She was born in Karlovac, Croatia, in 1966, where she graduated highschool. She received BA (1989), MA (1993) and PhD (2000) degrees in Psychology from the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb, Croatia. She was Fulbright Visiting Scholar at Colorado State University in 2011-2012.
She has been working at the Department of Psychology, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb, since 1990. She started professional career as research and teaching assistant at the Section of Work Psychology and Ergonomics (1990-1998) and continued at the Section of Experimental Psychology. She was elected at the position of assistant professor in 2001, associate professor in 2007, and full professor in the area of W/O Psychology in 2012.
She teaches courses in research methods and W/O psychology at undergraduate (Experimental Methods in Psychology), graduate (Practicum in Psychology, Organizational Psychology) and doctoral level of study of psychology (Work and mental Health) at Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb. She is a guest professor at several doctoral programs at the University of Zagreb and she was an associated faculty at the Department of Psychology, University of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina for more than 10 years. She participated in Erasmus+ Programme with University of Jaén, Spain, and initiated Joint PhD Programme with Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium.
Her research activities are in the area of Work and Organizational Psychology and focus on work motivation and the impacts of work on individual well-being. Concepts of her special interests are: organizational climate, occupational stress, job insecurity and unemployment.
She is a member of the professional associations Croatian Psychological Association (Division of W/O Psychology), Croatian Psychological Chamber, European Association of Work and Organizational Psychology and European Network of Organizational Psychologists.
She is Head of Doctoral Program in Psychology at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb.
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Her research activities are in the area of Work and Organizational Psychology and focus on work motivation and the impacts of work on individual well-being. Concepts of her special interests are: organizational climate, occupational stress, job insecurity and unemployment. She investigates consequences of prolonged unemployment on individual health, individual strategies of coping with job loss, and individual and contextual predictors of individual career success in the social context of intensified job insecurity and fast changes on labor market.
Aside from scientific papers and research reports in the area, she published several open access instruments. Among them are the scales: Individual strategies of coping with job loss; Questionnaire of economic violence against women and their children; Stress at work - Scale for teachers in higher education.
She currently investigates the model of dispositional employability and the role of individual social capital in the process of job search, individual career success and individual scientific productivity. Her studies are conducted on variety of Croatian samples but also on employed and unemployed samples in other countries. With that respect, she developed a closed collaboration with scientists from USA, Spain, Canada, Belgium, and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Current projects:
- 2015-2019 – Project: Research Activity, Collaboration and Orientation in Social Sciences in Croatia and other Post-Socialist European countries (RACOSS); Sponsored by Croatian Science Foundation; principal investigator Prof. Maja Marija Jokić.
Description: Comparative description of the state of social sciences in 11 EU post-socialist countries through evaluating the scientific productivity and investigating its organizational and individual predictors. - 2015-2017 – Project: The Role of Organizational Climate in Protecting Individual Work Capacities; Sponsored by University of Zagreb.
Description: The aim is to identify workplace characteristics that impact work motivation and individual well-being of highly educated employees in business sector. The study uses longitudinal quantitative methodology and multi-level analyses. - 2016-2017 – Project: Multiple Intelligences, Leadership, and Andrology: An International Study; Sponsored by The Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (USA). Description: Cross-cultural investigation of the roles of androgyny and behavioral flexibility in relation to the intelligences and leadership style.
Principal investigator in the following projects:
- 2014-2016 – Project: School of Leadership, Networking and Innovation; Sponsored by Adris Foundation.
Description: Developing curriculum for professional development of graduate students in humanities and social sciences; organizing Center for Career Development at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences University of Zagreb. - 2014-2016 – Project: Work Stress, Individual Health and Work Motivation of Croatian Shift Workers; Sponsored by Croatian Institute for Health Protection and Safety at Work.
Description: Defining organizational predictors of perceived work stress among Croatian shift workers and its consequences on individual well-being and work engagement and job satisfaction. - 2013 – 2014 - Project: Defining Dispositional Employability in Croatian Society (Research and Workshop); Sponsored by U.S. Embassy in Croatia (U.S. Alumni Small Grant) and Croatian Ministry of Labor. Description: Defining and conducting the study that has the aim to examine the dispositional employability among Croatian working people by defining its dimensions at the individual level. The study includes qualitative and quantitative research methods.
- 2007 – 2014 - Project: Individual and Organizational Consequences of Job Insecurity; Sponsored by Ministry of Science of the Republic of Croatia
Description: Designing and conducting several studies on the components of objective and perceived job insecurity and its consequences on well-being and work motivation, coping with job loss among Croatian people of various demographic and wok characteristics, discrimination in employment; dispositional and perceived employability of working people of different age. - 2011-2012- Project: Job loss and its outcomes: Exploring the organizational moderators of individual coping capacities Individual and organizational consequences of job insecurity; Sponsored by Fulbright Foundation and Colorado State University
Description: Defining and conducting the longitudinal study on a sample of American working people of various demographic and work characteristics who recently lost their jobs. - 2008-2010 - Project: Women and Employment – Economical Aspects of Family Violence; Sponsored by Ministry of Social Policy of the Republic of Croatia
Description: Qualitative and quantitative study of the economic forms of the domestic violence and its consequences on work competences and employability of women victims; the research sample consisted of women who asked nongovernmental organizations for the assistance. - 2002-2005 - Project: Psychosocial Aspects of Unemployment, Sponsored by Ministry of Labor and Social Policy of the Republic of Croatia
Description: Designing and conducting the study of health consequences of prolonged unemployment on the representative sample of registered unemployed persons in Croatia; measuring latent and manifest deprivation of work functions; longitudinal study of psychosocial determinants of reemployment. - 1998-1999 - Project: The Impact of Organizational Context on Job Attitudes and Behavior; Sponsored by the Open Society Foundation in Croatia.
Description: Designing and conducting the study on the links between organizational effectiveness and organizational commitment of the employees, testing the three-component model of organizational commitment and its consequences on work motivation. The study included 22 manufacturing organizations.
Selected publications
Tomas, J. & Maslić Seršić, D. (in press). Searching for a Job on the Contemporary Labour Market: The Role of Dispositional Employability. Scandinavian Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 2016.
Letina, S., Robins, G., Maslić Seršić, D. (2016). Reaching out from out from a small community: The social influence models of collaborations across national and disciplinary boundaries in three fields of social sciences. Revija za Sociologiju, 46, 2.
Maslić Seršić, D. & Tomas, J. (2015). Zapošljivost kao suvremena alternativa sigurnosti posla: teorije, nalazi i preporuke u području psihologije rada. Revija za socijalnu politiku, 22, 1, 95-112.
Tomas, J. & Maslić Seršić, D. (2015). Job insecurity and health among industrial shift workers: the role of organizational context. Psychology of Human Resources Journal, 13, 2, 189-205.
Maslić Seršić, D. & Tomas, J. (2014). The role of dispositional employability in determining individual differences in career success. Društvena istraživanja, 23, 4, 593-613.
Maslić Seršić, D. & Šavor, M. (2012). Who will beat the crisis? Searching for factors that define successful coping with job loss among working people in Croatia. Problems of Psychology in the 21st Century, 2, 39-53.
Maslić Seršić, D. & Vukelić, A. (2012). Vojislav Trifunović ili Tomislav Lučić: tko će se lakše zaposliti u Zagrebu? Testiranje diskriminacije po nacionalnoj i dobnoj osnovi metodom prirodnog eksperimenta. Revija za sociologiju, 42, 1, 31-59.
Slišković, A.; Burić, I.; Maslić Seršić, D. (2012). Izvori stresa u radu nastavnika u visokom obrazovanju. Psihologijske teme, 21, 1, 83-103.
Maslić Seršić, D. & Šavor, M. (2011). Konstrukcija upitnika suočavanja s gubitkom posla. Društvena istraživanja, 20, 2, 495-515.
Slišković, A.; Maslić Seršić, D. (2011). Work Stress Among University Teachers : Gender and Position Differences. Arhiv za higijenu rada i toksikologiju, 62, 4, 299-307.
Slišković, A.; Burić, I.; Maslić Seršić, D. (2011). Work locus of control as a mediator of the relationship between sources and consequences of occupational stress among university teachers. Review of Psychology, 18, 2, 109-118.
Bibliography
Undergraduate study programme in psychology
Graduate study programme in psychology
Postgraduate doctoral study programme
- Work and mental health
She supervised more than 30 master theses at graduate level, 4 master theses at postgraduate level and three Ph.D. theses in psychology. Currently, she is mentoring three Ph.D. candidates at the Doctoral Study of Psychology and one Ph.D. candidate at the Faculty of Education and Rehabilitation Sciences University of Zagreb.
Darja Maslić Seršić, Ph.D.
Professor
Room: C-317, Tel. 4092-199
E-mail: darja.maslic@ffzg.hr
consultations:
Tuesdays 9,00-10,00
Wednesdays 11,00-13,00
She collaborates with non-government civil organizations and government institutions on projects that deal with current social issues in the area of unemployment, gender equity and quality of work life. She delivers public lectures and holds workshops on human resource management, organizational culture management; trainings in career management, networking and leadership. With this purpose, she often collaborates with labor unions, Croatian Employment Service, Ministry of Labor, Agency for Mobility and EU Programmes, Ministry of Education, Croatian Employer Chamber, Croatian Institute for Health Protection and Safety at Work. She leads applied projects for business sector in the area of human resource management and organizational development.
Her professional challenges are protecting and enhancing work motivation and employability of various groups of professionals and workers through organizational interventions – cooperative organizational culture, transformational leadership, job enrichment and work autonomy.
She initiated and leads Center of Career Development at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Science, University of Zagreb. She holds workshops on vocational guidance and orientation for teachers, educational experts and school psychologists.