Dr Pratima Sambajee

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

More prizes and awards

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
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
Resilience through adversity : a case of informal artisan entrepreneurs in Kenya: Kiptoo Maryline, Sambajee Pratima, Baum Tom; International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behaviour and Research Vol 30, pp. 446-465 (2024); https://doi.org/10.1108/IJEBR-07-2023-0762
Reframing the notion that informal entrepreneurs in Africa are necessity-driven: Kiptoo Maryline, Sambajee Pratima; The Emerald Handbook of African Studies (2024) (2024)
Can academic research support the goals of labour law? : Evidence from Mauritius: Sambajee Pratima; Africa Labour Law Conference (2024)
Theorising entrepreneurship in Africa through a postcolonial lens: Sambajee Pratima, Kiptoo Maryline; Global Perspectives to African Entrepreneurship Emerging realities and innovative approaches (2024) (2024)

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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
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
Confronting the degradation of labour and the nature in agro-industrial commodity chains in Brazil: the ‘quilombolas’ resistance: Contributor; 4/4/2024

More professional activities

Projects

Decent work in the face of climate change: understanding the experiences of fishing communities: Sambajee, Pratima (Principal Investigator); 01-Jan-2024 - 31-Jan-2026
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
Improving access to information on workers’ rights in a developing country: Sambajee, Pratima (Co-investigator); 01-Jan-2023 - 31-Jan-2028
GCRF_NF127 A capabilities assessment of Covid-19 changes to the Workers? Rights Act in Mauritius: implications for domestic and migrant workers: Sambajee, Pratima (Principal Investigator) McGuire, Darren (Co-investigator) Scholarios, Dora (Co-investigator) Mohd Yusof, Zatun Najahah (Researcher); 21-Jan-2020 - 20-Jan-2022
Cities as mobility hubs: tackling social exclusion through ‘smart’ citizen engagement SMARTDEST: Baum, Thomas (Principal Investigator) Briken, Kendra (Co-investigator) Sambajee, Pratima (Co-investigator); Cities as mobility hubs: tackling social exclusion through ‘smart’ citizen engagement(SMARTDEST) H2020-SC6-TRANSFORMATIONS-2018; 01-Jan-2020 - 31-Jan-2022
Informal tourism entrepreneurs in Kenya: Sambajee, Pratima (Academic) Baum, Thomas (Academic) Kiptoo, Maryline (Principal Investigator); 02-Jan-2019 - 30-Jan-2023