Overview

Professor Beverley Hawkins researches and teaches in the field of leadership/management practice, learning and development; her work often focuses on how people ‘make things happen’.  She is especially interested in the experiences of those leading themselves and others through times of transition, and in experiences of leadership learning and development, both within and outside of Higher Education. Funded by a number of highly competitive funding bodies, Beverley’s research projects include:

Clear about Carbon; an award-winning, ESF-funded project that enabled leaders to support low-carbon agendas in their organization. 

Sixth Form Transitions: an ESRC-funded initiative to develop leadership skills in students experiencing post-16 education.  

Unlimited Value: an Arts Council England funded project that enables leaders of libraries to understand and share the difference their organizations make to local communities.

Leadership Development for Public Service Mutuals: funded by the Higher Education Impact fund, this project has created a leadership development programme for emerging Public Service Mutuals, run in partnership with the Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.

Beverley has published in high-ranking journals in the fields of management and higher education learning, sociology and interdisciplinary management/organization studies.  Her doctorate, published in 2009, received an Emerald ‘Highly Commended’ award in the Human Resource Management category.

During her time at Exeter, Beverley has undertaken a succession of senior education leadership roles including:

• Associate Academic Dean for Students (2019-21)
• Associate Dean Education, College of Social Sciences and International Studies (2021)
• Associate Dean Education, University of Exeter Business School (2021-present)

In her most recent role she is responsible for the vision and strategic direction of the student experience and taught programmes portfolio, as well as teaching quality and education innovation for the Business School.

Beverley’s credentials include:

• Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, Commerce and Manufactures
• Action Learning Facilitator accredited by the Institute of Leadership and Management.
• Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
• Subject Specialist Reviewer for the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education.

Nationality: British

Qualifications

BSc (University of Wales, Swansea), MA (University of Warwick), PhD in Management (University of Keele)

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Research

Research interests

• Leadership and teamwork
• Leadership as a sociomaterial, embodied, relational and politicised effect.
• Leading change towards sustainable organisations and societies
• Transitions towards and away from leadership positions
• Organisational culture
• Gender and identity work
• Control and resistance practices at work

Dr Hawkins undertook a PhD in Management, drawing on poststructuralist feminist theory, to show team members 'do teamwork' by invoking certain ways of thinking, being and doing, which help them to become thought of as 'good team members'. In this way, Dr Hawkins focuses on how 'doing teamwork' is intricately bound up with the way team members regulate their own, and each other's identities. Her published work has also explored how employees and leaders negotiate, identify with, and resist 'corporate culture', which uses metaphors, symbols and specific rituals to encourage identification with the corporate brand. She draws upon notions of leadership as the collaborative, negotiated performance of narratives, embedded in power relations, which open up and foreclose available ways of 'doing organisation'.

More recently Dr Hawkins' work focuses on the embodied, politicised, relational experiences of individuals and communities as they develop, accomplish and even move away from leadership. The idea of transition (between the human and the non-human, towards a more sustainable future in the circular economy, towards new identities and forms of leadership practice) is a central theme running through this focus.

Research projects

Dr Hawkins has produced a number of research papers which focus on:

• the contributions material objects make to leadership performances
• the challenges faced by students and educators of Leadership Studies in Higher Education,
• the branding of University Business Schools
• the implications of the low carbon agenda for organisations
• how team members draw upon notions of family and parenting to help organise and process their work activities
• how team members negotiate gendered corporate culture narratives.

Dr Hawkins has been involved in 'Clear about Carbon' - an award-winning ESF-funded project, which aims to develop leadership skills for sustainable procurement in Cornwall-based organisations. Other partners in the project are Cornwall Council, Duchy College and the Eden Project.

Dr Hawkins has co-written a textbook on Perspectives on Leadership with Jonathan Gosling, Richard Bolden and Scott Taylor, of the Centre for Leadership Studies.

Links

• Tricksters, Sun-gods and Monsters in Leadership Learning (video)

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Publications

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Teaching

Her teaching commitments currently focus on engaging students with theoretical and practical aspects of leadership studies. She encourages students to reflect on their own leadership experiences during class participation and assessment methods. She aims to show students how to apply theories to their own reflections of leadership reality, and to highlight the complex and emergent nature of leadership challenges using interactive learning techniques.

Dr Hawkins has also acted as a guest lecturer in the Human Resource Management and Organisational Behaviour undergraduate modules, and has been involved in teaching on the MA in Leadership Studies.

Modules

2023/24

Information not currently available

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Supervision / Group

Postgraduate researchers

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