Our members regularly review for academic publishers, edit collections and book series, and publish research monographs including:
The focus of CWOS research in this area is 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.
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.
Hoedemaekers, C., (2019) , Psychoanalysis, Culture and Society. 24(3): 303-322.
Nash, L., (2020) , Organisation Studies. 41(3): 301-321.
Tyler, M. (2020) . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Freeman, T., Kunter, A., Douglas, C. and Roper, I., (2015) 鈥樷, Human Resource Management International Digest. 23(5): 43-44.
Fu, H., Su, Y. and Ni, A., (2018) 鈥樷, Gender and Society. 32(6): 814-836.
Hancock, P. (2019) 鈥樷. Organisation. On-Line First DOI:
Our CWOS 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鈥檚 experiences of work, the future of work in relation to gender, and reproductive labour in the Global South.
Current doctoral research on gender and work includes an ethnographic study of aerial dance and the gendered nature of 鈥榚dgework鈥, and working practices at the Feminist Library, London. Collaborations include the United Nations Global Compact Target Gender Equality, Johnson & Johnson, the United Nations Systems Staff College, the International Labour Organisation, and the European Parliament. Research also includes collaborations around auto-ethnographic accounts of race, gender and marginalized communities.
CWOS research in this area includes projects with Provide, a Community Interest Company (CIC), and 糖心Vlog County Council. Other current projects involve an evaluation of mobile technologies with 糖心Vlog 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 糖心Vlog 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 糖心Vlog 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.
CWOS 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 鈥榬eform鈥 in the UK Civil Service, local government and the NHS.
CWOS 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鈥 organisations, as well as issues associated with job quality, workplace control and representation.
Current research also examines opportunity structures and social justice in the UK context, engaging with lived experience and social policies. Specific projects currently focus on: structural racisms and their intersections with other social divisions and inequalities; in-work poverty; labour market transitions, and social mobility. Members of CWOS have recently undertaken research for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation 鈥業mmigration and Inclusion鈥, 鈥楶overty and Ethnicity鈥 and 鈥楤radford鈥 Research Programmes, and for the TUC on vulnerable workers, casualisation and low pay. Funded by the British Academy, another current project in this area, undertaken in collaboration with Equity and the Musicians鈥 Union, focuses on the impact of COVID on self-employed live performers in the UK.