Associate Professor Bob Compton

Dr Robert-Leigh Compton is an Adjunct Associate Professor with the Newcastle Business School within the University of Newcastle.

Dr Compton is a former Associate Professor and Head and Acting National Head of the Business School at ACU.  Dr Compton was the Foundation Director of Academic Programs at the Sydney Graduate School of Management. Prior to this appointment Bob was MBA Director at the University of Western Sydney and earlier was Head of the Department of Employment Relations at UWS.

He has also taught at UTS, the MGSM and AGSM. He has taught Human Resource Management in Sydney, China, Hong Kong, India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia and Singapore. He has also worked for three years on a business education program with Karen refugees on the Thai Burma border. A UN 'World First' program).

Bob holds a Bachelors degree in Business, a Masters degree in Economics and a Doctor of Letters (HRM).

Between academic appointments, Bob has worked as Head of Corporate Human Resources with Integral Energy, as Counselling Manager with IPS - Employee Assistance Global and as Senior Consultant with MTE-Pathfinder. He also performs limited HRM consulting.

He has co-authored six editions of Effective Recruitment and Selection Practices (Oxford University Press) and seven editions of Strategic Human Resource Management (Cengage) and Readings in Strategic Human Resource Management (Thomson). In 1999, Strategic HRM 3rd Ed. won the Australian Excellence in Educational Literature Award and with sales of over 200,000 copies is Australia's best-selling text in its field. The 7th edition was released in 2011 and now sells in seven countries. This edition won the 2011 Excellence in Educational Literature Award. Bob is also co-author of Employment Relations (Thomson) released in December 2004 and Staff Selection and Performance Management (Thomson) 2006. Bob has written or co-written over 40 national and international journal articles and is a regular speaker on the professional conference circuit. His current research is focused on workplace counselling and in particular the effectiveness of those strategies that organisations are putting in place to help address the human problems presented.

A member of the Australian Human Resources Institute since 1979, Bob has held several key positions including those of NSW Councillor and member of the Education Committee of Council. He is currently a Fellow of AHRI, a member of editorial boards with the ‘International Journal of HR Development’ and ‘Research and Practice in HRM ‘and a member of the Board of Academic Advisors with the Management Learning College in Hong Kong.

In 2008 Dr Compton’s biography was listed in the inaugural edition of Who’s Who in NSW for his contribution to business education in Australia, SE Asia and the sub-Continent. Dr Compton also received a 2008 Australian Government Carrick Award for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning based on his work on the Thai Burma border.

Research Expertise
Dr Compton's current research is focused on workplace counselling and in particular the effectiveness of those strategies that organisations are putting in place to help address the human problems presented. Dr Compton published Australia's first journal article in this field, followed by the first Australian article to be published in the US. In 2015, Dr Compton published a follow up international article which evaluated the effectiveness of workplace counselling programs. 
Teaching Expertise

Dr Compton has over 40 years experience teaching across six countries. His understanding of teaching international students is based on his time overseas along with teaching many international students in Sydney and Newcastle. Over the past 24 Trimesters at UoN, Dr Compton's SFC results have been exemplary exceeding School and University means across each dimension measured. In 2014, Dr Compton was the NUPSA Online Teacher of the Year.


Administrative Expertise

Dr Compton has held senior Corporate roles in HRM along with senior academic management roles at WSU, ACU and the Sydney Graduate School of Management.  See above profile.


Collaborations

Recently collaborated with Mind and Matter Consulting to co-author Australia's first international journal article on the effectiveness on employee counselling programs in Australia - an issue that has gained great publicity during the Covid 19 crisis. Dr Compton has just completed an invited chapter on this topic to be included in a new UK text on Organisational Behaviour. (Published in 2022)

He remains a Research Associate with Mind and Matter Consulting.

Previous collaborations resulted in Australia's best selling HRM text - now in its 10th edition. A second text is in its 6th edition and is published by Oxford University Press