For release on 13 MAY 2026 at 09:00

A Public Statement in Support of the Management and Marketing Group
Facing Compulsory Redundancies

Essex Business School

University of Essex

We, the undersigned, write to express our serious concern about the compulsory redundancies currently being imposed at the University of Essex and, in particular, those being carried out in the Management and Marketing Group at Essex Business School. Of the 15 compulsory redundancies we know of across the School, 12 have fallen on a single group (which is functionally akin to a department) of 38 members, adversely affecting the Group’s leadership team (five colleagues were made redundant). We believe this pattern reflects not a neutral financial decision, or one meaningfully based on “performance”, but a targeted dismantling of a particular kind of scholarly community. We call for it to stop.

The Management and Marketing Group brings together interdisciplinary, innovative, and forward-thinking scholars whose work addresses some of the most pressing challenges of our time. Its members research the future of work, technological change and its consequences, inequality and social justice, environmental sustainability, workers' rights, and the role of organisations in shaping economic and social life. This is scholarship with genuine public value, carried out with rigour, creativity, and a deep commitment to understanding the world as it actually is. It is precisely the kind of work that universities exist to support and protect.

What makes the targeting of this Group so difficult to justify is that, by any institutional measure, it makes an enormous contribution to Essex Business School. The Management and Marketing Group consistently recruits about 40% of undergraduate students and teaches a third of the modules across undergraduate and postgraduate programmes, supervises the most PhD students, and generates about 39% of all 4* REF outputs in the School. During this past year the Group developed almost a third of top research impact cases and has captured two thirds of the total external funding of the School, engaging with national research councils, European bodies, and major public institutions. 

We are equally troubled by the absence of any credible rationale for how individual decisions were reached. No transparent scoring framework was shared with staff. No substantiated business case was presented before decisions were made. When criteria were eventually offered, they were unsubstantiated and directly contradicted by the available evidence. This raises serious questions about the quality of the academic judgement and the validity of the business case that are said to underpin these decisions. 

Universities are public institutions whose value lies in the breadth and independence of thought they sustain. We call for an immediate pause to these redundancies, full transparency in the decision-making process, and a genuine commitment to protecting the diversity of scholarship and teaching at Essex Business School.

Signed:

Prof Peter Bloom, Professor of Management, Head of Group, Management and Marketing Group
Prof Prithwiraj Nath,  Professor of Marketing, Management and Marketing Group, Faculty Director of Partnerships
Dr Stevphen Shukaitis, Reader in Culture and Organisation,  Management and Marketing Group, EBS Deputy Director of  Partnerships
Dr Svetlana Warhurst,  Senior Lecturer in International Business and Strategy, Deputy Head of Group, Management and Marketing Group
Dr Camila Vergara,  Senior Lecturer in Democratic Management, Associate Director of Research, Management and Marketing Group
Dr Luciana Zorzoli,  Senior Lecturer in Employment Relations, Associate Director of Postgraduate Research, Management and Marketing Group
Dr Pasi Ahonen, Senior Lecturer in Management, Culture and Communication, Management and Marketing Group
Dr Pablo Baisotti, Senior Lecturer in Management, Management and Marketing Group
Dr Callum Cant, Senior Lecturer in Management, Management and Marketing Group
Dr Robert Donoghue, Lecturer in Management, Management and Marketing Group
Dr Mrinalini Greedharry,  Senior Lecturer in Management, Management and Marketing Group
Dr James Muldoon, Reader in Management, Management and Marketing Group

In Support:
[Please scroll down to sign - it may take up to 5 mins. for the list to update.]