Amal Nazzal
Department: Organisation Studies
Discipline: Management
Project Summary
My current PhD research is particularly interested in exploring the relevance of Bourdieu’s theory of practice for relationally capturing various organisational practices, mechanisms and dynamics in socio-cultural organisations. My research employs an organisational analysis to develop a novel, comprehensive and widely applicable conceptual framework that identifies the emergence, mobilisation and outcomes of social movement organisations.
My research draws upon social network theory and social capital of Pierre Bourdieu to explore topics such as the structural and relational facets of networks in organisations and social capital. Driven by a Bourdieusian relational perspective, this research explores broad issues of structure- agency dualism, organisational fields, forms or capital, organisational networks and power.
Methodologically, I am driven by an interpretivism approach in constructing realities, perceptions of agents and social actors. In my PhD field work, I applied both of a qualitative, semi-structured interviewing technique and a netnographic study, digital ethnographic study to collect interactive and substantial online rich data. I am also interested in research methods as ethnography, participant observation, and other qualitative interpretivist techniques.
Supervisory Team
Dr Lindsay Stringfellow at University of Exeter and Dr David Guttormsen at University of Exeter.
Wider Research Interests
Voluntary organisations (e.g. social movement, interest groups, charities), organisational processes, organisational networks, social capital, social networking theory and social media in organisations. My research is interested in organisational and institutional change, in addition to the relevance of movement activism and grassroots mobilisation inside organisations. I am also interested in interorganisational linkages, organisational embeddedness and culture.
