master-level courses in Business Negotiations and Leadership. 

Ruchi’s work has been published in top-tier journals and has been presented at several top conferences in the field. Her current research interests revolve around understanding team dynamics and team effectiveness as well as negotiation success in the context of work. In the domain of teams research, Ruchi examines how the social-network of interpersonal relationships, as well as the personality of members within a team, influences critical work outcomes such as the level of voice, conflicts, information sharing and power/status struggles. In some of her published works, Ruchi has proposed improved measurement approaches for studying employee behaviour and teamwork. She has demonstrated that nuanced and theoretically aligned measurement can enhance the predictability of team outcomes and can help organisations identify practical levers to manage both employee and team performance. In the domain of negotiation research, Ruchi focuses on the role of power and emotions in predicting negotiation effectiveness. Some of her recent work discusses the role of gender in negotiation outcomes and how the leadership development of women leaders needs to focus on the specific development of negotiation skills. 

Ruchi is an active member of the Academy of Management, Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Australian Human Resources Institute and the International Academy of Conflict Management. She is on the Editorial Reviewer Board for two top-tier FT50 A* journals: a) Journal of Applied Psychology and b) Journal of Organizational Behavior. Ruchi has been a recipient of a Society for Human Resource Management Foundation Grant, UniSA Research Themes Investment Scheme funding as well as funding from South Australia State Government Agencies. She recently received a large 3-year grant from the Australian Department of Defence- Defense Science and Technology Group to study team dynamics and performance.

• Australian Human Resources Institute
• The Academy of Management (AOM)
• International Association of Conflict Management (IACM)
• Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP)
• Society for Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP)
• Community of Organizational Sciences in India (COSI - Founding member)
• Australia India Business Council

Qualifications

• Doctor of Philospohy Psychology Michigan State University

• Master of Arts in Psychology Michigan State University

• Master of Arts Psychology University of Delhi

• Bachelor of Arts (Honours Course) Applied Psychology University of Delhi

Work history

Human Resource Management Consulting Experience

Consultant, Mantrana, India (A Delhi based Human Resource Consultancy Firm), 2004 - 2005

Key Activities

• Designed and delivered a variety of training programs such as: Interpersonal & Communication Skills, Leadership and Coaching Skills, Team Building Skills, Assertiveness Skills, and Psychometric Testing and Scale Development.
• Developed an “HR Priority Survey” for a corporate MNC
• Developed customized personality tools for selection in the BPO sector.
• Developmed Training Programs for Change Agents: Change Management (Parivartan) project for GAIL India; Change Management workshop at “National Academy of Training and Research in Social Securities.” (NATRASS).

Independent Consultant, In India and United State, 2008 - 2010

• Conducted an “Organizational Justice Audit” on nurses for Burcham Hills (A retirement age care facility in Lansing, MI, USA). 
• Developed a Training Plan and delivered a Training workshop for the Diocese of Lansing, Michigan, USA.
• Competency Mapping for Restaurant General Managers at Pizza Hut (HR, Pizza Hut Devyani Pvt. Ltd.)