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Dr Douglas Foster

Lecturer in Management Studies

Qualifications: BA RMN PhD

Email:
Phone: Work: 01483 68 6362
Room no: 48 MS 03

Office hours

On sabbatical 01/09/11 - 01/09/12.  E-mail:  D.Foster@surrey.ac.uk

Further information

Biography

I have a career that includes work in the public and voluntary sectors and in self-employment working with all sectors.  It is perhaps no surprise that I have a particular interest in organisations that challenge these boundaries - social enterprises, that are for profit (if not private profit) and also have a social mission.  Public sector work includes work as a support, training and qualified psychiatric nurse; I was also heavily involved in lay trade union work at this time.  I then did a BA in Politics and Sociology as a mature student, becoming a self-employed researcher afterwards, and then a Community Development Worker in a voluntary sector organisation working with drug misuse.  I then returned to the public sector via academia, firstly as a research Assistant and Associate Lecturer at the University of Portsmouth, and then here as a Lecturer at the University of Surrey since May 2000.  I was also Company Secretary for the Whistleblowing NGO, 'Freedom to Care'.

Research Interests

My research interests, broadly speaking, are ethics and social entrepreneurship/social enterprise, with my PhD defended successfully in 2001 being focused on the latter in the context of the Church of England.  I regard myself as having a strong background in social, political, and more recently, moral, entrepreneurial and organisational theory, with a preference for qualitative research, and particular strength of experience with in-depth semi-structured/reflexive interviewing, though a philosophical Realist.  More specifically I have interest in virtue theory and 'the good life', ethical capital, moral luck, understandings of 'the person' and its ethical implications, WISEs (Work Integration Social Enterprises) - and critical perspectives on all of these, but ensuring that 'critical' itself does not escape scrutiny! 

Research Collaborations

With Mike Bull (Manchester Metropolitan University) and others of the 'Manchester group' of critics of Social Enterprise, and its subsequent expanded group.

With Alex Nicholls (Said Business School, University of Oxford) - Various

With Caroline Baillie (University of Western Australia) - Socially Just Engineer and Social Entrepreneurship

With Laura Costanzo (University of Surrey), Flavio Servato (University of Turin) and Social Firms UK

Publications

Journal articles

  • Bull M, Ridley-Duff R, Foster DJ, Seanor P. (2010) 'Conceptualising ethical capital in social enterprise'. Social Enterprise Journal, 6 (3), pp. 250-264.
    doi: 10.1108/17508611011088832

Book chapters

  • Foster DJ, Bull M. (2009) 'Case Study: Seedley and Langworthy Trust'. in (ed.) Cases in Strategic Management Article number 14 , pp. 241-249.
  • Foster DJ. (2008) 'Social Entrepreneurship: Exploring a Cultural Mode amidst others in the Church of England'. in Nicholls A (ed.) Social Entrepreneurship Oxford University Press, USA , pp. 181-202.

(A full list of publications can be given on request - D.Foster@surrey.ac.uk) 

Teaching

Currently on sabbatical 01/09/11-01/09/12, but usually module convenor of the final year undergraduate elective - 'Ethics, Responsibility and Citizenship', as well as various teaching of Organisational Behaviour/Studies at Master's and undergraduate level.

Winner of 2 'Teaching with New Technologies' (or TeNT) awards 2009-2010 and 2010-2011 

Departmental Duties

Representative on the Academic Assembly Policy Committee