Professor Christopher Land

Chris’ research straddles the sociology of work and organization studies with a particular interest in sustainable futures of work. His work is interdisciplinary and combines theoretical and conceptual inquiry with qualitative research, predominantly using interview and observational methodologies. He is available for business consultancy working with clients on issues related to culture and change, leadership development, and group dynamics.

[email protected]

Background

Chris joined ARU in 2018, having previously worked at the universities of Leicester, Essex, St Gallen, Innsbruck and Warwick, where he was awarded his PhD in 2004. Chris’ research is underpinned by an abiding interest in the relationship between economic forms of value and substantive values, for example ethical values, aesthetic values and political values. This continues to ground his research, with recent work having examined the re-emergence of ‘craft’ as a signifier of value in post-Fordist production, particularly in the ‘craft beer’ scene, ethical business practices, and the limits of Socially Responsible Management.

Chris is currently working on two main projects:

• Upskilling for Industry 5.0 – a large, Horizon EU project examining the prospects for a fifth industrial revolution, utilising new technologies to place sustainability, human-centrism, and resilience at the heart of European manufacturing. This project uses ethnographic research methods to examine the implications of Industry 5.0 innovations for skills and quality of work.
• Sustainable Production in coffee growing – a small, British Council funded project exploring tribal empowerment in coffee growing in India, and the prospects for social, ecological, and economic justice in the global commodity chains of coffee beans.

Chris is also working on smaller projects, with an ongoing interest in a range of topics where he would be interested in collaborating and potentially supervising doctoral students. These include:

• Wellbeing in the workplace, with a particular focus on wellbeing practices and their implementation at work
• Representations of the future of work in film, television, and fiction
• Cultural imaginaries of the future of work in human resource management and public policy

Spoken Languages

• Beginner level German

Research interests

• The Future of Work
• Value/values and the labour theory of value
• Neo-craft and artisanal work, including food and drink
• Alternative organisations, including social movements and cooperatives
• Critical Management Studies and Critical Theory
• Cultural representations of work and organisation, especially in novels
• Democratic organizing at work
• Wellbeing and work
• Digitalisation and work, particularly Industry 5.0
• Skills, technological change, and sustainability

Areas of research supervision

Chris is a qualitative researcher, with experience of ethnographic and interview-based research methodologies. He is happy to consider proposals from PhD applicants with an interest in using theoretical or qualitative research methods to investigate any of the research interests listed above, but particularly:

• The ‘future of work’ as a cultural imaginary shaping technological decision making in organizations and economic development policies.
• Skills and technological change (in manufacturing, professions, and service sector).
• Wellbeing at work and corporate wellbeing programme.
• Ethical business models (cooperatives, B-Corps etc) and ‘good’ working practices.

Teaching

Chris teaches on a range of modules including Ruskin Modules on technological change and work, the Sociology of Work, Organizational Behaviour, and Leadership and Change.

Qualifications

• PhD Industrial and Business Studies, University of Warwick
• MA Organisation Studies (with distinction), University of Warwick
• BA (Hons) Interdisciplinary Human Studies (first class), University of Bradford

Memberships, editorial boards

Memberships:

• Chartered Manager: Chartered Management Institute (CMI)
• Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, since 2018
• Member of the European Group on Organization Studies (EGOS)
• Editorial Board Member - Organization Studies
• Editorial Board Member  - Organization
• Advisory Board Member - Organizations and Activism book series, Bristol University Press

Research grants, consultancy, knowledge exchange

• Horizon EU: Human 26: Upskilling for Industry 5.0 (2022-25) - €600,000 (Co-investigator). A large scale, collaborative project with a total value of €5m, with partners from industry and HE across the UK, Italy, Sweden, Germany and Spain, and led by the Anglia Ruskin Innovation Centre – a collaborative Innovation centre between ARU and TWI (The Welding Institute). This project uses long-term ethnographic analysis of technological change and digitalisation to understand the skills implications of Industry 5.0 in a range of industries from large scale automotive manufacturing and construction to artisanal craftmanship in the ateliers of Milan.
• British Council: Empowering Global Coffee Growers (2023-24) - £40,000 (Co-Investigator). A project exploring the prospects for empowerment of tribal coffee growers through training and development in sustainable global commodity chains for coffee.
• ESRC Seminar Series: Democratic Renewal in Civil Society (2016-17) - £21,395 (Co-investigator). Running six-seminars bringing together practitioners, policy-makers and academics, to explore the potential for more equal, democratic and participative forms of organizing work and society.
• Haniel Stiftung (Foundation): Recreating Entrepreneurship (2010-11) - €36,000 (Principle Investigator). This funding was for a one-year Research Fellowship in ‘Recreating Entrepreneurship’ at the University of St Gallen, Switzerland, culminating in an international conference on ‘The Aesthetics and Politics of Organization’ at the St Gallen Kunsthalle.
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Selected recent publications

Weik, E., Land, C. and Hartz, R. (2024) The Handbook of Organizing Economic, Ecological and Societal Transformation. Berlin: De Gruyter.

Watson, D., Wallace, J., Land, C. and Patey, J. (2023) ‘Re-organising wellbeing: contexts, critiques and contestations of dominant wellbeing narratives’, Organization, 30(3), pp. 441-452.

Böhm, S., Jones, C. and Land, C. (2021) ‘Theory and politics in organization’, ephemera: Theory and Politics in Organization, 21(4).

Langmead, K., Land, C. and King, D. (2020) 'Can Management Ever Be Responsible? Alternative Organising and the Three Irresponsibilities of Management'. In: Research Handbook of Responsible Management. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. ISBN 978 1 78897 195 9.

Weir, K. and Land, C. (2020) ‘Towards an anarchist theory of value’. In: Parker, M., Swann, T. and Stoborod, K. (Eds.) (2020) Anarchism, Organization and Management: Critical Perspectives for Students. London: Routledge.

Land, C., Sutherland, N. and Taylor, S. (2019) ‘Back to the Brewster: Craft Brewing, Gender and the Dialectical Interplay of Retraditionalisation and Innovation’. In: Bell, E., Mangia, G., Taylor, S. and Toraldo, M. L. (Eds.) (2019) The Organization of Craft Work: Identities, Meanings and Materiality. London: Routledge.

King, D. and Land, C. (2018) ‘The democratic rejection of democracy: Performative failure and the limits of critical performativity in an organizational change project’, Human Relations, 71(11), pp. 1535-1557.

Goworek, H., Land, C., Burt, G., Zundel, M., Saren, M., Parker, M. and Lambe, B. (2018) 'Scaling Sustainability: Regulation and Resilience in Managerial Responses to Climate Change', British Journal of Management, 29(2), pp. 209-219.

Land, C. and Taylor, S. (2018) 'Access and Departure', in Cassell, C., Cunliffe, A. L. and Grandy, G. (Eds.) 'The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Business and Management Research Methods'. London: Sage Publishing.

Land, C. (2018) ‘Back to the future: Reimagining work through craft’, Futures of Work, 3(19).

Media experience

Chris has published blogs and been interviewed on radio and television about a number of topics related to work and employment, including Radio 4’s Food Programme and BBC television.