Increasingly machines using self-learning algorithms are instructing and monitoring workers’ performance, including determining which employees are let go, says Dr Alex Veen, a senior lecturer in the Discipline of Work and Organisational Studies.

Dr Veen’s project is evaluating what should be the regulatory and policy safeguards around the management of labour by AI? 

The project will explore the attitudes and policy positions of business groups, trade unions and other relevant parties concerning the regulation of algorithmic management in different countries.

His project’s outcomes will be policy-focused and contribute to scholarly and social debates around the use and uptake of AI in the workplace.

Veterinarians have the highest rate of suicide amongst all the medical professions, and around 3-4 times that of the general population. 

A rare anthropologist in the Business School, Dr Bastian Thomsen’s research project aims to improve the working lives of vets and by extension, multispecies relations.

“A day in the life of a vet might involve euthanising a gorgeous Border Collie they have known for ten years, then immunising a brand-new puppy in the arms of a delighted child”, Dr Thomsen says.

“No other profession is more central to the sociocultural dynamics of multispecies health as vets, yet they face an epidemic of psychological, emotional, financial, and even physical abuse.”

Dr Thomsen’s practice embraces a One Health and One Welfare outlook. This is an emerging discipline that recognises the links between human wellbeing, the health of other species, and the environment.  

“My investigation will explore if we treat the people who care for our animals better, will that also improve not only the well-being of the nonhuman animals in their direct care, but society as well?”

Operations researcher Dr Li Chen is developing a model to optimise inventory and pricing decisions in complex systems.

In his research project, Dr Chen is extending the mathematical optimisation model by incorporating forecasting uncertainty. 

“The key challenge I address is how to effectively model uncertainty and make robust decisions in uncertain environments,” says Dr Chen.

“I am applying my model to the online and offline retail sectors working with both real and synthetic data. Apparel retailers, for instance, offer a wide array of clothing choices, each with unique demand patterns affected by factors (contextual information) such as weather, temperature, and consumer trends. 

“My project will develop a novel framework for optimising pricing and inventory decisions for multiple products under demand uncertainty, leveraging contextual robust optimisation.”

Many sectors – supermarkets, restaurants, transport - need to set prices for multiple products while simultaneously maintaining an inventory. Dr Chen’s optimisation framework will determine the price and inventory for all products simultaneously.

Dr Guanglian Hu is developing a forward-looking interest rate measure.

Dr Hu’s background is in finance, and particularly the options market, as distinct from the spot market. His project is to develop a forward-looking interest rate risk measure from the derivative markets on treasuries, the long-term debt issued by governments.

“There is a clear public good in providing reliable indicators for how interest rates will move across the future,’ Dr Hu says.

“The interest rate predictions we currently rely on are built using historical data, making them inherently backward looking. My method is to extract information embedded in options contracts on government notes and bonds. This approach allows us to construct the entire distribution of the market expectations about future interest rates over different horizons.”

Dr Hu is collaborating with leading researchers in the US and the UK.

The result will be an index much like a ‘ticker’ on trading screens that will also offer valuable information for central banks as it will help them to assess if the market’s expectations align with the policy outcomes the banks want to achieve. 

Non-authoritarian leadership - Dr James Donald is testing if it can work in large organisations.

The University of Sydney’s motto is ‘leadership for good’. Which raises the question: what is good leadership?

Dr Donald is investigating how mangers can encourage autonomy and creative risk-taking behaviour. 

Evidence from smaller agile organisations shows this management style produces vibrant, high performing workplaces. 

“My research question is can an empowering leadership style succeed in large complex workplaces that typically operate with a ‘command and control’ model where there is a much lower tolerance for questioning the boss,” says Dr Donald.

Dr Donald will study three critical sectors: government, finance and healthcare. How do the organisational structures in these sectors enable or inhibit managers capacity to exercise this type of leadership? Dr Donald will also evaluate any negative impacts of this leadership style.

This project will provide a valuable evidence-base for managers in large bureaucratic organisations for what is best practice in building a flourishing workplace.

Building a digital human to help improve the lives of young people with acquired brain injury is the latest quest for Dr Mike Seymour.

Perinatal strokes effect up to 5,000 newborns and around 300 children in Australia every year, many of whom will suffer some form of brain damage. 

Dr Seymour is developing emotionally responsive photorealistic digital assistants to support young people with acquired brain injury (ABI), who often require interaction at a different pace to their peers. 

“The focus is on personalisation and ethical facilitation to improve their engagement with everyday life,” Dr Seymour says.

“For example, some people with ABI find high frequency, noisy communications overwhelming. Providing information more patiently via a digital agent could be a way for them to stay better connected with world events.”

Dr Seymour’s research will be conducted with young people with ABI using a co-design process. This project is also supported by PhD student Bey Alivand and the AI processing power is housed in the Motus Lab, one of the most advanced high-tech centres in the Business School, which Dr Seymour co-founded. 

“I am optimistic and appreciate having the opportunity to work with these exceptional partners to make a real difference for young adults with ABI using cutting edge, AI driven, digital humans.”

Digital technologies that monitor women’s health are tools that can be placed into many hands to amplify impact.

Dr Na Liu embraces femtech’s possibilities however her focus is on wholistic female wellbeing not just developing technological medical ‘solutions’.

“Too often I see a big divide between what digital designers offer - complex, high-tech, expensive - and the practical outcomes users really want,” Dr Liu says.

“People should have access to digital health services regardless of their IT or health literacy.”

Dr Liu is investigating how digital resources can be used to improve the mental health of women living in remote areas in Bali, who themselves are not digitally connected. To report medical symptoms the women will only need to send a numeric text message, for example texting ‘1’ if they are experiencing persistent headaches. 

“Low levels of literacy should not be a barrier to communicating quality information that can trigger intervention,’ says Dr Liu.

Moreover, the women’s symptoms will contribute to a dashboard that will build evidence for the provision of community services. 

Her second femtech project is an app to support nurses experiencing menopause, offering them bespoke ‘nudges’. 

“Our wider ambition is to discover if this support contributes to higher retention rates in a sector suffering the loss of experienced staff. The project aims to scale the support professionals can offer women experiencing menopausal symptoms that can badly impact their quality of life which many women find uncomfortable to discuss in person.”

Dr Noman Shaheer wants to know if digitalisation can improve sustainability and profits.

Dr Shaheer explores the connection between digitalisation, corporate environmental sustainability and profitability, particularly through the lens of customer sensitivity to environmental issues. 

“Digitalisation is a powerful tool enabling companies with very diverse supply chains, to track, measure and therefore control their pollution,” Dr Shaheer says.

Dr Shaheer’s project will use machine learning to see which digitalisation processes directly lead to improved environmental performance.

By improving our understanding of the connections between digitalisation, environmental performance, and firm profitability, his research will help develop better corporate strategies and government policies for a more sustainable planet.

A second project is the development of a consumer eco-consciousness index across 55 countries. Understanding the extent of consumers’ willingness to reduce their environmental impact will reveal their pivotal role in the success of environmental initiatives undertaken by organisations.

Collecting data has never been so easy, consequently many organisations are awash with complex data sets that current models struggle to analyse.

Dr Qin Fang is a statistician who has pioneered developments in high-dimensional functional time series (HDFTS).

In her project Dr Fang will introduce the first functional tensor framework for analysing HDFTS, enabling a more accurate and insightful approach to these complex, high-frequency datasets.

“My analysis looks at indices in an untypical way,” Dr Fang says. “Rather than observations as discrete ‘dots’, I view them as continuous curves.”

“By incorporating all available information from the shape of these curves, I construct high-dimensional functional time series of high-frequency intraday data, spanning months or years. This allows for a more comprehensive understanding of the evolving patterns in data, leading to more robust forecasts compared to traditional time series models.”

Dr Fang is applying her method to three areas: the stock market, energy consumption data and mortality rates.  

“I aim to provide new forecasting tools to enable better informed decision-making, such as determining the optimal times to buy and sell stocks based on high-frequency patterns, forecasting the future energy needs of households in different regions, or estimating the mortality rates across different age groups and geographic areas.”

Dr Fang is collaborating with researchers in London, Hong Kong and China. “I am confident our work will advance econometric modelling and also offer practical, data-driven solutions to real-world problems.”

As of 2025, climate reporting is compulsory for most large businesses and financial institutions.

For her research project Dr Suwen Chen is focusing on how organisations can measure and nurture biodiversity.

‘Of the nine areas in the planetary boundary framework, biodiversity loss and species extinction is the highest risk of all the environmental categories,’ Dr Chen says.  

“The imperative to integrate sustainable practices across business operations has never been more critical.

“My central research question is how can non-environmental sectors effectively integrate biodiversity considerations into their business models and impact measurement and reporting frameworks? I aim to develop a roadmap for industries to navigate the complexities of biodiversity integration while driving innovation and impact.

“I want to shift the conversation toward recognising the intrinsic value of biodiversity by prompting organisations to reappraise their role in preserving ecosystems and contributing to reversing species loss."