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Monday, 10 November 2025
Introduction
Dia dhuit.
My name is Tony Dundon. I’m a Professor in Work & Employment Studies here in Kemmy Business School at the ¾ÅÉ«ÊÓƵ.
What is your background?
My journey is not necessarily one that resonates with becoming a university Business School professor.
I left school with no formal qualifications. After several jobs started an apprenticeship in printing. Later in life I went to Coleg Harlech, an adult residential college that was part of University of Wales. After a Diploma from Harlech I studied Economics and Social History and Politics at the university of York. I later completed a masters degree in industrial relations. It was the suggestion of others that I might consider a PhD.
How did you become a researcher / lecturer here at Limerick?
After my PhD I worked with the Trades Union Congress (TUC) in the UK, training shop stewards and health and safety representatives. I then became a post-doctoral researcher and subsequently lecturer in employment studies at what was Manchester School of Management, University of Manchester Institute of Science & Technology (UMIST). In 2001 I moved to Galway University, where I became Professor and Head of the Management Department. I took up the Chair in Employment Relations and HRM at Alliance Manchester Business School (AMBS), before returning to Ireland as Professor at the Kemmy Business School, and continue as a visiting professor at the Work & Equalities Institute (WEI), University of Manchester.
What is your research about?
Broadly speaking, my research is about work and employment standards.
Academically, it is about labour sociology and labour market regulation.
A key focus is on worker rights, employee voice, human resource management practices and alleged links to performance. Recent areas of research have considered labour regulation under new business models, such as digital platforms and the gig-economy.
My research often takes as a starting point neo-liberal forces and how they shape or undermine people’s rights at work. Topics have included job precarity in the gig-economy; work insecurity among university lecturers who are subject to increasing markets forces in the public sector. When business or government talk of voluntarism employment regulation, or ideas of self-regulation by workers, it typically means passing the burden for things like health and safety or legal protections away from the corporation, and down on to the individual, who then must bear the cost. Other research areas have been about the ways in which human resource management techniques may serve to weaken trade unions and/or undermine collective voice and power.
What projects have you / are you involved in?
I’ve been involved in several large research grants and collaborations, funded from various sources including the European Commission, Irish Research Council (IRC), Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development (CIPD), Workplace Relations Commission (WRC), among others.
My research might ask about the working experiences of those who deliver your pizza late at night; or what life is like for people who make your smart phone in a global supply chain, or how workers may express their voice or have their ideas silenced.
Recent projects include as expert advisor on a European Horizon project (), which looked at direct worker participation across six countries (Bulgaria, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Slovenia, Sweden). There is a project examining Future Work Transitions with colleagues at Queens University Belfast and Leeds University. A recent project for the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) on four key contemporary challenges affecting work and employment: climate change, cost of living crisis, advanced technology, and recruitment and retention difficulties.
Of note is Limerick and the Kemmy Business School as a special place for such research, which can ask critical questions of business leaders. That workers declared Limerick a republic in 1919, printed its own money, and the Trades Council ran the city in defiance of British military rule, has unique and lasting legacy.
The ‘Department of Work & Employment Studies (WES)’ is the largest and most progressive of any such academic grouping across all the Irish universities. Indeed, the Kemmy Business School (KBS) is perhaps the only business school in the world to be named after a left-wing politician, Jim Kemmy, who was a strong advocate for good jobs and equitable employment standards.
It is fitting that the research resonates with Limerick as a place with a supportive academic space for such inquiry.
How does your research inform teaching and impact practice?
Impact can be a moot point for some areas of academia. There is certainly a lot said and claimed about the impact of research and how it can inform teaching and practice beyond the university.
In business schools in particular, the idea that our research improves business efficiency or enhances corporate profitability is either a myth, or at best is highly biased. Businesses exit in a society and are part of it. In the university we do not function as cheerleaders for any business system or model. We exist to study and research the world of work and its implications for wider society.
It is important to ask how business practices affect peoples lives: constraining voices, enhancing diversity or equality, using advanced technologies to improve work and employment standards, not displace jobs and communities.
I like to think my research informs student learning by bringing in new critical debates that students might not necessarily encounter - topics that challenges their thinking. I have published books that support student learning and study. There are free I have developed to help labour market activists learn to improve their own employment situations – specifically designed for those who may never access a university education.
Hopefully, the research and its engagement help to shape future citizens who can positively contribute to society, rather than to train new corporate executives in extracting even great profit or value.
At times there are opportunities to engage with policy-makers and those in positions of power. I’ve served on a Government Commission in Ireland which led to a new apprenticeship system, widening skills and qualified occupations. I have worked with the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and presented evidence to the ILO’s Regulating for Decent Work conferences. With co-researchers we have presented research evidence to government, to ministers, civil servants and other agencies about fairer work standards. Whether these lead to changes is always uncertain. The sources of possible impact if doe others to consider and some of it has been summarised as a case study - Who Speaks for Whom at Work.
Email: business@ul.ie
Postal Address: Faculty Office, Kemmy Business School, ¾ÅÉ«ÊÓƵ, Limerick, Ireland.
