Publications by category
Journal articles
Manolchev C, Lewis D (In Press). A Tale of Two Trusts: Negative Behaviours in the UK Ambulance Service.
Public Money and Management DOI.
Manolchev C (In Press). Learning through Games: Facilitating Meaning-Making in Online Exchanges.
Management LearningAbstract:
Learning through Games: Facilitating Meaning-Making in Online Exchanges
Over 60 years of scholarship have been dedicated to describing meaning-making processes through which organisational learning occurs. Most recently, researchers have considered the creation of shared meaning-making through prolonged and co-located interactions situated in
the context of a community. The spread of hybrid working has had an adverse impact on several of these meaning-making processes, disrupting knowledge-sharing ecosystems and organisational learning overall. In this paper, we explore ways of facilitating knowledge-sharing against such disruption. To maximise the efficiency of verbal communication, we introduce Basil Bernstein’s socio-linguistic approach of learning as the emergence and consolidation of verbal codes. We trial the LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® (LSP) method as a means of facilitating the emergence and consolidation of such verbal codes in five online workshops with manufacturing businesses in the Southwest of the UK. We find that the emergence of verbal codes can be facilitated through the use of the LSP method. We also find that code consolidation is a much more spontaneous process, and we observe this in the final reflection stage of the workshops. Our study offers insights into the process of meaning-making
in online exchanges and has implications for organisations seeking to manage hybrid or fully
remote workforces, as well as the wider field of organisational learning.
Abstract.
Manolchev C, Agar C (In Press). Migrant Labour as Space: Rhythmanalysing the Agri-Food Industry. Organization: the interdisciplinary journal of organization, theory and society
Lewis D, Manolchev C, Pursell L, Hodgins M, Hogan V, Mannix-McNamara P (In Press). The SME Paradox? Investigating Ill-Treatment Behaviours in Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises in Ireland. International Small Business Journal
Manolchev C, Einarsdottir A, Lewis D, Hoel H (In Press). Trapped in the Abject: Prison Officers’ Use of Avoidance, Compliance and Retaliation in Response to Ambiguous Humour.
Culture and OrganizationAbstract:
Trapped in the Abject: Prison Officers’ Use of Avoidance, Compliance and Retaliation in Response to Ambiguous Humour
The place of humour in organisational interactions has been the subject of long-standing interest. Studies have considered the positive role of humour in increasing social contact and promoting group cohesion, while warning it can be a means for expressing hostility and excluding group members. However, more ambiguous uses of humour remain underexplored and under-theorised. Using a single case study of employee experiences at ‘Hillside’, a high-security prison in the UK, we address this gap. Adopting Julia Kristeva’s ‘theory of the abject’, we conceptualise ‘abject humour’ as a disruptive activity, which is composite, shady and sinister. We show that, despite Hillside’s adoption of Challenge it, Change it as a UK-wide safeguarding policy, the liminal spaces abject humour opens and occupies, are difficult to regulate. Those spaces trap both perpetrators and targets, and necessitate the use of avoidance, compliance, and retaliation strategies by the latter, as ways of coping.
Abstract.
DOI.
Manolchev C (In Press). ‘Dances with Daffodils’: Life as a Flower-Picker in Southwest England. Work, Employment and Society
Keenan C, Manolchev C (In Press). ‘Hacking’ the pandemic: turning online work challenges into learning with IMPACT. Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education
Valenzuela F, Manolchev C, Böhm S, Agar CC (2023). Working through (mis)recognition: Understanding vulnerability as ambivalence in precarious worker subjectivity.
Human RelationsAbstract:
Working through (mis)recognition: Understanding vulnerability as ambivalence in precarious worker subjectivity
Most workers around the world are part of the precariat, characterized by non-permanent, informal, short-term, low-pay, low-skill, and insecure jobs. While there have been many socio-economic critiques of the negative impacts of precarity on workers, the literature has increasingly asked how precarious workers actually live their lives and how their subjectivities are produced on a daily basis. We contribute to this literature by providing a psychosocial account of the ambivalent experiences of precarious workers. We contend that the interplay of recognition and misrecognition plays a crucial role, as the vulnerable, working subject becomes entangled in a complex web of recognizability. We present insights from 104 in-depth interviews, providing a Lacanian analysis of how precarious workers develop unconscious attachments to neoliberal values that are central to the logic of precarity. Understanding this ambivalence helps us develop a more nuanced view of an ethics of precarious workers’ vulnerability.
Abstract.
DOI.
Manolchev C, Cherrington R, Alexander A (2022). Towards ‘Employability 3.0’: from Practice to Praxis.
Journal of Learning Development in Higher EducationAbstract:
Towards ‘Employability 3.0’: from Practice to Praxis
In addition to higher learning, universities are expected to also ‘do’ employability and help students transition from education to employment. Accordingly, a wide range of approaches have emerged and we, as academics, dedicate substantial efforts to designing and implementing attractive employability offerings for our degree programmes.
We spend considerably less time (and have considerably less time to spend) on reflecting whether these provisions are truly transformational. Brazilian philosopher and educator, Paulo Freire, argued that this transformation can only be achieved through praxis. As the combination of action and reflection into an act of radical agency, praxis is authentic being at both the individual and social level. Praxis is the self-determined creation of one’s own future, while accepting accountability to fellow human beings.
In this opinion piece we contend that praxis should be placed at the heart of employability of the future – employability 3.0. We propose that employability 3.0 should incorporate but go beyond current best practices such as cross-curriculum ‘connectedness’ and the ‘embeddedness’ of community of practice learning. It should be a programme of active learning and reflection, which enables students to rewrite their futures by improving their wellbeing, employment prospects and place in society.
Abstract.
Pustelnikovaite T, Nyfoudi M, Williams H, Gomes MVP, Manolchev C (2022). “Despite the Lockdown, the University Has a Lot to Offer”: Exploring University Identity During Crisis.
Academy of Management Proceedings,
2022(1).
DOI.
Alexander A, Manolchev C (2020). The Future of University or Universities of the Future: a Paradox for Uncertain Times.
International Journal of Educational Management DOI.
Manolchev CN (2019). Book-review:. Organizational space and Beyond: the Significance of Henri Lefebvre for Organization Studies.
Organization DOI.
Manolchev CN (2019). Sensemaking as ‘Self’-defence: Investigating Spaces of Resistance in Precarious Work.
Competition and Change DOI.
Manolchev CN (2018). Book Review: Gilberto Antonelli and Boike Rehbein (eds), Inequality in Economics and Sociology: New Perspectives.
Work, Employment and Society DOI.
Manolchev C (2018). Book Review: Mapping Precariousness, Labour Insecurity and Uncertain Livelihoods: Subjectivities and Resistance.
WORK EMPLOYMENT AND SOCIETY,
32(1), 231-233.
DOI.
Manolchev CN (2018). Book Review: Marcus Taylor and Sébastien Rioux, Global Labour Studies.
Work, Employment and Society DOI.
Manolchev CN, Saundry R, Lewis D (2018). Breaking-up the ‘Precariat’: Personalisation, Differentiation and Deindividuation in Precarious Work Groups.
Economic and Industrial Democracy DOI.
Manolchev CN, Teigen KH (2018). Counterfactual Theory as an Under-Utilised Analytical Framework for Studying Precarious Work Experiences.
Personnel Review DOI.
Alexander A, Martin DP, Manolchev C, Miller K (2018). University–industry collaboration: using meta-rules to overcome barriers to knowledge transfer.
The Journal of Technology Transfer DOI.
Chapters
Böhm S, Ho C-H, Holmes H, Manolchev C, Rödl M, Spekkink W (2023). 14 Circular society activism: prefigurative communities in everyday Circular Economy action. In (Ed)
Handbook of the Circular Economy, 241-260.
DOI.
Brown EG, Novak M, Manolchev C, Gil S, Munoz E (2023). 15 Circular economy jobs: risks and opportunities in the labour market. In (Ed)
Handbook of the Circular Economy, 261-284.
DOI.
Conferences
Manolchev C, Stussi L, Ho C-H, Campenni M, Pascucci S, Lewis D (2023). Internal ‘chutes’ and legal ‘ladders’: negative behaviour anomalies in the NHS. EGOS. 6th - 8th Jul 2023.
Abstract:
Internal ‘chutes’ and legal ‘ladders’: negative behaviour anomalies in the NHS
Abstract.
Cherrington R, Manolchev C, Alexander A (2023). Towards a Circular Economy: Insights from a UK Rural Community. XXXIV ISPIM Innovation Conference. 4th - 7th Jun 2023.
Cherrington R, Alexander A, Boehm S, Manolchev C, Monciardini D, Pascucci S (2021). The sociomateriality of plastic waste: a cross-case comparison. ISPIM Innovation Conference – Innovating Our Common Future. 20th - 23rd Jun 2021.
Publications by year
In Press
Manolchev C, Lewis D (In Press). A Tale of Two Trusts: Negative Behaviours in the UK Ambulance Service.
Public Money and Management DOI.
Manolchev C (In Press). Learning through Games: Facilitating Meaning-Making in Online Exchanges.
Management LearningAbstract:
Learning through Games: Facilitating Meaning-Making in Online Exchanges
Over 60 years of scholarship have been dedicated to describing meaning-making processes through which organisational learning occurs. Most recently, researchers have considered the creation of shared meaning-making through prolonged and co-located interactions situated in
the context of a community. The spread of hybrid working has had an adverse impact on several of these meaning-making processes, disrupting knowledge-sharing ecosystems and organisational learning overall. In this paper, we explore ways of facilitating knowledge-sharing against such disruption. To maximise the efficiency of verbal communication, we introduce Basil Bernstein’s socio-linguistic approach of learning as the emergence and consolidation of verbal codes. We trial the LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® (LSP) method as a means of facilitating the emergence and consolidation of such verbal codes in five online workshops with manufacturing businesses in the Southwest of the UK. We find that the emergence of verbal codes can be facilitated through the use of the LSP method. We also find that code consolidation is a much more spontaneous process, and we observe this in the final reflection stage of the workshops. Our study offers insights into the process of meaning-making
in online exchanges and has implications for organisations seeking to manage hybrid or fully
remote workforces, as well as the wider field of organisational learning.
Abstract.
Manolchev C, Agar C (In Press). Migrant Labour as Space: Rhythmanalysing the Agri-Food Industry. Organization: the interdisciplinary journal of organization, theory and society
Lewis D, Manolchev C, Pursell L, Hodgins M, Hogan V, Mannix-McNamara P (In Press). The SME Paradox? Investigating Ill-Treatment Behaviours in Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises in Ireland. International Small Business Journal
Manolchev C, Einarsdottir A, Lewis D, Hoel H (In Press). Trapped in the Abject: Prison Officers’ Use of Avoidance, Compliance and Retaliation in Response to Ambiguous Humour.
Culture and OrganizationAbstract:
Trapped in the Abject: Prison Officers’ Use of Avoidance, Compliance and Retaliation in Response to Ambiguous Humour
The place of humour in organisational interactions has been the subject of long-standing interest. Studies have considered the positive role of humour in increasing social contact and promoting group cohesion, while warning it can be a means for expressing hostility and excluding group members. However, more ambiguous uses of humour remain underexplored and under-theorised. Using a single case study of employee experiences at ‘Hillside’, a high-security prison in the UK, we address this gap. Adopting Julia Kristeva’s ‘theory of the abject’, we conceptualise ‘abject humour’ as a disruptive activity, which is composite, shady and sinister. We show that, despite Hillside’s adoption of Challenge it, Change it as a UK-wide safeguarding policy, the liminal spaces abject humour opens and occupies, are difficult to regulate. Those spaces trap both perpetrators and targets, and necessitate the use of avoidance, compliance, and retaliation strategies by the latter, as ways of coping.
Abstract.
DOI.
Manolchev C (In Press). ‘Dances with Daffodils’: Life as a Flower-Picker in Southwest England. Work, Employment and Society
Keenan C, Manolchev C (In Press). ‘Hacking’ the pandemic: turning online work challenges into learning with IMPACT. Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education
2023
Böhm S, Ho C-H, Holmes H, Manolchev C, Rödl M, Spekkink W (2023). 14 Circular society activism: prefigurative communities in everyday Circular Economy action. In (Ed)
Handbook of the Circular Economy, 241-260.
DOI.
Brown EG, Novak M, Manolchev C, Gil S, Munoz E (2023). 15 Circular economy jobs: risks and opportunities in the labour market. In (Ed)
Handbook of the Circular Economy, 261-284.
DOI.
Manolchev C, Stussi L, Ho C-H, Campenni M, Pascucci S, Lewis D (2023). Internal ‘chutes’ and legal ‘ladders’: negative behaviour anomalies in the NHS. EGOS. 6th - 8th Jul 2023.
Abstract:
Internal ‘chutes’ and legal ‘ladders’: negative behaviour anomalies in the NHS
Abstract.
Cherrington R, Manolchev C, Alexander A (2023). Towards a Circular Economy: Insights from a UK Rural Community. XXXIV ISPIM Innovation Conference. 4th - 7th Jun 2023.
Valenzuela F, Manolchev C, Böhm S, Agar CC (2023). Working through (mis)recognition: Understanding vulnerability as ambivalence in precarious worker subjectivity.
Human RelationsAbstract:
Working through (mis)recognition: Understanding vulnerability as ambivalence in precarious worker subjectivity
Most workers around the world are part of the precariat, characterized by non-permanent, informal, short-term, low-pay, low-skill, and insecure jobs. While there have been many socio-economic critiques of the negative impacts of precarity on workers, the literature has increasingly asked how precarious workers actually live their lives and how their subjectivities are produced on a daily basis. We contribute to this literature by providing a psychosocial account of the ambivalent experiences of precarious workers. We contend that the interplay of recognition and misrecognition plays a crucial role, as the vulnerable, working subject becomes entangled in a complex web of recognizability. We present insights from 104 in-depth interviews, providing a Lacanian analysis of how precarious workers develop unconscious attachments to neoliberal values that are central to the logic of precarity. Understanding this ambivalence helps us develop a more nuanced view of an ethics of precarious workers’ vulnerability.
Abstract.
DOI.
2022
Manolchev C, Cherrington R, Alexander A (2022). Towards ‘Employability 3.0’: from Practice to Praxis.
Journal of Learning Development in Higher EducationAbstract:
Towards ‘Employability 3.0’: from Practice to Praxis
In addition to higher learning, universities are expected to also ‘do’ employability and help students transition from education to employment. Accordingly, a wide range of approaches have emerged and we, as academics, dedicate substantial efforts to designing and implementing attractive employability offerings for our degree programmes.
We spend considerably less time (and have considerably less time to spend) on reflecting whether these provisions are truly transformational. Brazilian philosopher and educator, Paulo Freire, argued that this transformation can only be achieved through praxis. As the combination of action and reflection into an act of radical agency, praxis is authentic being at both the individual and social level. Praxis is the self-determined creation of one’s own future, while accepting accountability to fellow human beings.
In this opinion piece we contend that praxis should be placed at the heart of employability of the future – employability 3.0. We propose that employability 3.0 should incorporate but go beyond current best practices such as cross-curriculum ‘connectedness’ and the ‘embeddedness’ of community of practice learning. It should be a programme of active learning and reflection, which enables students to rewrite their futures by improving their wellbeing, employment prospects and place in society.
Abstract.
Pustelnikovaite T, Nyfoudi M, Williams H, Gomes MVP, Manolchev C (2022). “Despite the Lockdown, the University Has a Lot to Offer”: Exploring University Identity During Crisis.
Academy of Management Proceedings,
2022(1).
DOI.
2021
Cherrington R, Alexander A, Boehm S, Manolchev C, Monciardini D, Pascucci S (2021). The sociomateriality of plastic waste: a cross-case comparison. ISPIM Innovation Conference – Innovating Our Common Future. 20th - 23rd Jun 2021.
2020
Alexander A, Manolchev C (2020). The Future of University or Universities of the Future: a Paradox for Uncertain Times.
International Journal of Educational Management DOI.
2019
Manolchev CN (2019). Book-review:. Organizational space and Beyond: the Significance of Henri Lefebvre for Organization Studies.
Organization DOI.
Manolchev CN (2019). Sensemaking as ‘Self’-defence: Investigating Spaces of Resistance in Precarious Work.
Competition and Change DOI.
2018
Manolchev CN (2018). Book Review: Gilberto Antonelli and Boike Rehbein (eds), Inequality in Economics and Sociology: New Perspectives.
Work, Employment and Society DOI.
Manolchev C (2018). Book Review: Mapping Precariousness, Labour Insecurity and Uncertain Livelihoods: Subjectivities and Resistance.
WORK EMPLOYMENT AND SOCIETY,
32(1), 231-233.
DOI.
Manolchev CN (2018). Book Review: Marcus Taylor and Sébastien Rioux, Global Labour Studies.
Work, Employment and Society DOI.
Manolchev CN, Saundry R, Lewis D (2018). Breaking-up the ‘Precariat’: Personalisation, Differentiation and Deindividuation in Precarious Work Groups.
Economic and Industrial Democracy DOI.
Manolchev CN, Teigen KH (2018). Counterfactual Theory as an Under-Utilised Analytical Framework for Studying Precarious Work Experiences.
Personnel Review DOI.
Alexander A, Martin DP, Manolchev C, Miller K (2018). University–industry collaboration: using meta-rules to overcome barriers to knowledge transfer.
The Journal of Technology Transfer DOI.