Professor Joanne Murphy

Professor Joanne Murphy

Department of Management
Professor of Inclusive Leadership

Contact details

Address
Birmingham Business School
University House
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

Joanne Murphy is a Professor of Inclusive Leadership at Birmingham Business School, University of Birmingham. Her research explores leadership and change in volatile environments. She has worked extensively with business, government, not for profits and police and security organisations to build leadership capacity and manage change. Professor Murphy’s latest book - ‘Management and War: How Organisations Navigate Conflict and Build Peace’ is now available. 

Qualifications

  • 2013 PGCHET
  • 2009 PhD (Organisational Change) - Trinity College Dublin, Ireland 
  • 2002  MA  (Cultural Management) University of Ulster, Northern Ireland 
  • 1993 BA   (Political Science First Class Hons) Queen’s University of Belfast

Biography

Joanne Murphy is Professor of Inclusive Leadership, Birmingham Business School. Her research explores leadership, change and organisational development in political volatility. She has written extensively on leadership and organisational change in the areas of policing, public management and political geography, including her highly cited study of organisational change in Northern Ireland policing, and her latest book on the role of organisational actors in environments of violent conflict and transition. She holds a primary degree in political science from Queen’s University Belfast, a MA form Ulster University and a PhD from Trinity College Dublin

Teaching

MSc HRM – Leadership Development (07 24272)

MSc HRM – Managing Equality and Diversity (07 37332)

Research

Her research explores how leadership processes create collective action and contribute to system wide change. She is particularly interested in environments of conflict and contestation and recently published by third book Management in Conflict and Transition: the Organisational Dimensions of Building Peace. The study explores management practices in the midst of ethno-political conflict and subsequent conflict transformation processes. It draws on three case examples of conflict and conflict transformation (Northern Ireland, Kosovo and the Basque region) and asks how organisational managers in the public, private and non-profit sectors engage with ethno political violence and its legacy at a community, organisational and political level. Using interviews and witness seminars with managers and leaders in the three cases, the work provides a background analysis to each case before focusing on emergent themes from the data itself. Some of these themes directly engage in the conflict arena – like those in police and security functions. Others deal with the reality of conflict and its legacy from a cultural or arts management perspective and others on the challenges of delivering services like housing and health or supporting economic regeneration. 

She is currently working on a new book entitled ‘A Duty of Hope: The Anglo-Irish Division and the Work of Peace’. This work documents the activities, development and impact of the Anglo-Irish Division of the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs through the prism of peacebuilding and conflict diplomacy. Drawing on extensive interviews with public officials and those with whom they worked, the book explores the iteration of the Division itself, its relationship with other branches of government and the organisational, political and diplomatic efforts at peacebuilding over almost forty years.

Publications

Recent publications

Article

Murphy, J 2024, 'Leadership, Liminality and ‘Wicked’ Conflicts: John Hume and the untangling of the Northern Ireland ‘Troubles'', Leadership. https://doi.org/10.1177/17427150241286747

Elliott, I, Ralph, L, Murphy, J & Glennon, R 2024, 'Navigating the Digital Beat: A Review of Social Media as a Public Engagement Tool in Policing', International Journal of Emergency Services.

Murphy, J & McDowell, S 2023, 'Making Sense of Segregation: Transitional Thinking and Contested Space', Urban Studies, pp. 1-17. https://doi.org/10.1177/00420980231161007

Chapter

Murphy, J 2024, Hume - changing the rules of the game. in Impossible Peace . Open University Press, pp. 10-11. <https://www.open.edu/openlearn/ireland/impossible-peace-ceasefire-anniversary-northern-ireland>

Murphy, J 2024, Inclusive Leadership: Focus, Foundations and Challenge. in Leadership and Leadership Development: Critical Perspectives and Contemporary Approaches. Routledge.

Murphy, J 2023, Organizational Leadership and Change in the Context of Conflict. in R Todnem By, B Burnes & M Hughes (eds), Organizational Change, Leadership and Ethics. 2nd edn, Routledge Studies in Organizational Change & Development, Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003036395-14

Murphy, J 2023, Policing and Peace in Northern Ireland: Change, Conflict and Community Confidence. in L McAtackney & M O-cathain (eds), The Routledge Handbook of the Northern Ireland Conflict and Peace. 1st edn, Routledge. <https://www.routledge.com/The-Routledge-Handbook-of-the-Northern-Ireland-Conflict-and-Peace/McAtackney-Cathain/p/book/9781032124001>

Abstract

Murphy, J 2022, 'From Zero Sum to Three Strands: Diplomatic Leadership and the Northern Ireland Peace Process', 20th International Studying Leadership Conference, Brighton, United Kingdom, 11/12/22 - 13/12/22.

Editorial

Kuipers, B & Murphy, J 2023, 'A Multi-Level Leadership Spectrum for Collective Good', Journal of Change Management: Reframing Leadership and Organisational Practice , vol. 23, no. 4. https://doi.org/10.1080/14697017.2023.2278772?needAccess=true

Paper

Murphy, J & McDowell, S 2023, 'Leading without Leadership: Place, Instability and Transborder dynamics in post-Brexit Northern Ireland', Paper presented at Place Leadership in Europe, Newcastle, United Kingdom, 10/05/23 - 12/05/23.

Murphy, J & Rhodes, ML 2022, 'Enabling leadership in practice: examining IT implementation in healthcare organisations', Paper presented at 2022 Irish Academy of Management (IAM) Annual Conference, Dublin, Ireland, 24/08/22 - 25/08/22.

Murphy, J & White, T 2022, 'Organizations, Order, and Peace: Policing Northern Ireland in the Aftermath of Brexit', Paper presented at ISA 2022 Annual Convention, Nashville, United States, 28/03/22 - 2/04/22.

Denyer, D, Pilbeam, C & Murphy, J 2022, 'Reframing public inquiries as a mechanism for system-wide change', Paper presented at British Academy of Management Conference 2022, Manchester, United Kingdom, 31/08/22 - 2/09/22.

Hazlett, S-A, Murphy, J & McIlvenna, L 2021, 'Demystifying SDG's: exploring Businesses' contribution towards achieving the Sustainable Developing Goals (SDGs)', Paper presented at 2021 Irish Academy of Management (IAM) Annual Conference and Doctoral Colloquium, Waterford, Ireland, 25/08/21 - 26/08/21.

Murphy, J & White, T 2020, 'Lost in Liminal Space: Brexit and Policing in Northern Ireland'. <https://connect.apsanet.org/apsa2020/>

View all publications in research portal