Portrait of Dr Lauren McCarthy

Dr Lauren McCarthy

Reader in Corporate Social Responsibility

Bayes Business School , Faculty of Management

Contact

About

Overview

Dr Lauren McCarthy is a Reader in Corporate Social Responsibility and Director of ETHOS: The Centre for Responsible Enterprise. She joined Bayes Business School in September 2022, following previous roles at Royal Holloway, University of London, Copenhagen Business School, and The University of Nottingham, where she was awarded her PhD.

Dr McCarthy's research explores the relationship between business, gender and responsibility, particularly in global supply chains. She often works alongside business and NGOs on current challenges they are facing. Lauren is also interested in how feminist movements interact with the private sector. Lauren has researched cocoa in Ghana, cotton in India, gold in Tanzania, and was recently co-investigator on the ReFashion study in Cambodia, funded by ESPRC and led by Prof Katherine Brickell (Royal Holloway University of London). The study investigated the impacts of COVID19 on garment workers, particularly women, in Cambodia (2020-2022). See www.refashionstudy.org for more. Lauren is currently researching social media and feminist social movements, as well as refocusing her gender research in supply chains by exploring the role of men as gender allies.

Lauren is passionate about teaching CSR, sustainability, and diversity and inclusion education within Business Schools. She enjoys advocating for innovative qualitative research methods, particularly focusing on visual and/or participatory methods and welcomes applications from potential PhD students exploring feminism, CSR and/or inequality in various contexts.

Qualifications

  • PhD, University of Nottingham, United Kingdom

Employment

  • External Examiner, The University of Bath, United Kingdom, April 2023 - present

Administrative roles

  • Director of ETHOS: The Centre for Responsible Enterprise, September 2023 - present
  • Co-convenor of Standing Working Group on 'Organizing Social Responsibilities in Contested Times', European Group of Organization Studies (EGOS), January 2019 - July 2022

Expertise

Primary topics

  • Corporate Social Responsibility
  • Gender & Diversity Management

Additional topics

  • Supply Chain Management

Industries

  • food & drink
  • fashion

Geographic Areas

  • Africa - Western
  • Asia - Southeast

Research students

Waad Alshaikh

Attendance: October 2023 - present, full-time

Role: 2nd Supervisor

Chiamaka Ibeh

Attendance: September 2023 - present, full-time

Role: 2nd Supervisor

Shweta Chowdhary

Attendance: September 2019 - May 2024, full-time

Thesis title: Consumer practices towards sustainable fashion in India

Role: External Supervisor

Divya Patel

Attendance: September 2018 - April 2022, full-time

Thesis title: Corporate Social Responsibility in Small Couple Businesses in Gujarat, India Enhancing the Socioemotional Wealth Framework from a Gender Perspective

Role: 2nd Supervisor

Further information: Supervised at Royal Holloway, University of London. Co-authored 'Drawing Together, Thinking Apart: Reflecting on our use of visual participatory research methods' in Empowering Methodologies in Organisational and Social Research (Routledge, 2021)

Publications

  1. Brickell, K., Chhom, T., Lawreniuk, S., McCarthy, L., Mony, R. and So, H. (2024). Doing feminist longitudinal research across the COVID‐19 crisis: Unheard impacts on researchers and garment workers in Cambodia. Area, 56(1). doi:10.1111/area.12885

    [publisher’s website]

Books (2)

  1. Grosser, K., McCarthy, L. and Kilgour, M. (2017). Introduction.
  2. Grosser, K., McCarthy, L. and Kilgour, M.A. (Eds.), (2017). Gender Equality and Responsible Business. Routledge.

Chapters (6)

  1. McCarthy, L., Soundararajan, V. and Taylor, S. (2023). The hegemony of men in global value chains: Insights for intersectional labour governance. Routledge Handbook on Men Masculinities and Organizations Theories Practices and Futures of Organizing (pp. 355-371).
  2. McCarthy, L., Soundararajan, V. and Taylor, S. (2023). The hegemony of men in global value chains. Routledge Handbook on Men, Masculinities and Organizations (pp. 355-371). Routledge.
  3. McCarthy, L.A. (2023). Empowering Women through Corporate Social Responsibility: A Feminist Foucauldian Critique. Issues in Business Ethics (pp. 225-253). Springer International Publishing. ISBN 9783031244445.
  4. McCarthy, L. and Patel, D. (2021). Drawing Together, Thinking Apart: Reflecting on our use of visual participatory research methods. In Bell, E. and Singh Sengupta, S. (Eds.), Empowering Methodologies in Organisational and Social Research Routledge India. ISBN 9780429352492.
  5. McCarthy, L. and Mena, S. (2020). Institutional work and (ir)responsible management. Research Handbook of Responsible Management Edward Elgar Publishing. ISBN 9781788971959.
  6. Mena, S. and McCarthy, L. (2020). Institutional Work and (Ir)Responsible Management. In Laasch, O., Jamali, D., Freeman, R.E. and Suddaby, R. (Eds.), Research Handbook of Responsible Management (pp. 654-699). Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. ISBN 9781788971959.

Conference paper and proceedings

  1. Glozer, S., McCarthy, L. and Whelan, G. #NoMorePage3: Feminism and Institutional Work in Corporate Constructed Arenas of Citizenship. .doi:10.5465/ambpp.2015.241

Journal articles (18)

  1. Lawreniuk, S., Brickell, K., Chhom, T., McCarthy, L., Reach, M. and So, H. (2026). Gendering the safety net: Social protection policy and the limits to Decent Work in Cambodia’s garment sector. World Development, 199, pp. 107251-107251. doi:10.1016/j.worlddev.2025.107251

    [publisher’s website]

  2. D’Cruz, P., Delannon, N., Kourula, A., McCarthy, L., Moon, J. and Spence, L.J. (2024). Contesting social responsibilities of business: Centring context, experience, and relationality. Human Relations, 77(7), pp. 889-905. doi:10.1177/00187267241247647

    [publisher’s website]

  3. McCarthy, L. and Taylor, S. (2024). Misogyny and Organization Studies. Organization Studies, 45(3), pp. 457-473. doi:10.1177/01708406231213964

    [publisher’s website]

  4. Brickell, K., Lawreniuk, S. and McCarthy, L. (2024). Qualitative longitudinal methodologies for crisis times: Against crisis exceptionalism and ‘helicopter’ research. Area, 56(1). doi:10.1111/area.12924

    [publisher’s website]

  5. McCarthy, L. and Grosser, K. (2023). Breaking isolation: Consciousness-raising as a methodology for academic activism. Organization, 30(5), pp. 1152-1167. doi:10.1177/13505084231166172

    [publisher’s website]

  6. McCarthy, L. and Glozer, S. (2022). Heart, Mind and Body: #NoMorePage3 and the Replenishment of Emotional Energy. Organization Studies, 43(3), pp. 369-394. doi:10.1177/0170840621994501

    [publisher’s website]

  7. Kourula, A. (2022). Contesting Social Responsibilities of Business: Experiences in Context. Human Relations, 75(1), pp. 203-209. doi:10.1177/00187267211061857

    [publisher’s website]

  8. (2021). Contesting Social Responsibilities of Business: Experiences in Context. Human Relations, 74(12), pp. 2165-2171. doi:10.1177/00187267211019277

    [publisher’s website]

  9. McCarthy, L., Soundararajan, V. and Taylor, S. (2021). The hegemony of men in global value chains: Why it matters for labour governance. Human Relations, 74(12), pp. 2051-2074. doi:10.1177/0018726720950816

    [publisher’s website]

  10. Brickell, K., Lawreniuk, S., Chhom, T., Mony, R., So, H. and McCarthy, L. (2021). ‘Worn out’: debt discipline, hunger, and the gendered contingencies of the COVID-19 pandemic amongst Cambodian garment workers. Social & Cultural Geography. doi:10.1080/14649365.2022.2055778

    [publisher’s website]

  11. (2021). Contesting Social Responsibilities of Business: Experiences in Context. Human Relations, 74(11), pp. 1942-1948. doi:10.1177/00187267211046142

    [publisher’s website]

  12. (2021). Contesting Social Responsibilities of Business: Experiences in Context. Human Relations, 74(5), pp. 781-787. doi:10.1177/0018726721994527

    [publisher’s website]

  13. Grosser, K. and McCarthy, L. (2019). Imagining new feminist futures: How feminist social movements contest the neoliberalization of feminism in an increasingly corporate‐dominated world. Gender, Work & Organization, 26(8), pp. 1100-1116. doi:10.1111/gwao.12267

    [publisher’s website]

  14. McCarthy, L. (2018). “There is no time for rest”: Gendered CSR, sustainable development and the unpaid care work governance gap. Business Ethics: A European Review, 27(4), pp. 337-349. doi:10.1111/beer.12190

    [publisher’s website]

  15. McCarthy, L. and Moon, J. (2018). Disrupting the Gender Institution: Consciousness-Raising in the Cocoa Value Chain. Organization Studies, 39(9), pp. 1153-1177. doi:10.1177/0170840618787358

    [publisher’s website]

  16. McCarthy, L. and Muthuri, J.N. (2018). Engaging Fringe Stakeholders in Business and Society Research: Applying Visual Participatory Research Methods. Business & Society, 57(1), pp. 131-173. doi:10.1177/0007650316675610

    [publisher’s website]

  17. McCarthy, L. (2017). Empowering Women Through Corporate Social Responsibility: A Feminist Foucauldian Critique. Business Ethics Quarterly, 27(4), pp. 603-631. doi:10.1017/beq.2017.28

    [publisher’s website]

  18. McCarthy, L. (2014). Resistance to Institutional Work: Power and Gender in the Fair Trade Cocoa Value Chain. Academy of Management Proceedings, 2014(1), pp. 10333-10333. doi:10.5465/ambpp.2014.202

    [publisher’s website]

Reports (2)

  1. Lawreniuk, S., Brickell, K. and McCarthy, L. (2022). Building Forward Worse: How COVID-19 has accelerated the race to the bottom in the global garment industry. Surrey, UK: Royal Holloway, University of London.
  2. Lawreniuk, S., Brickell, K. and McCarthy, L. Who wears the costs of the UK’s Black Friday bonanza? Royal Geographical Society with IBG.

Professional activities

Editorial activity (3)

  1. I co-edit the Feminisms and Business Ethics section for the FT50 Journal of Business Ethics, Journal of Business Ethics Feminisms and Ethics Editor, August 2024 - present.
  2. Editorial Board Member for Business & Society, Editorial Board Member for Business & Society, June 2021 - present.
  3. Social media and communications editor for the Journal of Business Ethics, Social Media Editor for Journal of Business Ethics, January 2020 - January 2023.