Dr Laura Mitchell
Senior Lecturer

Profile

Biography

Laura has been teaching in UK Universities since 2007 and completed her PhD in Management at the University of Lancaster in 2011; she also holds an MA in Human Resource & Knowledge Management from the same institution. She joined the School for Business and Society in 2021, having previously worked as a lecturer at other UK universities and in her own company as a self-employed management trainer and educator applying play-based pedagogy.

Laura’s teaching specialisms have generally included critical perspectives on management and organisational behaviour, ethics and dignity in the workplace, sociological theory, and organisational culture. She is interested in the relationship between work, play and meaning and is currently undertaking scholarship projects on gamification in HE.

Laura is a Fellow of the HEA, and of the Royal Society for Arts, Manufactures and Commerce. She is also a Serious Work accredited facilitator of LEGO Serious Play.

Departmental roles

• Co-lead of the Centre for Advanced Studies in Management Education (CASME)

Laura is the module leader for;

• Introduction to Business Ethics and Sustainability.
• Global Perspectives in Human Resource Management and Employment Relations.

Laura also teaches on;

• Sustainability in Business.
• Leadership in Practice.
• Management and Sustainability.
• Management in the Age of Artificial Intelligence.

Subject Group

Work, Management & Organisation

Research

Overview

Laura’s research interests are broadly focused on the topic of workplace dignity, organisational values and their performance as seen through culture. This includes an interest in morality, social valuation practices, play and conflict as it appears in organisations, both in the circumstances of business and more broadly in a range of alternative organisations who demonstrate different (ie non-commercial) priorities.

Laura’s work explores organisations that exist over boundaries, such as those between leisure community and market, between human and nonhuman actors, between spaces of regulation, or between play and productivity.

Laura’s general areas of research interest include;

• Workplace Dignity
• Organisational Culture
• Decent Work
• Relational Ethics
• Critical Social Theory & Critical Management Studies
• Creative Research Methods
• Play at Work
• Serious Games

Projects

Research group(s)

Grants

Collaborators

Available PhD research projects

Supervision

Publications

Full publications list

Mitchell, L. 2025. Rethinking Dignity in the Workplace: a relational approach. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429279515 

Mitchell, L. 2025 Alienation. In McCann, L. Bozcurt, O. Finn, R. Granter, E. Hunter, C. Kivinen, N. Kumar, A. and B. Wierman Elgar Encyclopedia of Critical Management Studies. (Ch2) Edward Elgar Publishing

Mitchell, L. 2025 Play, Work and Games. In McCann et al. Elgar Encyclopedia of Critical Management Studies. (Ch 85) Edward Elgar Publishing

Zawadzki, M. and Mitchell, L., 2024. Recognition. In Elgar Encyclopedia of Organizational Psychology (pp. 584-589). Edward Elgar Publishing. https://doi.org/10.4337/9781803921761.00115 

Mitchell, L. 2022. “The Playful Professor: Garfinkeling” in Professors at Play PlayBook: Real-world techniques from a more playful higher education classroom ETC Press, Carnegie Mellon University:Pennsylvania. Available at: https://press.etc.cmu.edu/books/professors-play-playbook. 

Edwards, M., Mitchell, L., Abe, C., Cooper, E., Johansson, J. and Ridgway, M., 2022. ‘I am not a gentleman academic’: telling our truths of micro-coercive control and gaslighting in business schools using ‘faction’. Gender, Work and Organization. ISSN 0968-6673.

Mitchell, L. (2020) Games as Spaces of Translation, Analog Game Studies http://analoggamestudies.org/

Mitchell, L & Taalas, S (2020) “‘It’s not fair! –Passion, play and entrepreneurship” in Baraldi, E. Guercini,S. Lindahl,M & Perna, A. Rethinking the connection between passion and entrepreneurship Palgrave Macmillan

Lennerfors, T & Mitchell, L (2019) (eds) SCOS: Searching Collectively for Our Soul, Editoriale Scientifica: Napoli

Mitchell, L and Hamilton, L (2018) “Hefted: Value and mobility in the UK Lake District” Culture and Organization available online:  https://doi.org/10.1080/14759551.2018.1488850

Mitchell, L and Buckley, C.A.G (2018) “Weird experience: Transformations of Space in “Lovecraftian” Live-Action Role-playing Games.” Studies in Gothic Fiction

Hamilton, L and Mitchell, L (2018) “Knocking on the door of human animal studies: Reading the value of work across disciplinary and species borderlines” Society & Animals. 

Mitchell, L (2018) “Genre and Feeling: a contrast between writing horror and fantasy LARP” in Brind et al (2018) The Peckforton Papers: essays from four decades of British LARP pp80-89 Available online: http://www.wychwood-end.com/publications.html [practitioner publication]

Hamilton, L and Mitchell, L (2017) "Dignity and species difference within organizations" in Kostera, M & Pirson, M (eds) Dignity and the Organization, Palgrave pp59-80

Mitchell, L (2017) "Dignity and membership: a route to the heart of how dignity is done in everyday interaction" in Kostera, M & Pirson, M (eds) Dignity and the Organization, Palgrave pp37-58

Mitchell, L (2016) “Volunteers as monstrous workers: ‘monsters’ in UK live-action roleplay game organizations” Culture and Organization available online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14759551.2016.1241254

Mitchell, L (2015) “"Materiality, magic and belief: Framing the countryside in fantastical live-action roleplay games." Ethnography 17 (3), 326-349

Hamilton, L Mitchell, L and Mangan, A (eds) (2014; 2nd ed. 2019) Contemporary Issues in Management, Edward Elgar: Gloucester

Mitchell, L (2014) “Dignity and Meaningful Work in Organisations” in Hamilton, L Mitchell, L and Mangan, A (eds) Contemporary Issues in Management, Edward Elgar: Gloucester

Teaching

Undergraduate

Laura is the module leader for MAN00021C Introduction to Business Ethics and Sustainability.
She also teaches on:

• MAN00039I Management in the Age of AI
• MAN00057H Leadership in Practice
• MAN00055H Sustainability and Business

Postgraduate

Laura is the module leader for MAN00075M Global Perspectives in Human Resource Management and Employment Relations.
She also teaches on:

• MAN00168M Management, Society and Artificial Intelligence
• MAN00133M Management and Sustainability

Other teaching

Laura has previously contributed to programme redevelopment to support semesterisation and international study, and has delivered educational workshops as an adjunct or visiting professor in:

• Dignity and decent Work
• Valuation, communication and pricing
• Leadership and team dynamics with LEGO Serious Play
• Leadership as an Art
• Culture and identity in the workplace

Laura has also authored and contributed to textbooks and subject handbooks on:

• Contemporary issues in management
• Organisational psychology
• Critical management studies
• Playful pedagogy