The Organisation and Work (OW) Group at Warwick Business School is one of the leading groups of organisation and work scholars in Europe. Its members share an interest in thinking critically about organisation, work, employment, practices, processes, institutions, and management within contemporary and future organisations. We conduct research with significant impact for private, public and NGO organisations and wider society around the world.

OW contains about 30 academic staff and leading organisation and work scholars, including Associate Editors at the Academy of Management Learning & Education (Prof April Wright), Journal of Management (Profs April Wright and David Allen) and Organization Studies (Prof Marianna Fotaki), and key figures within process and practice-based organisational studies (Profs Hari Tsoukas and Davide Nicolini).

By creating an intellectually and socially stimulating environment, at the forefront of research and scholarship, OW has also been able to nurture future 'thought leaders' at Assistant and Associate Professor level, who have lead-authored publications in prestigious management journals, including in the Academy of Management Annals, Academy of Management Journal, Accounting, Organizations & Society, Administrative Science Quarterly, Human Relations, Human Resource Management, Human Resource Management Journal, Journal of Business Venturing, Journal of Management Studies, Organization Science, Organization Studies, and Strategic Management Journal.

OW also comprises outstanding Teaching Fellows, whose teaching excellence has been recognised through a National Teaching Fellowship and Warwick Award for Teaching Excellence (WATE) nominations and awards.

The group is inclusive and members conduct world-leading organisational research on a variety of topics, including innovation, the interface between organization and new technologies, networks, gender, ethics, sense-making, leadership, change, emotions, managerial work, routines, identity, professions and health care management. Members of the group regularly publish in the top journal in the world and actively contribute to shape the current and future research agendas in organisation and management studies.

A significant theme among organisational scholars in OW is the study of organisational ‘process, practices and institutions’ (PPI). The PPI theme brings together a thriving community of organisational researchers who approach the study of organisation and managerial phenomena in processual terms, and explore the emergent, accomplished, material, discursive and historically situated dimensions of organisational and managerial phenomena.

The group also houses the IKON Research Centre, which carries out funded research projects in the fields of innovation, knowledge and organization studies. IKON members help to develop the social science of innovation by applying theoretical perspectives from social and organization theory to team-based empirical studies of the creation, translation and adoption of technological and organizational innovations.

The Industrial Relations Research Unit (IRRU) is a world-leading centre for the study of work, industrial relations, employment relations (ER) and Human Resource Management (HRM). It focuses on: (1) HR and ER strategy - the implications of HRM and ER strategies for organisational performance and on how environmental, institutional and governance shape organisations’ HRM systems and practices, skill creation, employee voice, union and other stakeholder strategies, and micro-level studies of the employment relationship from an organisational psychology perspective; (2) Social responsibility - equality, diversity, careers, work-life balance, labour market flexibility, migrant labour and inclusive labour markets and; (3) Multi-level governance in a global context - ER in the EU and multi-level governance of employment in a global context, including international soft law, international and regional organisations, national regulations, sub-national systems, dissemination of HRM practices in multinational companies, global labour standards setting, and cross-country phenomena, such as migration and international restructuring.

Funded research with impact on policy and practice

OW academics and their funded research have policy and practitioners impact.

Profs Davide Nicolini and Jacky Swan’s Knowledge Innovation Network (KIN) supported over 600 practitioners from 54 different public, private, and charity organizations to improve their knowledge management capabilities.

Prof Marianna Fotaki is currently conducting UKRI funded research on the impact of COVID19 on finances and workforce in UK care homes to inform health and social care policy.

Dr Katharina Dittrich was awarded a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship to investigate finance-focused programmes to manage the climate crisis by purposefully diverting and directing capital allocation towards more sustainable economies and societies.

PhD Students

30 PhD students are affiliated with OW, who are conducting research on themes reflecting the groups broad research interests.

If you are interested in our work, please contact Professor Davide Nicolini (Head of Group) or Lindsey Marr (Group Administrator) via owoffice@wbs.ac.uk.