Dr David Hollis

BSc (Hons), MSc, MRes, PhD, FHEA

Management School

Lecturer in Organisation Studies

D.Hollis@sheffield.ac.uk
+44 114 222 3468

A019, Sheffield University Management School

Full contact details

Dr David Hollis
Management School
A019
Sheffield University Management School
Conduit Road
Sheffield
S10 1FL

Profile: My research is interdisciplinary, blending theoretical influences from organization studies and communication studies to explore themes of organizational power, authority, leadership, and exploitation. To date, this has led to publications in Organization Studies, MIT Sloan Management Review, The SAGE Handbook of Leadership and The Handbook of Management Communication, as well as recognition at The European Group for Organizational Studies (EGOS; 2022) and The Academy of Management (2021) conferences. I am also interested in collective, inclusive, and participatory research methods. This informs my role as co-lead of The Communicative Constitution of Organization (CCO) Data Collective, where I organize collective data analysis and theory workshops within the international organization studies community. I co-organize quarterly online workshops and have co-convened development workshops prior to (2022) and as part of (2023, forthcoming) EGOS colloquia.

Research interests

I have two key research themes at present. Firstly, I am interested in exploring how themes of organizational power, authority, and exploitation come to exist, persist and become transformed through relations of human/non-human actors and their material-discursive practices. I have given invited talks on my publications (please see below) at The University of Twente (Netherlands) in 2022 and at The Open University Business School’s (UK) Equality, Diversity and Inclusivity seminar series in 2024.

Secondly, I am interested in critical research methodologies. This informs my co-leadership of The CCO Data Collective, an initiative that brings together 65 international and interdisciplinary academics to jointly analyse one another’s "raw" qualitative data from interpretive perspectives (e.g., CCO, performativity, relationality). Alongside co-organizing quarterly online workshops, I co-convened The Collective's first in-person workshop at The University of Vienna (2022). In 2023, I co-convened an EGOS Pre-colloquium Development Workshop at The University of Cagliari, which was held in connection with the EGOS Communication, Performativity and Organization (CPO) Standing Working Group.

Publications

Journal articles

Hollis D, Wright A, Smolović Jones O & Smolović Jones S (2021) From ‘pretty’ to ‘pretty powerful’: the communicatively constituted power of facial beauty’s performativity. Organization Studies, 42(12), 1885-1907. View this article in WRRO
Hollis D & Wright A () Own Your Words to Gain Authority. MIT Sloan Management Review.

Chapters

Smolovic Jones O & Hollis D (2023) Technology and Leadership In Schedlitzki D, Larsson M, Carroll B, Bligh MC & Epitropaki O (Ed.), The SAGE Handbook of Leadership Sage Publications Limited
Wright A & Hollis D (2021) 13 Routinizing, Handbook of Management Communication (pp. 247-262). De Gruyter

Research group: Organization Studies

Grants

I have been awarded stimulation funding in 2024. This is being used to investigate the participatory and inclusive nature of the collective data analysis workshops I co-lead with the scholars and students who attend them. This funding will serve as a foundation for further funding applications around methodological development from national and international bodies.

Further, I was awarded a full four-year doctoral scholarship by The Open University (2014-2018).

Teaching interests: I have several years' experience leading and teaching modules around language and organisation, organisational behaviour, and leadership. This is within my current role at Sheffield University Management School (from 2022) and while lecturing at Nottingham Business School (2018-2022).

My approach to teaching is research-led. For instance, as the Module Leader of MGT364 (Language and Organisation), I draw on my interest around communication's constitutive and performative force to encourage students to critically evaluate (often) presumed sources of authority within academia and organisations.

My pedagogy is informed by various teaching qualifications (Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, Academic Professional Standard, The Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice).

Teaching activities

MGT364 - Language and Organisation
MGT219 - Organisational Behaviour

Professional activities and memberships: I have close connections with the Leuphana Organization Studies (LOST) research group at Leuphana University of Luneburg (Germany). In 2022, I was invited as a paper discussant at LOST’s annual research colloquia. I also review for Organization Studies. Within Sheffield University Management School, I am the Lead Ethics Reviewer for the Work, Employment and Organisation department.

PhD Supervision: I have supervised one doctoral student to completion and I am currently supervising a first-year student. I am interested in receiving enquiries about potential PhD projects in areas allied to my research interests.