Matthew Holmes
Lecturer in Management

Profile

Biography

Areas of expertise

• International development
• Postcolonial development theory
• Development as freedom and capability
• Zambia
• Local nongovernmental organisations
• International development programmes
• Sport in international development
• Social enterprise activity
• Traditional games in Africa
• International volunteering

Academic biography

I am Lecturer in Management at the School for Business and Society. In 2023 I will obtain my PhD from The University of Edinburgh in the area of international development. The PhD explores international development programme delivery by local NGOs in Zambia. The research adopts a multimethod approach combining participatory, decolonial, and postcolonial methods to reduce my influence on the research process while increasing local practitioners' influence on that process. The research also applies the capabilities approach to international development (development as freedom) to conceptualise processes evident in community programme delivery.

I joined the School for Business and Society at the University of York in 2022 from York St John University where I had worked as a Lecturer since 2015. While there I became programme leader for the Business Management, International Business, Entrepreneurship, and Human Resource Management programmes. I also managed relations my department had with external University partners to recruit and support international students.

I am a fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA). I am a keen sportsperson. I compete in endurance sports and frequently set myself challenges. In 2023 I plan to cycle from London to Istanbul.

Research

Overview

My research interests lie broadly in international development, local nongovernmental organisations, and community level programme delivery. More specifically, I am interested in the practical application of creative postcolonial methods within international development research and the perspective of development as freedom and capability.

My PhD establishes a role for traditional games present in the delivery by local NGOs in community settings across the Republic of Zambia. This is a research interest I am keen to further explore in terms of understanding the emergence and development of traditional games played by communities in Zambia and how they continue to be a contemporary phenomenon within the delivery of internationally funded development programmes at the community level in Zambia. 

I am also interested in the development as freedom and capability approach from the perspective of Amartya Sen and remain keen to conduct further research that frames community development activity in Zambia according to Sen’s theory of justice.

Publications

Selected publications

Darnell, S., Chawansky, M., Marchesseault, D., Holmes, M. & Hayhurst, L. (2018) The State of Play: Critical sociological insights into recent Sport for Development and Peace research. International Review for the Sociology of Sport. 53(2): 133-151. Available Online: https://doi.org/10.1177/1012690216646762 

Banda, D. & Holmes, M. (2017) Sport-for-Development and the struggle for Subaltern Voices to be recognised: a response to Manley, Morgan and Atkinson. International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics, 9(4): 723-738. Available Online: https://doi.org/10.1080/19406940.2017.1372794 

Holmes, M., Banda, D. & Chawansky, M. (2015). Towards a sustainable programme design? An examination of CSR initiatives within a Zambian SfD NGO. International Journal of Sport Management and Marketing: Special Issue on “Sport-for-Development and Peace Theory Building and Programme Development”, 16(1/2): 36-51. Available Online: https://doi.org/10.1504/IJSMM.2015.074926

Teaching

Undergraduate

• Foundations of Business Ethics

Postgraduate

• Strategy in Global Organisations
• Research Methods

I have experience designing and leading the delivery of undergraduate and postgraduate modules. I have experience teaching modules in areas including:

• International Business
• Strategy
• Management
• Leadership
• Organisational Behaviour
• Business Ethics
• Corporate Social Responsibility
• Sustainability