Dr Grace O'Rourke PhD, BComm

Lecturer of Strategy and Sustainability

Grace is a Lecturer of Strategy and Sustainability in the School of Business Operations and Strategy at the University of Greenwich Business School. Prior to joining Greenwich, Grace was a Lecturer of Marketing at London South Bank University, and a PhD candidate at University College Cork (Ireland). She is also currently studying for a PGCHE including an FHEA at University of Greenwich.

Grace’s primary area of interest is environmental sustainability, and has predominantly researched sustainability from a consumption perspective. More broadly, Grace is interested in ethics and responsibility, culture and consumption and critical marketing. Grace has also recently started working in the areas of place management and urban development – with notable collaborations on projects with London councils including Lewisham Council most recently. Grace is also been involved in a project which considers the pedagogical nature of sustainability in higher education.

Grace has academic leadership experience having previously worked as an associate head of division and as a postgraduate course director. She has acted as a module leader for undergraduate and postgraduate classes ranging in sizes from 30 to 600 students. Most modules Grace has taught are in the areas of Business Ethics, Strategy, Research Methods, Marketing, and Consumer Behaviour. She has also supervised many students in undergraduate and postgraduate research projects to completion. Grace has acted as a personal tutor to students on various occasions and has acted as an external examiner for marketing and research modules for the University of East London in 2022.

Responsibilities within the university

Grace is currently a tutor on the following modules:

- Business Ethics

- Sustainability in Business

- Research Methods

- Strategy for Managers

- Business Creation Project

- Personal and Professional Development

Research / Scholarly interests

I am primarily interested in environmental sustainability and seek to understand the nature of and solutions to environmental challenges from both consumption and production perspectives. My PhD was in the area of sustainable consumption and considered how consumers might engage with new and emerging alternative sustainable consumption practices for reasons of pleasure and self-fulfilment.

More recently, I have been involved with place management research, including a funded project to understand the nature of high street vitality post-covid. This project was produced alongside Lewisham council and together with my co-authors, are working to publish these findings.

With other co-authors, I am also currently working on a pedagogical piece of research which seeks to understand the nature of how sustainability is taught in business schools across the UK.

Most of my research is qualitative in nature and I have much experience with ethnographic methods, including observations and interviews. More recently, I have been involved with projects which also include quantitative methods and am currently working on a project involving content analysis.

Key funded projects

High Street Vitality Post-Covid (2021) Funded by Lewisham Council

Presentations
  • Graham, C., & O’Rourke, G, (2022), Can Place Branding, Place Marketing and Place Promotion Theory Usefully Inform Inner London High Street Vitality Initiatives? Academy of Marketing Conference. University of Huddersfield.
  • O’Rourke, G., & O’Sullivan, S. R. (2019), “Upcycling and Alternative Engagement with Sustainable Consumption”. Academy of Marketing Conference. Regents University, London.
  • O’Rourke, G., & O’Sullivan, S. R. (2017), “The Upcycling Movement: Pursuing Hedonistic Sustainability”. Academy of Marketing Sustainability Conference. Coventry University.
  • O’Rourke, G., & O’Sullivan, S. R. (2016), “The Upcycling Movement: Globalizing Creative Deconsumption. Macromarketing Conference. Trinity College Dublin.