The Emergent Manager

In my work here in Nottingham I teach, write about and do research on organisations, managerial work, strategy-making, entrepreneurship, HRM and industrial sociology. The books I have written include The Personnel Managers (1977), Management, Organisation and Employment Strategy (1986), In Search of Management (1994/ 2001), The Emergent Manager (1999), Organising and Managing Work (2002) and Sociology, Work and Industry (5th edition 2008). A theme running through my work is the relationship between the emergent life strategies and identities of organisational members (especially entrepreneurs and strategy-makers) and emergent enterprises. Although I use a variety of different research methods, I make particular use of ethnographic techniques. I am especially enthusiastic about narrative (including film-based) forms of research reporting as means of teaching and providing insights to a range of audiences about the complexities, contradictions, pains and delights of organisational and business life.

• Making Sense of ManagingApproaching and Entering Managerial WorkManaging to ManageLearning to Manage and Managing to LearnManaging the Self and Fitting the PartManaging the Self and Playing the PartManaging Relationships and Doing the Right ThingManaging a Life at Work and Away from WorkBoundaries, Balances and PrioritiesManaging ManagementEmergent Managers in a Changing World