Overview

I am a member of the HRM team within the Management group of the Edinburgh Business School, at Heriot-Watt University, as well as Deputy Director of the Centre for the Transformation of Work (CTW).

I am a long-term Academic Member of the CIPD, a Fellow of the HE Academy, and member of BAM, BSA and BUIRA.

I am the Co-Director of Engagement within the School of Social Sciences and REF2029 Impact Case Study Champion for the Edinburgh Business School - key aspects of these roles include building a culture of engagement across the School, and preparing the School for the impact element of REF2029.

My teaching role involves co-ordination of courses on Employment Relations (hons level), and Sustainable Human Resource Management (PGT MSc).

Research, enagagement and impact

I am CI (2023-2026) on the EDI Caucus (EDICa) grant (£4.2m), acting as Principal Investigator on Work Stream 3, the Organisation of Work.

Within EDICa, I am PI on a project published recently (1/2025) aimed at EDI-related changes to doctoral training grants.

I am an Engagement-Champion (Neurodiversity) for the EPRC EDI Hub+ based at the University of Leeds (1/2025 - 12/2028).

I am working on an impact case study for REF2029 entitled, for now, as: Trade union organising responses to the balloting thresholds of the Trade Union Act 2016. Underpinning research includes a paper published in Personnel Review, with a second paper currently under review with Employee Relations journal.

 Recent research

PI on a project (2022-2023, in partnership with Into Work and funded via Inspiring Scotland), a project looking to take the lived experience of autism and employment, plus the lived experience of managing autistic employees, to extend Scotland's Fair Work Framework to include the autistic workforce - see published summary report here.

CI (2018-2022) on a highly successful EPSRC Inclusion Matters funded Disability Inclusive Science Careers (DISC) project (£494k), a project leading to evidence-based training for managers of disabled STEM-based staff (contact me if you want to know more about such training).

Recent publications

Key recent publications involve a systematic review of the lived experience of autistic employees (Autism in Adulthood),  meaning of work in Sri Lanka (Journal of Critical Realism), leaveism (HRMJ), sustainable HRM (Employee Relations), managing leaky bodies in the workplace (Sociology of Health and Illness),  job quality and gig work (International Journal of HRM), trade union organising (Personnel Review), and socially irresponsible HRM (International Journal of HRM).

Doctorial supervision

I currently supervise twelve PhD/DBA students on the following topics: marketing of disability services to employees and employers, chronic ill-health and academic careers, history and emergence of HRM, hybrid working in call centres, disability in professional working, autism and employment (3 students), industrial relations and corporate bias, coaching women leaders in Pakistan, and trade union organising in Nigeria.

I have supervised 10 PhD students to completion on the following topics: socially irresponsible HRM in the betting shop industry, job quality and gig work, LGBTQ+ and academic work, work values in the third-sector, intersectionality and experiences of work for women Polish migrants, bi-polar disorder and the workplace, lived experiences of Nigerian line managers under strategic HRM, meaning of work in Sri Lanka, the labour process in the music industry, and, human resource management in the Chinese oil industry.

External roles

I am a postgraduate (MSc) external examiner at Cardiff University (2023-). I also hold external roles with Scottish Government - Labour Market Evidence Network (2023-) and an advisory board member on the Disability Inclusive Remote and Hybrid Working project, hosted at Lancaster University.

I was a member of the Editorial Board for Work, Employment and Society (2019-2023). I have also examined PhD students at the University of Salford, Nottingham Trent University, Cranfield University, and University of Strathclyde. I have previously held external examiner roles at University of Stirling, Edinburgh Napier University and the University of Bradford.