Keele Management School

I am a Lecturer in Management and at Keele Management School, Keele University. I am also the School's International Co-ordinator. I previously held a post at the Centre for Labour Market Studies, at the University of Leicester. I was awarded a PhD from Wolverhampton University for my work on Call Centres and Employee Resistance. My current work focuses upon the growth of the Service Sector and the contemporary experience of work using Ethnographic techniques to gain an immersive insight to the world of work. I have written about the use of Role Play in Call Centre Recruitment and Selection processes, the engagement of worker's sexuality in customer service environments, the career path of female junior Managers and Employee Branding.

I have played a significant role in developing and contributing to the research culture of the RI for Public Policy and Management at Keele. As an ethnographer I am keen to draw upon both my PhD and more recent fieldwork to document the experience of contemporary work in the service economy, specifically to draw attention to processes and dynamics of organizational life that may remain hidden from less immersed forms of investigation. My work has been funded by both Higher Education Academy and the ESRC. The ESRC funding has enabled me to initiate the creation of a multi-disciplinary, cross-institutional research seminar series to explore the emotions and embodiment of research processes. I am also a lead co-organizer of the joint Liverpool and Keele Symposium on Current Developments in Ethnography in the Social and Management Sciences (http://www.liv.ac.uk/ethnography).

Journal Articles

• Brannan, M. J. and Priola, V. (2010) 'Girls Who Do Boys Like They're Girls'? Exploring the Role of Gender in the Junior Management of Contemporary Service Work, Gender Work and Organization.
• Priola, V. and Brannan, M. J. (2009) 'Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Exploring Women's Experience of Participation and Progress in Managerial Careers', Equal Opportunities International, 28:5 pg 378-397.
• Brannan, M. J, Pearson, G., Worthington, F. (2007) 'Ethnographies of Work and the Work of Ethnography', Ethnography, 8:4 pg 395-402.
• Brannan, M. J. and Hawkins, B. (2007) 'London Calling': Selection as Pre-Emptive Strategy for Cultural Control, Employee Relations, 29:2. pg 178-191.
• Brannan, M. J. (2005) 'Once More With Feeling' Ethnographic Reflections on the Mediation of Tension in a Small Team of Call Centre Workers, Gender, Work and Organization, 12:5 pg. 420-439.

Books

• Brannan, M. J., Parsons, E., Priola, V., (2011) 'Branded Lives: The Production and Consumption of Identity at Work' Edward Elgar.

Book Chapters

• Brannan, M.J. (2006) OCall Centres as Community of Practice¹. in Unwin et al Community of Practice: Critical Perspectives, Routledge.

Working Papers

• Priola, V. and Brannan, M. J. (2008) 'Conflicting Pressures And Seductive Contradictions: Women's Participation and Progress In Management', Aston Business School Working Papers Series, (RP0904) (ISBN: 978-1-85449-744-4).
• Priola, V. and Brannan, M. J. 'Girls Who Do Boys Like They're Girls'? Gender And Call Centre's Junior Management, Aston Business School Working Papers Series (RP0906) (ISBN:978-1-85449-746-8).

My teaching involves the provision of critical Business and Management education at under-graduate, post-graduate and post-experience levels and I am currently supervising four PhD students, I am involved in the teaching of HRM and wider organization studies and related topics and a keen interest to develop student awareness and expertise in qualitative inquiry especially Ethnography and Participant Observation. My pedagogic practice involves the teaching of a diverse student body and I have experience of teaching in Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia. I have recently gained a Post-Graduate Certificate in Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, which was awarded by Keele University and am a member of the Higher Education Academy.