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Dr Alexandra Bristow

Lecturer in Organisational Behaviour

Qualifications: PhD (Lancaster), MA (Lancaster), BSc (Warwick)

Email:
Phone: Work: 01483 68 6349
Room no: 51 MS 03

Office hours

If my door is open, you are welcome to knock and enter.

My usual office hours this semester are Monday 13:00-14:00 and Wednesday 10:00-12:00. Please check the notice board outside my office door as the office hours may occasionally change.

Out of semester, please email me to arrange an appointment.

Further information

Biography

Alex joined Surrey in 2010, having previously completed a Doctorate and taught at Lancaster University Management School. Her research and teaching interests are in epistemology (and, more broadly, anything to do with knowledge), power, politics, change and technology in the field of management and organisation studies.She has expertise in poststructuralism and postmodernist philosophy, sociology of knowledge, history and philosophy of science, science and technology studies, Actor-Network Theory, sociology of translation and Scandinavian institutionalism. Alex's PhD thesis, which examined the construction of knowledge and objectivity in the work of the editors of management journals, is a joint winner of the Academy of Management Best Dissertation Award (2011) in the Critical Management Studies Division. Her published work has appeared in a range of international outlets, including the journals Culture and Organization and Scandinavian Journal of Management, and the Sage Encyclopaedia of Business in Today's World. She is also the author of the case study 'Milk or Wine Come Rain or Shine: Power and Politics in a Dutch-Belgian Banking Group after an International Takeover', which was shortlisted as a finalist in the Academy of Management Dark Case Competition (2012).

Research Interests

The common theme underlying Alex's research interests is concerned with knowledge and epistemology. She is broadly located in the field of critical organisation studies, but her research draws on work from a variety of fields and research areas, including:

  •  Poststructuralist/postmodernist philosophy
  •  Sociology of science, knowledge and technology
  •  Actor-Network Theory
  •  History and philosophy of science
  •  Foucauldian analysis
  •  Studies of the 'new higher education' as an instance of ‘new managerialism’ and ‘new public management’

More concretely, Alex is especially interested in:

  •  Organisational meta-theory, particularly in relation to the issues of epistemology and intellectual pluralism
  •  Academic work, and the production and justification of academic knowledge within the changing Higher Education context
  •  As part of the above, the work of academic journals, journal publishers, research councils, RAE/REF, scholarly societies, business schools, universities, doctoral programmes, etc.
  •  New technologies mediating academic knowledge production and justification
  •  ‘Alternative’ scholarship, ‘new literary forms’ and ‘radical’ organisational theory
  •  History of academic knowledge and fields of study in the intellectual domain; the historical relationship between the epistemological categories of ‘science’ and ‘non-science’, ‘fact’ and ‘fiction’, ‘objectivity’ and ‘subjectivity’, etc.

Publications

Journal articles

  • Bristow A. (2012) 'On Life, Death and Radical Critique: A Non-Survival Guide to the Brave New Higher Education for the Intellectually Pregnant'. Elsevier Scandinavian Journal of Management, 28 (3), pp. 234-241.
    doi: 10.1016/j.scaman.2012.05.005
    Full text is available at: http://epubs.surrey.ac.uk/712566/

    Abstract

    This paper joins the call to arms against the domestication of critique in organisation studies. It argues that we have become too pre-occupied with our professional survival to stand firm against the normalising pressure of the new higher education and its publish-or-perish machinery. We trade away too much radicalism in exchange for legitimacy, which results in widely accepted but toothless forms of critique. The paper draws on two contrasting metaphors of Huxley’s Brave New World and intellectual pregnancy to illustrate some of the challenges faced by early-career academics entering the world of the Brave New Higher Education as academic ‘savages’. It discusses the almost imperceptible socialisation of the savage into the ‘rationalised myths’ of the brave new world to the point that alternatives become literally unthinkable. The paper suggests that we can fight this slippage and the associated domestication of critique by giving up our obsession with survival and by remembering/envisioning alternative realities, such as that of intellectual pregnancy deriving from the fragile idealism of the savage’s doctoral world.

  • Bristow A. (2007) 'Fragments and Links: the Organisational Actor-World of the Harry Potter Phenomenon'. Taylor and Francis Culture and Organization, 13 (4), pp. 313-325.
    doi: 10.1080/14759550701676429
    Full text is available at: http://epubs.surrey.ac.uk/145895/

Conference papers

  • Bristow A. (2010) 'Sustaining the Agenda of Pluralism and Openness in the Age of the 'New Higher Education': Some Lessons from an Empirical Study of Journals in the Field of Organisation Studies'. Lisbon, Portugal: Institutions and Knowledge: Sources and Consequences, the 26th EGOS Colloquium
  • Bristow A. (2009) 'Making Headway with the Historical Turn in Organisational Meta-Theory: The Case of the History of Academic Journals and the Question of Objectivity in the Field of Organisation Studies'. Cardiff Business School, UK: 24th Employment Research Unit Conference: New Directions in Organisation Studies
  • Bristow A. (2009) 'Connecting and Separating Objectivity: Linking Lorraine Daston, the History of Academic Journals and Epistemological Debates in the Field of Organisation Studies'. Copenhagen and Malmö: 27th Standing Conference on Organizational Symbolism
  • Bristow A. (2008) 'Objectivity, ‘Professionalization’ of Journals and Pressures to Converge: The Future of Non-Mainstream Organisation and Management Studies?'. Bristol Business School, UK: Research Unit for Organisation Studies (RUOS) Research Seminar Series 2007 – 2008
  • Bristow A. (2006) 'Reflecting (on) Revolution: the Domestication of the Radical in the Field of Organisation Studies'. Swansea, UK: Organizing Revolution Workshop
  • Bristow A. (2005) 'Sustaining Radical Research in Organisation Studies through Journal Publishing – Problematics and Possibilities'. Leicester, UK: Critical Management Studies PhD Forum 2005: Radical Practice in the Academy: Confessions of Dangerous (Business) Minds
  • Bristow A. (2003) 'Fragments and Links: the Organisational Actor-World of the Harry Potter Phenomenon'. Lancaster, UK: Organization/Literature: Beyond Equivalence and Antimony, 3rd International Critical Management Studies Conference: Critique and Inclusivity: Opening the Agenda

Book chapters

  • Wu LY, Bristow A. (2012) 'Perishing Confucius: An Analysis of a Rupture Point in the Discourses of Taiwanese 'New Higher Education''. in Chou CP (ed.) The SCI & SSCI Syndrome in Higher Education: The Case of Taiwan and East Asia Rotterdam : Sense Publishers
    [ Status: Accepted ]
  • Bristow A. (2009) 'Management Research'. in Wankel C (ed.) Encyclopedia of Business in Today's World Sage Publications, Inc

Other publications

Teaching

Foundations of Management Research (Integrated PhD) - Module Leader

Philosophical Underpinning of Management Research (DBA) - Module Leader

Organisational Behaviour and Analysis (UG) - Module Leader

Strategic Change Management (MBA)

Research Methods (MSc)

Doctoral Training Programme (PhD)

Professional Training Year, MSc, MBA and Doctoral Supervision

Departmental Duties

People & Organisations Doctoral Programme Liaison

Integrated PhD Development Committee Member

Affiliations

European Group for Organizational Studies (EGOS)

British Academy of Management (BAM)

Standing Conference on Organizational Symbolism (SCOS)

Academy of Management (AoM)

The European Association for the Study of Science and Technology (EASST)