“The PhD poster session is an opportunity for us to share our research with the broader ESSEC community”

On December 6th, the ESSEC PhD department hosted their sixth annual PhD Research Highlights event. PhD students present their research – using a poster board and their imaginations – to make their findings as approachable as possible. Maïlys George, winner of the Prize for Best Poster presentation, answered to our questions about her research, her poster and this competition.

Could you pitch your research in few lines ?
In my research, I am interested in understanding how individuals’ identities influence their work-related behaviors. The project that I presented at the poster session focuses on individuals who have decided to relocate abroad. When moving to a new country, expatriates are likely to think about who they would have been if they had stayed in their home country. We call these representations hypothetical home selves. Across two studies, we find support for the idea that comparing their current self to their hypothetical home self influences expatriates’ experiences in the home country.

Why did you choose to work on this thematic?
Being a French and Moroccan citizen and having lived in several different countries, I am particularly interested in understanding relocation experiences. My research centers on individuals’ representations of who and where they could be, both in the present and in the future. I find the role our identities play in motivating our day-to-day behaviors fascinating!

What do you think of the Poster Session concept?
The poster session is an opportunity for us PhD students to share our research with the broader ESSEC community. It allows us to present our projects to an audience of Master’s students, Professors inside and outside our field, and administrative staff. It feels good to see that so many people are interested in the research that is being done by PhD students.

How did you work to summarize a complex research project in a concise way and in the shape of a poster?
When preparing my poster, I thought about how I would explain my research to family members. If I were to present my research to them, I would focus on the core message of this research and how it relates to our daily lives, while remaining true to the complexity of the project.