Professor Nadia Kougiannou's Inaugural Lecture

Overview

This inaugural lecture examines how transformations in work are reshaping power, inequality, and the conditions under which workers speak up or remain silent. It argues that voice and silence are not just individual choices but structured outcomes of employment relations, produced through a range organisational practices, institutional arrangements, and technological systems.

Drawing on research across employee voice, digital platform work, and workplace inequalities, the lecture discusses three interconnected transformations. First, the rise of data-driven and algorithmic management systems that reconfigure control while reducing its visibility, making it more difficult for workers to understand or challenge decisions. Second, the expansion of precarious and non-standard forms of employment, which distribute risk unevenly and make speaking up carry real consequences for workers. Third, the redefinition of worker voice through individualised feedback mechanisms that often lack meaningful protection or influence.

The lecture shows how these developments generate structured forms of silence across different groups of workers, particularly along lines of employment status and migration. It positions voice and silence as products of power relations that shape when, how, and for whom voice is possible.

The lecture concludes by setting out a research agenda focused on understanding and addressing emerging voice and silence gaps in workplaces, and considers the implications for organisations, policy, and the future of fair work.

Biography

Nadia Kougiannou is Professor of Work and Employment Relations at Nottingham Business School, Nottingham Trent University, and Editor of Work, Employment and Society. Her research examines how power, control, and inequality are produced and sustained in contemporary employment relations, with a focus on worker voice and silence, digital platform work, and atypical forms of employment.

Her work integrates quantitative and qualitative approaches to analyse how institutional arrangements, managerial practices, and algorithmic systems shape worker agency, precarity, and inclusion across standard and non-standard forms of employment. She has published widely in leading journals including Human Resource Management Journal, British Journal of Management, Industrial Relations, and Work, Employment and Society, and has contributed to research on gig work, migrant labour, and workplace inequalities.

Alongside her academic work, she engages closely with policy and practice through collaborations with trade unions, professional bodies, and public organisations.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Lecture Theatre 4, Newton Building, Goldsmith Street, Nottingham, United Kingdom

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