Professor Chris Ivory

Professor Chris Ivory's main areas of academic interest are: project management; innovation in construction, technology innovation; digital technology work and management and business school strategy.

[email protected]

Background

Before joining Anglia Ruskin University, Chris Ivory was a senior lecturer at The University of Newcastle-Upon-Tyne Business School. He holds a PhD and MSc from PREST (Policy Research into Engineering Science and Technology), part of Manchester University. Chris has also been a Research Associate in the Centre for Urban and Regional Development Studies, Newcastle University and before that at CROMTEC, at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST).

 

Chris has written for journals including the British Journal of Management, Business History, Long Range Planning, Project Management Journal, Critical Perspectives on International Business, Construction Management and Economics, International Journal of Project Management, R&D Management, TASM, Ephemera and Planning Theory. He has also written on business school strategy through a series of commissioned Advanced Institute of Management (AIM) reports.

Research interests

• Digital technology and the transformation of work and management 
• The role of digital technology in manufacturing SMEs 
• Technology innovation in the construction and capital goods industries 
• Technology innovation in health-care. 
• Social Studies of Science and Technology Socio-material and actor-network approaches to technology changeinnovation 
• Business support tools and technology benefits realization 
• Business school strategy 

Areas of research supervision

• Technology change and work 
• Technology and management and organizational change  
• Critical approaches to projects 
• The role of technology in the construction industry 
• The role of technology and the public sector 
• The role of the user in technology innovation 

 

Present supervisions

• Jacob Christine, First supervisor FBL PhD PT April 2017 Faculty of Business and Law
• Jones Sharon, Second supervisor FHEMS PhD (Education) - PT Oct13 Education 
• Kirby, Seth First Supervisor FBL PhD FT Sept16 Marketing, Enterprise and Tourism
• Nick Ovadias, First Supervisor, 
• Mark-Anthony Clark, First Supervisor, LAIBS Prof Doc DBA PT Jan17
• Umberto Lanzano, First Supervisor,LAIBS PHD FT April 2017 

Recent PhD completions

• Dias Carolas, Ricardo - User involvement in the development of independent living solutions: decision-making and the making of publics. The case of living labs, ARU, 2018.
• Michael Duignan - Mega project legacies: London Olympics 2012, ARU (2017)

Teaching

Innovation and technology management, project and change management, technology strategy, innovation studies, management in the media. Chris also has extensive experience of teaching and leading modules for MBAs, Executive MBAs, postgraduate and undergraduate programmes. 

Chris is presently an external examiner for the Global MBA at Manchester University. Previously he has been the external examiner for Leeds University UG programmes and Masters programmes at Manchester University. 

Qualifications

• PhD Innovation and Diffusion in the UK Construction Industry, PREST, University of Manchester, 1995 - 2002.
• MSc in Technical Change and Industrial Strategy, PREST, University of Manchester, 1992 - 1993.
• BSc (Hons) in Communication and Information Studies (2:1) Brunel University, 1988 - 1992.

Memberships, editorial boards

• Editorial Board of Construction Management and Economics

Research grants, consultancy, knowledge exchange

Present research grants, consultancy, knowledge exchange

Live projects Principle Investigator, Eastern New Energy Project, ERDF, Developing and disseminating new knowledge about the barriers that are preventing rapid decarbonisation in the UK’s SE. Income to business school: £484,138. October 2019 to September, 2022.  

 

Co-PI (UK lead) –INTERREG, Grow-In (Industry 4.0). Examining and supporting the uptake of digital technology amongst manufacturing SMEs in the North Sea region. Developing business models and tools. Total project value 3.607.589 €. August 2017 to September 2020.  

Co-PI (UK and WP lead) – FORTE, The Digitalization of Management. Examining changes in management practice as a consequence of digital technology – a comparison of Sweden and the UK. Total project value £1,480,000 January 2017 to Dec 2022. Income to Business School £406,000. Collaboration between ARU and Malardalen University, Sweden. 

 Co-investigator Transforming Construction Network+. DigiConCo-Op: Transforming Micro-Project Delivery through Digital Co-Operative Construction. Feb 2020 to July 3rd 2020. £39,000. My role in this is to bring expertise on technology benefits identification to three workshops 

 

Recently completed projects

Principle Investigator - Cams, Herts and Beds Police. Examining the ‘Athena’ system - Benefits Realisation from Information and Mobile Technology (£20K), March 2015 - January 2016

Co-PI – FP7 - INTERREG/ERDF – Business for Age Phase 2 (222,000 €), March 2015- September 2015 (see below).

Co-PI - FP7 - INTERREG/ERDF, Business for Age: Project exploring the contribution of cross-border trade to innovation in services and technologies for the aged (307,000 €), July 2014 – Feb 2015. I wrote the final report which secured the funding of the second phase.

Co-PI - FP7 - INTERREG/ERDF, CURA-B (1.3 million €) Project looking at tele-health and tele-care technology innovation in the ‘2 Seas Region’, June 2011-June 2014. Rated 4* for impact by 2014 REF panel.

Project lead – Innovation and Technology Healthcare Organisations (InTHO) – two-year project internally funded by Anglia Ruskin, project exploring the impacts of technology change on healthcare organisations (£113,800), July 2014 – July 2017.

Chris has also led on research for a major gas utility examining the role of mobile communications and diagnostic technologies on gas engineers’ working practices.

Selected recent publications

Ivory, C. and Shipton, H.  (2020) Woolgar and Latour’s ‘Cycle of Scientific Credibility’ as a basis for conceptualizing Business School Strategy, Review of Managerial Science (ISSN: 1863-6683). DOI 10.1007/s11846-019-00363-2. 

Jacob, C., Sanchez-Vasquez, A. and Ivory, C. (2020) Social, Organizational, and Technological Factors Impacting Clinicians’ Adoption of Mobile Health Tools: A Systematic Literature Review, JMIR mHealth and uHealth, ;8(2):e15935) doi: 10.2196/15935 

Ivory, C., Sherratt, F. Casey, R. and Kayleigh, W. (2019) Getting caught between discourse(s): Hybrid choices in technology use at work. New Technology Work and Employment (3*). DOI: 10.1111/ntwe.12152 

Jacobs C., Sanchez-Vazquez, A. Ivory, C. (2019) Clinicians’ role in the adoption of an Oncology Decision Support App in Europe and its implications for organizational practices: A Qualitative Case Study, JMIR mHealth and uHealth, 7(5): e13555. DOI: 10.2196/13555. URL: https://mhealth.jmir.org/2019/5/e13555. 

Sherratt, F. and Ivory, C. (2019) Managing ‘A Little Bit Unsafe’: Complexity, Construction Safety and Situational Self-Organising, Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management, 26(11) 2519-2534. https://doi.org/10.1108/ECAM-09-2018-0376 

Popova, I., Ivory, C., and Uhlin, A. (2018) Approach to government digital transformation: comparing the UK and Sweden. 18th European Conference on Digital Government, University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain, 25th-26th October. 

Popva, I., Ivory, C. and Hallin, A. (2018) Living with monsters: Introducing experience to the theorizing of sociomaterial entanglement. Paper submitted to the 2018 IFIP 8.2 Working Conference in San Francisco. Living with Monsters? Social Implications of Algorithmic Phenomena, Hybrid Agency and the Performativity of Technology, San Francisco State University, December 11 & 12. 

Hallin, A., Ivory, C., Anderson, C., Crevani, L., Lindel, E. Popova, I. and Uhlin, A. (2018) Digital tools and work practices in groups: proposing a conceptual framework to understand the dynamic reconfiguration of virtual teams. Paper submitted to the 2018 IFIP 8.2 Working Conference in San Francisco. Living with Monsters? Social Implications of Algorithmic Phenomena, Hybrid Agency and the Performativity of Technology, San Francisco State University, December 11 & 12. 

Ivory, C. (2017) The prospects for a production management body of knowledge in business schools: Response to Koskela (2017) ‘Why is management research irrelevant?’, Construction Management and Economics, 35(7): 385-391. (2* in CABS/ 4* in Aus ERA) 

Hallin, A. Crevanthi, L. Ivory, C. and Mörndal, M. Digitalisation and work – sociomaterial entanglements in steel production: matters of fact and matters of concern, paper to be presented at NFF, Bodø, August 23-25, 2017. 

Duignan, M., Ivory, C. and Anette Hallin (2017) Rethinking Mega-Projects: Politics of Core and Host Contexts in the London Olympics, presented at IRNOP, 11-14th June, Boston University, Mass. 

Ivory C. and Hallin, A. (2016) Animals, social interaction and projects management, SCOS, 11-14 July, Uppsala University, Sweden. 

Alderman, N. Ivory, C. (2016) Sweating the small stuff: why incremental innovation is difficult in complex projects, British Academy of Management, 6-8 September. 

Alderman, N. and Ivory, C. (2015) Dealing with ambiguity in complex projects: planned or emergent practices? (ed. Marrewijk, A.H. van) Advances in Organization Studies Series, Copenhagen: CBS Press. 

Richard Davies, Florence Crespin-Mazet, Åse Linné, Catherine Pardo, Malena Ingemansson Havenvid, Chris Harty, Chris Ivory and Robert Salle (2015) BIM in Europe: Innovation Networks in the Construction  Sectors of Sweden, France and the UK. Proceedings of ARCOM [Available online : www.arcom.ac.uk/-docs/proceedings/69ba0a348035b297763b6dbcefeb646e.pdf 

Ivory, C. Legakas, S.  and Alderman, N. (2015) Delivering projects despite project management, IRNOP, Bartlett School, London. 

Heron, C., Alderman, N. and Ivory, C. (2014) ‘Projectification’ and the diffusion of project management in Higher Education, Paper prepared for the Making Projects Critical 7 workshop, Stockholm, 23-24 Jan, 2. 

Ivory, C and Turner, W. (2014) Defensible spaces in weakly structured interdisciplinary project teams – extending and re-thinking the role of boundary objects, Paper prepared for the Making Projects Critical 7 workshop, Stockholm, 23-24 Jan, 2. 

Ivory, C. (2013) The role of the imagined user in planning and design narrative, Planning Theory, 12(4): 425-441. (well regarded journal, not on the CABS list, 20th/55 in its field) 

Alderman, N, Ivory, C, McLoughlin, I. and Vaughan, R. (2013) Managing Complex Projects: Networks, Knowledge and Integration, London: Routledge. 

Recent presentations and conferences

Invited speaker for:

 

• The Institute of Institute of Engineering and Technology, invited public lecture, Chelmsford, 4th March, 2020.     
• Birmingham University Business School, invited lecture, 3rd March, 2020. 
• TWI Annual Digital Manufacturing Conference, The Welding Institute, Cambridge, invited speaker (20th December, 2018).  
• Association of Researchers in Construction Management Annual Conference – Brutal Technology, Cambridge, UK, invited opening keynote (September, 2017). 
• Invited chair of Association of Researchers in Construction Management Annual Conference (September, 2018) opening keynote. 
• Newcastle University Business School, development seminar, invited discussant (May, 2017) 
• Marladarlen University, invited ‘inspiration session’ (March, 2017) 
• Modernizing Justice: Atos-hosted seminar: Transforming outcomes through citizen-centricity, discussant on expert panel (June, 2016). 
• Cambridge University School of Architecture – invited talk, Organisational Change is War, June 2016. 
• Said Business School, sources of inherent stability in technology-based projects, Feb, 2015. invited talk – two of my papers are used in their Exec programme.   
• Biz-4-Age/Innovombre discussant on expert panel, the role of universities in healthcare innovation, Kortijk, (Nov 2014).