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Organisation and Work

April Wright

Phone: +44 (0)24 765 24690

Email: April.Wright@warwick.ac.uk

Room: 2.142

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Profile (biography)

April Wright is Professor of Organization Studies at Warwick Business School, University of Warwick. April is an organizational theorist who uses qualitative field research methods to examine the processes through which institutions are created, changed, maintained and disrupted, with a particular focus on professions, professional work, and custodianship of values and places. Her research has been conducted in diverse contexts including hospital emergency department and English cricket and has been published in leading international journals including Administrative Science Quarterly, Academy of Management Journal, Organization Studies, Journal of Management Studies, British Journal of Management, Organizational Research Methods, Journal of Business Venturing, and Research in the Sociology of Organizations. A second stream of research focuses on management learning and education, including threshold concept learning, evidence-based management, and team-based and experiential learning pedagogies. This research has been published in Academy of Management Learning & Education, Management Learning, and Journal of Management Education. April is an Associate Editor at the Academy of Management Learning and Education, a former Associate Editor at the Journal of Management, and serves on the editorial boards of the Academy of Management Journal, Organization Studies and Organizational Research Methods. April is also a national award winning teacher in Australia and has lead two large grants funded by the Australian Research Council.

Publications

Most recent research publications include:

Hibbert, P. and Wright, A.L. (2022). Challenging the hidden curriculum: building a lived process for responsibility in responsible management education. Management Learning (In press)

Wright, A.L., Irving, G., Zafar, A. & Reay, T. (2022). The role of space and place in organisational and institutional change: a systematic review of the literature. Journal of Management Studies (In press)

Staggs, J., Wright, A.L., & Jarvis, L. (2022). Organizational and institutional entrepreneuring: processes and practices of creating in an organized world. Organization Studies, 43(2): 159-177.

Williams, G., Irving, G., Wright, A.L. & Middleton, S. (2022). Managing job-related diversity processes in high-reliability teams in the emergency department. British Journal of Management. 33(1), 502-518.

Huang, P., Wright, A.L. & Middleton, S. (2022) The role of materiality in student learning about strategy. Academy of Management Learning and Education, 21(1): 35-60

Wright, A.L., Meyer, A.M., Reay, T. & Staggs, J. (2021). Maintaining Places of Social Inclusion: Ebola and the Emergency Department. Administrative Science Quarterly. 66(1): 42-85.

Wright, A.L., Irving, G. & Selvan-Thevatas, K. (2020). Institutional work and professional values: Values work by nurses in the emergency department. Organization Studies.

Wright, A.L., Middleton, S., Hibbert, P. & Brazil, V. (2020). Getting on with field research using participant deconstruction. Organizational Research Methods. 23(2): 275-295.

Markwell, A., Mitchell, R., Wright, A.L., & Brown, A.F. (2020). Clinical and ethical challenges for emergency departments during communicable disease outbreaks: can lessons from Ebola Virus Disease be applied to the COVID-19 pandemic? Emergency Medicine Australasia, 32(3): 520-524.

Irving, G., Wright, A.L. & Hibbert, P. (2019). Threshold concept learning: Emotions and liminal space transitions, Management Learning, 50(3): 355-373.

Wright, A.L., Irving, G., Hibbert, P. & Greenfield, G. (2018). Student understandings of evidence-based management: Ways of doing and being. Academy of Management Learning and Education, 17(4): 453-473.

Wright, A.L., Hibbert, P., Strong R., & Edwards, M. (2018). Exposing practical, psychological and pedagogical shadow sides of experiential learning. Journal of Management Education, 42(6): 761-771.

Wright, A.L., Zammuto, R.F. & Liesch, P.W. (2017). Maintaining the values of a profession: Institutional work and moral emotions in the Emergency Department. Academy of Management Journal, 60(1): 200-237.

Wright, A.L., Zammuto, R.F., Liesch, P.W., Middleton, S., Hibbert, P., Burke, J., & Brazil, V. (2016). Evidence-based management in practice: Opening up the decision process, decision-maker and context. British Journal of Management, 26(1): 161-178.

Wright, A.L., Middleton, S., Greenfield, G., Williams, J. & Brazil, V. (2016). Strategies for teaching evidence-based management: What management educators can learn from medicine. Journal of Management Education, 40(2): 194-219.

Wright, A.L., Staggs, J., Middleton, S., Burke, J., Markwell, A., Brazil, V., Mitchell, R. & Brown, A.F. (2015). Teaching and learning in an era of time-based access targets: impact of a new model of care on junior medical officers. Emergency Medicine Australasia, 27(4): 355-358.

Nichols, E., & Wright, A.L. (2015). Using the Everest Team Simulation to teach threshold concepts. Journal of Management Education. 39(4): 531-537.

Wright, A.L. & Zammuto, R.F. (2013). Wielding the willow: Institutional change processes in English County cricket. Academy of Management Journal, 56(1): 308-330.

Wright, A.L. & Zammuto, R.F. (2013). The Colonel and the Cup: Creating opportunities for institutional entrepreneurship in English County cricket. Journal of Business Venturing, 28(1): 51-68.

Wright, A.L., Nichols, E., McKechnie, M. & McCarthy. (2013). Combining crisis management and evidence-based management: The Queensland floods as a teachable moment. Journal of Management Education. 37(2): 135-160.

Wright, A.L. & Gilmore, A. (2012). Embedding threshold concepts in an introductory management course. Journal of Management Education. 35(5): 614-634.

Wright, A.L. (2009). Domination in organizational fields: It’s just not cricket. Organization, 16(6):855-885.

Wright, A.L., Murray, J. & Geale, P. 2007 A phenomenographic study of what it means to supervise doctoral students. Academy of Management Learning and Education, 6(4): 458-474.