Doctoral Researchers in WOM

Meet our PhD students and discover their innovative ideas and research in the area of Work, Organisation and Management (WOM).

PhD students discussing their research projects.

Malika Ben Kahla

Exploring Experiences of Women in Academia

The journey to equitable representation and remuneration in organisations has been widely problematised in the literature, and the gendered nature of Academia is no exception.

This piece of qualitative research explores the experience of Women in Academia, considering the capacity of their maternal bodies and how they have navigated careers in the University setting.

Building on extant literature and key knowledge gaps, this qualitative research will focus on the careers of academics, individual intersectional identity, space, and social justice within the academic workplace.

The findings will generate important implications for managing and promoting Diversity and Inclusion in UK Academia, which may be relevant more broadly.

Ebru Calin

Negotiating sexuality, religion, and the odedient body at work: An intersectional approach to exploring barriers to career among Lesbian and hetrosexual Muslim women professionals

The empirical aim of this study is to move beyond the intersecting axes of gender and race by exploring experiences of what it is to be a homosexual or heterosexual person of faith and to capture how the interstices of religion and socially constructed notions of ‘good motherhood’ and ‘professionalism’ influence these individuals' employment experiences over time.

Thus, this proposed study addresses a pressing need for research that is both interdisciplinary and intersectional in its approach.

Talks

TEDx Talk at Royal Central School London - “Too Brown, Queer & Muslim? Or not White, Muslim or Queer enough?”

Lisa Chamberlain

Exploring ‘Good Work’: Quality of Working Life in Small Businesses

This project uses participant observation and photo-elicitation interviews with hairdressers and barbers in England to explore how informal human resource management practices in small businesses impact workers’, managers’, and salon owner/managers’ quality of working life.

The research was primarily informed by Grote and Guest’s (2017) quality of working life framework and a need for better understandings of informal, ad-hoc HRM practices within small businesses (Harney and Alkhalaf, 2021), and my primary contributions will be to these literatures.

More specifically, my research contributes a more nuanced, multi-level understanding of how management practices in small businesses influence quality of working life for both managers and workers.

My research interests mainly include quality of working life, employment relations in small and micro businesses, creative and craft work, the use of technology in traditionally manual trades, education and skills, and gender, class and race at work.

Sharon Cooksey

Supporting the ‘Tall Poppy’

Medical and veterinary practitioner (‘MVP’) professional degree courses (i.e., medical doctor, veterinary surgeon) select high proportions of high achiever, academically gifted undergraduate individuals (‘tall poppies’).

Post-graduation working MVPs exhibit extreme levels of poor mental health and suicide. These professions also suffer from chronic critically low retention rates.

The overarching research aim is to explore individual differences in the pursuit of achievement in high-achieving working adults. Specifically, to provide empirical evidence about why they matter, and how they might be leveraged to improve mental health and retention in MVPs and other high achiever populations.

Additionally, the work seeks to clarify the personality construct ‘perfectionism’ distinct from the motivation for achievement. In so doing, it challenges the widely held view that perfectionism is endemic and a primary cause of poor mental health in the MVP professions.

The research adopts a quantitative longitudinal design and includes a randomised (active) controlled intervention designed specifically for MVPs.

Joanna Gregory-Chialton

Penalties and Premiums: Understanding the decisions-making of work-family management in same-sex couples

This research looks at how, in the absence of socially ascribed gender roles, do same-sex couples participate within the labour market after having children.

Specifically, it seeks to understand how same-sex couples ‘do gender’ or ‘redo gender’ through their anchoring and daily decision-making processes and the impact that has on the management of their work-family responsibilities.

Additionally, it will aim to understand how same-sex couples are affected by ‘motherhood penalties’ and ‘fatherhood premiums.’

Sophia Hinton-Lever

An interdisciplinary study into the fetishisation of young women in the British museum and gallery sector, post New Labour

The research critically examines the extent to which the museum and gallery sector institutionalise exploitative practices whilst presenting themselves as progressive, with a focus on the understudied museum and gallery sectors.

It does so by critically examining the commodification and fetishisation of creative labour from a gendered perspective.

It utilises post structural feminist philosophies, and feminist Deleuzianism to approach questions of agency, embodiment and the body, and employs ethnographic methodologies.

Prabowo Imansantosa

Supreme Audit Institution and Anti-Corruption in Indonesia 

Supreme Audit Institutions and their operations have not been extensively studied or well understood, especially outside of the Anglo-American and North European contexts.

At the same time, although it has been quite frequently mentioned in professional non-academic publications, the link between SAIs and the issue of corruption has only been an academic concern quite recently.

To fill the gap, using an institutional approach my research will focus on the operation of Indonesia’s SAI in dealing with corruption issues.

Mya Kirkwood

Inclusive leadership in daily practice for neurodivergent followers: a qualitative diary study 

Greater understanding of how neurodivergent employees and their managers experience inclusive leadership in practice will not only advance theory on inclusive leadership and neurodiversity inclusion; but crucially, it also holds the important potential to support the wellbeing and performance of neurodivergent employees, their managers, and organisations. 

Consequently, this research looks at how neurodivergent employees, and leaders of neurodivergent employees, define and experience “inclusive leadership” in daily practice.

Specifically, this research will analyse real-world contextual experiences of inclusive leadership, reported in interviews and daily diaries of leader-follower interactions kept by neurodivergent employees and managers of neurodivergent employees.

The project aims to identify behaviours, processes, and their contextual features, that constitute “inclusive leadership” from the perspectives of these individuals, in the aim of supporting organisations and managers towards more inclusive leadership practices for neurodivergent employees. 

Sophie Le Brocq

Examining how the gig economy is experienced by low to high skilled workers.

This research focuses on gig economy workers through a combined psychological contract (PC) and labour process theory (LPT) lens.

It will examine how the nature of the PC in the contractor-client relationship affects gig workers at different skill levels in the UK.

Such insights into the relationships between organisations and workers may serve to aid regulatory decisions and place constraints on the extent to which business platforms can be used to circumvent employment protections and appropriate employment classifications.

Hannah McAleavey

Through sickness and health? A qualitative investigation into the decision to work whilst sick and the consequences for employee well-being

My research will employ semi-structured interviews alongside qualitative diaries to explore the decision-making processes driving presenteeism, the act of working whilst sick, and its consequences for well-being.

Research to date has focused largely on the antecedents and consequences of presenteeism and more knowledge is needed surrounding the intra-individual processes and dynamics triggering the behaviour.

My research will also aim to gain a better understanding of how and when presenteeism can be a sustainable choice.

Dennis Otieno

Breaking Through the Firewall: Examining the multi-dimensional impact of gendered racial microaggressions on Black women supervisors in the workplace in England: coping mechanisms, career outcomes, and the role of workplace power dynamics

Despite the recognition of the positive impact of diversity and inclusion on organizational financial performance, innovation, and decision-making, subtle forms of discrimination, such as gendered racial microaggressions, are often overlooked.

This study fills this gap by examining the impact of gendered racial microaggressions on the career fulfilment of black women supervisors in the workplace in England, with a focus on the role of workplace power dynamics and coping mechanisms of targets.

Blessing Otuore

This research will examine the intersection of digitalisation and inclusion within the public sector.

It aims at better understanding how leaders in public service organisations manage the tensions and prospects of digital technologies.

Additionally, it will explore how public service leaders bring to their decision-making an enhanced recognition of the financial capabilities of their service and the legal requirements to both digitalise and remain inclusive.

Natthapong Pakieranum

High performance work system (HPWS) implementation on well-being at work: Exploring the role of HR attributions and contextual factors in educational organisations

This research targets the impact of HPWS implementation upon well-being in educational organisations.

The focuses are on: 1) highlighting well-being as the consequence of HPWS; 2) proposing HR attributions and contextual factors to understand the impact of HPWS implementation.

The project will be conducted through using multi-level analysis. The findings will contribute to a better understanding between HPWS and those variables.

Yuchen Xiao

The Development of Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area under One Country, Two Systems

This project considers relationships between political and economic integration through an analysis of the Greater Economic Bay Area (GBA) that incorporates the two special administrative regions (Hong Kong and Macau), which have distinctive governance arrangements, and nine cities located within Guangdong province.

The establishment of such zones, where business enjoys greater regulatory and economic freedoms, is not a novel concept within China and therefore deserves in-depth research.

Chunyu Xiu

Enhancing employee performance and wellbeing via HR bundles implementation and employee HR attributions

My PhD project highlights the process of HPWS implementation by line managers and the process of sense-making of HPWS by employees.

Theories on leadership will be used to understand the implementation process and psychological theories on attribution will be used to understand the HR sense making process of employees.

I’m using a longitudinal research design involving multi-source data collection and multi-level data analysis to address the research questions.

Back to: Management School