Associate Professor Duarte with UNE Business School’s Dr Emilio Morales.

UNE Business School recently hosted Associate Professor Fernanda De Paiva Duarte from University of Western Sydney for our regular seminar series.

This presentation reported findings of a qualitative study carried out to examine the perceptions of a group of academics from an Australian business school in relation to the challenges currently facing them as a result of neoliberal reforms. These challenges are examined through the lens of the sociological imagination (Wright Mills, 1959), which brings into focus the link between personal experience and broader socio-historical and economic forces. While proposed over half a century ago, Wright Mills’ (1959), sociological imagination remains relevant to ‘think with’ in contemporary society, as it enables deeper levels of analysis and greater clarity in the interpretation of the multi-layered, complex phenomena. The challenges confronting academics are analysed through a three-tiered framework which takes into account the macro, the meso, and the micro contexts that shape their experience. The macro context is conceptualised in the framework as the current socio-historical era which is largely shaped by the imperatives of the free-market economy; the meso context depicts the higher education system under conditions of neoliberalism; and the micro context refers to the personal experience of individuals in domains such as the workplace, the classroom, and the home. This study reveals the commonality of experiences and emotions currently shared by academics from different parts of the world, revealing a complex dynamic interplay between the macro-, meso and micro domains, which are shaped by, and also shape each other.

The full seminar can be accessed via the Seminar Series web page.

Fernanda De Paiva Duarte is Associate Professor at the School of Business, Western Sydney University (WSU) and has a PhD in Sociology from the University of New South Wales. She has been teaching and researching at WSU since 2002, and her key interests are: business ethics, leadership, sustainability, corporate social responsibility (CSR), and business pedagogy. Fernanda has pursued her scholarly interests through a number of research projects including: two ARCs (Discovery in 2003-2005 on informal organisational practices; Linkage in 2010-2012 on CSR in small businesses); two sabbaticals on CSR in Brazil (2008; 2012); and a fieldwork project on CSR in the mining sector in Papua New Guinea (2013), with colleague Dr Ben Imbun. Fernanda is also experienced in research leadership: in 2015 she acted as Director of Research, School of Business; in 2013-2015 she was a core member of the Business Sustainability Research Node and the Business Education Node, and in 2007-2009 she led the School’s Sustainability Research Node. She has supervised a number of higher degree research students and has published extensively in business and pedagogical journals. In 2010 Fernanda received an Australian Learning and Teaching Council (ALTC) Citation Award for her work on transformative learning, and a Teaching Excellence Award from the School of Business for “Outstanding Contribution to Student Learning”. She has also received two awards from the School of Business for excellence in research (2011 and 2013).