Research themes

Globalisation

Staff engaging in research within this theme include Brigitte Granville, Alvaro Angeriz, Santanou Basu, Dorota Bourne, Paul Duguid, Bernadette Kamleitner, Giuliano Maielli, Sushanta Mallick, Pedro Martins, Pietro Panzarasa and Martha Prevezer. 

The research topic of this group focuses on the sources and consequences of globalisation, here understood in its broad sense of interconnectedness. For example, current projects are concerned with the international fair trade movement, its legal support and social implications; brands, trademarks and global competitiveness; trade and currency reforms; competitiveness, innovation and tangible investment in Europe; labour markets and business cycles, entrepreneurship; foreign direct investment and multinational firms, new regions and technological advantage; the structure and dynamics of linkages between individuals, social groups and firms, the conditions that promote or hinder information diffusion and the spread of innovation, and the mechanisms that underpin the flow of labour, technology and capital between and within countries; the development of economic systems; and the evolution of global business.

Equality and Diversity

Staff engaging in research within this theme include Alvaro Angeriz, Ishani Chandrasekara, Hazel Conley, Sadvhi Dar, Geraldine Healy, Gill Kirton, Pedro Martins, Mike Noon, Cliff Oswick and Ahu Tatli.

CRED's research draws on a number of key debates and conceptual developments (for example, equal opportunities vs. diversity management, the importance of intersectional studies of inequalities, the value of capitals (social, cultural and economic), the contested nature of career) by drawing on sociological, economic, industrial relations, critical discourse analysis and subaltern studies.

Specific research topics have related to employment relations policies and practices, discrimination, income inequality, labour market and sectoral studies, international development, subaltern knowledge, global diversity management, migration, professional and low paid work, trade unions, career studies and organisational aspects of equality and diversity. Whilst research in the Centre is informed by a range of perspectives and methodologies, its underpinning commitment is to social justice and inclusion in equality and diversity research.

Innovation, Networks and Knowledge

Staff engaging in research within this theme include Dorota Bourne, Peter Clark, Ishani Chandrasekara, Paul Duguid, Brigitte Granville, Pedro Martins, Sushanta Mallick, Pietro Panzarasa, Martha Prevezer and Maxine Robertson.

Research in this theme focuses on the inter-relationship and co-evolution of innovation, knowledge and networks. Innovation is conceptualised as a complex, uncertain, dynamic networking arrangement, shaped by powerful stakeholders, in which knowledge is emergent, contested, integrated, diffused and applied. Importantly, the group reject the pro-innovation bias inherent in this area of research, characteristic of neo-institutionalism and instead adopt a critical approach that problematises innovation across a range of industrial and market sectors. The group focuses on two areas of research broadly defined – the bio-medical/bio-technology field and knowledge diffusion and network dynamics.

Business History

Staff engaging in research within this theme include Paul Duguid, Roger Johnston, Giuliano Maielli, Sean McCartney, Nicholas O'Shaughnessy and Michael Rowlinson. 

The Business History Research Theme ranges chronologically from the Eighteenth Century (McCartney on English canals) to the post-war period (Maielli on technological change and robots at Fiat).

There is an especially notable 'clustering' in historical research in the inter-related fields of communication, marketing, PR and advertising. But we also go beyond conventional definitions of 'Business History', for example with the analysis of the (mis)use by corporations of their own history as part of their public relations, and studies of the marketing effort of political parties.

Communications, Discourse and Narratives

Staff engaging in research within this theme include Cliff Oswick, Dorota Bourne, Nicholas O'Shaughnessy, Stefano Harney, Michael Rowlinson, Sadhvi Dar, Bernadette Kamleitner, Ahu Tatli, Ishani Chandrasekara and Paul Duguid.

The Communications group shares an interest in studying organisational communications from different perspectives, combining an interdisciplinary approach with discourse analysis and narrative methods of organisational research.
The themes of the projects and the research undertaken by the group members are very diverse and cover a range of industries from creative and advertising industries through NGO's to global manufacturing. The School’s particular focus on international management has led to various research projects and initiatives, and resulted in publications on such topics as politics, propaganda and political marketing, consumer behaviour, globalisation and the transfer of knowledge and consumer expertise, the transfer and creation of knowledge and the tensions between history and organisation theory.

Education 

The School hosts a cluster of scholars conducting research and publishing in education, pedagogy, and curriculum development. This scholarship includes: accounting education and student performance; writing skills and employability; comparative narratives of student experiences in PhD education; measuring the private and social returns to education, the signalling value of degree classifications, and the determinants of student achievement; and theorising the post-colonial lecture hall, and conceptualizing students as co-workers in the university.