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Management Learning & Leadership

Home > Staff Profiles > Professor David Collinson

Professor David Collinson

PhD, School of Management, UMIST (1988)

MSc (by research), School of Management, UMIST (1981)

BSc (Hons), Dept. of Management Sciences, UMIST (1978)

Chair

Department

Management Learning and Leadership

Current Teaching

I organise and teach on the Department's 3rd year BSc undergraduate course in 'Rethinking Leadership' and also teach on our specialist Masters programmes (MA in Management Learning & Leadership; MA in HR & Consulting; International Masters in Practicing Management; Executive MBA) as well as supervise doctoral students.

Research Interests

My research adopts a critical approach to leadership, management and organisation studies. Informed by post-structuralist perspectives on power/subjectivity and gender/masculinity, current research focuses on the situated and dialectical nature of relationships between 'leaders' and 'followers', exploring the interrelated dynamics between influence, persuasion, commitment, compliance, resistance, identity and masculinity.

My research is particularly concerned to examine the conditions, processes and consequences of 'identity dynamics' within workplace cultures (see e.g. Collinson 2003, 2006, 2008, 2011). I am especially interested in the ways that individuals seek to construct identities for themselves and the personal, social and organisational consequences of this 'identity work'. Over the past thirty years, I have conducted empirical research on various leadership and management practices within diverse private and public sector organisations from computing, insurance and engineering companies to North Sea oil installations.

In RAE 2008, my four submitted articles were all published in A grade journals: Human Relations, Leadership Quarterly, Journal of Management Studies, and Organization.

In 2009 I completed a three year secondment as the National Research Director (2006-2009) for the Centre for Excellence in Leadership (CEL)/Learning and Skills Improvement Service (LSIS), leading over 90 HE and practitioner research projects in the UK learning and skills sector. Between 2003 and 2009 I was also lead investigator on a further five research projects funded by CEL/LSIS.

I am the founding co-editor (with Keith Grint) of the peer reviewed, international journal 'Leadership'. In its first year the journal attracted online subscriptions from 105 countries. Now in its eighth volume, the journal has established a reputation for critical, high quality and cutting-edge leadership research. All 14 papers published in 'Leadership' that were included in the 2008 UK Research Assessment Exercise were graded 3*. In 2010 the journal was accepted into Thomson ISI Social Science Citation Index.

I am also co-organiser of the 'International Studying Leadership Conference'. This meeting was held at Lancaster University in 2003 and 2005, and has also been hosted at the Universities of Oxford, Exeter, Cranfield, Warwick, Auckland and Birmingham. In 2010, the conference was held at the University of Lund in Sweden. Authors of papers presenting their research at the conferences are encouraged to submit their work for peer review in 'Leadership'.

Profile

I was appointed to the Chair in Leadership and Organisation at Lancaster in 2002. Previously I have worked at the Universities of Warwick, South Florida, St. Andrews and Manchester. In 2001 I was also elected as the Hallsworth Visiting Professor at Manchester Business School. I have a BSc, MSc by research and a doctorate all in Management and have published nine books (with a four volume set on 'Major Works in Leadership' forthcoming) and over one hundred articles, chapters and research reports that seek to contribute to the development of critical approaches to leadership, management and organization studies.

2008   Lancaster University Research Prize (Established Researchers) awarded for ‘excellent work in the field of leadership’

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