Academic Faculty

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Prof Mark Learmonth, MA, PhD, DipHSM, DMS, PGC AP

Contact Prof Mark Learmonth (email at mark.learmonth@durham.ac.uk)

Biography

Mark spent the first 17 years of his career in management posts within the British National Health Service. Prior to taking up his post in Durham he has worked at the universities of Nottingham and York.

Mark would particularly welcome PhD students who wish to research the following sorts of areas:

• Critical perspectives on health care management and/or public sector management;
• leadership as discourse;
• debates about the use of autoethnography and other interpretative methods;
• the nature of "knowledge" and "evidence" in management and organization studies. 

Research Interests

• Management Discourse
• Evidence in Management
• Methodological Debates
• The Personal Consequences of Work

Research Groups

• Business and Management
• Critical Studies Group
• Leadership and Followership

Selected Publications

Books: authored

• Ford, J., Harding, N. & Learmonth, M. (2008). Leadership as identity: constructions and deconstructions. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan.

Books: edited

• Currie, G., Ford, J., Harding, N. & Learmonth, M. (2010). Making public services management critical. Routledge Critical Studies in Public Management. New York: Routledge.
• Learmonth M. & Harding, N. (2004). Unmasking health management: a critical text. New York: Nova Science.

Essays in edited volumes

• Learmonth, M. & Humphreys, M. (2012). Teaching qualitative research in the business school. In Qualitative Organizational Research: Core Methods and Current Challenges. Cassell, C. & Symon, G. London: Sage. 224-236.
• Humphreys, M. & Learmonth, M. (2011). Autoethnography in organizational research. In The practice of qualitative organizational research: core methods and current challenges. Cassell, C. & Symon, G. London: Sage. Forthcoming.
• Currie, G. & Learmonth, M. (2010). Introduction: making public services management critical. In Making public services management critical. Currie, G., Ford, J., Harding N. & Learmonth M. New York: Taylor & Francis. 1-8.
• Humphreys, M. & Learmonth, M. (2010). Public sector management? But we’re academics, we don’t do that sort of thing!. In Making public services management critical. Currie, G., Ford, J., Harding N. & Learmonth M. New York: Taylor & Francis. 55-67.
• Learmonth, M. (2010). When science and philosophy meet one explication of the relationship between evidence and theory in management research. In Challenges and controversies in management research. Cassell, C. & Lee, B. London: Routledge. 210-222.
• Learmonth, M. (2009). Rhetoric and evidence: the case of evidence-based management. In The SAGE handbook of organizational research methods. Buchanan, D. & Bryman, A. London: Sage. 93-109.
• Learmonth, M. (2008). Evidence-based management: the power of evidence or evidence of power?. In Organizing and reorganizing: power and change in health care organizations. McKee, L., Ferlie, E. & Hyde, P. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. 75-86.
• Harding, N. & Learmonth, M. (2004). Conclusion: managers do not do management. In Unmasking health management: a critical text. Learmonth, M. & Harding, N. New York: Nova Science. 187-196.
• Learmonth, M. & Harding, N. (2004). Introduction: everyone wants better management – don’t they? Asking critical questions about health services management. In Unmasking health management: a critical text. Learmonth, M. & Harding, N. New York: Nova Science. vii-x.
• Learmonth M. (2003). U.K. hospital chief executives, basically ‘a bunch of administrators’? The NHS Management Inquiry reviewed. In Health care in transition. Smyth, M.N. New York: Nova Science. 2: 61-80.
• Thompson, C. & Learmonth, M. (2002). How can we develop an evidence-based culture?. In The evidence-based practice manual for nurses. Craig, J. & Smyth, R. London: Churchill Livingstone. 211-239.

Journal papers: academic

• Bevan, V. & Learmonth, M. (2013). I Wouldn't Say it's Sexism, Except That It's All These Little Subtle Things": Healthcare Scientists' Accounts of Gender in Healthcare Science Laboratories. Social Studies of Science 43(1): 136-158.
• Martin, G. & Learmonth, M. (2012). A critical account of the rise and spread of ‘leadership’ the case of UK health care. Social Science & Medicine 74(3): 281-288.
• Learmonth, M. & Humphreys, M. (2012). Autoethnography and academic identity: glimpsing business school doppelgangers. Organization 19(1): 99-117.
• Learmonth, M., Lockett, A. & Dowd, K. (2012). Promoting scholarship that matters: the uselessness of useful research and the usefulness of useless research. British Journal of Management 23(1): 35-44.
• Ford, J., Harding, N. & Learmonth, M. (2012). Who is it that would make business schools more critical? A response to Tatli. British Journal of Management 23(1): 31-34.
• Learmonth, M. (2011). A Trifle of Management: A Commentary on Dealings with the Firm of Dombey and Son, Wholesale, Retail and for Exportation by Charles Dickens. Journal of Health Services Research & Policy 16(4): 245-246.
• Learmonth, M. & Humphreys, M. (2011). Blind spots in Dutton, Roberts and Bednar’s “Pathways for positive identity construction at work” “You've got to accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative". Academy of Management Review 36(2): 424-427.
• Reedy, P. & Learmonth, M. (2011). Death and organization: Heidegger’s thought on death and life in organizations. Organization Studies 32(1): 117-131.
• Harding, N., Lee, H., Ford, J. & Learmonth, M. (2011). Leadership and charisma: a desire that cannot speak its name?. Human Relations 64(7): 927-949.
• Finn, R., Learmonth, M. & Reedy P. (2010). Some unintended effects of teamwork in healthcare. Social Science & Medicine 70(8): 1148-1154.
• Ford, J., Harding, N. & Learmonth, M. (2010). Who is it that would make business schools more critical? Critical reflections on critical management studies. British Journal of Management 21(Supplement 1): s71–s81.
• Learmonth, M. (2009). ‘Girls’ working together without ‘teams’ how to avoid the colonization of management language. Human Relations 62(12): 1887-1906.
• Learmonth, M., Martin, G. & Warwick, P. (2009). Ordinary and effective: the Catch-22 in managing the public voice in health care?. Health Expectations 12(1): 106-115.
• Reedy, P. & Learmonth, M. (2009). Other possibilities? The contribution to management education of alternative organizations. Management Learning 40(3): 241-258.
• Lee, H., Learmonth, M. & Harding, N. (2008). Queer(y)ing public administration. Public Administration 86(1): 149-167.
• Learmonth, M. (2008). Speaking out: evidence-based management: a backlash against pluralism in organizational studies?. Organization 15(2): 283-291.
• Learmonth, M. (2008). The evidence business: some implications of evidence-based management. International Review of Qualitative Research 1(3): 337-346.
• Learmonth, M. (2007). Critical management education in action: personal tales of management unlearning. Academy of Management Learning & Education 6(1): 109-113.
• Learmonth, M. (2006). Doing critical management research interviews after reading Derrida. Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management 1(2): 83-97.
• Learmonth, M. & Harding, N. (2006). Evidence-based management: the very idea. Public Administration 84(2): 245-266.
• Learmonth, M. (2006). Is there such a thing as “Evidence-Based Management”? A commentary on Rousseau’s 2005 presidential address. Academy of Management Review 31(4): 1089-1091.
• Learmonth, M. & Humphreys, M. (2006). The 2nd International Conference of Qualitative Inquiry, May 2006: reflections on the value for organization and management scholars. Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management 1(2): 135-137.
• Learmonth, M. (2005). Doing things with words: the case of ‘management’ and ‘administration’. Public Administration 83(3): 617-637.
• Learmonth, M. (2005). Tales of the unexpected? Stirring things up in health care management. Journal of Health Organization and Management 19(3): 181-188.
• Learmonth, M. (2004). The violence in trusting trust chief executives: glimpsing trust in the UK National Health Service. Qualitative Inquiry 10(4): 581-600.
• Learmonth, M. (2003). Challenging how we think about management. British Journal of Health Care Management 9(10): 335-339.
• Learmonth, M. (2003). Making health services management research critical: a review and a suggestion. Sociology of Health & Illness 25(1): 93-119.

Show all publications

Supervises

• Miss Warda Jamal
• Mr Johan Van-vuuren
• Mrs Alison Clare