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Helen Mussell

Dr Helen Mussell

Senior Lecturer in Organizational Studies and Director of Online Learning

Cardiff Business School

Users
Available for postgraduate supervision

Overview

Helen is a Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in Organizational Studies in the Management, Employment, and Organization section, and the Director of Online Learning for Cardiff Business School. Prior to joining Cardiff in 2020 as a Lecturer (Assistant Professor), Helen was Director of the Master's in Sustainability Leadership at the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership, University of Cambridge.

She completed her BA (Hons) in Women’s Studies at Lancaster University, and holds an MPhil and PhD in Gender Studies (philosophy and economics focus) from the University of Cambridge, where she was Cambridge Political Economy Society Trust Scholar (2012-2016).

Helen is Editor of the Economics, Political Economy, and Business Ethics section of the Journal of Business Ethics (a Financial Times Research Rank top 50 journal), an Honorary Research Associate at the Centre for Business Research, Judge Business School, University of Cambridge, and an alumna of Newnham College, Cambridge. Her recent publication 'Theorising the Fiduciary: Ontology and Ethics' in Journal of Business Ethics (2023) was awarded the Gavin C Reid Best Paper prize 2022 by the Centre for Business Research, Judge Business School.

Her highly interdisciplinary work focuses on organizational ethics, including fiduciary duty, trust, and power in organizations. Helen is published in philosophy (ethics, epistemology, and ontology), heterodox economics, business and feminist ethics, and social psychology. She is published in leading journals including Business Ethics Quarterly and Journal of Business Ethics, and has published a monograph - Ontology, relational ethics and corporations - with Palgrave Macmillan (2024).   

Prior to her academic career, Helen worked in industry for fourteen years, in sectors including media, publishing, and consultancy, where she engaged with organizational culture issues regarding gender, leadership, and management in the workplace.

Helen also acts as a Specialist Advisor with Principia Advisory supporting executive leadership teams and Boards on ethical practice, focussing on the ethical implications of fiduciary duties, including issues relating to interpretations of responsibilities of trusteeships from an ethical perspective.     

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Publication

2025

2024

2023

2021

2020

2019

2017

2016

Articles

Book sections

Books

Monographs

Research

My research focusses on organizational ethics, including fiduciary duty, trust, and power in organizations, and includes ethics in finance. I am interested in epistemic virtues and vices in organizational contexts, and how certain economic interpretations of key concepts carry implications for organizational behaviour.

Alongside journal articles and book chapters, I have published a monograph - Ontology, Relational Ethics, & Corporations - with Palgrave Macmillan on their Philosophy and Religion list. The following summarizes the book's contribution:

'This book offers a unique exploration and analysis of social responsibility and associated ethical concepts used by business and financial organizations. Mussell lays out the argument that a realist analysis of social responsibility reveals caring relations underpinning this ethical behavior. The combination of a realist social ontology with contemporary relational care ethics provides the theoretical framework needed to successfully explore the ethics of social responsibility. She then applies this realist caring relations argument to three specific contexts in which social responsibility is explicitly evident - including corporate social responsibility, socially responsible investment, and the legal concept of the fiduciary. By tracing the historical development of each concept – including how economic methodology has influenced interpretations and practice – a complex picture emerges, showing how ethics, economic theory, and political theory intersect. This is an insightful work of philosophically informed contemporary political economy, analyzing the evolution and connection of key ethical concepts widely used by organizations'.

I am also a member of the Cambridge Social Ontology Group.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Teaching

I am module leader and teacher of International Business Ethics and Political Economy (BST464) on the MSc in International Management. Prior to that, I taught Organizational Behaviour on the EMBA. I also hold an academic leadership role as Director of Online Learning for Cardiff Business School.

Externally to Cardiff, I act as an External Examiner for undergraduate modules at King's Business School, King's College London.

Regarding teacher training, I was selected in 2024 to participate in the competitive Global Business Ethics Teaching Workshop at The Hoffman Center for Business Ethics, Bentley University, Boston, US.

Supervisions

Potential PhD candidates interested in the following areas of research are welcome to contact me:

  • Organizational Ethics (including Ethics of Care)
  • Applied feminist philosophy in organizational contexts
  • Epistemic vices and organizations
  • Social ontological approach to studying organizations

Current supervision

Tanya Nash

Tanya Nash

Research student

Contact Details

Email MussellH@cardiff.ac.uk
Telephone +44 29206 88841
Campuses Aberconway Building, Room C52, Colum Road, Cathays, Cardiff, CF10 3EU