Genevieve Shanahan

(she/her)

PhD, FHEA

Publication

• Date
• Type

Research

My research primarily focuses on alternative organizations - that is, organizations that are opposed to the injustices of social configurations reproduced by mainstream organizations, and that aim to change these configurations for the better. My contributions to date include developing the concept of democratic revisability (how digital tools can be used to enable radically participatory organizing), alternativity as resistance to reification (how alternative organizations manifest the real possibility of organizing society differently) and impure critical performativity (how alternative organizations navigate tensions between prefigurative ideals and pragmatic constraints). 

My active research projects include: empirical work on commons-based organizing in peasant seed networks, voluntary labour coordination in cooperative grocery stores, and the design of platforms for multi-stakeholder governance in care cooperatives; a critical literature review regarding digital technologies' potential to facilitate organizing for radical social transformation; and conceptual papers concerning the cultivation of degrowth subjectivities and biopolitics. 

Teaching

At Cardiff Business School I teach on BS2520-BS2574 Managing in Multicultural Organisations and BST462 Sustainable Development and Managing with Nature. 

In the past, I have taught Sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility, Responsible Leadership and Management, and Business Ethics to undergraduate, masters and MBA students.

Biography

My research bridges critical management studies with practice-engaged scholarship, exploring alternative organizing for just and sustainable futures with a focus on democratic technology, prefigurative politics and real utopias. My work has been published in leading international journals including Human Relations, Organization Studies, and Organization and cited in policy documents from the United Nations, European Union, and International Labour Organization.

Honours and awards

• 2022 Co-Winner of the Best Critical Dissertation award, Critical Management Studies division, Academy of Management

Academic positions

• 2022 - present: Lecturer, Cardiff Business School
• 2017-2022: Research and Teaching Assistant, Grenoble Ecole de Management

Speaking engagements

2026

• Use of AI in Academic Research. Keynote address to the Management, Employment & Organisation PhD Conference, Cardiff Business School, Wales, UK. January 2026.

2025

• Democratic organisations and technologies for climate action - episode 8 of the Power of Public Value’ podcast. Invited guest on Cardiff Business School's Power of Public Value podcast, discussing findings from my Public Value Engagement project on the use of digital tools to enable democratic governance in cooperatives. June 2025.
• Invited panel contributions at the Academy of Management (AoM) conference, Copenhagen, Denmark. July 2025.
  • Democratic organizing? A conversation across bubbles.
  • Alternatives to capitalist ownership: A critical rethinking of power, voice & inclusion. 
  • The sorry state of critique in CMS: What’s wrong and how can we fix it? 
• The role of critique in future CMS: For a ruthless criticism of everything existing? Invited panel contribution at the International Critical Management Studies (ICMS) conference, Manchester, UK. June 2025. 
• Climate Policy in a Turbulent World: Complementary Perspectives. Invited presentation on the role of social movements in climate change policy, Swedish Collegium for Advanced Studies’ Climate Policy symposium, Uppsala. May 2025.

2024

• Woke Capitalism. Invited panel contribution at the European Group for Organizational Studies Colloquium (EGOS), Milan, Italy. July 2024
• Our responsibilities at this time: Towards an ecoversity? Invited contribution to panel organized by the Open University, UK. April 2024.
• Why reinvent the wheel? Materializing multiplicity to resist reification in alternative organizations. Invited presentation to the Algorithms, Data & Democracy research group, Roskilde University, Denmark. January 2024.

2023

• Being Critical of Climate Injustices. Invited CMS plenary contribution at the Academy of Management (AoM) conference, Boston, MA, USA. July 2023.
• Why reinvent the wheel? Materializing multiplicity to resist reification in alternative organizations. Invited presentation to:
  • Centre for Commons Organising, Values Equalities and Resilience, Essex Business School, UK. May 2023. 
  • Centre for Critical and Historical Research on Organisation and Society, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK. May 2023.
  • Work, Employment and Organisation Research Group, Nottingham University Business School, UK. March 2023.

2022

• Two routes to degeneration, two routes to utopia: The impure critical performativity of alternative organizing. Invited presentation to the Center for Business and Society, De La Salle University, Manila, Philippines. September 2022. 
• Best Critical Dissertation/Thesis Award 2022. Acceptance presentation at the Academy of Management (AoM) conference, Seattle, USA. July 2022.

Committees and reviewing

• Alternative Organizations and Social Transformation EGOS Standing Working Group co-convenor (2028-2031) 
• Peer Community in Organization Studies management board (2025-)
• Copenhagen Business School, Department of Organization Recruitment Committee (July-October 2025) 
• Cardiff Business School Shadow Management Board (2024-)
• Cardiff University Ethics, Values & Sustainability Working Group (February-September 2024)
• Cardiff Business School Research Ethics Committee (2023-)
• Peer Community in Organization Studies editorial board (2023-)
• Organization editorial board (2023-)

Supervisions

I am interested in supervising PhD students in the areas of:

• Sustainability transitions 
• Organizational democracy 
• Alternative organizations