Dr Laura Mitchell
Senior Lecturer

Profile

Biography

Laura has been teaching in UK Universities since 2007 and completed her PhD in Management at the University of Lancaster in 2011; she also holds an MA in Human Resource & Knowledge Management from the same institution. She joined the School for Business and Society in 2021, having previously worked in her own company as a self-employed management trainer and educator applying play-based pedagogy.

Laura first began a full-time lecturing position in Management in 2011 at the University of Keele, teaching in both management and human resource management (HRM). Her teaching specialisms have generally included critical perspectives on management and organisational behaviour, ethics and dignity in the workplace, sociological theory, and organisational culture. She has also taught postgraduate classes for University of Manchester on dignity in employment.

Laura is a Fellow of the HEA, and of the Royal Society for Arts, Manufactures & Commerce. She is also a board member of the Standing Conference in Organisational Symbolism (SCOS).

Departmental roles

• Co-lead of the Centre for Advanced Studies in Management Education (CASME)

Laura is the module leader for;

• Introduction to Business Ethics and Sustainability.
• Global Perspectives in Human Resource Management and Employment Relations.

Laura also teaches on;

• Sustainability in Business.
• Leadership in Practice.
• Management and Sustainability.
• Management in the Age of Artificial Intelligence.

Subject Group

Work, Management & Organisation

Research

Overview

Laura’s research interests are broadly focused on the topic of workplace dignity, organisational values and their performance as seen through culture. This includes an interest in morality, social valuation practices, play and conflict as it appears in organisations, both in the circumstances of business and more broadly in a range of alternative organisations who demonstrate different (ie non-commercial) priorities.

Laura’s work explores organisations that exist over boundaries, such as those between leisure community and market, between human and nonhuman actors, between spaces of regulation, or between play and productivity.

Laura’s general areas of research interest include;

• Workplace Dignity
• Organisational Culture
• Decent Work
• Relational Ethics
• Critical Social Theory & Critical Management Studies
• Creative Research Methods
• Play at Work
• Serious Games

Projects

Research group(s)

Grants

Collaborators

Available PhD research projects

Supervision

Publications

Full publications list

Mitchell, L. (2020) Games as Spaces of Translation, Analog Game Studies http://analoggamestudies.org/

Mitchell, L & Taalas, S (2020) “‘It’s not fair! –Passion, play and entrepreneurship” in Baraldi, E. Guercini,S. Lindahl,M & Perna, A. Rethinking the connection between passion and entrepreneurship Palgrave Macmillan

Lennerfors, T & Mitchell, L (2019) (eds) SCOS: Searching Collectively for Our Soul, Editoriale Scientifica: Napoli

Mitchell, L and Hamilton, L (2018) “Hefted: Value and mobility in the UK Lake District” Culture and Organization available online:  https://doi.org/10.1080/14759551.2018.1488850

Mitchell, L and Buckley, C.A.G (2018) “Weird experience: Transformations of Space in “Lovecraftian” Live-Action Role-playing Games.” Studies in Gothic Fiction

Hamilton, L and Mitchell, L (2018) “Knocking on the door of human animal studies: Reading the value of work across disciplinary and species borderlines” Society & Animals. 

Mitchell, L (2018) “Genre and Feeling: a contrast between writing horror and fantasy LARP” in Brind et al (2018) The Peckforton Papers: essays from four decades of British LARP pp80-89 Available online: http://www.wychwood-end.com/publications.html [practitioner publication]

Hamilton, L and Mitchell, L (2017) "Dignity and species difference within organizations" in Kostera, M & Pirson, M (eds) Dignity and the Organization, Palgrave pp59-80

Mitchell, L (2017) "Dignity and membership: a route to the heart of how dignity is done in everyday interaction" in Kostera, M & Pirson, M (eds) Dignity and the Organization, Palgrave pp37-58

Mitchell, L (2016) “Volunteers as monstrous workers: ‘monsters’ in UK live-action roleplay game organizations” Culture and Organization available online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14759551.2016.1241254

Mitchell, L (2015) “"Materiality, magic and belief: Framing the countryside in fantastical live-action roleplay games." Ethnography 17 (3), 326-349

Hamilton, L Mitchell, L and Mangan, A (eds) (2014; 2nd ed. 2019) Contemporary Issues in Management, Edward Elgar: Gloucester

Mitchell, L (2014) “Dignity and Meaningful Work in Organisations” in Hamilton, L Mitchell, L and Mangan, A (eds) Contemporary Issues in Management, Edward Elgar: Gloucester

Teaching

Undergraduate

Laura is the programme director for BA Management

She also is the module leader for;

• Foundations of Business Ethics

Other teaching

She has previously contributed to programme design and redevelopment to support international study, and taught on a wide range of topics including;

• Social Theory at Work
• International Business Cultures
• Introduction to Human Resource Management
• Organisational Behaviour
• Work and Employment Relations
• Critical Management Studies 
• Business Ethics
• Contemporary Issues in Management