An aerial view of Bay Campus, with the sea stretching into the horizon.

Dr Sarah Marks

Lecturer in HRM and Organisational Behaviour

Business

sarah.l.marks@swansea.ac.uk

Office 205 - 205
Second Floor
School of Management
Bay Campus

Available For Postgraduate Supervision

Research Links

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3341-9636

ResearchGate

About

Dr Sarah Marks is a researcher, lecturer and entrepreneur whose interdisciplinary work draws on her deep empirical and theoretical expertise in the field of organisation, entrepreneurship and venture creation.

Her current research interests centre on using critical and intersectional perspectives to explore the conditions under which self-employment, venture creation and alternative work leads to sustaining and sustainable incomes for founders, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Within this broad remit, a particular focus is on the need to break money taboos and ask difficult questions about gender, entrepreneurial poverty, money and values.

Sarah is passionate about applying creative qualitative methods to answer these important questions with the objective of improving equality and diversity work-related outcomes, especially as new and hybrid forms of employment, self-employment and entrepreneurship become the new normal.

Areas Of Expertise

Entrepreneurship
Small business sustainability
Gender and Entrepreneurship
Equality, Diversity and Inclusion
Intersectionality
Postfeminism

Career Highlights

Teaching Interests

Sarah has taught widely across the management and business field including undergraduate modules on power and organisation, entrepreneurship and managing diversity.

Research Award Highlights

Publications

Research Highlights

Marks, S. (2022). Does Entrepreneurship Pay for Women? A social positioning investigation of entrepreneurial rewards
SU Repository: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa67629
https://qmro.qmul.ac.uk/xmlui/handle/123456789/90905
Marks, S. (2021). Performing and unperforming entrepreneurial success: Confessions of a female role model. Journal of Small Business Management, 59(5), 946-975.
https://doi.org/10.1080/00472778.2020.1865539, SU Repository: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa67622

All Research

Journal Articles

Marks, S. (2021). Performing and unperforming entrepreneurial success: Confessions of a female role model. Journal of Small Business Management, 59(5), 946-975.
https://doi.org/10.1080/00472778.2020.1865539, SU Repository: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa67622

Other Research Outputs

Marks, S. (2022). Does Entrepreneurship Pay for Women? A social positioning investigation of entrepreneurial rewards
SU Repository: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa67629
https://qmro.qmul.ac.uk/xmlui/handle/123456789/90905

Supervision

What are the key barriers that limit women’s access to leadership positions in Saudi Arabia’s public sector, and how have Vision 2030 initiatives addressed these challenges to promote gender diversity? (current)

PhD

Other supervisor: Dr Samantha Burvill

Taught Modules

MN-3015 Power and Organisation

This module examines power and organisation. Power is integral to organising and intrinsic to our economic system. Power defines, constitutes and shapes both people and activities in organisations. In terms of the workplace, we cannot be organised without being subject to some form of power. Therefore, understanding the nature and dynamics of power is crucial for future managers. This module aims to give students an understanding of the variety of ways in which power plays a role in modern organisations. Questions of the relationship between power and leadership, knowledge, organisational practices will be addressed but also broader issues such as the multifarious nature of power, the ways in which it may be conceptualised and how to interrogate and evaluate the taken-for-granted aspects of what `power¿ means in organisations. Over the course of the module, we will examine how power operates through formal and informal mechanisms which can be visible and invisible and ask how these impact organisations and the people who work and run them. We will explore very different theoretical approaches to power to better understand its complex nature. We will examine how power can be acquired, denied, used or abused and its role in constituting, maintaining or changing workplace inequalities. We will ask how power is resisted, and how, and if, technology can change power relations within organisations for the better.
MN-M520 Leadership

Leadership continues to be discussed and sought after, even though we now live in supposedly more democratic times with flatter organisations and empowered employees. It also remains a perennial issue in organisation studies, with significant questions concerning how best to understand the theory and development of leadership. Students will be exposed to a range of classical and contemporary approaches to the study of leadership and will examine the practical implications of these for strategic leadership and the management of change.