Deborah Jones

Qualifications

MA (Hons), Victoria University of Wellington, 1975
PhD (Waikato)
Associate, Centre for Applied Cross-cultural Research
Associate Professor, School of Management, Victoria University of Wellington

Contact

Category: Research Associate (NZ)

Homepage: Here

Background

Many of Dr Jone’s research interests come under the heading of ‘communication’ and questions of representation. She worked with various forms of communication—as an editor, trainer, group leader, community educator and writer—before becoming an academic in 1991. Dr Jones draws on cultural studies, feminism and post-colonialism to develop new angles on organisations and management. She sees her work as part of the development of the field of critical management studies, see:

Critical Management Studies Interest Group here.

SCOS: an international and interdisciplinary network of academics and practitioners concerned with organisational symbolism, culture and change. Read more.

Dr Jones likes to work in collaboration with people and ideas from a range of disciplinary, academic and practitioner fields. She is interested in action- based forms of research in which people explore their own organisational realities. She is committed to developing innovative research methods, especially creative and qualitative methods, and enjoys supervising qualitative research projects.

As well as a PhD in Management Studies, Dr Jones has earlier degrees in English and linguistics. She taught in the Department of Management Communication at the University of Waikato before moving back to Wellington, her home town.

She is an associate of the Language in the Workplace Project LALS and involved in the CANZ team, both at Victoria University of Wellington. In addition, she is involved in based on the interdisciplinary project Education in Mid- and Later Life project at Victoria University of Wellington.

Areas of interest

Identity in organisations; Gender; National identity; Competence, creativity and capability; Combination; Careers; New Zealand film industry.

Interests

Identity in organisations

Gender: what difference does gender make in organisations? Are women really running New Zealand now? If not why not? Age: are organisations now based on youth culture? Can you get to be a senior manager now if you are over 50? Can you get a job if you are over 50?

National identity

What does it mean to be a New Zealand organisation or to be a New Zealander at work? How do ideas of nationalism drive our business cultures and our collective and individual commitments to Aotearoa / New Zealand? What does nationalism or patriotism mean in the context of globalisation?

Ethnicity

What do ideas about ‘biculturalism’,‘multiculturalism’, the Treaty of Waitangi and Māori sovereignty mean to our organisations?

Competence, creativity and capability

How do we think about what makes people ‘good at’ their work? How can capability be developed at various levels—individual, occupational, organisational, in cities, regional clusters or nationally?

Combination

What do people think makes for ‘effective’ communication? Which new communication models enable flexible and collaborative ways of opening up this question?

Careers

How does the notion of ‘career’ link individual life histories to ideas about capability? How are ideas of ‘career’ changing? New Zealand film industry Creative industries like the New Zealand film industry are fascinating because they engage directly with issues of creativity, representation and nationalism. They are also increasingly being seen as important to Aotearoa / New Zealand economically as well as culturally. Dr Jones is currently developing a case study which scopes the local film industry and opens up questions for further long-term research.