You are here

  1. Home
  2. Research
  3. Research degrees
  4. George Briley

George Briley

Research Student

George Briley is affiliated with The Open University's Department of People and Organisations

You can email George Briley directly; but for media enquiries pleases contact a member of The Open University's Media Relations team.

Biography

 

Current Research

Community and Urban Resistance Leadership

George’s research focusses on leadership practices and labour processes in contemporary hospitality work, mainly through analysing service labour performed in pubs. His research explores how workers themselves understand their work, the forms of leadership they experience from above, and the forms of informal, collective and resistance leadership that emerge from below.

He explores the changing nature of hospitality labour against the backdrop of urbanisation, discussing the impacts of the gig economy and other management technologies in relation to space and place. Particularly, he considers how labour organising might be developed in this sector, also considering the wider field of industrial relations in which it occurs. 

Through his background in anthropology, he holds a keen interest in immersive fieldwork methodologies and ethnography, particularly in developing forms of co-research such as workers inquiry. His research interests include work, industrial relations, the gig economy, automation, workers inquiry, leadership, and ethnographic methods.

Supervisors

Dr Jamie Woodcock

Dr Owain Smolović Jones