Organisation Studies and Human Resource Management Group

Research in this area focuses on the key processes that are critical to developing collective creativity, underlining the types of organisational mechanisms that can be intentionally designed to foster collective creativity. Current projects are being undertaken with different collaborative research initiatives, developed thanks to partnerships with various organisations, particularly in the Italian fashion and industrial design industries. Another set of studies is on practices of collaborative innovation, focusing in particular on University-based intermediaries as key actors that can promote innovation-related collaborations and collaborative spaces.

OSHRM research in this area includes the critical analysis of particular workplace cultures and settings, and of emotional, aesthetic and sexualized forms of interactive service work, using visual methods of data collection, analysis and critical discourse analysis. Current research also includes studies of organisational space, place and setting, incorporating immersive and embodied methods including rhythmanalysis. Current doctoral research on emotional labour includes a study of higher education institutions and organisational change.

OSHRM researchers are working on several projects focusing on gender and work, including embodied experiences and perceptions of ageing and sexuality in the workplace, LGBT people’s experiences of work, the future of work in relation to gender, and reproductive labour in the Global South.

Research in this area includes projects with Provide, a Community Interest Company (CIC), and Essex County Council. Other current projects involve an evaluation of mobile technologies with Essex and Kent police, a project with ACAS on the management of mental health at work, and action-learning research on mental health in the workplace, conducted in collaboration with a range of Essex based public, private and voluntary sector organisations. Other collaborations include: Equity, EY (Ernst & Young), and the Department for Work and Pensions.

Research in this area includes international projects adopting a multilevel approach to studies of job insecurity, taking into account factors related to economic conditions, social policies and labour market features. The goal of this multidisciplinary research is to gain a comprehensive picture of job insecurity in order to identify resourceful contexts and common strategies for dealing with it.

Research projects in this area have sought to understand and evaluate the interrelated dynamics of organisational change, transformation and leadership in organisations. Examples of current work include projects on the evaluation of mobile technologies with Essex and Kent police; health and social care system transformations (including the aforementioned Provide CIC, and Anglian Community Enterprise); a range of longitudinal ethnographic case studies examining the lived experience of employees as recipients and agents of change, and a set of studies focusing on organisational learning and transformational leadership dynamics.

Critical research on sustainability, ethics and CSR is currently being undertaken in collaboration with the International Labour Organisation’s Decent Work Agenda and the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals with specific reference to evaluation projects focusing on the Global South. Other research focuses on the role of multi-stakeholder networks addressing climate change, deforestation and the global food trade, and on global governance efforts in the areas of labour rights and sustainability. 

OSHRM researchers apply critical perspectives to the analysis of human resource management in the public sector in Britain and internationally. Current projects include a critical analysis of governmentality, austerity and public service ‘reform’ in the UK Civil Service, local government and the NHS.

Our research has a strong international focus with expertise on emerging economies such as India and the Middle East and in the nexus of multinational corporations (MNCs) and their global value chains. In collaboration with colleagues across the Global South current projects examine informal and precarious work, reproductive work, automation and possible work futures. Of particular focus are core labour standards and rights, and workers’ organisations, as well as issues associated with job quality, workplace control and representation.