Research Profile

As a retired Professor of Management at Western Sydney University, Margaret Heather Vickers draws on 25 years as an academic, researching and writing about adversity in people’s personal and organisational lives. Publishing two research books, and over 165 international refereed scientific publications (book chapters, refereed journal articles, and international refereed conference papers), Margaret shone a light on life- and work-related trauma and adversity for workers faced with disability and chronic illness, bullying and violence, grief and loss, redundancy and job loss, or those undertaking carer roles. 

For highlights of Margaret’s research career, please see Research Highlights below.

Now with a head full of research-based traumatic images, shared feelings and experiences, Margaret writes fiction to illuminate the disconcerting, dark, gnarly, and often uncomfortable truths in people’s lives. Whether they accrue from the very human conditions of ageing, chronic illness and disability, and their associated grief and loss, or from the cruelty, misunderstandings, power abuse, stereotyping and neglect that often accompany such realities, Margaret vivifies stories of trauma and adversity as they might be experienced in organisational and personal life. 

One of the most influential writers in Margaret’s life was George Orwell, who published an essay entitled “Why I write” in a literary magazine called Gangrel in the Summer of 1946:

My starting point is always a feeling of partisanship, a sense of injustice. When I sit down to write a book, I do not say to myself, ‘I am going to produce a work of art’. I write it because there is some lie that I want to expose, some fact to which I want to draw attention, and my initial concern is to get a hearing. But I could not do the work of writing a book, or even a long magazine article, if it were not also an aesthetic experience (Orwell, 1946).

Margaret is currently working on her next novel, a work of speculative fiction, as a means of exposing more of the uncomfortable truths of human existence.

Margaret’s past research is on Google Scholar at: https://scholar.google.com.

Research Books

For 25 years, Margaret worked as an international researcher, investigating adversity and trauma in people’s personal and organisational lives. She published two research books, Work and Unseen Chronic Illness: Silent Voices and Working and Caring for a Child with Chronic Illness: Disconnected and Doing it All.

Past Research Highlights

Books

Vickers, M. H. (2006), Working and Caring for a Child with Chronic Illness: Disconnected and Doing it All', Palgrave MacMillan, London and New York. ISBN: 1-4039-9767-5, pp. 225. 

Vickers, M. H. (2001) Work and Unseen Chronic Illness: Silent Voices. Routledge, London and New York. ISBN 0-415-24347-5. 

Board

Chair, Board of Directors, Independent Living Centre, NSW, Australia (2008-2009); 

Non-Executive Director from 2007-2008. 

International Journal Editorship

Editor-in-Chief, International Employee Responsibilities and Rights Journal, published by Springer, New York, NY (2007-2010). Usage statistics for ERRJ quadrupled during her first year as Editor-in-Chief.

International Journal Editorial Boards

Public Integrity

International Journal of Qualitative Methods 

Journal of Management and Organization

Review of Disability Studies: An International Journal 

Qualitative Research in Organisations and Management: An International Journal 

International Journal of Action Research  

Administrative Theory and Praxis

Organization Management Journal  – Subsection: First Person

Asia Pacific Journal of Business Administration 

Employee Responsibilities and Rights Journal 

University of Western Sydney, College of Business (2008) Research Excellence Award, Outstanding Contributions to Research, Senior Researcher.

Over 165 international refereed scientific publications 

Four Australian Research Council (ARC) Linkage Grants

Principal Supervisor for first Higher Doctorate awarded at University of Western Sydney (now Western Sydney University).

First woman to be awarded a PhD in the then School of Management and Administration, University of Western Sydney, Nepean, in 1998.

Publications in A-Ranked International Journals

Administration and Society (A)

Disability & Society (A)

Education + Training (A*)

Public Administration Review (A*) 

Academic of Management Perspectives (formerly AoM Executive) (A)

Australian Journal of Early Childhood (A)

Journal of Child Health Care (A)

International Journal of Nursing Practice (A) 

Advances in Nursing Science (A)

Nurse Researcher (A)

International Journal of Clinical Nursing (A)

Nursing Inquiry (A*)

Qualifications

Doctor of Philosophy (Management and Health), School of Management and Administration ,  University of Western Sydney 1993-1998

Master of Business Administration (Management and Organisation Studies), School of Management, University of Technology, Sydney 1990-1992

Bachelor of Business (Computing and Information Systems), Department of Computing and Information Systems, Nepean College of Advanced Education 1984-1986

Advanced Secretarial Certificate

Hornsby College of Technical and Further Education 1980

Selected Publications

McDonald, G., Jackson, D., Vickers, M. H. & Wilkes, L. (2016) Surviving Workplace Adversity: A Qualitative Study of nurses and midwives and their strategies to increase personal resilience, Journal of Nursing Management, Vol 24, pp 123-131.

Vickers, M. H. (2014), Workplace Bullying as Workplace Corruption: A Creative Writing, Higher Education Case Study. Administration & Society (A), 46 (8), 960-985.

Vickers, M. H. (2014), Disability and Dirty Workers: Stories of Physical, Social and Moral Taint, Disability & Society (A), 29 (9), 1356 – 1368. 

Vickers, M. H. (2014) Towards Reducing the Harm: Workplace Bullying and Corruption -- A Critical Review, Employee Responsibilities and Rights Journal,26 (2): 95-113. 

Vickers, M. H. (2014). Dark Times for Workers with Disability: Shame Experiences for Workers with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) – A Creative Non-Fiction, Collective Case Study, International Journal of Organization Theory and Behavior, special issue: "The Politics of Fear in Dark Times: Visions of Democracy, Freedom, and Open Society", 17 (1),89-120.

Vickers, M. H. (2012). A Rhetorical Portrayal of the Sham Face of Organisational Support: Towards a New Face of Support for Public Administration (PA) Workers, Administrative Theory & Praxis, Vol 34, No 4, December, pp. 534-557.

Vickers, M. H. (2012), “For the Crime of Being Different…”: Multiple Sclerosis, Teams, and Stigmatisation at Work, Employee Responsibilities and Rights Journal, Vol 23, No 1, March, pp. 177-195. 

Parris, M. H. and Vickers, M. H. (2010) “Look at Him … He’s Failing!”: Male Executives’ Experiences of Redundancy, Employee Responsibilities and Rights Journal, Vol 22 (4), December,  345-357. 

Hutchinson, M., Vickers, M. H., Wilkes, L. & Jackson, D. (2010) A typology of bullying behaviours: The experiences of Australian nurses, Journal of Clinical Nursing, Vol 19, Issue 15/16, August, pp. 2319-2328.

Vickers, M. H (2010), Bullying, Mobbing and Violence in Public Service Workplaces: The Shifting Sands of “Acceptable” Violence.  Administrative Theory and Praxis, 32 (1), March, 7-24. 

Rhodes, C, Pullen, A Vickers, M Clegg S, & Pitsis, A (2010) Ethics, Violence and Workplace Bullying: What are an Organization’s Moral Responsibilities? Administrative Theory and Praxis, Vol 32, Issue 1, March, pp. 96-117. 

Hutchinson, M., Vickers, M.H., Jackson, D. and Wilkes, L. (2009), “The Worse You Behave, The More You Seem to be Rewarded!”: Bullying in Nursing as Organizational Corruption, Employee Responsibilities and Rights Journal, Vol 21, No 3, September, 2009, pp. 213-30.

Vickers, M. H. (2009) Journeys into Grief: Exploring Redundancy for a New Understanding of Workplace Grief, Journal of Loss and Trauma, Vol 14, pp. 1-19.

George, A., Vickers, M. H., Wilkes, L. and Barton, B. (2008), Working and Caring for a Child with Chronic Illness: Challenges in Maintaining Employment, Employee Responsibilities and Rights Journal, Vol 20, Issue 3, September, pp 165-176.

Vickers, M. H. (2007), “Violence”. In, Clegg, Stewart and Bailey, James R. (Eds.) International Encyclopedia of Organization Studies, Sage Reference Books, London and New York: Sage. October 2007.

Vickers, M. H. (2007), “Workplace Incivility”. In Clegg, Stewart and Bailey, James R. (Eds.), International Encyclopedia of Organization Studies, Sage Reference Books, London and New York: Sage. October 2007.

George, A., Vickers, M. H., Wilkes, L. and Barton, B. (2006). “Chronic Grief: Experiences of Working Parents of Children with Chronic Illness”, Contemporary Nurse, Volume 23, Issue 2, pp. 228-242. 

Hutchinson, M., Vickers, M.H., Jackson, D. and Wilkes, L. (2006), "They stand you in a corner and you are not to speak”: Nurses tell of abusive indoctrination in work teams dominated by bullies", Contemporary Nurse, Volume 21, Issue 2, April/May, 228-238. 

Vickers, M. H. (2004), 'The Traumatized Worker: A Concern for Employers and Employees', Employee Responsibilities and Rights Journal, Special Issue: The Traumatised Worker, Volume 16, Issue 3, September, pp. 113-116. 

More of Margaret’s past research is on Google Scholar at: https://scholar.google.com.