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Professor Manuela Perrotta

Manuela

Reader in Technology and Organisation

Email: m.perrotta@qmul.ac.uk
Telephone: +44 (0)20 7882 6542
Room Number: Room 2.36, Francis Bancroft Building, Mile End Campus

Profile

Roles:

Biography:

Manuela received her PhD in Sociology and Social Research in 2008 from the University of Trento (Italy). Since then she has done a lot of research work (independently, as well as in a team) intersecting Organisation Studies, Science and Technology Studies, and Medical Sociology. She has significant experience in empirical research and especially in qualitative methodologies.

In the last years she has published more than thirty chapters and articles international journals such as “Social Science and Medicine”, “Organization”, “Management Learning”, “Society and Business Review”. 

Teaching

Manuela Perrotta will be on sabbatical leave for the 2020/21 academic year and so not undertaking any teaching. 

 

Research

Research Interests:

My main research interests concern the relation between learning, work and innovation in organisations. My current research focuses on the study of techno-organisational innovations, especially in the fields of healthcare and biotechnologies.

My current research project “Remaking the Human Body: Biomedical Imaging Technologies and Professional Visions”, funded by the Wellcome Trust, explores the relationships between professional and lay visions in the field of reproductive technologies and how these relationships are interwoven with a changing social/cultural understanding of reproductive processes.

Publications

  • 2020 Perrotta, M. and Geampana, A., “The trouble with IVF and randomised control trials: Professional legitimation narratives on time-lapse imaging and evidence-informed care”, Social Science & Medicine, vol 258, August 2020, Article 113115, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2020.113115
  • 2018 Perrotta M., Spilker K., and Crabu S., “Sliding Cells: The Situated Making of Bio-Objects in IVF”, Special Section, Tecnoscienza: Italian Journal of Science & Technology Studies, vol. 9, n. 1, p. 5-8.
  • 2016 Gherardi S. and Perrotta M., “Re-thinking induction in practice: Profession, peer group and organization in contention" (re-printed paper on an anniversary issue with foreword), Society and Business Review, vol. 11, n. 2, pp. 193 - 209, ISSN: 1746-5680.
  • 2016 Gherardi S. and Perrotta M., “Daughters Taking Over the Family Business: Their Justification Work within a Dual Regime of Engagement”, International Journal of Gender and Entrepreneurship, vol. 8, n. 1, pp. 28 – 47, ISSN: 1756-6266.
  • 2014 Gherardi S. and Perrotta M., “Between the Hand and the Head: How Things Get Done, and How in Doing the Ways of Doing are Discovered”, Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management, vol. 9, n. 2, pp. 134-150, ISSN 1746-5648.
  • 2014 Bruni A. and Perrotta M., “Entrepreneuring Together: His and Her Stories”, International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behaviour and Research, vol. 20, n. 2, pp. 108-27, ISSN 1355-2554.
  • 2013 Perrotta M., “Creating Human Life Itself. The Emerging Meanings of Reproductive Cells among Science, State and Religion”, Guest Editor’s Introduction to the Special Issue on “Re-conceiving Life in the Labs: The Emerging Meanings of Cells in the Italian Reproductive Biomedicine and Beyond”, Tecnoscienza: Italian Journal of Science & Technology Studies, vol. 4, n. 1, pp. 7-22, ISSN: 2038-3460.
  • 2012 Parolin L.L. and Perrotta M., “On the Fringe of Parenthood: Othering and Otherness in the Italian Assisted Kinship”, About Gender. International Journal of Gender Studies, vol 1, n. 2, p. 100-31, ISSN 2279-5057.
  • 2012 Örtenblad A., Snell R., Perrotta M., and Akella D., “On the Paradoxical Balancing of Paceneaism and Particularism within the Field of Management Learning”, Introduction to the Special Issue on “Universalist, Local and Glocal Perspectives on Management Learning”, Management Learning, vol. 43, n. 2, pp. 147-155.
  • 2011 Gherardi S. and Perrotta M., “Egg dates sperm: a tale of a practice change and its stabilization”, Organization, vol. 18, n. 5, pp. 595-614.
  • 2011 Perrotta M., “Il pre-embrione (non) è uno di noi: breve storia di una innovazione inter-organizzativa tra istituzioni, comunità professionali e tecnologie” [The pre-embryo is (not) one of us: a brief history of inter-organizational innovation among institutions, professional communities and technologies], Sociologia del Lavoro, n. 122, pp. 194-206.
  • 2010 Gherardi S. and Perrotta M., “Where is induction? Profession, peer group and organization in contention”, Society and Business Review, vol. 5, n. 1, pp. 84-98.
  • 2009 Lusardi R. and Perrotta M., “Da Alfa ad Omega: la riconfigurazione del corpo nelle organizzazioni sanitarie” [From Alpha to Omega: the reconfiguration of the body in health care organizations], Rassegna Italiana di Sociologia, n. 4, pp. 609-633.
  • 2007 Bruni A. and Perrotta M., “Apprendimento inter-organizzativo e biotecnologie: dai network al networking” [Inter-organizational learning and biotechnologies: from networks to networking], Studi Organizzativi, n. 1, pp. 197-214.

Supervision

Current Doctoral Students:

2nd Supervisor

  • Zhihui Bi, 'The Rigour and Relevance Debate in Chinese Business Schools: An Institutional Analysis.'
  • Duncan Reynolds: The role of (dis)trusting in clinical trials: A practice-based approach.

 

Public Engagement

Between 2013 and 2015 she was vice president of the Italian Society for the Study of Science and Technology (STS-Italia). She is a member of the Organisational Processes and Practices Research Group, of the Italian Society for the Study of Science and Technology (STS Italia), of the Association for Studies in Innovation, Science and Technology (AsSIST-UK) and of the British Sociological Association. She is affiliated to the Reproductive Sociology Research Group at the Department of Sociology, University of Cambridge.

In October 2019, in addition to the research project, my research group and I started work on a programme of public engagement activities, funded by an additional Wellcome Trust Research Enrichment - Public Engagement grant.

The Public Engagement programme intends to open up multiple conversations on these topics to different audiences. Drawing on the findings from the research project, the aim is to create a safe space in which to discuss these topics for all those who are interested in infertility and IVF, and the role of image production in fertility treatments. This programme includes a number of events with different formats for different audiences.

If you are interested in our activities, please visit the ‘Remaking the Human Body’ project blog.

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