Professor Michael Clinton

Mike Clinton is Professor of Work Psychology and Head of Department, Human Resource Management & Employment Relations at King's Business School. Mike first joined King’s College London over 20 years ago and became a Head of Department in 2022.

Mike’s research focuses on worker wellbeing and effectiveness. He is particularly interested in how worker wellbeing and effectiveness can be sustained together over long periods of time. He explores how peoples' orientations to their work, and the changing nature of modern work itself, affect worker wellbeing and effectiveness, and their inter-relationship. His recent research projects have involved studies of the contradictions of hybrid working, vocational callings and self-sacrifice as double-edge swords, and how a demanding day at work can turn workers into risky drivers on the way home afterwards. Mike’s work draws on psychological theories about self-control and self-determination, goal systems, and personal resource allocation.

Mike has conducted studies in a number of UK organisations including the Armed Services, the NHS, the Equality and Human Rights Commission and the Church of England. He has published in many of the top international journals in his field, including Journal of Management, Journal of Organizational Behavior, Journal of Occupational & Organizational Psychology, Journal of Vocational Behavior, Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, and Human Resource Management Journal. Mike has expertise in research methodology and statistics. His research draws mainly on longitudinal and daily diary research designs. He has run short methods courses at King’s and the LSE, on topics of multivariate statistics, moderation and mediation, and structural equation modelling.

Mike supervises several doctoral researchers and is currently interested in supervising talented early-career scholars from 2024 in the topic areas of 1) callings or 2) self-control at work.

Mike's Research Excellence Framework 2021 impact case study was called Enhancing Clergy Wellbeing and Effectiveness in the Church of England. Read the impact feature on this case study here.