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Staff Profile

Dr Susan Kirk

Reader in International HR Management

Background

Dr Susan Kirk is Deputy Subject Group Head of the Leadership, Work and Organisation Subject Group within Newcastle University Business School, Newcastle University. She is a Reader in International Human Resource Management and the Research, Scholarship and Impact Co-Lead for the Subject Group. Susan is also the Co-Lead for the Transport, Society and Place theme in the Transport and Mobility NUCoRE. Susan's areas of research interest are; global mobility, talent management, identity studies and, more broadly, organisation studies and international human resource management. Her ESRC-funded PhD was a sociological study of the lives of globally mobile leaders. She supervises doctoral students in these areas and to-date has supervised 7 doctoral students to completion.

Susan is a member of the editorial board for Work, Employment and Society and The International Human Resource Management Journal. She is a reviewer for a number of leading, peer-reviewed journals and international conferences, where she has also been a stream convenor. She has published her work in journals such as Work, Employment and Society,  Global Networks, The International Journal of Human Resource Management, Human Resource Management Review and the European Management Review.

Currently, she involved in several projects including a project exploring the global mobility of academics; research examining identity, place and mobility in the Derbyshire Peak District and a project exploring the research culture within the University. She is also exploring hybrid identities of Advanced Clinical Practitioners with a colleague at University College London and  Gdansk University. 

Susan is a member of the International Leadership Association (ILA) and an elected member of the ILA Women's Senior Executive Council. She was the Co-Track Chair for the Human Resource Management Special Interest Group of the British Academy of Management (BAM) (2016-2019) and she is now the Secretary for the SiG. She is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) and a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (HEA) and a member of both the Trent Institute of Learning and Teaching at Nottiingham Trent University and the University of Surrey Centre for Management Learning.


Research

I am an interpretivist researcher who is fascinated by how individuals make sense of their working lives.  Accordingly I have conducted research on a range of topics, including:

  • Talent management

  • Identity and narrative

  • Global Mobility

  • Ethics and corporate social responsibility

  • Strategy and power

Conferences:

I have presented at a number of international conferences, including:

International Leadership Association (ILA) (2019); Academy of Management Conference (2018; 2014; 2013), The International Professional Doctorates Conference (2016; 2018), British Academy of Management Conference (2018; 2017; 2016), Gender, Work & Organization Conference (2016), Human Resource International Conference (HRIC), Sydney (2016), The Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Conference (2013).

Academic Journal Referee:

Work, Employment and Society, Human Relations, Human Resource Management Journal, Organization

Studies, The International Journal of Human Resource Management, Human Resource Management

Review, Industrial Relations Review, Personnel Review, Thunderbird International Review, International

Journal of Workplace Health Management.


Editorial Board:


Work, Employment and Society and the International Human Resource Management Journal.

Esteem Factors:

Secretary of the HRM SiG, British Academy of Management (2019- )

Theme Co-Lead Transport, Society and Place in the Mobility and Transport NUCoRE (2021-)

Member of the Senior Executive Leadership Team of the International Leadership Association Women's Council (2019-)

Co-Track Chair of the HRM SiG, British Academy of Management (2016-2019)

Member of the Executive DBA Council (EDBAC) Election Council 2018

Member of PhD judging panel for the Academy of Management, Human Resource International Conference, Sydney 2016.

Invited Speaker: ‘Maximising Outcomes for the DBA’, Association of Business Schools & British Academy of Management Doctorate in Business Administration Symposium, Cranfield October 2016.

Member of UK HR Division Academy of Management (AoM) research project entitled ‘International Aspects of Job design’ 2016-

Stream Covenor  ‘Gendered career paths in uncertain and insecure international environments’. Gender, Work & Organisation Conference 2016.

Member of British Academy of Management (BAM) organising committee for BAM/Centre for People, Innovation and Performance. Publishing in 4* journals event 2016.

Reviewer for British Academy of Management (BAM) Centre for People, Innovation and Performance. Publishing in 4* journals event 2015.

 

Teaching

I am a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and having been in academia for 28 years. I have many years of experience teaching at doctoral, PGT, UG and corporate levels. I have extensive experience of module and course design and quality assurance processes.

I am currently teaching on the Managing Change and the HRM and the Future of Work modules at UG level, the Global HRM module on the MSc HRM and Leading Organisational Change on the MBA. I supervise students at UG, PG (taught) and doctoral levels.

I have 7 doctoral completions and am currently supervising three PhD students and am interested in supervising doctoral projects relating to issues of global mobility, identity, ethics and CSR and talent.

Publications