Dr Pratima Sambajee

Senior Lecturer

Work, Employment and Organisation

Personal statement

I am a Senior Lecturer in International Management, with a teaching focus on cross-cultural management, global employment, and work in the international economy. I joined the University of Strathclyde after completing my PhD in Culture from the University of Sunderland.

My research focuses on work and employment in Global South contexts, including sub-Saharan Africa, Brazil, India, and Southeast and Central Asia. I explore pertinent issues through various lenses, such as the capabilities approach, social justice and rights-based frameworks, and health and wellbeing. I collaborate with academics, non-governmental organisations, policy-makers, employers, and trade unions to conduct research that aims to generate meaningful impact.

I welcome research ideas and collaborations on the above topics from fellow academics as well as students at both postgraduate and undergraduate levels.

Outside work, my personal hobbies include running, mountain hikes and cooking.

Expertise

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Area of Expertise

Cross-cultural management
Work and migration
Capabilities approach
Labour law
Health and wellbeing
Work and climate change

Prize And Awards

From informal to small and medium enterprise sector: an analysis of management practices employed by SMEs in Mauritius: Recipient; 2014

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Publications

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Publications

Rethinking non-traditional resistance at work : the case of the Indian Diaspora in Mauritius: Sambajee Pratima; Culture and Organization Vol 21, pp. 386-408 (2015); https://doi.org/10.1080/14759551.2015.1060233
Contesting labour violations in Uzbekistan’s cotton fields: McGuire Darren, Piacentini Laura, Sambajee Pratima; Work, Employment and Society, pp. 1-11 (2026); https://doi.org/10.1177/09500170251408614
548 Coming home unprepared : health challenges of low-skilled returnee migrants in Bangladesh: Tasnim Halima Sadia, Sambajee Pratima, Scholarios Dora; European Journal of Public Health Vol 35 (2025); https://doi.org/10.1093/eurpub/ckaf180.184
Reframing the notion that informal entrepreneurs in Africa are necessity-driven: Kiptoo Maryline, Sambajee Pratima; The Emerald Handbook of African Studies (2025) (2025); https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-83797-466-520251007
Using interpreters in cross-cultural research : challenges experienced in a global south context: Sambajee Pratima; Routledge Companion to Cross-Cultural Management (2025) (2025)
The moral economy of solidarity : a study of the 2017 hunger-strike in Mauritius: Sambajee Pratima; Economic and Industrial Democracy Vol 46, pp. 96-117 (2025); https://doi.org/10.1177/0143831X241306210

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Teaching

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Teaching

I am the deputy programme director for the Intergrated Masters in International Business and Modern Languages (MIBML), and the programme director (Management) for the MSc Finance and Management degree.

I teach Introduction to International Business; International Business Analysis; Organising and Managing accross Cultures; Contemporary Issues and Trends in International Business; People, Work and the Global Economy; Comparative Employment Relations; Labour and Diversity and Research Methods for Projects.

Research

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Research Interests

My research is mainly international and twofold: first, I want to understand the dynamics of work in global south countries, from micro, meso and macro level perspectives; and second, I want to understand the experiences of workers from the global south who travel to more developed countries for work.

Work in the global economy is complex. The global south and migration patterns around it play an important part in deepening this complexity. Against this backgroumd, I am particularly interested in understanding the experiences of workers (domestic and migrant), employers and policy. This cuts accross themes such as social justice, rights, voice, dignity, , capabilities, health and wellbeing.

Professional Activities

EURAM Annual Conference: Participant; 4/6/2014
University of Nottingham (External organisation): Member; 4/2014
Africa Research Group: Participant; 28/4/2014
BSA Work Employment & Society Conference: Participant; 8/9/2025
Moral economy at the crossroads of history and social science: finding customs in common?: Participant; 12/3/2025
Cultivating Sustainable Research Cultures Programme: a series of five workshops: Participant; 1/1/2025

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Projects

(Non) integration in the Irish Labour Market: A qualitative study on Irish labour integration policies and the labour market experiences of Black African migrants in Ireland.: Sambajee, Pratima (Principal Investigator); 01-Jan-2024
Decent work in the face of climate change: understanding the experiences of fishing communities: Sambajee, Pratima (Principal Investigator); 01-Jan-2024 - 31-Jan-2026
Decent work in the face of climate change: understanding the experiences of fishing communities: Sambajee, Pratima (Principal Investigator) Sarkar, Kingshuk (Co-investigator); The working lives of small-scale fishing communities are at risk due to climate change and lack of protection to their labour rights. Often overlooked in research due to their scale and limited voice, the study uses the pillars of sustainable development goal 8, decent work and economic growth, in order to understand the lived experiences of small-scale fishers in two fishing dependent locations, Goa and Mauritius. The study is led by two investigators who have experience in policy-lead research on labour rights at each location. The overarching aim and intended impact of the study is to provide a platform for these communities to voice how their working lives are being impacted by the double disadvantage of climate change and limited labour rights, and to use evidence-based data to inform policy, create social dialogue between small-scale fishers and local stakeholders, and advance the measurement of decent work in other global contexts; 01-Jan-2024 - 31-Jan-2026
Improving access to information on workers’ rights in a developing country: Sambajee, Pratima (Principal Investigator) Mohd Yusof, Zatun Najahah (Researcher); 03-Jan-2024 - 31-Jan-2025
ESRC IAA project: Improving access to information on workers’ rights in a developing country: Sambajee, Pratima (Principal Investigator); The proposed project seeks to facilitate the communication of workers’ rights and general labour regulations in a diverse workforce. The idea originates from findings of an 18-months Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) project funded by UKRI in 2020 (£199K), and a knowledge exchange (KE) activity (£2.2K) conducted in March/April 2023. Findings from the former project showed that both migrant and local workers had limited information on their rights, often leading to abuse and precarious working conditions (https://qlifeworkmauritius.com/). The 2023 internally funded KE project springboarded a series of workshops with public, private and third sector organisations, via the support of the National Productivity and Competitiveness Council (NPCC) and trade unions under the Confédération des Travailleurs des Secteurs Publique et Privé (CTSP). An important realisation was the need for better communication of workers’ rights and labour regulations to workers.Thus, the main knowledge exchange activity in the proposed project is a) to co-produce a series of approximately 8-10 multilingual audio-visual clips (the product) in partnership with CTSP, b) to pilot the product with 4 employers, c) to evaluate the outcomes for workers and managers, d) to disseminate the results using case studies, and e) to explore commercialisation opportunities of the product to be rolled out to unions and employers.; 01-Jan-2024 - 28-Jan-2025
Climate change and the rise of precarious work among agriculture and construction workers in a small island developing state.: Sambajee, Pratima (Academic) Garvey, Brian (Academic); Small island developing states (SIDS) are among the first and worst affected by climate change despite making a very small contribution to the overall global emissions that cause climate change.. For over 20 years, the World Health Organization (WHO) has played a key role in raising awareness of and implementing actions to manage the health risks of climate change, particularly global warming within SIDS (WHO, 2018) but the challenges remain. Risks can arise from direct exposures, indirect exposures and via economic and social disruptions (Smith et al., 2014). In this proposed research we focus on direct exposures to high atmospheric temperature extremes that are increasing in frequency and intensity in SIDS and are projected to continue along this trend (Hoegh-Guldberg, 2018). Specifically, we focus on Mauritius, an Indian Ocean-African SIDS, where there is an increasing trend of reported heat stress and heat-related injuries in the construction and agricultural sectors (ILO, 2019). We situate precarious work in the context of climate change, in this case extreme temperatures associated with global warming. We will examine climate change as a potential factor exacerbating experiences of precariousness among agriculture and construction workers, often migrants from global south countries like India, Nepal and Bangladesh. The study will collect evidence to (a) explore the relevance of climate change as a contributor and multiplier of precarity at work, and (b) produce occupational health policy-relevant evidence for workers in the two sectors. Both outcomes are timely for improving the climate change preparedness of relevant sectors in SIDS.; 01-Jan-2023 - 30-Jan-2027