Rowena Blokker is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Department of Management and Organization at the School of Business and Economics of Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, where she is also finalizing her PhD research. She holds a research master degree (cum laude) in Social and Organizational Psychology from Leiden University. Her work has been published in peer-reviewed journals, such as Journal of Vocational Behavior, and Career Development International. Rowena is passionate about advanced quantitative data analysis, and bridging science and practice. Her main research interests include the school-to-work transition, young employees and early career development, career shocks, and employability.

Next to her academic work, Rowena is an active member in research communities. She represented fellow PhD candidates in the ABRI PhD council at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and in the international pHResh research community for PhD students in Human Resource Management and Organizational Behavior. In addition, she was a member of a Dutch knowledge platform on academic success, which is a collaboration between several colleges, universities and practitioners interested in sharing knowledge and supporting student’s career development.

Rowena enjoys presenting her work, and organizing symposia and workshops, at scientific conferences (e.g., AOM, EAWOP, WAOP, Dutch HRM). Her symposium submitted to Academy of Management Conference in 2018 was awarded the respectable ‘show case’ status and was highly attended. Moreover, she shares knowledge from her research in practitioner summaries for project stakeholders, book chapters, blogs, and newsletters.

Rowena is involved in teaching courses in various educational programs at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (e.g., Bachelor of International Business Administration, Bachelor of Business Administration, Master of Business Administration: Leadership and Change Management, Master of Business Administration: Human Resource Management, Executive education – Post-master Accounting, Executive education – International Executive Master of Auditing). And she has supervised a total of 12 Bachelor students and 28 Master students in writing their theses.

Rowena is finalizing a PhD project on critical success factors during the school-to-work transition. This research is under the supervision of Prof. dr. P.G.W. Jansen, Prof. dr. S.N. Khapova, and Dr. T.J. Akkermans.

The goal of this PhD project was to examine the key antecedents and consequences of the school-to-work transition in the contemporary career. Among other things, we followed Master's students over time, tracking their progress and analyzing their transition into the labor market. The project contributes to the development of theory and curriculum on the transition from university to work in today’s dynamic labor market.

This project also had a clear practical element, to which both the School of Business and Economics (SBE) and the Postgraduate Accounting program (PGO) of Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam are closely connected. In cooperation with them, and based on the empirical results from the project, Rowena supported the development of new educational programs in the SBE master programs and the Postgraduate program Accounting. The aim of these educational programs was to integrate the empirical findings such that the students profit from a better preparation to their labor market transition, and thus a better connection between their studies and their future work.

• Human Resource Management & Organizational Behavior (Bachelor program International Business Administration, tutorials)
• Organizational Behavior and Decision Making (International Executive Master of Auditing, tutorials & lectures)
• Organizational Behavior & Accountancy (Postgraduate Accountancy, tutorials & lectures)
• Academic skills (BSc International Business Administration, tutorials & lectures)
• Bachelor and Master thesis supervision
• Capita Selecta - Research Internship supervision

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