Management and Strategy Research Unit (MASRU)
Apply to join the Management and Strategy Research Unit (MASRU) and be part of the largest and most diverse research unit in the University of Hertfordshire Business School.
Under director Dr Yassaman (Yasmin) Imani, the unit benefits from a range of research expertise and interests including:
- Complexity Management Research Centre (CMC) and the Doctor of Management Programme
- Strategic Management Research Group
- Human Resource Management
Complexity Management Centre (CMC)
Established in 1995, the Complexity and Management Centre’s main activities include the publication of two series of books, and the running of a PhD group and a professional doctorate program.
These activities have produced 46 doctorates and 11 research masters degrees.
At the Centre we have a particular perspective of understanding organisations as population-wide patterns that emerge in complex responsive processes of daily local interaction between people.
This perspective draws on analogies from the complexity sciences understood in human terms in the discourses of:
- sociology
- psychology
- group analysis
- organisational theory
Focusing on understanding group and social processes, our method is a qualitative narrative one of developing reflective and reflexive inquiries and arguments.
This allows us to examine commonly believed assumptions underlying currently dominant approaches to management.
Research themes
The unit’s research themes include:
- leadership
- power
- ethics
- organisational change
- conversation in organisations
- the effect of anxiety in organisations
- the role of management consultants
Aims
The Complexity Management Centre aims to:
- reflect upon and make sense of personal experience of change and continuity in organisations in the interests of many persons acting simultaneously into unfolding organisational life.
- locate current modes of sense-making in wider intellectual traditions of theorising about organisations.
- gain knowledge on recent developments in nonlinear dynamics, chaos, and complexity theory as analogies for organisational processes.
- develop understanding of group dynamics, power relations and their underpinning ideologies, and role formation in organisations.
- develop understanding conversation as the politics of organisational continuity and change.
- develop insight into the nature and cause of anxiety in organisations and the nature of relationships that might help people to live with it.
- explore the consequences of uncertainty and not knowing in organisations.
- reflect on the hostility and idealisation that managers, consultants and change agents encounter.
- develop an understanding of appropriate research methods for researching what people are actually doing in organisations.
Academic members of the Complexity Management Centre
| Name | Area of expertise |
|---|---|
| Prof Ralph Stacey | Complexity, change, and leadership in organisations. |
Director of the Doctor of Management Programme | Ethics, management, strategy, complexity, and development management. |
| Prof Doug Griffin | Research and application integrating insights into change processes coming from cultural and complexity theory. |
| Dr Nick Sarra | Complexity perspective, and health service. |
| Dr Karen Norman | Complexity perspective, and health service. |
Indicative publications
Strategic Management (including CMC PhD group)
Research topics from both the contemporary and complexity sciences’ perspectives on strategy are the focus of the Strategic Management group.
The CMC PhD Research Group, led by Dr Dorothea Noble, provides expert knowledge perspective on:
- strategy
- strategic alliances
- international business and business history
- public and third sector management
- corporate social responsibility and business ethics
- SME management.
Industrial expertise within the unit includes the palm oil, media, and construction industries.
Academic members of Strategic Management
| Name | Area of expertise |
|---|---|
Director of MASRU | Knowledge perspective on strategy, Chinese management practices in developed countries, strategic change, and qualitative secondary reviews. |
| Dr Dorothea Noble | Complexity and change. |
| Dr Janet Kirkham | Small business management, and research methods for professional doctorate programmes. |
| Dr Susan Martin | Strategic management, business history, and palm oil industry. |
| Dr Hans Schlappa | Public and third sector management, and public services. |
| Dr Peter Fraser | Entrepreneurial and small business marketing, arts marketing, and complex responsive processes. |
| Rikke Duus | E-marketing. |
| Jana Filosof | Corporate social responsibility, social enterprise, and construction industry. |
| Dr Mariana Dodourova | Strategic alliances and the media industry. |
| Rachelle Andrews | SMEs and complexity. |
Human Resource Management
A diverse selection of topics are covered under Human Resource Management including performance management and the role of technology in HR.
Academic members of Human Resource Management
| Name | Area of expertise |
|---|---|
| Dr Cynthia Forson | Equality and Diversity in the Labour Market and Organisations. |
| Dr Steve Foster | The role of ITC in HR, and e-HR. |
| Paul Smith | HR and happiness at work. |
| Sue Anderson | Work Life Balance/ Conflict of Commitments, and Performance Management. |