Scholarly Work

Research & Publications

I study what happens when organizations promise justice — examining how those promises are interpreted, contested, and managed over time, and what these processes reveal about the persistence of power and inequality.

4 Peer-Reviewed Publications 2 Book Chapters 9+ Working Papers AOM Early Career Award 2024
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Dr. Patricia Tiimah Naya, PhD — organizational scholar
Scholarship

Publications

Organization ABDC Ranking: A 2025

Critical Conversations in MOS: A Dual-Interview on the Continuing Struggles Against Anti-Blackness and Racial Capitalism

Nkomo, S., & Naya, P. T.

Organization, 32(2), pp. 180–190

A dual-interview with Professor Stella Nkomo on anti-Blackness in Management and Organization Studies, examined through racial capitalism and Black feminist thought. Traces how anti-Blackness is reproduced through organizational theory and practice, and what that demands of scholars committed to change.

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Academy of Management Learning & Education ABDC Ranking: A* 2025

"Those of Us Who Stay": Sensemaking, Embodiment, and Navigation of the Inclusion–Exclusion Paradox

Naya, T. P., Contu, A., & Poole, M. J.

Academy of Management Learning & Education, Vol. 24, No. 3, pp. 373–396

Examines how Black and Brown women academics make sense of being simultaneously included and excluded in university settings. Drawing on embodiment theory and organizational paradox, it shows the emotional and intellectual labor of navigating institutions that claim inclusion while reproducing inequity.

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Academy of Management Learning & Education ABDC Ranking: A* AOM Early Career Award 2024 2024

Piercing the Veil of Colorblindness with an Anti-Racist Identity: Sensemaking, Power, and the Reproduction of Racialized Socioeconomic Inequality

Naya, T. P., Contu, A., & Poole, M. J.

Academy of Management Learning & Education, 23(3), pp. 387–407

Analyzes how anti-racist commitments at a business school are interpreted and contested by students and faculty. Drawing on sensemaking theory and critical race scholarship, it shows how colorblind ideology lets institutions narrate progress while sustaining racialized hierarchies. Awarded the CMS Division's Most Promising Early Career Paper at the 2024 Academy of Management Annual Meeting, Chicago.

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UCL Institute for Global Prosperity Working Paper · 2022

The Era of Inclusivity: Employees Driving Green Human Resource Management toward Sustainable Prosperity

Naya, T. P.

UCL Institute for Global Prosperity Working Paper

Drawing on the MSc Best Dissertation (UCL, 2021), examines how employee agency shapes organizational sustainability through Green Human Resource Management. Proposes a model of GHRM in which workers — not only executives — drive ecological and social responsibility.

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Edward Elgar Publishing Accepted · Forthcoming

The Currency of Racism: How Routine Organizational Processes Sustain Racial Inequality

Naya, T. P.

In A Research Agenda for Diversity Management. Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd.

Argues that racial inequality persists not through exceptional acts of prejudice but through routine organizational processes. Drawing on critical race theory, examines how hiring criteria, performance metrics, mentorship, and informal networks function as currency — accessible to those who already hold racial capital, and out of reach for those who don't.

Edward Elgar Publishing 2026

Embracing Colourbraveness: A Sankofa Approach to Decolonising Business Schools

Naya, T. P.

In The Elgar Companion to Management Education and the Sustainable Development Goals, pp. 127–137. Edward Elgar Publishing.

Proposes colourbraveness — a deliberate engagement with race — as a counterpoint to colourblindness in management education. Drawing on the Akan concept of Sankofa (learning from the past to move forward), offers a decolonial framework for how business schools produce and suppress racial knowledge through curriculum, faculty, and institutional culture.

16th PROS Symposium 2025

Power Relations and Organizational Becoming: A Process Study of Anti-Racist Change Initiatives

Naya, P. T., Poole, M. J., & Contu, A.

16th PROS Symposium, Eretria, Greece, June 2025

16th PROS Symposium 2025

Embodying Paradox: Navigating the Inclusion-Exclusion Paradox among Black and Brown Women in a U.S. University

Naya, P. T., Poole, M. J., & Contu, A.

16th PROS Symposium, Eretria, Greece, June 2025

APPAM Fall Research Conference 2024

The Politics of Anti-Racist Change: Navigating Resistance, Power, and Privilege in Universities

Naya, P. T.

Association for Public Policy and Management (APPAM) Fall Research Conference, Washington, D.C., November 2024

Danish Gender Conference 2024

Embodying Paradox: Navigating the Inclusion-Exclusion Paradox among Black and Brown Women in a U.S. University

Naya, T. P., Contu, A., & Poole, M. J.

Danish Gender Conference, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark, September 2024

Academy of Management Proceedings AOM Early Career Award 2024 2024

"Those of Us Who Stay": The Cost of "Finding the Right Home" for Gendered and Racialized Academics

Naya, T. P., Poole, M. J., & Contu, A.

Academy of Management Annual Meeting, Chicago, August 2024 • 40th EGOS Colloquium, Milan-Bicocca, July 2024

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Academy of Management Proceedings 2024

Organizational Anti-Racism as a Contested Site of Politics

Naya, T. P., Contu, A., & Poole, M. J.

40th EGOS Colloquium, Milan-Bicocca, July 2024 • 18th Organization Studies Summer Workshop, Greece, May 2024

Academy of Management Proceedings 2023

If Not Now, When? If Not Here, Where? Becoming an Anti-Racist Organization and the Politics of Being Woke

Naya, T. P., Contu, A., & Poole, M. J.

AOM 83rd Annual Conference, Boston, August 2023 • 39th EGOS Colloquium, Cagliari, July 2023 • International Critical Management Conference, Nottingham, June 2023

Research Landscape

Core Themes

Organizational Transformation

Power

Inequality

Sensemaking

Paradox

Embodiment

Informal Economy