Staff profile

Owain Smolović Jones researches power and resistance in practices of leadership, particularly in relation to salient social and global issues. He is currently focused on opening up a new area of leadership research, exploring the vital topic of housing. Drawing on ideas from critical geography and leadership studies, he is exploring the business of private rented housing, seeking to better understand how leadership creates and perpetuates housing crises, as well as how it can offer a pathway for alternative futures. This research means close investigation of the lived experiences of housing campaigners, but also seeking to illuminate the practices of those who earn a living from the rentals market – landlords, lettings agents and their representative bodies. Adopting a similar conceptual focus, Owain is currently supporting research that seeks to better understand the experiences of hospitality and service workers in consuming, resisting and practicing leadership.

 

Owain has applied his power and resistance focus to studying how political parties operate as organisations, and is open to supervising PhD projects in this area. This work has mainly involved an investigation of the gendered leadership of political parties, particularly how they implement gender quotas in the face of significant resistance. He has also studied the rhetorical leadership of party political leaders and the identity work of government ministers. Impacting the practice of implementing gender quotas, Owain’s research was shortlisted for the 2021 Sage Prize for Innovation and Excellence.

 

Contributing a rigorous and rich conceptual sense of leadership is important to Owain. With this in mind, he is the co-author, with Keith Grint, of the seminal Leadership: Limits and possibilities, published in 2022 through Bloomsbury. He has also co-authored, with David Collinson and Keith Grint, an impactful paper in Organization Studies, developing knowledge of the tendency to romanticise individual, collective and resistance forms of leadership. He brings his commitment to critical scholarship that makes an impact in the world to his work as an Associate Editor of the journal Leadership but also to organising important events in the field, such as the 2021 International Studying Leadership Conference.

 

Committed to making leadership research count in the world, Owain is currently working on his debut sole-authored book, which will explore whether and how leadership can help save the world from climate and inequalities crises. In the past, he has specialised in providing academic input and design for significant BBC programming, as well as designing critically engaged leadership development programmes. He is also proud of accessible chapters he has written on leadership and technology, seeking to open this important area up for more critical research. Owain’s work has been published in leading organisation studies journals such as Human Relations, Work, Employment & Society, Gender, Work & Organization, Management Learning and Organization.

 

Owain is committed to excellence in teaching. He is experienced at leading the production of new and innovative modules in the areas of: managing green transition in organisations, practicing leadership and business ethics. His current focus at Durham is supporting DBA, online MBA and undergraduate students with their research projects, as well as teaching leadership studies.

Authored book

• Grint, K., & Smolović Jones, O. (2022). Leadership: Limits and Possibilities. (Second Edition). London: Bloomsbury
• Bloom, P., Smolović Jones, O., & Woodcock, J. (2021). Guerrilla democracy: Mobile organizing and leadership in the 21st century. Bristol University Press

Chapter in book

• Smolovic Jones, O., & Hollis, D. (2023). Technology and leadership. In D. Schedlitzki, M. Larsson, B. Carroll, M. C. Bligh, & O. Epitropaki (Eds.), The Sage Handbook of Leadership (296-308). (Second Edition). SAGE Publications
• Smolovic Jones, O. (2023). Actor-network theory and leadership. In G. R. Goethals, S. T. Allison, & G. J. Sorenson (Eds.), The SAGE Encyclopedia of Leadership Studies. SAGE Publications
• Smolovic Jones, O. (2023). Creating and contesting space through leadership. In B. Carroll, J. Ford, & S. Taylor (Eds.), Leadership: Contemporary Critical Perspectives (270-289). SAGE Publications
• Smolovic Jones, O., Smolović Jones, N., Taylor, S., & Yarrow, E. (2020). Men researching women’s experiences of sexism and discrimination: An impossible position?. In S. Nørholm Just, A. Risberg, & F. Villesèche (Eds.), The Routledge Companion to Organizational Diversity Research Methods (50-58). New York: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429265716-6
• Grint, K., Smolović Jones, O., & Holt, C. (2016). What is leadership: Person, result, position or process, or all or none of these?. In The Routledge companion to leadership (3-20). Routledge
• Smolovic Jones, O., & Jackson, B. (2015). Seeing leadership: becoming sophisticated consumers of leadership. In B. Carroll, J. Ford, & S. Taylor (Eds.), Leadership: Contemporary Critical Perspectives (253-271). Sage
• Smolovic Jones, O., & Grint, K. (2013). Authentic leadership and history. In D. Ladkin, & C. Spiller (Eds.), Authentic leadership: Clashes, convergences and coalescences (21-38). Edward Elgar

Journal Article

• Jackson, B., & Jones, O. S. Promoting Better Public Services leadership: an appreciative critique. Policy Quarterly, 8(3), 34-41. https://doi.org/10.26686/pq.v8i3.4423
• Andrianova, O., Schaefer, A., & Smolović Jones, O. (2023). Patriotism as a conduit to employee environmental engagement in a post‐Soviet economy in transition. Business Strategy and the Environment, 32(6), 2910-2925. https://doi.org/10.1002/bse.3278
• Smolović Jones, O., Smolović Jones, S., Taylor, S., & Yarrow, E. (2022). Theorizing gender desegregation as political work: The case of the Welsh Labour Party. Gender, Work and Organization, 29(6), 1747-1763. https://doi.org/10.1111/gwao.12445
• Jacklin-Jarvis, C., Vangen, S., Smolović Jones, O., Haslam, D., Mutwarasibo, F., Britton, H., & Logan, K. (2022). Developing voluntary sector leadership through open educational resources: a practice perspective. Voluntary Sector Review, 1-11. https://doi.org/10.1332/204080521x16611675545236
• Barthold, C., Checchi, M., Imas, M., & Smolović Jones, O. (2022). Dissensual Leadership: Rethinking democratic leadership with Jacques Rancière. Organization, 29(4), 673-691. https://doi.org/10.1177/1350508420961529
• Smolović Jones, O., Briley, G., & Woodcock, J. (2022). Exposing and re-placing leadership through workers inquiry. Leadership, 18(1), 61-80. https://doi.org/10.1177/17427150211026431
• Hollis, D., Wright, A., Smolović Jones, O., & Smolović Jones, S. (2021). From ‘Pretty’ to ‘Pretty Powerful’: The communicatively constituted power of facial beauty’s performativity. Organization Studies, 42(12), 1885-1907. https://doi.org/10.1177/01708406211030663
• Smolović Jones, O., Smolović Jones, S., Taylor, S., & Yarrow, E. (2021). ‘I Wanted More Women in, but . . .’: Oblique Resistance to Gender Equality Initiatives. Work, Employment and Society, 35(4), 640-656. https://doi.org/10.1177/0950017020936871
• Smolovic Jones, O., Carroll, B., & Sinha, P. (2021). Resources of history and hope: Studying left-wing political parties through loss. Ephemera, 21(2), 199-215
• Sinha, P., Smolović Jones, O., & Carroll, B. (2021). Theorizing dramaturgical resistance leadership from the leadership campaigns of Jeremy Corbyn. Human Relations, 74(3), 354-382. https://doi.org/10.1177/0018726719887310
• Smolović Jones, O., Smolović Jones, S., & Grint, K. (2020). Understanding sovereign leadership as a response to terrorism: A post-foundational analysis. Organization, 27(4), 537-556. https://doi.org/10.1177/1350508419834128
• Collinson, D., Smolović Jones, O., & Grint, K. (2018). ‘No More Heroes’: Critical Perspectives on Leadership Romanticism. Organization Studies, 39(11), 1625-1647. https://doi.org/10.1177/0170840617727784
• Lees-Marshment, J., & Smolović Jones, O. (2018). Being more with less: Exploring the flexible political leadership identities of government ministers. Leadership, 14(4), 460-482. https://doi.org/10.1177/1742715016687815
• Carroll, B., & Smolović Jones, O. (2018). Mapping the aesthetics of leadership development through participant perspectives. Management Learning, 49(2), 187-203. https://doi.org/10.1177/1350507617738405
• Smolović Jones, S., Smolović Jones, O., Winchester, N., & Grint, K. (2016). Putting the discourse to work: On outlining a praxis of democratic leadership development. Management Learning, 47(4), 424-442. https://doi.org/10.1177/1350507616631926
• Smolović Jones, O., Grint, K., & Cammock, P. (2015). Public leadership development facilitation and the crossroads blues. Management Learning, 46(4), 391-411. https://doi.org/10.1177/1350507614537020

Newspaper/Magazine Article

• Taylor, S., & Smolović Jones, O. (2017). Is the game up for Theresa May? What leadership theory tells us about her chances of survival. [The Conversation]
• Taylor, S., & Smolović Jones, O. (2016). Why Gender Quotas in Business and Politics Are Ineffective at Overcoming Sexism. [Newsweek]
• Taylor, S., & Smolović Jones, O. (2016). Can quotas make gender equality happen in politics? Lessons from business. [The Conversation]
• Smolovic Jones, O. (2014). Leadership: Influencing what matters. [HR Magazine]