Dr Jennifer Manning

    School of Business

    Assistant Professor

    Biography

    Jen is Assistant Professor of Responsible Management in Maynooth University. Her research focuses on decolonial feminist theory to explore colonialism, hetero patriarchy and capitalism in management & organisation studies and management education. She employs a critical pedagogy to stimulate students critical thinking skills and engage their critical and social consciousness. Her work has been published in ABS3 journals Organization, Management Learning and Gender, Work & Organization, as well as other peer-reviewed publications and book chapters. Jen is co-chair of the Critical Management Studies division of the Academy of Management (2024-2029) and serves on the editorial board of Organization.

    Research Interests

    I take a critical approach to management, work, and organisation. My research interests include:

    • Exploring alternative ways of working and organising. This includes using decolonial and feminist lenses to understand different indigenous working and organising practices, and alternative community-led approaches to organising.
    •  Critical management education and the decolonisation of knowledge.
    • Exploring the relationship between business and society to understand how people, workers and educators can address the urgent issues in this historical moment concerning socio-ecological crises and rising inequalities.
    • Using critical reflexive ethnographies and empowering ethical approaches for engaging in qualitative research. 
    My current research interests are focused on the decolonisation and depatriarchalism of management and organisation studies (MOS) by exploring alternative ways of working and organising. This approach to research challenges the dominance of theories that are implicitly male/masculine, white/western and bourgeois/managerial and calls for diverse critical perspectives in MOS to nurture a space for pluriversal and multi-theoretical lenses to challenge our understanding of power and its relation to gender, ethnicity, race, class, sexuality, ecology, and socio-political location. This contributes to my research interest in critical management education. A critical management pedagogy understand education to be political, ethical, humanistic, and even radical, and invites students to take seriously the history of exploitation and oppression reproduced by different forms of political economy, including capitalism, white heteropatriarchy, colonialism and imperialism, and the progressive struggles for freedom and equality.

    Peer Reviewed Journal

    Year Publication
    2024 Jennifer Manning (2024) 'A performative critical management studies: Developing a critical management pedagogy as intellectual activism praxis'. Organization, . [Link] [DOI]
    2021 Jennifer Manning (2021) 'Decolonial feminist theory: Embracing the gendered colonial difference in management and organisation studies'. Gender, Work & Organization, . [Link] [DOI]
    2019 Jennifer Manning (2019) 'Decolonial Feminist Theory: Embracing the Gendered Colonial Difference in Management & Organisation'. Academy of Management Proceedings, . [DOI]
    2019 Weston, A.; Miguel Imas, J.; Manning, J.; Donnelly, P.; Ngwerume, K. (2019) 'Un(der)employed youth: From precariousness to resilience'. Psicoperspectivas, . [Link] [DOI]
    2018 Jennifer Manning (2018) 'Communitarian Organising: Maya Women Decolonising Organisation and Management Studies'. Academy of Management Proceedings, . [DOI]
    2018 Jennifer Manning (2018) 'Becoming a decolonial feminist ethnographer: Addressing the complexities of positionality and representation'. Management Learning, . [DOI]
    2016 Manning, J. (2016) 'Constructing a postcolonial feminist ethnography'. Journal of Organizational Ethnography, . [Link] [DOI]

    Book Chapter

    Year Publication
    2022 Manning, J (2022) 'A decolonial feminist ethnography: Empowerment, ethics and epistemology' In: Empowering Methodologies in Organisational and Social Research. India : Routledge.

    Other Publication

    Year Publication
    2023 Manning, J (2023) Problematizing Management Learning and Education in the Development of a Critical Management Pedagogy. https://doi.org/10.21427/XNDD-2G93
    Certain data included herein are derived from the © Web of Science (2025) of Clarivate. All rights reserved.

    Professional Associations

    Description Function From / To
    Academy of Management Critical Management Studies Division Co-Chair 01/08/2024 - 01/08/2029

    Editorial / Academic Reviews

    Amount Role From / To
    Organization Member of the Editorial Board -
    Management Learning Reviewer -
    Human Relations Reviewer -
    Journal of Business Ethics Reviewer -
    Gender, Work & Organization Reviewer -

    Honors and Awards

    Date Title Awarding Body
    01/09/2024 Excellence in Research Supervision Nominee Technological University Dublin
    01/09/2023 Sustainability Education Bursary Technological University Dublin
    10/01/2022 Entrepreneurship Education Bursary GROWTHhub at Technological University Dublin
    01/02/2021 Postdoctoral Supervisor Award Technological University Dublin
    05/08/2017 Best Critical Doctoral Dissertation Award Academy of Management
    01/06/2017 Highly Commended Doctoral Research Awards in the Management and Governance category Emerald/EFMD
    08/04/2016 Most Though-Provoking PhD Paper Award The Qualitative Research in Management and Organisation Studies conference

    Teaching Interests

    I lecture in Responsible Management, a discipline that draws on ethics, sustainability, EDI, and explores the relationship between people, business and society. Much of my teaching is informed by my engagement with the Critical Management Studies community and research on critical management education. I employ a critical pedagogy to stimulate students critical thinking skills and engage their critical and social consciousness and I am currently adapting this transformational learning strategy to suit large classroom learning environments.

    My current research in critical management education explores different approaches to teaching and learning that are rooted in the everydayness of students lived experiences in our epoch of crises and uncertainty to try engage students critical and social consciousness by providing them with a space to think critically about the social, political and economic phenomena that shape individuals and societies; encouraging them to create alternative versions of what is possible.

    I have taught in the disciplinary areas of Research Methods, Strategic Management, and Critical Thinking and Problem Solving, at all higher education levels, modes of delivery (full-time, part-time, executive, international, face-to-face, online, workshop-based), and cohort sizes. I have successfully designed, validated, delivered and led modules and programmes in a range of subject area and levels, and supervised over 20 postgraduate taught students to successful completion of their dissertations.