Research Interests

Ethics and HRM

Well-being of employees

Ethics of climate change

Workplace spirituality, religion and performance

Profile

Dr Mario Fernando has a passion for research and teaching, but his career started on a very different path. At a relatively young age he had achieved success in the corporate world, exposed to board level positions and multinational operations. He is a qualified lawyer and an accountant (CIMA, Finalist) with an MBA. At the same time, Mario had burning questions about where he fitted in the “bigger picture”.

“I came to a stage in my corporate career where I was compelled to ask myself, ‘am I going to do this for the rest of my life?’ and ‘why am I here, what is my reason for being?” he says. 

These led Mario to give up his corporate career and embark on a more fulfilling academic career.

Mario’s research looks at spirituality from both religious and non-religious perspectives, and his study area has now broadened to take in climate change ethics, business ethics and social responsibility. His current projects include the spiritual wellbeing and ethical ideologies of senior Australian managers, ethics of mitigation and adaptation strategies of climate change and contextual factors relating to the recent Wollongong City Council scandal.

“The landscape is changing. The impact of climate change is making people think outside the box, and the current global financial situation is taking them away from the affluent materialistic tunnel vision, perhaps returning to a simple and ‘graceful’ lifestyle,” he says. 

While the media carries more stories than ever about religion and spirituality in all aspects of life, Mario says it can be a contentious issue in the workplace, with HR people sometimes accused of tapping into people’s souls to meet productivity and performance goals.

He’s extremely enthusiastic about the People and Organization Research Centre, and research in general. 

“Research is like venturing through the woods,” he says. “You have this tingling feeling, this nervous energy that you might stumble into something important, or not find anything at all. That creative tension is pretty important to me.”