Dr Richard Longman

Professional biography

My work explores alternative theories and practices of organising, with a particular focus on what becomes possible when we reimagine not only how we organise, but what we organise, and who is included in that process. This orientation informs a research and teaching agenda that challenges dominant managerial assumptions and cultivates more equitable, inclusive, and plural forms of organisation.

Trained originally as a musician, I bring an embodied, affective, and interdisciplinary sensibility to my academic practice. This creative background continues to shape how I engage with the business school; as a space of inquiry, intervention, and possibility. I work across critical management studies, cultural and creative industries, and organisation theory, seeking to disrupt extractive and exclusionary norms and to foreground the politics of knowledge in organisational life.

Research interests

My research centres on the politics of organising, epistemic disruption, and the possibilities of resistance under conditions of polycrisis. I explore how concepts such as truth, ignorance, voice, and affect shape organisational responses to intersecting crises - ecological, social, and epistemological. Much of my empirical work is situated in creative and cultural contexts, including opera, orchestras, and arts organisations, where I investigate dynamics of inclusion, embodiment, and collective becoming.

A sustained strand of my work engages with sound and epistemology. I examine how sonic practices (such as listening, silence, rhythm, and voice) structure organisational life, ethical responsiveness, and exclusion. This includes contributions to emerging conversations in sound and organisation studies, with particular attention to organisational sonicity, voice politics, and diffractive methodologies that attune to the sensory and affective dimensions of knowledge production.

Publications and public scholarship

I have published in journals including Work, Employment and Society, Management Learning, Organization, Women, Gender & Research, and puntOorg, alongside book chapters and edited collections. I am committed to producing scholarship that resonates beyond the academy, inviting broader publics into critical conversations about organising, power, and possibility.

One such initiative is Organising Songs, a public-facing blog series that uses music as a critical and creative lens to explore organisational life. Each post combines sonic analysis, social commentary, and personal reflection to examine how music helps us sense, contest, and reimagine systems of organising. The series forms part of a wider methodological and epistemological commitment to listening otherwise - a practice of engaging sound as a mode of critique, relation, and resistance.

Teaching interests

My pedagogical approach is shaped by an understanding of learning as relational, embodied, and inclusive. I am committed to creating educational environments that foster critical inquiry, ethical reflection, and transformative engagement with the complex realities of contemporary organisational life. As MBA Director at The Open University, I lead our triple-accredited MBA portfolio, with a strong focus on critical thinking, responsibility, data literacy, and transformative leadership and management practice.

I have extensive experience designing and delivering innovative learning across online, hybrid, and in-person formats, working with diverse learners and international cohorts. I hold a Master’s in Education from the University of Cambridge, a Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Professional Practice, and am a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. My teaching practice is informed by my research into alternative organising, critical pedagogy, and epistemic pluralism, and by a sustained commitment to equity and inclusion in management education.

PhD supervision

I currently supervise Meriam Moujahid, whose doctoral project is titled "Troubling Truths: The Construction of Knowledge and Ignorance in a Time of Global Crises." This research examines how organisations navigate competing claims to truth and untruth in contexts marked by climate emergency, systemic inequality, and epistemic uncertainty. The project interrogates the politics of ignorance, the aesthetics of authority, and the affective dimensions of organisational sense-making.

I welcome inquiries from prospective doctoral researchers interested in working across critical management studies, organisation theory, feminist thought, sound and sensory studies, and alternative methodologies. I am committed to supervisory relationships that are rigorous, reflexive, and oriented toward both scholarly contribution and ethical transformation.

Editorial and external engagement

I am Co-Editor-in-Chief of Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management: An International Journal, alongside Paulina Segarra (Universidad Anáhuac, Mexico), reflecting a commitment to transnational and critical qualitative inquiry. I also serve as Associate Editor of Culture and Organization, and am a past Chair of the Critical Management Studies Division of The Academy of Management. I am on the International Editorial Board of Management Learning. 

Beyond academia, I am a Fellow of The Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) and collaborate widely with practitioners, artists, and institutions committed to values-led business and management education and inclusive organising.