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Home > Staff Profiles > Dr Odul Bozkurt

Dr Odul Bozkurt

BA Hons Political Science (Boğaziçi University);MA History (Boğaziçi University); MA Sociology (University of California at Los Angeles); PhD Sociology (University of California at Los Angeles)

Fellow of the Higher Education Academy

Lecturer

Department

Organisation Work and Technology

Contact

Room: B07
Tel: +44 1524 5 94050
Fax: + 44 (0)1524 594060
Email:

Professional Role

OWT Part I Director 

OWT 101 Coordinator

OWT Research Seminar Series Coordinator

External Roles

I have been a manuscript reviewer for the journals American Journal of Sociology, British Journal of Management, Gender Work and Organization, and Global Networks.

Current Teaching

2010-2011 Academic Year 

Michaelmas Term:

OWT 227 Analysing Organisations:

This is a second year course that begins with a review of core concepts in organizational analysis (structure, agency and process); reviews two significant theoretical approaches to organizational analsysis (Contingency Theory and Institutionalist Theory- the latter in its New Institutionalism and Varities of Capitalism variants); observes the structural transformation of organizational forms in historical context (Reviewing the ascendance of and challenges to Bureaucracies, Taylorism, and Fordism) and inquires about some of the key themes in the transformation of the organizational landscape since the latter half of the 20th century (considering debates around  Flexibility, Financialization, Interorganizational Dependencies, Network Organizing, and Globalization).

OWT 328 Work and Employment Relations

This is a course on the Sociology of Work and it reviews some of the most critical themes in the transformation of work and employment since the emergence of "modern society" as discussed by Marx, Weber and Durkheim. The course begins with these different early conceptualizations of the nature (and significance) of work under modernity, and continues with a discussion of theory and research on industrial work and the transition from industrial work to service work as the dominant form of employment. Lectures on "working for the corporation" and "non-standard work" explore different employment arrangements, while those on skills and training and on gender and employment explore various aspects of stratification among different types of workers. The 10-week module concludes with a brief debate around globalization and work, focusing especially on migrant labor and migrant work.

Lent Term:

OWT 323 Comparative and International Human Resource Management

The main themes explored in the course include the difference between comparative HRM and international HRM, the main theoretical approaches to studying differences in HRM practices in different country locations, the growth of the multinational corporate organization, the assumptions and concerns of the field of "cross-cultural management", international staffing and cross-border mobility, diffusion of HRM practices inside MNCs, gendered dimensions of IHRM, the micro-politics of center-periphery relations inside MNCs, and the regulation of the employment relationship in the global economy. The approach is analytical and social scientific, rather than prescriptive and practitioner-oriented-- the course is primarily  interested in offering an understanding of how MNCs and the flow of ideas of HRM are implicated in standardizing the organization and experience of work globally.   

MA and MSc Supervisions

Interested in supervising projects on the transformation of work, organization and experience of work inside MNCs, forms of mobilities engendered by MNCs, transnational communities and work, especially high-skilled forms of migrant work, retail employment, relationship between technology and skills, comparative/historical work on employment (particularly involving the UK, the US, Scandinavia or Japan).

PhD Supervision

I am currently co-supervising two PhD projects. Ms. Ruth Slater's research looks at the role played by the Chartered Institute of Personnel Development in the institutionalization of HRM in the UK and particularly the professionalization attempts; while Mr Chul Chung's research investigates how headquarters and subsidiary actors conceptualize the dual accomplishment of global integration and local responsiveness of the HR function in MNCs, through empirical work on the case of major Korean corporations.

Visiting Lectureships

I have taught a range of courses (Introduction to Sociology, Social Change, Sociology of Globalization and Communities, International Human Resource Management) in the UK (LUMS, Bradford School of Management, USA (UCLA), Poland (Leon Kozminski Academy), Sweden (Södertörns University College), and Turkey (Boğaziçi University) over the past decade.

Research Interests

Sociology of work and organizations, work and employment in multinational corporations, mobilities and work, international human resource management, international human resource management, retail employment, qualitative methods, comparative methods

I am interested in theoretically driven, empirically sound research that addresses, most broadly, issues around the transformation of the organization and experience of work and employment within the context of globalization.

My curiosity about work inside "transnational social spaces" (Pries 1991) renders Multinational Corporations a particularly important organizational setting for empirical inquiry. In 2000 I carried out a research project on the comparative standings of  multinationals and state economic enterprises in the Turkish tobacco sector. My PhD research in  2002-2004 on high-skilled workers of top global mobile telecommunications companies was again very much situated in the domain of MNCs and employment. This study directly engaged with arguments that the globalization of contemporary capitalism, particularly within the organizational networks of MNCs, helps promote the formation of social groups that may be regarded as "transnational social classes" (Sklair 2000), finding that in fact "the national" continues to circumscribe the possibilities for such class formation for the time being. The study also noted, however, the significance of multinational corporate mobilities -- and of geographical mobility in the shared experience of MNC workers. Several of my publications in edited books and in journals are based on these themes.

In 2005-2007 I was part of an EPSRC-funded project on skills and productivity in the British retailing sector. This project involved a wide-ranging look at two major UK supermarket chains, from the corporate strategy formulated at HQ  to the practices on the shopfloor (investigatd in four different stores in various locations in Britain). The ownership structure (foreign vs. British) of the firms was hardly a dominant theme in the everyday discourse at the operational level of stores, but certainly informed them in important ways. The retail context is of great relevance to far less "globalized" debates of work, employment, and "decent careers", too, as it is to public policy debates across a wide range of countries, including certainly the UK. Retail Work, a book I have recently coedited and which is due for publication in 2011, is the first academic book in the UK for over 10 years that casts a sustained look at the nature of retail work and employment, with numerous inernational/comparative insights.

Since 2007 I have been engaged in research looking at the role of "foreign multinationals" as employers in Japan. Although much has been written about Japanese multinationals and whether and how they transplant employment practices elsewhere, foreign employers in Japan remain understudied. I am particularly interested in the relatively subordinate position of foreign employers in the Japanese labor market and try to understand the greater opportunities they afford women to pursue managerial careers in relation to this position. I am currently continuing to carry out fieldwork in Japan whenever my schedule allows it. The next theme I want to explore in this context is how the concept of "diversity management" is translated into a primarily (if not exclusively) gender issue in this context, and how different organizational actors contribute to its  diffusion.

Research Grants

2011-2012 British Academy Small Research Grant

2009-2010 LUMS Pump Priming Grant

2008-2009 The Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation Small Grant

2004-2005 UCLA Dissertation Writing Fellowship (USA)

2004-2005 UCLA Global Fellows Program Grant  (USA)

2002-2004 Social Science Research Council's Program on the Corporation as a Social Institution Dissertation Research Fellowship (USA)

2002- University Of California Berkeley European Studies Research Grant (for Sweden) (USA)

Profile

I have been a Visiting Scholar/Researcher in Sweden (Stockholm University Dept of Sociology), Finland (Center for Research on Ethnicity and Nationalism, Swedish School of Social Science, University of Helsinki), and Japan (Hitotsubashi University, Graduate School of Commerce and Management and Meiji University Graduate School of Business Administration)

Languages: Turkish (native), English, can-follow-mass-dailies level Swedish, I-survived-my-reroute-from-Granada-to-Girona-During-the-Ashcloud-without-English-level Spanish, very basic French

Recent Talks and Presentations: 

Jan 8th, 2011: "Critical Management Studies: Teaching and Research", in Meiji University Graduate School of Business Administration, Tokyo, Japan

Feb 17th, 2011: "Transnational/Mobile Turkey", "Turkey in Europe" / MA in European Studies Program, Aarhus, Denmark

March 4th, 2011: "Hard Targets, Soft Skills: Managing Productivity Between the Head Office and the Shop Floor in British Supermarkets", Surrey University School of Management, Guildford, UK

April 15, 2011: " 'Expanding' vs 'Surpassing' the National Sphere: Organizational Identity Narratives of Multinational Corporate Employees", AIB-UKI Conference 2011, Edinburgh, UK (Recipient of Critical Perspectives on International Business Award for Best Paper)

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