Dr Anna Luca Heimann
Pronouns: she/her
Academic and research departments
About
Biography
I am a Senior Lecturer in Organisational and Business Psychology at Surrey Business School, which I joined in 2026. I hold an MSc in Psychology from the University of Hamburg and a PhD in Psychology from the University of Zurich. Before joining Surrey, I worked at the University of Zurich as a Lecturer and Senior Lecturer in Work and Organisational Psychology. I have also been Principal Investigator on research funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation. Alongside my academic work, I have worked as an independent consultant in personnel selection and assessment and as a coach and trainer, supporting organisations and individuals with evidence-based assessment and development. I also serve on the board of Swiss Assessment, the Swiss professional association concerned with quality standards in assessment centres. Across my academic and professional work, I am passionate about connecting rigorous psychological research with organisational practice and about ensuring that the methods organisations use to assess and develop people are both scientifically sound and meaningful in practice.
ResearchResearch interests
My research examines how behaviour at work can be assessed, predicted, and developed. I am particularly interested in the behavioural processes underlying personnel selection and assessment, leadership and leader–follower interactions, and in understanding why and when our methods for assessing people predict meaningful workplace outcomes, including employee well-being and different facets of job performance. I am also interested in the growing role of artificial intelligence in assessing and predicting workplace behaviour, including its potential to improve or undermine the quality and fairness of organisational decision-making. My work combines field and experimental research with advanced quantitative methods, with an emphasis on connecting measurement and validation to the behavioural mechanisms they are intended to capture. Ultimately, my research aims to contribute to healthier, fairer and more effective workplaces.
Research interests
My research examines how behaviour at work can be assessed, predicted, and developed. I am particularly interested in the behavioural processes underlying personnel selection and assessment, leadership and leader–follower interactions, and in understanding why and when our methods for assessing people predict meaningful workplace outcomes, including employee well-being and different facets of job performance. I am also interested in the growing role of artificial intelligence in assessing and predicting workplace behaviour, including its potential to improve or undermine the quality and fairness of organisational decision-making. My work combines field and experimental research with advanced quantitative methods, with an emphasis on connecting measurement and validation to the behavioural mechanisms they are intended to capture. Ultimately, my research aims to contribute to healthier, fairer and more effective workplaces.
Publications
Highlights
Ingold, P. V.*, Heimann, A. L.*, Waller, B., Breil, S. M., & Sackett, P. R. (2026). What do assessment center ratings reflect? Consistency and heterogeneity in variance composition across multiple samples. Journal of Applied Psychology, 11(3), 324–346. https://doi.org/10.1037/apl0001318
Heimann, A. L.*, Ingold, P. V., Lievens, F., Melchers, K., Keen, G., & Kleinmann, M. (2022). Actions define a character: Assessment centers as behavior-focused personality measures. Personnel Psychology, 75(3), 675–705. https://doi.org/10.1111/peps.12478 (Open Access Publication)
* First authorship marked with an asterisk.
It is widely recognized that leadership behaviors drive leaders' success. But despite the importance of assessing leadership behavior for selection and development, current measurement practices are limited. This study contributes to the literature by examining the structured interview method as a potential approach to assess leadership behavior. To this end, we developed a structured interview measuring constructs from Yukl's (2012) leadership taxonomy. Supervisors in diverse positions participated in the interview as part of a leadership assessment program. Confirmatory factor analyses supported the assumption that leadership constructs could be assessed as distinct interview dimensions. Results further showed that interview ratings predicted a variety of leadership outcomes (supervisors' annual income, ratings of situational leader effectiveness, subordinates' wellbeing and affective organizational commitment) beyond other relevant predictors. Findings offer implications on how to identify leaders who have a positive impact on their subordinates, and they inform us about conceptual differences between leadership measures.
Additional publications
Bayόn, J.S.*, Kleinmann, M., Ryan, A.M., & Heimann, A.L. (2026). Rethinking interview design: Does asking about maximum and typical performance in the job interview affect impression management and predictions of job performance?, Journal of Business and Psychology, advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10869-026-10116-0 (Open Access Publication)
Utzinger, C.*, Heimann, A. L., Gerpott, F. H., Annen, H., & Kleinmann, M. (2025). Leader communication techniques: Analyzing the effects on followers’ cognitions, affect, and behavior. Behavioral Sciences, 15(8), 1018. https://doi.org/10.3390/bs15081018 (Open Access Publication)
Schröder, V. S.*, Ingold, P. V., Heimann, A. L., Roulin, N., & Kleinmann, M. (2025). Blind spots in assessing and predicting key dimensions of job performance: An examination of supervisor and self-Ratings. Human Performance, 38(3), 107–131. https://doi.org/10.1080/08959285.2025.2515359 (Open Access Publication)
Schröder, V. S.*, Heimann, A. L., Ingold, P. V., Roulin, N., Schmid Mast, M., Bachmann, M., & Kleinmann, M. (2025). Social desirability tendency in personality-based job interviews—A question of interview format?. International Journal of Assessment and Selection, 33: e70006.
https://doi.org/10.1111/ijsa.70006
Schröder, V. S.*, Kleinmann, M., Heimann, A. L., & Ingold, P. V. (2025). Why do applicants (dis)like selection methods? The role of stimulus and response format for need satisfaction. Journal of Business and Psycholog, 40, 995–1016. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10869-024-10002-7 (Open Access Publication)
Güntner, A. V.*, Heimann, A. L., Kleinmann, M., & Ingold, P. V. (2025). The combined effect of a goal-oriented leadership app and leaders’ mindset in optimising training transfer. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 34(2), 175–187.
https://doi.org/10.1080/1359432X.2024.2412359 (Open Access Publication)
Heimann, A. L.*, & Schmitz-Wilhelmy, A.* (2025). Observing interviewees’ inner self: How authenticity cues in job interviews relate to interview and job performance. Journal of Business and Psychology, 40, 237–256
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10869-024-09949-4 (Open Access Publication)
Ingold, P. V.*, Heimann, A. L., & Breil, S. M. (2024). Any slice is predictive? On the consistency of impressions from the beginning, middle, and end of assessment center exercises and their relation to performance. Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 17(2), 192–205.
https://doi.org/10.1017/iop.2024.2 (Open Access Publication)
Reznik, N.*, Krumm, S., Freudenstein, J.-P., Heimann, A. L., Ingold, P. V., Schäpers, P., & Kleinmann, M. (2024). Does understanding what a test measures make a difference? On the relevance of the ability to identify criteria for situational judgment test performance. International Journal of Assessment and Selection, 32, 210–224.
https://doi.org/10.1111/ijsa.12458 (Open Access Publication)
Schröder, V. S.*, Heimann, A. L., Ingold, P. V., & Kleinmann, M. (2021). Enhancing personality assessment in the selection context: A study protocol on alternative measures and an extended bandwidth of criteria [Methods]. Frontiers in Psychology, 12. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.643690 (Open Access Publication)
Heimann, A. L.*, Ingold, P. V., Debus, M. E., & Kleinmann, M. (2021). Who will go the extra mile? Selecting organizational citizens with a personality-based interview. Journal of Business and Psychology, 36(6), 985–1007. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10869-020-09716-1 (Open Access Publication)
Heimann, A. L.*, Ingold, P. V., & Kleinmann, M. (2020). Tell us about your leadership style: A structured interview approach for assessing leadership behavior constructs. The Leadership Quarterly, 31(4). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2019.101364 (Open Access Publication)
Heimann, A. L.*, & Ingold, P. V. (2017). Broadening the scope: Situation-specific personality assessment with behaviour description interviews [Peer commentary on the paper "Assessing personality-situation interplay in personnel selection: Towards more Integration into personality research" by F. Lievens]. European Journal of Personality, 31(5), 457-459. Preprint (PDF, 105 KB)