Professor Ian Cunningham
Head Of Department
Work, Employment and Organisation
Personal statement
Ian Cunningham is Professor of Employment Relations in the Department of HRM. He is an Academic Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development and between 2010 - 2013 he was Treasurer of the British Universities Industrial Relations Association (BUIRA). Professor Cunningham's research interests include voluntary sector employment relations, sickness absence and disability management, employee involvement and participation and public sector employment relations during austerity. Professor Cunningham has published in a wide range of HR and public administration journals and has strong research links with scholars from Canada and Austrlia. He is currently supervising four Phd students.
Area of Expertise
Non-profit employment relations
Social Care work
Impact of public service austerity
Union organising in the non-profit sector
Employment relations in the public sector
Absence and disability management
Involvement and participation
Line managers and employee relations
Publications
- Addressing contextual pressures and challenges in social care : the prospects of multi-actor engagement with strategic HRM
- Baluch Alina M, Scholarios Dora, Cunningham Ian, James Philip, Jendro Eva, Johnstone Stewart
- Human Resource Management (2025)
- https://doi.org/10.1002/hrm.70000
- Benchmarking Report : Not-for-Profit Social Care 2023-2024
- Nikolova Marina, Cunningham Ian, Baluch Alina
- (2025)
- 'We've not breached our side of the contract' : broken employment bargains and in-work poverty in the financialised hospitality sector
- Walker Victoria, Cunningham Ian
- Economic and Industrial Democracy (2024)
- https://doi.org/10.1177/0143831X241297535
- Work, wages and employment in the adult social care sector : evidence paper
- Baldauf Beata, Grugulis Irena, Cunningham Ian, Kessler Ian, Wass Victoria, Onwumere Juliana, Shildrick Tracey, Forde Chris, Brown Malcolm, Grimshaw Damian
- (2024)
- Decent work and quality long-term care systems (full report)
- Charlesworth Sara, Cunningham Ian, Daly Tamara
- (2024)
- Conceptualising employee voice in the majority world : using multiple intellectual traditions inspired by the work of Mick Marchington: employee voice in the majority world
- Dibben Pauline, Cunningham Ian, Bakalov Nikola, Xian Huiping
- Human Resource Management Journal Vol 33, pp. 564-577 (2023)
- https://doi.org/10.1111/1748-8583.12473
Teaching
Professor Ian Cunningham currently teaches on undergraduate and postgraduate in employee relations.
Along with Dr Colin Lindsay Ian has developed an Honours level module in HRM and Employee Relations in Public Services.
Research Interests
Professor Ian Cunningham's research interests include employee relations in voluntary organisations, absence and disability management, employee involvement in voluntary organisations and employment relations in the public services during austerity. In recent years in has published a book with Routledge (2008) entitled 'Employment Relations in the Voluntary Sector'. In addition, with Professor Phil James he published an edited volume entitled 'Voluntary Organisations and Public Service Delivery', Routledge. This includes contributions from scholars from the UK, Canada, Australia and the United States. Ian has been involved in 7 funded research projects in recent years, including two with a international comparative aspect. Currently he is working with Professor Donna Baines of McMaster University on a project examining precarious work among the non-profit workforce. Ian is currently beginning work looking at employment conditions in voluntary and private care providers in Scotland. His other research interests include employee absence and disability, involvement and participation and public service employment during austerity. Professor Cunningham currently has four Phd students.
Professional Activities
- 22nd European Association of Work and Organizational Psychology Congress
- Speaker
- 22/5/2025
- Assessing Scotland as a ‘Fair Work Nation’
- Speaker
- 1/5/2025
- KE, Research and Learning and Development Meeting between Strathclyde University and Glasgow Council for the Voluntary Sector
- Participant
- 14/8/2024
- Simple Devices for Complex Work? The Introduction of Everyday Technologies and their Impact on Employment Relations in Social Care Settings in the U.K.
- Speaker
- 27/6/2024
- Benchmarking Pay and Conditions in the Scottish Voluntary Sector 2024
- Participant
- 3/5/2024
- Cost Of Living – Making the most of research
- Speaker
- 14/6/2023
Projects
- Benchmarking pay and conditions in the non-profit social care section 2024/25
- Cunningham, Ian (Principal Investigator)
- 06-Jan-2025 - 15-Jan-2025
- Effective Voice in Scottish Social Care Workplaces – A Mixed Methods Study
- Scholarios, Dora (Principal Investigator) Briken, Kendra (Co-investigator) Cunningham, Ian (Co-investigator) Johnstone, Stewart (Co-investigator) McCarthy, Tony (Research Co-investigator) Nikolova, Marina (Researcher)
- 19-Jan-2024 - 18-Jan-2025
- Coalition of Care and Support Providers Scotland - benchmarking study of pay and conditions continued
- Cunningham, Ian (Principal Investigator)
- 01-Jan-2024 - 30-Jan-2024
- Benchmarking
- Cunningham, Ian (Principal Investigator)
- 16-Jan-2022 - 31-Jan-2023
- Long-term Care Research Project for Public Services International (PSI) Federation
- Cunningham, Ian (Principal Investigator)
- 18-Jan-2022 - 28-Jan-2023
- Amplifying Employee Voice and Hearing the Unheard: A Multidisciplinary Study of Contemporary Working Lives in Deindustrialised Communities
- Johnstone, Stewart (Principal Investigator) Briken, Kendra (Co-investigator) Cunningham, Ian (Co-investigator) Hadjisolomou, Tasos (Co-investigator) McCarthy, Tony (Co-investigator) McIntyre, Stuart (Co-investigator) Scholarios, Dora (Co-investigator) Taylor, Philip (Co-investigator)
- 01-Jan-2022 - 31-Jan-2026
Contact
Professor
Ian
Cunningham
Head Of Department
Work, Employment and Organisation
Email: ian.cunningham@strath.ac.uk
Tel: 548 3972