Keele Management School
Explore this Section
Emma Bell is Professor of Management and Organisation Studies and Director of the Centre for Economics and Management. She serves on the editorial boards of Organization, Human Relations, Management Learning, Scandinavian Journal of Management and Gender, Work and Organization and is external examiner at Kings College, University of London. She is currently an Executive member, incoming Program Co-Chair, of the Critical Management Studies Division of the Academy of Management http://group.aomonline.org/cms/.
Emma is interested in working internationally with colleagues and students in countries such as India, where she visited recently on a UKIERI Staff Exchange project. http://www.ukieri.org/ She is an experienced PhD supervisor who actively welcomes doctoral students to work with her, particularly on topics of an interdisciplinary nature.
Emma Bell’s research interests are in the study of organisational culture and meaning-making at work. She has published articles and book chapters about organizational culture and ethnography,
the management of change and loss, and spirituality and belief in organizations.
Her work also focuses on methods and methodologies of management research. She is co-author of Business Research Methods (Oxford University Press, 2011) with Alan Bryman http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780199583409.do, currently in its third edition.
Emma is currently pursuing an interest in visual representations of organization and management, including how film shapes our expectations and reflects concerns about work, Her book, Reading
Management and Organization in Film (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), focuses on these issues. http://www.palgrave.com/Products/title.aspx?PID=278694 She is a founding member of InVisio - the
International Network of Visual Studies in Organizations, http://in-visio.org/ and has recently worked on an ESRC Researcher Development Initiative http://www.rdi.ac.uk/projects/round4/46.php project to
promote the development of visual analysis in management research.
Her new book with Richard Thorpe, A Very Short, Fairly Interesting and Reasonably Cheap Book about Management Research, is published by Sage in 2013. She is also co-editor of the Routledge
Companion to Visual Organization http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415783675/
Journal Articles
Bell, E. and Taylor, S. (2013) 'Uncertainty in the Study of Belief: The Risks and Benefits of Methodological Agnosticism', International Journal of Social Research Methodology. DOI: 10.1080/13645579.2013.798973
Bell, E. and Taylor, S. (2013) 'Writing History into Management Research', Management & Organizational History, DOI:10.1080/17449359.2012.761487
Bell, E. and Davison, J. (2013) ‘Visual Management Studies: Empirical and Theoretical Approaches’, International Journal of Management Reviews, 15(2): 167-184
Bell, E., Taylor, S. and Driscoll, C. (2012) ‘Varieties of Organizational Soul: The Ethics of Belief in Organizations’, Organization. 19 (4): 425-439
Bell, E. (2012) ‘Ways of Seeing Death: A Critical Semiotic Analysis of Organizational Memorialization’, Visual Studies, 27(1): 4-17.
Bell, E. and Taylor, S. (2011) ‘Beyond Letting Go and Moving On: New Perspectives on Organizational Death, Loss and Grief’, Scandinavian Journal of Management, 27(1): 1-10.
Bell, E. and King, D. (2010) ‘The Elephant in the Room: Critical Management Studies Conferences as a Site of Body Pedagogics’, Management Learning, 41(4): 429-442.
Taylor, S., Bell, E., Grugulis, I., Storey, J. and Taylor, L. (2010) ‘Politics and Power in Training and Learning: The Rise and Fall of the NHS University’, Management Learning, 41(1): 87-99.
Taylor, S., Bell, E. & Cooke, B. (2009) ‘Business History and the Historiographical Operation’, Management & Organizational History, 4(2): 151-166.
Bell, E. (2008) ‘Towards a Critical Spirituality of Organization’, Culture & Organization, 14(3): 293-307.
Bell, E. (2007) ‘Disruptive Religion: The Case of the Catholic Worker-Priests (1943-54)’, Journal of Management, Spirituality and Religion, 4(4): 432-442.
Bell, E. and Bryman, A. (2007) ‘The Ethics of Management Research: An Exploratory Content Analysis’, British Journal of Management, 18(1): 63-77.
Kunter, A. and Bell, E. (2006) ‘The Promise and Potential of Visual Organizational Research’, M@n@gement, 9(3): 169-189.
Bell. E. (2006) ‘Whose Side are They on? Patterns of Religious Resource Mobilization in British Industrial Mission’, Management & Organizational History, 1(4): 331-347.
Bell, E. and Taylor, S. (2005) ‘Living with Accreditation: Business School Badging and Academic Identity’, Studies in Higher Education, 30(3): 239-255.
Hoque, K., Taylor, S. and Bell, E. (2005) ‘Fifteen Years of Investors in People: Market-led Voluntarism in Vocational Education and Training’, British Journal of Industrial Relations, 43(1): 133-151.
Bell, E. and Taylor, S. (2004) ‘From Outward Bound to Inward Bound: The Prophetic Voices and Discursive Practices of Spiritual Management Development’, Human Relations, 57(4): 439-466.
Bell, E. and Taylor, S. (2004) ‘A Exaltação do Trabalho: O Poder Pastoral e a Ética do Trabalho na Nova Era’, Revista de Administração de Empresas, 44(2): 64-78.
Bell, E. and Taylor, S. (2003) ‘The Elevation of Work: Pastoral Power and the New Age Work Ethic’, Organization, 10(2): 329-349.
Bell, E., Taylor, S. and Thorpe, R. (2002) ‘Organizational Differentiation Through Badging: Investors in People and the Value of the Sign’, Journal of Management Studies, 39(8): 1071-1085.
Bell, E., Taylor, S. and Thorpe, R. (2002) ‘A Step in the Right Direction? Investors in People and the Learning Organization’, British Journal of Management, 13(2): 161-171.
Bell, E., Taylor, S. and Thorpe, R. (2001) ‘Investors in People and the Standardization of Professional Knowledge in Personnel Management’, Management Learning, 32(2): 201-219.
Bell, E. (2001) ‘The Social Time of Organizational Payment Systems’, Time & Society, 10(1): 45-62.
Bell, E. (1999) ‘Changing the Line of Sight on Payment Systems: A Study of Shop-Floor Workers and Managers within the British Chemical Industry’, International Journal of Human Resource Management, 10(5): 924-940.
Bell, E. (1999) ‘The Negotiation of a Working Role in Organizational Ethnography’, International Journal of Social Research Methodology, 2(1): 17-37.
Books
Bell, E. (2008) Reading Management and Organization in Film. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Bryman, A. and Bell, E. (2011) Business Research Methods. 3rd edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Book chapters
Bell, E. Cullen, J. and Taylor, S. (2012) ‘Sustainability and the Spiritual Work Ethic’, P. Case, H. Hopfl and H. Letiche (eds.) Organization and Belief. Palgrave Macmillan.
Bell, E. (2012) ‘Understanding Audiences’ in Billsberry, J., Charlesworth, J. and Leonard, P. (eds.) Moving Images: Effective Teaching with Film and Television in Management. Information Age Publishing.
Taylor, S. and Bell, E. (2011) ‘The Promise of Re-enchantment: Organizational Change and the Spirituality at Work Movement’ in Boje, D., Burnes, B. and Hassard, J. (eds.) The Routledge Companion to Organizational Change. pp. 569-579. London: Routledge.
Kenny, K. and Bell, E. (2011) ‘Representing the Successful Managerial Body’ in Jeanes, E. Knights, D. and Yancey Martin, P. (eds.) Handbook of Gender, Work and Organization. pp. 163-176. Chichester: Wiley.
Bell, E. (2011) ‘Managerialism and Management Research: Would Melville Dalton Get a Job Today?’ in Cassell, C. and Lee, B. (eds.) Challenges and Controversies in Management Research, pp. 122-137. London: Routledge.
Bell, E. and Wray Bliss, E. (2009) 'Research Ethics: Regulations and Responsibilities' in Bryman, A. and Buchanan, D. (eds.) Sage Handbook of Organizational Research Methods, pp. 78-92. London: Sage.
Bell, E. and Tuckman, A. (2002) ‘Hanging on the Telephone: Temporal Flexibility and the Accessible Worker’, in R. Whipp, B. Adam and I. Sabelis (eds) Making Time: Time and Management in Modern Organizations. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Selected Publications
-
2012. Varieties of Organizational Soul: The Ethics of Belief in Organizations. Organization: the interdisciplinary journal of organization, theory and society, vol. 19(4), 425-439. doi>
-
2012. Ways of Seeing Death: A Critical Semiotic Analysis of Organizational Memorialization. Visual Studies, vol. 27(1), 4-17.
Full Publications List show
Books
-
Burrell G, Marchington M, Thompson P (Eds.). 2008. Reading management and organization in film. Palgrave MacMillan.
Journal Articles
-
2012. Varieties of Organizational Soul: The Ethics of Belief in Organizations. Organization: the interdisciplinary journal of organization, theory and society, vol. 19(4), 425-439. doi>
-
2012. Ways of Seeing Death: A Critical Semiotic Analysis of Organizational Memorialization. Visual Studies, vol. 27(1), 4-17.
-
2009. Spiritualities of Life: New Age Romanticism and Consumptive Capitalism. BRITISH JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY, vol. 60(3), 648-650. link>
-
2009. Business History and the Historiographical Operation. Management and Organizational History, vol. 4(2), 151-166.
Chapters
-
2011. The Promise of Re-enchantment: Organizational Change and the Spirituality at Work Movement. In The Routledge Companion to Organizational Change. Boje D, Burnes B, Hassard J (Eds.). Routledge.
-
2011. Representing the Successful Managerial Body. In Handbook of Gender, Work and Organization. Jeanes E, Knights D, Martin PY (Eds.). Wiley-Blackwell.
-
2010. Managerialism and Management Research: Would Melville Dalton Get a Job Today?. In Challenges and controversies in management research. Cassell C and Lee B (Eds.). Taylor & Francis.
-
2009. Research Ethics: Regulations and Responsibilities. In The SAGE handbook of organizational research methods. Buchanan DA and Bryman A (Eds.). Sage Publications Ltd.
- MAN20055 Organisational Behaviour
- MAN30062 Management, Organisation and Media

