phone: +44 (0)24 765 24690

email: Derin.Kent@wbs.ac.uk

room: 2.128

Profile (biography)

Derin Kent is Associate Professor of Organisation Studies at Warwick Business School, United Kingdom. He specialises in ethnographic research with people who work in extreme contexts -that is, those that are physically or psychologically dangerous. He has conducted research with participants ranging from disaster relief organisations to storm chasers to seafaring crews , developing insights into how people and organisations thrive in highly adverse conditions, touching on themes such as resilience, sensemaking, and temporality.

Derin's research has been published in journals including Academy of Management Journal, Organization Studies, Organization Theory, Academy of Management Annals, and Journal of Business Venturing, and outlets such as Harvard Business Review and The Conversation. This research and the panels he has organised have been quoted in business media like Financial Times and Fast Company. He co-organises the Extreme Contexts Seminar Series, an international and interdisciplinary series of talks/workshops for the community of extreme contexts scholars.

Prior to joining Warwick Business School, Derin was a postdoc at Aalto University (Finland) and earned his PhD at Queen’s University (Canada). He has experience as a university instructor in various programmes in Europe and North America (including MBA and executive), teaching subjects like change management, career management, organisational behaviour, and research methods.

Outside of academia, Derin is an outdoor enthusiast and Operational Team Leader at the British Red Cross, where he responds to incidents ranging from fires to floods and provides emergency management training to organisations.

Research Interests

Extreme contexts; isolated and confined settings; organisational ethnography; personal growth in organisations; resilience; sensemaking; terrorism

Publications

Journal articles

Kent, D. & Dacin, M. T. 2024. After the crisis: Explaining stories of professional identity growth from collective action. Organization Studies. https://doi.org/10.1177/01708406241295495

Kent, D. & Granqvist, N. 2024. Chasing storms: Temporal work to foster group engagement under uncertainty. Academy of Management Journal. https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2021.1316 

Wright, A., Kent, D., Hällgren, M., & Rouleau, L. 2023. Theorizing as mode of engagement in and through extreme contexts research. Organization Theory, 4(4). https://doi.org/10.1177/26317877231217310

Kent, D. 2019. Giving meaning to everyday work after terrorism. Organization Studies, 40(7): 975-994.

Dacin, M. T., Dacin, P. A., & Kent, D. 2019. Tradition in organizations: A custodianship framework. Academy of Management Annals, 13(1): 342-373.

Kent, D. & Dacin, M. T. 2013. Bankers at the gate: Microfinance and the high cost of borrowed logics. Journal of Business Venturing, 28(6): 759-773.

Digital articles

Kent, D. & Granqvist, N. 2024 (October 18). Even storm chasers get bored at work - here's what they can teach us about focus. The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/even-storm-chasers-get-bored-at-work-heres-what-they-can-teach-us-about-focus-237092

Beunza, D., & Kent, D. 2020 (August 28). Returning to the office: How to stay connected and socially distant. The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/returning-to-the-office-how-to-stay-connected-and-socially-distant-145210

Beunza, D., & Kent, D. 2020 (June 8). Remote working is not the same for traders – here’s why. The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/remote-working-is-not-the-same-for-traders-heres-why-140274

Martela, F. & Kent, D. 2020 (June 3). What to do when work feels meaningless. Harvard Business Review (digital article). https://hbr.org/2020/06/what-to-do-when-work-feels-meaningless

Book chapters

Zikic, J., Kent, D., & Richardson, J. 2018. International job seekers. In U.-C. Klehe & E.A. van Hooft (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Job Loss and Job Search (pp. 481-500). New York: Oxford University Press.