Gillian Symon

Gillian came to Royal Holloway in April 2012 as Professor of Organization Studies). Previously she has held lecturing and research positions at Birkbeck, University of London, the University of Cardiff and the University of Sheffield. She has research interests in identity at work, work-life boundaries, volunteers and voluntary work, rhetoric and rhetorical analysis, technological development and change in organizations, the technological mediation of work, sociomateriality, and the implications of smartphones and social media for working practices and organizational processes. In the recent past she has investigated the implications of smartphone use for identity, communication and information sharing (with Dr Katrina Pritchard, Birkbeck, and supported by British Academy grant SG-54143).

Currently she is involved as co-investigator on a multi-institution EPSRC-funded project examining the relationship between work-life balance, use of digital technologies and identity (see the project website http://www.digitalbrainswitch.org.uk.). She also has a research interest in the working practices of academics, particularly qualitative research methods and on-line qualitative research.

She has edited several qualitative research method compendia (with Prof Catherine Cassell, Leeds University Business School), the latest of which Qualitative Organizational Research: Core Methods and Current Challenges was published by Sage in April 2012 (http://www.sagepub.com/books/Book235422?siteId=sage-us&prodTypes=any&q=symon+and+cassell&fs=1 ). Catherine and Gillian are founding editors of the journal Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management: An International Journal (http://www.emeraldinsight.com/qrom.htm). Gillian is also an Associate Editor for the Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology and on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Organizational Behavior.