Staff profile

Stefanie Reissner is Professor of Organization Studies at Durham University Business School and is currently serving as Director of Research for the 100-strong Department of Management & Marketing. She has a PhD from Durham University and extensive experience in research, teaching and higher education leadership over a 20-year career. 

Research

Stefanie specializes in qualitative research, particularly constructionist and interpretivist methodologies involving interviewing, narrative and reflexivity. She has researched identity, storytelling and sensemaking in different contexts, such as organizational change, employee engagement, professional identity formation and flexible working. Stefanie has received funding by ESRC, British Academy, British Academy of Management, and Council for International Veterinary Medical Education. Her research has been published in major management and organization journals, including British Journal of Management; Work, Employment & Society; Public Administration; Journal of Business Ethics; European Management Review; Studies in Higher Education; International Journal of Human Resource Management; Journal of Organizational Change Management; International Journal of Strategic Communication; Culture & Organization; and Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management. Stefanie has also authored two research monographs and co-edited the Handbook of Research Methods for Studying Identity In and Around Organizations (2023).

An overview of Stefanie’s publications can be found on her Google Scholar profile.

Education

Stefanie is a committed educator and holds Senior Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy in the UK. She is co-editor and co-author of the best-selling textbook Developing Skills for Business Leadership, now in its third edition (published in 2023). Stefanie has designed, delivered and led modules at undergraduate, postgraduate and doctoral levels with a focus on research methods and acted as external examiner on doctoral training programmes at the University of Huddersfield and the University of Birmingham. She has been invited to facilitate doctoral training workshops on behalf of the Northern Advanced Research Training Initiative (NARTI) and to give keynote speeches at doctoral symposia and summer schools in the UK and internationally.

Stefanie welcomes applications from students seeking to study for a doctorate in the areas of flexible / remote / hybrid, working and identity (professional or organizational) who are proposing qualitative methods.

Community service

For many years, Stefanie has been actively involved in the British Academy of Management (BAM), the leading authority in the academic field of management in the UK and internationally. She served as an elected Council member at the British Academy of Management (BAM) for the maximum of two terms (2018-2024), working on the Research & Publications Sub-Committee. Having provided strategic leadership for BAM’s research grant portfolio as inaugural BAM Chair of Research Grants between 2022 and 2024, Stefanie has been co-opted to BAM Council as a special advisor on research grants for 2025. She has been appointed as a member of the ESRC’s Peer Review College and a Fellow of BAM’s Peer Review College, sits on the editorial board of the International Journal of Management Reviews and regularly reviews submissions for major scholarly management and organizational journals.

Outside of work, Stefanie serves as a volunteer and charity trustee.

• Professional identity, organizational identity, narrative, storytelling, flexible and remote working, boundary management, qualitative research methodology, qualitative interviewing, researcher reflexivity

• 2026: Sub-theme co-convenor: Between Social and Digital: The Making of the ‘Ideal Worker’: Sub-theme co-organised for 42nd European Groups for Organization Studies Colloquium, Bergamo, with Michel Ajzen (Universite Namur, Belgium) and Michal Izak (University of Chester, UK).
• 2025: External advisor, programme review DThM, Durham University:
• 2025: NARTI workshop: Making knowledge claims from interview data: Doctoral training workshop, organised on behalf of the Northern Advanced Research Training Initiative (NARTI) at Durham University Business School. Speakers: Professor Andrea Whittle (Newcastle University) and Professor Stefanie Reissner (Durham University)
• 2025: Invited panel member, PDW, Academy of Management Conference: Professional development workshop "How paradigms inform your qualitative research and how others will assess it"
• 2025: Invited panel member, PDW, Academy of Management Conference: Professional development workshop "Qualitative Analysis Boot Camp IX: Theorizing from Qualitative Data Using Analytical Artifacts".
• 2025: Sub-theme co-convenor: Organizing Creatively for Hybrid Working: Sub-theme organised for 41st EGOS Colloquium, 3-5 July 2025, Athens / Greece, with Gislene Feiten Haubrich (Stockholm School of Economics, Sweden) and Marko Orel (Prague University of Economics and Business, Czech Republic).
• 2024: External advisor, programme development, BSc Business Management and Human Resource Management, University of Southampton:
• 2024: Scheme co-chair, BAM / SAMS grant scheme 2024 funding round: Grant panel member for British Academy of Management (BAM) and Society for the Studies of Management Studies (SAMS) grant scheme
• 2024: Reflections on the role of academic communities: Invited keynote speech, delivered at doctoral training event on how to build a successful academic career as a PhD researcher in business and management, 12-13 September 2024. The event was sponsored by the Society for the Advancement of Management Studies (SAMS) and the Northern Advanced Research Training Initiative (NARTI).
• 2024: The PhD in context: Reflections on the role of academic communities: Keynote speech given at Newcastle University Business School Doctoral Conference, 5th June 2024
• 2023: Fellow, British Academy of Management Peer Review College:
• 2023: Qualitative interviewing and knowledge claims: Invited keynote at Oxford Brookes Business School Doctoral Research Conference
• 2023: Advanced qualitative research interviewing and reflexivity: Invited workshop at BAM/ SIM / SIMA summer school on qualitative methods, Italy
• 2023: Sub-theme co-convenor: A new ideal worker in a fluid / flexible / hybrid work environment: Sub-theme organised for 13th International Critical Management Conference, Nottingham, UK, with Michal Izak (University of Chester, UK) and Michel Ajzen (Universite Louvain, Belgium).
• 2022: Chair of Research Grants, British Academy of Management (BAM):
• 2021: Invited special issue co-editor 'Flexible lives', Culture & Organization:
• 2021: Quality in interview-based research: The role of reflexivity: Invited keynote at An Inquiry on Data Driven Approach Conference, Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA), Singapore
• 2021: Your world view really matters: Reflections on interview-based research: Invited keynote speech at Annual Doctoral Conference, Edinburgh Napier University
• 2021: Sub-theme co-convenor: Flexible lives: Sub-theme organised for 12th International Critical Management Studies Conference BML Munjal University, India, with Michal Izak (University of Roehampton, UK) and Harriet Shortt (University of the West of England, UK).
• 2020: Consulting Editor, International Journal of Management Reviews:
• 2019: Senior Fellowship Higher Education Academy:
• 2018: Elected Council Member, British Academy of Management:
• 2018: External examiner, MA Social Research, University of Birmingham: Qualitative methods expert on cross-faculty doctoral training programme
• 2010: Member, ESRC Peer Review College:

Edited book

• Reissner, S. C., & Izak, M. (Eds.). Flexible Lives: Spatial, Temporal, and Behavioural Boundaries in a Fluid World of Work and Home. Taylor and Francis

Journal Article

• Reissner, S., & Falkheimer, J. (2025). Strategy texts as auto-communication: How narrative, language, and visual symbolism exercise discursive control. International Journal of Strategic Communication, 19(1), 86-104. https://doi.org/10.1080/1553118X.2024.2388087
• Whittle, A., & Reissner, S. (2025). Making Knowledge Claims from Qualitative Interviews: A Typology of Epistemological Modes. British Journal of Management, 36(1), 3-16. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8551.12845
• Reissner, S. C., & Armitage-Chan, E. (2024). Manifestations of professional identity work: An integrative review of research in professional identity formation. Studies in Higher Education, 49(12), 2707-2722. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2024.2322093
• Izak, M., Reissner, S., & Shortt, H. (2023). Flexible lives: spatial, temporal, and behavioural boundaries in a fluid world of work and home. Culture and Organization, 29(5), 375-379. https://doi.org/10.1080/14759551.2023.2211375
• Reissner, S., & Whittle, A. (2022). Interview-based research in management and organisation studies: making sense of the plurality of methodological practices and presentational styles. Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management, 17(1), 61-83. https://doi.org/10.1108/QROM-03-2021-2118