Sanna Malinen

Sanna Malinen
Academic background
Alma mater	University of Canterbury, University of Otago
Thesis	Implicit and explicit attitudes towards older workers: Their predictive utility and the role of attitude malleability (2009)
Doctoral advisor	Lucy Johnston
Academic work
Institutions	University of Canterbury

Sanna Malinen is a Finnish–New Zealand psychology academic, and is a full professor at the University of Canterbury, specialising in social and organisational psychology.

Academic career

Malinen is Finnish, and emigrated to New Zealand in 1996. Malinen completed a Bachelor of Arts at the University of Otago, followed by a Master of Science in psychology and a PhD at the University of Canterbury. Her doctoral thesis was titled Implicit and explicit attitudes towards older workers: Their predictive utility and the role of attitude malleability and was completed in 2009. Malinen then joined the faculty of the School of Business at University of Canterbury, rising to full professor in 2024. She works as part of the Workplace Analytics group with Professor Katharina Näswall. In 2013 Malinen was awarded the University of Canterbury School of Business and Economics Early Career Research award.

Malinen is an organisational and applied psychologist, and her research covers topics such as leadership development, and how to build resilience in workplaces and communities. She has researched what factors in team meetings enable better decision-making, and the concept of 'paradoxical leadership' in public organisations, defined as 'the ability to balance competing structural and relational demands over time'. Malinen is also interested in environmental psychology, including the use of values in environmental management and the connection between nature and wellbeing, and disaster management within organisations and communities. Malinen has collaborated on research on cultural and ecological resilience with Professor Jacinta Ruru of the University of Otago and Dr Phil Lyver of Manaaki Whenua – Landcare Research as part of the Biological Heritage National Science Challenge.

Malinen is married to an ecologist, and has two children.

Selected works

• Joana R. C. Kuntz; Katharina Näswall; Sanna Malinen (June 2016). "Resilient Employees in Resilient Organizations: Flourishing Beyond Adversity". Industrial and Organizational Psychology: perspectives on science and practice. 9 (2): 456–462. doi:10.1017/IOP.2016.39. ISSN 1754-9426. Wikidata Q125520551.
• Joana R. C. Kuntz; Sanna Malinen; Katharina Näswall (September 2017). "Employee resilience: Directions for resilience development". Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research. 69 (3): 223–242. doi:10.1037/CPB0000097. ISSN 1065-9293. Wikidata Q125520553.
• Mark Hsueh; Kumar Yogeeswaran; Sanna Malinen (3 March 2015). ""Leave Your Comment Below": Can Biased Online Comments Influence Our Own Prejudicial Attitudes and Behaviors?: Online Comments on Prejudice Expression". Human Communication Research. 41 (4): 557–576. doi:10.1111/HCRE.12059. ISSN 0360-3989. Wikidata Q127256206.
• Karen Tonkin; Sanna Malinen; Katharina Näswall; Joana C. Kuntz (10 January 2018). "Building employee resilience through wellbeing in organizations". Human Resource Development Quarterly. 29 (2): 107–124. doi:10.1002/HRDQ.21306. ISSN 1044-8004. Wikidata Q125520543.
• Katharina Näswall; Sanna Malinen; Joana Kuntz; Morgana Hodliffe (1 July 2019). "Employee resilience: development and validation of a measure". Journal of Managerial Psychology. 34 (5): 353–367. doi:10.1108/JMP-02-2018-0102. ISSN 0268-3946. Wikidata Q125520565.
• Sanna Malinen; Lucy Johnston (1 January 2013). "Workplace ageism: discovering hidden bias". Experimental Aging Research. 39 (4): 445–465. doi:10.1080/0361073X.2013.808111. ISSN 0361-073X. PMID 23875840. Wikidata Q50699383.

External links

• By using their resilience, organizations can survive even from severe crisis, Sanna Malinen on the Filosofian Akatemia Oy podcast (in English, via YouTube)