Dr Maria Adamson

Profile

Roles:

• Leverhulme Trust Research Fellow (2024-2026)
• Member of the Department of People and Organisations
• Co-Director of the Centre for Research in Equality and Diversity

Biography:

Dr Maria Adamson is a Reader in Work and Organisation Studies. She joined the School of Business and Management in 2020, having previously worked at the University of Essex and Middlesex University London. She holds a PhD from the University of York, UK and an MA from Central European University.

Dr Adamson is a critical scholar and her work has been published in world-leading journals including Human Relations, Sociology, British Journal of Management, Gender Work and Organisation and so on. She has a track record of national and international funding, including a recently completed ESRC-funded project on Gendered Inclusion in Contemporary Organisations where she was a Principal Investigator. She currently holds Leverhulme Trust Fellowship (RF-2024-528\7) to carry out a new project exploring the influence of role models entitled: “Inspired by 'superstars'? A critical theory of celebrity role models’ influence.

Teaching

Undergraduate:

• BUS305: Managing Diversity

Postgraduate:

• BUSM102: Dissertation for International HRM & Employment Relations
• BUSM144: Research Methods 

(not teaching 2024-2025)

Published Teaching Materials:

Book chapters

• Adamson, M (2020) Researching business celebrity autobiographies: Challenges and opportunities for diversity scholars. In A. Risberg, S.N. Just and F. Villsèche (eds) Routledge Companion to Organizational Diversity Research Methods, London: Routledge.

Maria is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

Research

Research Interests:

Dr Adamson’s main research interests lie in the area of gender and diversity in professional work, specifically, she is interested in:

• gendered work, careers and workplace inequalities
• role models and their influence
• flexible working practices and work-life balance
• business celebrities and the impact of popular culture on work and organisations.
• professions and professional work

Her previous research projects have explored the role of gender in professions and the gendered professionalisation process, and critically explored the quality of inclusion in organisations, applying postfeminist lens to understand contemporary gendered inequalities in the workplace. Her current project focuses exploring the elite female executives as gendered role models, specifically it seeks to understand the relationship between cultural discourses of femininity produced by celebrity executives and the impact they have on aspiring businesswomen and the construction of gendered workplace meanings. 

Centre and Group Membership:

• Co-director of the Centre for Research in Equality and Diversity (CRED)

Publications

Publications in peer review journals

• Adekoya, O., Adamson, M., Mordi, C., Ajonbadi, H., & Toyin, A. (2024). In the Grip of Traditionalism? How Nigerian Middle-Class Working Mothers Navigate Normative Ideals of Femininity. Gender and Society. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/08912432241289404
• Adamson, M., & Kelan, E. K. (2024). Reading In‐Between: How Women Engage with Messages of ‘Superstar’ Business Role Models. British Journal of Management. Online first: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1467-8551.12768
• Adamson, M., Beauregard, T.A., and Lewis, S. (2023) Future-Proofing Your Flexible Workforce: Lockdown Lessons from Managers Who Are Parents. Working Families Report
• Adamson, M, Muhr, S.L., and Beauregard, T.A. (2023) Theorising work-life balance endeavours as a gendered project of the self: the case of senior executives in Denmark. Human Relations, 76(4), 629-654
• Adamson, M Lewis, PMJ, Kelan, E, Sliwa, M and Rumens, N. (2021) Introduction: Critically interrogating inclusion in organisations, Organization, 28(2): 221-227
• Adamson, M., and Johansson, M. (2021). Writing class in and out: Constructions of class in elite businesswomen’s autobiographies. Sociology, 55(3), 487-504.
• Beauregard, T.A., Adamson, M., Kunter, A., Miles, L. and Roper, I. (2020) Diversity in the work–life interface: introduction to the special issue, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, 39(5): 465-478. 
• Adamson, M and Kelan, EK (2019) Female heroes’: celebrity executives as postfeminist role models. British Journal of Management, 30(4): 981-996
• Adamson, M and Roper, I (2019) Editorial: Good jobs, bad jobs: contemplating job quality in different contexts, Work, Employment and Society, 33(4): 551-559 
• Lewis, P, Adamson, M, Biese, I and Kelan, E (2019) Introduction to Special Issue: Exploring the emergence of moderate feminism(s) in contemporary organisations, Gender Work and Organization, 26: 1063-1072. 
• Beauregard, TA, Lup, D and Adamson, M (2018) Editorial: The many faces of gender inequality at work. Work, Employment and Society, 32 (4): 623-628.
• Adamson, M (2017) Postfeminism, neoliberalism and a ‘successfully’ balanced femininity in celebrity CEO autobiographies. Gender, Work and Organization, 24(3): 314-237.
• Adamson, M and Johansson, M (2016) Compositions of professionalism in counselling work: an embodied intersectionality perspective. Human Relations, 69(12): 2201 – 2223
• Salmenniemi, S. and Adamson, M. (2015) New heroines of labour: Domesticating post-feminism and neoliberal capitalism in Russia. Sociology, 49(1): 188-10
• Adamson, M (2015) The making of a glass slipper: Exploring patterns of inclusion and exclusion in a feminized profession. Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: An International Journal, 34(3): 214-226
• Adamson, M. (2014) Insider/Outsider dilemma in cross-cultural interviewing. SAGE Digital Case Repository. http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/978144627305014527668
• Adamson, M. (2014) Reflexivity and the competing discourses of masculinity in a female-dominated profession. Gender, Work and Organization, 21(6): 559–572
• Adamson, M., Manson, S., Zakaria, I. (2014) Exploring the professional project of executive remuneration consultants in the UK through the lens of institutional work. Journal of Professions and Organization, 2(1): 19-37. 
• Adamson (nee Karepova, M) and Griffin, G. (2011) The feminization of a newly emerging profession: The case of women and psychological counselling in post-Soviet Russia. European Journal of Women's Studies, 18(3) 279–29.

Book chapters

• Adamson, M and Salmenniemi, S (2017) ‘The bottom line is that the problem is you’- Aesthetic Labour, Postfeminism and Subjectivity in Russian Self-Help Literature. In A.S. Elias, R.Gill and C. Scharff (eds) Aesthetic Labour: Rethinking Beauty Politics in Neoliberalism. pp.301-316. London: Palgrave Macmillan. 
• Adamson, M and Kispeter, E (2017) Gender and professional work in Hungary and the USSR: intersecting and diverging histories, in C.Barker (ed) Gender in the 20th Century Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. pp. 214-227. London: Routledge.

Book reviews

• Adamson, M (2020) Review: Heading Home: Motherhood, Work, and the Failed Promise of Equality by Shani Orgad, Gender, Work and Organization, 27(2): 281-283
• Adamson, M. (2018) Review: Like Mother Like Daughter by Jill Armstrong, Organization, 25(5): 687-689
• Adamson, M (2016) Review: How Asian Women Lead: Lessons for Global Corporations by Jane Horan, Work, Employment & Society, 30(2): 380-381
• Adamson, M. (2016) Review: Crisis at Work by Jesse Porter, Work, Employment and Society, 31(4): 714-715

Practitioner-focused publications

• Adamson, M and Kelan, E (2018) Are Celebrity Executives Good Role Models for Women? LSE Business Review, http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/usappblog/2018/10/27/are-celebrity-women-executives-good-role-models-for-women/
• Adamson, M. and Kelan, E.K. and Lewis, P. and Rumens, N. and Sliwa, M. (2016) The quality of equality: thinking differently about gender inclusion in organizations. Human Resource Management International Digest, Vol. 24 Issue: 7, pp.8-11.
• Adamson, M, Kelan, EK, Lewis, P, Rumens, N and Sliwa, M (2017) Exploring gendered inclusion in contemporary organisations - ESRC. Impact, 9, pp. 56-57. ISSN 2398-7073

Supervision

Areas of Supervision Expertise:

Dr Adamson would very much welcome prospective doctoral students with an interest in and wanting to carry out qualitative research in the broad area of gender and work and specifically in: 

• role models and their influence
• flexible working practices and work-life balance
• gendered careers in organisations and professions
• women executives and business celebrities
• influence or popular culture on organisations
• inclusion and equality in organisations 
• technology, AI and diversity

Current Doctoral Students:

• Nabiyla Risfa Izzati, 1st Supervisor, co-supervised with Professor Mark Williams
• Harvir Kaur Sangha, second supervisor - first supervisor Tessa Wright
• Zoha Aamir, 1st Supervisor, co-supervised with Ahu Tatli
• Mariam Hammoud, co-supervised with Ahu Tatli

Public Engagement

Dr Adamson is currently serving as an Associate Editor of the British Journal of Management. She was previously a co-Editor of Work Employment and Society journal and a convenor of Work, Employment and Economic Life group at the British Sociological Association.

Dr Adamson is a Member of the British Sociological Association and a Member of the British Academy of Management.