Researchers collaborate with India on empowering methodologies

OUBS researchers have received funding to define and develop the concept of ‘empowering methodologies’ in the postcolonial, globalised context of India.

Professor Emma Bell has secured a grant from the UK-India Education and Research Initiative (UKIERI) for the £50,000 Developing Empowering Methodologies in Management Research project.

Emma, Professor of Organisation Studies, and colleague Dr Tim Butcher, Senior Lecturer in People Management and Organisation Studies, are working in collaboration with Professor Sunita Singh Sengupta from the University of Delhi to develop the concept of ‘empowering methodologies’ in management research in the postcolonial, globalised context of India. The two-year project will enhance research capacity, develop researchers’ skills and strengthen methodological understanding of approaches to business and management research that seek to empower research participants.

This project will address the importance of past and present power imbalances, related to colonialism and imperialism, and explore how they may be overcome in the context of management research. The results will be used as a means of giving voice to marginalised organisational members in the context of postcolonial, globalised India.

It will involve six Indian research case studies which form the foundations for development of a suite of multimedia, open-access online learning resources and a research monograph. It will use politically-aware, humanist methods that ensure researchers’ ethic of care towards participants and enable them to speak openly, including in ways that potentially challenge dominant managerial perspectives.

Professor Emma Bell
Professor of Organisation Studies