Dr Anita Garvey

Assistant Professor

Department: Newcastle Business School

Anita joined Northumbria University as a Senior Lecturer in March 2015.

Anita specialises in organisational psychology, organisational studies, workplace conflict and people development. She delivers lectures and seminars at both postgraduate and undergraduate levels. Anita’s additional responsibilities include Programme Leadership and Module Tutorship. She has also successfully supervised postgraduate and undergraduate dissertation students facilitating completion of their individual research.

Prior to commencing a career as an academic Anita’s previous professional background was diverse including positions and roles in Strategic Human Resources, Local Government Policy Units, the Careers Advisory Service and a Law Centre.

Anita is currently undertaking doctoral research focusing upon a newly developed concept specifically moralistic workplace bullying. This includes exploring how negative interactions towards targets of bullying by ostensibly scrupulous individuals are justified in the workplace, legitimised through privilege and reconstructed as ‘moral’ by the perpetrators.

Anita is also a qualitative researcher with a particular interest in narrative inquiry, critical incident techniques, problem centred interviews and reconstructive analysis.

Campus Address

City Campus East 1

Newcastle upon Tyne
NE1 8ST

Email Anita

Research Themes and Scholarly Interests

Dr. Anita Garvey is a Senior Lecturer in Organisational Studies at Northumbria University. Her research areas involve using the lens of political philosophy, critical theory and sociological analysis, to analyse phenomena in the field of organisational studies, contextualised by neoliberal capitalism.

Anita is a critical scholar whose qualitative doctoral research focused on the concept of ‘moralistic workplace bullying’ in a marketised UK Public Sector, using Gramsci’s concept of hegemony.

Moralistic workplace bullying involves actors of bullying abusing their power and legitimising their behaviour through falling back on organisational norms and mores. Simultaneously, actors of bullying engage in moral condemnation and disdainful criticism of the employees that they target, ultimately leading to the latter’s ejection from the organisation. The actors of moralistic workplace bullying justify their own behaviour through presenting and claiming moral probity, which exonerates their negative actions - with the aim of keeping their positions in complex hegemonic workplace environments of austerity.

From a feminist perspective, Anita also has an interest in gender, racism and class, entailing examining the intersectionality of these areas of political, social and personal identity, and their implications for societal and workplace inequality.

Anita is a Programme Leader, Module Tutor and Dissertation Supervisor, and since her arrival at the university has been nominated for student awards in the category of Best Lecturer and Best Pastoral Support.
Critical Organisational Studies, Workplace Bullying and Harassment, Intersectionality.

Key Publications

Please visit the Pure Research Information Portal for further information
Coping techniques and strategies for pursuing anti-racism within academe: A Collective autoethnographic account from minoritised academics in the UK, Garvey, A., Talhouk, R., Ajibade, B. 27 Jan 2025, In: Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: An International Journal
Book Review: The Reckoning: From the Second Slavery to Abolition, 1776–1888 by Robin Blackburn, Garvey, A. 1 Dec 2024, In: Capital and Class
Hegemony and Moralistic Bullying in a Contested UK Public Sector, Garvey, A., Mackenzie, E. 3 Mar 2024, In: Culture and Organization

PGR Supervision

Gillian Hughes Reclaiming my Time: A Qualitative Study of Gendered Job Crafting in Higher Education. Start Date: 23/11/2023

Qualifications

Social Philosophy PhD
Psychology MA (Hons)
Human Organisations PGDip
Careers Guidance PGDip
Human Organisations PGCert
Chartered Fellow Chartered Institute of Personnel Development CFCIPD
Fellow (FHEA) Higher Education Academy (HEA)
Psychology MBPsS

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