8th ANPAD Conference on Management and Accounting Education and Research
EnEPQ 2024

Alessia Contu (she/her) is Professor of Management at the University of Massachusetts Boston, USA where she served as Chair of the Management Department between 2014 and 2021.  Alessia has previously worked in the UK, at Warwick Business School (2006-13); Lancaster University Management School (2001-2006), and at University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology - UMIST (1998-2001) where she also gained her PhD. She was awarded the Master in Management and Organizational Learning - Lancaster University Management School. Alessia trained in Italy as a psychologist in the mid-90s where she was awarded the degree of Doctor of Psychology. She served as Associate Editor of Human Relations and Organization and sits on the Editorial Board of Organization Studies, Organization, and Human Relations. Alessia is interested in psychoanalysis, political philosophy, ethics and critical theories, their significance for understanding and explaining contemporary organizational, managerial, and working practices. Alessia’s work has been published in journals such as Human Relations, Organization Science, 
Organization, Journal of Management Studies, Academy of Management Review, Organization Studies, and Ephemera. Her research has focused on organisational politics and specifically organizational resistance and control in MNCs, SMEs and NGOs; the role of hegemonic management discourses such as the ‘learning’ discourse, or the ‘partnership’ discourse in reproducing unequal work relations and stable identities in late capitalism; and that of innovation, knowledge creation and sharing in communities of practice. Alessia has intervened in a variety of debates addressing phenomena like whistleblowing, leadership, and conflict by mobilizing the power of philosophy for rethinking management practices and decisions. Alessia has been elaborating, promoting, and embracing the intellectual activism delineated by Black feminist scholars as a form of engaged praxis to transform the impact of business school scholars/educators –www.engagedscholars.org. Alessia’s empirical research is currently focusing on 
Justice, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (JEDI) in management education; democratic and alternative organisational forms including the relevance and challenges of workers buy outs, and employees owned businesses, and entrepreneurial sustainable solutions in rural areas.