Dr Ron Kerr
Lecturer in Organisational Studies

 

Ron joined Newcastle University Business School in September 2011.

Before completing his PhD at Lancaster in Critical Discourse Analysis (supervised by Norman Fairclough), Ron worked on education projects in China, Ukraine and Russia. His academic posts include research fellow and lecturer positions at Lancaster University Management School and at the Open University.

He has published on international development and on leadership and power in organisations in journals including Human Relations, Organization, Leadership, and Organization Studies.

He has presented papers at international conferences, including the Academy of Management, British Academy of Management, European Group for Organisation Studies, SCOS, and Critical Management Studies.

Ron's first degree is from Aberdeen University (English Language and Literature). He has a PGCE from Wolverhampton and an MA in Applied Linguistics from Lancaster.

 

 

 

 

 

My current research builds on a series of studies of leadership and power in organisations. In my research I use the framework developed by Pierre Bourdieu in order to research (1) the phenomenology of power within organisations and (2) the formation, reproduction and reformation of elites.

Another main strand of my research focuses on the mediatisation of organisations managers and crisis, looking at, for example, how elite bankers have been portrayed in the media. This work also draws on Bourdieu, in particular on his use of Panofsky, but also on modes of semiotic analysis in the tradition of Michael Halliday. I am also interested in developing critical and hermeneutic approaches to methodology.

 

 

 

 

 

This academic year (2011-2012) I am module leader of BNS8110 'Strategic perspectives of HRM in the global context', NBS8280 'International leading, managing and developing people' and BUS1002/3 'International Business Environment'.