Centre for Research into the Organization of Work and Consumption (CROWC)

About us

The vision of the Centre for Research into the Organization of Work and Consumption (CROWC) is to provide critical perspectives on the future of work and consumption and to research and explore ways of organizing work and consumption that are ecologically, socially and economically sustainable.

CROWC was established to research more sustainable ways of organizing work and consumption. The centre has more than 50 members, from established professors to doctoral students and visiting fellows, all dedicated to research that can help us realise a future that is:

The models of organisation taught and promoted in traditional business schools for the last century have proven themselves to be unsustainable on all these fronts. CROWC is committed to research that seeks to understand why so much of our economic activity is unsustainable and crisis prone, and to develop and promote different, more sustainable ways of organizing work and consumption.

Our research

Work and consumption are two sides of the same coin, but too often they are treated as though they were separate functions. In most business curricula, consumption is covered in modules on marketing and consumer behaviour, and is not considered in relation to organizational behaviour, employment relations, or the sociology of work.

In reality, it is impossible to separate work and consumption, and they are being driven ever closer by a range of factors.

Our research focuses on two main areas: the future of work and political, social, cultural and economic change.

An 18-year-old today is likely to be working until at least 67, perhaps longer. Fifty years is a long time if we consider the technological, economic, cultural, political and social changes we have experienced since the 1970s. Our research explores the future of work in a number of ways:

  • Understanding the relationship between space and work as we ‘modularise’ work. Open-plan offices, hot-desking, co-working, and digital nomadism have all changed the dynamics of how people work and where they work, often in complex ways that intersect with social identities like gender.
  • Modular manufacturing systems, robotics, and 3D printing are similarly transforming manufacturing work as we move towards Industry 5.0. Through the Horizon EU Up-Skill project, researchers in CROWC are collaborating with businesses large and small, from across Europe, to understand the skills implications for workers in companies adopting Industry 5.0 technologies.
  • Decarbonising SMEs – through collaborative projects funded through European Regional Development grants, members of CROWC have worked with small- and medium-sized enterprises to understand the potential to decarbonise while making efficiency savings by adopting more effective technologies and leveraging data.
  • Circular economy – through projects like BLUEPRINT a Circular Economy, members of CROWC have worked with social enterprises, and partners in local government, to move towards a more sustainable, circular economy model of organizing that moves us from refuse, through recycling, to repairing and reusing materials, and reducing our impact on the environment.

It is hard to predict what the future of work will be like, not least because our expectations, and the decisions we make on the basis of them, shape the way that future unfolds. What we do know is that technology and digitalisation are playing ever more significant roles in both work and consumption:

  • Digitalisation is transforming retail employment into delivery and logistics and changing the way we work, consume and think of our cities.
  • Online platforms have created entirely new ways to manage employment relationships and blurring the boundaries of the status of workers.
  • Automation has transformed work in manufacturing, with humans working alongside robots.
  • AI is transforming the delivery of services, raising questions about the long-term security of employment in professions like law, academia, accountancy, and even the creative industries.

  • The service sector now accounts for over 90% of employment in the UK, a pattern seen across many global economies. Work in services often involves direct interaction between workers and consumers, in ways that manufacturing or agriculture rarely do.
  • Demographic and economic changes are changing how we think about work, career, and retirement.
  • With more young people than ever going to university, changing education levels are impacting on orientations to work and expectations of what a ‘good job’ looks like. It also means that many more workers are entering the workforce with a debt to service, reducing their spending power as consumers.

Our research is aligned with ARU’s strategic research priority of Sustainable Futures, and aligned with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals:

  • SDG 3: Healthy lives and wellbeing – by exploring health and wellbeing in the workplace.
  • SDG 5: Gender equality – by researching gender differences and the causes of inequalities in work and consumption.
  • SDG 7: Affordable and clean energy – by researching the barriers to decarbonisation and energy efficiency in work and consumption.
  • SDG 8: Decent work and economic growth – by researching the realities of work, hidden forms of exploitation, what ‘good work’ looks like, and the implications of innovation for both productivity and the quality of work.
  • SDG 9: Industry and innovation – by exploring the impacts of innovation and industrial reorganization on skills and jobs.
  • SDG 10: Reduced inequalities – by examining inequality and discrimination in work and consumption and exploring more egalitarian ways to organize economic activities.
  • SDG 11: Sustainable cities and communities – by recognising the importance of place in the organization of work and consumption, including the cities and rural areas where our university’s campuses are located, and by acknowledging our responsibilities as a research centre in a civic university.
  • SDG 12: Sustainable production and consumption – by locating our research into work and consumption within global production networks, and exploring more sustainable, alternative ways of organizing economic activity, like the circular economy.
  • SDG 17: Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development – by engaging in partnership with others to achieve the above Goals.

Centre members

  • Ali Hassan Alshehhi
  • Adetokunbo Layokun
  • Alina Trabattoni
  • Daniel Marshall
  • Thushara Dassanayake
  • Isaac Nai
  • Kathleen Hughes
  • Piers Reilly
  • Rachel Ryder
  • Robert Read
  • Ricardo Lemos-Pimenta
  • Shawkat Rahman
  • Thomas Kyei-Mensah

  • Tyler Hinson

Members of CROWC are open to discussing potential doctoral research projects with applicants. See details of our PhD programme through the School of Management and our DBA programme, for more practice-focussed projects.

Please refer to the staff profiles for a list of current and potential supervisory areas, but we are particularly interested in hearing from prospective students interested in:

  • The future of work – any projects adopting qualitative or theoretical perspectives from sociology, cultural studies or organizational behaviour. Topics might include AI and the future of work; digitalisation and deskilling; future skills; creative industries; interactive service work.
  • Wellbeing at/as work – projects examining the wellbeing challenges of the contemporary organization of work, but also initiatives to promote wellbeing in and through work and economic inclusion.
  • Sustainable consumption – for example projects examining sustainable consumption practices like de-growth, voluntary simplicity, recycling, circular economy solutions, local economy trading schemes, commons-based solutions and resource sharing and gift economies.
  • Cultural capital and consumption – projects examining the changing nature of consumption in relation to social class and community membership, including online consumption communities.

Outputs – 61 per year rated 3* or 4* in the REF reviewing process. 16 papers published in a three year period = 5.0.

  1. Bolger F, Rowe G, Hamlin I, et al. (2023) Virtuous opinion change in structured groups. Judgment and Decision Making, Vol. 18:e25 1–31 doi:10.1017/jdm.2023.22
  2. Wu, H. Y., Wu, H. S., Chen, I. S., & Su, Y. P. (2022) Toward better intelligent learning (iLearning) performance: what makes iLearning work for students in a university setting? Behaviour & Information Technology, 42(1), 60–76. https://doi.org/10.1080/0144929X.2021.2014967
  3. Chen, I.S. (2022) The Moderating Role of Personal Resources in the Relationship Between Job Demands and Work Engagement. Psihologija, 55(3), pp. 205-220. doi:10.2298/psi2203205c
  4. Chen, I.S. (2023) Using leisure crafting to reduce emotional exhaustion at home during the COVID-19 pandemic through better sleep and not thinking about the pandemic. Stress and Health, 39(5), pp. 1047-1057. doi:10.1002/smi.3243.
  5. Chen, I.S. (2024) Extending the job demands-resources model to understand the effect of the interactions between home and work domains on work engagement. Stress and Health, 40(1), pp. 55-65. doi:10.1002/smi.3280.
  6. Schwabenland, C. and Hirst, A. (2022) Solidarity with Soufra: Dividuality and joint action with Palestinian women refugees. Organization, 29(6), pp. 849-860. doi:10.1177/13505084221092424.
  7. Engward, H., Goldspink, S., Iancu, M., Kersey, T. and Wood, A. (2022) Togetherness in Separation: Practical Considerations for Doing Remote Qualitative Interviews Ethically. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 21, pp. 1-10. doi:10.1177/16094069221076947.
  8. Phillips, R., Durkin, M., Engward, H., Cable, G. and Iancu, M. (2023) The impact of caring for family members with mental illnesses on the caregiver: a scoping review. Health Promotion International, 38(1), pp. 97-110. doi:10.1093/heapro/daab049.
  9. Sherratt, F., Ivory, C., Sherratt, S. and Crawley, S. (2022) Organizing construction work: a digital and cooperative way forwards for micro-projects. Building Research and Information, 50(2), pp. 132-144. doi:10.1080/09613218.2021.2006817
  10. Andersson, C., Hallin, A. and Ivory, C. (2022) Unpacking the digitalisation of public services: Configuring work during automation in local government. Government Information Quarterly, 39(1), Article 101662. doi:10.1016/j.giq.2021.101662.
  11. Sherratt, F., Ivory, C. and Sherratt, S. (2023) The digitalization of UK construction labour: Wearables and workers, but where is the well-being? Handbook of Construction Safety, Health and Well-being in the Industry 4.0 Era, pp. 198-211. doi:10.1007/978-3-031-17019-9_12.
  12. Ivory, C. and Walsh, L. (2021) Why Does Technology Policy around Industry 4.0 Continue to Draw its Logic from 1960s Diffusion Models? 26th IEEE International Conference on Emerging Technologies and Factory Automation (ETFA), pp. 920-926. doi:10.1109/ETFA45728.2021.9613715.
  13. de Jesus, A., Mendonça, S., Vanhuyse, F., Domenech, T. and Lammi, M. (2021) Eco-Innovation and Circular Economy in Europe: Towards a New Paradigm. Sustainability, 13(19), 10974. doi:10.3390/su131910974.
  14. Leggett, K.L., Mykkänen, J., Repo, P. and Lammi, M. (2023) Evolving Markets in the Circular Economy: A Network Analysis of Exemplary Company Cases. Sustainable Design and Manufacturing SDM 2022, pp. 98-109. doi:10.1007/978-3-031-15531-8_40.
  15. Leggett, K.L., Lammi, M. and Walsh, L. (2023) Shoving Not Nudging: A Case of Shaming 'Waster' Stickers. Sustainable Design and Manufacturing SDM 2022, pp. 110-120. doi:10.1007/978-3-031-15531-8_38.
  16. Watson, D., Wallace, J., Land, C. and Patey, J. (2023) Re-organising wellbeing: Contexts, critiques and contestations of dominant wellbeing narratives. Organization, 30(3), pp. 441-452. doi:10.1177/13505084231156267

CROWC runs a regular series of academic research seminars. These are usually hybrid, with presentations in person on ARU’s Cambridge campus, and online via Zoom. Find details of our events here.

CROWC also hosts regular reading groups and writing workshops for members. For more details please contact [email protected]

Read our blogs here.

Contact us

Email [email protected]