Research Group

Management and Marketing

A business meeting with young men and women shaking hands.

We build on the foundational principles of management and marketing to redefine what future facing business can achieve.

Our research acknowledges that marketing is not just about memorable slogans; it demands a rigorous understanding of consumers, social contexts, and market evolution. Similarly, management transcends day-to-day planning and oversight, aiming instead to create forward-thinking workplace cultures that equip employees to meet tomorrow’s challenges and support wider society.

Our group is uniquely interdisciplinary, bringing together insights from the social sciences, humanities, data science, and environmental studies to tackle complex problems from multiple angles. We are internationally recognised for pioneering research and pedagogical leadership that bridges theory and practice, shaping sustainable transitions within organisations and society. Whether engaging with global policy, transforming business practices, or empowering local communities, our work has tangible impact at every level—from the classroom to the boardroom, from local initiatives to international collaborations.

Our group is also closely connected to major interdisciplinary research initiatives across the University that were founded and are led by our members. These include COVER (Commons Organising, Values, Equalities and Resilience), which explores post-capitalist transitions and alternative forms of economic, social, and political organising, and the AI Policy Observatory for the World of Work, which examines the ethical, regulatory, and societal dimensions of artificial intelligence in employment. These initiatives exemplify our Group’s leadership in advancing transformative, interdisciplinary research that confronts pressing challenges and reimagines the future of work, economy, and society.

From examining digital solutions that drive financial inclusion in emerging economies, to studying climate change and its economic impacts, our scholars confront some of today’s most urgent organisational challenges. We embrace intellectual independence, critique conventional wisdom, and promote fairer, more innovative business practices.

Below is a brief overview of our diverse research areas:

  • Fostering diversity and inclusion in modern workplaces
  • Assessing the transformative role of digital technology in consumer behaviour
  • Investigating climate politics, environmental transition, and green economies
  • Employing big data, AI, and analytics to inform decision-making
  • Promoting health and wellbeing at work to enrich organisational culture
  • Exploring alternative economies and new forms of work, including cooperatives, mutuals, and platform labour
  • Studying the ethical regulation and socially responsible use of artificial intelligence
  • Analysing the relationship between politics, organisations, and the dynamics of organising
  • Exploring the historical evolution and heritage of global organisations
  • Examining brand activism, anti-consumption, and the reshaping of consumer markets
  • Applying decolonial and intersectional frameworks to management
  • Advancing digital and platform-based economies through innovative research

In so doing, we aspire to generate insights that enable businesses and societies to prosper in a rapidly changing world.

Our research at a glance

A century of change on the London Underground

Dr James Fowler, Lecturer at Essex Business School, has recently published research into the ways that commuting on the London Underground has, or hasn’t, changed in over the past century.

By digging into the available data he has focused on understanding how the customer experience, rather than the organisation’s internal operations, has been affected by change. Analysis like this helps organisations to understand their customers and to compete against the competition.


Read the full article on The Conversation

Radical possibilities for work and society

Professor Peter Bloom critically examines how technology can redefine and transform contemporary work and society. His focus on the human dimensions of organisational life sheds light on the “dark side” of workplace empowerment and how economic marketisation may co-exist with political authoritarianism. In exploring these themes, he reveals new ways of shaping cultures for more just and participatory economic and political structures.

Professor Bloom has published widely, both in leading academic journals and in media such as the Washington Post and The New Statesman. His books include Authoritarian Capitalism in the Age of Globalization, The Ethics of Neoliberalism, and The CEO Society (co-authored with Carl Rhodes), among others.


Read the full article on The Conversation

Affective computing for the future of work

Professor Phoebe V. Moore's current research examines “affective computing” – the use of algorithms and surveillance technologies to track and interpret emotional and behavioural data in the workplace. By exploring how these systems can lead to both productivity gains and privacy concerns, her work sheds light on the significant regulatory and ethical implications of algorithmic management.

Professor Moore’s publications, including her recent report Data on our minds: affective computing at work, call for a reappraisal of corporate and policy standards to ensure employees are treated fairly as AI reshapes modern working environments.


Read the report

Harnessing technology for the common good

Dr James Muldoon work investigates how new technologies—including artificial intelligence and digital platforms—can generate public value and advance the common good. In particular, Dr Muldoon’s latest research uncovers the global production networks that underpin AI development, highlighting how modern digital labour spans ridesharing, food delivery, domestic work, childcare, and beyond.

By illuminating the hidden human labour behind AI in his last book with Prof Mark Graham (Oxford Internet Institute)  and Dr Callum Cant (University of Essex)  he explores how we might transform notions of freedom, power, and democracy in a digital age to create more equitable, inclusive outcomes.


Read about the book on The Guardian

Understanding consumer behaviour through neuroscience

Dr Erik Jacobi leads the Consumer Neuroscience Group and innovative Neuromarketing Lab, which investigates the cognitive and emotional drivers behind consumer decision-making.

Using cutting-edge biometric and neurophysiological tools—such as eye-tracking, facial expression analysis, and brainwave monitoring—his research reveals how people respond to marketing stimuli in real-time. This work offers vital insights for developing more effective, ethical, and inclusive communication strategies in a rapidly evolving media and digital landscape.


Read more about Consumer Neuroscience Group

The future of food as a vehicle for change

Dr Jordon Lazell leads work on the cultural, political, and environmental dimensions of food sustainability. In 2023 and 2021, he organised the Future of Food Symposium, a major international event that brought together academics, practitioners, community leaders, and policy experts to address the challenges of food poverty, surplus food distribution, and sustainable consumption.

The symposium positions food not only as a basic need but as a powerful medium for societal transformation, highlighting community-led solutions, rights-based approaches, and resilient alternatives to the dominant food system.


Read the Symposium report (.PDF)

Democratic innovation and community empowerment

Dr Camila Vergara’s research explores how legal, democratic, and economic structures can be reimagined to empower marginalised communities and revive democratic life. Her work draws on constitutional theory and institutional design to propose practical mechanisms for civic engagement, anti-corruption, and democratic renewal from the ground up.

As the organiser of the Venice World Multidisciplinary Conference on Republics and Republicanism, she convenes global scholars to examine how historical and contemporary ideas can inform urgent efforts to rebuild trust, participation, and justice in political systems worldwide.


Read more about the Venice conference

Management and Marketing

Senior Lecturer, EBS - Management and Marketing
Research interests: Management of diversity and difference in organisations; History, memory and temporality in and of organisations; Leadership, power and ways of leading; Organisations, the media and representation and mediatisation of organisations
Senior Lecturer, EBS - Management and Marketing
Research interests: Digital Marketing; Omnichannel retailing strategies and consumers' decision‐making; Marketing in the Metaverse; Marketing strategy and firm performance; Social Customer Journey; Methodological Interests
Reader, EBS - Management and Marketing
Research interests: Big Data Technologies and Methodologies
Senior Lecturer, EBS - Management and Marketing
Lecturer, EBS - Management and Marketing
Professor, EBS - Management and Marketing
Senior Lecturer, EBS - Management and Marketing
Senior Lecturer, EBS - Management and Marketing
Research interests: Corporate Marketing and Corporate Communication (and associated concepts/issues); Corporate Identity and Corporate Brand Management; Corporate Heritage, brand heritage, and (corporate) heritage brands; Corporate and organisational temporalities and time
Senior Lecturer, EBS - Management and Marketing
Research interests: Work, Crisis, Technology
Lecturer, EBS - Management and Marketing
Research interests: professional values; organisational and workplace ethnography; teamwork, inter-professional relations and the division of labour; academic evaluation of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator; micro-social theory (interactionism, strong structuration, practice theory); the concept of vocation
Lecturer, EBS - Management and Marketing
Senior Lecturer, EBS - Management and Marketing
Professor, EBS - Management and Marketing
Lecturer (R) and MBA Director, EBS - Management and Marketing
Research interests: Corporate Strategy; The Management of Organisational Information; Business, Organisational and Management History; The Value of Hybrid Organisations
Senior Lecturer, EBS - Management and Marketing
Senior Lecturer, EBS - Management and Marketing
Senior Lecturer, EBS - Management and Marketing
Lecturer, EBS - Management and Marketing
Research interests: Market Studies and Organisational Ethnography; Brand Activism and Consumer Resistance; Consumer Neuroscience and Neuromarketing
Lecturer, EBS - Management and Marketing
Research interests: Consumer behaviour; Consumer resistance to innovation; Customer engagement; International Marketing
Lecturer, EBS - Management and Marketing
Research interests: Social Justice; Working Time Regulation; Free Time; Gendered Division of Labour; Inequality
Lecturer, EBS - Management and Marketing
Research interests: Digital Innovation and Management; Mobile Banking for Financial Inclusion; ICTs and Socio-Organisational Change; Digital Technologies and Socio-economic Development; Digital Economies, Digital Payment Innovation in Social Cash Programmes; Digital Identities for Inclusion; Data Governance; e-Government; e-Health
Lecturer, EBS - Management and Marketing
Research interests: Consumer Behaviour, Anti-consumption, Influencer Marketing, Body Image, AI & Chatbots, Wearables and the Internet of Things (IoT)
Lecturer, EBS - Management and Marketing
Research interests: Consumer food waste behaviour; Sustainable Consumption; Circular Economy
Lecturer, EBS - Management and Marketing
Research interests: Brand Management; Consumer Behaviour; International/Global Branding; Advertising and Marketing Communication; Ethical and Green Marketing
Professor, EBS - Management and Marketing
Reader (R), EBS - Management and Marketing
Faculty Director of Partnerships - Professor (R), EBS - Management and Marketing
Research interests: Consumer-technology interface; Marketing Strategy; Consumption Decision Making; Services Environment; Sustainability
Lecturer, EBS - Management and Marketing
Professor, EBS - Management and Marketing
Research interests: Strategy in emerging economies and emerging-market MNCs; Management and economics of innovation in developed and developing countries; Economic development and sustainability; M&As - Leadership and performance
Senior Lecturer, EBS - Management and Marketing
Research interests: Organisational change and mergers and acquisitions; Sensemaking; Sustainable organisational growth
Reader (R), EBS - Management and Marketing
Research interests: User Experience Design (UX); Community Development & Emotional Geographies; Digital labour; Affective labour; Contagion (virality) theory & network culture; Neurocultures
Reader, EBS - Management and Marketing
Research interests: cultural production and contemporary capitalism; social theory; artistic labour; social and political imaginaries; communication technologies; avant-gardes and aesthetics; continental philosophy; social movements; intellectual and social history
Reader (R), EBS - Management and Marketing
Senior Lecturer, EBS - Management and Marketing
Research interests: Optimal Level of Product Variety; Global SC Uncertainty and Risk Management Strategies for SC Resilience; International Business Strategy; Service Supply Chain Performance; Service Customisation and Productisation; Sustainable Global Supply Chain; Emerging Technology in International Business; Challenges in Logistics & Trade
Senior Lecturer, EBS - Management and Marketing
Lecturer, EBS - Management and Marketing
Research interests: Alternative organisations; Sustainable and equitable economies; Community-led technology
Senior Lecturer, EBS - Management and Marketing
Research interests: Learning Pedagogy; Problem-based learning; Transnational education; Firm internationalisation; Autonomy and Embeddedness of subsidiaries of MNCs; Subsidiary performance
Lecturer, EBS - Management and Marketing
Reader (R), EBS - Management and Marketing
Lecturer, EBS - Management and Marketing
Research interests: Consumer psychology; Judgment and Decision Making
Senior Lecturer, EBS - Management and Marketing
Research interests: Employment Relations and the Future of Work; Labour unions and collective bargaining; Non-standard forms of employment
Contact us
Departmental Director of Research Professor Claudia Girardone
University of Essex
Essex Business School University of Essex
Wivenhoe Park, Colchester, Essex, CO4 3SQ
Telephone: 01206 87 3911